The Colosseum

The Colosseum, written by Keith Hopkins with Mary Beard, traces the construction and operation of Rome’s largest amphitheatre from the Flavian emperors onwards. It examines gladiatorial combat, animal hunts, executions and other spectacles alongside the practical systems that supplied performers, animals, scenery and tens of thousands of spectators. The authors distinguish what ancient evidence actually reveals from later fantasies about the arena, while considering the political value emperors gained by staging violence as public entertainment.

The monument’s history did not end with the Roman games. The book follows its transformation into housing, workshops, a fortified stronghold, a quarry, a Christian site and eventually one of the world’s most recognisable tourist attractions. By placing the surviving ruin beside centuries of reuse, restoration and mythmaking, it explains how the Colosseum became at once a symbol of imperial power, mass violence, Christian memory and modern Rome.