Rome, or the amphitheatre at Capua; the superstructure is in a very
ruinous state, but the substructure is almost perfect, and the work
is much more highly finished than in either of the others. There are
considerable remains of rich stucco ornament on the vault over the
passage to one of the side doors. The arena is nearly intact, and is of
brick, carried on vaults, what the Italians call _pensile_; this word
does not mean literally hanging, but hollow underneath; and this brick
floor is full of square holes for trap-doors; round the edge of each is
a deep groove, as if for a cover to fit into, which may very well have
been made water-tight. Signor Scherillo, a native of Pozzuoli, and now a
canon of the cathedral at Naples, has published several papers on this
amphitheatre in the _Atti dell’ Accademia di Archeologia, Letteratura e
belle Arti di Napoli_. He is of opinion that the arena was flooded to the
depth of about three feet, or about half way up the _podium_; the water
would only cover the two or three lower steps, and there were probably
also water-tight doors at the foot of them. At a short distance in front
of the _podium_ is a channel about a foot deep, in which probably a beam
of wood has lain, and at intervals of ten or twelve feet is a square
hole, evidently for a beam of wood to have stood in, no doubt the lower
part of the frame for the netting to keep off the wild beasts from the
people in the lower gallery, as in the Colosseum, and probably carried
up as poles or masts to receive the lower ends of the cords to carry
the awning; there are also remains at the top of the outer wall of the
same arrangement of fixing the masts there as in the Colosseum, and the
same thing can be seen in many other amphitheatres where the outer wall
remains perfect. This amphitheatre is entirely of the time of Hadrian,
a beautiful piece of construction. It seems to have been a favourite
show-place of the Emperors on state occasions, for the upper classes
and foreigners, when the fleet was assembled in the Bay of Naples, in
which the Cape of Misenum is one of the promontories near this spot.
The enormous reservoir of water for the supply of the fleet, called the
_Piscina Mirabilis_, is also not far off; and the amphitheatre belonged
to the great imperial villa, originally of Nero, in the bay adjoining.
This amphitheatre has been shamefully used in the Middle Ages, the arena
having been made into a cabbage garden, with a deep bed of earth upon
it. The upper parts of the walls had probably been damaged by the great
earthquake, and in order to get rid of the numerous broken columns and
capitals lying about, the gardeners threw them down the openings into
the vaults below, where they are stacked up under the arches like so
many mere blocks of stone, to put them out of the way. Fortunately it
is owing probably to the vaults having thus been made use of, that they
have been so well preserved, and also because there was not much call for
building-stone in the neighbourhood, as the ruins of the villa and the
temples had supplied as much as was wanted.
VERONA.
In many of the Italian cities, as well as in Gaul and Britain, the
amphitheatre was made of earth and wood only, the seats cut out in banks
on the slope of a hill or of an _agger_, in districts where stone was
scarce. In the Circus Maximus also the seats for the _plebs_ on the
Aventine seem to have been made in that manner, the stone galleries were
on the Palatine only.
At VERONA, as in many other instances, the outer wall has been almost
entirely destroyed; two bays, or four arches of it only remain, but these
are sufficient to shew the plan, and that it was three storeys high,
the Tuscan order of columns being used throughout. The upper storey
seems to have been for the passage round the seats over the corridors;
the two lower ones with the seats remain nearly perfect, forming a fine
double arcade on the outer side without columns, now made visible by the
demolition of the outer corridor and wall. In its present state it is
one of the finest buildings of its class. There seems to be no historical
evidence of its date; in Murray’s Handbook it is said to be of the time
of the Flavian Emperors, but no authority for this is given, and it is
not probable. The measurements given by Maffei do not _quite_ agree with
those taken by Alvino[194], but the variations are not great; and as one
is taken in Neapolitan palms of ten inches, the other in Veronese feet,
the apparent variation probably arose only from the different mode of
calculating. None of them agree with those in Murray’s Handbooks, which
are taken from the Lectures of Mr. Woods. The general proportions may
be judged of by the number of persons that each would contain; Publius
Victor states that the Colosseum had 87,000 places, and Maffei states
that this at Verona had 77,000, this would make it one-eighth less.
