The Archaeological Park of the Colosseum has opened the Passage of Commodus, the underground vaulted walkway that led on to the imperial field within the Flavian Amphitheater, to the general public for the primary time.
The passage linked the pulvinar, the imperial field, on the southern finish of the Colosseum’s minor axis with the outside. In line with manufacturing stamps on the wall bricks, the walkway was constructed someday in between the final years of the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.) and the reign of Trajan (98-117 A.D.), when vital modifications had been made to Colosseum’s plumbing programs and underground constructions.
The hall isn’t a straight line. It has three branches: two brief ones that run east and west and the north-south passage connecting them. It had skylights at common intervals for illumination and air flow. The japanese department leads away in the direction of an unknown vacation spot, maybe the ludus the place the gladiators had been skilled. It was lavishly adorned with ornate stucco coffers and marble panels that lined the partitions and ceiling with frames and plinths on the base of the wall for an architectural impact.
Later, the marble was eliminated and stucco decorations had been added with plant, animal, gladiatorial and mythological motifs. There have been scenes depicting Ariadne deserted by Theseus and her marriage to Dionysus; scenes of enviornment spectacles together with boar hunts and bear fights.
Its connection to Commodus isn’t about its development, which lengthy preceded his reign (180-192 A.D.). In line with Herodian’s Roman Historical past 1.8.4–6, Commodus was attacked by an murderer on this passageway, in a plot instigated by his sister Lucilla on account of her ostensible jealousy that Commodus’ spouse took priority over her within the imperial field.
Commodus, too, allowed his sister to retain the imperial honors; she continued to occupy the imperial seat on the theaters, and the sacred hearth was carried earlier than her. However when Commodus married Crispina, customized demanded that the entrance seat on the theater be assigned to the empress. Lucilla discovered this troublesome to endure, and felt that any honor paid to the empress was an insult to her; however since she was nicely conscious that her husband Pompeianus was dedicated to Commodus, she instructed him nothing about her plans to grab management of the empire. As an alternative, she examined the emotions of a rich younger nobleman, Quadratus, with whom she was rumored to be sleeping in secret. Complaining always about this matter of imperial priority, she quickly persuaded the younger man to set in movement a plot which introduced destruction upon himself and all the Senate.
Quadratus, in deciding on confederates among the many distinguished senators, prevailed upon Quintianus, a daring and reckless younger senator, to hide a dagger beneath his gown and, waiting for an acceptable time and place, to stab Commodus; as for the remaining, he assured Quintianus that he would set issues straight by bribes.
However the murderer, standing within the entrance to the amphitheater (it was darkish there and he hoped to flee detection), drew his dagger and shouted at Commodus that he had been despatched by the Senate to kill him. Quintianus wasted time making his little speech and waving his dagger; in consequence, he was seized by the emperor’s bodyguards earlier than he might strike, and died for his stupidity in revealing the plot prematurely. Thus came upon beforehand, Quintianus led to his personal loss of life, and Commodus was placed on his guard by this forewarning.
The Passage of Commodus was found in 1810-1814, when Rome was dominated by Napoleonic France. It was absolutely excavated after the Unification of Italy in 1874 and has been studied on and off since then. In 2020-2021, the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum launched into a stucco restoration mission, and a way more intensive mission to revive broken and collapsed vaults, partitions and adorned surfaces, adopted in 2024-2025. It’s now steady sufficient for the general public to go to safely because of new metallic helps, accessible walkways and a brand new lighting system that makes use of projectors to simulate the pure gentle that initially illuminated the emperor’s path by means of skylights.
The Passage might be open beginning October twenty seventh. It will likely be open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-4:00, with a hard and fast tour information schedule of Spanish at 1PM, Italian at 2PM and English at 3PM.
The Park has created a nifty video that includes video of the newly-reopened passageway alternating with digital recreations of how they’d have seemed in antiquity.
