Stadium of Domitian

The Stadium of Domitian , also known as the Circus Agonalis, was located to the north of the Campus Martius in Rome, Italy. The Stadium was commissioned around AD 80 by the Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus as a gift to the people of Rome, and was used mostly for athletic contests.

The Stadium of Domitian was dedicated in AD 86, as part of an Imperial building programme at the Field of Mars, following the damage or destruction of most of its buildings by fire in AD 79. It was Rome's first permanent venue for competitive athletics. It was patterned after the Greek model and seated approximately 15,000 - 20,000 – a smaller, more appropriate venue for foot-races than the Circus Maximus, although a catalogue complied at the end of the 4th century recorded that the stadium's seating capacity was 33,080 persons. The substructures and support frames were made of brick and concrete – a robust, fire-retardant and relatively cheap material – clad in marble. Stylistically, the Stadium facades would have resembled those of the Colosseum; its floor plan followed the same elongated, U-shape as the Circus Maximus, though on a much smaller scale. Various modern sources estimate the arena length to have been approximately 200 – 250 metres, the height of its outer perimeter benches as 30 m above ground level and its inner perimeter benches as 4.5 m above the arena floor. This arrangement offered a clear view of the track from most seats. The typically Greek layout gave the Stadium its Latinised Greek name, in agones . The flattened end was sealed by two vertically staggered entrance galleries and the perimeter was arcaded beneath the seating levels, with travertine pilasters between its cavea . The formation of a continuous arena trackway by a raised "spina" or strip has been conjectured.

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