Roman amphitheatres were purpose-built for spectacle: two theatres set face to face around an oval arena, designed so every spectator could see the action without obstruction. The Arena of Nimes followed the Colosseum's blueprint on a smaller scale, with 120 arches across two tiers, an oval arena surrounded by terraces, and a system of galleries, drainage channels, and staircases engineered for the rapid movement of crowds. For more than four centuries, the arena hosted gladiatorial combat and animal hunts, the violent entertainments that Romans considered essential to urban life. The decline came in the third century, as civil wars tore the empire apart, epidemics ravaged the population, and the cities that sustained gladiatorial culture shrank.

When the city of Nimes contracted in the fourth century, the amphitheatre's massive walls offered ready-made fortification. The arcades were blocked up with stone, and the arena became a castrum -- a fortified settlement. In 725, Arabs from Spain seized control of Nimes; thirty years later, the Franks drove them out. Through all of this, the amphitheatre endured sieges and proved its defensive value. By the twelfth century, a genuine neighborhood had grown up inside, complete with its own churches dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Martin, a public square in the center of the old arena floor, and a population that saw nothing unusual about living within Roman walls. The amphitheatre remained a residential quarter through the fourteenth century and beyond.

King Francis I, influenced by Renaissance ideals, wanted to restore the amphitheatre's ancient appearance, but the most his era managed was clearing buildings from the first-floor gallery. The real transformation began in 1786, when demolition of the interior houses started in earnest. Two walled arcades with medieval windows were preserved, opposite the Palace of Justice, as a deliberate reminder of the centuries when people called the arena home. Architect Henri Revoil completed the restoration in the mid-nineteenth century, and in 1853 the first bullfight took place inside the walls -- returning the amphitheatre to its original purpose of public spectacle, though the combatants had changed from gladiators to matadors. A statue of the French bullfighter Nimeno II now stands at the entrance.

The arena's second life as a performance venue has proven remarkably durable. Francois Truffaut filmed part of his first movie, Les Mistons, here in 1957. Dire Straits recorded their live album On the Night in the arena in May 1992. Rammstein captured most of their Volkerball DVD here in July 2005, and Metallica recorded Francais Pour Une Nuit in July 2009. The Festival de Nimes has filled the arena every summer since 1997, hosting acts from Depeche Mode to Dua Lipa. Sting has played six concerts between the Roman walls. Each summer evening, when stage lights illuminate the ancient stone and bass frequencies vibrate through two-thousand-year-old arches, the arena does what it was always designed to do: hold a crowd and give them something worth watching.