Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the CampagnaBurn, Robert
History
Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
Burn, Robert
Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities; Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
The second and third of the principal concentric walls contain arches
corresponding to those in the outer wall. Corridors run between these
concentric walls, and on the first and second floors of the outer ring,
and the first floor of the inner ring, these circles afford a completely
unobstructed passage all round. The other corridors are blocked up in
parts by various staircases, leading to the upper rows of seats.
Within the third principal concentric arcade the supports of the building
take the form of massive walls, radiating from the centre of the ellipse,
and divided by elliptical corridors into three ranges. Between these
massive walls and in the corridors are the steps and passages leading to
the lower seats of the amphitheatre. The actual seats which were of marble
have been all pilfered for the benefit of the Roman palaces and churches
of the feudal ages, but we can still make out with tolerable certainty the
five principal divisions into which they were separated. The lowest of
these, called the podium, was a platform raised twelve or fifteen feet
above the arena, upon which were placed the chairs of the higher
magistrates and dignitaries. This was protected by railings and nets full
of spikes, and sometimes also by trenches, called euripi, and horizontal
bars of wood or iron which turned freely round, and thus afforded no hold
to the paws of a wild animal.
Above the podium were four different orders of seats, divided by belts of
upright masonry from each other. The first of these consisted of about
twenty rows of seats, and was appropriated to the knights and tribunes,
and other state officers. The upper row of this set was probably at a
height of about ten feet above the top of the arches of the lowest story.
The next ranges of seats between the second and third belt were
appropriated to Roman citizens in general, and held the greatest number of
spectators.
The wall dividing these seats from the next set was very high, and
contained, besides the vomitoria or entrance doors, a number of windows
for the purpose of lighting the corridors and passages. A considerable
part of this wall is still extant upon the side towards the Esquiline
Hill. Above it ran the third set of seats, occupied by the lower classes
of the people, and above this again, and separated from it by a very low
wall without vomitoria, was the fourth group of seats, immediately under
the windows of the uppermost story, and covered by a portico which ran
round the whole top of the building.[71] The traces of this uppermost row
of seats and of the colonnade which supported the portico may still be
seen on the side towards the Esquiline Hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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