Day 5 & 6

Double Update

This is a double update since the first day on this update was not very varied. Although the content took the entire day we only visited a few places.

To begin with our first day we headed out to one of the most impressive and symbolic building of Rome. The Flavium Amphitheater or better known the Colosseum. The story of this building began after Nero let Rome burn and turned all that burned property into private space. Vespasian (69-79) sons wanted to erase the memory of Nero and return the land he took back to the public. They began building the Colosseum and only got to the third tier until Titus (79-81) took the rain and finished it in 80 AD. Then after Titus was killed Domitian(81-96) AD finished it to the shields. This amazing structure was built for the masses to enjoy watching gladiatorial fights and in order to enter you needed something called a tessera. The tessera told the plebeians were to sit and was there entry through the colosseums vomitorium. The seating was ranked, so you would have the virgin vessels, Caesar and senate near the front, followed by those wealthy enough to be considered knights (means rich enough to own and care for a horse), then followed by the lower class males and lastly the females.

Now you may be asking how did the Colosseum get its name if it was originally called the Flavium Theater. Well the story go’s as follows. Originally there was a Colossus near it that was built by Nero who wanted to compare himself to the sun god Helios. This massive 35 meter statue was considered an Icon for Romans and there saying was that as long as the Colossus stood Rome would not fall. Well it turned out that the colossus did fall and to commemorate it they named the Flavium Theater the Colosseum. Therefore, the world Colosseum doesn’t describe the building but instead is the actual name of the building, so any similar building are not called Colosseums because there is only one Colosseum.

Now lets talk about the fun part of the Colosseum, Gladiators. There is actually 4 types of gladiators and when you became a gladiator you specialized on that type of gladiator. Below I’ll describe the gladiator type and who they fought, contrary to popular belief gladiators only fought certain gladiators not just everyone.

Gladiators:

Thracian

Lightly Armored

Armed like Thracians

They carried a small shield and curved sword

Fought: Myrmilliones and Samnites

Samanites

Heavily Armored

Inspired by Hoplomachoi

Had full shield and large swords

Fought: Myrmilliones and Thracians

Myrmilliones

Had Fish Fin crests

Carried oblong shields and gladius sword

Fought: Samnites, Retiarii and Thracians

Retiarii

Lightly armored

Had a net and long trident

Fought: Myrmilliones

Also unlike popular belief gladiator vs gladiators wasn’t to the death most of the time. Like wrestlers of today, they were mainly entertainers and were considered stars in their time. This was because you had to buy a gladiator and it cost money and time to train them, not worth it if they were just going to die. The main time someone died is if they were criminals condemned to death or when they did venation's, which means fighting animals. Also fun fact, there were some women gladiators.

To finish up day 5, we went to my fav ancient Rome sculpture the Moses by Michelangelo also that night we went to the spanish steps. Oh and once again we made dinner. Pictures are shown at the LINK.

Day 6 was actually a free day, we went to the best museum yet the museum Borghese. They had some very impressive sculptures by Bernini and diffrent paintings. Unfortunately, we could not take photos. The most impressive was Bernini’s David and Apollo and Daphne.

Also Sarah Lee and I went into a pond, we found 3 euro shoes, visited churches, saw a talented musician, saw a talented spray painter and got really bad service at a restaurant. Then of course we finished our day eating gellato. Pictures are at this LINK.