Hail, caesar.
Imperial majesty.
So this is what rome has been waiting for.
is it working?
It works well, caesar.
Show me.
Up.
Slowly, slowly, slowly.
It will be ready for the games, imperial majesty.
The colosseum is the roman empire
Distilled to its most basic essence.
It is a symbol of conquest.
It's a symbol of dominance.
It's a symbol of imperial power
Radiating throughout the roman world.
Now.
Any emperor had the colosseum at his disposal
To use as a tool to reassert his power and authority.
The message to the roman people
Is that life is a combat.
It was also a judicial warning.
Do not test the power of rome.
It was a death penalty offense.
If you live by the sword,
You die by the sword.
It demonstrates the power of the colosseum.
It made slaves into heroes,
Upending the power structure of rome.
The colosseum will come to symbolize
The rise and fall of rome.
It's all there.
The blood, the glory, the magnificence,
And the flaws that made rome
The greatest empire that europe has ever seen.
It's 83 a.D.,
Just three years
After the colosseum's triumphant opening.
But rome's new emperor, domitian,
Is launching what he promises
Will be the most astonishing games of all time.
Giving successful games was a fundamental part
Of being a successful emperor.
His predecessors had built the colosseum.
He wanted to do them one better.
The third emperor in the new dynasty,
The flavians, domitian has a lot to live up to.
In the triad of the flavian power structure,
You had vespasian, the dad,
The first emperor in the family.
You had titus, the older brother,
His partner, his ally, his strong right arm.
And then there was domitian, who was the spare.
Vespasian and titus
Were both outstanding generals
Who crushed rome's enemies in britania and in judea
In what is now the middle east.
Now it's domitian's turn.
He's got to prove himself to the people of rome,
To the empire, that he is worthy of the mantle.
Domitian decides to give the roman people
What they love most,
Entertainment.
With these games, domitian clearly thought
That he had a shot at outdoing his brother
And winning the hearts and minds of the roman people.
He plans a surprise,
Ordering a major renovation to the colosseum,
Digging a vast labyrinth beneath the arena floor.
It's called a hypogeum,
And through its sophisticated engineering,
Animals, humans, and scenery
Will suddenly appear before the spectators.
It's going to add another layer
Of visual complexity to the colosseum.
So rather than people walking out of doors
And walking slowly into the middle of the colosseum,
They're going to appear
Up through the floor as if by magic.
To engineer this complex hypogeum beneath the arena,
Domitian relies on a skilled master builder, haterius.
The job of creating a subterranean aspect
For the colosseum-- well, that was
A task for an engineering genius.
Haterius and his team would undoubtably have been
Under a lot of pressure not to * up,
To make sure that on game day,
Everything came off according to plan.
Especially the complex special effects machinery
Designed to dazzle the crowd.
In order to lift huge cages
From the hypogeum to the floor of the colosseum,
The special effects man underneath the colosseum
Turned huge capstans in order to make sure
That both the people, the animals, and the scenery
Arrived instantly in the spot
That they were needed for the show.
Come on.
- I'm trying. - Come on.
If haterius can't make this hypogeum work,
He could pay with his life.
Haterius' connection to the flavians
Begins over a decade ago,
Working in the family construction business in rome.
For most of these great building projects,
We have no idea who actually did the work.
When it comes to the colosseum, we're lucky
In that we do know about one of the contractors.
There's a tomb, the tomb of the haterius family,
It's three levels, a giant portico
With a four-horse chariot on top of it.
The haterius family are a family of master builders,
And they're proud of their projects.
Now, one man will never be able to move it.
- Can you not see, father? - Force multiplied.
With a wheel this size, every time I add a pulley,
Even one man can lift a greater and greater weight.
That's why you'll be
The master builder I could never be.
Why, you'll make our family name great.
The haterii appear to be freedmen
From the slaves of a senatorial family.
We know that quintus haterius antoninus
Existed in rome several decades before the family emerges,
And he had freed haterius' father and grandfather,
So they took his name as a sign of gratitude.
Things are looking up for haterius in a sense that
As a freedman, you've stepped out of the bounds of slavery.
You're actually on your way up.
For haterius, opportunity arises when vespasian
Becomes emperor in 69 a.D. And decides to build
A new amphitheater on the site
Of nero's controversial golden house,
A vast home built on public lands.
Nero, of course, had a terrible reputation.
He had built himself the biggest palace
That had so far been built by the emperors,
The golden house.
Nero's golden house was absolutely enormous,
About 200 acres.
It's the size of 40 manhattan blocks,
All of it in the most valuable real estate in the roman world.
