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= Ludus Magnus = The Ludus Magnus (also known as the Great Gladiatorial Training School) is the largest of the gladiatorial schools in Rome, Italy. It was built by the emperor Domitian (r. 81-96 AD) in the last first century AD, alongside other building projects undertaken by him such as three other gladiatorial schools across the Roman Empire. As far as location goes, the training school is situated directly east of the Colosseum in the valley between the Esquiline and the Caelian hills, an area already occupied by Republican and Augustan structures. While there are remains that are visible today, they belong to a reconstruction that took place under the emperor Trajan (r. 98-117) where the Ludus plane was raised by about 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in). The Ludus Magnus was essentially a gladiatorial arena where gladiators from across the Roman Empire would live, eat, and practice while undergoing gladiatorial training in preparation for fighting at the gladiatorial games held at the Colosseum.

Location
The Ludus Magnus was situated directly to the east of the Colosseum in order to provide gladiators with accessibility to their main fighting venue. Though it is not aligned axially to the Colosseum, it does lay just north of it along the square of the Colosseum between the ancient Via Labiciana and Via Di S. Giovanni. The Ludus Magnus was located here in order to facilitate connections between those two buildings, through an underground gallery linking the two buildings. A path with an entrance 2.17 m wide which began underneath the amphitheatre and reached the Ludus at its southwestern corner.

Purpose
The Ludus Magnus functioned as the leading gladiatorial school in Rome. It was meant to be a place for gladiators from around the world to practice fighting techniques, such as training for venatio. Upon arriving to the ludus, gladiators would be separated based on their fighting 'specialty' and then assigned a doctor for their specialty, as well as placed under the general oversight of a lanista. It is here that the gladiators would eat, train, and sleep on a regular basis. The training portion of their days was extensive but also public. As was customary, the Romans often watched the gladiators train as we know that the seating provided at this ludus accommodated approximately 3,000 spectators. This effectively served as a sort of precursor to the games, a taste of what was to come at the Ludi Romani.

Classical
The Ludus Magnus was constructed under the reign of emperor Domitian during the late first century C.E. He also erected three other ludi around the same time (such as the Dacian, Gallic, and Matutinus or Morning School), though the Ludus Magnus was the largest of the four training schools that Domitian erected in the area surrounding the Colosseum.

The Ludus Magnus underwent various reconstructions under succeeding emperors during the Roman Empire. For instance, changes were undertaken under Trajan so that the pavement level was raised by 1.4 m providing us with the structure that can be seen today. Hadrian also added certain refinements as the structure suffered fire damange in the late second century. And then Caracalla also saw to some repairs and modifications during his reign, with other additions occuring under unclear patronage throughout the active life of the Ludus Magnus.

In late antiquity the gladiatorial school, along with the Colosseum, largely went out of use due to a lack of need in society for gladiatorial games as a form of entertainment when gladiatorial combat was outlawed in the fifth century C.E. The building was abandoned in the sixth century when the space was then used to house a small cemetery. By the middle of the sixth century, the area was no longer cared for and numerous churches were built, as the population continued to decrease.

Post-Classical
The structural remains were founded in 1937 amidst building operations were taking place near the Colosseum, though excavations were not carried out until 1957-61. Situated between the Via Labicana and Via di S. Giovanni in Laterano, excavations were carried out for less than half of the overall building. However, in light of the educated assumption that the structure was largely symmetrical and additional help from the marble plan, a restored plan for the entire structure has been postulated.

Architecture
Access points would have been located along the Via Labicana whereby one descended steps to the level of the arena floor below street level.

There was a central courtyard which served as arena space and was surrounded by Tuscan style colonnades on all four sides, with fountains flanking each corner.

At the centre of the Ludus Magnus there was an ellipsoidal arena in which the gladiators practiced, circumscribed by steps of a small cavea, probably reserved for a limited number of spectators.

The size of the arena was relatively average (though slightly smaller than the Colosseum's) sitting at roughly 63 m long x 42 m wide. The cavea surrounding the arena has been calculated to encompass nine gradus, with a support system of concrete vaults over brick-faced concrete walls. In order to reach the cavea one would access a small staircase. Then there were ceremonial entrances located along the long entrance with smaller boxes located on the small axis. There were also underground chambers which were likely used for storage purposes. The foundation of the cavea was also elevated 2.75 m above the arena with a rectangular portico surrounding it with columns in two storeys, the lower in unfluted travertine Tuscan style and presumably Ionic above with no surviving capitals to confirm and the Ionic column features themselves belonging to a later repair than original construction. Throughout the sides of the portico were openings to various small rectangular chambers which would have served as living quarters for the gladiators, as well as stairs leading up to the second storey. We also have evidence of a second row of small spaces located behind the rectangular chambers along the north and south sides with access outwards to the street that were likely used as shops in antiquity.

