Built with Loot Money

The Colosseum was not funded through taxes. Emperor Vespasian paid for it with plunder from the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, using treasures from the destroyed Jewish Temple to build what became Rome's most iconic structure.

Prisoners taken in the same campaign provided much of the labor. The symbolism was deliberate: Rome turned the wealth and people of a conquered nation into a monument to its own entertainment. Vespasian's son Titus opened the building in 80 AD with 100 straight days of games.