Colchester Roman circus highlighted in English Heritage blog

Yesterday (6th January), an illustrated item was posted on the ‘Heritage Calling’ blog, which is an English Heritage archaeology blog, titled ‘6 sites that help us better understand Roman entertainment’. This is about the remains of six Roman entertainment venues in Britain. No 1 is the Colchester Roman circus! No 2 is the Roman theatre at Gosbecks, on the western side of Colchester. The other four sites are amphitheatres. The four examples given here represent four different forms of amphitheatre. The first is the traditional amphitheatre at Caistor St Edmund, followed by the legionary amphitheatre at Chester and the auxiliary amphitheatre at Cirencester. The fourth is the urban amphitheatre at Silchester. The two images of the circus and the theatre belong to the Trust and the originals were painted by artist Peter Froste.

The item begins: ‘… The amphitheatre was one of the few building types created by the Romans and its purpose was to stage spectacles (spectacula), which included wild beast hunts (venatoria) and the throwing of criminals to the beasts (damnatio ad bestias), as well as other forms of criminal execution and gladiatorial fights (munera). The classic event was the so-called munus legitimum, a spectacle that would include animal spectacles in the morning, executions at midday and gladiatorial fights in the afternoon …’

The entertainment at the Roman circus included chariot races and also, perhaps, horse races. The Roman theatre had a semicircular plan, and the amphitheatres were all circular/ovoid in plan. The Roman circus, of course, had an elongated U-shaped plan, with one curved end and one square end. You can visit the site of the Roman circus and view part of its exposed foundations; the circus centre will re-open to visitors in March 2015. The Roman theatre at Gosbecks survives as a slight mound and is marked out with white lines, in Gosbecks Archaeological Park. You can visit the surviving earthworks of Cirencester amphitheatre. The amphitheatre at Caistor St Edmund survives only as a cropmark.

Read the item at http://heritagecalling.com/2015/01/06/6-sites-that-help-us-better-understand-roman-entertainment/ , and read more at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/iha-roman-amphitheatres-theatres-circuses/amphitheatres.pdf .

The image shows an impression of Colchester’s Roman circus in the 2nd century AD (by Peter Froste).

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