'Enter the arena': Roman restoration project reveals secret 'Commodus Passage' in Colosseum

Visitors to the Italian capital can now visit and tread a hidden walkway in the Colosseum used by Roman emperors to safely and discreetly travel to the pulvinar, their reserved honour box directly above the arena.

The passage, constructed somewhere between 90 A.D. and 98 A.D., allowed emperor’s to get to their seats without having to use the main entrances, the vomitoria, through which the masses would spew forth into the Colosseum.

This vaulted walkway was discovered in the 1810s and once featured lavish decorations, marble panels and stucco ornaments depicting scenes from mythology, hunts or gladiatorial battles. In the words of Barbara Nazzaro, the architect who oversaw the restoration works, visitors can now “have a taste of what it was like to be an emperor entering the arena,” as the decorations have been carefully restored.

Commodus connection

The Passage of Commodus, is named after the Roman emperor ruling between 180 A.D. and 192 A.D. However, as the tunnel precedes the emperor by about a century, the link to Commodus is not due to its construction.

According to an account by Roman historian Herodian, an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Commodus took place in 182 A.D., in a secret tunnel underneath the Colosseum.

“It was very easy to make the connection” said Nazzaro explaining the association.

The figure of emperor Commodus was of course thrust into our cultural imagination thanks to Joaquin Phoenix’s depiction of the emperor as a violent and impulsive villain in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.

Among the many historical sins committed in the Ridley Scott action flick, one of the more serious ones was the explicit portrayal of an incestuous relationship between Commodus and his sister Lucille.

Sibling rivalry

In reality, or at least according to most historical records, the two royal siblings despised each other. The attempt on Commodus’ life was supposedly orchestrated by his sister and with the backing of the Senate. The assassin himself, a man by the name of Quadratus, was rumoured to be Lucille’s lover whom she convinced to kill the emperor.

But Quadratus was disarmed and killed before he was able to strike the emperor and the Passage of Commodus may have been the stage for an event which pushed Commodus past the edge of sanity, putting him in a state of permanent paranoia.

In retaliation for the attempt on his life, Commodus exiled Lucille from Rome before having her killed six months later and he also committed one of the most severe purges of the Roman Senate in the empire’s history.

Commodus’ distress was so severe, that according to Herodian he spent years trying to hunt down Condianus, the son of one of senators he had executed. Commodus was mortally afraid that Condianus was planning a revenge plot against him.

This resulted in assassinations of hundreds of men who merely resembled Condianus, with their severed heads gathered and displayed in the streets of Rome. Although the hunt lasted months if not years, it is uncertain whether Condianus was ever killed.

Commodus’ reign ended 10 years after the original assassination plot when he was strangled in his bathtub.