We saw the colleseum this year...AMAZING to say the least!!!! The most surprising thing to me was that it is on a city street in Rome......driving down a modern city street, busses, taxis, cars, pedestrians and there is the colleseum...I was absolutely amazed!!!!
The first barbarians into the city must have been amazed by what they found, and must have figured the city was filled with great wealth. The started a group called Occupy Rome, and stayed there until they realized there was nothing to sack. :’) My favorite painting of it, Louis Alma-Tadema’s, is a time-travel fantasy, but shows his idea (or borrowed idea) of the sun shade mechanisms up at the top of the structure:
http://www.hoocher.com/Sir_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema/Alma_Tadema_The_Coliseum.jpg
