Built in c. 70 BC (B10), the Amphitheatre abuts on the town’s defensive walls in the south-eastern district of the town. The large quantities of soil removed to create the sunken arena were piled up to support the spectators’ seating. It may have had a seating capacity of c. 24,000 — more than enough seats to cater for the whole of Pompeii’s population and for an almost equally large number of visitors too. Spectators were divided up and allocated seats in different parts of the auditorium according to their social status. Intermingling of the common crowd with the elite was avoided: a system of separate entrances and tunnels gave access to the lower tiers of seating, while external staircases led directly to the upper tiers for the masses. It seems likely that women were confined to the uppermost seats, where they may have been allocated seats in ‘boxes’, each with a capacity of up to fourteen people. Magistrates and others funding the games would have occupied double-width honorific seats (bisellia) in special boxes near to the arena. A canvas awning (vela) stretching out over the seating, supported by tall wooden masts, protected spectators from light rain and sun alike.
Construction of stone seating in the Amphitheatre (D1—5)
In a series of inscriptions on the upper part of the wall dividing the arena from the spectators’ seating appear the names of benefactors, who paid for the construction of the stone seating during the Augustan period. This replaced the earliest seating, which was probably wooden.
Each inscription relates to a particular section, or wedge, of seating (cuneus). The phrase ‘instead of games’ implies that the ‘benefactors’ concerned were actually thus fulfilling their legal obligation to spend a certain amount of money in their year of office either on games or on a monument (B11 and D57). The references to lights allude to performances held at night under artificial illumination. The identity of the Fortunate Augustan Suburban Country District (pagus augustus felix suburbanus) is not known. The word pagus usually implies a rural location but the district was closely integrated into the life of the colony and had existed before the Augustan period as the Fortunate Suburban district.
D1 CIL X 853 = ILS 5653e
The presidents of the Fortunate Augustan Suburban Country District (built this) instead of games, by decree of the town councillors.
D2 CIL X 854
Titus Atullius Celer, son of Gaius, duumvir, instead of games and lights, saw to the construction of a seating sector, by decree of the town councillors.
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