Rome Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Vespasian started the Colosseum in 72 AD. Titus opened it eight years later with a hundred days of games. It held somewhere between fifty and eighty thousand people, depending on whose ancient count you trust.

The name has nothing to do with size. A colossal bronze statue of Nero once stood nearby, and the amphitheatre borrowed its nickname from that.

Why half of it looks gone

Earthquakes cracked the structure over the centuries, but that is not the whole story. Popes licensed the stripping of its stone. Much of St Peter's own marble began here, hauled off cartload by cartload.

The looting stopped only in the 1700s. That happened once a pope declared the site sacred to Christian martyrs. By then, roughly two thirds of the original stone was already gone.

Underground, arena and the tiers

• The hypogeum. A two-level basement under the arena, once fitted with trapdoors and slave-powered lifts that hauled caged animals straight into daylight.
• Ticket tiers. Standard entry covers the main levels and a view down into the hypogeum; separate tickets add the arena floor itself, a guided walk through the underground, or the upper attic level.
• One ticket, two more sites. Colosseum tickets also cover the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill; how long they stay valid depends on the ticket type.

Practical

• Book ahead. Timed entry slots open about a month out and go fast for the underground and arena floor options.
• Gates. Doors open early and the site fills fast; the first hour is the calmest it gets all day.
• Free Sunday. State-run sites, this one included, waive entry on the first Sunday of the month, and the queue reflects it.
• Heat. Almost no shade covers the seating tiers. Summer midday here is brutal.
• Getting there. A short walk from the Colosseo metro stop, now served by two lines instead of one.