The Tarraco amphitheater is a Roman building built very close to the sea, behind the wall of the city of Tarraco, capital of the Roman province Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis.

It was built at the end of the 2nd century AD, in a space that had been a funeral area.

During the empire of Heliogabalus, in the 3rd century AD, various renovations were carried out in the amphitheater. In commemoration of this fact, the podium was crowned with a large monumental inscription, of which numerous fragments are preserved.

On January 21, 259, as part of the persecutions against Christians in the time of Emperor Valeriano, the bishop of the city, Fructuoso, and his deacons, Augurio and Eulogio, were burned alive in the arena of the amphitheater.

During the 5th century, and as a consequence of the religious policy of the first Christian emperors, the amphitheater gradually lost its original functions.

A century later the stones of the latter were used, especially the ashlars of the stands, to build a Christian basilica with three naves that commemorated the place of the martyrdom of the three saints of the Tarragona Church. Around the temple a cemetery was built with tombs dug in the sand and funerary mausoleums attached to the church.