Amputheatre (Ltd.Digi)

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When he saw the blood, it was though he has drunk a deep draught of savage passion. He fixed his eyes on the scene and took it in in all its frenzy......He watched and cheered and grew hot with excitement." St Augustine Confessions 6.8 Today, the amphitheatre forms a fine venue for many occasions—bullfights, congresses, concerts and sports events.

Similarly, the front row was called the prima cavea and the last row was called the cavea ultima. The cavea was further divided vertically into cunei. A cuneus (Latin for "wedge"; plural, cunei) was a wedge-shaped division separated by the scalae or stairways. In the bloody events of the arena, none came more graphic than the one-on-one gladiator fights. Qualities such as courage, fear, technical skill, celebrity, and, of course, life and death itself, engaged audiences like no other entertainment, and no doubt one of the great appeals of gladiator events, as with modern professional sport, was the potential for upsets and underdogs to win the day. The amphitheatre is 133 m long and 101 m wide. The outer facade is 21 metres high, made up of two levels of arcades and divided into 60 spans. Numerous staircases and five circular galleries provide optimum circulation. Today the theatre welcomes you to discover the extraordinary story of how it was created and experience the magic of live performance in this iconic space.Bomgardner, David Lee (October 2000). The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-16593-8. You can explore Guildhall Art Gallery by joining one of our free guided tours or by using Smartify. Free guided tours Roman amphitheatres are theatres — large, circular or oval open-air venues with raised seating — built by the ancient Romans. They were used for events such as gladiator combats, venationes (animal slayings) and executions. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of the Roman Empire. Early amphitheatres date from the Republican period, [1] though they became more monumental during the Imperial era. [2] Amphitheatres are distinguished from circuses and hippodromes, which were usually rectangular and built mainly for racing events, and stadia, built for athletics, but several of these terms have at times been used for one and the same venue. The word amphitheatrum means "theatre all around". Thus, an amphitheatre is distinguished from the traditional semicircular Roman theatres by being circular or oval in shape. [3] Components [ edit ] Vomitorium of the Amphitheatre of El Jem, Tunisia

Free guided tours, conducted by Guildhall Art Gallery’s team of City Guides, are available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 12:15pm and 1:15pm and last 30-45 minutes. No booking is required. These tours are for individual visits (not for groups). If there was one thing the Roman people loved it was spectacle & the chance to see the weird & wonderful shows which assaulted the senses & ratcheted up the emotions. The Events

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During the Middle Ages, the grand Corinthian style columns were removed to adorn palaces and places of worship, including the Cathedral. Taormina Amphitheatre today

These changes meant that there were ever fewer uses for amphitheatres, and ever fewer funds to build and maintain them. The last construction of an amphitheatre is recorded in 523 in Pavia under Theoderic. [12] After the end of venationes, the only remaining purpose of amphitheatres was to be the place of public executions and punishments. After even this purpose dwindled away, many amphitheatres fell into disrepair and were gradually dismantled for building material, razed to make way for newer buildings, or vandalized. [13] Others were transformed into fortifications or fortified settlements, such as at Leptis Magna, Sabratha, Arles and Pola, and in the 12th century the Frangipani fortified even the Colosseum to help them in Roman power struggles. [14] Yet others were repurposed as Christian churches, including the arenas at Arles, Nîmes, Tarragona and Salona; the Colosseum became a Christian shrine in the 18th century. [14] The Colosseum's design became famous as it was placed on coins so that even people who had never been in person knew of Rome's greatest temple to entertainment. The design was copied throughout the empire: a highly decorative exterior, multiple entrances, seating ( cavea) set over a network of barrel vaults, a wall protecting spectators from the action of the arena (sometimes with nets added), and underground rooms below the arena floor to hide people, animals, and props until they were needed in the spectacles. There was also an extensive drainage system, a feature seen at other arenas such as Verona's amphitheatre where it still functions and has greatly contributed to the excellent preservation of the monument.Welch, Katherine E. (2007). The Roman amphitheatre: from its origins to the Colosseum. Cambridge University Press. p.9. ISBN 978-0-521-80944-3. The amphitheatre is elliptical in plan and about 70m north to south by 60m east to west. It has a gravel floor 1.2m below ground-level and an inner wall faced with timber, which was plastered and painted. The gates and entrance passage linings are constructed of flint and mortar. Surrounding the inner wall was the cavea or seating area, which has been identified as an earthen bank surviving as a buried feature about 1.8m high. It is complete except for where it has been partially destroyed by a housing development on the south-west side. The whole place was seething with savage enthusiasm... in the course of the fight some man fell; there was a great roar from the whole mass of spectators...' After more than a hundred years of searching by archaeologists, London’s Roman Amphitheatre was finally rediscovered in 1988 hidden beneath Guildhall Yard. It was a quite surprising discovery as the amphitheatre was found within the old Roman city walls, whereas the majority of ancient amphitheatres were located on the outside. The history of the amphitheatre is a rather tumultuous one. Built in AD70 as a simple wooden structure, the amphitheatre had a more substantial makeover in the early 2nd century taking its capacity up to 6,000 people. During this time the arena was used for public events, animal fighting, public executions and, of course, gladiatorial combat.