Amphitheatrum Paestanum
About
Cut into the ground around 50 BCE, this amphitheater is one of the oldest surviving examples of the form anywhere in the Roman world, built decades before Rome's own Colosseum. A modern highway sliced straight through the site in the eighteenth century and still buries roughly half the arena today. Builders added an outer ring of seating near the end of the first century CE to pack in a bigger crowd for the gladiator games. By 117 CE it stood as the entertainment hub of a modest colonial town.
What happened here
Doors open early and the programme runs all day. Morning is animal hunts, staged with scenery hauled up through trapdoors from the corridors below. Midday is executions, and it is the hour when the seats thin out and people go for lunch. The afternoon is the gladiators, matched by type and record like boxers, refereed, and stopped when a man raises a finger. Most fights are not to the death — a trained fighter is expensive — but a decision can go the other way and the crowd is consulted. Seating is strictly by rank: officials at the front, women at the top. Awnings are worked by sailors detailed for the job. Sand is spread thick and replaced between shows, and the whole building smells of it.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →