Colosseum Vault

"...Or you might cause this room to turn into an alien spaceship and fly away. Think about it!"

- Shaun Hastings to Desmond Miles as he pulls the levers in the Vault.

The Colosseum Vault was an ancient chamber created by the First Civilization located beneath the Santa Maria Aracoeli, but accessed from a secret entrance beneath the Colosseum. The Vault was created to store an Apple of Eden on an erected pedestal at the center of a large chamber, and also contained a projection of one of Those Who Came Before, the "goddess," Juno.

To enter the Vault's central chamber, one needed to speak aloud the number "72." To reach the higher tier where the Piece of Eden could be placed, the correct series of levers needed to be pulled, which were in turn accessed by crossing several thin platforms. After all were activated, a set of stairs would rise up to form an easy path up to the Piece of Eden.

The pedestals and levers within the Vault could only be activated by the touch of a descendant of Those Who Came Before.

Marcus Junius Brutus
"We have found traces of whatever pulled us towards this place. Whispers. Lights flickering through cracks in the earth. A doorway that is also a puzzle. We must find the solution."

- Brutus, regarding the Colosseum Vault.

The earliest known visitor of the Vault was Marcus Junius Brutus, as evidenced by the Scrolls of Romulus.

While in the Vault, Brutus saw visions of what would happen after Julius Caesar's death, and was inspired by them. He and his fellow Assassins (all of whom were also Senators) would go on to plot Caesar's downfall within its chambers.

Brutus also made a drawing of the Vault, as well as of the pedestal it contained; which would later hold one of the Apples of Eden.

Ezio Auditore da Firenze
The next known visitor was Ezio Auditore, who once passed the entrance hall while seeking out the scroll hidden within one of the Lairs of Romulus. Upon securing the Apple of Eden, he entered the Vault again a little before 1506, and left it upon the pedestal.

Upon his entrance, Ezio knew the password to enter, although how he had discovered it is unknown. Some time afterwards, he inscribed the password to the Vault upon the wall of the Villa Auditore's Sanctuary.

Desmond Miles
The latest known visitors were the Assassin team composed of Desmond Miles, Lucy Stillman, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane, who had figured out the password from the writing Ezio had left in the Villa Auditore.

While making his way towards the Vault, Desmond met with Juno, who spoke to him four times during his attempt to acquire the Apple of Eden. Out of all the Assassins present, Desmond was the only one able to see and hear her.

After Desmond activated the stairs and walked up to the Apple of Eden, symbols appeared around all of them. Upon touching the Apple, the other Assassins appeared to be frozen in time and Desmond lost control of his body. Juno took over his actions and forced him to stab Lucy in the abdomen, after which both Desmond and Lucy collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Trivia

 * Shaun remarks on two of the symbols that appear when the Apple is activated, the Phrygian cap and the Masonic Eye. He begins to say "Now those two come together in only one place-" before being frozen.
 * The above symbols only appear together on the Revolutionary France "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," which was written in August 1789.
 * 89 - 17 = 72 (the password to enter the Colosseum Vault).
 * Of the symbols that appeared, the Abstergo Industries logo is one that appears quite frequently.
 * Most of the symbols are the same ones found in Subject 16's Glyphs.
 * By using Eagle Vision at the entrance of the Temple of Juno, the symbol of the Lorenz Attractor can be seen on the gate of the Vault. This is also one of Subject 16's Glyphs.
 * By using Eagle Vision on the platform between the entrance to the Vault and the central platform where the Apple sits, the blue-lined symbol on the floor turns red, showing the correct free running path around the central platform.
 * The correct levers to be pulled can also be seen with Eagle Vision; the one pulsing in gold are the correct switches, not the ones steadily illuminated in white.
 * The interior architecture and layout of the vault bears striking similarity to the 11,000 year old ancient monolithic site of Göbekli Tepe situated in the modern country of Turkey.
 * The triangle that appears on the Vault's door and in Monteriggioni is the Tetractys, an invention made by Pythagoras. It is possible that Pythagoras or his followers found the Colosseum Vault as well, and created the password "72", seeing that the symbol was considered a holy and mystical sign.
 * The symbols that can be seen are:
 * Abstergo logo
 * Shinto Torii
 * Eye of Horus