Ancient Rome Comes Alive in Jerash: Jordan’s Roman City

posted on: Aug 31, 2021

By: Habeeb Salloum/Arab America Contributing Writer

No sooner had we sat down in the semi-reconstructed Hippodrome at Jerash, Jordan’s Roman city, a massive arena that once seated 15,000 spectators then, in the distance, I witnessed the appearance of a part of a Roman Legion.  In a few minutes a re-enactment of the golden days of Rome came alive before us. Roman soldiers drilling, gladiators fighting each other and chariot races all depicting the days of Roman splendour suddenly came to life.  

The only genuine Roman show to be found in the world today, it is a truly exciting and unique historic experience, especially for those enamoured with the history of ancient Rome.  A living testimony to its majestic past, visitors can experience a Roman army performance in this ancient and magnificently preserved Roman city.

Here, visitors can sit where the Romans once sat and see what the Romans once saw.

Jerash, previously known as the Roman city of Gerasa, is approximately a fifty-minute drive to the north from Amman, Jordan’s capital and displays some of the finest, most extensive and best-preserved remains of the Roman Empire.  

After excavations began in 1925 a well-preserved Greco-Roman city emerged.  Ancient city walls enclosing colonnaded paved streets with chariot tracks worn in the original stone, a dramatic oval plaza defined by a colonnade of Ionic columns, a complex of baths, theatres, the temples of Dionysus, Artemis and Zeus, and a superb hippodrome, after being covered with rubble and sand for a millennium again saw the light of day.  500 seats from the 15,000 in Roman times have been restored. 

Today the restored monumental hippodrome, for the first time in over a thousand years, features spectator Roman events – an authentic replica of Roman life and enjoyment.  The aim is to give visitors a thrilling glimpse of the spectacle as experienced by the citizens of the ancient city. 

I was sitting down waiting for the show to begin while reminiscing about Rome in its days of glory when to the blare of trumpets and martial music with the rattle of shields, swords and armour a large body of Roman legionaries appeared.  Soon we were reliving, for a while, the life of people who had once sat in our place nearly two thousand years ago. 

The show is the brainchild of Stellan Lind, a Swede who made a career in the pharmaceutical industry.  In 1977, he saw the classic movie Ben Hur, with its famous chariot race and decided that somewhere, some time and somehow, he should recreate the races. During a visit to Jordan in 1998, he saw the Jerash hippodrome with 10 starting gates, the original stone seats for the spectators and the ongoing restoration work.  During the same year he teamed up with an English friend, Jeff Cullis, who was just as interested in classical history and even more enthusiastic about the project.  From then on, they worked on a dream of re-enacting Roman battles.  

Their creation became known as ‘The Roman Army and Chariot Experience’ or simply 

by its acronym RACE.  Stellan and Jeff presented, to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, the idea to form a private company to present the shows.  Their idea was enthusiastically received by the Jordan Tourism Board who quickly gave its support, realizing that the re-enactment of Roman entertainment would add to the attraction of Jordan as a tourist destination.  A company was formed with 16 partners, including the Jordan Hotel Association and the shows have been staged since 2000, becoming a tourist attraction par excellence.

Today, amid the ancient Roman ruins of Jerash, Stellan Lind dons a toga as a group of retired former Jordanian soldiers and police officers between the ages of 35 to 45 act out the roles of Roman legionnaires, gladiators and compete in chariot races.  As trumpets blare from a loudspeaker, the show begins and helmeted legionnaires in belted brown togas and ankle-high leather boots march up to the center of the hippodrome, one hand clutching a pilum or heavy javelin, and the other branding a shield.   

I sat fascinated as a pitiless centurion shouting commands in Latin and a flag bearer who holds up proudly the legions standard precedes them.  In perfect harmony, 40 legionaries, a small replica of a Roman army, perform offensive and defensive techniques, and re-enact battles against an unseen enemy described by a narrator as a ‘hordes of barbarians’.  

A young man dressed in a toga narrates the battle telling the spectators how the Roman legionnaires lived, worked, and fought.  As they parade through the hippodrome, the narrator explains the use of their weapons and how they train for war the way it was done nearly two thousand years ago by the Roman Army – the longest existing institution in human history.

The show continues as the legionnaires make room for gladiators.  With the words ‘we who are about to die salute you’, moving in pairs, deliver a ruthless savage fight armed with classical weapons – the trident, net and gladius swords, kicking and punching each other until one is pinned to the ground, prompting the spectators to decide if he will live or die by giving the thumbs up or down.

The show concludes with a seven-lap chariot race, the most Roman of all sports. 
Having paraded before their audience, they take up their position in the carceres. The starter is announced by a fanfare of trumpets and as he drops a white handkerchief the race takes off. The chariots burst forward into the first of seven laps, jostling for position at each turn.   As I sat mesmerized by the enactment before us, I could almost hear a faint echo from Roman history coming down the centuries.

With some fifty employees, RACE is one of the largest employers in Jerash, and enjoys the strong backing of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Jordan Tourism Board.

The show has become a tourist spectacle par excellence and its fame is becoming well known worldwide.   The brainchild of one man, Stellan Lind, it brings to life the story of ancient Rome in a colourful and appealing fashion.