Teatro Romano di Trieste (Roman Theatre of Trieste), Trieste

At the foot of San Giusto Hill is the long-buried, now-exposed Roman Theatre of old Trieste. It is an amphitheater cut into the hillside in an ancient Greek fashion. It dates from the first and second century AD. It could hold up to 6,000 theatre-goers. Its construction was nearly all masonry except for the wooden stage.

In 1814, archeologist Pietro Nobile intuited the presence of a theatre from the name of a village. The name was Old Arena (Rena Vecia). The amphitheater was brought to light only in 1938 following major urban reconstructions. The ornamental plaques and statues discovered in the theatre are now in the Civic Museum of History and Art (Orto Lapidario).

In its heyday, in the 1st century, the theatre was outside the city walls, at the water's edge. The theatre was enlarged during the reign of Trajan in the 2nd century by Quinto Petronio Modesto, the imperial procurator. The seating area on the slope of the hill is divided into four sections by sets of steps, levels, and corridors.

Attilio Tamaro, historian and journalist, also intuited the reality of the Roman Theatre. In his History of Trieste (Storia di Trieste), he wrote: "A real monument will emerge one day in the Trieste sky." He claimed entire floors were entombed under the houses of the Old Arena neighborhood. Like Pietro Nobile, he was right.