Entertainment in the Colosseum

     Have you ever wondered who  built the giant roman Colosseum?   The Romans did a lot of neat things in the  Colosseum.  The things that they did there usually ended in death.  The gladiators killed anything that was in the ring with them and the chariot racers usually flipped their chariots.   

     The Colosseum was started by Emperor Vespasian and his men, but didn't finish it until the time of his sons.  Sometimes the Colosseum was called a circus because of it's circular shape, but before any of that it was called the amphitheater .  The Colosseum was built on the site of a lake which was Emperor Nero's.  The Colosseum was designed to hold 55,000 people.  Since there were so many lions and other big animals held in the Colosseum there was a catwalk that archers stood on so that if any animal got free the archers would kill it.  

    The Colosseum was made out of marble, tufa, and concrete.  In the Colosseum there had to be sewers so that the water from the lake would drain into the Tiber.  The Colosseum had four floors.  The first three had arched entrance ways and the fourth had rectangular doorways.  

    Did you ever wonder why the gladiators fought or who they were?  Well, the gladiators were slaves, criminals, prisoners of war and sometimes Christians.  The gladiator fights originated in central Italy.  The first Gladiator fights that were held in Rome was in 264 B.C.  The emperor Trajan held the largest contest of fights 107 A.D. This included 5,000 pairs of fighters.  The gladiators were forced to become swordsmen in schools called Lodi.  Special measures were taken to prevent them from committing suicide.  The gladiators fought to get the crowd to like them.  Sometimes if the crowd liked them a lot they would be set free. 

        In the Colosseum they did many things but the most popular things were gladiator vs. gladiator fights, animal vs. animal fights, gladiator vs. animal fights, and chariot races.  During the time before a big event they would starve the animals so they would try to eat the other thing in the ring with it.  Sometimes in the Colosseum there would be a singing event or a band playing music.  The most popular event held in the Colosseum would be the gladiator fights because most of the people went to see that over anything else. 

     The people who were n the race horse carriages  were called charioteers and their carriages were called chariots.  Chariot racers were usually rich people because they had to keep their horses healthy and take care of the chariots.  Chariot racing was one of the popular circus games.  Chariot races could often lead to death because sometimes the chariot would flip over.  The earliest two wheeled chariot is from Mesopotamia and is from 2000 B.C.  Usually the chariot games could be bet on and that is part of the reason that they were so popular.     

         They did a lot of things in the Colosseum and they got a lot of people there to see the events each day.  So overall the Colosseum was a really great form of entertainment.         

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