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Stadiums and Technology
Baltimore Ravens Football Stadium (Photo Credit: Corbis)
The history of stadiums can be traced back to ancient Greece, as a course for footraces at Olympia, Delphi, Athens, Epidaurus, and other places at which athletic games were celebrated. The word stadium derives from the Greek stadion, the name for a unit of length equal to about 185 m (about 606 ft 9 in).
Stadiums in the U.S. are used primarily for amateur track and field meets and for professional baseball, football, or soccer. Less frequently they are used for religious and political rallies, conventions, and concerts.
Notable modern stadiums in the U.S., with their seating capacities, include Rose Bowl, Pasadena, Calif., 106,721; John F. Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, 105,000; Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, Mich., 101,701; the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 93,761; the Sugar Bowl, or Tulane Stadium, New Orleans, La., 80,982; and the Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac, Mich., 80,638. The Astrodome in Houston, 60,000, was the first covered stadium. The enclosed multipurpose Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, with movable seating, can accommodate crowds of between 20,000 and 100,000.
ROMAN AMPHITHEATERS
In architecture, amphitheaters are spacious open-air buildings generally oval in form. The exhibition area was encircled by seats. The first amphitheater was constructed in 59 bc by the Roman pontifex maximus Gaius Scribonius Curio (125?–53 bc). The first partial stone amphitheater was built in 30 bc by Augustus, before he became first emperor of Rome. This amphitheater remained the only one in Rome not entirely of wood until the erection of the Colosseum by the Roman emperor Vespasian, whose son and successor, Titus, dedicated the edifice in ad 80. The upper part of the Colosseum itself, however, was originally of wood; it was replaced by stone after 223. The example of Rome was followed by all the cities of any importance throughout the Roman Empire. According to a 4th-century document the Colosseum at Rome seated 87,000 persons; modern scholars, however, believe that only about 50,000 persons could be seated. The colosseums of Pozzuoli, Capua, Verona, and Tarragona (all in Italy) are about the same size.
Vespasian's Colosseum
Roman Colosseum
(Photo Credit: AETN)
In the wake of Emperor Nero's death, a bloody civil war erupted between Rome's most powerful generals, each eager to become the empire's next ruler. From the chaos emerged a very different leader. Vespasian was an honest and disciplined military general who restored order to the capital.
Unlike Nero—who exploited the skills of his engineers for his own colossal vanity projects—Vespasian put Rome's greatest architectural minds to work for the people. He started to build Rome's most famous engineering marvel by draining the massive lake that Nero had built on his palace grounds. It was called the Flavian Ampitheater—though we know it as the Colosseum.
Construction on the arena began in 72 A.D. It was financed by the sale of precious relics stolen from the Jewish temple during Vespasian's sacking of Jerusalem. Twelve-thousand Jewish captives were brought back from that campaign to build the Colosseum. They poured more than 6,000 tons of concrete and hauled huge travertine building blocks to the site from a quarry 20 miles away.
Roman amphitheaters were constructed from a surprisingly simple framework, incorporating two Greek theaters back-to-back to form one 360-degree theater in the round. In just eight years, the imposing structure grew to 160 feet tall—dwarfing all that surrounded it. It was the tallest ancient Roman structure ever built. It symbolized the power, engineering and wealth of ancient Rome.
DID YOU KNOW?
To raise public revenue, Emperor Vespasian was the first to introduce pay toilets in the city of Rome. When his son and successor Titus protested that the toilets were raising a stink with the poor, Vespasian held a coin up to his nose and said, "money doesn't stink." Today, Romans still refer to public toilets as vespasiano.
The Colosseum has long been known as a site of Christian martyrdom. It was converted into a shrine as early as the sixth century and still serves as the venue for the Vatican's Good Friday services. However, there is no evidence that Christian persecutions ever took place in the Colosseum.
The quarries where the Romans extracted travertine for the Colosseum and other great structures are still being mined today.
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
The Circus Maximus arena of ancient Rome is located between the Palatine and Aventine hills, and was the principal amusement place of the city from about 600 bc to the early days of the Roman Empire. It was reconstructed and enlarged by Julius Caesar. In outer dimensions the Circus Maximus was about 610 m (about 2000 ft) long and 190 m (625 ft) wide, and the arena was about 564 m (about 1850 ft) long and 85 m (280 ft) wide. It had three tiers of seats, with room for about 200,000 spectators. The Circus Maximus was the scene of athletic contests and chariot and horse races that were held until the 6th century AD.
The Roman circus was an adaptation of the Greek Hippodrome. The term is also applied to the events that took place in the enclosure. Combats between gladiators, between wild beasts, and between men and wild beasts, usually held in an amphitheater, were also sometimes held in circuses. Tiers of seats surrounded the circus except at the end where the stalls for the horses and chariots were located. In the center of the circus, extending lengthwise almost from end to end, was a low wall, the spina, around which the riders or charioteers rode. The Roman populace often demanded "bread and circuses" from political candidates. The Roman general Pompey the Great is said on one occasion (55 bc) to have sponsored five days of circus games during which 500 lions and 20 elephants were killed. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the end of the Renaissance, the Roman circuses were gradually dismantled for their building stones. Few traces of the circuses remain.
An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws are prohibited.
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