Pula Arena: A Roman Amphitheatre in Croatia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Croatia
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Entertainment
- Remains
- Amphitheatre
On this page6 sections
History
Pula Arena is a Roman amphitheatre in Croatia, built in several phases during the first century as Pula, then known as Pietas Julia, became a regional centre of Roman rule. Construction began under Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and the building was enlarged under the Flavian dynasty, which included Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. The Flavian work replaced earlier wooden elements with stone and brought the amphitheatre to its present form, although its exact construction dates, duration, and builders remain uncertain.
Built outside the city walls, the amphitheatre hosted public games and performances. These included gladiatorial contests, in which trained fighters battled before an audience, and animal hunts. A tradition connects the building with Emperor Vespasian and his companion Antonia Caenis, a formerly enslaved woman who became influential at the imperial court. According to this story, Vespasian commissioned the amphitheatre in her honour because she owned property in Pula. The explanation remains a tradition rather than an established historical fact.
Another local legend attributes the construction to fairies who worked at night. Their interrupted labour supposedly explains why the amphitheatre never received a permanent roof. A separate tradition says that Saint Germanus was tried and tortured there in the late third century before being executed outside the city on the road to Nesactium. No conclusive evidence confirms that early Christians were killed in the amphitheatre.
The building continued to serve its original purpose into late antiquity. In 404, Emperor Honorius prohibited gladiatorial combats by decree. Fights between condemned people, particularly those sentenced to death, and wild animals continued until 681, when this practice was also prohibited. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the amphitheatre lost much of its social importance.
Medieval reuse and protection
During the Middle Ages and the period of Venetian rule, the amphitheatre was used mainly for grazing. It also hosted occasional fairs, tournaments associated with the Knights of Malta, and other temporary gatherings. Pula’s demographic and economic decline from the fourteenth century reduced the building’s role further. The slower pace of later construction may also have helped preserve its outer wall.
At the same time, stone blocks, seating steps, iron reinforcing bars, and other interior elements were taken for houses, palaces, squares, and city walls. Between 1260 and 1273, the Patriarch of Aquileia imposed a fine of 100 Byzantine gold coins for removing stone from the amphitheatre. In 1458, Pula’s city council prohibited both the removal and sale of material from ancient monuments.
Further threats came during Venetian rule. In 1583, the Venetian Republic proposed dismantling the amphitheatre and transporting its stones to Venice. Senator Gabriele Emo opposed the plan, and a plaque bearing his family arms and a Latin dedication was later installed in the northwestern tower to commemorate his intervention. During the seventeenth century, another proposal called for the stone to be reused in a fortification on the island of Saint Andrew in Pula Bay. The military engineer Antoine de Ville opposed that plan. The last recorded major removal took place in the early eighteenth century, when stone was used in the foundations of Pula Cathedral’s bell tower.
Research, restoration, and continuing use
Archaeological research began in the mid-eighteenth century with work by Gian Rinaldo Carli and later by Marshal Auguste Marmont. Under Austrian rule in Istria, Emperor Franz I ordered further investigation under Pietro Nobile, Francesco Bruyn, and Giovanni Carrara. Canon Pietro Stancovich also studied the amphitheatre, and Anton Gnirs continued research in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Conservation and reconstruction began in the early nineteenth century. Marmont initiated the restoration, and Pietro Nobile continued it in 1816 after receiving a commission from Emperor Franz I of Austria. In 1932, part of the seating was reconstructed for theatre performances, military ceremonies, and public meetings. Regular maintenance continued through the twentieth century, including major work on the western ground-floor section in 1985–1987 and extensive repairs to the northwestern tower completed in 2011.
The 1985–1987 campaign repaired and consolidated ground-floor structures and reconstructed parts of the southwestern and internal stairways. The work used stone from the quarry traditionally associated with the amphitheatre and forms based on surviving archaeological evidence. A further reconstruction campaign began in 2008 and was planned in several phases over approximately two decades.
