Day 11: Rome

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Today in Rome we walked well over 5 miles in the “old” part of town. Among other points of interest, we spent some time in these places: 

• St. Peter in Chains Basilica
• The Colosseum
• The Paletine Hill
• The Constantine Arch
• The Forum

The post for today, though, will concentrate on the Colosseum. It was built when Jesus was but a boy. It stands 164 feet high.  I’m pretty sure we could spend multiple days here and just scratch the surface. 

First of all, I was surprised to find that the arena itself is an oval and not a circle. I also had no idea that the arena floor was made of wood and that it sat upon the walls of rooms and corridors in the level below it. 

When reconstruction originally began, the arena floor was full of weeds, grasses and trees which had to be removed. Herders had kept their goats and sheep in this overgrown area. And many families made their homes in one of the 80 large archways of the outer wall. 

The reconstruction of the Colosseum has flooring on about a fourth of the arena so that visitors can see the “basement” and can visualize how the full floor might have looked.

Here you can see the white floor covering part of the basement. On the right you can see some white and grey risers one level up from the floor. This is a reconstruction of the “steps” where the men sat. (Women were only allowed on the top level.) There may have been as many as four levels of seats and the colosseum may have seated 50-80,000 people. 

The basement would have held prisoners and beasts to be used for sport. It would have been a bloody event, to be sure. 

This hill is what is left of the stairs going between different levels. It is pretty incredible. 

These metal braces are used to stabilize the walls now. 

Imagine that the arena floor was surrounded by four oval corridors. Here you can see the two innermost ones. They would not have been open to the elements but most likely would have had ceilings of wood and/or stone. 

The two outer corridors were used to channel onlookers to and from the seats on the various levels. 

This would have been the outermost corridor with its 80 arched entrances. 

This was the second corridor from the outside. Notice all the places where chunks of stone are missing. Back in the day, there were decorative pieces attached to the walls with metal. At one point, when the Colosseum was out of use, people took many things from it to be used in construction projects elsewhere. The removal of the metal from the walls caused these big gaps in the stone. 

On the left in this picture you can see the three levels of the outer two corridors. Starting in the 500s AD, the large stone exterior began to be harvested, along with other items, for the materials needed for other constructions. 

I learned today that the floor of the arena could be decorated or changed in some way depending on the sport. They would use sets of trees and other vegetation ‬when animals were to be hunted (elephants, lions and other wild beasts). They would seal the floor with stone and fill the arena with water for the reenactment of naval battles. 

I found it interesting, though, that when placing this rock here for us to see and touch, they did not consider its orientation. It is upside down. 

This diagram from the Internet is helpful to see how the Colosseum might have looked. Seeing the ruins today helps me understand this passage of scripture in a new light. 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭35‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I shudder to think how I would have responded to persecution in those days. Would I have stood up for my Lord or would I have cowered under the threat of torture or death? 

LORD, Very rarely are we in the position where we are asked to risk it all for you. May we act and speak courageously for you today and every day. For you love us more than anything and we should tell the world.