Colosseum
August 17, 2019
It is SO different to see in person. The size is more than impressive. They staged naval battles filling the Colosseum with three to five feet of water! The engineering of the place was very advanced. They had elevators with a system of pulleys operated by slaves. It could house an audience of 50,000. It had a retractable awning. All the tickets were free. I bet that makes the NFL owners cringe.
Everything that we see now had been covered in marble but the marble was recycled to build other things like St. Peter’s Basilica.
We can’t figure out how to move people in and out of New York City at rush hour. The Colosseum had could empty the place quickly using vomitoria. Vomere is Latin for ‘to spew forth.’ It was a quick egress not a purging of the stomach by glutinous Roman elite. Everyone who has ever run to the toilet to throw up understands quick egress.