This was the first permanent theatre that Rome had. It was built partly on the model of that of Mitylene and it was opened in the year B.C. 55. This magnificent theatre, which would accommodate 40,000 people, stood in the Campus Martius. It was built of stone with the exception of the scena, and ornamented with statues, which were placed there under the direction of Atticus, who was a man of taste. Augustus embellished the theatre, and he removed thither the statue of Pompeius, which up to that time had stood in the Curia where Cæsar was murdered. The scena was burnt down in the time of Tiberius, who began to rebuild it; but it was not finished till the reign of Claudius. Nero gilded the interior. The scena was again burnt in the beginning of the reign of Titus, who restored it again. The scena was again burnt in the reign of Philippus and a third time restored. (Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Pompeii, p. 521; Dion Cassius 39. c. 88, and the notes of Reimarus.)] [Footnote 293: Petra, the capital of the Nabathæi, is about half way between the southern extremity of the Dead Sea and the northern extremity of the Ælanitic Gulf, the more eastern of the two northern branches of the Red Sea. The ruins of Petra exist in the Wady Musa, and have been visited by Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, and last by Laborde, who has given the most complete description of them in his 'Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée,' Paris, 1830. The place is in the midst of a desert, but has abundance of water. Its position made it an important place of commerce in the caravan trade of the East; and it was such in the time of Strabo, who states on the authority of his friend Athonodorus that many Romans were settled there (p. 779). It contains numerous tombs and a magnificent temple cut in the rock, a theatre and the remains of houses. The king against whom Pompeius was marching is named Aretas by Dion Cassius (37. c. 15).] [Footnote 294: The Pæonians were a Thracian people on the Strymon. (Herodotus, v. 1.) It appears from Dion Cassius (49. c. 36) that the Greeks often called the Pannonians by the name of Pæonians, which Sintenis considers a reason for not altering the reading here into Pannonians. Appianus (_Mithridatic War_, c. 102) uses the name Pæonians, though he means Pannonians.] [Footnote 295: This is the Roman word. Compare Tacitus (_Annal._ i. 18): "congerunt cespites, exstruunt tribunal."] [Footnote 296: The circumstances of the rebellion of Pharnakes and the death of Mithridates are told by Appianus (_Mithridatic War_, c. 110) and Dion Cassius (37. c. 11). Mithridates died B.C. 63, in the year in which Cicero was consul. The text of the last sentence in this chapter is corrupt; and the meaning is uncertain.] [Footnote 297: [Greek: to nemesêton] τὸ νεμέσητον.]