ranged with a colonnade surmounting the containing wall of the terraces of seats. Paspates makes from this account a wonderful and impossible arrangement; he supposes the first-mentioned columns to have been continued along the external sides of the hippodrome, he further rears the second range on them, and this he thinks upheld the immense mass of the rising seats. “If we suppose,” he says, “the height of those in the upper row to have been twenty-one feet, we have about fifty-six feet as the height of the wall on which the seats for the spectators were built.” These columns probably formed an open screen through which the spectators might see the sparkling waters of the Propontis, set with the blue jewels of Prince’s Islands and the white peaks of Olympus rising far away to the left--one of the most beautiful scenes in the world. This addition of a natural spectacle behind the scene was frequently obtained in ancient theatres: the best known is that at Taormina. Clavijo[290] speaks of the hippodrome as being “surrounded by white marble pillars,” but he adds “thirty-seven in number.” The anonymous Russian who wrote about the same time says “thirty columns and their summits are united by an architrave.” See Fig. 2. An “open hippodrome” and a “covered hippodrome” are mentioned by the Byzantine writers. Labarte distinguishing them, placed the latter within the palace. Byeljayev, however, conjectures that the covered hippodrome was a part of the Great Hippodrome. Be this as it may, the “rings for curtains” of Gyllius suggest that portions were sheltered by a Velarium. Bondelmontius[291] writes thus of the hippodrome: “In it those cf noble birth joust in the presence of the people, and there are combats and tournaments. It is 690 bracchia long and 134 wide, and it is built above vaults, in which a cistern of the best water covers the whole of the space mentioned. At the head of the hippodrome are high pillars [of Kathisma] where the emperor sits with his nobles, and on both sides in its length are seats of marble arranged in steps where the people sit and see all the games.” On the outside towards S. Sophia there was the church of S. Stephen, “from the galleries of which the ladies watched their chosen champions.” On the Spina he notices a fountain where the wounded were laid, the two obelisks, and the three serpents “with open mouths from which, it is said, on days of jousting water, wine, and milk used to spout.” At the end of the Spina were four small marble columns where the emperor sat on feast days.[292]