Ancient Refugees in a Roman Stadium

[Palanan]

A while ago I came across a reference to Romans who were living in a stadium in an otherwise abandoned city, sometime after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west.

I can’t remember if these were citizens of the city, or refugees from elsewhere, and now I can’t find the reference again. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[DavidSh]

That sounds sort of like descriptions I have seen of the amphitheater at Arles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arles_Amphitheatre).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The Colosseum of Rome itself has a similar history (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/colosseum-was-housing-complex-medieval-times-180951937/). (If not as visible today, or quite as cool as becoming an actual walled town.)

[Palanan]

Thanks, I appreciate the replies. It was probably Arles that I'm thinking of, since that sounds vaguely familiar--although I still can't recall where I heard of it.

Interesting about the Colosseum itself, and I'm wondering if many of the Roman amphitheaters weren't converted to housing at one point or another, as conditions deteriorated throughout the former empire.

[Aedilred]

Thanks, I appreciate the replies. It was probably Arles that I'm thinking of, since that sounds vaguely familiar--although I still can't recall where I heard of it.

Interesting about the Colosseum itself, and I'm wondering if many of the Roman amphitheaters weren't converted to housing at one point or another, as conditions deteriorated throughout the former empire.

Most of them were converted to housing...

... if you count stripping the stones and using them for building houses as "conversion to housing".

[Vinyadan]

Marcel's Theatre in Rome was really converted into housings ; people still live in there.

Wamba had to defeat a rebel Duke that used the amphitheatre of Arles or Nimes as a fortress. Actually, it's possible that the city you are referring to is Nimes, that was destroyed by Charles Martel and where a community of hundreds lived in the arena until the eighteenth century.