Vespasian began building the Colosseum - which has hosted gory battles between combinations of gladiators, slaves, prisoners and wild animals of all descriptions - in AD 72 on the site of a newly drained lake in the grounds of Nero's Domus Aurea.

Restoration carried out in 2001 opened up much larger areas of the arena to the public, including a reconstructed section of the sand-covered wood floor that allows visitors to walk across a platform and look down into the elevator shafts through which animals emerged, via trapdoors, into the arena.

The top rows of the Colosseum are the best vantage point from which to appreciate the massive scale of the building.