Journal of Pompeii, edited by the learned Keeper of the Museum, Sig. Com. Fiorelli[120]. The construction of the upper walls is quite different from, and very inferior to that of the great arcades; this belonging to the third century, not to the first; and part of it has all the appearance of having been completed in a great hurry, as we see in the interior many pieces of stone evidently prepared for other parts of the building, and used as blocks of old material only, some with inscriptions on them, apparently taken from tombs[121]. The tradition is that the Emperor Gordianus insisted on the completion of the building-contract by the time appointed, which was done with great difficulty. A large number of sailors were kept continually employed in furling and unfurling the great awning, and attending to the machinery. They had a camp provided for them near at hand, called Castra Misenatium, because the sailors came originally from the fleet at Misenum (in the bay of Naples). The exact site of this camp has not been ascertained. Some suppose it to have been on the Cœlian, near where the _navicella_, or model of a galley in marble, now stands[122], but it was not in that Regio; it must have been on the Esquiline, immediately to the north of the great building, or on the Velia. The awning was called _vela_ or _vehela_, an old Latin word, from which came also the name of _velabrum_, meaning “sails.” The modern name “veil” is supposed to come from it. Calpurnius[123] describes a visit to Rome by a country lad, and gives an account of the amphitheatre:— “We saw the theatre (amphitheatre) with interwoven beams rising to heaven, so high as almost to overlook the Tarpeian rock, and the immense steps and the sloping passages gently descending.... What shall I describe further? I saw all kinds of wild beasts, ... not only those carniverous monsters of the forest, but sea-monsters together with fighting bears. I saw seals, and herds of shapeless animals bearing the name of horses (hippo-potami), but deformed, the offspring of the Nile. Oh how often have we trembling seen the arena sinking in parts, and a gulf burst open in the ground from which wild beasts have emerged[124].” In A.D. 217, the amphitheatre was struck by lightning and burnt under Macrinus, as we are told by Dio Cassius. This passage shews that the upper storeys were of wood, and that there was much woodwork about the galleries and corridors.