Gladiator Museum

Next to the Campanian Amphitheatre in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, the Gladiator Museum, opened in 2003, is the ideal complement to a visit to the arena. It is laid out in three rooms: in the first we find inscriptions dedicated to the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, a model reconstructing the amphitheatre and the keystones with heads of deities that adorned the exterior. In the last room a mechanical model stages a fight between gladiators.The room we like best is the second, set up like the arena's cavea: here the decoration of a vomitorium has been reassembled, with magistrates and lictors entering the amphitheatre, and there are fragments of balustrades with big cats, bears, elephants and gazelles. The friezes tell myths such as those of Hercules, Prometheus and Actaeon. The sculptures date from the age of Hadrian. We suggest visiting it before the amphitheatre, to picture the arena better.