Horse Races, Gladitorial Fights, and More

During our trip to Jordan, we took a day trip up to Jerash, one of the largest, best preserved Roman ruins outside of Italy. After paying the park fee and weaving your way through the many merchants taking advantage of constant flow of tourists (once again, look but don't look like you're looking!), you step out into the bright sunlight and back in time 2000 years to the huge stone arches and colonnades of one of the cities of the Decapolis. The first structure you walk into is the Hippodrome, a massive, partially restored arena that was once able to seat 15,000 spectators. The horse and chariot races, gladiator fights, and sporting events that Middle Easterners watched in the 1st-3rd centuries AD are reenacted for tourists today. Unfortunately, we visited on a day when the show was closed. Instead of a show we got a tour by a ten year old boy named Mohammad who was selling postcards. He rattled off memorized information in English about the Hippodrome, what it use to look like, where the officials seats were located, the important people who had built and visited it, etc. Not only did he do a great job with the information, but he also added to the tour by taking us down to the stables to see the horses. They were beautiful Arabian horses, some light and some dark, and even a couple that were pregnant. It would have been spectacular to see them race in the reenactment, but I have no doubt that they were enjoying their day off. After showing us around the Hippodrome and the stables, Mohammad returned to selling postcards to the other tourists, and we continued our tour alone.