The variations are not of much importance. The outer wall was partly
destroyed by an earthquake in 1184, and the stones were then used as
building material, as in other places, but this was soon stopped. The
unusually perfect state of the seats arises from the care taken of them
in the Middle Ages, very much to the credit of the inhabitants at that
period. As early as 1228, it was agreed that each _podesta_ (or mayor)
should expend 500 lire (about £20[195]) on the repairs of this building;
and in 1435 penalties were inflicted on any one who removed any of the
stone. This shews that the people of Verona were more civilized than the
Romans at that period. In 1545 a special officer was appointed to take
charge of it. The restoration of the seats has been carefully done, and
is not perceived without some examination. This restoration was begun by
voluntary subscription as early as 1568, and continued as late as 1805.
The arches were numbered on the exterior, as in the Colosseum; the four
that remain have the numbers LXIIII to LXVII over them. The arrangement
of the masts and poles for the awning are the same as in Rome, and were
managed in the same manner. The plan of the _vomitoria_ is also nearly
the same. No excavations appear to have been made _under_ the arena; a
plan and section of the substructures under the galleries is given by
Maffei, they are similar to those in Rome. He does not appear to have
been aware that there was likely to have been anything under the arena;
he mentions the conduits of aqueducts, and drains for carrying off the
water, which seem to shew that _naumachia_ were held here, but we have no
information as to how they were managed.
The proportions of the three principal amphitheatres, as given in the
work of Alvino[196], in Neapolitan palms[197] of ten inches are:—
| Colosseum. | Verona. | Capua.
+------------+---------+--------
Length of interior | 639 | 522 | 645
Breadth of interior | 527 | 417 | 530
Length of arena | 298 | 252 | 289
Breadth of arena | 186 | 149 | 174
Height of first order | 35 | 29 | 36
Entire height of interior | 174 | 91 | 169
No. of orders[198] | 4 | 3 | 4
Actual height of ruins | 171 | 62 | 75
No. of arches | 80 | 72 | 80
Circuit | 170 | 134 | 178
Gates | 2 | 1 | 2
Width of arches | 15 | 12½ | 15
Breadth of pilasters | 8 | 6⅓ | 8
THE AMPHITHEATRE AT POLA, IN ISTRIA.
This fine structure is built of beautiful white stone, almost marble,
in large blocks without mortar, but it had metallic fastenings, which
have all disappeared, and left their marks behind them. There are two
rows of arches, and above a line of square windows; also a curious stone
parapet, with very distinct indications of arrangement for spreading the
_velarium_ or _vela_ (the awning). There is only one line of columns,
but there was originally a second, and most of the bases of them are
still _in situ_. The amphitheatre is built against a rocky mountain,
which causes the northern part of the ellipse to be much lower than the
outer one. There are numerous passages and substructures, except on the
rocky half of the building. There are two principal entrances facing
each other, and in a line with them is a trench exactly similar to the
one in the Colosseum, and at Capua, &c. These canals for conducting
water into the arena can still be seen, and there seems no doubt of its
having been used for _naumachia_. There are but few remains of the seats,
except a large accumulation of _débris_, and traces of the stairs and
_vomitoria_. The whole line of the _podium_ is also perfectly preserved,
but no trace of the concentric _euripus_ found in other amphitheatres.
The most puzzling parts of the structure are four rectangular towers,
which appear to have had no special staircases leading to them from the
ground; antiquaries, with all their ingenuity, have not yet given any
satisfactory explanation of these objects. They were most probably for
the music, as in the circus of Maxentius on the Via Appia, near Rome,
where one tower remains at each end of the _carceres_[199].
