The importance of the great excavations made in 1874 and 1875 in this colossal building, and the evidence obtained by them for the history of the fabric, can hardly be overrated. It is now evident that the substructures under the level of the base of the podium are (when not rebuilt) the earliest part of it, and considerably earlier than the time of the Flavian Emperors, who built the magnificent front and corridors around a theatre previously existing on that site.
This great amphitheatre is indeed enumerated by Suetonius[23] among the works of Vespasian, and he adds that an amphitheatre in the centre of Rome had been projected by Augustus. But he does not say that it was then begun, and it seems evident that it was in use in the time of Nero in connection with his great golden house, and was partly built by him, but the exterior left unfinished. It contained the stagna, or stagnum navale, called also Vetus Naumachia, made at a still earlier period on the same site, which was called the old naumachia, when Augustus made new and larger ones in the Trastevere. It also contained his gymnasium on the boarded floor, or arena, of the theatre, over the stagna maritima, or canals for the sham naval fights. We know nothing certain as to the exact date of the commencement, but the building was continued during the reign of Vespasian and till the second year of Titus, namely A.D. 80, when it was dedicated. There is no evidence to prove that it was commenced even under Nero.
Pliny gives an account of a wooden amphitheatre built by Statilius Taurus, which was in the Campus Martius; he says[24] that
“he made two large theatres of wood, morticed together in a singular manner, and suspended so as to turn freely, in which on both sides were exhibited the afternoon shows of plays, then turning them round—nor were the scenes interrupted by the turning—quickly turning to face each other, and (intermediate) boards falling down; and the two parts held together by horns. He made an amphitheatre and exhibited the gladiatorial shows, carrying with him the consent of the greater part of the Roman people. For which was most to be admired, the inventor or the thing invented? The work or its author? To have thought of such a thing, or to have carried it out? To exhibit it, or permit it? Upon all these points there was a furor of the people, to dare to sit on such an unsafe and unstable seat.”
This gave the form of an amphitheatre, or a theatre round at both ends, and not with one side flat, as in the other theatres, but the two names are often used indifferently; this set the fashion, and Julius Cæsar followed it a few years afterwards in his great wooden amphitheatre; but the turning round had been abandoned, and the advantage of substructures under the stage would become apparent for making the shows still more popular. It is mentioned as being very large, to admit of naval fights with large vessels, but this was in the Campus Martius, and was a temporary structure only, as stated by Dio Cassius[25].
The Theatre of M. Scaurus, the ædilis, is mentioned by Pliny[26] as being on an enormous scale,—the scena of triple height, with 360 columns, and he enumerates it among the insane works that were made at his private cost. The upper part was of wood.
“He made, during the time that he was edile, the greatest work that ever was made by human hands, not for temporary use only, but destined for eternity also[27]. This was a theatre; the scena of it was triple in height. There were three hundred and sixty columns in that building, of which six were brought from Hymettus, not without reproach at the sumptuousness of a citizen. The lowest part of the scena was of marble, the middle part of glass, an unheard-of luxury in that kind of work; the highest part of gilt wood. The columns were at least thirty-eight feet high; the images between the columns were three thousand in number; the cavea itself held eighty thousand people.”
Scena usually means the stage for the actors to perform upon, but how could this be triple, and three storeys high? To what other site in Rome, excepting this great amphitheatre, which held 80,000 people, could all this possibly apply?
This was in the time of Sylla; the site is not mentioned. Dio mentions[28] a great flood in the time of Julius Cæsar, A.U.C. 694 (B.C. 59), extending as far as the great wooden theatre. The clivus Scauri descends from that part of the Cœlian Hill on which the Claudium was afterwards built, to the level of the road or street that leads from the Circus Maximus to the Colosseum. All this was under water at the time of the great flood in 1871.
The name of cavea is said by Lipsius[29] to be applied to the amphitheatre by several classical authors. He cites Ammianus Marcellinus[30], Prudentius[31], and others, as using that name for it; but they probably meant not only the hollow where the seats were placed, but also the hollow space under the arena, with the dens for the wild beasts, to which that name was also applied. Statius[32] uses the word cavea for the cages for lions, with doors round them, the closing of which frightened the lions. Livy mentions iron cages (caveas), but Claudian says that the animals were shut into wooden houses[33]; probably the cages in which they were brought from the vivaria were of iron, but wooden cages (pegmata) were sufficient to place upon the lifts, and send the animals up to the trap-doors[34].
Long before this time wild beasts had been brought into Rome for exhibition, in the year 502 of Rome[35] (B.C. 251). Lucius Cæcilius Metellus, the pro-consul, when he had conquered Sicily from the Carthaginians, brought into Rome 142 elephants taken from them, which he exhibited in the Circus Maximus. The custom of sending culprits to execution by being torn to pieces by wild beasts is very ancient in the East, as the well-known history of Daniel and the lions clearly shews. The invention of circuses and amphitheatres for the exhibition of hunts is attributed to the Athenians by Cassiodorus[36]; but it is generally thought to be a Roman invention, although the name is Greek. Livy[37] records that in the year 568 of Rome (B.C. 217), Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, after the war with the Ætolians, exhibited for the first time “the athletes, and the hunting of lions and panthers.”
In the year 586 of Rome (B.C. 227), Livy[38] also relates that “P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica and P. Lentulus, the Ædiles Curules, exhibited 63 African wild beasts, 40 bears and elephants.” Martial, who was a contemporary of Vespasian and Titus, Domitian and Trajan, has numerous epigrams on the subject of scenes that took place in the Amphitheatre of the Cæsars, by which he obviously means the Colosseum; a large part of his first book, de Spectaculis, relates to such scenes on this spot[39]. On one occasion, he mentions that a representation of Rhodope (a mountain in Thrace), where Orpheus sang, with the rocks and woods, was given upon the stage. It is evident from this, and from many other passages in the classical authors, that the stage, called the Arena, was on the level of the podium, and visible to the people in every part of the great theatre; and not at the bottom of a pit twenty feet deep, where only a small number could have seen it, although some persons maintain this opinion.
We are told by Suetonius again[40] in the life of Julius Cæsar, that—
“these spectacles were exhibited in the Circus Maximus, in the circuit of the Euripus, with races of bigæ, and quadrigæ[41], and horses, with the young nobles for riders or drivers. Hunting of wild beasts for five days, and sham fights, castles being made over the metæ; a stadium or stage was made in the Campus Martius for the athletes, and naval fights in the smaller codeta[42],” (which was in the Trastevere, and probably on the site on which Augustus afterwards made his great Naumachia,) “and in the lake then dug out, biremes, and triremes, and quadriremes[43] of the Tyrian and Ægyptian fleets, in great number, fought together. The whole population of Rome was attracted by those exhibitions, so that the streets and houses were quite empty; and from the pressure of the crowd several persons were crushed to death, including two senators.”
These attractive exhibitions obviously required a building especially prepared and calculated for them, which Augustus proposed to provide, but left for his successors to carry out the plan. It is probable that in the time of Nero the great work was commenced on the site of that of Scaurus[44], and making use of his substructures, was carried on gradually, and eventually completed in this colossal building.
We are told that Nero made a Gymnasium and Naumachia in connection with his great palace, or golden house, and no vestiges of any such buildings have been found[45], unless both were combined in the great building called the Colosseum from its colossal size. The amphitheatre at Capua, being also a very large one, is said to have been called a Colosseum, but on rather doubtful authority. It is, however, certain that the name had nothing to do with the Colossus of Nero. It is evident that Nero made a great reservoir of water on this spot, which was supplied from his aqueduct on the Cœlian[46]. The specus, or channel for this water, remains in the wall of the Claudium, on the northern side, opposite the Palatine; and at the north-east corner of that part of the Cœlian Hill on which the Claudium stood, are remains of a piscina of the time of Nero, obviously intended for the filtering-place before the water went across into the Colosseum. At a short interval only, about a hundred yards to the south of this, is another piscina of the time of Alexander Severus, when the upper storey was added, and the whole building repaired after the great fire. It is quite possible that Nero made a large oval reservoir on this spot, adjoining to his palace, supplied by an aqueduct, similar to the great oval reservoir on the Palatine, near the house of Augustus, excavated in 1872. The Romans were fond of the oval form for a sheet of water; the basin of the fountain of Domitian, also on the Palatine, is oval; and the remains of the fountain of Juturna in the Forum Romanum shew the same form[47]. The long canals for the vessels to float in, which are ten feet deep, about the same width, and the same height above the original pavements, are not so early as the time of Nero; they are of the third century, with many later repairs.
