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The archæology of Rome, Part 7 cover

The archæology of Rome, Part 7

Chapter 64: Description of Plate XXIII.
By John Henry Parker
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The author reports on late 19th-century excavations that revealed extensive substructures beneath the arena, showing earlier origins than commonly supposed and multiple construction phases from Scaurus and Nero to the Flavian emperors. The work describes underground features such as a movable boarded arena with corbels, animal cages with vertical lifts and trapdoors, canals and reservoirs for staged naval displays, and wide passages for scenery, and examines reused timber and stone, masonry of tufa, brick, and concrete, plus coins and graffiti as documentary evidence. It also traces repairs from earthquakes and argues the amphitheatre evolved over more than a century rather than being completed in ten years.

THE COLOSSEUM.
PLATE XXIII.

GRAFFITO OF THE PODIUM, &c.

COLOSSEUM. GRAFFITO OF THE PODIUM etc.

Description of Plate XXIII.

GRAFFITO OF THE PODIUM, &c.

This is one of the four graffiti found during the excavations in 1874. It represents the front of the podium, with the framework for the netting to protect the spectators in the lower gallery, or state-gallery, from the wild beasts, if they should attempt to spring up into it when hunted on the stage or arena below, at the foot of the podium. This fragment shews the lower portion of the screen, which is recorded to have had a bar at the top that turned round, so that if any animal tried to cling to it he would fall backwards on the arena. This was level with the foot of the podium, and twenty-one feet above the pavement at the bottom, on the level of the dens for the wild beasts, and the floor of the passage between the two walls of tufa, with vertical grooves in them for the lifts, with the cages upon them. Behind the place for each cage in the paved floor of the passage, is a socket for a pivot to work in, at the foot of a capstan or post, to wind the twenty-one feet of cord upon, with the lift, when pulled up to the trap-door of the arena. This pavement is represented as resting on the top of a series of arches with bars across; these are probably intended for the doors of the wild beasts below, but rudely represented, and with some sort of performance going on in front.