Not violence but intelligence, and the affectation of Hellenism, lies behind Domitian’s stadium (for Greek games) and odeum, or music hall (for literary and musical competitions) in the Campus Martius. The shape of the stadium has been preserved almost intact in the loveliest of Rome’s squares, the Piazza Navona (Fig. 9.14). In 1936 the driving of a great new street, the Corso del Rinascimento, north and south through the Campus Martius, as a part of Mussolini’s ambitious new city plan, gave an opportunity for definitive examination of the stadium’s remains, preserved in the cellars of shops and the crypts of churches. This Colini undertook, and emerged from his mole-like labors with a plan (Fig. 9.15) and a model (Fig. 9.16) of the stadium, a prime example of what archaeology can do with bits and pieces. Nowadays remains of the hemicycle are visible under an insurance building outside the north end of the _piazza_, and one travertine pier is to be seen under the arcade of the Corsia Agonale, in the middle of the stadium’s east side. Beneath this area are traces of the footings, of cement poured in caissons, thicker and stronger the farther east they go, to support the increasing weight of the rising tiers of seats above. Brick stamps found here date the building to A.D. 93 or a little after, with evidence of major repairs under Hadrian--another Greek lover--and Caracalla--another violent despot. [Illustration: FIG. 9.14 Rome, Piazza Navona, air view. (A. M. Colini, _Stadium Domitiani_, frontispiece)] [Illustration: FIG. 9.15 Rome, Stadium of Domitian. (Colini, _op. cit._, Suppl. Pl. B)] [Illustration: FIG. 9.16 Rome, Stadium of Domitian, Gismondi model. (Colini, _op. cit._, Pl. 16)]