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The Quadriporticus of the Theatres, immediately behind the stage building of the Large Theatre, is one of the most interesting structures in Pompeii’s entertainment district.
Its history encompasses two entirely different functions.
Originally, it was a vast porticoed space for audiences attending the nearby Large Theatre: a large open-air foyer where people could walk, meet and take shelter during intervals in performances.
After the major earthquake of AD 62, however, the building was extensively reorganised and converted into barracks for gladiators.
The Quadriporticus therefore brings together both the world of the theatre and that of gladiatorial combat within a single monument.
The Large Theatre’s spacious foyer
The Quadriporticus extended directly behind the stage building of the Large Theatre.
It consisted of a vast rectangular courtyard surrounded on all four sides by a portico supported by 74 Doric columns of grey tuff from Nocera.
Its position was no accident.
During theatrical performances, thousands of people could crowd into the neighbouring theatre. At intervals, a space was needed where spectators could leave the cavea without dispersing into the narrow surrounding streets.
The Quadriporticus served precisely this purpose.
Beneath its long porticoes, spectators could stroll, converse and shelter from sun or rain while waiting for the performance to resume.
Theatre and social life
Attending a performance in the Roman world meant more than simply watching a show.
The theatre was also an opportunity to meet others, display social status, discuss business and take part in the city’s public life.
The Quadriporticus was therefore a natural extension of the Large Theatre.
While the cavea seated the audience according to a precise social hierarchy, the portico provided a freer space for the social interaction of spectators.
To imagine the building during its first phase of use, it is therefore necessary to picture a place filled with people on performance days.
The 74 columns
The great colonnade is one of the building’s most distinctive features.
The 74 Doric columns were made from the characteristic grey tuff quarried around Nocera, a material widely used in the public buildings of Samnite and late Republican Pompeii.
The columns supported the roofs of the porticoes surrounding the central courtyard.
Most of the roofing has naturally disappeared, but in antiquity visitors walked through true covered corridors while the large central space remained open to the sky.
The contrast between shaded portico and sunlit courtyard must have created an especially elegant architectural effect.
A unified entertainment district
The Quadriporticus formed part of a major monumental complex.
Only a few metres away stood:
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the Large Theatre;
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the Odeion, or Small Theatre;
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the Triangular Forum;
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the Samnite Palaestra;
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the Temple of Isis.
This concentration of buildings made the southern part of the city one of the principal centres of cultural life and entertainment.
On a performance day, audiences could move from the theatre into the Quadriporticus without leaving the complex.
The relationship between the buildings was therefore much closer than it may appear when they are viewed today as separate monuments.
The earthquake of AD 62
The history of the Quadriporticus changed radically after the major earthquake of AD 62.
The shock caused serious damage throughout Pompeii.
Houses, temples, baths and public buildings became part of a vast reconstruction programme that continued throughout the following seventeen years.
The theatre district also underwent important changes.
In this context, the Quadriporticus lost its original role as a foyer and was adapted to house a community of gladiators.
Conversion into barracks
The conversion required an extensive reorganisation of the building.
Numerous rooms used for the gladiators’ accommodation and everyday activities were created or adapted along the porticoes.
The large central courtyard provided space for communal life and probably for some training.
The most important rooms were concentrated chiefly on the eastern side.
A broad staircase also led to an upper floor containing further rooms.
According to the traditional interpretation, some of the upper rooms may have accommodated the manager or supervisor of the gladiatorial troupe, although this function should be regarded as probable rather than certain.
Two different gladiatorial barracks in Pompeii
This building should not be confused with the Gladiators’ Barracks at V.5.3.
The structure in Regio V was used by gladiators during an earlier phase of the city’s history.
In the final years before the eruption, those former barracks were converted into a private residence.
The Quadriporticus at VIII.7.16, by contrast, was the gladiatorial headquarters used after the earthquake of AD 62.
The two buildings therefore represent two different periods in the presence of gladiators at Pompeii.
This distinction is essential for understanding the history of both complexes correctly.
The world behind the Amphitheatre
The Amphitheatre was the place where gladiators fought before thousands of spectators.
The Quadriporticus, by contrast, reveals the world that existed behind the spectacle.
The fighters needed accommodation, food and training.
Weapons and armour had to be stored and maintained.
A gladiatorial troupe also required trainers, servants and staff responsible for everyday activities.
The barracks were therefore a true organisational centre, essential to the operation of the spectacles.
The gladiators’ rooms
Numerous small rooms lined the perimeter of the Quadriporticus.
Some are traditionally interpreted as quarters for gladiators.
They were simple and very different from the richly appointed bedrooms of Pompeii’s great houses.
Rooms on two levels nevertheless made it possible to accommodate a considerable number of people.
The building thus acquired an almost residential character, while retaining the large central space originally designed for theatre audiences.
Training
Gladiators were not untrained fighters.
Each category used different weapons and equipment and required specialised instruction.
The murmillo, Thracian, secutor and retiarius, for example, fought using very different techniques.
Training was therefore constant and rigorous.
The large courtyard of the Quadriporticus may have provided a useful space for some exercises, although it is not possible to reconstruct every activity that took place there in detail.
Physical and technical preparation was nevertheless an essential part of the community’s daily life.
Parade armour
One of the most remarkable discoveries in the Quadriporticus was a collection of gladiatorial weapons and armour.
