Part 7 — THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, COMMONLY CALLED THE COLOSSEUM. (continued 2)

Verona.

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.

At Verona, as in many other instances, the outer wall has been almost entirely destroyed; two bays, or four arches of it only remain, but these are sufficient to shew the plan, and that it was three storeys high, the Tuscan order of columns being used throughout. The upper storey seems to have been for the passage round the seats over the corridors; the two lower ones with the seats remain nearly perfect, forming a fine double arcade on the outer side without columns, now made visible by the demolition of the outer corridor and wall. In its present state it is one of the finest buildings of its class. There seems to be no historical evidence of its date; in Murray’s Handbook it is said to be of the time of the Flavian Emperors, but no authority for this is given, and it is not probable. The measurements given by Maffei do not quite agree with those taken by Alvino[194], but the variations are not great; and as one is taken in Neapolitan palms of ten inches, the other in Veronese feet, the apparent variation probably arose only from the different mode of calculating. None of them agree with those in Murray’s Handbooks, which are taken from the Lectures of Mr. Woods. 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. As early as 1228, it was agreed that each podesta (or mayor) should expend 500 lire (about £20[195]) on the repairs of this building; and in 1435 penalties were inflicted on any one who removed any of the stone. This shews that the people of Verona were more civilized than the Romans at that period. In 1545 a special officer was appointed to take charge of it. The restoration of the seats has been carefully done, and is not perceived without some examination. This restoration was begun by voluntary subscription as early as 1568, and continued as late as 1805. The arches were numbered on the exterior, as in the Colosseum; the four that remain have the numbers LXIIII to LXVII over them. The arrangement of the masts and poles for the awning are the same as in Rome, and were managed in the same manner. The plan of the vomitoria is also nearly the same. No excavations appear to have been made under the arena; a plan and section of the substructures under the galleries is given by Maffei, they are similar to those in Rome. He does not appear to have been aware that there was likely to have been anything under the arena; he mentions the conduits of aqueducts, and drains for carrying off the water, which seem to shew that naumachia were held here, but we have no information as to how they were managed.

The proportions of the three principal amphitheatres, as given in the work of Alvino[196], in Neapolitan palms[197] of ten inches are:—

Colosseum. Verona. Capua.

Length of interior 639 522 645

Breadth of interior 527 417 530

Length of arena 298 252 289

Breadth of arena 186 149 174

Height of first order 35 29 36

Entire height of interior 174 91 169

No. of orders[198] 4 3 4

Actual height of ruins 171 62 75

No. of arches 80 72 80

Circuit 170 134 178

Gates 2 1 2

Width of arches 15 12½ 15

Breadth of pilasters 8 6⅓ 8

The Amphitheatre at Pola, in Istria.

This fine structure is built of beautiful white stone, almost marble, in large blocks without mortar, but it had metallic fastenings, which have all disappeared, and left their marks behind them. There are two rows of arches, and above a line of square windows; also a curious stone parapet, with very distinct indications of arrangement for spreading the velarium or vela (the awning). There is only one line of columns, but there was originally a second, and most of the bases of them are still in situ. 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. There are but few remains of the seats, except a large accumulation of débris, and traces of the stairs and vomitoria. The whole line of the podium is also perfectly preserved, but no trace of the concentric euripus found in other amphitheatres. The most puzzling parts of the structure are four rectangular towers, which appear to have had no special staircases leading to them from the ground; antiquaries, with all their ingenuity, have not yet given any satisfactory explanation of these objects. They were most probably for the music, as in the circus of Maxentius on the Via Appia, near Rome, where one tower remains at each end of the carceres[199].

The amphitheatre at Nîmes, in Aquitaine, still has a wooden floor with trap-doors in it; the present floor is not ancient, but no doubt replaces an old one; there is no staircase, and the only access to the passages below is by a step-ladder, and the arrangement of the substructures is quite different from that in Rome, or at Capua, or Puteoli. There are large masses of stone at intervals to support the floor, and wide passages between them. On two of these massive piers are inscriptions, with the name of the architect, the same inscription repeated twice, in characters of the third century. There are no signs of naumachia, or of aqueducts; the seats and the superstructure are more perfect than usual, and have a very fine effect.