The amphitheatre at Nîmes, in Aquitaine, still has a wooden floor with
trap-doors in it; the present floor is not ancient, but no doubt replaces
an old one; there is no staircase, and the only access to the passages
below is by a step-ladder, and the arrangement of the substructures
is quite different from that in Rome, or at Capua, or Puteoli. There
are large masses of stone at intervals to support the floor, and wide
passages between them. On two of these massive piers are inscriptions,
with the name of the architect, the same inscription repeated twice, in
characters of the third century. There are no signs of _naumachia_, or of
aqueducts; the seats and the superstructure are more perfect than usual,
and have a very fine effect.
At Arles the superstructure also is very grand, but there are no
substructures under the arena visible. It is partly cut out of the rock,
the lower part supported by massive substructures, but no passages in
them are visible. Excavations have not been made there, and the doorways
appear to be filled up to half their height, as at the Porta Tiburtina in
Rome.
At Bordeaux the ruins of the amphitheatre are called the (_arènes_)
arena, and it evidently had a boarded floor covered with sand, as in the
Colosseum; and the superstructures, with the seats, are more perfect
than in Rome. There is a great general resemblance, but the details are
not the same. The Colosseum is the only amphitheatre which has _double_
corridors round it, and the absence of this outer passage makes a
different arrangement of the stairs to the _vomitoria_ necessary in this
and other amphitheatres, where the people went straight out through each
archway.
SUBSTRUCTURES COMPARED.
In treating of the amphitheatres in general, and corroborating the
account given in this work of the Colosseum, it must be borne in mind
that in every theatre a considerable space is required behind the scenes
for the use of the actors. The performances in an amphitheatre would
equally require such space for the performers when off the stage, and
the only space to which they could possibly retire is under that stage
which is called the _arena_, because it was covered with sand; and it has
been shewn that in these substructures there are numerous passages and
contrivances for the machines to send up the wild beasts to be hunted,
the men and the dogs to hunt them, and the athletes for the wrestling
matches; we have also canals for water for the keels of the vessels, in
some instances, but not in all; in some cases, the vessels employed could
only have been rowing-boats, _rates_. We have also mention of battles
with swords in the _naumachia_, and of many men being killed. This seems
to make it clear that the principal amusement consisted in the crew of
one vessel trying to board the other, and the defendants preventing their
doing so in every way that they could, either by throwing them off into
the water, or with swords and spears.
At Pozzuoli, where the substructures are nearly perfect, there are
remains of an intermediate passage, as if for men to run along; and this
has been traced to communicate with the Emperor’s seat, and is thought
to have been for messengers to go with orders, and to give the necessary
directions. All that remains of this intermediate passage are the corbels
for carrying a wooden gallery upon. There are similar corbels for an
intermediate passage between two floors in the Colosseum, but here in the
upper part, apparently for the sailors to run along to furl or unfurl the
awning, not in the substructures; there also appear to have been separate
stairs and _vomitoria_ for that passage, and as we know that several
hundred sailors were employed in the Colosseum, such an arrangement would
be quite necessary.
Mention has frequently been made of the great central passage, which
exists not only in the Colosseum, but in all other amphitheatres where
substructures were made. This passage appears to have served for several
useful purposes; there are traces of machines in it for lifting up some
large object, not only in the Colosseum but also at Capua; and the things
to be lifted up in all probability must have been the vessels for the
naval fights. This central passage is mentioned or implied in several
instances in the classical authors; it had the appearance of a gulf
dividing the earth or _arena_ into two parts. Apuleius calls it _vorago
terræ_ (a gulf of the earth); Martial, the _via media_, or middle way;
and Petronius, _ruina terræ_, from the appearance of a swallowing-up the
machines and the gladiators.
