Second only to the Colosseum, with its frescoed Mithraeum
Santa Maria Capua Vetere stands on the site of ancient Capua, one of the richest cities of Roman Italy. Its Campanian Amphitheatre, built in the first century AD, was the second largest in the Roman world after the Colosseum, which it partly inspired, and could hold about 40,000 spectators. Only two arches of the outer ring remain standing, but the underground passages are well preserved, with corridors and trap doors for the beasts.
Capua is linked to Spartacus: it was from a gladiator school here that in 73 BC the Thracian gladiator escaped with about seventy companions, starting the great slave revolt that shook Rome. A small Museum of the Gladiators next to the amphitheatre tells their story. Nearby, the Mithraeum is an underground sanctuary of the god Mithras with a rare fresco of the god killing the bull, among the best preserved in existence.
Tip: the Mithraeum opens only with a guide, usually on set days; the Ancient Capua Archaeological Museum holds finds from the city and its necropolis.
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