Ionic Compounds Worksheet: Fill & Download for Free

English: Memorize all this grammar related stuff. Then get told its incorrect for some godforsaken reason next year, and you have to learn a whole bunch more grammar. But hey, we don’t make you write in cursive anymoreMath: Why yes Mr. (teacher name here) I totally understand that massive, absurdly complex diagram on how this worksAlgebra: Adding letters to math instantly makes it 10x as complicatedPE: You love it, or you hate it. NO EXCEPTIONSChemistry: You want to see explosions? Well fuck you, do this worksheet on ionic compounds insteadBiology: The class where you discover that all your classmates are actually 7 years old. (being asked to read page 69 is funny, apparently.)French: You only chose this because you had to take a language.Japanese: See French.Cooking/Home Economics/Food Tech: The class where you realize that %90 of the class is hopelessly incompetent at preparing anything more complex than a microwave dinner.Digital Tech: You seriously think the teacher can’t see you playing games?Okay, that’s all, and conclusions are hard, so bye!

A Level Chemistry MCQs: Multiple Choice Questions and AnswersA level chemistry multiple choice questions has 1749 MCQs. A level chemistry quiz questions and answers, MCQs on A level chemistry, atomic structure, chemical bonding, chemistry of life, alcohols and esters, benzene, chemical compounds, analytical chemistry MCQs with answers, carbonyl compounds, carboxylic acids, acyl compounds, electrode potential, electrons in atoms, enthalpy change, equilibrium, group IV, II and VII, halogenoalkanes, hydrocarbon MCQs and quiz for SAT/ACT/GAT/GRE/CLEP/GED practice tests. AS level chemistry multiple choice quiz questions and answers, chemistry exam revision and study guide with practice tests for SAT/ACT/GAT/GRE/CLEP/GED for online exam prep and interviews. Chemistry interview questions and answers to ask, to prepare and to study for jobs interviews and career MCQs with answer keys. Alcohols and esters quiz has 27 multiple choice questions. Atomic structure and theory quiz has 37 multiple choice questions. Benzene chemical compound quiz has 41 multiple choice questions with answers. Carbonyl compounds quiz has 29 multiple choice questions. Carboxylic acids and acyl compounds quiz has 29 multiple choice questions. Chemical bonding quiz has 213 multiple choice questions. Chemistry of life quiz has 29 multiple choice questions. Electrode potential quiz has 62 multiple choice questions. Electrons in atoms quiz has 53 multiple choice questions. Enthalpy change quiz has 45 multiple choice questions. Equilibrium quiz has 50 multiple choice questions. Group IV quiz has 53 multiple choice questions. Groups II and VII quiz has 181 multiple choice questions. Halogenoalkanes quiz has 33 multiple choice questions and answers. Hydrocarbons quiz has 53 multiple choice questions. Introduction to organic chemistry quiz has 52 multiple choice questions. Ionic equilibria quiz has 56 multiple choice questions. Lattice energy quiz has 33 multiple choice questions. Moles and equations quiz has 50 multiple choice questions. Nitrogen and sulfur quiz has 89 multiple choice questions. Organic and nitrogen compounds quiz has 54 multiple choice questions. Periodicity quiz has 202 multiple choice questions. Polymerization quiz has 36 multiple choice questions and answers. Rates of reaction quiz has 39 multiple choice questions. Reaction kinetics quiz has 52 multiple choice questions. Redox reactions and electrolysis quiz has 55 multiple choice questions. States of matter quiz has 66 multiple choice questions. Transition elements quiz has 30 multiple choice questions. Chemistry interview questions and answers, MCQs on acid base equilibria, acidic oxides and basic oxides, acidity of carboxylic acids, acyl chlorides, addition reactions of alkenes, alcohols reactions, aldehydes and ketone testing, alkanes reaction, alkenes and formulas, aluminum oxide, amides in chemistry, amines, amino acids, ammonia and ammonium compounds, amount of substance, arena’s reaction, atom facts, atomic number of group II metals, atomization and electron affinity, atoms and molecules mass, balancing equation period 3 chlorides, balancing equations reactions with chlorine, balancing equations reactions with oxygen, bond angle and bond energy, bond energies and enthalpies, bond energy and bond length, bonding and physical properties, bonding energy in chemistry, bonding nature of period 3 oxides, born Haber cycle, buffer solutions, catalysis, catalysts, cells and batteries, silicon oxide, ceramics, chemical bonding electron pair and repulsion theory, chemical bonding types, chemical formula and equations, chemical industry equilibria, chemical properties of chlorine, e-plimsoll values, A level chemistry worksheets for competitive exams preparation.

Rome’s Colosseum Was Once a Wild, Tangled GardenRare plants and Romantic poetry tell a forgotten history of the ancient ruin.PAUL COOPER DECEMBER 5, 2017"Interior View of the Colosseum in Rome," 1804FRANÇOIS-MARIUS GRANETWhen the botanist Richard Deakin examined Rome’s Colosseum in the 1850s, he found 420 species of plant growing among the ruins. There were plants common in Italy: cypresses and hollies, capers, knapweed and thistle, plants “of the leguminous pea tribe,” and 56 varieties of grass. But some of the rarer flowers growing there were a botanical mystery. They were found nowhere else in Europe.To explain this, botanists came up with a seemingly unlikely explanation: These rare flowers had been brought as seeds on the fur and in the stomachs of animals like lions and giraffes. Romans shipped these creatures from Africa to perform and fight in the arena. Deakin takes care