XVII Empúries/Amporias Spain (Emporiae)

What3words – renewal.trots.disbanded

Visited September 2022

Construction date - 100AD

Capacity - 3.300

Status – Limited amphitheatre remains, well-preserved site and location

If you’re not put off by sniffy Catalan waiters and dodgy car hire company employees (use Europcar at Barcelona Airport at your peril) the far north of Spain has its attractions. On the Costa Brava with a commanding view of the Mediterranean lies Empúries, adjacent to and a short coastal walk from, the resort of L’Escala. It is an extensive Archaeological site incorporating Greek, Roman and Iberian settlements. Less than 25% of the Roman settlement, consisting of a grid pattern walled town with a central forum and an amphitheatre outside the south gate, has been excavated. Nevertheless there are some impressive mosaic floors and a big stretch of city wall – with a stone base and upper sections in Roman Concrete.

The port settlement of Emporion dated  from 575 BC and was founded by ‘Greek’ mariners (from areas of modern day Turkey) trading along the Mediterranean coast. The Romans conquered Iberia and started their own town on the hilltop above it in the first century BC based around a standard grid pattern military camp.

The amphitheatre itself sits in the ‘classic’ position on high ground just outside the south gate in the city wall. The remains consist of the curtain wall of the oval arena and foundations fanning out around it to a height of between three and six feet. This was a fairly modest structure built in the 1st Century AD consisting of the stone foundations which were topped by wooden seating - estimated to have accommodated some 3,300 people.

The town went into decline and was abandoned in the early middle ages. It’s relevance as a trading centre faded after the Via Domitia major Roman Highway linked the larger and more accessible ports of Narbonne (Narbo Martius) and Barcelona (Barcino). This may explain why it only had a small, mostly wooden amphitheatre rather than one of the more impressive stone structures associated with important regional centres, and also why so much of it survives having not been built over by subsequent centuries of development.

In Amphitheatre terms, Empúries survives whilst the amphitheatres of Narbonne and Barcelona are pretty much lost to history, with a site identified, excavated and covered at Narbonne and Barcelona only claiming outward radiating roads, a curve in some buildings and an ancient archway above another arch opposite the church of Santa Maria del Mar as evidence.