TIME TRAVELING, ART HISTORIAN

Time Traveling, Art Historian

Time Traveling, Art Historian

Roman civilization - Colosseum

The art form that I have chosen for Roman civilization is 'architecture'. In this field I have selected the colosseum namely 'The Flavian Amphitheatre'.

The Flavian amphitheater, now known Colosseum (probably by the memory of the colossal statue of Nero that was in the vicinity of the arena) was built by Vespasian after the war in Judea the year 72 AD. Was placed in the middle of the city of Rome, in a completely flat site, precisely at the site was known as Stagnum Nerons, which was a kind of artificial lake built by order of Nero under his leadership. Vespasian, despite their efforts, could not see the completion of this colossal work, and Titus inaugurated in 80 AD, though presumably not yet ended as it had planned at first, so it is thought that its construction was completed during the reign of Domitian. The opening ceremony of the building lasted 102 days, which showed a lot of shows of various kinds (Michael, 1996).

The building had 527 meters in circumference and grew to a height of 57 meters. The base has an elliptical shape, where its major axis mide189 minor axis meters and 156 meters. He was so well designed that all attendees (50,000 commonly) could evacuate in minutes. The secret of this feature was the wise disposition of the barrel vaults and corridors and staircases leading to the seats. The vaults of the ground floor had 80 doors marked each with a number to make it easier for spectators found their location. It is a work of bold, large-scale engineering, where the Romans often used brick aggregate embedded in a mixture of lime putty with brick dust or volcanic ash that including the use of stone (travertine) and concrete that formed the basis of the Colosseum. In addition, to reduce the weight of the huge structures, often encased empty clay pots on the walls. They also used metal bars as reinforcement in concrete. This, together with the combination of walls and openings became a constant feature of Roman architecture, which later became the base of styles such as Gothic and Baroque. Inside the vault, was decorated with fabulous designs in stucco, which have almost completely lost due to weather (Marilyn, 1983).

The emperor Hadrian held great feasts in the amphitheater and the reign of Macrinus, during a storm, lightning struck the building and fire across the top and severely damaged the rest of the structure. The violence of the fire and the inability to control suggests that the amount of wood used in construction was great. A medal bearing the portrait of Alexander Severus recalls that this emperor again opened the Colosseum, from that fire was not used again for the great tasks of reconstruction that were made, mainly to replace the old wood burning of manufactured masonry. Ammianus mind that the year 357 AD the building was in perfect ...