Original subtitles

(theme music)

(speaking in native language)

That’s crazy.

NARRATOR: In Italy, deep in the countryside,

archaeologists have made the discovery of a lifetime.

A long lost Roman Amphitheater.

My God!

MAN: It goes right under!

NARRATOR: They're excavation, reveals an opening,

that was buried deep in the ground for over 1,000 years.

I’m going to get a flashlight.

NARRATOR: Now, the team dares to enter the tunnel, in a quest

to uncover it's hidden secrets.

Holy Mary!

(theme music playing)

NARRATOR: The Colosseum, in the heart of Rome.

Today, this monumental building, is an enduring symbol, of the Roman Empire.

Famous for its spectacular gladiator contests,

of brutality and death, its scale and ambition, was legendary.

Now, an international team of archaeologists is investigating,

how this mega structure, became so crucial, to the Roman Empire.

It was initially, a Roman amphitheater and it becomes the symbol of Rome.

I have to ask the question why.

NARRATOR: The weathered facade of today,

shows little trace of the marble that originally adorned this colossus.

Statues of Gods and Goddesses, once stood in the arches.

This icon, completed in 80 AD, seating 50,000 spectators.

It was a gift, to the people, from Emperor Vespasian and his son, Titus.

Romans gathered, alongside the Emperor in his Imperial box,

under a retractable awning, to witness the greatest and

bloodiest entertainment of ancient Rome, the gladiator fights.

It was built to impress and, it still does.

NARRATOR: British archaeologist,

Valerie Higgins, has made the city of Rome her home,

and has a lifelong passion for its ancient civilization.

She's exploring how the Colosseum an arena of entertainment,

became so central to the very idea of Rome.

Valerie wants to investigate what went on behind the scenes

of the amphitheater’s spectacular shows.

She heads down to the area beneath the arena floor,

once a warren of dark tunnels, to look for clues.

There were lots of these holes surrounded by white stone,

all over the basement of the Colosseum. And they're quite intriguing.

They must have a purpose and that purpose has to be

something that's happening up on the arena floor.

NARRATOR: Valerie, hunts for more evidence in the surviving structures.

They've cut a groove here, you can see that clearly in the rock, so,

there is something that is going up and down at this point.

It looks like, there's been some machinery here.

NARRATOR: Everywhere, there are traces

of the mechanisms that powered the dazzling shows up above.

These stones, are at a strange angle.

The only reason I can think of, why, they would be there is,

that this was a ramp into the arena.

It gives you a sense of how the Romans created magic

in the spectacle. Because, up through the ramp could come

animals or people, appearing as if by magic, in the arena.

NARRATOR: Expertly designed pulleys and cages,

delivered wild animals into the arena, to astonish the crowds.

The spectacle began with a hunt.

Hundreds of wild animals from across the Roman Empire,

were released and slaughtered by trained hunters.

Next, were the gruesome executions.

Many convicted criminals were mauled to death by wild animals.

And then, the stage was set for the grand finale, gladiators,

fighting head to head.

The Romans went to extraordinary lengths to entertain the Colosseum's vast crowds.

To explore why, Valerie's going deeper behind the scenes.

At Volterra, in Tuscany, 130 miles north of Rome,

a team of archaeologists is unearthing an extraordinary discovery.

One that might help solve the puzzle of

why the Colosseum was so central to the Roman Empire.

Elena Sorge, is the team leader.

The thing I like the most about being an archaeologist

is the smell of the soil - the earth. The excavated earth has a unique scent.

NARRATOR: For over a millennium,

no-one knew what lay hidden here, under the grass.

Until now.

Buried in the ground, is a long lost lookalike Colosseum.

As soon as I realized the extent of the discovery

I didn't sleep for a week

and it's the best thing that's every happened to me.

NARRATOR: Finding a totally unknown, unexcavated amphitheater here,

is one of the discoveries of the century.

Well let's go ahead and kick this one off.

All right.

NARRATOR: This ancient virgin site, untouched by previous excavations,

has attracted an international team.

It's good to go.

