AMPHITHEATRE, a building, primarily for entertainments, in which the seats for the spectators surround the stage or arena. It is differentiated from the stadium (q.v.) by the fact that its shape approximates an ellipse. The amphitheatre was early devel oped in the Italian peninsula as the logical building for the local gladiatorial combats. The early amphitheatres were built of wood and ware strictly temporary and it was only in the last century of the Republic that permanent amphitheatres of stone were erected (Pompeii c. 8o B.c.) . In Rome an amphitheatre with a stone enclosing wall and wooden seats was built in 29 B.C. by C. Statilius Taurus.
But it is the earliest great Roman amphitheatre, the Flavian, or Colosseum, that has remained the outstanding and the largest example of the type. It was built by Vespasian and Titus upon the site of part of Nero's "Golden House." The Colosseum, as it now stands, was completed only after the great fire of A.D. 217, when the present upper storey, till then of wood, was added. The dimen sions of this amphitheatre are 615 by 51 of t. with an arena 281 by 177 feet. Its capacity is now estimated at about 50,000, the ancient Roman estimates, which varied from 8o,000 to ioo,000, being manifestly exaggerated. Other great examples of the ancient amphitheatre are : the Amphitheatre Castrense in Rome, built of brick, probably during the reign of Trajan; the amphitheatre at Pompeii already mentioned, 444 by 34 2 f t. ; that at Capua, 557 by 458ft, ; that at Verona, 502 by 403ft., probably of the time of Dio cletian; that at Pozzuoli, 482 by 383ft., particularly famous for the perfect preservation of its stage arrangements; and, outside of Italy, those at Nimes and Arles in France; Pola in Istria; and Thysdrus in Africa, all of these of approximately the same size— between 40o and 5oof t. long and between 30o and 400ft. wide. Besides these, fragmentary remains are found widely scattered throughout the Roman empire. In England, at Silchester, in Hampshire, there is an example in which the seats were placed largely on banked up earth.
In the typical Roman amphitheatre the arena was usually raised above an elaborate structure containing cells for wild beasts, stor age room, connecting passages and rooms for gladiators, all ingen iously arranged to connect by means of many trap doors with the arena above (see illustration of Pozzuoli). Around this arena, and separated from it by a high wall, arose the seats of the spectators. These were divided by passageways running around the amphi theatre into several sections (maeniana) ; the lowest, known as the podium, for state officials ; the next reserved for the wealthy or the nobles; and those above for the rest of the populace. Each of these was divided into wedge shaped sections (cunei) by radial walks and from them many exits (vomitoria) led down to the passages below the seats and so to the street. Apparently seats were always reserved, as they are usually carefully numbered; and tickets of clay bearing the seat numbers have been found. The seats were supported on walls running radially to the exterior between which the exit stairs were most ingeniously arranged so that the enormous crowds were distributed evenly to the exit arches which surrounded the ground storey. In addition, vaulted corridors ran elliptically around the outside, connecting the various radial elements ; the arcaded exterior was, therefore, a necessary and logical expression of the construction.
In modern usage the word amphitheatre is sometimes used for a theatre or concert hall whose seats surround the central area, as, for example, the Albert Hall, London, and both the new and the old Madison Square Garden in New York. Modern open am phitheatres also exist, particularly in connection with the sports of the United States, for instance, Chicago "stadium" (cap. about Franklin Field, Philadelphia (cap. 83,000), the Yale "Bowl" at New Haven (cap. 8o,000), the Baltimore "stadium" (cap. 78,000) and that at Los Angeles (cap. 75,000). The largest of all structures of this type, however, is that at Wembley, near London, which accommodates 25,00o persons under cover, 1o,000 at the ringside and 91,50o standing, or a total of 126,500. Other amphitheatres have been built or projected on the continent of Europe.
Fontana, L'Anfiteatro Flavio (1725), and Maffei, Verona Illustrata, vol. ii. (1826) ; "Amphitheatrum" in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 189o), and in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des Antiquites; Friedlander, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (6th ed., 1888-9o), vol. ii., p. 551-62o; Durm, Geschichte der Baukunst, ii. 2 (1905), 36o et seq. See also the discussion of the Colosseum in Guadet, Elements et Theorie de l'architecture. (T. F. H.)