The people of rome and the senate of rome
Were not happy about the construction
Of the golden house
Because what had previously been
At least semi-public space
That had been open to other romans
Into something that was reserved
Just for this one person.
That was deeply offensive and deeply troubling.
Vespasian wants to show that he's the anti-nero,
And so he's gonna build
The greatest entertainment center that rome has ever had.
An amphitheater, the colosseum.
He wants to completely destroy
Most of the golden house, drain the artificial lake
That was one of the beauties of the golden house,
And build this colosseum
Smack on that site where the lake once was.
So the place that had belonged to the emperor
And that was private
Will actually belong to the entire roman people.
Vespasian's crowd-pleasing move has another upside,
Enhancing the status of the new flavian dynasty.
The problem that vespasian has
Is, he has no family background.
He's just a military man, a general,
Who's a very successful general,
But that's all he is.
He's got no real claim to the throne.
Vespasian's nickname is the muleteer
Because he traded and made a fortune
Trading in donkeys and mules, which gives you an idea
That he's not a glamorous roman soldier at all.
He's no julius caesar.
Rome was an extremely class-conscious,
Snobby society,
So the flavians had something to prove.
Giving rome the colosseum
Will legitimize the new dynasty.
Now, it's up to builders like haterius
To realize the flavians' dream and quickly.
My father demands a new palace.
Not just for the emperor, but for the people.
And it must be built without delay.
By the time vespasian comes to the throne,
He's 60 years old.
Now, that doesn't sound old by modern standards,
But in ancient rome, he's an old man.
So he wants to get this great building project done,
But he hasn't got much time to do it.
If he's going to live to see the conclusion of it,
He's really got to get the builders to hurry up.
We expect you to succeed.
It will be done.
Well, the pressure was on, as far as haterius
Was concerned, to finish it on time,
But also, rome's emperors were known
For both lavish rewards and also harsh punishments.
For haterius, the stakes were extremely high,
And there was really no latitude for failure.
By 73 a.D., haterius and his men
Are working around the clock building the colosseum
To give the people of rome a permanent amphitheater.
Before the building of the colosseum,
The games would be held in a variety of places.
They would have them in the old roman forum,
Or they would just set up temporary wooden structures,
And they would take them down at the end of the games.
Rome finds itself in the situation
That it has no permanent place where it can put on the games.
And what vespasian does is, he says,
"well, I'm going to change that."
This was their showpiece.
The whole of rome was fascinated by this building.
The scale of it was bigger than anything ever built before.
The sheer scale of the colosseum seems overwhelming
In its size, its grandeur.
Beautifully engineered,
Innovative.
In the first year of construction,
We're told that workers, by hand,
Dug out 220,000 tons of dirt
To create 30-foot deep foundations.
The amount of material that had to be moved around
To make this happen is mind-boggling.
Stone that's coming in
Is coming from 19 miles away, from modern-day tivoli.
3.5 million cubic feet in six-ton blocks.
Now, this travertine faced a brick structure,
And it's a million bricks that went into the colosseum.
And on top of this,
You need clamps to hold the stones in place,
And that amounts to 300 tons alone of iron clamps.
But there's one special material
That makes the colosseum possible:
Concrete.
Something that the romans didn't invent, per se,
But they certainly perfected it.
And the way they perfected this was by mixing in
Volcanic ash, especially from mt. Vesuvius near pompeii.
And this created a building material
That was both strong and flexible.
The fact the colosseum is still standing today
Is a testament to roman concrete.
The great advantage of concrete is that
You don't have to build the whole building of stone.
You can make the core of concrete,
And then you can face the outer layers
With marble and more attractive stone.
So it really speeds up production process.
Fast building is essential if the aging emperor vespasian
Is to open his new colosseum.
So commanding a team of over 1,000 workers,
Haterius is one of four master builders,
Each overseeing one section.
We can see the intensity and the speed
In which the colosseum was built because
Each of the four quadrants of the ellipse
Of the amphitheater seems to have been built
By a different team
And in slightly different construction techniques
And slightly different styles.
Every builder would've been looking at the other quadrants
And sort of seeing how they were getting on.
And you certainly wouldn't want to be
The builder who was lagging behind.
To keep up, haterius relies
On an endless supply of manual labor, the enslaved.
- No, no, no, stop. - Stop.
Whipping men does not make them stronger or faster.
But they're slaves, sir.
My grandfather was a slave.
My father born one.
We'll get a second team.
Back to work.
The slaves were integral to the building of the colosseum.
They ultimately are the machine
By which the colosseum is constructed.
