§326. The Later Theater.--Beginning about 145 B.C., however, efforts were made to improve upon this poor apology for a theater, in spite of the opposition of those who considered the plays ruinous to morals. In that year a wooden theater on Greek lines provided with seats was erected, but the senate caused it to be pulled down as soon as the games were over. It became a fixed custom, however, for such a temporary theater with special and separate seats for senators, and much later for the knights, to be erected as often as plays were given at public games, until in 55 B.C. Pompeius Magnus erected the first permanent theater at Rome. It was built of stone after the plans of one he had seen at Mytilene and seated at least seventeen thousand people; Pliny says forty thousand. This theater showed two noteworthy divergences from its Greek model. The Greek theaters were excavated out of the side of the hill, while the Roman theater was erected on level ground (that of Pompeius in the Campus Martius) and gave, therefore, a better opportunity for exterior magnificence. The Greek theater had a large circular space for choral performances immediately before the stage; in the Roman theater this space, called the orchestra then as now, was much smaller, and was assigned to the senators. The first fourteen rows of seats rising immediately behind them were reserved for the knights. The seats back of these were occupied indiscriminately by the people, on the principle apparently of first come first served. No other permanent theaters were erected at Rome until 13 B.C., when two were constructed. The smaller had room for eleven thousand spectators, the larger, erected in honor of Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, for twenty thousand. These improved playhouses made possible spectacular elements in the performances that the rude scaffolding of early days had not permitted, and these spectacles proved the ruin of the legitimate drama. To make realistic the scenes representing the pillaging of a city, Pompeius is said to have furnished troops of cavalry and bodies of infantry, hundreds of mules laden with real spoils of war, and three thousand mixing bowls (§314). In comparison with these three thousand mixing bowls, the avalanches, runaway locomotives, sawmills in full operation, and cathedral scenes of modern times seem poor indeed. [Illustration: FIGURE 137. PLAN OF THEATER]