Among more than a hundred buildings in the grove, two near the Southern Gate of the city were specially conspicuous: the Old Circus and the Amphitheatre of Theodosius. The Old Circus had been erected in the period of the greatest prosperity of Carthage, the whole spacious structure, with its eighty thousand seats, was planned to accommodate its great population. Now most of the rows stood empty; many of the Roman families, since the Vandal conquest, had moved away, been driven forth, exiled. The rich bronze ornaments of numerous single seats, rows, and boxes had been broken off. This was done not by the Vandals, who did not concern themselves about such trifles, but by the Roman inhabitants of the city and by the neighboring peasants; they even wrenched off and carried away the marble blocks from the buildings in the grove. The granite lower story, a double row of arches, supported the rows of marble seats, which rose from within like an amphitheatre. Outside, the Circus was surrounded by numerous entrances and outside staircases, besides niches occupied as shops, especially workshops, cookshops, taverns, and fruit booths. Here, by night and day, many evil-minded people were always lounging; from the larger ones, hidden by curtains from the eyes of the passing throng, cymbals and drums clashed, in token that, within, Syrian and Egyptian girls were performing their voluptuous dances for a few copper coins. South of the Circus was a large lake, fed with sea-water from the "Stagnum," whose whole contents could be turned into the amphitheatre directly adjoining it. CHAPTER XI The sultry heat of an African summer day still brooded over the whole grove, although the sun had long since sunk into the sea, and the brief twilight had passed into the darkness of night. But the full moon was already rising above the palm-trees, pouring her magical light over trees, bushes, meadows, and water; over the marble statues which gleamed fantastically out of the darkest, blackish-green masses of shrubbery; and over the buildings, which were principally of white or light-colored stone. In the more distant portions of the grove Diana's soft silvery light ruled alone, and here deep, chaste silence reigned, interrupted only here and there by the note of some night bird. But near the gate, in the two great main buildings, and on the turf and in the gardens surrounding them, the noisy uproar of many thousands filled the air. All the instruments known at the time were playing discordantly, drowning one another. Cries of pleasure, drunkenness, even rage and angry conflict, were heard in the Roman, the Greek, the Moorish, and especially the Vandal tongue; for perhaps the largest and certainly the noisiest "guests of the grove," as the companions in these pleasures called themselves, belonged to the race of conquerors, who here gave vent to all their longing and capacity for pleasure.