Next in impressiveness to these monuments are the remains of the Greek amphitheatres of the Roman period. Whether it be that the massiveness of the stones has been too much for the lazy builders who have constructed their modern dwellings out of stolen fragments of ruins; or whether, in its irony, history has attached to these monuments of Rome’s attempt to amuse the world some special sacredness, it would be difficult to say. Certain it is that these in many places remain, sunk in the natural hollow of a hill as in a socket, while all traces of the city which once surrounded them have disappeared. They have been often described, both as they are found in Syria and elsewhere; and the stage arrangements, the underground passages, and the whole design of them does not materially differ from those of other countries. One feature in the Syrian theatres appears with special distinctness. When the play was going on, an awning may be supposed to have been spread horizontally over the roof, to shade spectators and actors from the sun. Between the edge of this awning and the flat top rim of the stage buildings, there would be a blank space left, as it were, like a framed and draped picture. The sites were so chosen that this space was filled up with some commandingly beautiful vista--in the north generally a view of Hermon. Hauran boasts many such theatres in the cities of the Decapolis. In cities which were first Greek and then Roman, such as these, it may be difficult to determine the exact date of a particular building. If the Romans built these theatres, they closely imitated the older Grecian work. They certainly built the theatre and hippodrome of Cæsarea, in which latter the goal-post is still to be seen, an immense granite stone, which has seen life in its day.