In the first century AD Flavius, the ruler of Gallia Cisalpina, or Verona as we know it, had a problem. His city still had no colosseum. Flavius’s opponents were agitating for a broad band of territory south of the city as the site for people’s amenities: recreation, education, galleries and future solicitude for the populace. So, more and more conscious of this pressure and fearing inaction might lead to an attempt to upset his political hegemony, Flavius announced in his official financial statement of 30 AD a grant of thousands of denarii for what he promised would be the greatest of Roman Amphitheatres and a perpetual endowment for Gallia Cisalpina. Moreover, he proposed to bring in white and pink limestone from Valpolicella and use the vast area outside the walls as the site for the Amphitheatre and an adjacent square for leisure, exercise and conversation.
Neither Flavius nor his cohorts had shown the slightest interest during the past decade in amphitheatres, popular recreation and leisure, pink and white limestone, or much else other than their obsession with the fortification of the city walls, the locking out of wandering transalpine travellers seeking asylum from northern invaders, and the growth of the Cisalpine treasure chest. So there was a certain amount of cynicism when, with startling suddenness, the massive Amphitheatre began to take shape.
Still, it was real enough and its huge white and pink blocks shone in the sun and gleamed ghostly in the moonlight. Flavius could not have known, of course, that, in later ages, his Valpolicellan wonder would be plundered for its stone and become a source of material for medieval architects. But it would survive and be transformed, to become in the twentieth century one of the world’s great venues for opera, the Arena di Verona. This was something of an irony really, because Flavius and his party were total philistines who were enthusiastic supporters of gladiatorial contests but were never seen inside the walls of a theatre or gallery and who regarded even the drinking of coffee as epicene and pretentious.
The years passed, and Flavius and all his machinations, ambitions and coterie took their place on the rubbish heap of empire. The vast square in the shadow of his magnum opus became a popular place for meeting, strolling, talking and, soon, eating and drinking. As Romans evolved into Italians, as Latin became the Italian language, as the loosely