To include the Gymnasium in the same building, Nero made a wooden floor over the reservoir, which he could remove and replace at pleasure; this was covered with sand for the athletes to wrestle upon, and became the Arena. Around this great oval basin galleries were erected for the spectators, which were gradually enlarged and raised higher as the seats were further off; and the great stone arcades of the Flavian Emperors, with the corridors in them, are built round those older galleries, which were chiefly faced with brick. 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. The enormous arcades and corridors are in themselves a gigantic work, and it was evidently difficult to obtain so great a supply of materials.
The external wall and corridor are of three periods. The first is the ground floor only, with the Doric order of columns; the first and second floor, with the Corinthian columns, belong to the second period, and it is a little later than the lowest part, but not with any long interval; the upper floor is an addition of the third century, and replaces a wooden storey.
In the interior of the building, as we are told in the anonymous chronicle published by Eccard, which is good authority[49], Vespasian dedicated the three lower steps, and Titus added two others to the three placed by his father. The wooden gallery, built upon the top of the great corridors or arcades (for the plebs), appears to have been an afterthought, not part of the original design, but an addition obviously called for. The large space at that height gave accommodation for an enormous number of people, which could not have been given before, to see what was going on upon the Arena or Stage during the performance. This had numerous trap-doors in it, under which were lifts for the wild beasts in their cages to be sent up on to the stage when wanted. The performance was in many respects like our pantomimes. There are evident traces of the lifts below, by the vertical grooves in the tufa walls for them to slide up and down[50]; and recesses remain in these walls for the counter-weights also to work in, with holes in the pavement for the sockets of pivots for the capstans necessary to wind up the cords, and loose them as required. These original walls, with the grooves for the old machines, are in many parts interfered with by more modern walls built up between them, probably in the fifth and sixth centuries, when great repairs were made after earthquakes, or perhaps rendered necessary by the weight of the water under the wooden floor in the central part.
Two important inscriptions relating to the history of the building have been preserved[51]: one found in 1810 on the western side, recording the repairs after an earthquake by the præfect Basilius, A.D. 445; the other in 1813, recording similar repairs by Lampadius, A.D. 508. Three of the marble seats were also brought to light, one with the number XVIII., another with the word EQUITI, the third, with an inscription, the beginning of which is broken off:—
tr IB IN . THEATR . LEGE . PL . VI
vind ICET . P . X . II.
This is important, because it shews the use of the word Theatrum[52], and not Amphitheatrum, for the colossal building; which agrees with the usage of Dio and other contemporary authors, who always call it Theatrum par eminence, or the great theatre of Rome, there being no need to distinguish it further.
The following extracts from Dio Cassius can only apply to the great amphitheatre:—
“Such was the shamelessness of Nero, that he himself drove chariots in public; and, sometimes, having slain wild beasts, and having suddenly introduced water into the area, he made a naval battle; and then withdrawing the water, he introduced the gladiatorial strife. Then again introducing it, he gave in public a sumptuous supper. Tigellinus was the prefect (or overseer) of the supper, and it was a supper of the grandest magnificence, arranged in this manner. In the middle of the amphitheatre and in the water great wooden wine-casks were placed, and upon them a floor of planks[53] was laid, and around this, booths and small chambers were erected[54].”
“Nero had various kinds of shows in the amphitheatre, sometimes filling it with sea-water, in which fishes and sea monsters swam, and made a naval fight between the Persians and the Athenians; then suddenly withdrawing the water, and drying the ground, he ordered a number of men on foot to rush in, not singly, but in numbers and close together[55].”
“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. He also introduced men in ships, who, in the guise of Corcyrians and Corinthians, imitated a naval battle[56].”
