Pompeii pass - Flavian Amphitheatre, Pozzuoli - information & history

Visitor and background information for the Roman Amphitheatre at Pozzuoli.

Book 3 day Pompeii Pass

Opening hours:

The site is open six days a week (closed on Tuesday) from 9 o clock in the morning until one hour before sunset. The last entry will be at two hours before sunset.

Your Pompeii pass allows full entrance to all of the amphitheatre at Pozzuoli and counts as a single entrance, just one of the 12 places covered by your pass.

Some history:

Pozzuoli is a small town to the west of Naples - not the grandest description, perhaps, of a place that is home to the third largest Roman amphitheatre in Italy as well as once being the largest port in Italy. The port was of such importance that the Roman Senate seriously debated building a canal from the port direct to Rome, a distance of more than 250 kilometres!

Construction on the amphitheatre is thought to have begun under Emperor Vepsasian and finished under the reign of his son, Titus, the first Roman Emperor to have directly succeeded their father. It was during his rule that Vesuvius erupted and that construction of the Colosseum, the great Flavian amphitheatre, was finally finished.

The interior of the amphitheatre, capable of holding 20,000 spectators, is especially well preserved (not so the exterior, stripped of marble in medieval times), even to the extent of being able to see remains of the gearing used to hoist cages (containing the wild beasts used in the bloody spectacles) up to the arena.

Also to be seen at Pozzuoli is the Macellum, a.k.a the Temple of Serapide.

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