From its founding until late antiquity, the Flavian Amphitheatre had mainly been used for two different types of public spectacles: venationes (beast hunts) and munera (gladiatorial battles). During late antiquity, these two types of entertainment increasingly came under heavy criticism from Christians, who abhorred their voyeuristic cruelty. Gladiatorial games massively declined over the course of the later third and fourth century due to a lack of financial investment and Christian polemics as well as changing audience tastes. In a joint declaration by Western Emperor Anthemius and Eastern Emperor Leon condemning the public games and reminding the Prefect of Constantinople that they are not to be staged on Sundays and Christian holidays, gladiatorial games aren't even mentioned anymore. We aren't certain precisely when the last munera in the Colosseum were held, but it must have been soon after their last literary mention by Prudentius in A.D. 403 and not after Honorius' death in 423. Supposedly, when a monk by the name of Telemachios attempted to break up a gladiator duel and was stoned by the enraged audience, Honorius banned the games. The end of gladiatorial fights did not mean the end of elaborate public games in the Amphitheatre, however.
Venationes enjoyed a much longer life and remained a staple of public celebrations, and they likely remained a bloody affair contrary to what was long believed, that they turned into non-violent animal shows and acrobatic displays. Even after the Western Roman court was officially dissolved, the Ostrogothic rex Theodericus who ruled in Italy made an effort to restore the Colosseum after an earthquake had destroyed parts of it in 486. He also sponsored games, likely as part of a conscious effort to tend to the "Roman cultural legacy" and to secure the allegiance of the urban Roman populace. The last mention of animal hunts inside the Colosseum dates to A.D. 523, but this may not have been the last time such spectacles were seen in the arena. Thus, until the beginning of the sixth century, the Colosseum was still being maintained and lavish games were staged inside of it.
It was the bloody and devastating reconquest of Italy by the Roman Emperor Iustinianus that spelt the decisive end of the Colosseum of antiquity. During this war, large swathes of Italy were made a ruin and Rome itself changed hands numerous times, going from a metropolis with possibly still over one hundred thousand people to a town with a few thousand inhabitants. Among the many late antique Roman structures that did not survive the war were the public games of Rome: no more games are recorded for the Colosseum after 523, and the last chariot race in the Circus Maximus dates to 550 under king Totila. The senatorial order, from whose ranks the traditional patrons of the games had hailed, had completely disappeared. In the second half of the 6th century A.D., there was no one left in Rome with the resources to maintain the crumbling megastructure or organize games, and there was no incentive to do so, either.
The medieval afterlife of the Colosseum, however, was varied and complex. It was never abandoned. By the later sixth century, a small church had been installed inside the increasingly dilapidated monument, using the arena as a cemetery. It is also a possibility that the pope used the Colosseum's immense storage capacities to store grain and dole out bread to the populace of Rome. For the next centuries, parts of the Colosseum were used to house workshops, dwelling areas, shacks, gardens and even stables. It also became an almost mandatory visit for awestruck sightseeing pilgrims on their visit to Rome. The Colosseum was struck by a number of earthquakes between 700 and 1500, with most of its southern portion probably coming down in the earthquake of 1231. Throughout the centuries, the Colosseum, besides housing many dwellings, also served as a source of stone. In the 14th century and later, the Amphitheatre's coxa, ie. the rubble was even used as a Papal stone quarry, with stone from the Colosseum finding its way into St. Peter's Basilica and the Palazzo Venezia. "A ruin,—yet what ruin! from its mass/ Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;".
Interestingly enough, the actual memory of what the Colosseum had once been used for apparently faded away completely by the High Middle Ages. Popular theories claimed the Colosseum had once been a temple of the Sun, some claiming it was built by the great poet Virgil himself. Supposedly it was once covered by a huge dome of gilded bronze and could artificially create thunder, lightning and rain. In a colourful example of folk etymology, Medieval Romans reasoned that the name "Coliseum" stemmed from colere, 'to worship'. Signs of the sun and the moon were depicted and in the middle stood an enormous statue of Phoebus Apollo holding a globe, a remembrance of the Colossus of Nero that had once stood outside the Colosseum, that Pope Sylvester was believed to have destroyed.
"The Colosseum was the temple of the Sun, of marvellous greatness and beauty, disposed with many diverse vaulted chambers, and all covered with a heaven of gilded bronze where thunders and lightnings and glittering fires were made, and where rain was shed through silver tubes."
In the 12th century, as powerful families jockeyed for control of Rome, the Frangipani clan established its 'palatium' inside the ruins of the ancient amphitheatre with the Holy See's permission, since the papacy always claimed dominion over the Colosseum. The family sealed off a portion of the Colosseum's eastern section as a fortress of its own. Later, the German emperor Friedrich II would dispute the pope's claim to the monument and force the Holy See to cede parts of it to instead house the Annibaldi family, who established their own little palace.
Eight centuries after the Colosseum had last been used to stage venationes, a bullfight was held inside of the arena in 1332, a spectacular event featuring many noble families from Rome and surrounding towns. However, this was not a conscious effort to revive the past: none of the contemporaries seem to have made the connection between animal hunts and the ancient arena. It was humanist Italian scholars and antiquarians at the dawn of the Renaissance who rediscovered the original purpose of the Colosseum through the study of inscriptions and ancient texts, and restored the identity of the ancient, crumbling monument in the public consciousness.
Sources:
M. Beard/K. Hopkins, The Colosseum, London 2005.
N. Christie, No More Fun? The Ends of Entertainment Structures in the Late Roman West, in: T. Wilmott (Ed.), Roman Amphitheatres and Spectacula: a 21st -Century perspective. Papers from an internationalconference held at Chester, 16th-18th February, 2007, Oxford 2009, p. 221-233.
A. Puk, Das römische Spielewesen in der Spätantike, Millennium-Studien 48, Berlin/Boston 2014.
A.V. van Stekelenburg, The Colosseum from Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages: A Case of Lost Identity, in: P. Bosmann (Ed.), Akroterion 35 (3-4), Stellenbosch 1990, p. 126-133.
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