to mention in Flora of the Colosseum of Rome that the “noble and graceful animals from the wilds of Africa ... let loose in their wild and famished fury, to tear each other to pieces”—along with “numberless human beings.” As the animals fought and died in the arena, they left their botanical passengers behind to flourish and one day overtake the building itself.Inside the Colosseum,” 1780 (Francis Towne)This incredible piece of conjecture is hard to prove, but it shows just how much of the story of a ruined place can be found growing in the cracks between broken stones. Deakin, an Englishman from Royal Tunbridge Wells, opens his volume by calling the plants growing in the Colosseum “a link in the memory” that “flourish in triumph upon the ruins.” He lists their ancient medicinal properties, notes the species of fern that must have grown around the Fountain of Egeria, and pauses at one point over a particular species of grass that might have ringed the banks of Nero’s fish pond. The grasses that grow “in matted tufts,” he writes, “seem to be perennial weepers ... mourning over the vast destruction that reigns around them.”Today, the Colosseum stands bald and bare. But for centuries, it was a wild and overgrown place, and its lost history as a primeval garden ruin has left traces in the art and poetry of countless generations that walked among its stands.By the time the artists and painters of the Romantic Age began to turn their interest to the ruins of ancient Rome, the Colosseum had suffered greatly. Since the days of Rome’s flourishing, the great arena had been a cemetery, a quarry of quicklime, a rich family’s fortress, and a bullring. In the 16th century, it was even explored as a site for a wool factory staffed by former sex workers. It had been damaged by fire and struck by earthquakes five times, including one in 1349 that caused the entire outer south side to collapse.Due to the belief that Christian martyrs had once been fed to the lions in the arena, the Colosseum was also a popular pilgrimage spot. Despite little evidence that Christians were ever actually killed in the arena, in 1749, Pope Benedict XIV endorsed the view that the Colosseum was a sacred site, outlawing the use of its stones in other buildings. By that point, the arena was a crumbling ruin. But it had become the home for a great variety of sumptuous greenery.The Interior of the Colosseum,” c.1775 (William Pars)Plant life was so abundant in the ruined arena that at certain times in history, peasants had to pay for permission to collect the hay and herbs that grew there. It had become its own miniature landscape, and formed a perfect microclimate for biodiversity: dry and warm on its south side, cool and damp in the north. Pink dianthus grew down in the lower galleries, while white anemones dotted the stands during spring.When the Italian scholar Poggio Bracciolini visited in 1430, he mourned over the site of the ruins. “This spectacle of the world, how it is fallen!” he exclaimed. “How changed! How defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines.” But others saw an alluring beauty in the arena’s greenery. Charles Dickens, in his 1846 Pictures From Italy, talks about his impressions on first seeing the Colosseum, and mentions the plant life there in particular detail, as a natural force reclaiming the site of past glory:To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches overgrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its chink and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth ... is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable.By the 19th century, countless painters and artists had visited the Colosseum and painted vistas of the arena’s overgrown stands and crumbling stones. The Scottish painter William Leighton Leitch (1804–1883) painted the Colosseum as an imposing empty space, a monumental hanging garden reminiscent of Babylon. Joseph Mallord William Turner’s “The Colosseum, Rome, by Moonlight” (1819) shows an almost tropical garden growing in the arena’s shadows:The Colosseum, Rome, by Moonlight,” 1819 (Joseph Mallord William Turner)For Ippolito Caffi, meanwhile, the ruins became an almost nightmarish vision, a primeval jungle ruin where strange lights dance between the stones wreathed in matted vines. The paintings that perhaps most effectively portray the strange, paradoxical atmosphere of the Colosseum in those days are those of Danish painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), who captures the abundant greenery growing in the Colosseum’s stands as well as its lost history as a place of Christian worship, but does so with a faultlessly modern eye, never giving in to the Romantic excesses of some of his forebears. His paintings are by turns infused with a solemn quiet, and full of the life of common people.Paintings like these inspired writers as well. In 1833, the then-unknown Edgar Allan Poe was able to publish a poem called “The Coliseum,” though he had never set foot in Italy. The poem mentions the flora of the arena particularly, with the lines, “Here, where the dames of Rome their yellow hair / Wav’d to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle.”Earlier, in 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote lyrically of the way that the arena had itself become a natural entity, a landscape rather than a building.It has been changed by time into the image of an amphitheater of rocky hills overgrown by the wild olive, the myrtle, and the fig tree, and threaded by little paths which wind among its ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries: The copsewood overshadows you as you wander through its labyrinths, and the wild weeds of this climate of flowers bloom under your feet.Lord