Rome, the Eternal City, is practically teeming with complexity. Its history and longevity have left behind what can only be described as a plethora of paradoxes. Ruins are interrupted by gift shops and brightly lit gelaterias. Monuments to pagan gods bear crosses of Christianity and adorn the smallest country in the world, which contains one of the largest churches in the world. Navigate through these wonders of past and modern civilizations and you will almost inevitably arrive at one of the most recognizable architectural wonders around the globe, the Colosseum.
Rumored to once have been able to hold as many as 50,000 guests, it is no wonder the almost 2,000-year-old stadium continues to inspire the imagination of artists and tourists alike [1]. Its mesmerizing facade looms over the Roman Forum with a presence that has stunned and amazed visitors throughout history. While imagery of gladiators and simulated battles for the pleasure of the Roman populace often accompany its iconography, there is a period of the Colosseum’s life that deserves more attention. That is its time as an accidental botanical garden.
In 1855 Richard Deakin, an English doctor and amateur botanist published The Flora of the Colosseum [2]. This collection contained over 400 descriptions and illustrations of the expansive diversity of plants that occupied the ruins growing in open spaces and between the cracks of stones. Alongside cypresses and thistle common to Europe, sprouted much less common flowers found nowhere else in the European continent [3]. The Colosseum’s walls became home to a biodiverse microclimate of flowers and herbs that changed with the seasons and flourished ambivalent to the structure’s intended purpose, producing plants and wildlife that Charles Dickens described as “the most impressive…solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable” [4].
Although no one knows for sure, there is a surprising explanation for the Colosseum’s botanical diversity, and it goes all the way back to the competitions and spectacle of the first 6 centuries in the common era. In the peak of the gladiatorial games, it wasn’t just humans
fighting for survival in the arena, it was animals too. Romans would bring creatures like lions and giraffes from Africa for the express purpose of displaying them in the Colosseum where they would rarely survive long. These creatures are believed to have carried stowaways that would long outlive them. Seeds buried in the fur of these creatures were left behind in the arena to sprout and grow over the centuries to come [3].
In 1871, as a means of preserving the architectural integrity of the structure, the plants and flowers were cleared away to reveal the Colosseum we recognize today [1]. Although this process was broadly necessary to preserve the building from being reclaimed by nature, it is worth noting what was lost. A living testament to the atrocities that were once committed there and the resilience of life that can emerge in the wake of something tragic.
I am not writing this to try and articulate the poetry of such a phenomenon, nor am I advocating for abandoning the care of historic sites in favor of their reclamation by nature.. Indeed, the clearing away of the wildlife of the Colosseum has allowed for its remains to be protected and preserved for generations to come. But I do believe that reflecting on a piece of history that has been overlooked in our broad historical narratives can open our eyes to be aware of all that we do not see. For every piece of history we have, there are countless narratives and details lost, leaving us to pick up the pieces and learn from the pictures we can create. Quiet pieces of history, like the flowers that once bloomed in the basin of a deadly arena, can shift our perspective just enough to bring us closer to the complexity of the world we live in and continue to create.