Could the Republic have built the Colosseum?

Exactly what it says on the tin. Assume the Republic lives on longer, with the full resources of the Empire (so, the pre-Trajan borders). Could a grand project like that be pulled off? Regardless of the space not being cleared by Nero in this scenario.
 
The Colosseum was built with the spoils of the Jewish Temple after the Great Jewish Revolt in 70 AD, so i think that the Republic could had construct something like it with the spoils of Carthage. Now the problem would be who would built it?

The senate would never approve it for the same reasons they never established a police force in Rome, despite the roaming mobs and gangs and it was also the same reason why they never built free public baths.

Who would be the one to take credit? Who would control it?

You built the Colosseum, and because its a huge and impressive place the senator or consul or tribune that ordered its construction gets super popular with the masses. The plebe would love the man that ordered its construction, and that would allow him to do what he wanted. So allowing someone to built something like the Colosseum, would be dangerous to the senate. So the only way to construct this, would be if someone controlled the senate and had access to its funds.

So, political problems aside, yes the Republic could had built the Colosseum.
 
Exactly what it says on the tin. Assume the Republic lives on longer, with the full resources of the Empire (so, the pre-Trajan borders). Could a grand project like that be pulled off? Regardless of the space not being cleared by Nero in this scenario.

They could. They did achieve other great projects (Via Appia, the aqueducts), you only need a very ambitious censor wanting to have his name stay in public memories for centuries.
 

Puzzle

Donor
They could. They did achieve other great projects (Via Appia, the aqueducts), you only need a very ambitious censor wanting to have his name stay in public memories for centuries.

Isn't the Colosseum fundamentally different in that it's an indulgence? Roads and aqueducts are practical and have immediate benefits, won't the lauded Roman civic virtue prevent such frivolous spending?
 
They could. They did achieve other great projects (Via Appia, the aqueducts), you only need a very ambitious censor wanting to have his name stay in public memories for centuries.

Isn't the Colosseum fundamentally different in that it's an indulgence? Roads and aqueducts are practical and have immediate benefits, won't the lauded Roman civic virtue prevent such frivolous spending?

Not at all. There are two ways to get the mob to like you in ancient Rome. The first to pay for equipping a Legion, then go out into the provinces and kick lots of barbarian ass. The mob always loves a conquering badass. The other way is to pay for public spectacles. Putting on beast hunts, chariot races and gladiator games was a perfectly acceptable tactic for winning the support of the Roman mob, in fact the more gore the better the mob liked you. If there is a ambitious public official climbing the Curses Honorum who is willing and able to pay for building the Flavian Amphitheatre or equivalent, then it will get built.
 
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But would anyone have those resources?

Imagine a consul of the republic sacking Ctesiphon after a succesfully campaing against the Parthians. He gains an incredible wealth and even gets richer if he serves his five years as governor of an eastern province.

He returns to Rome covered with glory and money and is elected censor - as such, he is in charge of constructing public buildings, and if the senate doesn't agree to give him the needed funds for the Colosseum, he can still make use of his own richness.
 
The loot did not exclusively belong to a general. At least officially. Of course a lot of embezzlement happened, when it came to loot. But not on that of a big scale. Not counting Julius Caesar in Gaul. But if the republic allows such "Caesars", the republic cannot survive anyways. So if Crassus sacks Ctesiphon, and the senate allows him to keep the parthian treasury, the republic does not survive. But the initial assumption is, that the republic survives.

So it is hard to believe, that a single roman gets rich enough to build the Collosseum. It was build with the jewish temple treasury and about 20.000 jewish enslaved prisoners of war. Even Crassus would have had to calculate intensively, to make that happen.

It is also hard to believe, that the roman republican senate authorizes a censor to spend that much money out of the aeraerium saturni on a colosseum. Well, you need more than one Censor, because the project takes more than 5 years. But thats a minor issue.

On the other hand: if this mean and selfish aristocratic roman republic senate, does not change dramatically, by whatever reasons, the republic cannot survive anyways. However, I don't believe, that a republican senate would agree to projects on a very big scale, if there is no absolute need to do so.

PS: one possibility: Crassus dies without an heir after a succesful parthian campaign, which makes him without doubt even richer, and hands down his total property to the republic with the condition to use this money for the collosseum. This is possible by roman law. And Crassus' assets should have been huge enough (some 100 Mio. HS). But why should he do that?
 
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Artaxerxes

Banned
They could. They did achieve other great projects (Via Appia, the aqueducts), you only need a very ambitious censor wanting to have his name stay in public memories for centuries.

Senators also built large buildings during the Republic, Theatre of Pompey for example. The Circus Maximus was also fairly large in that era
 
Isn't the Colosseum fundamentally different in that it's an indulgence? Roads and aqueducts are practical and have immediate benefits, won't the lauded Roman civic virtue prevent such frivolous spending?
It would be comissioned by a prominent senator, not by the republic itself. See: Pompey's Theater, which basically broke the taboo of having a permanent gladiator ring (Not sure if that would be the right term) in the city.
 
It would be comissioned by a prominent senator, not by the republic itself. See: Pompey's Theater, which basically broke the taboo of having a permanent gladiator ring (Not sure if that would be the right term) in the city.

Exactly. As I said if there is an ambitious Patrician who sees the building of the Colosseum as furtherance of their career and is both willing and able to pay for it, then it will be built.
 
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