Thus a complete transformation was effected. The promenade for theatre-goers had become barracks, with a great number of cell-like rooms, a mess kitchen, and narrow, guarded entrances. Soldiers, however, could not have been kept here; in the period to which the rebuilding belongs, garrisons were not stationed in the cities of Italy except the Capital. On the other hand, gladiatorial combats in Pompeii were so frequent, and on so large a scale, that a special building for the housing and guarding of gladiators would seem to have been a necessity; such a building would naturally have been erected by the city and placed at the disposal of those who gave the games. As early as the time of Augustus, Aulus Clodius Flaccus brought forward forty pairs of gladiators in a single day, and on various occasions afterwards as many as thirty pairs were engaged. How well the colonnade was now suited for gladiators' quarters may be seen from a glance at the plan. The area would serve as a practice court, the exedra on the south side (6), protected from the sun, as the station for the trainers and lounging room for men awaiting their turn; the mess room would be the large apartment adjoining the kitchen (11), while the quarters of the chief trainer, _lanista_, and his assistants, would be in the second story, reached by the broad stairway (9). The small rooms were poorly decorated, in the fourth style. There were better paintings only in the exedra. On the rear wall of this room was the oft repeated group of Mars and Venus; on the side walls, gladiatorial weapons were represented, piled up in heaps, after the manner of trophies, about eight feet high. The reference to the purpose of the building, as in the case of the paintings in the Macellum, is obvious. The columns about the area were originally white; after the rebuilding the unfluted lower part was painted red, the upper part yellow. Four columns, however, two at the middle of the east side, and the two opposite them on the west side, were painted blue, probably to serve as bounds in marking off the area for athletic exercises. The objects found in the barracks are recorded in the journal of the excavations. They indicate that at the time of the eruption the rooms were occupied. Everything of value was removed from those on the north side by the survivors, but the south half was apparently left undisturbed, and has yielded a rich harvest. [Illustration: Fig. 72.--A gladiator's greave.]