The Colosseum (Paperback)

Professor Keith Hopkins (author), Professor Mary Beard (author)

£9.99

Paperback 224 Pages / Published: 14/04/2011

In stock

UK delivery within 5 days

Synopsis

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: 160 g
Dimensions: 196 x 128 x 18 mm
Edition: Main

MEDIA REVIEWS

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