WEBVTT 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:07.120 Everybody knows the Colosseum. And everyone  knows that this part of the Colosseum…looks 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:13.600 a lot better than this part. So what happened?  How and why did half of the greatest Roman 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:19.519 amphitheater vanish? Sounds like a job for… Questions about Ancient Greece and Rome 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:24.960 (you were afraid to ask in school). As  usual, I’m Dr. Garrett Ryan. And today, 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:29.920 I’ll be talking about the history of the  Colosseum during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:33.760 For almost 500 years, the Colosseum was  the Roman Empire’s most impressive arena. 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:39.120 Emperor and emperor sponsored spectacles  to astonish and delight the Roman people. 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:44.640 Exotic animals from the farthest reaches  of world were hunted with gilded spears. 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:49.359 Criminals were devoured by bears  in elaborate mythological charades. 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:55.439 The Empire’s greatest gladiators dueled  on bloodstained sands. And so on. 00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:00.960 Over its half-millennium of use, the Colosseum  underwent a long series of renovations. 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:06.239 The most important took place in the early  third century, when a fire destroyed the 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:11.199 entire upper deck of seating. It took the  emperors five years to restore the building, 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:16.280 and signs of hasty repairs are still visible all  along the north wall. Later, over the course of 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:19.760 the fifth century, a series of earthquakes caused  serious damage that was never fully repaired. 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:24.560 The spectacles held in the Colosseum  also changed over the centuries. 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:29.840 The most impressive spectacles, unsurprisingly,  were held during the Empire’s salad days. 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:37.119 To celebrate his victory in Dacia, for example,  Trajan celebrated a whopping 123 days of games, 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:42.240 in the course of which 5,000 pairs of gladiators  fought and 11,000 animals were killed. 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:47.759 From the early mid-third century onward,  the quality of the games started to slip. 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:52.799 The later Roman emperors were poorer and  more distracted than their predecessors, 00:01:53.359 --> 00:01:57.120 and tended to spend most of their time  and money far from the city of Rome. 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:01.679 It also didn’t help that most  of the more exciting animals 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:05.920 had been hunted to the point of scarcity, and  that the price of gladiators was always rising. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:12.960 Eventually, the gladiatorial combats stopped  altogether. According to a later legend, 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:17.200 a monk leapt down to the arena, and tried to  stop a gladiator from killing his opponent. 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:23.520 The enraged spectators then stoned the  monk to death. Upon learning of this, 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:30.400 the emperors ended the combats. Or so the  legend goes. Reality was probably less dramatic. 00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:35.759 Although Christian disapproval was  one cause of the decline in combats, 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:39.840 the fact that the emperors were no longer paying  for them seems to have been equally important. 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:46.480 Whatever the reason, the last gladiators fought in  the Colosseum sometime in the early fifth century. 00:02:47.919 --> 00:02:52.319 The beast hunts, however, continued.  They lasted longer, in fact, 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:57.759 than the Western Roman Empire itself. The last  hunts were sponsored by the barbarian kings 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:04.000 who succeeded the emperors. These kings, however,  had little interest in the games, not least 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.120 because it was difficult to justify staging  them for Rome’s steadily shrinking population. 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:14.159 The final recorded hunts in the  Colosseum were held in the year 523. 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:19.520 Within a few centuries, all understanding  of the Colosseum’s function was lost. 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:26.400 Some claimed it had been a temple of the Sun, and  had originally been crowned by a vast golden dome. 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:31.280 Others thought that it had been a  temple dedicated to all the gods, 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.800 and that a gigantic statue of Jupiter  had originally stood in the Arena. 00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:41.599 The strangest legends revolved around the Roman  poet Virgil, whom medieval legend transformed 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:47.680 into a great magician. Virgil, it was said, had  built the Colosseum with the help of his demons, 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:52.960 and used it as a theater for necromancy. Part of the confusion derived from the fact 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:56.640 that the Colosseum was already half-ruined  at the beginning of the Middle Ages, 00:03:56.639 --> 00:04:00.719 and steadily fell apart over the course of  the next millennium. Earthquakes were the 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:06.240 main natural cause. Like any tall masonry  structure, the Colosseum was susceptible to 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:11.520 seismic damage. And thanks to a quirk of geology,  part of the building was especially vulnerable. 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:17.040 The Colosseum’s massive concrete foundations  only go down to bedrock on the north side 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:23.760 of the building. On the south side, the foundation  rests on waterlogged sediment. This unstable 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:28.959 subsoil amplified seismic shocks, and gradually  brought about the collapse of half the building. 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.840 The Colosseum’s greatest enemies,  however, were the Romans themselves. 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:38.959 The building’s walls were built of  a fine limestone called travertine, 00:04:38.959 --> 00:04:43.279 and its seats were made of marble. Both  stones were attractive to medieval builders. 00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:46.800 Marble and travertine were not  only easy and attractive to re-use; 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:50.480 they could also both be burnt in  kilns to make lime for mortar. 00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:56.080 Pillaging of the Colosseum’s stone began even  before the final games were staged in the arena, 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:59.120 and continued on a massive scale  for more than a thousand years. 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:06.399 The Colosseum wasn’t just a quarry. For much of  the Middle Ages, hundreds of people lived in the 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:12.239 ruinous vaults and passageways. There were houses  complete with courtyards and little gardens. 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:17.759 There were shops with wooden awnings  and storage lofts. There were stables, 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:22.079 there were churches, and at one point there  was even a full-blown fortified palace. 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:27.520 Remarkably, many of the Medieval  Colosseum’s inhabitants were lime-burners, 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:30.959 who spent their days tearing apart the  building in which they were squatting. 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:37.839 Thanks largely to their efforts, the Colosseum  became an increasingly inhospitable place to live. 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:44.560 Finally, in 1349, an earthquake brought down the  entire south half of the Colosseum’s circuit wall, 00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:50.560 forming a colossal pile of rubble. Over  the next four centuries, this heap, 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.680 colloquially called the Colosseum’s Thigh,  built half the churches of Renaissance Rome. 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:02.240 In 1452, a single busy contractor carried  off more than 2,500 cartloads of stone 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:08.079 After all these centuries of earthquakes and  pillaging, it might seem surprising that anything 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:13.439 is left of the Colosseum. The reason so much  remains, remarkably, is that part of the building 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:19.040 was protected. As mentioned earlier, the north  side of the Colosseum was always less susceptible 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:24.800 to earthquake damage. It was kept from being  pulled apart by scavengers, however, by the popes. 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:30.319 The north side of the Colosseum happened to face  the processional route connecting the Lateran 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:35.680 Palace with the Vatican. The popes seems to have  deliberately preserved this part of the Colosseum 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:41.519 as a monumental backdrop for their parades.  Not that every pope agreed; as late as the 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:48.159 sixteenth century, Pius V proposed demolishing the  arena’s remains. But most pontiffs, fortunately, 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:51.439 insisted on preserving this fragment  of Rome’s greatest ancient building. 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:57.919 So, there you have it: we have half a Colosseum  because earthquakes and the popes spared it. 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:03.439 If you’d like to learn more about the Colosseum,  I now offer virtual guided tours exploring the 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:07.839 building and the Roman games. You can  visit toldinstone.com to learn more. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:15.840 In the meantime, as always, thanks for watching.