The Roman amphitheatre of Lecce stands beneath and beside Piazza Sant'Oronzo, where the modern city overlies ancient Lupiae. The settlement had Messapian roots before entering the Roman political world, and imperial patronage transformed it into an important center of the Salento peninsula. The amphitheatre belongs to this process of urban development, although its precise date remains debated within the early imperial centuries. Surviving architecture and decoration provide stronger evidence than any traditional foundation year, showing repeated construction and repair rather than a securely documented single inauguration.

Builders created an elliptical arena surrounded by tiered seating, corridors, stairs, and vaulted supports. Local limestone, concrete, and dressed masonry combined to carry large crowds above the spaces used by attendants and performers. The arena was intended for gladiatorial combat and animal spectacles, distinct from the dramatic performances staged in Lecce's separate Roman theater. Reliefs with hunting and animal scenes reinforced the building's function. Public games allowed patrons to advertise generosity and loyalty while arranging the audience according to the social distinctions of Roman civic life.

The monument formed part of a larger urban system of streets, houses, baths, religious buildings, and commercial activity. Spectacles drew people from the surrounding territory as well as the town itself, creating demand for food, accommodation, transport, and services. Enslaved people, condemned prisoners, trained fighters, and imported animals experienced the arena very differently from spectators. Although the complete program of events is unknown, the building's organization places Lupiae within a Mediterranean culture in which entertainment, civic identity, political authority, and public violence were closely connected.

As ancient spectacles declined, the structure lost its original function. Masonry was reused and buildings gradually occupied the remains, eventually concealing most of the arena beneath the evolving city center. Construction work around the beginning of the twentieth century brought the amphitheatre back to attention. Cosimo De Giorgi helped investigate and promote its recovery, and excavation continued in later campaigns. Only part could be exposed because churches, streets, and substantial historic buildings stood above the rest, making complete clearance neither simple nor culturally neutral.

Today the excavated portion creates a striking depression in Lecce's principal square, surrounded by monuments from much later periods. Its survival records both Roman ambition and the practical reuse that helped form the historic city. Conservation addresses weathered limestone, groundwater, urban vibration, vegetation, and the demands of occasional public events. Archaeologists must distinguish ancient fabric from modern repair and reconstruct the concealed plan cautiously. The amphitheatre is significant as the most conspicuous Roman layer in a city better known for Baroque architecture, demonstrating how successive identities occupy the same ground.