Roman amphitheatre at Trier · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

Trier Amphitheater

Amphitheatrum Augustae Treverorum

AmphitheaterGallia Belgica · Trier, GermanyBuilt 170 CE

Not standing in 117 CE

About

The stone arena seated roughly 18,000 and was cut into the Petrisberg slope so the hillside itself carried the seating banks. A vaulted cellar under the sand hoisted animals and fighters up through trapdoors. Older guidebooks assign it to 100 CE, but the masonry building went up in the later second century and postdates the 117 CE snapshot. A timber arena of the later first century occupied the site before it, and Trajan's citizens used that one.

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.