Byron, in the fourth canto of his “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” also speaks of the “The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, / Like laurels on the bald first Caesar’s head.” For him, the gaps and blanknesses in the ruins form portals to another time, bringing back the dead and unsettling the ruin-gazer.But the abundant green life of the Colosseum was soon to come to an end. In 1870, Rome was captured by Italian nationalist forces, the final defeat of the Papal States in the war to unify the Italian peninsula. The Pope became an exile in his own palace, surrounded by armed soldiers who stopped him from appearing in public. A year later, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, a new nation that was to be modern, democratic, and secular. As revenge for the Pope’s intransigence, Catholic convents, churches, and hospitals were seized for barracks. The Colosseum, too, was swept up in this upheaval.Interior of the Colosseum, Rome,” 1832 (Thomas Cole)As nation-states were being born around Europe and the rest of the world in the late 19th century, many of these new states reached back into their pasts to find a foundation on which to build their identities. The new Italian nation found this opportunity in the lost splendor of the Colosseum. The Italian government soon handed control of the arena over to archaeologists, who set about removing religious icons installed by the Christians and clearing it of its invasive greenery.The work of these early archaeologists continued into the 20th century, and the Colosseum was finally totally denuded and its arena excavated under Mussolini’s fascist government, who sought even further to associate the modern Italian state with the monuments of ancient Rome.Despite this loss, the Colosseum is today still a haven for plants. A studycarried out between 1990 and 2000 found 243 distinct species still growing there, although this number is scarcely half what Deakin observed in the 19th century.Plants growing today in the Colosseum include very rare species like Asphodelus fistulosus and Sedum dasyphyllum, which scientists believe can only survive when sheltered by the arena, a sanctuary from the urban environment outside. Due to increased pollution and the rising temperature of the city, the flora inside the ruined walls are beginning to change: Plants suited to a warmer and more arid climate are beginning to proliferate at the expense of those more used to cool and damp.“An Interior View of the Colosseum, Rome,” undated (John Warwick Smith)From the wild and magical ruins of the Romantic Age to the haunted and skeletal ruins of Dresden and Stalingrad, the place ruins hold in the collective imagination has always been as unstable as the crumbling structures themselves. No one sees the same ruin. Certain parts of a crumbling building, the ancient stones and arches, for instance, are deemed “proper.” Other parts, like the plant life and the later historical stages of the ruin, are deemed “improper” and are removed.Increasing attention is being paid to these intangible elements of a building’s story, and archaeologists and conservationists alike are having lively debates about how the atmosphere of these sites—the inspiration for so many artists—can be preserved. Deakin believed that the wild spirit of a place can “teach us hopeful and soothing lessons, amid the sadness of a bygone age.” Today if you walk around the Colosseum, you might even see the occasional rebellious caper plant growing there, in defiance of security.We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] COOPER is a writer based in Norwich, England. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy and Asymptote.Source: The AtlanticAncient History EncyclopediaColosseumFundraiser: Mesopotamia Teaching MaterialsPlease help us create teaching materials on Mesopotamia (including several complete lessons with worksheets, activities, answers, essay questions, and more), which will be free to download for teachers all over the world.Definitionby Mark Cartwrightpublished on 29 May 2018Send to Google ClassroomThe Colosseum in Rome. by William West (CC BY-NC-SA)The Colosseum or Flavian Amphitheatre is a large ellipsoid arena built in the first century CE under the Romanemperors of the Flavian dynasty: Vespasian (69-79 CE), Titus (79-81 CE) and Domitian (81-96 CE). The arena was used to host spectacular public entertainment events such as gladiator fights, wild animal hunts and public executions from 80 CE to 404 CE.Purpose & DimensionsThe construction of the Colosseum was begun in 72 CE in the reign of Vespasian on the site that was once the lake and gardens of Emperor Nero’s Golden House. This was drained and as a precaution against potential earthquake damage concrete foundations six metres deep were put down. The building was part of a wider construction programme begun by Emperor Vespasian in order to restore Rome to its former glory prior to the turmoil of the recent civil war. As Vespasian claimed on his coins with the inscription Roma resurgens, the new buildings --the Temple of Peace, Sanctuary of Claudius and the Colosseum-- would show the world that ‘resurgent’ Rome was still very much the centre of the ancient world.The Flavian Amphitheatre (or Amphiteatrum Flavium as it was known to the Romans) opened for business in 80 CE in the reign of Titus, Vespasian’s eldest son, with a one hundred day gladiator spectacular and was finally completed in the reign of the other son, Domitian. The finished building was like nothing seen before and situated between the wide valley joining the Esquiline, Palatine and Caelian hills, it dominated the city. The biggest building of its kind, it had the following features:four