Amphitheatre of Leptis Magna
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Ten small openings, linked by a service gallery, let handlers release wild beasts directly into the arena.
- A wall 2.85 metres high enclosed the arena floor, separating the fighting ground from the lowest tiers of seats.
- The main approach trench was lined with monumental Ionic columns, giving the sunken building a grand entrance.
- A small chapel was probably dedicated to Nemesis, patron goddess of amphitheatres; its stone altar slid down into the arena.
- A statue of Artemis of Ephesus was unearthed near the amphitheatre in 1912.
- The seating was arranged in three bands of tiers, with 3, 11 and 11 rows, and two great gates stood at the ends of the long axis.
- Despite a century of digging at Leptis, the underground rooms beneath the arena were still unexcavated as of 2011.
Why it is worth it
Most Roman amphitheatres were raised on vaults of masonry. The one at Leptis Magna was carved out of the ground. East of the ancient city, on a rocky terrace above the sea, the builders took over an exhausted stone quarry and shaped its hollow into an arena, cutting the tiers of seats into the slope of a small hill. A dedicatory inscription dates the inauguration to AD 56, early in the reign of Nero, when Leptis was already a rich port of Roman Africa, more than seven centuries after its founding as a Punic town.
The building is unusual in plan as well as in method. Instead of the familiar ellipse, it is made of two semicircles joined by short straight sections, about 121 by 111 metres overall around an arena of roughly 57 by 47 metres. Estimates of its capacity run from about 12,000 to 16,000 spectators. The French specialist Jean-Claude Golvin has suggested that the odd shape answered Nero's taste for mixed spectacles, musical and athletic contests alongside the usual beast hunts and gladiators. Inscriptions from the city record games given by magistrates, down to the number of wild animals supplied.
Between the amphitheatre and the shore lies the circus, the chariot-racing track added about a century later, and the two are linked by a passage so that crowds, animals and performers could move between them. Standing on the upper rim, one sees both at once: the sunken bowl of the arena, the long flat line of the racecourse, and beyond it the Mediterranean. Earthquakes in the early 4th century and the great earthquake and tsunami of AD 365 damaged the city, and systematic digging here began only with the Italian excavations after 1911.
Leptis Magna as a whole, birthplace of the emperor Septimius Severus and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982, is among the best-preserved Roman cities anywhere. The amphitheatre is the part where the stone of the city itself came from, and it is worth seeing for that: a quarry turned into a stage.
Getting there
The amphitheatre stands at the eastern edge of the Leptis Magna archaeological site, about 5 km from the town of Al Khums, on the coast roughly 130 km east of Tripoli. The nearest airport with international flights is Mitiga International Airport (MJI) in Tripoli, about 100 km away by straight line; the drive follows the coastal road east.
On these lists
32.63222, 14.30922per Wikidata