People still live in flats on top of Rome's Theatre of Marcellus, a Roman theatre finished in 13 BC.

• ✓Wikipedia, "Theatre of Marcellus"
• ✓Cassius Dio 54.26
• ✓Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 1
• ✓World History Encyclopedia, "Theatre of Marcellus"
• ✓Turismo Roma, "The Theatre of Marcellus"

People live on top of this Roman theatre. Its arches were finished in 13 BC, more than eighty years before work began on the Colosseum. It's the Theatre of Marcellus. Augustus named it after his nephew, and it held more than ten thousand people. After the empire fell, Rome's empty ruins became quarries, and the Colosseum lost much of its stone. This theatre was never left empty. In the Middle Ages, a noble family turned it into a fortress, and in the fifteen hundreds a palace was built on top of its arches. Around nineteen thirty, restorers cleared the shops out of its arches and shored it up, but the upper floors are still homes today. So it survived because no one ever stopped using it: a theatre, then a fortress, then a home. Subscribe for a fact every day.