John Henry Parker

“ I therefore did so in May, 1876, and I find that the amphitheatre at Pompeii is of the time of Sylla the Dictator, and that the arrangements are not the same as those of the Roman amphitheatre; there are no substructions under the arena, and it appears there never could have been any, as in the centre there is the top of an original well, and the floor seems always to have been of earth only; there are no preparations for Naumachia, and the dens for the wild beasts are on the same level as the arena, and behind the podium. ”

“ That one of the modes of putting criminals to death in Rome was to throw them to the wild beasts to be torn to pieces on the arena, to glut the savage taste of the Roman people, is notorious; but that many of the gladiators and other actors were also frequently killed on the arena is not so generally known, and yet the evidence for it is too distinct to be doubted. ”

“ This must have been the case, because the Emperor Heliogabalus upon one occasion filled these canals with wine, which could not have been done in the Circus Maximus, where the Euripus was a natural running stream of water; but in the Colosseum a canal supplied with water from an aqueduct, which could be let in or drawn off at pleasure, might very well have been filled with wine during an abundant season, when in Rome the wine is sometimes worth less than the vessel that holds it, so that large quantities are frequently wasted for want of casks to put it in. ”

“ Pliny himself contrasts it with the great theatre of Pompey, built long afterwards, and when the city had increased so much, yet which only held 40,000 people, while this building would hold 80,000. There is no other site in Rome where 80,000 people could be placed to see a show excepting this and the Circus Maximus, which is never called a theatre. An inscription has been found in the amphitheatre itself, in which it is called theatrum and not amphitheatrum, which is still a theatre, though it has two round ends to it, instead of one being flat. ”

“ In many other places besides Rome, part of the amphitheatre was at times filled with water for the exhibition of naval fights, indeed the actual remains of the conduit for the water are shewn in more than one place. At Verona, where the area of the amphitheatre is considerably below the level of the adjacent ground, the conduit or specus is shewn at the level of the second gallery, and below that of the upper one, and the water seems to have gone down a cascade into the end of a corridor or passage at the lowest level. ”

“ The machines used for these public amusements were evidently numerous and important, and required a good deal of space to stow them away, more even than was afforded by the vaults and passages under the arena in the Colosseum. This is implied by the celebrated letter of Apollodorus, the architect, to the Emperor Hadrian, in which the architect told the Emperor that he ought to have built the Temple of Roma at the south end of the Summa Sacra Via, and to have made room for this machinery of the amphitheatre in vaulted chambers under it (as before mentioned) ”

“ A great number of large marble columns and capitals of the Composite order, rudely worked, as if on purpose to be seen from a great distance only, have rolled down from the edge of the upper gallery to the arena below, probably in an earthquake. They must have fallen before the substructures were filled up with earth, as many of them were found at the bottom on the old pavement, which they had damaged by falling upon it, and some have made holes through great walls, and were found lying with half the column on the inner side of the wall, and the other half on the outer one. ”

“ When he (Titus) dedicated the theatre for hunting, and the thermæ called after him, he exhibited many wonderful things. Cranes fought and four elephants, nine thousand wild boars and other beasts were killed, which women, even some of noble rank, had brought together. Many contests, also, on foot, and naval fights took place, for suddenly filling the amphitheatre with water, he introduced horses and bulls, and other tame animals, who had been taught to act in the water as on land. ”

“ There are the same dens for wild beasts under the podium, and in the pavement the same sockets for pivots to work in, to pull up the cages, or pegmata, or lifts. The arena, instead of being a boarded floor, is of brick, carried on vaults, with numerous square apertures for the trap-doors. The central passage is vaulted at the two ends, but open in the greater part. Round each of the openings there is a deep groove, as if a wooden cover had been fitted tightly over each and made water-tight, so that the surface of the arena might be flooded for naval fights ”

“ Some of these walls of the substructure are earlier than the time of Nero, others are later, with large repairs of the fifth and sixth centuries. The great external corridors are entirely built of stone, and are evidently added on to the galleries; there is a straight joint from top to bottom in all parts, and no junction with ties anywhere in the original construction. The construction of the walls of the Colosseum in the interior shews such evident patchwork of different periods, that it is impossible to believe they were all built within ten years, as is commonly said. ”

“ An animal is represented first as coming out of the den behind the tufa wall into the cage, with the empty socket behind, as they actually remain, and a capstan with the cord is placed in the socket on the opposite side of the cage. The second is half-way up, to shew the action of the cords, which seems the only mode of explaining the things found. In the third the animal is leaping out on to the stage or arena, as described by Herodian. In front of the podium a piece of trellice-work is shewn in its place, taken from a graffito found on the spot. ”

“ Several of the arches of the galleries, in the fine brickwork of Nero, remain in the Colosseum [48] ; and the stone arcades were evidently built up against them without any junction between the two in any part. The bricks on the side of the arch next the stone piers of the corridors, are in many places cut in half, to make way for the stone piers. The straight vertical joints between the brick galleries and the stone arcades are often two or three inches wide; this may be the effect of an earthquake, but there is no bonding between one and the other. ”

