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An amphitheatre (American English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports.
Ancient Greek theatres were typically built on hillsides and semi-circular in design. The first amphitheatre may have been built at Pompeii around 70 BC. Ancient Roman amphitheatres were oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium. In contrast, both ancient Greek and ancient Roman theatres were built in a semicircle, with tiered seating rising on one side of the performance area.
Modern English parlance uses "amphitheatre" for any structure with sloping seating, including theatre-style stages with spectator seating on only one side, theatres in the round, and Stadium. They can be indoor or outdoor.
Roman amphitheatres were circular or oval in plan, with a central arena surrounded by perimeter seating tiers. The seating tiers were pierced by entrance-ways controlling access to the arena floor, and isolating it from the audience. Temporary wooden structures functioning as amphitheaters would have been erected for the funeral games held in honour of deceased Roman by their heirs, featuring fights to the death by , usually armed prisoners of war, at the funeral pyre or tomb of the deceased. These games are described in Roman histories as munera, gifts, entertainments or duties to honour deceased individuals, Rome's gods and the Roman community.Dodge, Hazel, Amphitheaters in the Roman World, pp.545-553, Ch. 37 in "Blackwell companions to the Ancient World", edited by Christesen, P & Kyle, Donald, Wiley Blackwell, 2014
Some Roman writers interpret the earliest attempts to provide permanent amphitheaters and seating for the lower classes as populist political graft, rightly blocked by the Roman Senate as morally objectionable; too-frequent, excessively "luxurious" munera would corrode traditional Roman morals. The provision of permanent seating was thought a particularly objectionable luxury.See Appian, The Civil Wars, 128; Livy, Perochiae, 48.
The earliest permanent, stone and timber Roman amphitheatre with perimeter seating was built in the italic=no in 29 BCE.
Most were built under Imperial rule, from the Augustus period (27 BCE–14 CE) onwards.Bomgardner, 59. Imperial amphitheatres were built throughout the Roman Empire, especial in provincial capitals and major colonies, as an essential aspect of Romanitas. There was no standard size; the largest could accommodate 40,000–60,000 spectators. The most elaborate featured multi-storeyed, arcaded façades and were decorated with marble, stucco and statuary.Bomgardner, 62. The best-known and largest Roman amphitheatre is the Colosseum in Rome, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre ( Amphitheatrum Flavium), after the Flavian dynasty who had it built. After the ending of gladiatorial games in the 5th century and of staged animal hunts in the 6th, most amphitheatres fell into disrepair. Their materials were mined or recycled. Some were razed, and others were converted into fortifications. A few continued as convenient open meeting places; in some of these, churches were sited.Bomgardner, 201–223.
Notable modern amphitheatres include the Shoreline Amphitheatre, the Hollywood Bowl and the Aula Magna at Stockholm University. The term "amphitheatre" is also used for some indoor venues, such as the (by now demolished) Gibson Amphitheatre and Chicago International Amphitheatre.
Notable natural amphitheatres include the Drakensberg Amphitheatre in South Africa, Slane Castle in Ireland, the Supernatural Amphitheatre in Australia, and the Red Rocks and the Gorge Amphitheatres in the western United States.
There is evidence that the Anasazi people used natural amphitheatres for the public performance of music in Pre-Columbian times including a large constructed performance space in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.
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