Pula Arena survived the Second World War without major destruction. It is protected as a Croatian cultural good of national significance. Its nomination for UNESCO World Heritage status was submitted twice, but both candidacies were withdrawn, and the amphitheatre is not on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Since 1954, it has hosted the annual Pula Film Festival and has continued to accommodate concerts, opera, theatre, ballet, and other cultural events. Its former underground service area also contains a permanent exhibition devoted to ancient viticulture and olive cultivation in Istria.
Remains
Pula Arena is an elliptical limestone structure built on the slope of a hill facing the sea. Its long axis measures approximately 132.45 to 132.5 metres, and its short axis about 105.1 metres. The structure covers roughly 11,466 square metres and reaches approximately 32 to 32.45 metres in height on the sea-facing side. Because the eastern side rests on naturally higher ground, three stories are exposed on the western side but only two on the eastern side. The building has an elevated foundation, entrances, and three upper levels.
The outer wall is made from local limestone. Large blocks were brought by sea from coastal quarries around Pula, with the Vinkuran quarry, also known as Cave Romane, specifically associated with the building material. Smaller stones bonded with mortar formed the concealed foundations and the walls of internal technical passages and stairways; these surfaces were covered with plaster.
The first two exterior levels each contain 72 arches, while the upper level has 64 rectangular openings. The principal arches along the long axis are about four metres wide and mark the main entrances, or portae pompae. The southern entrance, facing the city, was the most important and provided the principal access to the arena.
Seating and arena
The audience seating, known as the cavea, formed an elliptical funnel of concentric stone rows. It originally contained about 40 steps divided into two vertically arranged sections called meniani, with room for approximately 23,000 spectators. Stairways connected the levels, while the four exterior towers contained paired stairways leading to the upper stories. The present seating and event arrangements are reduced from the ancient capacity. One stated modern capacity is about 5,000 spectators, while standing events have been described as accommodating up to approximately 12,500 people.
The central arena measures approximately 67.9 by 41.6 metres. A channel about 1.16 metres wide, covered with stone slabs, separated it from the spectators. Two principal entrances on the long axis, together with several secondary entrances, led into the arena. Fifteen passageways surrounded the performance area, and stores and shops were placed beneath the sloping seating.
Below the arena was the hypogeum, the underground service area used for animals, performers, equipment, and stage machinery. Part of it was cut into the natural rock, while other sections were built up to the required height. Cages or rooms for wild animals and technical equipment occupied the complex. Animal chambers at its ends were connected to a central room by a passage. Channels beneath the arena collected rainwater and wastewater and carried it toward the sea.
A corridor toward the northeast probably connected the amphitheatre with a nearby building for gladiators, although the remains of that building have not been found. Each of the four towers contained two cisterns that supplied fountains or devices for sprinkling perfumed water over the spectators.
Canopy, shrines, and ceremonial spaces
A velarium, a large retractable cloth canopy used to protect spectators from sun and rain, could be stretched over the seating. Wooden masts were inserted into sockets in the upper cornice, while ropes running from the outer masts to an inner metal ring supported the fabric. Rare surviving structural elements preserve evidence of this system.
A paved atrium stood beside the southern side of the amphitheatre. It contained a small platform and a shrine probably dedicated to Nemesis, a goddess associated with retribution and the balancing of excessive fortune. At the western end was a ceremonial hall reached through two entrances facing the sea and a narrow vaulted corridor. Honorary rooms stood on either side. A smaller shrine beside the inner retaining wall of the terrace, in front of the ceremonial and honorary rooms, was probably dedicated to Mithras, a deity worshipped in the Roman world through a religious tradition commonly called the Mithraic cult.
The surviving structural system provides material for studying ancient building methods, especially the construction of the towers, drainage arrangements, underground passages, and supports for the velarium. The former hypogeum now contains a permanent exhibition on ancient olive growing and viticulture in Istria. Reconstructions of mills, presses, settling vessels, and other oil- and wine-production equipment are displayed alongside amphorae used to transport olive oil and wine.