At Arles the superstructure also is very grand, but there are no substructures under the arena visible. It is partly cut out of the rock, the lower part supported by massive substructures, but no passages in them are visible. Excavations have not been made there, and the doorways appear to be filled up to half their height, as at the Porta Tiburtina in Rome.

At Bordeaux the ruins of the amphitheatre are called the (arènes) arena, and it evidently had a boarded floor covered with sand, as in the Colosseum; and the superstructures, with the seats, are more perfect than in Rome. There is a great general resemblance, but the details are not the same. The Colosseum is the only amphitheatre which has double corridors round it, and the absence of this outer passage makes a different arrangement of the stairs to the vomitoria necessary in this and other amphitheatres, where the people went straight out through each archway.

Substructures compared.

In treating of the amphitheatres in general, and corroborating the account given in this work of the Colosseum, it must be borne in mind that in every theatre a considerable space is required behind the scenes for the use of the actors. The performances in an amphitheatre would equally require such space for the performers when off the stage, and the only space to which they could possibly retire is under that stage which is called the arena, because it was covered with sand; and it has been shewn that in these substructures there are numerous passages and contrivances for the machines to send up the wild beasts to be hunted, the men and the dogs to hunt them, and the athletes for the wrestling matches; we have also canals for water for the keels of the vessels, in some instances, but not in all; in some cases, the vessels employed could only have been rowing-boats, rates. We have also mention of battles with swords in the naumachia, and of many men being killed. This seems to make it clear that the principal amusement consisted in the crew of one vessel trying to board the other, and the defendants preventing their doing so in every way that they could, either by throwing them off into the water, or with swords and spears.

At Pozzuoli, where the substructures are nearly perfect, there are remains of an intermediate passage, as if for men to run along; and this has been traced to communicate with the Emperor’s seat, and is thought to have been for messengers to go with orders, and to give the necessary directions. All that remains of this intermediate passage are the corbels for carrying a wooden gallery upon. There are similar corbels for an intermediate passage between two floors in the Colosseum, but here in the upper part, apparently for the sailors to run along to furl or unfurl the awning, not in the substructures; there also appear to have been separate stairs and vomitoria for that passage, and as we know that several hundred sailors were employed in the Colosseum, such an arrangement would be quite necessary.

Mention has frequently been made of the great central passage, which exists not only in the Colosseum, but in all other amphitheatres where substructures were made. This passage appears to have served for several useful purposes; there are traces of machines in it for lifting up some large object, not only in the Colosseum but also at Capua; and the things to be lifted up in all probability must have been the vessels for the naval fights. This central passage is mentioned or implied in several instances in the classical authors; it had the appearance of a gulf dividing the earth or arena into two parts. Apuleius calls it vorago terræ (a gulf of the earth); Martial, the via media, or middle way; and Petronius, ruina terræ, from the appearance of a swallowing-up the machines and the gladiators.

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); that he did not do so is evident, for the excavations of 1874 brought to light rude concrete walls of the time of the Republic, with a small aqueduct of the time of the Early Empire, made to carry water to the fountains at the corners of the porticus above. The accounts which we have in classical authors, of the machinery employed in the amphitheatre, remind us very much of that used for a Christmas pantomime in one of the London theatres, and all these great shows were very much of the character of a pantomime. To begin at the top, the cords which carried the velarium, or awning, were strong enough for a rope-dancer, and were called by the name of catadromus; and we have an account in Suetonius, in the time of Nero, of an elephant being taught to walk upon these cords with a Roman cavalier on his back[200]. We also have an account of an actor trying to play the part of Icarus, and fly down from the top, falling dead at the feet of Nero, and sprinkling him with his blood[201].

The pegmata have been mentioned as cages for wild beasts, and this was evidently one meaning of the word, as used by Seneca in his Epistles, quoted in a previous page, but this was one meaning only; the same name was applied to a wooden framework of any kind, sometimes evidently what we now call scenery, either fixed or moveable. Josephus mentions pegmata used in the triumphal procession of Titus, one of which was three storeys high, and another four, on which were representations of the capture of Jerusalem. Another is mentioned by Calpurnius as representing the Tarpeian rock[202], and the victims were thrown from the top of it on to the arena, or into the gulf, and killed on the spot. Apuleius also describes one as representing Mount Ida, with trees, and shrubs, and fountains, on which appeared from time to time Paris and Mercury, and the three goddesses, Juno, Pallas, and Venus, with a number of animals to complete the scene[203]. Another is described by Claudian as representing Mount Etna[204], with the flames burning at the top. Others representing Vulcan and Cyclops; these were in the shows of Carinus and Numerianus, and are mentioned by Vopiscus[205]. It is evident that this scenery must have been prepared below and sent up from the central passage, as there was no room anywhere else for sending it up. Martial[206] also mentions pegmata as rising, from this middle way, and that a person could see from thence the Colossus among the stars. As the Colossus stood on an elevated platform on the Summa Sacra Via, just in a line with this middle way, and was itself 120 ft. high, it is quite probable that the head of it could be seen from below, over the upper gallery.

