After two brief stops in the ancient world dazzled me, a peculiar thought lodged in my mind.
Rome and the remains of the ancient Greek (now Turkish) city of Ephesus have incredible ruins of massive stadiums/theaters that have survived in recognizable forms. In some ways, visiting them feels like we are trapped in a time warp. In Columbus, we have a historic, 102-year-old structure in Ohio Stadium that was conceived as a landmark and even compared to the Colosseum in Rome in 1922 when it opened.
Hit the forward button on this time machine for a moment: Two thousand years from now, will anyone be visiting the ruins of Ohio Stadium?
I know it sounds crazy to be tormented by such a simple thought after visiting places where the foundations of our modern civilization were laid. But it was difficult for me to look at these ancient entertainment palaces and not think of a current one that I have visited hundreds of times.
A lot of things were different back then. Some weren’t. When there were 60,000 spectators cheering dueling gladiators or hungry lions in the Colosseum in ancient Rome, they probably didn’t spent any time pondering whether the Roman empire would still be ruling in two thousand years. They probably didn’t think for an instant how long that huge structure they were sitting in might survive. If they thought about it at all, they probably thought that both would last forever, and in the Colosseum’s case, I guess to some degree, they were right.
If you can’t visualize the Colosseum, it’s not because you haven’t seen a photo of it; it’s because you saw it and didn’t care enough to ask what it is. There are hundreds of photos of it on the web and it’s in more movies than you can count. And you’ve probably seen it, or at least parts of it, in the Horseshoe.
Construction was begun on Colosseum in 72 A.D. by Emperor Vespasian and completed in 80 A.D. by his successor, Titus. It was used for gladiator battles, animal fights, executions (of criminals and Christians), animal sacrifices and just about anything that might please a blood-loving Roman crowd except football.
It was used in this way until the sometime in the sixth century and has stood, in some measure of decline, ever since. But again, when Ohio Stadium opened in 1922, descriptions of it often included comparisons to the Colosseum in Rome. Columbus and Ohio State officials wanted to make sure the public understood that they weren’t building just any old stadium. They were building an enduring landmark in the Colosseum’s class, which whether you believed that or not, was no small thing. The new Ohio State football stadium could even seat more than that legendary Roman structure, and it was considered one of the seven wonders of the world.
So, here I was in Rome looking at the ancient Colosseum inside and out and it was difficult not to notice some similarities. It is obviously circular and not horseshoe-shaped, but it had those arches, almost 2,000 years before Howard Dwight Smith designed the Horseshoe. When an Ohioan walks around the Colosseum, when you’re walking beneath the stands, it feels like a place you know, even if you have never been there. It’s like looking at a picture of your great grandfather and seeing features that you see when you look in a mirror. He may have died fifty years before you were born, but he is somebody you know.
The same thing happened when we visited the Great Theatre in Ephesus. It is much smaller with a capacity of maybe 25,000, but it is horseshoe shaped and feels like an Ohio Stadium ancestor. The Ephesus horseshoe was constructed in 250 B.C. and was enlarged to its current capacity during the Roman period around 44 A.D. It had (still has) bleacher-type seats similar to those in its Ohio cousin. If you looked at both structures when they were empty, say 75 years ago, the similarity would have been especially noticeable.
So, while the similarities between Ohio Stadium and those two ancient public meeting places are interesting enough to merit a blog about it, my mind fixed on the ancient ruins we were gawking at.
Two thousand years from now is anyone going to be taking photos of the ruins of Ohio Stadium? Or more to the point, will there even be ruins of any kind to look at? When you’re wandering around the extensive ruins of Ephesus, you can’t help but wonder if the hundreds of thousands of residents who once lived there (there are many different estimates of the city’s size) ever imagined that their magnificent city would look like this.
Most of us don’t think two thousand years in advance; it’s too much for us to comprehend. We can’t image ourselves gone to dust and our neighborhoods being pored over by archeologists who can’t believe they have discovered a pinback bearing a picture of Justin Bieber that is over 2,000 years old.
But I’d like to think that at least some ruins if not all of Ohio Stadium will be standing on the banks of the Olentangy (if there is an Olentangy) two thousand years from now, just as they are in Rome and Ephesus. Even if the stadium’s frail outer shell is gone and the original concrete shell is looking a little shabby, I hope something is still there for tourists and their guides to climb around on.
Football won’t survive that long, as was the case with Christian-eating lions, but I’d like to think our descendants will resist the urge to tear down our Colosseum in order to build a flying Tesla dealership or the world’s largest Starbucks.
The ancients hung onto their entertainment palaces long enough to have a reverence for their bones and ensure their survival. I can only hope that we do, too.
Colosseum in Rome
Ephesus Great Theatre