In another chapter Dio repeats the same account, with the addition of “a public supper[57].” This shews that the arrangements in the amphitheatre were the same in the time of Nero as in the time of Commodus, when Dio was himself present, and describes what he saw. 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. Dio clearly distinguishes between the Amphitheatre of Nero and that of Statilius Taurus in the Campus Martius, which he also calls Theatrum Tauri[59].
The word stagnum is commonly translated pond, but it does not necessarily mean only a pond; any reservoir of water might be so called; the castellum aquæ, or large cistern for the water supplied by the aqueducts, was also a stagnum. The “Stagna Neronis[60]” are mentioned by Martial, as well as by Tacitus[61], who also mentions a stagnum navale among the games in the public theatre of Augustus[62].
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. It represents a building of two storeys only, with gigantic statues under each of the arches of the corridors.
The new naumachia made by Augustus in the Trastevere were larger reservoirs for the same purpose; this naumachia is also called a stagnum by Tacitus[64], who describes a similar scene in the stagnum of Agrippa[65] (which was in his thermæ, near the Pantheon), with the letting in the water suddenly for a naval battle; and then letting it off again as suddenly, and having a supper in the same place; he also mentions the stagna of Nero[66], and the stagnum navale of Augustus[67]. The stagnum of Agrippa was supplied with water by his aqueduct (the Virgo), and it has been mentioned that those of Nero were supplied by three aqueducts, two from the Cœlian and one from the Esquiline. The remains of the specus and of the piscinæ have been already mentioned[68]. There are slight remains of three reservoirs in the gallery, lined with the peculiar cement used only for the aqueducts, called opus signinum. From the Esquiline the water was brought to the Amphitheatre in leaden pipes, after serving the Thermæ of Titus; a quantity of these leaden pipes have been found in excavations at different periods[69], as recorded at the time by eye-witnesses, and some of them are still preserved as mementoes in the office of the Municipality.
Suetonius[70] mentions that some of the amusements for the people provided by Nero were held in the wooden amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus in the Campus Martius, but he mentions the naumachia separately, and we have no account of any stagnum having been there, nor is it probable, as it could only have been supplied with water by the aqueduct of Agrippa, and it was originally built before that aqueduct was made. The naumachia were an essential part of the amusements of many Roman amphitheatres, and there are considerable remains of the canals for them at Capua and at Tusculum.
Suetonius, in his life of Titus, thus writes:—
“Having dedicated the Amphitheatre, and having quickly completed the Thermæ hard by, he provided the most magnificent and expensive entertainment [for the people]. He exhibited a naval fight in the old Naumachia, and also a combat of gladiators; and, in one day also, five thousand wild beasts of all sorts[71].”
Those stagna were boarded over for the gladiators and for the wild beasts, but the boards could be moved and naval fights exhibited at other times, as had previously been done on the same spot in “the old Naumachia[72].” The account of the scenes that took place here, described by Dio Cassius, agrees with this. The excavations made in 1814 shewed that there were canals built of brick running parallel to each other the whole length of the area, as at Capua, and in several other amphitheatres; these were, no doubt, for the naval fights. The vessels were probably towed along from the opposite ends, and where they met were lashed together, and the sailors of one of them tried to board the other: to prevent this was the naval fight. Probably the space between these two canals was flooded when the water was let in. These canals, reservoirs, or stagna, were brought out more clearly in 1875, and the substructures which supported them were then made visible[73].
In the corridors are many remains of the open channels for the water brought from the aqueducts. They are not more than a foot deep, often not so much, being frequently much worn: when perfect they are nearly of that depth, and are lined with the peculiar cement used only for the aqueducts, called Opus signinum, and in Italian, Coccio-pesto. This is an invariable mark of an aqueduct; this open channel must have been brought across from the Cœlian reservoir on the colonnade, shewn upon the coin of Titus. The system of drainage for the rain-water is quite distinct from the channels for the aqueducts.