stories.a height of 45 metres high (150 feet).a width of 189 x 156 metres.an oval arena measuring 87.5 m by 54.8 m.a roofed awning of canvas.capacity for 50,000 spectators.The theatre was principally built from locally quarried limestone with internal linking lateral walls of brick, concrete and volcanic stone (tufa). Vaults were built of lighter pumice stone. The sheer size of the theatre was the possible origin of the popular name of Colosseo, however, a more likely origin may have been as a reference to the colossal gilded bronze statue of Nero which was converted to resemble the sun-god and which stood outside the theatre until the 4th century CE.Colosseum Cross-Section. by S. R. Koehler (Public Domain)ArchitectureThe theatre was spectacular even from the outside with monumental open arcades on each of the first three floors presenting statue-filled arches. The first floor carried Doric columns, the second Ionic and the third level Corinthian. The top floor had Corinthian pilasters and small rectangular windows. There were no less than eighty entrances, seventy-six of these were numbered and tickets were sold for each. Two entrances were used for the gladiators, one of which was known as the Porta Libitina (the Roman goddess of death) and was the door through which the dead were removed from the arena. The other door was the Porta Sanivivaria through which victors and those allowed to survive the contests left the arena. The final two doors were reserved exclusively for the Emperor’s use.Inside, the theatre must have been even more impressive when the three tiers of seats were filled with all sections of the populace. Encircling the arena was a wide marble terrace (podium) protected by a wall within which were the prestigious ring-side seats or boxes from where the Emperor and other dignitaries would watch the events. Beyond this area, marble seats were divided into zones: those for richer private citizens, middle-class citizens, slaves and foreigners and finally wooden seats and standing room in the flat-roofed colonnade on the top tier reserved for women and the poor. On top of this roof platform sailors were employed to manage the large awning (velarium) which protected the spectators from rain or provided shade on hot days. The different levels of seats were accessed via broad staircases with each landing and seat being numbered. The total capacity for the Colosseum was approximately 45,000 seated and 5,000 standing spectators. One of the oldest depictions of the Colosseum appeared on the coins of Titus and shows three tiers, statues in the upper external arches and the large column fountain - the Meta Sudans - which stood nearby.The scene of all the action --the sanded arena floor-- was also eye-catching. It was often landscaped with rocks and trees to resemble exotic locations during the staging of wild animal hunts (venatiories). There were also ingenious underground lifting mechanisms which allowed for the sudden introduction of wild animals into the proceedings. On some occasions, notably the opening series of shows, the arena was flooded in order to host mock naval battles. Under the arena floor (and visible to the modern visitor) was a maze of small compartment rooms, corridors and animal pens.Games & ShowsAlthough historically tied to earlier Etruscan games which emphasised the rites of death, the shows in the Roman arenas were designed simply to entertain, however, they also demonstrated the wealth and generosity of the Emperor and provided an opportunity for ordinary people to actually see their ruler in person. Emperors were usually present, even when they had no particular taste for the events such as Marcus Aurelius. Titus and Claudius were noted for shouting at the gladiators and other members of the crowd and Commodus himself performed in the arena hundreds of times. One vestige of the earlier Etruscan tradition continued, however, with the presence of the attendant whose job was to finish off any fallen gladiator by a blow to the forehead. This attendant wore the mythical costume of either Charon (the Etruscan minister of Fate) or Hermes, the messenger god who accompanied the dead down to the underworld. The presence of the Vestal Virgins, the Pontifex Maximus and the divine Emperor also added a certain pseudo-religious element to the proceedings, at least in Rome.Dionysos, Roman Mosaic by Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA)However, blood sports and death were the real purpose of the spectacular shows and an entire profession arose to meet the massive entertainment requirements of the populace - for example under Claudius there were 93 games a year. Spectacles often lasted from dawn till nightfall and the gladiators usually kicked-off the show with a chariot procession accompanied by trumpets and even a hydraulic organ and then dismounted and circled the arena, each saluting the emperor with the famous line: Ave, imperator, morituri te salutant! (Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you!).Comic or fantasy duels often began the day’s combat events, these were usually fought between women, dwarfs or the disabled using wooden weapons. The following blood sports between various classes of gladiators included weapons such as swords, lances, tridents, and nets and could also involve female combatants. Next came the animal hunts with the bestiarii -- the professional beast killers. The animals had no chance in these contests and were most often killed at a distance using spears or arrows. There were dangerous animals such as lions, tigers, bears, elephants, leopards, hippopotamuses and bulls but there were also events with defenceless animals such as deer, ostriches, giraffes and even whales. Hundreds, sometimes