+BUILDINGS FOR ATHLETIC CONTESTS.+ These comprised stadia and hippodromes for races, and gymnasia and palæstræ for individual exercise, bathing, and amusement. The _stadia_ and _hippodromes_ were oblong enclosures surrounded by tiers of seats and without conspicuous architectural features. The _palæstra_ or _gymnasium_--for the terms are not clearly distinguished--was a combination of courts, chambers, tanks (_piscinæ_) for bathers and _exedræ_ or semicircular recesses provided with tiers of seats for spectators and auditors, destined not merely for the exercises of athletes preparing for the stadium, but also for the instruction and diversion of the public by recitations, lectures, and discussions. It was the prototype of the Roman thermæ, but less imposing, more simple in plan and adornment. Every Greek city had one or more of them, but they have almost wholly disappeared, and the brief description by Vitruvius and scanty remains at Alexandria Troas and Ephesus furnish almost the only information we possess regarding their form and arrangement. +TOMBS.+ These are not numerous, and the most important are found in Asia Minor. The greatest of these is the famed +Mausoleum+ at Halicarnassus in Caria, the monument erected to the king Mausolus by his widow Artemisia (354 B.C.; Fig. 41). It was designed by Satyrus and Pythius in the Ionic style, and comprised a podium or base 50 feet high and measuring 80 feet by 100 feet, in which was the sepulchre. Upon this base stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns; and crowned by a pyramidal roof, on the peak of which was a colossal marble quadriga at a height of 130 feet. It was superbly decorated by Scopas and other great sculptors with statues, marble lions, and a magnificent frieze. The British Museum possesses fragments of this most imposing monument. At Xanthus the +Nereid Monument+, so called from its sculptured figures of Nereides, was a somewhat similar design on a smaller scale, with sixteen Ionic columns. At Mylassa was another tomb with an open Corinthian colonnade supporting a roof formed in a stepped pyramid. Some of the later rock-cut tombs of Lycia at Myra and Antiphellus may also be counted as Hellenic works. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS. (As restored by the author.)]