The floor of the Arena for the gymnastics and the slaughter of wild beasts was of wood covered with sand; on one occasion (as we have shewn) placed upon wine-barrels in the parts that had been flooded; the boards could be removed or replaced with facility. It was full of trap-doors with lifts under them, some large for the animals to jump through, these are over the passage round the outer line, in front of the dens under the podium; others smaller for men and dogs for the hunt; these are on each side of the central passage. Large corbels, with bold projections for placing the boards upon when removed from the floor of the stage, are provided over the stream of water, in front of the podium, but at a lower level; they are in pairs six feet apart, and also served to stiffen the lower end of the masts or poles for the awning; on the surface of them a notch is cut to place the boards upon, and ready access was given by the passage in front of the podium. The gymnasium and the stagna were in one and the same building used for both purposes, and Nero probably built galleries of brick round it for the accommodation of the people, according to the fashion of his time. The exterior was left unfinished for some years, and completed of stone by Titus and the Flavian emperors on a more magnificent scale. The space for the upper galleries was afterwards very much enlarged by building them upon the magnificent double arcades of stone round it, and so completing the great building known as the Colosseum. The straight vertical joint, which is plainly seen between the old brickwork within and these stone galleries and corridors, and the want of any bond between them, is thus accounted for[74]. The upper gallery for the common people was an addition to the original design over these arcades and corridors, and was originally of wood; it was destroyed by fire caused by lightning in the time of the Emperor Macrinus, A.D. 217, and restored in stone in about twenty-three years, having been completed by Gordianus III., A.D. 240. To support this upper gallery of stone at that enormous height vertical piers of travertine are introduced, cutting through the walls of the lower galleries from top to bottom[75]; these walls are of tufa, faced with brick. In several instances portions of these piers of travertine have been removed for building purposes in the Middle Ages, and the space that had been occupied by the piers is left empty. The brick facing of the walls on either side stands just as firm without these travertine piers as with them, a clear proof that their object was to support the upper gallery when it was rebuilt in stone, and not to support the brick walls of the lower one through which they were cut, although they appear to do so. This accounts for the fact that in the brick arches of construction (as they are called), the bricks, originally two feet square, are cut down to a few inches[76].
The names of stagnum or stagna, and naumachia, are evidently used indifferently by the classical authors. It has been already mentioned that in the description of the far-famed palace of Nero, reaching from the Esquiline to the Palatine Hill, Suetonius also speaks of it having “a lake (stagnum) like a sea surrounded by buildings, after the fashion of cities[77].” This could only apply to the Colosseum, and from this it would appear that in the time of Nero the surface could be flooded when required for theatrical display. Probably in two parts, divided by the great central passage or the gulf, and these two parts were called the stagna. It must always be remembered that the one object of the whole building was a theatre for the amusement of the people, very much like the Crystal Palace for London.
The probability is that some of the walls of the buildings of Nero round his stagna were used as part of the lower galleries of the Colosseum; these walls and arches are a mixture of stone and brick, and some of the brickwork has quite the character of the time of Nero, so well known to Roman antiquaries as the finest brickwork in the world[78]. The excavations of 1874 and 1875 have confirmed this opinion; there is a series of arches over the entrance to the dens for wild beasts, under the podium, which are distinctly of the well-known brickwork of Nero. 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.
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. At Capua the aqueduct for bringing in the water and a large drain for carrying it off rapidly, are shewn, both at a low level[79]. In either of these cases, the substructure is to a great extent filled up with vaulted brick chambers separated by passages, but the walls and vaults are lined with that peculiar cement that resists water, and thus a great part of the surface may have been covered with water to a sufficient depth for the purpose. 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. There are two long straight passages, the whole length of the central space, with no doors in them; and the walls are faced with the peculiar water-cement. These passages are wide enough for a trireme to pass along, and it seems more probable that the naval fight took place on this sort of river than on the whole surface, which would have been necessary for a sea-fight.
This obviously applies equally to the Colosseum, where the great excavations in 1875 shewed that there were two canals on each side of a great central passage, parallel to it and to each other, with an interval of about six feet between them, which was flooded when the water was let in to make two fine sheets of water the whole length of the arena, each about three hundred feet long and fifty feet wide[81]. These were just under the boards, which were carried away and placed on the corbels provided for them in front of the podium, but below the level of the base of it. The walls to support this body of water are unusually thick, and have buttresses on both sides for greater strength[82]. The two canals were not of the same width, but of the same depth, ten feet, with passages, ten feet high, under them. The most narrow canal is nearest to the centre, and has been supported on great beams of wood resting upon the massive walls; the places for the ends of the beams are left at short intervals in the walls. The other and wider canal had brick arches to support it, which remain, though the great leaden cistern in the form of a canal has been destroyed.
