A Year as a Teaching Assistant in Rouen, France: Arles Amphitheater

While I was staying in Aix-en-Provence with the François family, I had the good fortune to see an authentic Roman amphitheater! Isabelle and Yann took me to the city of Arles, which is not far from their home. This city was an important place for the roman empire in France. As such, it contains an arena that was built in 90 AD.

As we walked through the place, I couldn't help but be amazed by the fact that the Romans were able to construct such a monument. Even with all of our modern tools, I can't fathom building something like that.

This was in the tower of the amphitheater. There wasn't originally a tower, but during the 18th century, a small city was built in the middle of the amphitheater and the towers were built to turn it into a fortress.

It was hard to envision having a city inside of the amphitheater. There didn't seem to be enough room for all of that, so the houses must have been excessively small.

A good part of the seat sections is rebuilt since the stones were taken to build houses. They also had to rip out some of them to make room for the actual houses. At the moment, the arena is used for bullfighting, so there are new seats installed to make room for the spectators. Isabelle and Yann have actually been there to see the bull fights.

Here is the wall for the fighters to run behind when the escape.

I'm glad I wasn't there for a bullfight since apparently they kill the bull at the end. I really don't think I'd like to see that. It's almost as senseless and cruel as the gladiator fights that occurred here in 90 AD.

We learned from a sign on the wall that the gladiators that fought here were free men who chose to become gladiators. They were recruited and trained in a special school. As long as they were gladiators, they gave up the right to be "free" men, but were well taken care of as fighters. Very few of them were actually killed because the noblemen would have to pay for their lives. Only a few who fought very badly were killed in the end.

Yann and Isabelle explored the passageways. There were several tiers of passages that ran all the way around the arena. They were constructed to make it possible for everyone to enter the amphitheater without encountering people outside of their class.

From the circular passageways, there were many staircases into the arena. This setup was planned in order to keep traffic moving when there were many people trying to circulate.