In the northwest corner of the portico, one of the four small, triangular fountains has been restored. It lies in the spaces between the curved wall of the cavea and the colonnade. A cement block remained between two brick walls, converging at an acute angle.

A large part of the brickwork structures were also originally covered by marble slabs that were later removed.

While there is a lack of remains for the upper storeys, it has been assumed that the second storey replicated the plan of the first in general layout and usage, while the third storey likely had an open gallery in light of the portico. It has also been postulated that there was a large axial hall encompassed on all three sides by colonnades with five entrances serving as a sacrarium or armamentarium.

As noted in textual sources and still undergoing inconclusive excavations carried out in relation to the Colosseum, there was an underground passage that connected the gladiatorial school with the Flavian amphitheater. This corridor was likely paralleled above the ground as well though it remains speculation.

Textual
underground passage that could direct gladiators from the training school to Colosseum prior on game day. (find ancient source ref)
 * Epicetus describes some of the harsh conditions the gladiators of a ludus often faced.
 * Juvenal englightens us about the separate quarters present in a ludus.
 * Quintilian describes the exchange of blows of gladiators in practice.

Archaeological
The archaeological remains of the Ludus Magnus represent roughly less than half of the practice arena and barracks, while the rest of the structure remains hidden under street level and other buildings. What remains is largely the product of a rebuilding endeavor taken on by the emperor Trajan in the early second century C.E. According to Claridge, under Trajan the seating area and ground level were elevated while the arena level remaining in tact. We also know of half of the plan from a fragment that has survived from the Severan Marble Plan (early third century C.E.), although breakage and erosion has led decreased its informative value. There were also great doubts about where it was located in the general topography of ancient Rome, so that it can now be related to a building in Piazza Iside, still visible.

History
The emperor Hadrian died in 138 C.E. and his son and successor Antoninus Pius dedicated this temple in his name almost a decade later in 145 C.E. Though there is no inscription remaining on the temple to identify it as a temple to Hadrian, there was an inscription dedicated to him by his successor Antoninus Pius which was listed in the Regionary Catalogues amidst other Hadrianic dynastic monuments between the Pantheon and the Via del Corso.

There was apparently another major temple precinct to the west, perhaps of Matidia and Marciana, Hadrian's mother-in-law and her mother, Trajan's elder sister, both of whom were also deified after their deaths.

Antoninus Pius' reign may not have saw to any stylistic innovations in the architectural programs at Rome, but he did see to the completion of buildings begun or intended by his late predecessor Hadrian.

Location
The Temple of Deified Hadrian was located within the Campus Martius (The Field of Mars) in close proximity to the earlier Solarium Augusti and later constructed Column of Marcus Aurelius. In the Notitia it is also listed as located in Regio IX near the Baths of Alexander Severus and Agrippa. The temple of Matidia (Hadrian's mother-in-law) also likely stood just to the west of the Temple of Hadrian so it has further been argued for the presence of monumental entrances at both ends of the temple though the remains offer no confirmation. The temple itself also stood within a spacious precinct surrounded by a colonnade, parts of which were uncovered by Lanciani in his early excavations of the surrounding spaces.

Remains
Long ago both ends of the temple, as well as the other side disappears so all that remains are eleven fluted columns with Corinthian bases and capitals, as well as one side of the cella wall which was built into a nineteenth century palazzo that continues to house the Rome Borsa.

While the lower part of the original richly carved entablature survives, the rest was recorded in sixteenth century drawings. In modernity the entablature is largely repaired in stucco with the cornice so poorly restored that three different versions exist with only the central one resembling the original.

Traces of vaulting beneath the front steps also demonstrate that the temple originally faced East (towards the Corso) and likely had eight columns across the front, with thirteen down either side of the structure. These traces also consist of surviving remains of clamps which suggest pilasters were joined to the colonnade.