The machines used for these public amusements were evidently numerous
and important, and required a good deal of space to stow them away, more
even than was afforded by the vaults and passages under the arena in
the Colosseum. This is implied by the celebrated letter of Apollodorus,
the architect, to the Emperor Hadrian, in which the architect told the
Emperor that he _ought to have_ built the Temple of Roma at the south end
of the Summa Sacra Via, and to have made room for this machinery of the
amphitheatre in vaulted chambers under it (as before mentioned); _that he
did not do so_ is evident, for the excavations of 1874 brought to light
rude concrete walls of the time of the Republic, with a small aqueduct
of the time of the Early Empire, made to carry water to the fountains
at the corners of the _porticus_ above. The accounts which we have in
classical authors, of the machinery employed in the amphitheatre, remind
us very much of that used for a Christmas pantomime in one of the London
theatres, and all these great shows were very much of the character of a
pantomime. To begin at the top, the cords which carried the _velarium_,
or awning, were strong enough for a rope-dancer, and were called by the
name of _catadromus_; and we have an account in Suetonius, in the time of
Nero, of an elephant being taught to walk upon these cords with a Roman
cavalier on his back[200]. We also have an account of an actor trying to
play the part of Icarus, and fly down from the top, falling dead at the
feet of Nero, and sprinkling him with his blood[201].
The _pegmata_ have been mentioned as cages for wild beasts, and this was
evidently one meaning of the word, as used by Seneca in his Epistles,
quoted in a previous page, but this was one meaning only; the same name
was applied to a wooden framework of any kind, sometimes evidently
what we now call scenery, either fixed or moveable. Josephus mentions
_pegmata_ used in the triumphal procession of Titus, one of which was
three storeys high, and another four, on which were representations
of the capture of Jerusalem. Another is mentioned by Calpurnius as
representing the Tarpeian rock[202], and the victims were thrown from
the top of it on to the arena, or into the gulf, and killed on the spot.
Apuleius also describes one as representing Mount Ida, with trees,
and shrubs, and fountains, on which appeared from time to time Paris
and Mercury, and the three goddesses, Juno, Pallas, and Venus, with a
number of animals to complete the scene[203]. Another is described by
Claudian as representing Mount Etna[204], with the flames burning at the
top. Others representing Vulcan and Cyclops; these were in the shows of
Carinus and Numerianus, and are mentioned by Vopiscus[205]. It is evident
that this scenery must have been prepared below and sent up from the
central passage, as there was no room anywhere else for sending it up.
Martial[206] also mentions _pegmata_ as rising, from this middle way,
and that a person could see from thence THE COLOSSUS among the stars. As
the Colossus stood on an elevated platform on the Summa Sacra Via, just
in a line with this middle way, and was itself 120 ft. high, it is quite
probable that the head of it could be seen from below, over the upper
gallery.
The dens for the wild beasts in the substructures under the _podium_ are
found both at Capua and at Pozzuoli, just as in the Colosseum, and the
technical name for such a den was _catabolus_[207]. Besides the mention
by Herodian of a hundred lions leaping on to the arena at once, as “if
out of the earth,” (mentioned in page 26), the same thing is mentioned by
several other authors at different periods, both of lions and of other
wild beasts. Vopiscus mentions this in the life of Probus[208], and that
all the doorways were stopped for a time; and he distinctly mentions the
animals coming out of the caves below. Ammianus Marcellinus[209] also
mentions the doorways being often stopped for the wild beasts. Statius
mentions the same[210], and Julius Capitolinus, both in the time of
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. In each case a hundred lions are
mentioned, and in the latter that they were killed with arrows; and in
the time of Probus, not only a hundred lions, but also a hundred Lybian
leopards, a hundred Syrian ones, a hundred lionesses, and three hundred
bears. Lampridius[211] also mentions in the time of Gordianus the almost
incredible number of a thousand bears, in addition to a hundred Lybian
leopards.
