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Hidden gem1st c. BC – 4th c. ADRestricted access

Roman Theatre of Sessa Aurunca

Teatro romano di Sessa Aurunca, Suessa Aurunca

theatre · Campania, Italy

What it is
The Roman theatre of Sessa Aurunca is a large theatre dug into a hillside at the edge of the ancient town of Suessa, in the province of Caserta, with walls preserved up to 20 m high; about 90 m away is a vaulted Roman gallery, the cryptoporticus (the Ministry of Culture).
What you’ll see
The theatre is one of the most imposing Roman public buildings found so far in Campania (the Ministry of Culture); it.wikipedia calls it the second-largest Roman theatre in the region after Naples.
Worth the trip?
Not until it reopens. The theatre is closed for restoration with no announced date, and no published schedule covers the cryptoporticus on its own.
Getting there & cost
The theatre lies about 0.4 km from the centre of Sessa Aurunca, with its entrance on Via Aldo Moro (the Ministry of Culture). A car park is mapped about 180 m from the theatre and 100 m from the cryptoporticus.Restricted access · €5, reduced €2 (the tariff listed while the site is closed) · checked 24 October 2026Hours, tickets and parking
An aerial view at dusk of a large semicircular theatre cut into a hillside, its lower rows of stone seating visible, with the stage area of scattered column bases and stone blocks in front and a long multi-storey building on the ridge above.
The theatre from the air, with the town on the ridge above it. · Photo: Mauroriccio · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The theatre seen from a stone parapet above, its curved seating banks grassed over and cut by stairways, with the excavated stage building and rows of stone fragments in the foreground and town buildings on the hill behind.
The cavea and the stage area seen from above. · Photo: Gianni Bencivenga · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Looking down at two arched openings in a rubble-stone wall, separated by a square pier of cut stone, with pale plastered pilasters and a dark vaulted corridor inside and grass in the foreground.
Arched openings into the cryptoporticus, with plastered pilasters inside. · Photo: GianfrancoVitolo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The Roman theatre of Sessa Aurunca is a large theatre dug into a hillside at the edge of the ancient town of Suessa, in the province of Caserta, with walls preserved up to 20 m high; about 90 m away is a vaulted Roman gallery, the cryptoporticus (the Ministry of Culture). The theatre has been closed for restoration since 17 November 2025, and no reopening date has been published.

What is there today

The theatre is one of the most imposing Roman public buildings found so far in Campania (the Ministry of Culture); it.wikipedia calls it the second-largest Roman theatre in the region after Naples. Its cavea, 110 m across, is dug into the hill and carried on galleries at the top, with three tiers of limestone seating for between 7,000 and 10,000 people. Remains survive of the structure that held the awning over the audience and of the stage building, 40 m long and originally 24 m high, which carried three stacked orders of 84 columns in coloured marble from the Greek islands, Numidia and Egypt. Behind the stage lay a portico where the audience waited between performances, flanked by two halls: the southern one frescoed and with a fountain (nymphaeum), the northern one with a small shrine at its entrance painted with the spirit of the place (Genius loci). Against it a latrine with a mosaic floor and marble-faced walls was built in the 3rd century (all the Ministry of Culture). Medieval builders quarried the theatre for stone, and the losses still show (it.wikipedia).

The cryptoporticus

A short walk from the theatre, on the western terrace of the ancient town near the forum, stands the cryptoporticus: a covered gallery, probably public, that faced an open space paved in herringbone brick (the Ministry of Culture). It had three arms in a U, each divided into two aisles by piers of volcanic trachyte, roofed with barrel vaults and lit by splayed windows. The walls keep their white stucco with architectural mouldings in relief, from the first decades of the 1st century AD, scratched with graffiti naming poets and quoting Virgil (the Ministry of Culture), along with inscriptions in Greek and Latin and the scrawls of gladiator fans (it.wikipedia). Only the north arm, about 90 m long, can be visited: the west arm is built into a farmhouse and the east arm has collapsed (it.wikipedia).

Is it worth the trip?

Not until it reopens. The theatre is closed for restoration with no announced date, and no published schedule covers the cryptoporticus on its own. On 1 May 2025 the Ministry gave the theatre a special morning opening; since the closure its page has listed every day as closed.

Once the gates reopen, it is worth a detour: a large theatre with marble columns standing on its stage, and beside it a gallery whose stucco still carries Roman graffiti, verses of Virgil among them. Watch museicampania.cultura.gov.it for the reopening.

Getting there

The theatre lies about 0.4 km from the centre of Sessa Aurunca, with its entrance on Via Aldo Moro (the Ministry of Culture). A car park is mapped about 180 m from the theatre and 100 m from the cryptoporticus. No bus stop or railway station is mapped nearby, so plan on a car (OpenStreetMap).

