The undergrounds of the Colosseum, were not built together with the upper part of the Colosseum but later, under the importer Domitian, second son of Vespasian, thus putting an end to the naumachia, the games that reproduced naval battles.
Consisting of a large central passage along the major axis and twelve curvilinear corridors, in the hypogea of ​​the Colosseum there were the freight elevators that allowed the machinery or animals used in the games to get on the arena and which were probably housed in a series of environments service along the perimeter wall. To raise the scenic materials to the surface from the undergrounds, articulated systems with counterweights and inclined planes were used, of which the holes in the paving of the corridors are still visible today.