Customer Reviews

The Colosseum (Wonders of the World)

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All the reviews here so far were written on the tourist side, not the scholar's. The great merit of this book, in my view, is that it fits both audiences in a very nice manner. Scholars would of course expect a more exhaustive treatment, but it's striking that there are almost no other academic books devoted to the subject of the Colosseum. Many studies on this building and other amphitheatres concentrate on technical, architectural issues, but this book offers concise and clear analyses on social aspects of gladiators, the interpretations of the Colosseum through the ages (a fascinating part!) and other varied issues. Profs. Hopkins and Beard are two leading authorities in Roman History, but their text is lively, fluent, good-humored and very pleasant - I wish all scholars could write like this! Therefore: for specialists, it's not a thorough book, but very welcoming all the same.

As for the occasional interested tourist, as others here have also said, this book is as useful, appealing and enjoyable as it can be. Having been to the Colosseum myself, though, I don't agree with the advice of getting there one hour before it closes (last entrance allowed is at 3PM). Packed crowds of tired tourists with noisy kids are better to be avoided if you want to take your time inside, so get there as early as you can. Also, like the authors, I strongly recommend a visit to the nearby Palatine - but get a good guide, so that you can understand the ruins you're seeing (use Oxford Archeological Guide, Coarelli's book, or even Blue Guide Rome).

The Colloseum in Rome is arguably one of the five most famous buildings in the world but there are very few books about it. At least I have found that to be the case, as I have always had a fascination for the place. May this is the macabre side of me coming out. But it is not just the gladiatorial contests and many other blood letting contests that went on including wild animals fighting both humans and one another or the naval battles that were fought there. Yes naval battles, with real ships and the arena flooded with water. I readily admit that I find these interesting and have done for many years.

However the main attraction of the Flavian Amphitheatre, to give it its correct name is its architectural beauty. It is a building that we would be hard pressed to replicate today, even with all the modern building techniques that we now possess. A building that could fill with people and empty at the end of the games quicker than most modern football stadiums. A building that has stood the test of time. It is only vibration and pollution from modern day traffic that is now affecting the building more than the last two thousand years ever have.

A building that had more happening underground than ever happened above ground. Gladiator quarters, infirmaries. Lifts and hoists moved by an intricate network of pulleys and cables, that allowed wild animals to be brought up to the arena level.

This book tells you everything you need to know and more. It is well written And has some illustrations, but these are secondary to the excellent text.

Small though it may be, this wonderful book contains a wealth of information on the Colosseum. The authors - scholars in this field - very ably guide the reader along this amazing structure's long journey through the ages up to the present, debunking myths along the way. Although details on the formidable challenges faced by those who built the Colosseum are relatively few, its history and archaeology, as well as snapshots of the lives and times of those who used it and performed in it, more than compensate. Occasionally, the authors challenge the "generally accepted" interpretations of some of the often-sparse archaeological and historical evidence and offer alternative views. Near the end of the book, useful advice for the potential visitor is provided, followed by an extensive bibliography. The writing style is clear, friendly, authoritative and quite lively. This book can be enjoyed by anyone, but especially by those fascinated by ancient history and archaeology.

This is a scholarly analytic type book that investigates not only the colliseum building itself,but the spectacles that took place inside.The book also describes why the Colliseum was built as well as how it was bulilt.The Colliseum according to my read of the book was an important propoganda and public education tool of the Roman rulers.It showed the populace that not only had Rome conquered,but that all the beasts and "savage peoples" of the world were Roman possesions for amusement.The building may have also served as a warning,"you too could end up here" and was an outlet for high risk takers to make a name and a fortune. Also alot of these gladiatorial spectacles were actually public executions of criminals,the sword of a gladiator maybe no worse than the electric chair or gas chamber!Unfortunately no work on the Colliseum has covered the gambling on an immense scale that must have gone on at these events.For one I have always thought that the Gladiatorial helmet that is always used in movies and art appears awkward. It seems as if the fancy ornate designs and rims would block not just the peripheral view but about every other one as well.The author points out that these helmets that were found in the buried ruins of Pompeii may have actually been "parade helmets",used for the pre-fight spectacle to identify and give status to the Gladiator.In the arena he may have found such a helmet in fact a great disadvantage. That's the kind of research contained in this book.In regard to the wild animal fights the author spends alot of time breaking down and analyzing the industry that was involved in transporting "wild beasts" of all descriptions from various parts of the world. It must have been a great part of Rome's GNP.The author also questions alot of the traditional source material for acounts in regard to the Colliseum and its spectacles.It seems in times past that writers may have been as prone to exaggerations as they are today.You'll leave this book with a good knowledge of "the Games" and realize that alot of them were anything but "fair contests" between men and beasts.Rather alot of stage theatrics and "smoke and mirrors".Could it be that the the Roman popes banned these spectacles not only for the brutality,but because they were just plain boring.In fact these games were continued on well into the Roman Christian era,so there may not have been an initial Christian "moral outrage" when Rome was Christianized under Constantine.Anyway,I got my tickets to my first(and last) game from a scalper who had "copped them" free from a "charity organization"On the final page I seriously believed that the Retiarius Gaius was using steroids,and someone had spilled their greasy nacho cheese on my"Gladius" t-shirt.I also had to move 2 seats over because I believed the man next to me was coming down with a case of "bubonic plaque"That's how real this book is.

