Flavian Amphitheater
Italy's third-largest Roman arena, built by the same architects as the Colosseum — and almost no one is here.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Naples offline.
Medieval looters stripped the marble exterior and moved on, leaving the interior perfectly preserved. You can descend underground and see the actual iron gear mechanisms used to hoist wild animal cages up through the arena floor — in a structure that once held 50,000 people. In 305 AD, Saint Januarius survived being thrown to the beasts here before being beheaded at the nearby Solfatara.
What to look for
- The underground gear mechanisms — original equipment used to lift animal cages to the arena floor
- The intact interior versus the bare, marble-stripped exterior: the contrast shows exactly where medieval scavengers stopped
- The arena floor itself: 72 by 42 meters where the 305 AD persecutions of Saints Januarius and Proculus took place
Located in Pozzuoli, not Naples proper — budget a half-day trip out of the city center.
Flavian Amphitheater is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Naples, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Naples pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Naples
- HerculaneumWhere Pompeii draws the crowds, Herculaneum kept the wooden doors, carbonized food, and 300 skeletons still in the boat houses.
- Stadio Diego Armando MaradonaThe city officially renamed this 54,726-seat ground for Maradona on 4 December 2020 — locals still argue over what to call it.
- Teatro di San CarloThe world's oldest continuously running opera house opened here in 1737 — decades before Milan's La Scala existed.
- Naples National Archaeological MuseumA cavalry barracks in 1585, a university for 160 years, now the building where the largest single sculpture ever recovered from antiquity lives.
- Museo di CapodimonteA Bourbon king built this palazzo to hold art he inherited — then it got looted, evacuated, and reassembled across three centuries.
- Castel Nuovo (Maschio Angioino)Built in three years flat from 1279, this waterfront castle was the seat of kings of Naples, Aragon, and Spain for over five centuries.