NARRATOR: Shifting thousands of tons of soil,

they're unearthing the old arena, the audience seating,

and long lost hidden treasures.

Archaeologist, Valeria D'Aquino, grew up in the region, and works alongside Elena.

This amphitheater disappeared during the centuries

so we are awakening a big stone giant.

NARRATOR: And, there's a mystery.

The ancient people of this region weren't Roman,

they were rivals, called Etruscans.

This was one of the last areas of the Italian peninsula,

to fall under Roman rule.

Why was a Roman amphitheater built here at all?

The team knows, that the best way to find out why it was built,

is to find out when it was built.

Any new discovery could add a crucial piece to the puzzle.

(dramatic music)

The team has found a vase, deep in the ground.

It has survived in one piece, for at least 1,500 years.

Eva? Eva!

NARRATOR: They call Eva Pianini, the lead restorer, to examine the find.

EVA: Let's not touch the vessel.

NARRATOR: They are looking for any clue

that might allow them to precisely date the pottery.

MALE EXCAVATOR: I don't want to scratch the surface.

NARRATOR: Eva, sees something beneath the mud.

There's something strange on this vase.

NARRATOR: Valeria, arrives to take a closer look.

Could it be a special stamp that might help date it?

VALERIA: It's a fingerprint.

NARRATOR: The ancient potter has left their mark.

No stamp!

NARRATOR: No stamp, no date, but still a human touch from across the centuries.

Eva, sends the vase to a lab off site, for further analysis.

The hunt for clues, continues.

On another part of the site, there's a sudden commotion.

(speaking in native language)

- That's crazy. - It goes right under!

NARRATOR: The team uncovers an unexpected opening.

I'm going to get a flashlight.

NARRATOR: Elena, races to the scene.

- It's spectacular! Spectacular! - Come on, let's go down.

(laughs)

ELENA: My God!

(speaking in native language)

NARRATOR: Elena, is the first to enter this tunnel, in over 1,000 years.

(panting)

MAN: Is everything OK?

ELENA: There's a room with two arches!

(theme music)

NARRATOR: At Richborough, in southern England,

another buried Roman amphitheater, is being excavated.

Tony Wilmott, is the lead archaeologist on the dig.

It's exciting to excavate because,

it's the one building type, that the Roman's invented themselves,

without pinching it from the Greeks.

NARRATOR: Tony, is the first to excavate the amphitheater, in 150 years.

We're here to try and understand the amphitheater, try and understand

everything about it the date, the structure, the way it's built.

NARRATOR: Most of the huge, ancient structure,

remains hidden, under this vast mound. Over the years,

debris and earth have collapsed into the arena, filling it nine feet deep.

After weeks of digging, the team succeeds in exposing the arena wall.

On examination, it's clear that it's made from chalk block.

This is unlike other Roman walls in the area, which were made

from more durable stone.

Historian, Paul Pattison, is responsible for the work at Richborough.

He has come to examine the arena wall.

It's something of a surprise, the materials that they've used.

You can see it was very clearly constructed of chalk blocks,

quarried locally. Materials that were easily available, ready to hand,

rather than having to go some great distance,

might indicate that the construction is quite early.

NARRATOR: It was here at Richborough, that the Romans invaded Britain, in 43 AD.

It now seems likely that the amphitheater may have been built not long after.

It's a major discovery for the dig.

But like the Romans before them, the team must content with the English weather.

(thunder rumbling)

It's raining hard.

If the soil's wet, the team risks damaging fragments of history underfoot.

There's no choice but to stop, and take cover.

The rain has now seeped through and, uh, we, we flooded, basically,

in the deeper areas, down in the, down in the arena, um,

which means that we have to bail it out.

We'll, uh, we'll get there. This is, this is the romance of archaeology in action.

NARRATOR: In Rome, Valerie continues her investigation,

in a strange structure discovered alongside the Colosseum.

This is, I would say, residential quarters for the gladiators.

NARRATOR: There's something here that catches Valerie's eye.

The remains of a semicircular wall.

It looks like a curved arena,

which is the same shape as the arena in the Colosseum.

NARRATOR: The shape, is a clue to the function of this large space.