Excavations

 * Excavations 1878 and recent explorations in cellars of buildings on other sides of Piazza di Pietra identified line of a monumental enclosure wall, with large curving exhedra at the back.
 * Front of colonnade behind the railing deeply excavated which exposed original ground level of temple precinct, 5 m below present square and flank of high podium faced with white marble to match columns above.

Building Materials

 * Proconnesian marble is employed distinctively with grey and white horizontal bands for the Corinthian order columns measuring 1.44 m in diameter and 14.8 m high. This marble type came from North Western Turkey and does not really appear in Rome until the end of Hadrian's reign, and is widely employed by the Severans.
 * Peperino tufa (podium faced with matching white marble) was used for the cella wall that features behind the collonade. Blocks of peperino were left rough, presumably to be covered with marble revetment.
 * Some of the fluted columns of the surrounding colonnade were also of giallo antico, a coloured marble also known as Numidian yellow from Tunisia that was used for columns, paving and veneer.

Construction Techniques

 * The interior of the squarish cella was lined with engaged order and had a coffered concrete barrel vault ceiling with clear settings for a lining in plates of marble which survives inside Borsa building.

Design
Overall, the temple was presumed to have been octastyle, elevated on a typical Roman high podium, peripteral in style and likely approached by stairs covering the eastern end with a deep pronaos of three bays. During Hadrian's reign there was a temporary reminisce of the peripteral style of temple as we see used in the Temple of Venus and Roma. Also like the Temple of Venus and Roma, the Temple of Hadrian consists of a two-stepped architrave and cornice profile that is supported by plain consoles instead of modillions, a sima with a similar arrangement of palmettes and lions' heads (argued by Frank Sear to have been the work of the same architects), but a frieze which is pulvinated so not exactly the same structural design that we see in the Temple of Venus and Roma. An anonymous drawing alongside some fragmentary remains from the site indicate that the architrave was worked with garlands hung in swags and the frieze consisted of serpentine design of acanthus candelabra between reversing S-spirals.

As one of Antoninus Pius' earlier building projects undertaken, the Temple of Hadrian resembles other design features we see with late Hadrianic architecture, such as the rejection of the orthodox Corinthian Order and notable stylistic transitions such as Asiatic illustrating Pergamene influence with rich ornamentation and other more eclectic features.

Moreover, it has been argued given the remains and earlier renditions of the temple that nearly every surface was decorated, whether with intricate Asiatic designs, or engaged orders and pilasters surrounding the interior of the cella.

The 'Province' reliefs

 * A series of marble pedestals and panels (24 in total so far) were found in proximity to the temple of Hadrian and have thus been thought to have formed a part of its decorative program. They were carved in relief with personifications of cities and peoples from the Roman Empire, alternating with military and naval trophies. The building materials employed were Procennsian marble compatible with the order of the temple. However, it is still debated whether or not those remains are directly from the Temple of Hadrian, or from other large public buildings that surrounded it.
 * "The face of the temple podium was broken into panels, vertical plinths under the columns bearing allegorical figures of the provinces of the empire in high relief and framed panels under the intercolumniations with simple trophies of armor and weapons at larger scale. Twenty-one of the figures of provinces and nine trophy panels are known; twenty-three survive whole or in part. Sixteen are well preserved and divided among five collections in Rome and Naples. Identification of provinces in some cases are disputed; it is conjectured that originally there were twenty-five of these, corresponding to the number of such personifications appearing on the coinage of Antoninus Pius, to which one turns for identification of the attributes and iconography. They are identified especially by costume and weapons; ethnic traits do not appear."

Reconstructions
Original: Inside the bank the remains of the non-apsidal naos can be seen, once covered by a barrel vault supported on columns between which were battle-trophies. The base of the columns had reliefs of personifications of the provinces of the empire (some of which are now in the National Roman Museum and Capitoline Museums), demonstrating Hadrian's less warlike policy than his predecessor Trajan.

The temple had a large square arcade surrounded by columns in giallo antico and which opened onto the Via Lata (now the Via del Corso) through a triumphal arch. This arch has been identified as the one called the "arch of Antoninus" in later sources, but has also been called the "arch of Claudius" and the "arch of the Tosetti", from the name of the family that inhabited Piazza Sciarra (now disappeared due to road-widening of the Via del Corso). Despite having fallen into ruin and been demolished, the arch still gave its name in the 18th century to the 'Via dell'Archetto'.