By the time we got to the Coliseum, many of us were already soggy enough from the rain to take off our jackets to dry off by just being rained on and not also having wet sheets of polyester attached to our shoulders. Despite Kelli’s valiant efforts, we still had a snafu with tickets (the details of which are frustrating but uninteresting) so we got to become even better acquainted with the Roman spring rain. While the teachers were working to get us in, we sang and did jumping jacks and other eclectic activities to stay energetic.
We walked around the first and 2nd floors of the structure, which would be placed next to the really good seats and just ok seats respectively in ancient times. The seats, the cover for weather, and the arena floor were wooden, so the coliseum today looks more like a circular series of brick arches than an arena today. Time passes, am I right? I was personally a bit too tired to reflect on the spooky parallels between the entertainment culture of Ancient Rome and the us at the time, but they are there. For example, gladiators who were good enough became celebrities and had their own merchandise!
The coliseums heyday capacity rivals modern sports stadiums. Many of the Roman ruins are large on a monumental scale, big enough that illustrations cannot do them justice but small enough that you understand just how large they are (in contrast to something like a skyscraper). At the end, we got a well deserved break resting our hands on the hot lights on the display cases in the gift shop.
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