El Jem

The impressive ruins of the largest colosseum in North Africa, a huge amphitheatre which could hold up to 35,000 spectators, are found in the small village of El Jem. This 3rd-century monument illustrates the grandeur and extent of Imperial Rome.

Classical Thysdrus (today El Jem) is now no more than an overgrown agricultural village, 60 km south of Sousse. Nonetheless, it houses the impressive ruins of the largest amphitheatre in North Africa, built during the 1st half of the 3rd century. It most probably accommodated up to 60,000 spectators. Elliptical in form, it is built from large stone blocks and probably comprised four floors.

It is a complex building that is well preserved and little altered, one of the last surviving monuments of this type from the Roman world, 138 m long by 114 m wide. Underneath it run two passageways, in which animals, prisoners and gladiators were kept until the moment when they were brought up into the bright daylight to perform what was in most cases the last show of their lives.

Able in fourth place after the Colosseum in Rome, the amphitheater of Capua and the Amphitheatre of Pozzuoli.