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Colosseum – a colossal craze, crime or celebrations? Or none of those?

Recently I was in a place I never thought would consume my heart, my head, my mind or my soul the way it did.

My intention was never to visit, set foot inside and touch years of history. It kind of just happened.
We got cheap tickets and without knowing it they entitled us to go into the colosseum in Rome.

I was so excited to go. We planned the day around getting in and having enough time to explore the colosseum. We lucked out and skipped all queues and walked straight in!

Armed with a smile I walked out of the arch and towards the opening. However that excitement was not long lived as it was as if I walked into an invisible wall of past. I felt shivers down my back, my head felt heavy and my eyes wanted to go swimming! I held back my sudden unexplained emotions and moved on.

I ended up having a debate with my partner about the reality of its use. Was it celebrations, was it crime or was it simply a craze? We came from two complete different opinions. Neither one right or wrong. Just different takes on events we can’t possibly comment on.
 
It made me think – it made me look into its history!

So it has been utilised as a crime scene, it has been used for entertainment, celebrations, crucifixions and weirdly currently for Christianity!

So what is it about us humans that has and still to a certain level still gives us fascination in others suffering. Why do we often glorify it? Celebrate it? Were times different back then or do we simply vent differently now?

What makes a human want to sacrifice their lives to a lion for entertainment? Is it a belief in something higher? Is it false hope? Is it mental unsettlement? Is it the need to be wanted or feel wanted? Or is it simply that is what some people want to do?

At the Colosseum – what was it that made them want to spend their last hours in a dark basement of a battlefield, potentially having a quick non emotional titillation fix – but then if they weren’t scared or worried – why need the fix in the first place? Why did women and men offer their selves so easily to people that were willing to give up their lives?  Why is that so important? What about the parents knowing their children were about to fight where odds were so against them?

What about the people that commissioned these fights? Did they have any courage or did they feed off others? Is that cowardness at its highest or is it cleverness at its highest?

And is it hypocrisy that currently the Pope uses it? Is that using an old building that is now famous to create more followers or is it to remember the lives that were lost often for no other reason than titillation and glorification of life?

Well I walked out with such mixed feelings. Pride to have the privilege to visit, empathy for the lost lives that had to fight unwillingly, shame for the emperors that would commission gladiators yet bid against them. Honour for the people that did it believing it was the right thing to do, but mostly it made me celebrate my life!


It has made me feel proud that I have a life where I don’t feel like I have to prove to anyone that I am worthy, that I don’t have to stay stuck in a dark chamber to then justify my belonging, that I don’t have to fight. That when I sit on my own anywhere in the world I can feel proud of life and I don’t need anyone to commission me to fight. I don’t have to try – I just have to live my own life and stay happy doing it.

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