Why Is the Roman Coliseum Still Standing?

by Ken Orr

Occasionally, I will ask my students, "Why is the Roman Coliseum still standing?" The answer that I'm fishing for is, "Because the folks who tried to tear it down in the Middle Ages for building material were not as good engineers as the folks who put it up hundreds of years earlier." All this was recently brought to mind because I've been reading a series of historical novels set in 9th century England based around the struggles between the Saxons and the Danes. In a number of places in these novels, the central character comments about the Roman ruins and how no one in his time could understand how the ancient Romans built the bridges, roads, baths, and castles that they did. These references got me thinking about architecture, engineering, and infrastructure.