The Stadium at Aphrodisias

Abstract

This article presents the preliminary results of an ongoing campaign of architectural and archaeological documentation of the Stadium at Aphrodisias. A combination of stylistic and historical evidence suggests that the Stadium was part of the monumental building program undertaken in the city in the first century A. D. The Stadium has a peculiar form in that it has two sphendonai (curved ends) rather than one. It is one of a small group of such stadia in the Greek world that epigraphical evidence suggests had a specific name: στάδιον ἀμφιθέατρον ("amphitheatral stadium"). The unusually complete archaeological record at Aphrodisias indicates that throughout the Imperial period the Stadium was used not only for Greek athletic competitions, but also for Roman spectacles such as gladiatorial games and venationes. In Late Antiquity a small stone amphitheater was built into its eastern sphendone, obliterating part of the Stadium's running track. It is argued that this was a way of making permanent an arrangement that had always been temporary in past centuries. Gladiatorial contests had largely ceased by the time that the amphitheater was built into the Stadium, indicating that amphitheaters such as this one were intended not for gladiatorial games, as is often supposed, but for the venationes that seem to have flourished at the site well into the sixth century, long after they had been officially banned in all cities of the eastern Roman empire.