Visiting the Colosseum in Rome was a strange confluence of cultures and cultural reactions. It is a building in which the worst organized atrocities have likely ever been perpetrated outside the realm of total war. Although a cultural icon, it is often taken as such for reasons I consider highly suspect. Walking around the ruins, people are happily snapping pictures of themselves overlooking the remnants of the underground cells for the damned slave or beast that were covered by the killing floor of the Colosseum stage. My reaction was one of pathos, and it brought about reflection on the somber irony. In its highest days, the people gathered to revel in the spectacle of death.
