Roman amphitheatre
Tappa

At the top of the northern hill, we find the amphitheatre (1st century AD), one of the smallest in the Roman world, where gladiator fights and pretend hunts entertained the city’s inhabitants.  

The amphitheatre was built by the Romans in the 1st century AD, on top of the northern hill that was a part of the ancient city of Rusellae. Some Villanovan and Etruscan relics from the 7th-6th century BC have been found in the place where the amphitheatre stands.

In the Early Middle Ages, the arena became a fortified enclosure, thanks to the constructions created using materials stolen from the Roman buildings that lay in ruins.  This fortalice could be a late-antique/early medieval castrum, created to defend the Byzantine territories from the advancing Longobards. 

The area was occupied until at least the 16th century, as several fragments of Archaic majolica, that are bowed and graffitied and enamel-coated ceramics found inside it can show.

The elliptical building is particularly small (major axis 38 metres, minor axis 27 metres) compared to similar buildings found in other Roman cities. There are four different entrances: the ones on the larger axis East-West are uncovered and bordered by long walls, while the other two are bordered by shorter walls and are covered by vaulted roofs. There are two small rooms with cross-vault roofs next to the two entrances on the East-West axis: the building technique in opus reticulatum with even block heads suggests it dates back to the start of the 1st century AD, an idea confirmed by the finding of sealed Arezzo ceramics. Inside the arena, four stones have been found a long the longer axis, that stand at the same distance from each other and have holes in them, used to divide the space for scenic purposes. Other late Antiquity walls have been found in connection with a number of coins and are the only anthropic traces of the era between Caligula and Diocletian. 

Since the end of the eighties, the Augustan Roman amphitheatre standing on the archaeological site in the Etruscan-Roman city has hosted Estate Rosellana, an event focused on concerts, dance shows and plays of national importance, thanks to the excellent acoustics.  Some shows are held at sunset, to exalt the shows even more with such a beautiful backdrop.  

One of the most successful shows was Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet, in original language. 

(sources: www.museidimaremma.it; wikipedia)