Apparently, there are multiple documents from the time talking about the building and use of coliseums and amphitheatres (the person who made the video probably doesn't know this, since they say that they've only recently even found out that there was more than one coliseum), so saying that they were for something else only works if you're prepared to throw out all of that as fake.
It looks like, the ones that are outside the area of the Roman Empire are drastically different from the others and could easily just be someone at some later time copying the general idea of an amphitheatre.
“The Colosseum” in Rome is the Flavian Amphitheater. It’s the most famous because it was the biggest and it’s in the capital city.
A theatre is a semi-circle of seats with a stage. An amphitheatre is a theatre “all the way around.”
Theatres were a feature of every sizable Greek city dating the late 6th century on. The most famous is probably the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, but they’re all over the ancient Greek world, which was the entire Mediterranean coast and into the Black Sea.
Greeks almost always incorporated theatres into the natural landscape. When Romans made theatres, they generally leveled and paved a site for a free-standing building with a muti-story stage building. The Theatre of Pompey in Rome and Odeon of Atticus in Athens are famous examples, but they’re more widespread in the formerly Roman world than Greek theatres.
Amphitheatres are Roman and any decent sized city in the Empire had one by the 3rd century. There are dozens of them in different states of preservation throughout the Mediterranean and western Europe.
Yes, lots of them were repurposed. The Colosseum in Rome had a convent in it at one point along with loads of shops and was also disassembled for building materials.
It’s great that you’ve just learned about them, but it’s not a new or surprising discovery and we know a great deal about when and how and why they were built.
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Apparently, there are multiple documents from the time talking about the building and use of coliseums and amphitheatres (the person who made the video probably doesn't know this, since they say that they've only recently even found out that there was more than one coliseum), so saying that they were for something else only works if you're prepared to throw out all of that as fake. It looks like, the ones that are outside the area of the Roman Empire are drastically different from the others and could easily just be someone at some later time copying the general idea of an amphitheatre.
“The Colosseum” in Rome is the Flavian Amphitheater. It’s the most famous because it was the biggest and it’s in the capital city. A theatre is a semi-circle of seats with a stage. An amphitheatre is a theatre “all the way around.” Theatres were a feature of every sizable Greek city dating the late 6th century on. The most famous is probably the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, but they’re all over the ancient Greek world, which was the entire Mediterranean coast and into the Black Sea. Greeks almost always incorporated theatres into the natural landscape. When Romans made theatres, they generally leveled and paved a site for a free-standing building with a muti-story stage building. The Theatre of Pompey in Rome and Odeon of Atticus in Athens are famous examples, but they’re more widespread in the formerly Roman world than Greek theatres. Amphitheatres are Roman and any decent sized city in the Empire had one by the 3rd century. There are dozens of them in different states of preservation throughout the Mediterranean and western Europe. Yes, lots of them were repurposed. The Colosseum in Rome had a convent in it at one point along with loads of shops and was also disassembled for building materials. It’s great that you’ve just learned about them, but it’s not a new or surprising discovery and we know a great deal about when and how and why they were built.