The dens for the wild beasts in the substructures under the podium are found both at Capua and at Pozzuoli, just as in the Colosseum, and the technical name for such a den was catabolus[207]. Besides the mention by Herodian of a hundred lions leaping on to the arena at once, as “if out of the earth,” (mentioned in page 26), the same thing is mentioned by several other authors at different periods, both of lions and of other wild beasts. Vopiscus mentions this in the life of Probus[208], and that all the doorways were stopped for a time; and he distinctly mentions the animals coming out of the caves below. Ammianus Marcellinus[209] also mentions the doorways being often stopped for the wild beasts. Statius mentions the same[210], and Julius Capitolinus, both in the time of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. In each case a hundred lions are mentioned, and in the latter that they were killed with arrows; and in the time of Probus, not only a hundred lions, but also a hundred Lybian leopards, a hundred Syrian ones, a hundred lionesses, and three hundred bears. Lampridius[211] also mentions in the time of Gordianus the almost incredible number of a thousand bears, in addition to a hundred Lybian leopards.

To protect the people in the lower gallery from these wild beasts, a strong netting was provided (as has been mentioned); this was of gold wire, fixed in a wooden frame, and at the top was an ivory rod which turned round, so that if an animal should attempt to cling to it, he would necessarily fall back. This net was called retia, and at Puteoli or Pozzuoli it was either of gold, or gilt; and this was the case in the Colosseum also, and in other instances. Our authority for this is Calpurnius in his Eclogues[212].

The naval fights with the larger vessels were sometimes held in the Circus Maximus, which could be flooded to the depth required by stopping up at the lower end the stream that runs through it, which is in fact a branch of the small river Almo, but was in this part called the Euripus. This name was also given to the canals for the naumachia, as in the Colosseum. 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. 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.

That the vaults under the arena were called caveæ, caves (or cavities), has been already mentioned, and is evident from many passages in classical and mediæval authors; as in Tertullian and in Prudentius[215], when describing the scenes that had taken place in the amphitheatre as the wicked rites in which the gladiators were killed on the arena, and the impious games in which the sad spectacles of funereal character were brought up from the caves, worthy only of the infernal Jupiter (whom the Christians call Satan).

The Arena.

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. Seneca mentions distinctly, in one of his Epistles[216], that a number of the bodies were exposed to view, of men who were unable to defend themselves by their swords or their shields. He justly says that the men were as savage as the lions or the bears, and the usual end of these fighting men was death on the arena. There is a representation of them in a fine mosaic picture in the Villa Borghese, with the letter θ, and others on two of the graffiti found in the Colosseum in 1875[217].

It is well known that the Roman people sometimes called upon the emperor to produce the most celebrated gladiators, who had been named in the programme for the show. Horace[218] alludes to this in his Epistles; and Martial[219] speaks of two of these gladiators, one called Myrinus, and the other Triumphus (a name which has misled some of the commentators). Another gladiator of that period was named Columbus, and was called for by the people under Claudius, who promised that he should be exhibited if he could be found, as is related by Suetonius[220]. Under Gordianus we are told that thirty-two elephants, and about a thousand gladiators were exhibited; it is probable that many of these were killed in the fight. It has already been stated that Commodus fought himself with the gladiators on the arena.

There was a particular costume for the athletes, and also for the emperor when he went on to the arena, and Commodus gave offence by not complying with the custom which had been established by Titus at the opening, as is mentioned by Suetonius[221]. The carrying out of the dead bodies from the arena is also mentioned by Quintilian[222] as done with pomp. Lampridius[223] expressly says that Commodus acted contrary to the established custom, and was not dressed in the proper manner; and that his helmet was carried out of the theatre by the gate by which the dead bodies were usually carried out, which was considered a bad omen, and he was murdered soon afterwards. This is also mentioned by Dio Cassius (as quoted on page 23).