To protect the people in the lower gallery from these wild beasts, a
strong netting was provided (as has been mentioned); this was of gold
wire, fixed in a wooden frame, and at the top was an ivory rod which
turned round, so that if an animal should attempt to cling to it, he
would necessarily fall back. This net was called _retia_, and at Puteoli
or Pozzuoli it was either of gold, or gilt; and this was the case in
the Colosseum also, and in other instances. Our authority for this is
Calpurnius in his Eclogues[212].
The naval fights with the larger vessels were sometimes held in the
Circus Maximus, which could be flooded to the depth required by stopping
up at the lower end the stream that runs through it, which is in fact a
branch of the small river Almo, but was in this part called the Euripus.
This name was also given to the canals for the _naumachia_, as in the
Colosseum. This must have been the case, because the Emperor Heliogabalus
upon one occasion filled these canals with wine, which could not have
been done in the Circus Maximus, where the Euripus was a natural running
stream of water; but in the Colosseum a canal supplied with water from
an aqueduct, which could be let in or drawn off at pleasure, might very
well have been filled with wine during an abundant season, when in Rome
the wine is sometimes worth less than the vessel that holds it, so that
large quantities are frequently wasted for want of casks to put it in.
In all wine-growing countries, the same thing occurs from time to time
in superabundant seasons. It is true that these naval fights were called
Circensian games, because they were sometimes held in a circus (as has
been said), but the same name was given to them when they were held in
the amphitheatre, as in this instance, by Lampridius[213]. Martial[214]
distinguishes very clearly both the one and the other, and makes it
evident that the _stagna_ of Nero were used for the _naumachia_ of the
Cæsars.
That the vaults under the arena were called _caveæ_, caves (or cavities),
has been already mentioned, and is evident from many passages in
classical and mediæval authors; as in Tertullian and in Prudentius[215],
when describing the scenes that had taken place in the amphitheatre as
the wicked rites in which the gladiators were killed on the arena, and
the impious games in which the sad spectacles of funereal character were
brought up from the caves, worthy only of the infernal Jupiter (whom the
Christians call Satan).
THE ARENA.
That one of the modes of putting criminals to death in Rome was to throw
them to the wild beasts to be torn to pieces on the arena, to glut the
savage taste of the Roman people, is notorious; but that many of the
gladiators and other actors were also frequently killed on the arena is
not so generally known, and yet the evidence for it is too distinct to be
doubted. Seneca mentions distinctly, in one of his Epistles[216], that
a number of the bodies were exposed to view, of men who were unable to
defend themselves by their swords or their shields. He justly says that
the men were as savage as the lions or the bears, and the usual end of
these fighting men was death on the arena. There is a representation of
them in a fine mosaic picture in the Villa Borghese, with the letter θ,
and others on two of the _graffiti_ found in the Colosseum in 1875[217].
It is well known that the Roman people sometimes called upon the emperor
to produce the most celebrated gladiators, who had been named in the
programme for the show. Horace[218] alludes to this in his Epistles; and
Martial[219] speaks of two of these gladiators, one called Myrinus, and
the other Triumphus (a name which has misled some of the commentators).
Another gladiator of that period was named Columbus, and was called for
by the people under Claudius, who promised that he should be exhibited if
he could be found, as is related by Suetonius[220]. Under Gordianus we
are told that thirty-two elephants, and about a thousand gladiators were
exhibited; it is probable that many of these were killed in the fight. It
has already been stated that Commodus fought himself with the gladiators
on the arena.
There was a particular costume for the athletes, and also for the emperor
when he went on to the arena, and Commodus gave offence by not complying
with the custom which had been established by Titus at the opening, as
is mentioned by Suetonius[221]. The carrying out of the dead bodies
from the arena is also mentioned by Quintilian[222] as done with pomp.
Lampridius[223] expressly says that Commodus acted contrary to the
established custom, and was not dressed in the proper manner; and that
his helmet was carried out of the theatre by the gate by which the dead
bodies were usually carried out, which was considered a bad omen, and he
was murdered soon afterwards. This is also mentioned by Dio Cassius (as
quoted on page 23).
THE GATES.