The tariff listed while the site is closed is €5, reduced €2, and the ticket also covers the National Archaeological Museum of Sessa Aurunca. Tickets are sold online through Musei Italiani or at the ticket machine at the museum entrance, Piazza Castello 2 (cultura.gov.it, read 24 October 2026). The site’s telephone is +39 0823 936455.

Visiting details

Opening hours
Closed to the public since 17 November 2025 for restoration and enhancement works; no reopening date has been published. No schedule is published for the cryptoporticus on its own.
Tickets
€5, reduced €2 (the tariff listed while the site is closed); the ticket also admits to the National Archaeological Museum of Sessa Aurunca. Sold online through Musei Italiani or at the ticket machine at the museum entrance, Piazza Castello 2.
Parking
Car park about 180 m from the theatre and 100 m from the cryptoporticus (OSM way/388427017).

Before you go

  • The theatre has been closed for restoration since 17 November 2025, with no reopening date announced. Check museicampania.cultura.gov.it or call the site (+39 0823 936455) before travelling.
  • No bus stop or railway station is mapped near the site.

Hours and prices checked 24 October 2026 on the operator's own site. Confirm before travelling.

History

The cryptoporticus is the older building: its construction suggests the Sullan or late Sullan age, the early 1st century BC (the Ministry of Culture). Its use is not known. The graffiti suggest it also served as a school (the Ministry of Culture), and it.wikipedia adds a gymnasium, or a passage for actors moving from one place to another. No direct link to the theatre survives, though it.wikipedia holds that the two belonged together.

The theatre was built under Augustus and rebuilt and enlarged in the 2nd century AD under Antoninus Pius (the Ministry of Culture). The money came from Matidia the Younger, Hadrian’s sister-in-law, who held large estates at Suessa, paid for the theatre’s restoration, and had herself portrayed as Aura at the centre of the stage; she also gave the town a library and an aqueduct (it.wikipedia). Excavation has recovered dedicatory inscriptions and many fragments of the statues from the theatre’s gallery of the imperial family, among them Trajan, Hadrian, Plotina, Sabina and colossal figures of Livia and Agrippina the Elder (the Ministry of Culture).

An earthquake in 346 brought the structure down and it was abandoned. Left outside the walls of medieval Sessa, it was stripped in the 12th century for the cathedral and other buildings, then disappeared under vegetation (it.wikipedia). Amedeo Maiuri began digging in 1926 (it.wikipedia); the theatre was uncovered and restored between 1999 and 2003 (the Ministry of Culture). The cryptoporticus, partly dug in 1926 and then abandoned, was not fully restored until 2014; because part of it lies under private land, not all of it will ever be recovered (it.wikipedia).

More photographs

Five marble column shafts of different heights standing on a stone platform, one of them only a broken stump, with a grassy slope, stone stairs and high rubble retaining walls behind.
Column shafts standing on the stage building. · Photo: Sara Petruccelli · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Two round-arched openings at the foot of a high stone retaining wall, reached across a grassy sunken strip, with visitors standing inside the shaded passage and modern houses and trees on the street level above.
The entrance to the cryptoporticus, below street level. · Photo: Sara Petruccelli · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nearby

  • A road paved with large, irregular grey stone blocks running straight between excavated walls, with round column bases on a raised kerb to the left, one tall white column, and umbrella pines in the distance.

    Photo: AlMare · Public domain · Commons

    14 km · city · Lazio

    Minturnae

    The Via Appia crosses the park as the ancient town's main street, an original stretch paved in basalt blocks (it.wikipedia).

  • A long, low ruin of rubble masonry with a row of dark arched openings and patches of red brick, seen across a wide field of mown, straw-coloured grass under a cloudy sky.

    Photo: PietroCifone · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons

    17 km · city · Campania

    Cales

    The ancient town survives across its whole extent, though the motorway runs through it, and the Ministry of Culture says plainly that its remains are not easy to read on the ground (cultura.gov.it).

Straight-line distances.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from the records below, each used under the licence noted.

SourceLicence
Pleiades 895280110CC BY
Wikidata Q24571883CC0
Vici.org 11392CC BY-SA (text), CC0 (metadata)
OpenStreetMap way/262438631ODbL
Ministero della Cultura — Teatro romano di Sessa Aurunca (the operator; hours, tickets and description of the theatre and cryptoporticus)licence not recorded
Wikipedia (it) — Teatro romano di Sessa AuruncaCC BY-SA 4.0
Wikidata — Cryptoporticus of Sessa Aurunca (Q56258400)licence not recorded
Pleiades — Suessa Auruncalicence not recorded
Ministero della Cultura — special opening, 1 May 2025 (archived copy)licence not recorded
Wikipedia (it) — Lucio Cornelio SillaCC BY-SA 4.0