Expert: Irulan Serena - 12/9/2006

Question
Dear Irulan Serena
We are 11th grade students from Israel and we are doing an English project about the Roman Colosseum. We read an article about the subject and learned that the Colosseum was used regularly for almost 400 years.
We are interested in knowing how the Colosseum was maintained for such a long period of time.
Thank you for your time.
Evgeni and Victor

Answer
Hello Victor,

Built for the entertainment of the populace the Colosseum was maintained by the order command and subsidy of the emperors.  The day to day operations to keep the structure in readiness for the spectacles was scrupulously taken care of by an army of workers ...either slaves or paid freemen whose jobs were to maintain the structure safe and sound for the public.  The day to day mechanics of this maintenance is not easily found because it was done in the background and since that was not part of history there is no definite primary source which deals with this topic.

Sorry that I cannot be more specific, however the following links may help your research.

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Roman_Colosseum.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/colosseum/qanda/questions.html

http://www.the-colosseum.net/idx-en.htm

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rauhn/roman_colosseum.htm

http://www.italyguides.it/us/roma/colosseum.htm

http://www.vitruvio.ch/arc/roman/colosseum.php

http://dsc.discovery.com/games/colosseum/tour.html

Hoping this helps,

Irulan