Life for them is extremely difficult.
The enslaved people were
Basically treated as human livestock.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of these enslaved persons
Will die in the construction of the colosseum.
Within three years, the first tier is built,
But there are three more layers to go,
Towering to over 150 feet.
Lifting thousands of tons of materials
To this unprecedented height
Is a monumental engineering problem.
Haterius finds a solution powered by the enslaved.
One thing that we know
That the haterius family was very proud of
Because they put it in their tomb on their relief
Is the treadwheel crane.
And this is a device that is able to lift
These heavy six-ton blocks up to 150 feet in the air.
It's what makes a multi-tiered construction
Like the colosseum possible.
- With me. - One, two,
Three, four--come on. One--come on.
The treadwheel crane was one of
The engineering marvels of the ancient world.
One, two, three--
They would move the crane to an elevated position,
And then they would lift the stones up,
And then they would build that section.
And then they would raise up one small section,
Place the crane, and then they could lift
The stones up higher.
One, two, three--
And at the end, the very, very height of the colosseum,
You've just got cranes way up high
With men running on these hamster wheels,
Pulling stones up to the height.
And this is how they built the colosseum.
Four--one, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
But despite the years of hard work,
When emperor vespasian dies in 79 a.D.,
His bold vision to enhance his family's prestige
Is not complete.
It's down to his son, titus,
To take on the reins of the project.
But this is the year that mt. Vesuvius,
The extraordinary volcano down in the south of Italy,
Erupts, burying the towns of pompeii and herculaneum.
Even so, titus takes on the enormous task
And completes the colosseum,
The pleasure palace of the people.
The building of the colosseum,
Especially the replacement of the golden house,
Gave a huge statement to the people of rome
And that is, like, this is a huge palace
An extravaganza of popular entertainment.
This is the glory of rome, and it's for you.
Let the games begin.
Although there are hundreds of amphitheaters
In the roman world at that time,
In size and scale and scope,
The colosseum was the ultimate.
This was a magnificent structure to behold.
Haterius was proud of his accomplishment.
Eight years of pressure and deadlines complete.
Now, it's time to bask in the glory of the achievement.
But you also have to know that in some sense,
You have secured your living,
And in haterius' case,
That could've meant a nice middle-class existence,
Perhaps a slave or two of his own.
A pretty nice life in the context of rome at the time.
But a sudden change in the power structure
Of the roman empire is about to upend all those plans.
Just weeks after the opening games finish,
Emperor titus dies of a fever,
Putting his ambitious younger brother,
Domitian, on the throne.
Domitian and his brother, titus, were not close at all,
So when titus fell ill
After only two years of being emperor,
Some thought that maybe
Domitian was responsible for his death.
He certainly didn't rush to his brother's bedside.
Instead, he awaited his brother's death
So that he could immediately be named emperor.
In the wake of his death,
Domitian throws games to honor titus.
The roman people soon find out
He's very different from his brother.
While titus had been charming and suave,
Domitian was all harsh edges
And paranoid.
In fact, over a dozen senators are killed by domitian,
And he is extremely unpopular.
The more paranoid you are, the more people you offend,
The more people you execute,
And the less your own circle trusts you.
Then they begin to fear you too.
No one is safe from domitian's wrath,
As a disturbing account
By the roman writer suetonius reveals.
Get him out of here.
You have something to say?
Domitian was a tyrannical emperor.
He wasn't about even pretending
To believe in any kind of democracy.
He created a cult of personality around himself
And wanted no one else's input.
See?
You wish to volunteer for the next event.
Domitian is signaling a break with the past.
This was a new emperor in town.
That's the way to mark him off
As really an autocrat, as an authoritarian ruler.
A strict disciplinarian to the point of cruelty.
Even though haterius is freeborn,
He is exactly as vulnerable
As the lowliest enslaved person in the empire.
Domitian's displays of power
Aren't confined to the colosseum.
All rise.
Thanks to the writer cassius dio,
We know domitian held an infamous dinner party
Styled like a funeral to terrify those present.
When guests arrived at the palace,
They were ushered in to a black room,
Black couches.
Individual guests were presented with
What looked like a tombstone with their name on it.
This was a way for domitian to petrify his guests
And really to show his autocratic powers
And that it was he who held the power
Of life and death under his regime.
You.
Come here.
My father and brother considered you
As a builder of great technique and ambition.
I am also ambitious.
Some ideas for the colosseum.
But this is...
This is all new.
An arched basement.
And the scenery to appear through the floor.
I'm not sure how it can be achieved.
