Failure at Fidenae: Understanding the site of the largest structural disaster of the Roman world (original) (raw)

Highlights

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Failed engineering projects illustrate the level of building knowledge at a time.
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Engineering analysis can help to rediscover the possibilities of the past.
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Digital reconstructions are a non-unique process which promote future inquiry.

Abstract

In A.D. 27 the largest structural disaster of the Roman world occurred when the amphitheater at Fidenae collapsed involving what one source reported to be 50,000 people. A 3D digital reconstruction of the amphitheater was produced from textual, architectural, archaeological, and engineering analysis. Primary literary sources, such as Roman authors Tacitus and Suetonius, examined in conjunction with proximal archaeological evidence allowed for the most probable seating capacity and the scale of the amphitheater to be determined; architectural evidence of other wooden structures found on Trajan's Column allowed for a most probable projection of a three-dimensional model to be created utilizing AutoCAD. The failure of the amphitheater at Fidenae stands in the middle of an important period for the development of large-scale Roman infrastructure; through understanding failed designs such as this one, more light can be shed on the progression of technological advances and development of engineering practices in ancient Rome.

Introduction

In AD 27 disaster struck the city of Fidenae, located 5 miles north of Rome, when an amphitheater collapsed killing tens of thousands of people. The primary literary evidence describing this disaster is limited to two passages by the Roman authors Tacitus and Suetonius where they tally those involved in the disaster as 50,000 (Tac. Ann. 4.62–63) and 20,000 (Suet. Tib. 40.) An amphitheater with a seating capacity of 50,000 would be on the scale of the Colosseum which was completed roughly 50 years later and represented a monumental advancement for large-scale Roman infrastructure. Understanding what an amphitheater such as the one at Fidenae could have looked like sheds light on what the Romans understood in terms of large-scale infrastructure design and raises questions about construction practices at the time. It is important to note that the results of this type of work are non-unique; the design provided in this paper invites alternative hypotheses and promotes a spectrum of possible answers to more completely understand what happened 2000 years ago at Fidenae and what the Romans could have known about the construction of large-scale infrastructure.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

In this paper literature, art, archaeological evidence of proximal structures, and engineering concepts are synthesized to understand what the amphitheater at Fidenae could have looked like and what it represents for understanding the timeline of Roman engineering. Since this work is a digital reconstruction of an amphitheater that collapsed over 2000 years ago and we do not have definitive evidence of what it looked like, this work outlines a methodological approach for digitally

Seating capacity

If the numbers found in the literary evidence are factual, a seating capacity (Pl) of 28,900 people is surprising. However this number cannot be directly compared with Tacitus’ account since his estimate represents all external casualties including those around the perimeter and under the structure. To calculate the amount of external casualties it is imperative to have a rudimentary understanding of how this amphitheater may have collapsed. Tacitus’ account suggests a bifurcation: “At the same

Results

Aside from mentioning that the framework was comprised of wood, Tacitus refrains from giving any comments on what this amphitheater looked like. This could allude to the fact that this amphitheater was not built in an extraordinary way and therefore the framework of the structure should be similar to proximal structures therefore the wooden amphitheater found on Trajan's column depicted earlier serves as the main guide (Niemann 2012).

As can be seen in Fig. 12, the second tier consists of a

Conclusions

It is important to highlight that the results of this study are not a representation of the current state or of the definite, original model. The results are a reconstruction model which is not grounded in physical evidence of an actual amphitheater but rather is grounded in the literature, art, archaeological evidence of proximal structures, and engineering concepts. There is uncertainty in what the amphitheater at Fidenae definitely looked like, yet it does not mean that a study of this type

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the entire Physics Department at Connecticut College who all provided their own special expertise on for this work. In addition many thanks to LT Nakagawa and Dr. Tarhini of the United States Coast Guard Academy who provided the crucial background in Civil Engineering to make this project possible.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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