In the year 586 of Rome (B.C. 227), Livy[38] also relates that “P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica and P. Lentulus, the _Ædiles Curules_, exhibited 63 African wild beasts, 40 bears and elephants.” Martial, who was a contemporary of Vespasian and Titus, Domitian and Trajan, has numerous epigrams on the subject of scenes that took place in the Amphitheatre of the Cæsars, by which he obviously means the Colosseum; a large part of his first book, _de Spectaculis_, relates to such scenes on this spot[39]. On one occasion, he mentions that a representation of Rhodope (a mountain in Thrace), where Orpheus sang, with the rocks and woods, was given upon the stage. It is evident from this, and from many other passages in the classical authors, that the stage, called the ARENA, was on the level of the _podium_, and visible to the people in every part of the great theatre; and not at the bottom of a pit twenty feet deep, where only a small number could have seen it, although some persons maintain this opinion. We are told by Suetonius again[40] in the life of Julius Cæsar, that— “these spectacles were exhibited in the Circus Maximus, in the circuit of the Euripus, with races of _bigæ_, and _quadrigæ_[41], and horses, with the young nobles for riders or drivers. Hunting of wild beasts for five days, and sham fights, castles being made over the _metæ_; a _stadium_ or stage was made in the Campus Martius for the athletes, and naval fights in the smaller _codeta_[42],” (which was in the Trastevere, and probably on the site on which Augustus afterwards made his great Naumachia,) “and in the lake then dug out, _biremes_, and _triremes_, and _quadriremes_[43] of the Tyrian and Ægyptian fleets, in great number, fought together. The whole population of Rome was attracted by those exhibitions, so that the streets and houses were quite empty; and from the pressure of the crowd several persons were crushed to death, including two senators.” These attractive exhibitions obviously required a building especially prepared and calculated for them, which Augustus proposed to provide, but left for his successors to carry out the plan. It is probable that in the time of Nero the great work was commenced on the site of that of Scaurus[44], and making use of his substructures, was carried on gradually, and eventually completed in this colossal building.