Keith Hopkins was working on this book when he died, and Mary Beard, editor of the Wonders of the World series, completed it seamlessly. Hopkins was the author of A World Full of Gods: The Strange Triumph of Christianity, a book in which Hopkins combined fiction with scholarship with a pair of time travelers who visit the ancient Mediterranean to study early Christianity. As pointed out in "The New York Times" obituary, one of the characters captured Hopkins's approach to his scholarship: "I realized that having a variety of accounts, instead of a single true account, made some sense, ... mixing autopsy with narrative is not conventional, but I personally think it's fair."

Hopkins (and Beard) provide a wonderful combination of architecture, history and cultural reactions from different periods to the marvelous pile that dominates much of Rome. We used this book on during a three hour visit two summers ago; it greatly enhanced our Eyewitness guidebook, and it has lead to greatly enhanced memories since we returned.

The great strength of the approach in this book, and indeed in the other books in this fine series, is how Hopkins layers the different meanings the building has had to various peoples at various times in the past. The other reviewers here on Amazon capture that strength in each of the fine reviews.

And, of course, other writers have done as well; here is Henry James on its persistent appeal (in this case, in 1873 when Rome was undergoing drastic changes in its new role as capital of the Kingdom of Italy):

"One of course never passes the Colosseum without paying it one's respects - without going in under one of the hundred portals and crossing the long oval and sitting down a while, generally at the foot of the cross in the centre. I always feel, as I do so, as if I were seated in the depths of some Alpine valley. The upper portions of the side toward the Esquiline look as remote and lonely as an Alpine ridge, and you raise your eyes to their rugged sky-line, drinking in the sun and silvered by the blue air, with much the same feeling, with which you would take in a grey cliff on which an eagle might lodge. This roughly mountainous quality of the great ruin is its chief interest; beauty of detail has pretty well vanished, especially since the high-growing wild-flowers have been plucked away by the new government, whose functionaries, surely, at certain points of their task, must have felt as if they shared the dreadful trade of those who gather sapphire."

Hopkins captures the meaning of the Colosseum in that period of Rome's history, and at many others as well. A great guide to the building, both on the ground and in the study dreaming of yet another trip to Rome and another opportunity to "pay one's respects" to this marvelous building.

Robert C. Ross 2010

This is a rather specialized account of the Colosseum, and any student intending to visit the structure should read it. It debunks some myths about the place, but shows that it is a fascinating world wonder which deserves the attention of all visiting Rome. The research seems impeccable.

I really struggled to get through this book, and I have a passion for ancient Roman history. The authors correctly seek to debunk just about every common conception about the Colosseum; they do so on a basis that if you follow their lead, basically says that any conjecture whatsoever from historical clues is reckless and therefore wrong. Well that just about kills most of ancient history does it not?

For instance, on the one hand, they correctly point out that the only classical evidence of noble women having affairs with gladiators -- a popular theme right now with the Spartacus TV series -- is based in finding a well-to-do woman caught at the gladiator school in Pompeii -- a woman who was also there with her children and therefore probably more a passer-by than a confidante -- it is equally true that there's no evidence to the contrary -- tell me, how many present day sports figures sleep around...have people changed that much in 2000 years? Sure, conjecture on my part, but the point is that the authors feel compelled to track down everything that is known about the Colosseum and try to debunk it, and by the end of the book, it's just in the way of more solid history and literature in the book.

The fact is, we will never know truly what the five stones in front of the Colosseum really are for, but some people have at least made an effort to guess they are base stones for the canvas roof of the Colosseum, to work out the mechanics of how it would work, to do the mathematics to make it a sensible suggestion, and put this forth to scholarly debate -- and come out with a lot of people concurring. Just because the authors cannot find any historical reference to this does not mean it is not so, and instead of trying so hard to debate each conception, why not take the alternate or at least balanced point of view and show the other side -- why they think they are velarium base stones and how it works. Isn't that so much more constructive?

I bought this book to really expand my horizons on the more detailed history of the Colosseum, and it's in here. Just be prepared for a rather snobby view of "I know better than all the rest of the historians" approach to the topic, and expect to have to find the balance of the story elsewhere.

This short book deals not very much with the Colosseum building per se but mainly with can be surmised of its uses and users.

The authors do not hesitate to question what are often held as common truths. It seems for instance that there is no actual evidence that gladiators ever said before beginning a `performance': Ave Cesar, morituri te salutante. It appears also that much of the building we can visit today is actually the result of modern renovations and reconstruction. Such an approach could be refreshing but turns out rather to be disheartening.

Written in 2005, the book refers frequently to the movie `Gladiator'. This makes it age prematurely as we now know that the movie turns out to be no classic and would be less quoted today in reference to the topic than say `Spartacus'.

Worse, the work appears quite disorganized and actually unfinished, as if the authors were short of time or could not agree on many issues.

The lay-out is worthy of the early 20th century with strictly black and white illustrations set on pages separate from the text. The only colour whatsoever is provided by a dust cover only two thirds the book's height.

Anyone interested in the period will be much better served with one the authors' `Fires of Vesuvius', a truly excellent book.

for the record, there is no evidence that "naval battles" took place at the Colosseum. there is no sign in this place of a system to allow water to be brought in and drained. this is yet another myth of the Colosseum... like christians being eaten by lions here.... that happened before the Colosseum was even built, at Circus Maximus. I haven't even looked at this book. I comment only to clarify that naval battles DID NOT take place at the Colosseum... it was a place for military shows, but not on water