How old are the Arènes d’Arles? History, size and the town that lived inside

Caesar’s colony, 46 BC

Arles was Arelate before it was Roman, a river town where the Rhône splits into its two arms just upstream. In 46 BC Julius Caesar refounded it as a colony for veterans of the Sixth Legion. The town that grew up on the reward got a forum with underground galleries, the cryptoportiques, and under Augustus, around 12 BC, a theatre for 10,000 people. It called itself, later and with a straight face, la petite Rome des Gaules.

What went up around 90 AD

The amphitheatre came about a century after the theatre, under Domitian, when the Colosseum was newly finished and every ambitious provincial city wanted one. The plan is an ellipse 136 m by 107 m. Two storeys survive, each of 60 arches: Doric below, Corinthian above. A third storey, the attic, has gone. About 34 rows of seats stepped down to the floor, and the usual estimate is 21,000 spectators, though some sources put it as high as 25,000. That makes it roughly the twentieth largest of the 400 or so Roman amphitheatres known across the former empire, and 3 m longer than Nîmes, which is a whisker younger and a good deal more complete; I put the two side by side on Arles vs Nîmes.

The fortress, and the town inside

This is the part of the story I like best, because you can still see it. In the fifth century, with the empire coming apart, the arcades were walled up and the amphitheatre became the town’s fortress. In the twelfth century four towers were added at the compass points; three survive, and you can climb one for the view over the roofs to the river. Inside the walls a whole quarter grew up: more than 200 houses, streets and two chapels, all crammed into the ellipse. For a thousand years the Arènes was not a monument at all. It was an address.

1826 to 1830: the clearance

The expropriation of the houses began in 1826 and the last were pulled down in 1830. The town celebrated the cleared floor the same year with a course, a bull race, to mark the capture of Algiers. That is the origin of the second life the building leads: it has been a bullring ever since, and it is the oldest working one in France. The seasonal calendar that follows from that is on the feria page.

1840, 1981, 2013

In 1840 the amphitheatre went onto the first list of Monuments historiques, the one drawn up in Prosper Mérimée’s time as inspector of historic monuments. In 1981 UNESCO inscribed “Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments” as a group: the amphitheatre, the theatre, the cryptoportiques, Constantine’s baths, the Alyscamps and Saint-Trophime. A decade-long restoration was completed in 2013 and is the reason the stone looks the pale colour it does now rather than the sooty grey of my childhood.

What you can still see of each era

• Roman: the two tiers of arches, the gallery that runs the whole ellipse, the tiers and the underground galleries (guided visits only, booking required).
• Fifth century: the arcades were walled up then, and reopened only when the houses came out; the scars are easiest to read from the rond-point.
• Twelfth century: the three towers, one open to climb.
• Nineteenth century: the bullring furniture, the barrier and the gates at the ends of the ellipse.

You do not need a tour to read any of this; the panels inside are decent and the free web audio guide is better. The walking order for the rest of the Roman town is on what to see in Arles, and the timings are on their own page.

If you want the 2,000 years told to you

The private walking tour is the one to book for that. It runs two hours from boulevard des Lices, past the amphitheatre, the theatre and the obelisk on place de la République, in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish, and the guides score 5.0 in the reviews. It is priced for a group, so it makes sense for four or more, or for anyone who wants a guide in German, Italian or Spanish. It does not include the monument ticket.

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