In the first century AD, the Roman Emperor Vespasian decided that Rome needed a stadium that would not only satisfy the crowds, but also convince the magnitude that Rome had become a power to be reckoned with. He wanted them to know that Rome now again had strong and unquestionable power in the world after the strong and bitter civil war it had recently gone through. His idea was to create an amphitheater. This theater, named the Flavian Amphitheater, earned a reputation as the greatest and deadliest structure ever built during the Roman Empire. The Roman people found their greatest entertainment at public gladiatorial combats. Up until the late first century BC, these combats were held in the forum, the Circus Maxima, and other small arenas. At each of these sights there were great drawbacks. When the games were held in the forum, the only seats were a limited amount of temporary wooden seating. The Circus Maxima could hold a much greater amount of people then the forum, but the large spina, which stood in the middle of the fighting floor, created a great visual obstacle for all the spectators. The small arenas had such limited seating that going to the expense of hosting the games was often not worth it, due to the limited viewing audiences. All of these venues also harvested great safety and sanitary concerns. None of them had public toilets, or wash rooms. They were also nearly impossible to be efficiently evacuated in case of an emergency. In 53 BC the politician Curio created the idea to build two semicircular stands built on a pivot. These stands could then be moved so each section could be turned away from each other and view separate events, or they could be turned inward, forming an oval, for joint viewing. This was the first recorded amphitheater in history. In around 72 BC Vespasian, the current emperor of Rome, took this knowledge of Curio, along with that of the problems created with the other theaters, and set out t...