It's a mini Colosseum. This must've been where they were training and

preparing for these very complex games.

What this arena here shows us is,

these were not just games that were thrown together where

you get two guys to come out and fight.

These were games that took a lot of choreography and a lot of preparation.

NARRATOR: Gladiator fights began in the Fourth Century BC.

They were performed at funerals, to honor the dead.

In the First Century BC, Julius Caesar super-sized the ritual

with games of hundreds of fighters and wild animals,

to commemorate his relatives.

The games later developed into a state funded industry,

with special schools to train the gladiators,

and amphitheaters for audiences in their tens of thousands.

The Colosseum, the biggest ever ancient amphitheater,

was built by order of Emperor Vespasian, in the First Century AD.

Why did he want this colossus and its games?

Valerie, continues her search into the streets of Rome.

North of Rome, in Volterra.

(speaking in native language)

FEMALE EXCAVATOR: Bravo!

I made it!

NARRATOR: Elena, emerges from her first exploration

of the tunnel, at the newly discovered amphitheater.

ELENA: It's really great!

NARRATOR: On another part of the same site,

American architectural technologists, Paul Aubin and Mark Dietrick,

are capturing the ancient structure with a state of the art laser scanner.

- That was all filled in. - It was all filled in.

- Up to that height. - Yeah.

NARRATOR: The laser, bounces off every inch

of this ancient structure, to create a digital map of the site.

This means the team can study it, in forensic detail.

You can't describe the feeling of being really inside

of a monument that has just been discovered and is just

literally emerging out of the ground.

NARRATOR: The team hopes to find clues, to unlock the mysteries of this site.

When, and why, it was built.

- Got it? - Perfect.

NARRATOR: Their scans help to recreate the structure in its prime.

Volterra's ruins today, form a section of an oval shaped amphitheater.

Sandstone arches, once supported the seating for 10,000 spectators,

around a central arena. The team believes, that the builders cut part of

the structure into the bedrock of a hill, and dug vaulted galleries connecting

the arena to stairs, around the outside.

As the pieces of the puzzle come together, a whole amphitheater is emerging,

with each new discovery adding to the picture of a mini Colosseum.

Finally get to go into this tunnel.

Yeah, really anxious to see what it looks like in there.

NARRATOR: Mark and Paul, are keen to scan the tunnel first entered by Elena.

MARK: All right, watch your footing here.

NARRATOR: The entrance is now cleared and ready for their investigations.

AUBIN: So this hasn't seen the light of day in a long time.

- Wow. - Look at that.

NARRATOR: Their high tech, high precision equipment,

measures up to two million data points per second.

I just can't believe this. It's spectacular.

Wow.

Look how tight the joints are in those, uh, arches.

MARK: That's, that's incredible.

- Definitely try and get in there too. - What do you think Paul?

(grunts) Maybe if we lower the scanner all the way, we can,

- we can still get a nice shot in there. - AUDIN: All, right, let's do it.

MARK: All right.

AUBIN: Let's see what the scanner saw.

- Oh wow. - Wow, there's another arch over there.

AUBIN: I didn't know that other arch was back there.

I'm just wondering how many other passages must be back there.

AUBIN: That is remarkable.

NARRATOR: The scans reveal a network of unknown, hidden passageways,

that could help the team decipher when, and why, this amphitheater was built.

(theme music crescendos)

(beeping)

NARRATOR: In Rome, Valerie is working with local pilot,

Marco Giordano, to launch a drone, mounted with a high definition camera.

She hopes a fresh perspective will help her investigation.

She wants to identify the site of the Theatre of Pompey,

built 100 years before the Colosseum.

I can see the buildings today,

are following the same shape, as the Theatre of Pompey.

NARRATOR: The theatre no longer exists,

but it was originally built in the form of a semi-circle.

Spotting the tell-tale curve in the streets below,

Valerie sets out to find the location.

Well I can see from the shape of this building,

that this must be on the seating of the Theatre of Pompey.

You can see this from the way that it's curved and also,

from the way that everything is sloping backwards.

