Roman amphitheaters used for bullfights every summer.
Roman aqueducts that still carry water. Roman baths filled with bathers.
A surprising number of Roman structures are used for their original purposes today.
Some, like the aqueduct that feeds the Trevi Fountain, are well-known.
Others, like most of the dozens of working Roman bridges scattered
around the former Empire, are obscure. Famous or otherwise, these structures are
living connections to a vanished world. Let’s take a look at a few of the most fascinating examples.
We’ll start with amphitheaters. Although gladiators and beast hunts are a thing of
the past, a handful of the best-preserved Roman arenas are still in regular use.
The imposing amphitheater of El Jem, Tunisia, shown here, houses a music festival each summer.
The Roman amphitheater of Pula, Croatia, likewise, frequently hosts concerts.
In the interests of time, however, we’ll focus here on three well-known examples. The first
of these is the arena of Verona, probably the most famous Roman amphitheater in Italy, after
the Colosseum. It was about half the Colosseum’s size, with seating for almost 30,000 spectators.
A medieval earthquake destroyed the arena’s outer ring of walls and corridors.
But the rest remains intact enough to host music festivals, and has become one of
Italy’s premier venues for grand-style opera. Our next example is the amphitheater of Arles,
in southern France. During the middle ages, the amphitheater was completely built over,
becoming a fortified neighborhood with two churches and more than 200 houses.
These structures were cleared away in the early nineteenth century, and the amphitheater
was returned to its original function. It now hosts everything from concerts to bullfights.
The arena of Nimes, perhaps the best-preserved of all Roman amphitheaters,
is a short distance from Arles. Like its neighbor, the Nimes arena became
a miniature town during the middle ages, and was restored to public use in nineteenth century.
It hosts events routinely today, and has become a fixture of the bull-fighting circuit.
From amphitheaters, we move on to aqueducts. There are quite a few Roman aqueducts still
in use, though virtually all have been reconstructed at least once since antiquity.
We’ll discuss three of the most prominent examples in a moment.
Before we do, however, I want to briefly mention the dams that sometimes stood at their headwaters.
A few of these dams – like the example shown here, which is near Merida, Spain – are
still holding water and irrigating crops. Proceeding to the aqueducts themselves,
we’ll start with the famous aqueduct of Segovia, Spain. As is the case with virtually all ancient
aqueducts, most of the channel is underground. But just outside the Roman city, the Segovia aqueduct
vaulted over a broad valley on a magnificent stone bridge nearly a kilometer long.
A section of the great bridge was pulled down during a medieval siege. The damage was repaired,
however, and the aqueduct continued to be Segovia’s primary source of water until the
nineteenth century. It remains in use today. Our next example is no longer in service, but
was used until relatively recently. This is the Aqueduct of Valens, a landmark in modern Istanbul.
The aqueduct bridge shown here stood near the terminus of Roman Constantinople’s
gargantuan water supply system. It was repaired by both Byzantine emperors and Ottoman sultans,
and was only replaced when the city’s modern water mains were installed.
The most famous Roman aqueduct still used today is Rome’s Aqua Virgo. Built under the auspices of
Augustus, it was the only one of Rome’s aqueducts to remain in operation through the Middle Ages.
The water channels were restored and enlarged during the Renaissance; and the famous Trevi
Fountain was built to mark its main outlet. The Aqua Virgo no longer supplies Rome with drinking
water. But it still courses through the Trevi and the other historic fountains of central Rome.
There are a number of well-preserved baths scattered around the former Empire,
the most famous of which the Forum and the Stabian Baths of Pompeii, pictured here.
But only a bare handful of Roman bath complexes are still in any kind of use today.
The most famous are in Bath, England.
During the Roman era, Bath was Aquae Sulis, famous for its sacred hot springs. The Romans
channeled water from the springs into a large bathing complex centered on a lead-lined pool.
This pool, adjoined by smaller pools and covered by a vaulted roof, was used until the collapse
of Roman authority in Britain. By the early middle ages, the bath complex lay in ruins.
The Roman pools, however, were uncovered and restored in the late nineteenth century.
The lead-lined great pool became the centerpiece of a grand neoclassical bathhouse.
Bathers used it until the 1970’s, when deadly bacteria were discovered in the water. The pool
and the rest of the Roman baths, however, remain a major tourist attraction today.
Our next example, in what is now southwestern Turkey, was also built around natural hot springs.
The water of these springs, however, was cloudy with dissolved limestone, which settled into the
snow-white travertine terraces that give the site its Turkish name: Pamukkale – the cotton castle.
In some places, the travertine terraces have swallowed the ruins of Hierapolis,
the Roman city and health spa that stood beside the smoking springs.
But the sacred pool from which the springs bubbled, which lay between a temple of Apollo
and the main bath complex of Hierapolis, has changed little since antiquity.
The temple of Apollo collapsed during the middle ages, littering the bottom of the pool
with columns and capitals. The pool itself, however, is still full of warm spring water,
and still teems with sunburnt tourists. Another Roman bath complex still in use today
stands in the forested hills of northeastern Algeria, just outside the town of Khenchela.
This is Hammam Essalihine, known to the Romans as Aquae Flavianae, the Imperial Waters.
The baths date to the first century AD, when Khenchela was the Roman city of Mascula.
Like our other examples, they were built over natural hot springs,
which were channeled into two pools and ringed by porticoes and service buildings.
The bath buildings have been restored several times. But the two central pools have remained
unchanged for almost two thousand years, and are still used much as they were in the Roman era.
Temples converted to churches provide some of the best instances of Roman buildings still used for
something analogous to their original purpose. There are several dozen examples, of which a
handful are well-preserved. The Maison Carrée in Nimes, shown here, is one of the most famous.
Others include the Temple of Minerva in Assisi, The Temple of Augustus in Pula, Croatia,
And the Temple of Augustus and Livia in Vienne, France. Here, however, I’ll focus on just two
converted temples, both in the city of Rome. The first, admittedly, is no longer used as a
church. In fact, it hasn’t been used as a church since the nineteenth century,
when it was restored to its present state.
But for a millennium or so, this building – originally dedicated, it is thought,
to Victorious Hercules – served as a church, and was thereby preserved from ruin and stone robbing.
Though a small building, this was a very expensive one, constructed of the finest Greek marble.
It isn’t perfectly preserved – the entablature has vanished, along with the original roof – but
it’s one of the Eternal city’s most remarkable examples of urban continuity.
The greatest example of that continuity, of course, is the Pantheon, the best-preserved
and most impressive of all Roman buildings. Since I’ve dedicated two whole videos to the Pantheon,
I’ll refer you to those on the details of this wonderful building.
Suffice it to say that the Pantheon owes its unique state of preservation not only to the
awesome strength of its concrete dome and walls, but also to the fact that it’s been a church for
more than 14 centuries. The Pantheon, in other words, has always been a living building – revered
first as a shrine of the gods and emperors, then as a sanctuary of Mary and the martyrs,
and always as a place that seemed to promise or prefigure heaven.
For the location of every building mentioned here,
check out the Google map linked in the description.
If you liked this video, you might enjoy my forthcoming book,
Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants; you’ll find more information in the description.
Since I’m always looking for new material, feel free to let me know
about other Roman buildings that are still in use. And as always, thanks for watching.