Santa Maria Capua Vetere, simply known as Capua in Antiquity, was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire. Indeed, Cicero called it Alter Roma (the “other Rome”) and in the 1st century BC Emperor Augustus had an amphitheater built here to celebrate a center so great it rivaled Carthage and o Corinth.

The Amphitheater of Capua, or Amphitheater Campano, could hold an audience of up to 40,000 people, and was the second biggest arena after the Colosseum. It was where the first gladiator school was founded by Gaius Aurelius Scaurus in 105 BC, to prepare the fighters Rome used to train the men in its legion.