The Colosseum was Imperial Rome's monument to warfare. Like a cathedral of death it towered over the city and invited its citizens, 50,000 at a time, to watch murderous gladiatorial games. It is now visited by two million visitors a year (Hitler was among them). Award winning classicist, Mary Beard with Keith Hopkins, tell the story of Rome's greatest arena: how it was built; the gladiatorial and other games that were held there; the training of the gladiators; the audiences who revelled in the games, the emperors who staged them and the critics. And the strange after story - the Colosseum has been fort, store, church, and glue factory.
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781846684708
Number of pages: 224
Weight: 164 g
Dimensions: 128 x 194 x 18 mm
Edition: Main
Brilliant ... arguably the best so far in Profile's excellent Wonders of the World series ... it brings the Colosseum to life in all its gory splendour. - Geographical
A work of scholarship written with the general reader in mind ... a pleasure to read. - Spectator
What the authors have given us in the proverbial multum in parvo - Sunday Telegraph
Revels in the accretions of detail and myth ... first-class scholarship and an engagingly demotic style - Independent
Stirring stuff! This is a welcome and well-written book ... it reassesses myths, politely debunks many misconceptions about what we know- and what we don't know - to put the fabulous monument in context from its founding to the present. - Lindsey Davis, author of the Falco series
A wonderful book, worthy of its subject: horrifying, impressive, blood-soaked, occasionally very funny and always entertaining - Robert Harris
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