Spectacle buildings in Roman Pannonia

Abstract Spectacle buildings were among the largest and most characteristic public buildings in a Roman city. Due to the high degree of functional specialisation, four distinctive building types evolved for mass entertainment: the theatre, amphitheatre, circus and stadium. With the combination of some of their architectural features, a variety of hybrid structures also existed. The number and spatial distribution of these building types are characteristic to each province in the Empire. Of the four spectacle building types three were present in Pannonia. Among the archaeologically attested structures we find one theatre in Siscia, one late Roman circus in Sirmium, seven amphitheatres (Carnuntum, Aquincum, Scarbantia) and one theatre or amphitheatre in Savaria. Additionally, the existence of several further amphitheatres is known, suspected or hypothesised based on various pieces of evidence in Brigetio, Mursa, Poetovio, Andautonia, Siscia, Sopianae and Gorsium. In Pannonia most amphitheatres stood in towns with legionary bases or with a large number of army veterans and were built in a wide time range between the middle of the 1st and the middle of the 3rd centuries CE. The paper offers a detailed overview of Pannonian spectacle buildings based on publications. The data collected show that while most of the discussed structures were excavated during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there have been important recent discoveries in the form of both inscriptions and physical remains of formerly unknown buildings which necessitate the re-evaluation of our general picture about Roman entertainment buildings in Pannonia.