The is no summary for this season.This was a campaign of explorative excavations aimed at assessing the state of preservation of the amphitheatre walls, but also the depth of earth covering them and assessing the difficulties inherent in any future open-area excavation. In effect, the eastern part of the amphitheatre had been the object of a series of investigations between the 1700s and the 1940s, but none of its structures had been identified on the land belonging to Palazzo Brunner, which is therefore an area of interest., The amphitheatre’s approximate overall dimensions (c. 148 m on the longest axis, and 112 m on the shorter one) and its position within the Roman town are known thanks to earlier archaeological interventions, however numerous architectural-structural aspects and the chronology remained to be clarified.

Based on the results of the preliminary geophysical survey, two trenches were opened (9 × 5 and 17 × 5 m), which confirmed some of the conclusions relating to the monument’s construction, but also revealed some new information. Although the amphitheatre was heavily robbed over the centuries, the excavations exposed a substantial and to date unknown foundation platform, almost 4 m wide, which must have supported a series of pillars on the exterior of the facade. This is of significance, as it constitutes evidence for the presence of an external gallery, therefore indicating that the amphitheatre was larger than previously suggested. In addition, the excavations uncovered the robber trench of one of the pillars of the internal gallery, already documented in the eastern sector by the 19th century excavations, and one of the radial walls that supported the seating tiers, preserved at foundation level. These structures stood on a massive consolidating make up of packed cobbles and stones solidly embedded in the terrain at several levels. The differences in technique and level between this foundation structure and that of the external gallery suggest the amphitheatre was built in two phases with a later extension.

Although the dating for the construction phases and its abandonment remain to be clarified, it is already possible to suggest that the external gallery was demolished in about the 3rd century A.D. when the late antique city wall was built. Its line ran at only a few meters from the amphitheatre and its substantial inner earthworks have been identified in the excavation area. Although lacking part of the seating tiers, the amphitheatre must have continued to be used in this period. In fact, it went out of use in the late antique-early medieval period, when the modest dwellings were built inside it, reusing the surviving ancient walls. Occupation layers and hearths attest the presence of these dwellings.