§351. Places of Exhibition.--During the Republic the combats of gladiators took place sometimes at the grave or in the circus, but regularly in the forum. None of these places was well adapted to the purpose, the grave the least of all. The circus had seats enough, but the _spīna_ was in the way (§335) and the arena too vast to give all the spectators a satisfactory view of a struggle that was confined practically to a single spot. In the forum, on the other hand, the seats could be arranged very conveniently; they would run parallel with the sides, would be curved around the corners, and would inclose only sufficient space to afford room for the combatants. The inconvenience here was due to the fact that the seats had to be erected before each performance and removed after it, a delay to business if they were constructed carefully and a menace to life if they were put up hastily. These considerations finally led the Romans, as they had led the Campanians half a century before, to provide permanent seats for the _mūnera_, arranged as they had been in the forum, but in a place where they would not interfere with public or private business. To these places for shows of gladiators came in the course of time to be exclusively applied the word _amphitheātrum_, which had been previously given in its correct general sense to any place, the circus for example, in which the seats ran all the way around, as opposed to the theater in which the rows of seats were broken by the stage. §352. Amphitheaters at Rome.--Just when the first amphitheaters, in the special sense of the word, were erected at Rome can not be determined with certainty. The elder Pliny (†79 A.D.) tells us that in the year 55 B.C. Caius Scribonius Curio built two wooden theaters back to back, the stages being, therefore, at opposite ends, and gave in them simultaneous theatrical performances in the morning. Then, while the spectators remained in their seats, the two theaters were turned by machinery and brought together face to face, the stages were removed, and in the space they had occupied shows of gladiators were given in the afternoon before the united crowds. This story is all too evidently invented to account for the perfected amphitheater of Pliny's time, which he must have interpreted to mean "a double theater." We are also told that Caesar erected a wooden amphitheater in 46 B.C., but we have no detailed description of it, and no reason to think that it was anything more than a temporary affair. In the year 29 B.C., however, an amphitheater was built by Statilius Taurus, partially at least of stone, that lasted until the great conflagration in the reign of Nero (64 A.D.). Nero himself had previously erected one of wood in the Campus. Finally, just before the end of the first century of our era, was completed the _amphitheātrum Flāvium_, later known as the _colossēum_ or _colisēum_, which was large enough and durable enough to make forever unnecessary the erection of other