You will do it,
And when these improvements are finished,
I'll hold the greatest games the world has ever seen.
You have 18 months.
Can you imagine that you've devoted seven years
To building one of the most
Spectacular structures of any type,
But then you're called back to do even more,
Really to engineer the impossible?
Taking on a job for any emperor
Is a big deal.
Taking on a job for this emperor
Is an even bigger deal.
But you can't say no to a mafia don.
You couldn't say no to the emperor.
After holding a funeral games for his brother,
Emperor domitian makes an unpopular decision.
He closes the new colosseum to build an underground hypogeum,
His innovation designed to dazzle roman spectators.
Once again, haterius leads
A vast team under pressure.
They have to dig out mud, right down to the bedrock,
And put in a sophisticated drainage system
So that the rains and the waters
That are going to collect in that area can be funneled away.
Roman builders were diggers par excellence.
They built a sewer system in 600 b.C.E.
Beneath the city of rome that was still in use
At the time of the colosseum 700 years later.
In fact, part of that sewer system
Is still in use today.
The process of digging down into the foundations
Of the colosseum to build the hypogeum was arduous.
We're talking about 20 feet down,
So undoubtably, lots of groundwater flooding,
Lots of hardship.
And of course, high speed digging was required,
So this was definitely a job for slaves.
- What are you doing? - Still too slow.
Keep going.
I don't care if they're up to their necks.
Nobody stops until that pit is dug.
Domitian is away from the city of rome
And haterius is left behind
To make sure the project gets finished.
But of course, he knows that the emperor will return,
And he doesn't know exactly when,
And he knows that when the emperor gets back,
He's gonna want to see progress.
- Come on. - Keep going. Don't stop.
Good. Good.
As haterius struggles to excavate the hypogeum,
Domitian is 800 miles away,
On the northeastern fringe of the empire
In what's now germany, attacking the chatti tribe.
It was unprovoked and completely unnecessary,
But he needed to show off his military prowess.
He wanted some military accomplishment
That he could be proud of.
He's not entirely successful at this.
There are rumors circulating afterward
That it was all a farce,
So domitian still has things to prove.
He still has this insecurity,
And holding magnificent games
Is one way of working around that.
While domitian is away fighting,
Haterius completes phase one of the hypogeum,
A labyrinth of structures
Underneath the colosseum floor.
There's nothing as complicated as this
In such a confined space that has been done before.
The hypogeum housed about two miles of tunnels
On two floors that contained all of the rooms
Where the gladiators would be kept
And the animals that were going to be shown.
So it's almost like an underground city.
Julius.
Now, an even more daunting
Engineering challenge lies ahead,
Designing and installing machinery
That can make animals and scenery suddenly appear.
Under the floor of the colosseum,
There were elevators. There were ramps.
There were trapdoors. There were all sorts of things
That could enhance the spectacle
For the crowd up above.
For the beast hunts in particular,
The hypogeum added an extra layer
Because instead of having to lead the animals
In under the stands and bring them out onto the sands,
They could just come up straight through the floor.
When you go to the amphitheater,
Then it's all about the spectacle,
And the spectacle is going to include
Some wizardry, some magic.
And it's going to be through that hypogeum.
Everything new is coming from below,
So it's magical, it's spectacle,
It's intense.
In the fall of 83 a.D.,
Domitian returns from battle
To launch his spectacular new games,
But first, he puts his innovations
Made by haterius to the test.
Imperial majesty.
So this is what rome has been waiting for.
Is it working?
It works well, caesar.
Show me.
Up. Up.
Slowly, slowly, slowly.
Well, for domitian to close the colosseum
Was a big commitment and kind of a dangerous thing.
The regular provision of spectacle
Is one of the things that the roman populace
Looked forward to and anticipated.
Regular provision of spectacle.
The populace had its expectations,
And now, domitian had to fulfill them.
To secure his position in rome,
Domitian's upcoming games must succeed,
But there's a problem.
Haterius' machinery isn't working.
Now, he needs to find a solution.
No good idea came from an exhausted mind.
Get some sleep.
If I don't think of something, father,
I'll be sleeping forever soon enough.
- I can't help you. - You left me behind years ago
With your forces and multipliers.
What is it?
Pulleys.
The same force applied through more pulleys.
Pulleys in particular are vital
For the proper functioning of the hypogeum.
It's almost like a underground sailing ship.
Ropes and pulleys are everywhere
Lifting enormous loads constantly
To the floor of the arena.
Pulleys were not necessarily a new invention.
Pulleys had been invented by the greeks, if not before.
