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Comment by rantwasp | Hacker News Reader

as someone who actually visited the Colosseum: I’m not sure we should glorify a place like this. 10000 people died there during it’s inaugural 100 days. it’s barbaric. we should be better than this nowadays. I don’t really care what the gladiators saw or did before dying. It’s sad AF

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Are we glorifying the Colosseum because many slaves were put to death there? I would guess no. Further, I am almost certain that very few people's take-away from visiting the Colosseum is "dang, slaves killing each other for sport rocks".

Any Roman building has historical significance, which I would argue is worth glorifying.

i don’t think that the takeaway is that “killing rocks”, but I do think the focus should be on preservation not on commercially exploiting it into the ground

That is fair, and something I am concerned with. I think that may be a different argument than your original comment?

> we should be better than this nowadays.

Are you somehow implying that by not destroying the Colosseum, it's equivalent to slaughtering 10,000 people? That's what you are implying right?

could the money spent keeping alive be better used elsewhere?

Not really. Preservation creates job and history inspires people, especially when it can be experienced directly like this. I seriously doubt it inspires many to build their own though.

as someone who actually lives in Rome: it's an important historical monument in one of the most important cities in western history. People go there to learn about the past and to view an incredible piece of architecture which is nearly 2,000 years old. It doesn't stand today as a glorification of bloodsport and I'm not sure how you can really come to that conclusion after visiting.

If the fact a lot of people died there is "sad AF", you're probably better off not visiting any sites which were active over 1,500 years ago.

I was there a few weeks ago and in the Vatican's church. Both are big and impressive buildings but the only relevance they have is for tourism purposes, especially the Colosseum, the vast majority are people on a weekend trip shooting a couple selfies. You have people illegally selling water bottles, artifacts and a couple layers of scammers offering you entry or bootleg tickets, unless the military or police are patrolling. All of them pestering you to buy anything, spoiling the experience. The only good take away from the Colosseum should be how to not treat humans in the future. It's a skid mark of human history used as a pedestal of the flamboyant and decadent formerly powerful. From what I read the city inhabitants did not really work, slavery and war based economy, society degenerated to these "games" being the highlight of it's culture. A sad state of affairs. Would you go and see the WWF wrestling arenas of the 80s? Anything to learn from that? If you wanna pay to see what is essentially a ruin(check online for representations of how it looked when new, it was deformed from earthquakes as well),do yourself a favor and make sure to book a ticket online, do not try on the site. Rome and Italy as a whole have much more to offer than a slaughterhouse ruin.

I’m not quite sure what you were expecting from an arena which had its last show 1500 years ago.

Learning about the past doesn’t mean we think the practices that existed back then were good. For most people it’s about curiosity and understanding how the world of today came to be (and Ancient Rome is an important part of that story in the western world).

Is that a reason to tear down the Mesoamerican pyramids, for example?

Also the Aztec pyramids used for human sacrifices? And open fields where battles occured?

So we should glorify a place like United States of America which was built on top of one of the worst genocide of the history? Where slavery was the norm till 1863 and since the end of world war 2 it has been involved in numerous wars around the world

The current mood in the wealthy coastal elites does not look like glorification of the US at all, more like "constant self-flagellation" precisely over the topics that you mention.

You seem to be somewhat pushing at an open door with your comment.

IMHO you cannot change the past but you can definitely shape the future. There are very few things that are worth “glorifying” once you go behind the curtain and see/know how the sausage is made

One point is to look at the far last (2 thousands years ago) and one point is to see the recent and contemporary history.

We have countries like the US that have been bullying and fighting wars around the world since the end of the world war two, yet we're here to discuss how many gladiator and lions were killed two thousands years ago

As always you can't feel how smelly is your breath but you're easy to spot a small dot in someone's eye

yet we're here to discuss how many gladiator and lions were killed two thousands years ago

Actually, it appears that you are here solely to bring the US into the discussion with every one of your comments. Maybe give it a rest?

I'm here to show how empty these arguments are as compared as what happened next in history or even on how we treat people in some war zone nowadays

So said, is not that hard to understand that the article was about showing something that was hidden before and now is available to everyone to visit. Nobody is hiding or denying what happened there, every Italian school teaches it without propaganda.

Yet, many comments here are about "how so many people died let's not go to visit it". Like this is not even the sense of the article?

These comments brought the political consideration into picture and I'm just showing how weak these are.

Will it is pretty glorious by all standards

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