As the capital of Catholicism, Rome contains many monuments, building, statues, etc. of different important aspects to the religion. Aside from these religious sights, there are some more secular sights. One of the most brutish structures out of all the secular sights is the Colosseum. While touring the Colosseum I became aware that the Colosseum and its internal structures definitely were filled with color. This is something that intrigued me greatly because most of the ancient structures and statues that we view today are just white, but thousands of years ago they would have been covered in bright colors. This does not only stand true for the Colosseum, but for countless other pieces of history around Rome. An example within the Colosseum would be the gaudy wall hangings that covered the walls of the building. Each of these hangings would have been covered with color, but as time dragged on the colors disappeared leaving us with a bare piece of art.

Another interesting fact I didn’t know about the Colosseum was that it housed the homeless for several years while it was not being used. Each of the archways marked a new little room that individuals would sleep in while they had nowhere else to go. This meant that the Colosseum turned into somewhat of a safe-house for the homeless. It also struck me as odd that there even was a time when the Colosseum wasn’t in use. I always assumed that because of its extreme fame and glory that the Colosseum was always being used for the entertainment and frankly unethical behaviour of the people. However, it would be close to a thousand years before it would attempt a revival between its periods of usage.

The unethical behaviours that I mentioned in the previous paragraph were one of the final things that struck me about the Colosseum. During its first period of usage, the Colosseum would freely entertain thousands and thousands of people with several different types of events. The three main events were gladiator wars, beast fights, and a half time show which consisted of a show re-enacting certain scenes from history. In my opinion the most brutal of these were the re-enactments. Most of the scenes that were re-enacted from history consisted of one or more deaths which had to actually be played out on stage! Instead of having executions in the city (which was considered to taint the city and bring bad luck) the Romans would cast prisoners or criminals in the scenes and have them play the parts that died. That is one show I would NOT want to participate in!