The Archaeological Park of the Colosseum has opened the Passage of Commodus, the underground vaulted walkway that led directly to the imperial box in the Flavian Amphitheater, to the public for the first time.
The passage connected the pulvinar, the imperial box, on the southern end of the Colosseum’s minor axis with the exterior. According to production stamps on the wall bricks, the walkway was built sometime in between the last years of the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.) and the reign of Trajan (98-117 A.D.), when significant modifications were made to Colosseum’s plumbing systems and underground structures.
The corridor is not a straight line. It has three branches: two short ones that run east and west and the north-south passage connecting them. It had skylights at regular intervals for illumination and ventilation. The eastern branch leads away towards an unknown destination, perhaps the ludus where the gladiators were trained. It was lavishly decorated with ornate stucco coffers and marble panels that covered the walls and ceiling with frames and plinths at the base of the wall for an architectural effect.
Later, the marble was removed and stucco decorations were added with plant, animal, gladiatorial and mythological motifs. There were scenes depicting Ariadne abandoned by Theseus and her marriage to Dionysus; scenes of arena spectacles including boar hunts and bear fights.
Its connection to Commodus is not about its construction, which long preceded his reign (180-192 A.D.). According to Herodian’s Roman History 1.8.4–6, Commodus was attacked by an assassin in this passageway, in a plot instigated by his sister Lucilla due to her ostensible jealousy that Commodus’ wife took precedence over her in the imperial box.
Commodus, too, allowed his sister to retain the imperial honors; she continued to occupy the imperial seat at the theaters, and the sacred fire was carried before her. But when Commodus married Crispina, custom demanded that the front seat at the theater be assigned to the empress. Lucilla found this difficult to endure, and felt that any honor paid to the empress was an insult to her; but since she was well aware that her husband Pompeianus was devoted to Commodus, she told him nothing about her plans to seize control of the empire. Instead, she tested the sentiments of a wealthy young nobleman, Quadratus, with whom she was rumored to be sleeping in secret. Complaining constantly about this matter of imperial precedence, she soon persuaded the young man to set in motion a plot which brought destruction upon himself and the entire Senate.
Quadratus, in selecting confederates among the prominent senators, prevailed upon Quintianus, a bold and reckless young senator, to conceal a dagger beneath his robe and, watching for a suitable time and place, to stab Commodus; as for the rest, he assured Quintianus that he would set matters straight by bribes.
But the assassin, standing in the entrance to the amphitheater (it was dark there and he hoped to escape detection), drew his dagger and shouted at Commodus that he had been sent by the Senate to kill him. Quintianus wasted time making his little speech and waving his dagger; as a result, he was seized by the emperor’s bodyguards before he could strike, and died for his stupidity in revealing the plot prematurely. Thus found out beforehand, Quintianus brought about his own death, and Commodus was put on his guard by this forewarning.
The Passage of Commodus was discovered in 1810-1814, when Rome was ruled by Napoleonic France. It was fully excavated after the Unification of Italy in 1874 and has been studied off and on since then. In 2020-2021, the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum embarked on a stucco restoration project, and a much more extensive project to restore damaged and collapsed vaults, walls and decorated surfaces, followed in 2024-2025. It is now stable enough for the public to visit safely thanks to new metallic supports, accessible walkways and a new lighting system that uses projectors to simulate the natural light that originally illuminated the emperor’s path through skylights.
The Passage will be open starting October 27th. It will be open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00-4:00, with a fixed tour guide schedule of Spanish at 1PM, Italian at 2PM and English at 3PM.
The Park has created a nifty video featuring video of the newly-reopened passageway alternating with digital recreations of how they would have looked in antiquity.
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