Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments
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How it came to be
Arles, on the Rhône in southern France, shows clearly how an ancient city was adapted to medieval European life. Its oldest monuments, the amphitheatre, the Roman theatre and the underground galleries of the cryptoporticus, date from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD and represent the urban works the Romans brought to Gaul. The amphitheatre was built around AD 90, measures 136 by 109 m and held more than 20,000 spectators.
In the 4th century Arles enjoyed a second golden age as a political and religious capital, recorded in the Baths of Constantine and the sarcophagi of the Alyscamps cemetery. After the fall of the Western Empire the amphitheatre became a fortress with four towers, enclosing more than 200 houses, a square and two chapels, and it stayed inhabited until the late 18th century.
In the 11th and 12th centuries Arles again became a major city of the Mediterranean world. The church of Saint-Trophime was built in the Romanesque style in the 12th century, and the Last Judgement on its portal and the columns of its cloister rank among the finest Romanesque sculpture. In the 19th century the writer Prosper Mérimée helped make the amphitheatre a national monument, and the houses inside were cleared between 1826 and 1830. Arles was inscribed in 1981.
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