The Museo dei Gladiatori stands near the Campano Amphitheater in Santa Maria Capua Vetere. In the museum, the surviving elements of the decoration of the Campanian Amphitheater were presented to the public for the first time. It was inaugurated in 2003 and is divided into three rooms. In the first room, placed at the entrance, various inscriptions have been placed bearing dedications to the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, a model that reproduces the original structure of the Amphitheater and, at the top right, there are three of the arch keys that decorated the exterior of the monument: a male head with a Phrygian cap identified with Mitra or Attis, a female with a diadem (perhaps Giunone), a head of Minerva with an attic helmet and the cast of the Volturno, whose original is kept in the Museo Campano of Capua. In the second room, with an original layout that reproposes the steps of the auditorium, the decoration of one of the vomitoria (accesses to the cavea) was reconstructed in its entirety; on the bottom there is a relief with a procession of magistrates and lictors, depicted in the act of entering the amphitheater to occupy their seats. The side balustrades instead reproduce felines that bite the prey; other fragments of lateral balustrades depict animals that seem to run towards the arena: gazelles, bears, elephants, lions. Fragments of the frontal plutei are also placed on the walls of the same room. Among the represented themes stand out sacrifice scenes, a depiction of the amphitheater under construction and mythological scenes; in particular we note, on the right wall, the exploits of Hercules (cleaning the Augean, Hercules and Antaeus stables) and two fragments with the Dioscuri. To the right of the entrance is the punishment of Prometheus, the torture of Marsyas, Mars and Rhea Silvia, as well as a fragment with dancing Maenads and another with Apollo. To the left of the entrance one can also recognize a scene with towered deities, the construction of the amphitheater, the representation of a sacred enclosure, a scene of sacrifice for the dedication of the amphitheater. On the left wall, scenes of Centauromachy and Actaeon torn apart by dogs. The stylistic features of the reliefs, the choice of subjects and the way of treating them in response to a strongly classical taste indicate the Hadrian age as a period of execution of the sculptures. In the third room, to the left of the first, there is a mechanical representation of a gladiatorial fight.

• published: 08 Apr 2019
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