Roman Amphitheatres are large, circular or oval open-air venues with raised seating, built by ancient Romans. They were used for events such as gladiator combats, venationes (animal slayings) and executions. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of Roman Empire. Early amphitheatres date from Republican period, though they became more monumental during Imperial era. Amphitheatres are distinguished from circuses and hippodromes, which were usually rectangular and built mainly for racing events, and stadia, built for athletics, but several of these terms have at times been used for one and same venue. The word amphitheatrum means "theatre all around". Thus, an amphitheatre is distinguished from traditional semicircular Roman theatres by being circular or oval in shape.
Roman amphitheatre consists of three main parts: Cavea, Arena and Vomitorium. The seating area is called cavea (enclosure). Cavea is formed of concentric rows of stands which are either supported by arches built into the framework of the building or simply dug out of hillside or built up using excavated material extracted during excavation of fighting area (arena).
The cavea is traditionally organised in three horizontal sections, corresponding to the social class of the spectators :
The ima cavea is lowest part of cavea and one directly surrounding the arena. It was usually reserved for the upper echelons of society.
The media cavea directly follows ima cavea and was open to general public, though mostly reserved for men.
The summa cavea is the highest section and was usually open to women and children.
Similarly, front row was called prima cavea and last row was called cavea ultima. The cavea was further divided vertically into cunei. A cuneus (wedge) was a wedge-shaped division separated by the scalae or stairways.
The arched entrances both at arena level and within cavea are called the vomitoria (spew forth) and were designed to allow rapid dispersal of large crowds.
It is uncertain when and where first amphitheatres were built. There are records attesting to temporary wooden amphitheatres built in Forum Romanum for gladiatorial games from 2nd Century BC, onwards and these may be origin of architectural form later expressed in stone. In his Historia Naturalis, Pliny the Elder claims that amphitheatre was invented during spectacles of Gaius Scribonius Curio in 53 BC, where two wooden semicircular theatres were rotated towards each other to form one circular amphitheatre, while spectators were still seated in two halves. But while this may be origin of architectural term amphitheatrum, it cannot be origin of architectural concept, since earlier stone amphitheatres, known as spectacula or amphitheatera, have been found.
According to Jean-Claude Golvin, earliest known stone amphitheatres are found in Campania, at Capua, Cumae and Liternum, where such venues were built towards the end of 2nd Century BC. Next-oldest amphitheatre known, as well as one of best-researched, is amphitheatre of Pompeii, securely dated to be built shortly after 70 BC. There are relatively few other known early amphitheatres: those at Abella, Teanum and Cales datedSullan era (until 78 BC), those at Puteoli and Telesia from Augustan (27 BC–14 AD). Amphitheatres at Sutrium, Carmo and Ucubi were built around 40–30 BC, those at Antioch and Phaestum (Phase I) in mid-1st Century BC.
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