So, underneath our feet here, there would've been steps going

up that would have been the Roman seating for the stage,

which was over on this site.

NARRATOR: The ancient theatre was built by

the Roman politician and general, Pompey, in 55 BC.

It was the first permanent theatre in Rome, built not in wood, but in stone.

A vehicle for Pompey's political ambition, he used it, to win popular support.

The Theatre of Pompey really demonstrates to us,

just how connected politics and entertainment is.

It's not just about going to theatre performances,

this is about political power.

NARRATOR: Valerie, thinks the Colosseum,

a theatre for gladiatorial games, was also built to win popular support.

This is a really interesting super imposition

of the Theatre of Pompey, on the modern street plan of Rome.

If you put it close to a plan of the Colosseum,

these are quite similar dimensions.

NARRATOR: The theatre and amphitheater, are both huge, but different shapes.

One is a semi-circle, the other, a near full circle.

The amphitheater is a little bit like two theaters put together.

NARRATOR: Doubling the size of their Colosseum,

suggests Emperors Vespasian and Titus, wanted a huge audience for their games.

Valerie's investigations are closing in on the true purpose

of the giant amphitheater.

In Richborough, England, now the rainstorm has passed,

Tony and Paul, are checking progress at the newly exposed wall.

- PAUL: It's really, really come up. - TONY: Oh, it's really come up, yeah.

Yeah, I mean it hasn't been damaged by the weather either, happily.

NARRATOR: They can make out traces of ancient paint on plastered walls.

We've got blues and red and yellow. The sort of curls of that red over there,

I wouldn't be surprised if that was just the last vestiges of, of a figure.

- This is a real surprise to me. - Oh yeah, yeah.

- You know. - But to find it plastered and painted.

Yeah, if you'd asked, if you'd asked me whether it was likely,

you know, before we started, I'd say, you know, never in a million years.

NARRATOR: They believe, they've uncovered a fresco,

where the paint has been applied to wet plaster.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of that.

Nor me, nor me.

NARRATOR: An amphitheater with a fresco like this, is a rare find.

- There's none in Britain. - No, there's none in Britain.

A pattern decorative on an arena wall, it is of international importance.

NARRATOR: Walls in the Colosseum itself,

were painted too. Brilliant reds, blues and greens.

The painted arena wall, reveals how much care the Romans lavished

on the Richborough amphitheater.

(tools scraping)

It's new evidence of how important this amphitheater was

to the Romans who built it.

(rain)

But within hours, it starts raining... ...again.

They must act fast to protect the newly exposed fresco.

Well once again, we've had to cover the, uh, cover the walls,

cover the, uh, chalk walls and the wall painting so we're, uh,

we're under blue tarps again.

NARRATOR: For the second time, the weather forces the team to down tools.

(theme music)

NARRATOR: Valerie returns to the Colosseum,

to continue her investigation into why it became so important to Rome.

VALERIE : You're always kind of following the curve around.

NARRATOR: The amphitheater was built,

as an oval mega structure, measuring a third of a mile, in circumference.

Spectators could enter via 80 archways.

I can see numbers written in Roman numerals.

This one is XXXII, 32 and then,

going along, XXXIV, 34. What this is indicating,

I think, has to be the number that was on the ticket that you got,

in order to enter the arena.

NARRATOR: As a spectator, you'd be just one of thousands.

Unlike the half circle of the old Roman Theatre of Pompey,

this was a full, wrap around arena.

Audience capacity more than doubled, from 20,000 to 50,000.

VALERIE: Once inside, you would be directed to your section

of seating but, you didn't get to choose what it was.

As you go further up to the top of the amphitheater, it gets steeper.

You go along dark corridors and you come out,

into a section of seating, which has been assigned to you.

NARRATOR: Seats were allocated according to social status.

The place with the worst view, was right at the top.

It may well have been standing room only and

the people who stood there, were the slaves and the women.

NARRATOR: Those with the greatest status, sat closest to the Emperor,

in his Imperial box. First, were the elite senators,

sitting in the marble rows above them, were a noble rank of Roman knights,

known as the equites.

