Back to Rome

I'm going to step back for a little bit to our first day. As I mentioned we had a horrible flight experience and at the end of it Marvin was more sick than I have ever seen him. We did get to see the Arch of Triumph and the Coliseum but spent the rest of the day in the hotel room.
Arch of Triumph

It took Emperor Vespasian's crew ten years to build the Coliseum. It was completed in 72 AD. They used Travertine limestone and concrete in construction pinned together with iron pins, but pins were extracted through the years to make weapons. You can see the holes left when they took the pins.

It is hard to describe the size of the coliseum, it is huge. This picture taken inside the coliseum is for you to get a size perspective. Notice the size of the people.

The floor of the coliseum no longer exists and hasn't been replaced so you can see where they kept the lions, gladiators, Christians etc. etc. It was the back stage scene down there.
The Coliseum was used for gladiator battles and staged hunting of animals until 523AD. It became a fortress and condo site from 1300 through 1700 AD. At this time much of the Travertine was hauled off and used on other buildings and homes in the area.

Rome was founded in 800 BC. At the time of Christ it was about one million. Under Vespasian it grew to 100 million population. This was about a quarter of the world's population at that time.