even thousands of animals, were butchered in a single day’s event and often brutality was deliberate in order to achieve crudeliter -- the correct amount of cruelty.Under Domitian, dramas were also held in the Colosseum but with a bloodthirsty realism such as using real condemned prisoners for executions, a real Hercules was burned on a funeral pyre and in the role of Laureolus a prisoner was actually crucified. The Colosseum was also the scene of many executions during the lunch-time lull (when the majority of spectators went for lunch), particularly the killing of Christian martyrs. Seen as an unacceptable challenge to the authority of Pagan Rome and the divinity of the Emperor, Christians were thrown to lions, shot down with arrows, roasted alive and killed in a myriad of cruelly inventive ways.Bronze Sestertius with Colosseum by Peter Roan (CC BY-NC-SA)Later HistoryIn 404 CE, with the changing times and tastes, the games of the Colosseum were finally abolished by Emperor Honorius, although condemned criminals were still made to fight wild animals for a further century. The building itself would face a chequered future, although it fared better than many other imperial buildings during the decline of the Empire. Damaged by earthquake in 422 CE it was repaired by the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III. Repairs were also made in 467, 472 and 508 CE. The venue continued to be used for wrestling matches and animal hunts up to the 6th century CE but the building began to show signs of neglect and grass was left to grow in the arena. In the 12th century CE it became a fortress of the Frangipani and Annibaldi families. The great earthquake of 1231 CE caused the collapse of the southwest facade and the Colosseum became a vast source of building material - stones and columns were removed, iron clamps holding blocks together were stolen and statues were melted for lime. Indeed, Pope Alexander VI actually leased the Colosseum as a quarry. Despite this crumbling away though, the venue was still used for the occasional religious procession and play during the 15th century CE.From the Renaissance period both artists and architects like Michelangelo and later tourists on their Grand Tour took a renewed interest in Roman architecture and ruins. As a consequence, in 1744 CE Pope Benedict XIV prohibited any further removal of masonry from the Colosseum and consecrated it in memory of the Christian martyrs who had lost their lives there. This, however, did not stop locals using it as an animal stables and its neglect is reflected in the curious work of Richard Deakin who in 1844 CE catalogued over 420 plant varieties thriving in the ruin, some rare and even locally unique -- perhaps originating from the food given to the exotic animals all those centuries before. The 19th century CE did, though, begin to see the fortunes of the once great amphitheatre improve. The Papal authorities sought to restore parts of the building, notably the east and western ends, with the latter being supported by a massive buttress. Finally, in 1871 CE the Italian archaeologist Pietro Rosa removed all of the post-Roman additions to reveal, despite its degradation, a still magnificent monument, a poignant and enduring testimony to both the skills and the vices of the Roman world.EDITORIAL REVIEWThis article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.BibliographyMasi, S. Rome & The Vatican. Bonechi, Rome, 1989Oleson, J.P. The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World. Oxford University Press, USA, 2009.Quenell, P. The Colosseum. Newsweek Book Division, New York, 1971TranslationsWe want people all over the world to learn about history. Help us and translate this definition into another language!About the AuthorMark CartwrightIMark is a history writer based in Italy. His special interests include pottery, architecture, world mythology and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share in common. He holds an MA in Political Philosophy and is the Publishing Director at AHE.HISTORY | Watch Full Episodes of Your Favorite ShowsSmithsonianSecrets of the ColosseumA German archaeologist has finally deciphered the Roman amphitheater’s amazing underground labyrinthDuring gladiatorial games in the arena, a vast network of man-powered machinery made animals and scenery appear from beneath a wooden floor as if by magic. (Dave Yoder)During gladiatorial games in the arena, a vast network of man-powered machinery made animals and scenery appear from beneath a wooden floor as if by magic. (Dave Yoder)By Tom MuellerSMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE | SUBSCRIBEJANUARY 2011The floor of the colosseum, where you might expect to see a smooth ellipse of sand, is instead a bewildering array of masonry walls shaped in concentric rings, whorls and chambers, like a huge thumbprint. The confusion is compounded as you descend a long stairway at the eastern end of the stadium and enter ruins that were hidden beneath a wooden floor during the nearly five centuries the arena was in use, beginning with its inauguration in A.D. 80. Weeds grow waist-high between flagstones; caper and fig trees sprout from dank walls, which are a patchwork of travertine slabs, tufa blocks and brickwork. The walls and the floor bear numerous slots, grooves and abrasions, obviously made with great care, but for purposes that you can only guess.The guesswork ends when you meet Heinz-Jürgen Beste of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, the leading authority on the hypogeum, the extraordinary, long-neglected ruins beneath the Colosseum floor. Beste has spent much of the past 14 years deciphering the hypogeum—from the Greek word for “underground”—and this