The mystery of London's elusive Roman amphitheater
The Roman Empire left a trademark structure wherever it reigned: the amphitheater. Archaeologists searched for decades before finding the one in London in an unexpected place.
Just like Roman citizens throughout the empire, the population of Londinium, or Roman London, enjoyed a wide range of cultural pursuits. Since the late 1800s, archaeologists have uncovered ruins of sophisticated structures from the Roman era throughout the modern-day city, including Billingsgate Bathhouse, where Romans bathed and socialized; the forum, their public meeting place; and a basilica larger than present-day St. Paul’s Cathedral to worship their many gods. But where was the amphitheater? Every Roman community boasted a place where citizens could watch gladiator combats, animal slayings, and executions. Surely, this sprawling Roman city had an amphitheater too. For more than a century, however, archaeologists failed to find any trace.
(How was Rome founded? Not in a day, and not by twins.)
Stunning discovery
Then, in 1987, spot checks for the foundations of a new art gallery under the Guildhall, or town hall, in the heart of London’s financial district broke into an enormous area of 2,000-year-old ruins, 20 feet deep beneath centuries of rubble. Archaeologists deduced that the various remains composed part of a single building. Further examination beneath the Guildhall’s castle-like Gothic towers revealed the unmistakable curve that could belong to nothing other than an amphitheater.
Its location was surprising. Most Roman amphitheaters were built outside the city walls, whereas this one was built inside.
Archaeologists went on to reveal a sloped outer wall that provided tiered seating, curving down to an inner wall surrounding the floor. The floor plan of the 23-foot-wide entrance passage, through which wild beasts, gladiators, and criminals once passed on their way into the arena, remained intact. Small chambers on either side, fronted by trapdoors, may have been used as changing rooms, shrines, or wild animal pens. Archaeologists also discovered several drain channels edged with wooden planks, leading to a sump chamber.
(London's underground treasures reveal lifestyles of the rich and English.)
Further excavations in 2000 uncovered the remains of a 13-century gatehouse, built over the amphitheater’s southern entrance.
It's perhaps the dig’s small finds, however, that provide the most poignant snapshots of daily life all those years ago. Bone counters were played on board games while theatergoers waited for the show to start. Green and purple marble from Greece and Egypt offers a glimpse into how the walls once gleamed under London’s gray skies. Fancy French red bowls, decorated with gladiators and affordable to the middle class, were sold as souvenirs or held the dinner of spectators watching the games. And a curse tablet—a rolled-up sheet of thin lead inscribed with a magical spell praying for dark forces to crush one’s champion’s opponent—was discovered tucked away in the arena’s wooden drains.
This completely unexpected discovery ended decades of guesswork as to where Roman London’s amphitheater may have existed. The underground ruins survived thanks to their waterlogged conditions that preserved the timbers and other typically perishable elements.
Built to impress
The arena burst into life around A.D. 74 on London’s western hill, near Walbrook stream and the Roman fort at Cripplegate. The first arena, perhaps commissioned by Governor Q. Petillius Cerialis, was a simple wooden structure. In around A.D. 125, it was upgraded in brick and Kentish ragstone, with a tiled entrance.
London’s amphitheater was built to impress. Measuring around 330 feet long and 280 feet wide, it was bigger than the average arena in the western Roman provinces (in comparison, Rome’s colosseum measured 620 by 513 feet). The arena wall towered 8.8 feet high, on top of which were added tiers of wooden seating. Up to 6,000 spectators filled its seats, baying for blood and roaring at politicians’ speeches.
An evening at the amphitheater brought a variety of entertainment. Politicians honored gods and emperors. Animal fights and hunts were reenacted with wild boars, bulls, and brown bears (whose bones have been excavated under the arena wall). Gladiatorial combat, athletic contests, acrobatics, wrestling, boxing, and racing were much loved essentials.
Only five of Britain’s amphitheaters were built near a fort, as was London’s Roman amphitheater. As such, it would also have been used for military ceremonies and events.
But the amphitheater offered more than pure entertainment. It was a political creation. So the ancient Roman poet Juvenal explained around A.D. 100, “bread and circuses” were the two pillars of a city that kept the Roman mob happy. Provide people with food and entertainment, and they won’t focus on politics and society’s problems, and perhaps revolt.
Gladiator mystery
Archaeologists put the big mystery under a scientific lens. The heads had been discarded between A.D. 70 and A.D. 200, a few hundred yards from the Roman amphitheater. At least 36 were male and died at the age of 18 to 35. Many suffered multiple head traumas, fractured mandibles, dental damage, and skull fractures made by blunt force blows to the face and sides of the skull.
Did the skulls wash out of cemeteries? Were they religious gifts to London’s gods? Or were they gladiators—who usually died aged 22 to 27, after surviving five to 10 fights?
But gladiators were not executed like these poor souls. The forensics best fit criminals imprisoned in the fort up the hill, who were then paraded into the amphitheater before being dispatched at the tip of a gladiator’s sword. The grisly trophies were then carried back to base to display on spikes.
End of an era
The London amphitheater was used until around A.D. 360. After the ancient Romans left as their empire collapsed, the site remained neglected for hundreds of years. London became a ghost town, its lights dark until King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) marched into town in the late ninth century to revive civilization—so reams of history books are convinced. Little by little, people stole some of the arena’s stones for other building projects.
In the Middle Ages, timber houses were built over the site, followed by the first London Guildhall in the 12th century. The Guildhall reigned as the hub of city life for centuries, hosting banquets, formal ceremonies, and other events; no doubt its location was based on the location of the ancient Roman amphitheater. The current structure, completed in 1440, remains the administrative and ceremonial center of the City of London.
(The Tower of London has impressed—and terrified—people for nearly 1,000 years.)
The amphitheater today
After careful conservation work of the amphitheater, the Guildhall Art Gallery opened officially in 1999 on the Guildhall’s lower levels, and the amphitheater remnants in 2002 in a controlled environment in the basement. The amphitheater exhibition, showcasing in situ the ruined walls and a selection of excavated finds, uses green-laser lighting and luminescent paint in the darkened basement to depict how the amphitheater may have appeared during Roman times. While not as large as Rome’s Colosseum, nor anywhere near the towering presence, London’s amphitheater provides hints of the ancient spectacle 1,600 years ago, when animals and performers were released into live shows in front of Roman London’s cheering masses.
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