The Arles Amphitheatre | Roman arena at Arles is still in use today, drawing large crowds for bullfighting as well as Play ( theatre ) | play s and concert s in summer.

Roman arena at Arles, inside view.

Both places were then part of the Kingdom of Arles in the Holy Roman Empire, but now the first is in southeastern France and the second in northwestern Italy.

Sometime between 395 and 418 the Roman administration moved the staff of Pretorian Prefecture from the city to Arles.

* 407: Constantine III leads many of the Roman military units from Britain to Gaul, occupying Arles ( Arelate ).

* The Roman usurper Constantine III established his headquarters at Arles ( Southern Gaul ) and elevates his eldest son, Constans, to the rank of Caesar.

* Flavius Aetius, Roman general ( magister militum ), arrives in southern Gaul with an army ( 40, 000 men ) and defeats the Visigoths under king Theodoric I who besiege the strategic city of Arles.

* July 9 – Avitus is proclaimed Roman emperor at Toulouse, and later recognised by the Gallic chiefs in Viernum ( near Arles ).

* 1263 – The doctrines of theologian Joachim of Fiore are condemned as heresy by the Roman Catholic Church at a synod in Arles.

Arles was at that time still independent, formally a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

* The doctrines of theologian Joachim of Fiore are condemned as heresy by the Roman Catholic Church at a synod in Arles.

( Piecemeal over the next centuries most of the former Kingdom of Arles was incorporated into France – but King of Arles remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.

The Roman arena at Arles ( 2nd century AD )

Roman veterans, in the meantime, populated two new towns, Arles and Fréjus, at the sites of older Greek settlements.

) Roman towns were built at Cavaillon ; Orange ; Arles ; Fréjus ; Glanum ( outside Saint-Rémy-de-Provence ); Carpentras ; Vaison-la-Romaine ; Nîmes ; Vernègues ; Saint-Chamas and Cimiez ( above Nice ).

At the beginning the 4th century, the court of Roman Emperor Constantine ( 280 – 337 ) was forced to take refuge in Arles.

It is documented that there were organized churches and bishops in the Roman towns of Provence as early as the 3rd and 4th centuries ; in Arles in 254 ; Marseille in 314 ; Orange, Vaison and Apt in 314 ; Cavaillon, Digne, Embrun, Gap, and Fréjus at the end of the 4th century ; Aix-en-Provence in 408 ; Carpentras, Avignon, Riez, Cimiez ( today part of Nice ) and Vence in 439 ; Antibes in 442 ; Toulon in 451 ; Senez in 406, Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in 517 ; and Glandèves in 541.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the city was part of the first Burgundian kingdom in the 5th century and the second Burgundian Kingdom of Arles until 1032, when it was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire.

Fabian sent seven bishops from Rome to Gaul to preach the Gospel: Gatianus of Tours to Tours, Trophimus of Arles to Arles, Paul of Narbonne to Narbonne, Saturnin to Toulouse, Denis to Paris, Austromoine to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Clermont, and Saint Martial to Limoges.

The Roman and Romanesque Monuments of Arles were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1981.

** The arena in Arles

The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, abbot of Lerins, at the council of Arles, AD 456 ; but the exorbitant claims and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible to the pope alone, received an impulse from Pope Gregory the Great.

He was on uneasy terms with the Catholic bishops of Arelate ( modern Arles ) as epitomized in the career of the Frankish Caesarius, bishop of Arles, who was appointed bishop in 503.

Caesarius was suspected of conspiring with the Burgundians, whose king had married the sister of Clovis, to assist the Burgundians capture Arles.

The use of the Creed in a sermon by Caesarius of Arles, as well as a theological resemblance to works by Vincent of Lérins, point to Southern Gaul as its origin.

Consequently, Abba Mari removed first to Arles, and, within the same year, to Perpignan, where he finally settled and disappeared from public view.

The eldest son of Constantine the Great and Fausta after the death of his half-brother Crispus, Constantine II was born in Arles in February, 316, and raised as a Christian.

The cities where Emperors lived frequently in this period — Milan, Trier, Arles, Sirmium, Serdica, Thessaloniki, Nicomedia, and Antioch — were treated as alternate imperial seats, to the exclusion of Rome and its senatorial elite.

Pre-ecumenical councils ( also known as synods ) include the Council of Jerusalem ( c. 50 ), the Council of Rome ( 155 AD ), the Second Council of Rome ( 193 AD ), the Council of Ephesus ( 193 AD ), the Council of Carthage ( 251 AD ), the Council of Iconium ( 258 AD ), the Council of Antioch ( 264 AD ), the Councils of Arabia ( 246 – 247 AD ), the Council of Elvira ( 306 AD ), the Council of Carthage ( 311 AD ), the Synod of Neo-Caesarea ( c. 314 AD ), the Council of Ancyra ( 314 AD ) and the Council of Arles ( 314 AD ).

Constantine invaded Gaul in 407, occupying Arles, and while Constantine was in Gaul, his son Constans ruled over Britain.

In 409, Gerontius, Constantine III's general in Hispania, rebelled against him, proclaimed Maximus Emperor, and besieged Constantine at Arles.

It removed the imperial governors and allowed the inhabitants, as a dependent federation, to conduct their own affairs, for which purpose representatives of all the towns were to meet every year in Arles.

The Church in Britain seems to have developed the customary diocesan system, as evidenced from the records of the Council of Arles in Gaul in 314: represented at the Council were bishops from thirty-five sees from Europe and North Africa, including three bishops from Britain, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius, possibly a bishop of Lincoln.

He was successively bishop of Maguelonne ( 1418 ), archbishop of Arles ( 1423 ) and Cardinal Priest of S. Cecilia ( 1426 ).

On his return he retired to his diocese of Arles, where he devoted himself zealously to the instruction of his people.

The historian Ian Wood has suggested that Mellitus ' journey through Gaul probably took in the bishoprics of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon, Marseilles, Metz, Paris, and Rouen, as evidenced by the letters that Gregory addressed to those bishops soliciting their support for Mellitus ' party.

The French tradition of Saint Lazare of Bethany is that Mary, her brother Lazarus, and Maximinus, one of the Seventy Disciples and some companions, expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land, traversed the Mediterranean in a frail boat with neither rudder nor mast and landed at the place called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles.

Sculpture of the goddess Venus of Arles, late 1st century BCE.

Until a new bishop could be appointed, he bade the clergy of Riez obey the Bishop of Arles.

He accepted an appeal from Contumeliosus, Bishop of Riez, whom a council at Marseilles had condemned for immorality, and he ordered Caesarius of Arles to grant the accused a new trial before papal delegates.

In the event, he did not wait and went instead to Paris and finally became a canon regular of the cloister of St. Rufus monastery near Arles.

He was then invited to the Council of Arles but died before it was held.