Jim McMahon/Mapman®
The year is 80 A.D. An excited crowd of 50,000 people packs into a new
At the time, amphitheaters were common in the Roman Empire. But the Colosseum stood out. “It is the largest, most important Roman amphitheater ever built,” says historian Steven Tuck.
The Colosseum was like a modern sports stadium. Underneath the arena lay a series of hidden chambers and passageways called the hypogeum, where gladiators and wild animals prepared for battle. This past June, the underground world beneath the Colosseum opened to the public for the first time. Read on for a tour.