Amphitheatre of Nîmes: A Roman Arena and Medieval Fortress in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Roman, Visigothic
- Site type
- Entertainment
- Remains
- Amphitheatre
On this page10 sections
History
The Amphitheatre of Nîmes is a Roman arena in France, built at Nemausus, the colony that developed into modern Nîmes, toward the end of the first century AD. Construction is generally placed around AD 100, with a broader date of AD 90–120. Its association with the reign of Emperor Domitian remains tentative. The building hosted public spectacles for the colony, including gladiatorial combats and contests involving wild animals, for audiences of approximately 20,000 to 24,000 people.
From Roman arena to fortified settlement
After gladiatorial combats were prohibited in AD 404, the amphitheatre was adapted into a fortified stronghold. Its arcades were blocked, and the defensive works included additional towers, a moat, and possibly a supplementary enclosure. During periods of insecurity, it functioned as a refuge and fortified settlement known as the castrum arenae.
The medieval settlement contained churches dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Martin, approximately 220 houses, and a small castle. Many ancient seating blocks were quarried for construction, and the complex later became known as the castle of the knights of the arena. In 725, forces from Islamic Spain captured Nîmes, ending Visigothic rule there. About thirty years later, the Franks expelled them and settled in the city. The amphitheatre continued to form part of Nîmes’s defensive system during the medieval period.
Decline of its military role
In 1194, the Count of Toulouse authorized a new city wall at Nîmes. The amphitheatre still had a military function at that point, but its defensive importance gradually declined during the fourteenth century. It then remained chiefly a residential quarter. Streets, shops, houses, churches, and other buildings occupied the interior from the Middle Ages into the nineteenth century. By the eighteenth century, around 150 houses and hundreds of residents were still living within the structure.
Clearance and restoration
During a visit to Nîmes in the early sixteenth century, King Francis I expressed concern about the monument’s condition and supported clearing it. Local authorities presented him with a silver replica of the amphitheatre, which has since been lost, but no immediate clearance followed. A royal decree of 28 March 1786 ordered the restoration and removal of houses built inside or attached to the monument. Work stopped temporarily during the French Revolution and resumed after an imperial decree of 2 February 1809. The amphitheatre was fully cleared of later constructions in 1812.
A major nineteenth-century rehabilitation and restoration campaign followed under Henri Révoil, a French architect known for work on historic monuments in southern France. The building was reconverted for bullfighting in 1863, after the first modern bullfight there in 1853. That same year, the balloonist M. Louis Deschamps died during his 120th flight from the amphitheatre when bad weather disrupted a planned parachute performance.
France classified the amphitheatre as a historic monument in 1840. Archaeological investigations were directed by Paul-Marie Duval, a French archaeologist known for his work on Roman archaeology, from 1961 to 1969. Since 2009, a continuing restoration programme has addressed the exterior façades and seating, and by 2022 fifteen bays had regained their original appearance.
Continuing public use
Since its nineteenth-century conversion, the amphitheatre has continued to host bullfights, including events during the Feria de Nîmes, as well as concerts, sporting events, and historical re-enactments. The Festival de Nîmes has been held there every summer since 1997. The Great Roman Games recreate Roman spectacles, including gladiatorial contests, with more than 500 historical re-enactors. Sporting events have included Davis Cup tennis in 1991, 1992, and 1999, European handball matches in 1991, the 2001 World Fencing Championships, the 2003 World Indoor Archery Championships, and the opening-stage team time trial of the 2017 Vuelta a España.
Remains
The amphitheatre is an elliptical limestone structure approximately 133 metres long, 101 metres wide, and 21 metres high. Its outer façade has two superimposed levels, each containing 60 arcades, with an attic above and a cornice between the levels. Pilasters and engaged columns organize the elevations, whose columns use the relatively plain Doric order. Projecting, perforated stone consoles survive at the top of the façade. They once held the masts of a velum, a large awning extended over the seating to shade spectators.
Arena and seating
Seating structure
The central arena measures approximately 68 to 69 metres by 38 metres. It was surrounded by the cavea, the seating area, which was divided into 60 radial sections and 34 rows. Four horizontal seating zones, known as maeniana, were separated by circulation corridors and low walls called a balteus. The front rows were reserved for wealthier spectators, while poorer spectators occupied the rear rows. Each zone had a vaulted access gallery, or vomitorium, and stairs connected the galleries through separate circulation routes designed to reduce crowding and keep social groups apart.
Several rows of ancient seating have been destroyed, leaving a present seated capacity of approximately 13,000 to 13,800 people arranged in the four zones. During the medieval conversion, two arcades opposite the Palace of Justice retained their medieval windows. They remain physical reminders of the fortified and residential settlement that occupied the Roman building.
Underground galleries
Galleries beneath the arena provided backstage passages with direct access to the performance space during spectacles. Early nineteenth-century interpretations treated them as shelters made by early Christians, but the central passages were later understood as part of the amphitheatre’s operational layout. Two intersecting galleries form the feature known as the Cruciform Hall. Its walls carry two cursive Latin inscriptions reading T. CRISPIVS REBVRRVS FECIT, translated as “Titus Crispius Reburrus made this.” The wording probably identifies either the architect or a financier. Archaeological excavations of the Cruciform Hall were carried out under the responsibility of Richard Pellé of Inrap in 2017, while Henri Révoil’s research in 1865 helped clear the central underground galleries.
Sculpture and associated features
Surviving sculptural decoration includes a Roman she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, phallic reliefs, and two fighting gladiators. Two bull busts in high relief stand above the formal entrance, and a bas-relief representing the garrigue is also recorded.
A bronze statue of the French matador Christian Montcouquiol, known as Nimeño II, stands on the forecourt at the entrance. He was seriously injured at the amphitheatre in Arles in 1989. The building also shelters the Roman clausilia, a gastropod species found in France only in the arenas. It is thought to have been brought from Italy during the amphitheatre’s construction.