Above them, were groups of soldiers, adolescent boys with tutors

and married men, with other, ordinary citizens of Rome.

In the highest levels, were Rome's lower classes,

enslaved people and poorer citizens, along with the women and children.

When you went to the games at the amphitheater,

you really were in a very literal sense, put in your place.

NARRATOR: The massive wrap around theatre, had another hidden function.

Engineering a 360 degree space,

put everyone in full view of everyone else.

It's not just the gladiators who were put on show, it was the audience, too.

It was a very socially reinforcing act,

to go to the amphitheater because, you really understood your place in society.

NARRATOR: It was a social performance,

one that reinforced the hierarchy of Roman society.

The Colosseum wasn't built simply to entertain the people,

it was built, to keep them under control.

In Volterra,

Mark and Paul, review their laser scans in 3D.

- You can really start to see... - The shape...

AUBIN: The overall shape.

MARK: I mean, look at that, this was all just a big grass field.

NARRATOR: The 3D imaging, allows them to identify the underlying engineering.

Not just the tunnels, but the whole amphitheater.

We're really getting a nice hint of the elliptical shape now.

AUBIN: Yeah, that's really neat.

MARK: We've got it so much more clearer now the geometry of this amazing monument.

NARRATOR: The digital data, reveals patterns not obvious to the naked eye.

The hope, is that the hidden geometry will hold the key to understanding when,

and why, this amphitheater was built.

But Mark and Paul's investigations don't stop here.

Oh this scan position is absolutely perfect,

it's going to allow us to the get the tops of these walls over here.

NARRATOR: This is the ancient theatre at Volterra,

not far from the newly discovered amphitheater.

It was built at the end of the First Century BC.

The scans of this building can be compared with the scans of the amphitheater.

Analysis of the theatre's seating,

and the amphitheater’s arena, suggests they may have been

built by the same architect for the Caecinas,

a local clan, not of Roman, but Etruscan origin.

In the First Century BC, with Volterra under Roman rule,

Aulus Caecina, wrote a tirade against Caesar and was banished.

But over the next 100 years, Caecinas became renowned senators in Rome.

In Volterra, Caecinas displayed their grand ambitions,

with lavish Roman buildings, the theatre, and now it seems, the amphitheater too.

Finally, with the help of the 3D scans, the team is solving the mystery

of when and why, this ancient structure was built.

The evidence suggests that it was constructed around the same time,

and for the same reason, as the theatre,

as a testimony to Roman power in the reign of Emperor Augustus.

An amphitheater is a symbol of the Roman power.

They are very important from a political point of view.

These kinds of buildings are very important for us

to understand the relationship within Rome.

NARRATOR: The amphitheater was more than just a spectacular building,

an arena for gladiatorial games,

it was a symbol of Rome and Romaness.

Not only in Italy, but in places like Richborough,

on the outer reaches of the Empire.

(theme music)

NARRATOR: In Richborough, England, Tony and his team, are investigating why

this amphitheater was built 800 miles from Rome.

Battling the weather, the team is working on the plastered and painted arena wall,

when they begin to uncover a puzzling structure alongside it.

(encouraging music)

Once it's fully dug out, Tony finds a clue to its function.

What we have is a slight stain here,

a nice straight line against the mortar floor.

This is probably the base of a timber frame door, of this, uh, of this entrance.

NARRATOR: Evidence of a door onto the arena,

leads Tony to an exciting conclusion.

What this is, is a carcer. It's a place where animals or people,

waiting to go into the arena, would be incarcerated, where we get that word from.

It's a chamber, off the back of the arena wall.

This is really the waiting room, for anything that's going to die in the arena.

This would be a very, very grim place. This is, this is where, you know,

the fear would click in, um, before that door rose and,

you went to meet whatever it was in front of you in the arena.

NARRATOR: This significant find,

reveals how even many hundreds of miles from Rome, spectacle is still key.

We have got people coming and going, uh, from the rest

of the Roman Empire, and this is what they might expect.

These are people who are soldiers, they are traders, they are imperial officials,

uh, and they would want to have, you know, those,

those aspects of Roman culture that they could get anywhere else in the Empire.