“ GORDIANUS . PIVS . FELIX . AVG.; on the reverse the view of the Colosseum, as if looking down upon it, with the masts for the awning, and a wild-beast hunt going on at a high level, certainly not at the bottom (as has been said) . On the left, standing behind the Meta Sudans, is a colossal figure about fifty feet high [113] . On the right is a small building which is just below, and a gable end to the roof, probably the piscina of Alexander Severus, of which we have remains. Over the Colosseum is the legend MUNIFICENTIA GORDIANI AVG. [114] In this the upper storey is represented as of stone. ”

“ At Puteoli or Pozzuoli, near Naples, the underground chambers of the amphitheatre are unusually perfect, and the brick floor over them, with numerous trap-doors, with deep grooves round the edge for a cover to fit tight over them when the surface was flooded [80] ; at Tusculum one of the canals has been excavated, the other is still buried. From these it appears that the naval fights were represented as in a river, rather than in the sea. ”

“ Suetonius [63] compares the Stagnum of Nero to a “sea” surrounded by the buildings of a city: a strong expression, which shews that there were some buildings immediately round it. The Claudium on the Cœlian, the Porticus Liviæ on the Summa Sacra Via, and Porticus of Nero himself on the Esquiline, would be visible on three sides of it. The representation of this great building on the coin of Titus was evidently taken from the design of the architect. ”

“ There is a front built out distinct from the oval building, with which it is connected by a curved wall at each end, and on which is a passage with persons upon it; there are two grand flights of steps leading up to the top, and persons going up them. These steps are carried on arches, increasing in height as they get nearer the top. The front passage is also carried on tall arches. All these arrangements for the entrance and exit seem to be a bad substitute for the vomitoria of the Roman Colosseum.
There appears to be another place of amusement of some kind by the side of the amphitheatre. ”

“ In all wine-growing countries, the same thing occurs from time to time in superabundant seasons. It is true that these naval fights were called Circensian games, because they were sometimes held in a circus (as has been said) , but the same name was given to them when they were held in the amphitheatre, as in this instance, by Lampridius [213] . Martial [214] distinguishes very clearly both the one and the other, and makes it evident that the stagna of Nero were used for the naumachia of the Cæsars. ”

“ These interesting discoveries made me think it expedient to pay fresh visits to other amphitheatres, to examine them again more carefully for the purpose of comparison; accordingly, I have been to those of Capua [20] , Pozzuoli, Pompeii, and Verona, and found, as I expected, many confirmations of what had been stated in Rome. I took with me Professor Cicconetti, one of the best architectural artists in Rome, to Capua and Pozzuoli [21] , and have added some photo-engravings from his drawings. ”

“ This vivarium is a triangular piece of ground, the wide end of which touches the wall of the Amphitheatrum Castrense; the narrow end is only just wide enough for the body of a man to pass through an aperture made in it, as the ground is between a wall of Aurelian on the inner side, and a wall of the Sessorium on the outer side, preserved by Aurelian as an outwork. This was the scene of the celebrated ambuscade of Belisarius, by means of which the Goths were driven away from Rome, as described by Procopius (De Bello Gothico, lib. i. c. 22.) ”

“ If the water was really sea-water, it could only have been in the canals. The fact of three aqueducts having converged to this point to bring water to the great building, makes it most probable that the water was not really sea-water, but perhaps had sea-weed inserted in it to suit the fishes and the sea monsters. Suetonius also mentions the naumachia in the amphitheatre [58] in the time of Domitian, among the magnificent shows that he provided for the people. ”

“ The amphitheatre is built against a rocky mountain, which causes the northern part of the ellipse to be much lower than the outer one. There are numerous passages and substructures, except on the rocky half of the building. There are two principal entrances facing each other, and in a line with them is a trench exactly similar to the one in the Colosseum, and at Capua, &c. These canals for conducting water into the arena can still be seen, and there seems no doubt of its having been used for naumachia. ”

“ They were not considered satisfactory by scholars because the excavations had not gone deep enough, having been stopped by water, as very often happens in Rome at certain periods of the year, when the springs are high. They were again suspended by the same cause in the spring and summer of 1874, but Signor Rosa, with his usual energy, obtained machinery and a steam-engine to pump the water out [157] . The whole area was found to be undermined by chambers and passages, with walls chiefly of brick, but some of tufa, with indications of several different periods [158] . ”

“ The general proportions may be judged of by the number of persons that each would contain; Publius Victor states that the Colosseum had 87,000 places, and Maffei states that this at Verona had 77,000, this would make it one-eighth less. The variations are not of much importance. The outer wall was partly destroyed by an earthquake in 1184, and the stones were then used as building material, as in other places, but this was soon stopped. The unusually perfect state of the seats arises from the care taken of them in the Middle Ages, very much to the credit of the inhabitants at that period. ”

“ In many of the Italian cities, as well as in Gaul and Britain, the amphitheatre was made of earth and wood only, the seats cut out in banks on the slope of a hill or of an agger, in districts where stone was scarce. In the Circus Maximus also the seats for the plebs on the Aventine seem to have been made in that manner, the stone galleries were on the Palatine only. ”