← Back to the map_47.jpg?width=800)
Modern photograph of the Campanian Amphitheatre, Santa Maria Capua Vetere · Wikimedia Commons
Capua
Italia · Roman province·Italy·Founded 9th c. BCE (Etruscan)
Once the second city of Italy, home to a huge amphitheatre that later served as the model for the Colosseum. Its gladiator school was Spartacus's starting point.
The ancient city's ruins lie in the modern town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere; its amphitheatre, the second-largest after the Colosseum, was the site of Spartacus's revolt.
Excavation history
1726
Early Bourbon-era excavation — The Capua amphitheatre was first excavated starting in September 1726, in front of its southern gate.
1922-1924
Italian state archaeologists — The Mithraeum of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, with its fresco of Mithras slaying the bull, was discovered by chance during construction in September 1922 and excavated by 1924; it opened to visitors in 1937.
Notable finds
Hadrianic Amphitheater Dedication
Workers digging outside the amphitheater's south gate in September 1726 turned up a shattered marble inscription recording that Hadrian personally restored the arena in 119 CE, adding new statues and columns, before Antoninus Pius formally dedicated it in 155 CE.
Museo Provinciale Campano di Capua
The Matres Matutae Collection
A landowner digging along the Via Appia in 1845 struck a buried sanctuary and unearthed the first of what became more than 200 grey-tufa statues of seated mothers, some cradling as many as a dozen infants at once.
Museo Provinciale Campano di Capua
Amphitheater Arch-Key Busts
Capua's amphitheater once carried 240 carved relief busts of gods, satyrs, and theatrical masks set into the keystones of its 80 arches. Only about twenty remain on the building itself; several more, including heads of Jupiter and Minerva, were moved into museum collections.
Museo Provinciale Campano di Capua / Naples National Archaeological Museum
Mithraeum Tauroctony Fresco
Discovered in 1922 inside a barrel-vaulted underground chamber, this 2nd-century fresco shows Mithras kneeling on the bull's back, dagger raised, flanked by two torch-bearing attendants and watched over by Sol.
In situ, Mithraeum of Santa Maria Capua Vetere
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 →