Architecture

Term Paper Title	Architecture
# of Words	445
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	1.78

architecture

In the minds of the Romans, the amphitheater was a place of significant
symbolic meaning. It was a place of civilized order where, from the Roman point
of view, the victory of civilization over lawlessness, chaos, barbarism, and
savagery was regularly enacted. It was also a place of justice: certain
criminals were executed there by being given to the wild beasts or were forced
to fight to the death as gladiators. It also represented the domination of Rome
over its enemies: prisoners of war were either executed or forced to fight each
other as gladiators. But for the professional gladiator it was also a place of
redemption, in which one could overcome death by victory or by stoically
accepting it.

"As long as the Colosseum stands, Rome will stand; when the Colosseum
falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the whole world will fall."
(Venerable Bede,VIIth century AD)

There was no roof on the Colosseum, but in the summer great canvas sheets
were rigged to the top to form awnings that kept the sun off everyone inside.
The bottom three stories have 80 arches each; the stories are separated by a
thin archetrave (a horizontal band running around the entire Colosseum). The
columns in one story line up exactly with those in the story above it. The
bottom story has 80 entrance arches, each of which is separated by a Doric
column (the columns are engaged, which means the column shafts are actually...

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