The Gates.

There were naturally four gates to this enormous structure, one at each end, and one in the middle of each side; and the same arrangement was followed in all the other amphitheatres. By what names these gates were called, and whether these names were special for each particular building, or general for all, is a question still undecided, and also which was the state entrance. It is commonly said that in the Colosseum the state entrance was on the northern side, next the Esquiline Hill, because there is no number over that arch as there is over the other arches, but this was probably the case with all the four entrances; the other three gates are destroyed. The excavations in 1875 have been supposed to shew that the passage on the southern side towards the Cœlian did not lead direct to the palace of Commodus, but was carried round the outer line of the building to the south-east end, near S. Clemente; the natural entrance from the palace of Nero would be from the gate at the east end, and not on the north side. The names of the gates are not easily fixed; one was called Porta Libitinensis, and from this door the bodies of those who were killed were carried out, as we learn from Lampridius in the life of Commodus[224]. They were carried out of this gate on a special bier provided for the purpose, called sandapila, as is mentioned by Juvenal[225], and explained by the old Scoliast. This name is sometimes written sanavivaria, as in the Acta Martyrum Felicita et Perpetua[226]. The word libitina signifies death, or a funeral, or a bier; it is used also by Horace in his Odes[227], and explained by the Scoliast in the same manner, and by Martial in his Epigrams[228]. It appears that the name of sandapilaria and libitinensis were synonymous. Another gate was called Porta Prætoria, probably that at the south-east end, opening from the road to the Vivarium at the Prætorian Camp. Another, Porta Sacra, probably that at the north-west end, opening to the Via Sacra. The Meta Sudans was close to this gate, and was supplied with water by tubes, as Seneca mentions in his Epistles[229]. His fifty-seventh letter is full of lamentation for the fate of the athletes.

The name of cochlea is given to one of the doors of the amphitheatre, which led from the cavea to the arena. This name is used by Varro[230], and has puzzled all the commentators; it need hardly be said that cochlea is literally “a snail,” and the name has been supposed to apply to some narrow doorway; but the name is well known in mediæval Latin as applied to a winding or newel staircase, popularly called a corkscrew-staircase, and there are two such staircases leading from the substructures or cavea to the level of the arena, one on either side, at the south-east end of the great central passage in the Flavian amphitheatre, to which there can be no doubt that this name was applied. Trajan’s column is frequently called columna cochlea, because there is such a staircase inside of it.

The Games in the Arena.

The importance attached to the public amusements, both by the people and by the emperors, appears extraordinary to modern ideas. Caligula[231] was present from morning to evening, and had a series of the various kinds of hunting in different countries exhibited, such as the hunts of the Africans and of the Trojans; on these occasions, the arena was strewed with red and green foliage. At this period Suetonius also mentions that the people assembled at midnight for the shows of the following day, when they were gratuitous[232]. The Emperor Claudius himself would go at daybreak to the amphitheatre, and see the wild beasts fed, and again at mid-day[233]. The same practice is mentioned by Pliny as used in the time of Nero[234]. Petronius also mentions the custom for two old negroes to sprinkle the arena with scents from small bottles, which they brought for the purpose[235]. Tacitus gives an account of the games performed under his own direction in the time of Claudius[236].

“During the same consulship, in the year of Rome eight hundred, the secular games were celebrated, after an interval of sixty-four years since they were last solemnized in the reign of Augustus.

“Being at that time one of the college of fifteen, and invested with the office of prætor, it fell to my province to regulate the ceremonies. Let it not be imagined that this is said from motives of vanity. The fact is, that in ancient times the business was conducted under the special directions of the quindecemviral order, while the chief magistrates officiated in the several ceremonies. Claudius thought proper to revive this public spectacle. He attended in the circus, and, in his presence, the Trojan game was performed by the youth of noble birth. Britannicus, the emperor’s son, and Lucius Domitius, who by adoption took the name of Nero, and afterwards succeeded to the empire, appeared, with the rest of the band, mounted on superb horses. Nero was received with acclamations, and that mark of popular favour was considered as an omen of his future grandeur.”