Tunis 🇹🇳, El Jem Amphitheater

The amphitheater of El Jem is a grandiose structure that has survived for almost two millennia. To show how rich the Roman city of Fisdre was, which lived by trading olive oil from the vicinity of the future El-Jam, in the II century A.D. proud mayors built this amphitheater, the second largest in the Roman world.

The amphitheater of El Jem was designed for 30k spectators.

In 238, an uprising broke out in Fesdra: large landowners rebelled against the new taxes of Rome. The imperial authorities reacted harshly, a significant part of the city was destroyed. But the amphitheater was damaged only in the XVII century, when Sultan Mohammed Bey ordered his troops to breach the walls with cannonballs to destroy the rebels who had settled there.

Inside, you can walk through the underground passages where slaves and gladiators were waiting for their "exit", or climb the theater rows and imagine how people and wild animals fought for their lives here for the amusement of the audience.