past September I stood with him in the heart of the great labyrinth.See where a semicircular slice has been chipped out of the wall?” he said, resting a hand on the brickwork. The groove, he added, created room for the four arms of a cross-shaped, vertical winch called a capstan, which men would push as they walked in a circle. The capstan post rested in a hole that Beste indicated with his toe. “A team of workmen at the capstan could raise a cage with a bear, leopard or lion inside into position just below the level of the arena. Nothing bigger than a lion would have fit.” He pointed out a diagonal slot angling down from the top of the wall to where the cage would have hung. “A wooden ramp slid into that slot, allowing the animal to climb from the cage straight into the arena,” he said.Just then, a workman walked above our heads, across a section of the arena floor that Colosseum officials reconstructed a decade ago to give some sense of how the stadium looked in its heyday, when gladiators fought to their death for the public’s entertainment. The footfalls were surprisingly loud. Beste glanced up, then smiled. “Can you imagine how a few elephants must have sounded?”Today, many people can imagine this for themselves. Following a $1.4 million renovation project, the hypogeum was opened to the public this past October.Trained as an architect specializing in historic buildings and knowledgeable about Greek and Roman archaeology, Beste might be best described as a forensic engineer. Reconstructing the complex machinery that once existed under the Colosseum floor by examining the hypogeum’s skeletal remains, he has demonstrated the system’s creativity and precision, as well as its central role in the grandiose spectacles of imperial Rome.When Beste and a team of German and Italian archaeolgists first began exploring the hypogeum, in 1996, he was baffled by the intricacy and sheer size of its structures: “I understood why this site had never been properly analyzed before then. Its complexity was downright horrifying.”The disarray reflected some 1,500 years of neglect and haphazard construction projects, layered one upon another. After the last gladiatorial spectacles were held in the sixth century, Romans quarried stones from the Colosseum, which slowly succumbed to earthquakes and gravity. Down through the centuries, people filled the hypogeum with dirt and rubble, planted vegetable gardens, stored hay and dumped animal dung. In the amphitheater above, the enormous vaulted passages sheltered cobblers, blacksmiths, priests, glue-makers and money-changers, not to mention a fortress of the Frangipane, 12th-century warlords. By then, local legends and pilgrim guidebooks described the crumbling ring of the amphitheater’s walls as a former temple to the sun. Necromancers went there at night to summon demons.In the late 16th century, Pope Sixtus V, the builder of Renaissance Rome, tried to transform the Colosseum into a wool factory, with workshops on the arena floor and living quarters in the upper stories. But owing to the tremendous cost, the project was abandoned after he died in 1590.In the years that followed, the Colosseum became a popular destination for botanists due to the variety of plant life that had taken root among the ruins. As early as 1643, naturalists began compiling detailed catalogs of the flora, listing 337 different species.By the early 19th century, the hypogeum’s floor lay buried under some 40 feet of earth, and all memory of its function—or even its existence—had been obliterated. In 1813 and 1874, archaeological excavations attempting to reach it were stymied by flooding groundwater. Finally, under Benito Mussolini’s glorification of Classical Rome in the 1930s, workers cleared the hypogeum of earth for good.Beste and his colleagues spent four years using measuring tapes, plumb lines, spirit levels and generous quantities of paper and pencils to produce technical drawings of the entire hypogeum. “Today we’d probably use a laser scanner for this work, but if we did, we’d miss the fuller understanding that old-fashioned draftsmanship with pencil and paper gives you,” Beste says. “When you do this slow, stubborn drawing, you’re so focused that what you see goes deep into the brain. Gradually, as you work, the image of how things were takes shape in your subconscious.”Unraveling the site’s tangled history, Beste identified four major building phases and numerous modifications over nearly 400 years of continuous use. Colosseum architects made some changes to allow new methods of stagecraft. Other changes were accidental; a fire sparked by lightning in A.D. 217 gutted the stadium and sent huge blocks of travertine plunging into the hypogeum. Beste also began to decipher the odd marks and incisions in the masonry, having had a solid grounding in Roman mechanical engineering from excavations in southern Italy, where he learned about catapults and other Roman war machines. He also studied the cranes that the Romans used to move large objects, such as 18-foot-tall marble blocks.By applying his knowledge to eyewitness accounts of the Colosseum’s games, Beste was able to engage in some deductive reverse engineering. Paired vertical channels that he found in certain walls, for example, seemed likely to be tracks for guiding cages or other compartments between the hypogeum and the arena. He’d been working at the site for about a year before he realized that the distinctive semicircular slices in the walls near the vertical channels were likely made to leave space for the revolving bars of large capstans that powered the lifting and lowering of cages and platforms. Then other archaeological elements fell into place, such as the holes in the floor, some with smooth