Inside two wooden chests, excavators found an exceptionally rich group of helmets, greaves and other pieces of equipment.
These were not simply weapons used for everyday training.
Many pieces were lavishly decorated and were probably used chiefly in the parades that preceded the combats.
Before the games began, gladiators could present themselves to the audience in a formal procession.
The most spectacular armour helped turn this appearance into a performance in its own right.
Masterpieces in bronze
The armour found in the Quadriporticus is now among the most famous gladiatorial material from Pompeii.
Helmets and greaves bear elaborate decoration in embossed bronze, with mythological figures, deities and ornamental motifs.
Their artistic quality shows that gladiatorial equipment served more than a protective function.
During the games, the gladiator was also a figure intended to make a powerful visual impression on the audience.
Gleaming weapons, decoration and distinctive forms allowed spectators to recognise immediately the type of fighter entering the arena.
The original objects are now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
The popularity of gladiators
Gladiators enjoyed extraordinary popularity in Pompeii.
Their names frequently appear in the city’s graffiti.
Some are recorded with the number of their victories; others are described as true idols of the crowd.
Notices painted on façades advertised spectacles by listing the number of combatants, the organiser’s name and the attractions planned.
The gladiatorial world therefore had a dimension that today might be described as both theatrical and promotional.
The barracks in the Quadriporticus housed some of the people who became the focus of attention before thousands of spectators on the days of the games.
The riot of AD 59
A few years before the Quadriporticus was converted into barracks, one of the most famous episodes in Pompeii’s history took place.
In AD 59, an exceptionally violent riot broke out between Pompeian and Nucerian spectators during gladiatorial games in the Amphitheatre.
The historian Tacitus records that insults led to stone-throwing and eventually to the use of weapons.
Many Nucerians were killed or injured.
The Roman Senate intervened and imposed penalties on the city.
The episode shows the intensity of the passions aroused by the games and the importance of gladiatorial culture in Pompeian society.
Victims of the eruption
The Quadriporticus is also especially important because of the many victims of the eruption of AD 79 found within it.
Excavations showed that several people had sought shelter in the building during the disaster.
In one room, four individuals were found near stocks used to restrain people.
The traditional interpretation regards them as enslaved people or prisoners who remained in the building during the eruption.
Another room contained the remains of 18 people.
This large number suggests that the Quadriporticus had become a refuge for people in the district during the final stages of the disaster.
The woman with jewellery
Among the eighteen people found in that room was a woman accompanied by an exceptionally rich collection of jewellery.
The presence of a woman in gladiatorial barracks gave rise to romantic stories and interpretations from the time of the earliest excavations.
She was imagined as a wealthy Pompeian woman surprised during a meeting with a gladiator.
The story is compelling, but there is no evidence that explains her presence in this way.
During the eruption, anyone might have sought shelter in a large public building.
The discovery chiefly demonstrates the danger of turning archaeological evidence into an individual story when the available information is insufficient.
The four individuals near the stocks
The discovery of the four individuals beside the stocks also requires caution.
The presence of equipment used to restrain people encouraged the interpretation that they were punished enslaved people or gladiators subjected to discipline.
Traditional guidebooks often refer to them simply as four enslaved people left in chains.
The archaeological situation is more complex.
What can be stated with certainty is that four people died in a room containing structures used for restraint.
The find nevertheless provides dramatic evidence of the social and disciplinary conditions within the barracks.
The eruption of AD 79
When Vesuvius began to erupt, the Quadriporticus had been used as barracks for about seventeen years.
The steady fall of pumice made movement through the streets increasingly difficult, and many people sought refuge inside buildings.
Remaining under cover, however, could become equally dangerous.
The weight of the volcanic material caused roofs to collapse, and the later pyroclastic currents eventually reached the entire city.
The victims found in the Quadriporticus therefore belong to the final hours of Roman Pompeii.
Discovery in the 18th century
The Quadriporticus was one of the first large public buildings uncovered during the Bourbon excavations.
The principal campaigns took place between 1766 and 1769, followed by further exploration in 1771 and between 1792 and 1795.
The discovery of the gladiatorial armour immediately attracted great interest.
Gladiators already exerted a powerful fascination on the European public in the 18th century.
The magnificent armour from the barracks rapidly became some of the best-known evidence from the newly rediscovered city.
From foyer to barracks
The historical value of the Quadriporticus lies chiefly in the survival of two very different functions in the same space.
During its first, lengthy phase, the building belonged to the world of the theatre.
It was a place where audiences could walk and meet.
After the earthquake of AD 62, it instead became part of the gladiatorial world.
The columns and courtyard remained, but accommodation, storerooms and facilities for the new community appeared around them.
The same building therefore records an important transformation in the city during the years immediately before the eruption.
An essential monument in the entertainment district
The Quadriporticus of the Theatres (Gladiators’ Barracks) at VIII.7.16 connects several major themes in Pompeian public life.
Here the worlds of theatre, audience sociability, gladiators and parade armour meet the final story of the victims of the eruption.
Few buildings demonstrate so clearly how urban spaces could change function over time.
After the earthquake, the great courtyard that had originally received theatre audiences during intervals became the place where the men destined to fight in the Amphitheatre lived and prepared.
Because of this dual history and the remarkable finds made during its excavation, the Quadriporticus is fundamental to understanding the culture of entertainment in Roman Pompeii.