Discovered in 1915 on the occasion of some works of excavation of a railway cutting for the Rome-Naples line, the most ancient of the two amphitheatres of Pozzuoli lies still earthed up.

Oriented on the NNE-SSW axis, it was 139x103.5 metres. At present they are recognizable some arcades of the external perimeter along via Solfatara and a small sector of the "summa cavea" near via Vigna, already crowned with a vaulted gallery and unfortunately sheared by the railway line.

Structurally similar to the amphitheatre of Pompeii and equally devoid of underground passages, the monument of Pozzuoli, probably built during the dominion of Silla (first decades of the I century B.C.), is very important for a planning peculiarity: in order to limit at the most the building costs, it was decided to let a big part of the structures lie on a pre-existent slope of the ground, avoiding so both expensive wall constructions and artificial embankments like the ones found in coeval similar buildings.

Svetonio and Dione Cassio mention explicitly the minor amphitheatre: the first remembers the "celeberrimi ludi" (the famous games) which were represented in Puteoli during the Augustan Age, the latter describes the great games with which, in  66 A.D., Nero wanted to honour Tiridate, the new king of Armenia designated by Rome.

from "Oltre il Mito" Associazione culturale Oltre l'Averno