What the romans did differently was,
They came up with a variety of mechanisms
To apply greater force to the pulleys.
So romans don't have power tools, obviously,
But they do have a series of physical devices
That multiply the power
That actually produce amazing results.
There's no pressing a button,
And then a trapdoor goes flying open.
It's all human effort, and it has to be timed perfectly.
All the pressure would've been on the builder, haterius.
The whole question, though, is could he pull it off?
The colosseum has been closed for two years.
In 83 a.D., domitian finally holds his long-promised games
And the arena is not just reopened.
It's reborn.
When it reopens,
The atmosphere is absolutely electric.
The crowd is anxious. It's on edge.
It's been deprived of its entertainments.
They're ready for something big.
Well, you could imagine what kind of sense of anticipation
There was, but equally, of course,
For domitian, it just raises the stakes.
If he falls short,
If his games did not live up to his older brother's,
Then it's gonna pose a real problem for him.
But when you have gladiators coming up through the floor,
When you have beasts coming up through the floor,
Changes of scenery coming up through the floor,
That's the kind of thing that's going to excite
The crowd and get them on board.
If you're a spectator sitting in the colosseum,
All you can see is the sand.
All you can see is one flat floor.
You have no idea of what's going on beneath,
And only when 1 of the 36 trapdoors open
Do you have any idea what's gonna happen next.
It's a huge surprise that creates dramatic effect.
Waiting under the floor of the colosseum
For the festivities to begin,
It would've been kind of a hellish and surreal experience.
You have heard the cries of injured people.
You would've heard the growls of wild beasts.
You would see chained criminals who were awaiting execution.
All of this underneath the floor of an arena
That was in use, so you could hear
The elephants running across.
So you could hear the crowd
Shouting and cheering and chanting.
It must've been an intoxicating,
But pretty horrifying experience.
Welcome, one and all,
To the greatest games ever witnessed.
- Lines are strong. - Men are ready.
By order of the emperor domitian...
Make sure when we pull, we pull together,
And pray.
A spectacle unlike any seen before.
Let the games begin.
Pull it. Pull it.
Pull it.
What is going on?
This can't be.
Pull it. Come on.
It was a crucible of tension.
If haterius takes part in the hugely successful games,
He will get the next contract for the next building project.
He will be the talk of the town.
If he fails, it could be a very bad ending for him.
More men.
Pull it. Let's go. Come on.
Come on.
- Come on. Come on. - There.
Now, pull. Come on, push.
- Pull, pull. - Go.
The colosseum had played host to all sorts
Of really incredible spectacles over the years,
But this was on a whole other level.
The idea of wild beasts, beast masters
Appearing up through the floor--
Nobody had ever seen anything like that.
One of the amazing things that the poet martial describes
Was the incredible special effects
In the colosseum that were made possible
Because of the hypogeum.
He says, "a cliff crawled, a wood ran forward,
A wonder to behold."
It adds surprise.
It adds drama.
Unexpected things can pop up
From the stadium floor at any moment.
And something that you couldn't see
Anywhere else in the empire.
It would've been way beyond
The experience of any normal person.
They could suddenly transform the arena
From just a bare piece of sand.
This had to be the greatest day
They've ever had in the colosseum.
50,000 people were at these games,
And the result of these games for domitian was terrific.
Domitian is someone who played to the crowd.
He knew that he had to be popular,
And they help give him a reputation
As a friend of the roman people.
Haterius succeeds and survives.
We have some sense of what happened to haterius after this
Because we have his tomb.
I think domitian would hold on to the talent that he had,
And especially if that talented person,
Like haterius, took part
In one of domitian's great triumphs.
He was probably not going to be on the free market.
He's probably gonna be working for the emperor in the future.
With this vast arena finally complete,
Haterius and the three flavian emperors
Create one of the wonders of the ancient world,
An enduring emblem of the emperor's power
And rome's might.
And it's a place that was built in order
To provide unity to rome,
And it was an extraordinary act of monumental pr.
It became part of the memory palace of rome
On the ongoing story
Of the roman people written in its architecture.
In the centuries to come,
Any emperor had the colosseum at his disposal
To use as a tool to reassert his power
And authority if necessary.
Let the games begin.
The colosseum tells us a lot about the romans.
It tells us about the importance of a monument,
Of prestige, of magnificence.
It tells us about their love of scale,
The vastness of the building, the huge audience.
Hundreds of thousands of people went through this place
And sat in these seats and saw the terrible
And wonderful and extraordinary things
That took place there.
The colosseum is instantly recognizable,
And the word itself has come to symbolize
The roman empire at its greatest.