Amphitheatre of Tarraco Spain

Legendary

A 15,000 person entertainment venue built in the 2nd century.

Photo by Carole Raddato

On January 21, 259 AD, the Roman governor of Tarraco ordered three men burned alive in the arena of the city's amphitheatre. Bishop Fructuosus and his two deacons, Augurius and Eulogius, were executed for refusing to renounce Christianity.

The crowd that watched that day couldn't have imagined that centuries later a church would be built on the exact spot where they died.

The Amphitheatre of Tarraco was built at the turn of the 2nd century AD in what is now Tarragona, Spain. It was positioned deliberately at the edge of the city facing the Mediterranean Sea, and held up to 14,000 spectators who came to watch gladiatorial combat, wild animal hunts, and public executions.

Some of the northern seating was carved directly out of the bedrock of the hillside, which is why it survives at all.

By the 4th century the games were over and the arena fell into disuse. In the 6th century a Visigothic basilica was built inside it to honor the three martyrs. Then in the 12th century a Romanesque church dedicated to Santa Maria del Miracle was built directly over the basilica, sitting in the middle of what had once been the arena floor.

That church stood for centuries before it was demolished in 1915.

Today you can walk through the ruins and see all three layers of history at once: the Roman arena, the outline of the Visigothic basilica, and the foundations of the medieval church stacked on top of each other in the same footprint.

The underground passages beneath the arena are still intact, including the tunnels and trapdoors used to raise animals and gladiators into the arena from below.

The amphitheatre once held the longest Roman inscription in the empire, a 140-meter text that ran around the entire podium wall recording renovations made in 221 AD. Only fragments survive today.

Walk the arena floor and find the foundation outlines of all three buildings. Look down into the underground galleries where lions and gladiators once waited. The view from the upper tiers stretches across the Mediterranean, the same view Roman crowds had nearly 2,000 years ago.