More than 230 amphitheatres, among the largest and most memorable monuments left to us by the Romans, survive in cities from northern England to the banks of the Jordan River. The Romans built amphitheatres for more than 500 years in a range of sizes -- from a capacity of a few thousand to 50,000 in the Colosseum -- using a variety of techniques. The amphitheatre at Pompeii was built in the first century BCE by workers who excavated hillsides, placed terraced seating on the packed soil, and erected retaining walls to hold the rows of seats in place. The amphitheatre in Bordeaux was built nearly 300 years later as a freestanding oval fashioned out of brick, concrete, and cut stone.
In every one of these diverse structures, the proximity of one's seat to the arena floor corresponded to one's social standing in the community. That method of letting status determine seating is having a rebirth today and is more than just a symbol of an increasingly unequal society.
