Roman Amphitheatre, Arles

The Roman amphitheatre in Arles (Fr. les Arènes d'Arles) was built about 80-90 AD. It is a place constructed to take large crowds watching great spectacular events.

It is built on a hill. To build it, the perimeter wall from a hundred years earlier had to be demolished. 

The building is inspired by the Coliseum in Rome, which had only just been finished. There are numerous access and egress corridors, an oval central stage surrounded by grandstands and two levels of arcades formed by 60 arches and a gallery around the circumference on each floor. The amphitheatre in Arles is bigger than that of Nimes, which was constructed shortly afterwards and is now better preserved. The top floor of the amphitheatre in Arles has disappeared. The building could take 25 000 spectators.

At Arles, like everywhere in Western Europe, the amphitheatre is the most obvious sign of the Romanisation from the end of the 1st to the 3rd century.  

This 'temple' of games, where gladiators confronted one another, stayed in use up until the end of the Roman Empire. We know that in 539 Childebert, King of Paris, had games put on there to celebrate his visit to the south, and the amphitheatre was still in use when Arles was taken over by the Franks in 550.

At the end of the 6th century the amphitheatre was adapted to fit the new realities of life, in a period of increasing insecurity. The amphitheatre became a bastide (a type of urban fortress) and over time four defensive towers were added. Inside the walls there were more than two hundred dwellings and two chapels.

The nice restaurant we had lunch at before visiting the amphitheatre.

At the end of the 15th century only the poor lived in the amphitheatre. Francois I visited in 1516 and was dismayed to find such a historic structure in such a sorry state. The occupation by the poorest inhabitants of Arles continued until 1825 when the slum dwellings were cleared away and the residents forced to go elsewhere. In 1830 it took on its current function as a bull fighting arena. Vincent van Gogh painted the crowd at an event in the amphitheatre in 1888. The painting is now in the collection of the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

A gladiator re-enactor with a class of kids.

Today the amphitheatre is the most visited historic monument in Arles. It is used for various styles of bull pestering and equestrian shows, as well as musical spectaculars and theatrical performances, including gladiator displays.