The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins to the Colosseum
Cambridge University Press, 6/4/2009
EAN 9780521744355, ISBN10: 0521744350
Paperback, 378 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
This is the first book to analyze the evolution of the Roman amphitheatre as an architectural form. Katherine Welch addresses the critical period in the history of this building type: its origins and dissemination under the Republic, from the third to first centuries BC; its monumentalization as an architectural form under Augustus; and its canonization as a building type with the Colosseum (AD 80). She explores the social and political contexts of each of these phases in detail. The study then shifts focus to the reception of the amphitheatre and the games in the Greek East, a part of the Empire that was, initially, deeply fractured about the new realities of Roman rule.
Introduction
the 'imperial' interpretation of arena games
1. Arena games during the Republic
2. Origins of amphitheatre architecture
3. Stone amphitheatres during the republican period
4. The amphitheatre between republic and empire
monumentalization of the amphitheatre building
5. The colosseum
canonization of the amphitheatre building type
6. The reception of the amphitheatre in the Greek world in the early imperial period
Conclusion
Appendix
amphitheatres of republican date.