bronze collars, for the capstan shafts, and the diagonal indentations for ramps. There were also square mortises that had held horizontal beams, which supported both the capstans and the flooring between the upper and lower stories of the hypogeum.To test his ideas, Beste built three scale models. “We made them with the same materials that children use in kindergarten—toothpicks, cardboard, paste, tracing paper,” he says. “But our measurements were precise, and the models helped us to understand how these lifts actually worked.” Sure enough, all the pieces meshed into a compact, powerful elevator system, capable of quickly delivering wild beasts, scenery and equipment into the arena. At the peak of its operation, he concluded, the hypogeum contained 60 capstans, each two stories tall and turned by four men per level. Forty of these capstans lifted animal cages throughout the arena, while the remaining 20 were used to raise scenery sitting on hinged platforms measuring 12 by 15 feet.Beste also identified 28 smaller platforms (roughly 3 by 3 feet) around the outer rim of the arena—also used for scenery—that were operated through a system of cables, ramps, hoists and counterweights. He even discovered traces of runoff canals that he believes were used to drain the Colosseum after it was flooded from a nearby aqueduct, in order to stage naumachiae, or mock sea battles. The Romans re-enacted these naval engagements with scaled-down warships maneuvering in water three to five feet deep. To create this artificial lake, Colosseum stagehands first removed the arena floor and its underlying wood supports—vertical posts and horizontal beams that left imprints still visible in the retaining wall around the arena floor. (The soggy spectacles ended in the late first century A.D., when the Romans replaced the wood supports with masonry walls, making flood- ing the arena impossible.)Beste says the hypogeum itself had a lot in common with a huge sailing ship. The underground staging area had “countless ropes, pulleys and other wood and metal mechanisms housed in very limited space, all requiring endless training and drilling to run smoothly during a show. Like a ship, too, everything could be disassembled and stored neatly away when it was not being used.” All that ingenuity served a single purpose: to delight spectators and ensure the success of shows that both celebrated and embodied the grandeur of Rome.Beyond the thin wooden floor that separated the dark, stifling hypogeum from the airy stadium above, the crowd of 50,000 Roman citizens sat according to their place in the social hierarchy, ranging from slaves and women in the upper bleachers to senators and vestal virgins—priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth—around the arena floor. A place of honor was reserved for the editor, the person who organized and paid for the games. Often the editor was the emperor himself, who sat in the imperial box at the center of the long northern curve of the stadium, where his every reaction was scrutinized by the audience.The official spectacle, known as the munus iustum atque legitimum (“a proper and legitimate gladiator show”), began, like many public events in Classical Rome, with a splendid morning procession, the pompa. It was led by the editor’s standard-bearers and typically featured trumpeters, performers, fighters, priests, nobles and carriages bearing effigies of the gods. (Disappointingly, gladiators appear not to have addressed the emperor with the legendary phrase, “We who are about to die salute you,” which is mentioned in conjunction with only one spectacle—a naval battle held on a lake east of Rome in A.D. 52—and was probably a bit of inspired improvisation rather than a standard address.)The first major phase of the games was the venatio, or wild beast hunt, which occupied most of the morning: creatures from across the empire appeared in the arena, sometimes as part of a bloodless parade, more often to be slaughtered. They might be pitted against each other in savage fights or dispatched by venatores (highly trained hunters) wearing light body armor and carrying long spears. Literary and epigraphic accounts of these spectacles dwell on the exotic menagerie involved, including African herbivores such as elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and giraffes, bears and elk from the northern forests, as well as strange creatures like onagers, ostriches and cranes. Most popular of all were the leopards, lions and tigers—the dentatae(toothed ones) or bestiae africanae (African beasts)—whose leaping abilities necessitated that spectators be shielded by barriers, some apparently fitted with ivory rollers to prevent agitated cats from climbing. The number of animals displayed and butchered in an upscale venatio is astonishing: during the series of games held to inaugurate the Colosseum, in A.D. 80, the emperor Titus offered up 9,000 animals. Less than 30 years later, during the games in which the emperor Trajan celebrated his conquest of the Dacians (the ancestors of the Romanians), some 11,000 animals were slaughtered.The hypogeum played a vital role in these staged hunts, allowing animals and hunters to enter the arena in countless ways. Eyewitnesses describe how animals appeared suddenly from below, as if by magic, sometimes apparently launched high into the air. “The hypogeum allowed the organizers of the games to create surprises and build suspense,” Beste says. “A hunter in the arena wouldn’t know where the next lion would appear, or whether two or three lions might emerge instead of just one.” This uncertainty could be exploited for comic effect. Emperor Gallienus punished a merchant who had swindled the empress, selling her glass jewels