NARRATOR: This amphitheater, built soon after

the invasion of Britain in 43 AD, is the vanguard of Empire,

not just for the conquerors, but for the vanquished too.

PAUL: It's about spreading the idea of the Roman way.

And the way they do that, is that they try and, uh, convince the

conquered populations, that this new way of life, is a better way of life.

The amphitheater, and the things that went on in an amphitheater,

is one way of doing that. We see this all over the Roman Empire.

NARRATOR: 230 amphitheaters, mini Colosseums,

have been discovered across the Empire.

Built between the First Century BC and the Fourth Century AD,

they stretch from England to Africa.

Some of them still stand. At Pompeii and Verrona in Italy.

At Arles in France, Italica in Spain.

El Djem in Tunisia and Pula in Croatia.

Their forms of entertainment were always the same,

a way for the Roman rulers, to spread their Roman values.

Enemies of Rome, faced public execution.

They were crucified, burnt at the steak, or mauled by wild animals.

Gladiators wore armor, inspired by ancient enemies,

and mythical Roman characters.

They fought with different weapons and armor,

to show off Roman values of courage and valor.

(dramatic music)

Even facing certain death, a gladiator would be expected to die, bravely.

(cheering)

The amphitheater, Romanized its conquered peoples.

But Rome, needed Romanizing too.

And this would be the task of the greatest amphitheater of them all,

the Colosseum.

(theme music)

NARRATOR: All paths, lead back to the Colosseum,

and Valerie, is at the crux of her investigation.

Rome was the center of a huge empire. And like all huge empires,

it has a lot of migration to its center.

So, most of the people who are sitting around this arena,

probably originated somewhere else.

But the one thing that kind of made them Roman,

that actually created a feeling of Romaness is,

that they sat and watched this spectacle.

NARRATOR: At the Colosseum, the Emperor made sure he personified Rome.

He had his grand entrance, the Imperial Gate, and he sat

in his Imperial Box for all to see.

This is the best view in the arena, and it's not only the best view,

it's the best place to be viewed.

We should be in no doubt that it was putting on games like this,

that was really crucial to the Emperor keeping power.

NARRATOR: The genius of Emperor Vespasian and his son,

builders of the Colosseum, was to harness the gladiatorial games,

to the power of the Emperor.

But it wouldn't last forever.

In Volterra,

as the team pieces together the story of the once

buried amphitheater, Valeria uncovers a mysterious structure.

This is an opening for sure, probably a window.

Here you an see the contact point between these blocks

and it means that this opening has been filled in.

NARRATOR: This clear line between the original,

and new stone, shows the window has been bricked up.

It points to a radical shift in the amphitheater’s history.

This testifies probably to the phase in which this building has been abandoned

maybe at the beginning of the fifth century AD.

NARRATOR: The beginning of the Fifth Century AD,

is around the time the gladiator games were banned throughout the Roman Empire.

Was this blocked up window, the beginning of the end for the amphitheater?

In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine, outlawed the persecution of Christians,

and his reforms began to the change the games.

He banned crucifixion for convicted criminals,

but allowed gladiator fights to persist.

In 404 AD, a Christian monk tried to stop a gladiatorial contest,

but was stoned to death by the crowd.

It's said that the sight turned the heart of the Christian Emperor Honorius,

who then banned the games altogether.

In a new Christian era, the Colosseum came to be seen in a different light.

This inscription, commemorates the Christians,

who were killed under the Roman Empire.

This became a place that symbolized all of the Christian martyrs, who died.

It symbolizes the inhumanity, of what was happening in the arena,

when people were being executed in this horrific way.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: The Roman Empire was the most powerful on Earth.

And this amphitheater, the magnificent Colosseum, was its monument.

Archaeologists are discovering, that an amphitheater symbolized Rome,

wherever it was built.

From the provinces, to the outer corners of Empire,

their excavations are revealing how amphitheaters came to stand

for the might of Rome, for social order,

military valor and imperial power.

Symbolism, so powerful, that amphitheaters represent

the Roman Empire to this day.

(theme music crescendos)