Colosseum Part 1 - Stealing from the Greeks

Pablo Picasso said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” I saw first hand how great Christians and Roman architects stole heavily from the Greeks. 

In Siracusa, I entered the Duomo di Siracusa and saw first hand the tripartite origins of the Christian church. The doric columns of the temple of Athena were incorporated into the church structure and left exposed. 

In the outskirts of towns, the Greeks built large semi-circular open auditoria by excavating the stepped seating into hillsides. I saw how the Taormina, Siracusa, Segesta Greek auditoria were sited such that they were rotated away from the axes of distant mountains to create a dynamic tension between the built form and the site. 

Siracusa

Siracusa embedded in hill

Taormina

Segesta

The Romans took the Greek form of auditoria, but modified it to suit their urban life and penchant for munera (gladiatorial contests). Instead of building auditoria into the outlying hillsides and integrating its siting and relationship to the surrounding landscape, the Romans built their auditoria in the heart of their cities from the ground up. Furthermore, the internal north south east west axis of the Colosseum aligns with the ancient cardo decomanus of Rome’s urban plan.

To build up their auditoria, the Romans used brick, stone, and concrete vaults like master builders. The site for the Colosseum was initially a lake in a river valley. To drain the lake, the romans installed 3000 meters of piping and drains 26 feet below the base of the valley to take the water to the Tiber River. Lead piping was used to 20 fountains and toilets inside the Colosseum structure. 220,000 tons of soil were removed from the site. On top of the drained lake, the Romans constructed a 40 foot deep concrete foundation to support the 100,000 cubic meters of travertine stone arches which were used to support the tiered seating. To execute their vaults and spans and foundations, the Romans used opus caementicum, Roman concrete. Unlike modern concrete, roman concrete does not use steel reinforcing, and it uses larger aggregate pieces bound together with cement. As a result, it was laid rather than poured.

Non-stop flow of cartloads of marble, wood, sand, and ingredients for concrete shipped from Carrara, North Africa and Greece were transported to Rome over a 10 year construction period.

Whereas columns in Greece were structural, for Romans, the doric, ionic, and Corinthian columns that line their facades of the Colosseum are half sunk into their walls and thereby decorational.