instead of authentic ones, by setting him in the arena to face a ferocious lion. When the cage opened, however, a chicken walked out, to the delight of the crowd. Gallienus then told the herald to proclaim: “He practiced deceit and then had it practiced on him.” The emperor let the jeweler go home.During the intermezzos between hunts, spectators were treated to a range of sensory delights. Handsome stewards passed through the crowd carrying trays of cakes, pastries, dates and other sweetmeats, and generous cups of wine. Snacks also fell from the sky as abundantly as hail, one observer noted, along with wooden balls containing tokens for prizes—food, money or even the title to an apartment—which sometimes set off violent scuffles among spectators struggling to grab them. On hot days, the audience might enjoy sparsiones(“sprinklings”), mist scented with balsam or saffron, or the shade of the vela, an enormous cloth awning drawn over the Colosseum roof by sailors from the Roman naval headquarters at Misenum, near Naples.No such relief was provided for those working in the hypogeum. “It was as hot as a boiler room in the summer, humid and cold in winter, and filled all year round with strong smells, from the smoke, the sweating workmen packed in the narrow corridors, the reek of the wild animals,” says Beste. “The noise was overwhelming—creaking machinery, people shouting and animals growling, the signals made by organs, horns or drums to coordinate the complex series of tasks people had to carry out, and, of course, the din of the fighting going on just overhead, with the roaring crowd.”At the ludi meridiani, or midday games, criminals, barbarians, prisoners of war and other unfortunates, called damnati, or “condemned,” were executed. (Despite numerous accounts of saints’ lives written in the Renaissance and later, there is no reliable evidence that Christians were killed in the Colosseum for their faith.) Some damnati were released in the arena to be slaughtered by fierce animals such as lions, and some were forced to fight one another with swords. Others were dispatched in what a modern scholar has called “fatal charades,” executions staged to resemble scenes from mythology. The Roman poet Martial, who attended the inaugural games, describes a criminal dressed as Orpheus playing a lyre amid wild animals; a bear ripped him apart. Another suffered the fate of Hercules, who burned to death before becoming a god.Here, too, the hypogeum’s powerful lifts, hidden ramps and other mechanisms were critical to the illusion-making. “Rocks have crept along,” Martial wrote, “and, marvelous sight! A wood, such as the grove of the Hesperides [nymphs who guarded the mythical golden apples] is believed to have been, has run.”Following the executions came the main event: the gladiators. While attendants prepared the ritual whips, fire and rods to punish poor or unwilling fighters, the combatants warmed up until the editor gave the signal for the actual battle to begin. Some gladiators belonged to specific classes, each with its own equipment, fighting style and traditional opponents. For example, the retiarius (or “net man”) with his heavy net, trident and dagger often fought against a secutor (“follower”) wielding a sword and wearing a helmet with a face mask that left only his eyes exposed.Contestants adhered to rules enforced by a referee; if a warrior conceded defeat, typically by raising his left index finger, his fate was decided by the editor, with the vociferous help of the crowd, who shouted “Missus!”(“Dismissal!”) at those who had fought bravely, and “Iugula, verbera, ure!”(“Slit his throat, beat, burn!”) at those they thought deserved death. Gladiators who received a literal thumbs down were expected to take a finishing blow from their opponents unflinchingly. The winning gladiator collected prizes that might include a palm of victory, cash and a crown for special valor. Because the emperor himself was often the host of the games, everything had to run smoothly. The Roman historian and biographer Suetonius wrote that if technicians botched a spectacle, the emperor Claudius might send them into the arena: “[He] would for trivial and hasty reasons match others, even of the carpenters, the assistants and men of that class, if any automatic device or pageant, or anything else of the kind, had not worked well.” Or, as Beste puts it, “The emperor threw this big party, and wanted the catering to go smoothly. If it did not, the caterers sometimes had to pay the price.”To spectators, the stadium was a microcosm of the empire, and its games a re-enactment of their foundation myths. The killed wild animals symbolized how Rome had conquered wild, far-flung lands and subjugated Nature itself. The executions dramatized the remorseless force of justice that annihilated enemies of the state. The gladiator embodied the cardinal Roman quality of virtus, or manliness, whether as victor or as vanquished awaiting the deathblow with Stoic dignity. “We know that it was horrible,” says Mary Beard, a classical historian at Cambridge University, “but at the same time people were watching myth re-enacted in a way that was vivid, in your face and terribly affecting. This was theater, cinema, illusion and reality, all bound into one.”Tom Mueller’s next book, on the history of olive oil, will be published this fall. Photographer Dave Yoder is based in Milan.Studying the stonework in the hypogeum for 14 years, Heinz-Jürgen Beste has puzzled out how the Romans staged the games. (Dave Yoder)Best's research unraveled the site's tangled history, identifying four major building phases and numerous modifications over nearly 400 years of continuous use. (Dave Yoder)Smithsonian Magazine | Smithsonian Magazine