Italy opens 'Commodus Passage' in Colosseum to public

Reuters: A once-secret passageway in the Colosseum, named after the fearsome ancient Roman emperor who features in the Hollywood blockbuster “Gladiator,” has opened to the public for the first time.

The so-called Commodus Passage allowed emperors to enter the arena and watch gladiator fights and other spectacles without mixing with crowds.

It was cut through the Colosseum’s foundations between the end of the 1st century AD and the beginning of the 2nd century AD, in addition to the original design.

The Colosseum was inaugurated in 80 AD.

“This passage is now open to the public; it’s the first time. And so (visitors will) appreciate what it was like to be an emperor,” archaeologist Barbara Nazzaro told Reuters.

The corridor was discovered in the 19th century and linked to Commodus because historical chronicles say he survived an assassination attempt in an underground passage.

“It was very easy to make the connection,” Nazzaro, who oversaw the corridor’s restoration prior to its opening, added.

It once had marble walls, later replaced with plaster decorated with landscapes, the Colosseum Archaeological Park said in a statement.

Earlier in 2021, the beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it’s the sand of the Colosseum,” the Roman senator Gracchus said in the 2000 Oscar-winning movie Gladiator.

The towering 2,000-year-old stone amphitheatre, the biggest in the Roman empire, is Italy’s most popular tourist attraction, drawing 7.6 million visitors in 2019.

But its own beating heart, the underground passages, cages and rooms where prisoners, animals and gladiators waited to pass through trapdoors to enter the arena above their heads – itself long gone – only opened to the paying public on Friday after lengthy renovations.

More than 80 archaeologists, architects and engineers worked on the 15,000 sq metre “hypogeum” for two years to “bring back to the centre of attention a monument that the whole world loves”, according to Diego della Valle, chairman of Tod’s, the Italian fashion group that funded the work.

The circular balconies, long accessible to tourists, used to accommodate up to 70,000 spectators to watch gladiator fights, executions and animal hunts. Before the hypogeum was built, the arena could also be filled with water to re-enact sea battles.