The two great lofty walls of tufa are independent of the brick walls supporting the canals. The lifts, or pegmata for the wild beasts, were placed in the outer passage between the two tufa walls, just under the edge of the podium[83]. On each side of the central passage are a series of small square closets for lifts, for men and dogs to ascend from the passages at the lowest level to the floor above, through the trap-doors. These continue visible for the whole length of the surface and central passage. The pavement of these passages is of brick in herring-bone fashion, such as was common in Rome during the first three centuries. Some persons have imagined that the walls are built upon this pavement, but if this is the case anywhere, of which there is no evidence, it would only be a part of the later repairs of the fifth or sixth century.
There are some portions of a third wall of tufa parallel to the other two, and within them; this has been much damaged, and very little of it remains. In one place, near the south-west end, there is an arch in this tufa wall apparently much shaken by an earthquake, and consequently supported by two brick arches of Nero, one under it, the other abutting against it, like a flying buttress in a medieval church[84]. The long, thin bricks of the time of Nero are perfectly well known to all Roman archæologists, and are only met with in buildings of his time. Two other small square chambers, one on either side of the great central passage, also remain at the south end, with an arch of the brickwork of Nero on each side[85]. These chambers are enclosed in stone, so that half the thickness of the wall is of brick, the other half of travertine. This wall, therefore, affords conclusive evidence that there was a great theatre on this spot before the time of Vespasian, and that the tufa walls are earlier than the time of Nero.
We are expressly told that Augustus had intended to build an amphitheatre here, but had not done so. We have no mention of Claudius having built one, we are therefore driven back to an earlier period (probably to the amphitheatre of Scaurus, in the time of Sylla) for the date of the tufa walls, with the grooves for lifts, or pegmata, in them, as has been mentioned. Outside of these great walls of tufa, and under the path in front of the podium, are a number of dens for lions, or other wild beasts of that size[86]. And in front of each is an opening large enough for the animal to pass through into a cage placed on a lift in the passage between the two tufa walls, and in each of these walls are vertical grooves cut in them for the lifts to work up and down; also deeper grooves, about a yard long, for the counter-weights[87]. Behind the place for each cage, in the passage, is a socket let into the pavement for a pivot to work in[88], apparently for a capstan or post to wind the cord upon to pull up the lifts and cages. These cages were of wood, and called pegmata. The word pegma is used in different senses by Pliny, Martial, and others for a wooden box, cage, or framework; and the wild beasts were brought in such cages from the places where they were kept outside the walls, called vivaria.
There were two vivaria, one on the southern side of the Prætorian Camp, of which there are some remains. The evidence for this is an inscription of the time of Gordianus III. (A.D. 241), which mentions a keeper of the vivarium[89] belonging to the sixth Cohort of the Prætorian and Urban[90] Guards. The other was on the southern side of the Sessorium, which was both a palace and a Prætorian Camp.
The podium was protected by nets[91]; and there were projecting bars for rollers, which turned round when touched, so that the claws of an animal could have no hold upon them: these are mentioned by Calpurnius. Seneca, in his Epistle (88) uses the word pegma for “a wooden machine in the theatres,” which raised and lowered itself imperceptibly—evidently what we now call a lift—the machinery of which was not seen by the spectators. Wooden towers used on the stage in sham fights were also called pegmata[92]. The following account given by Seneca[93], who wrote about A.D. 20, of these machines, clearly applies to the Colosseum and the substructures under it. As that was before the time of the Flavian Emperors, it is probable that the wooden amphitheatre on this spot was in existence in his time, and that the tufa walls for the lifts now remaining were then standing and in use. He says—
“There are games that give pleasure to the eyes and the ears. Among these we may enumerate the machines which cause the cages to raise themselves, and silently rise to the top of the wooden floor (or stage), and others in unexpected variety, either gaping open or coalescing again, others which were distant drawing together again spontaneously, or those which were near gradually retiring from each other. The eyes of the silly people are astonished at all these sudden movements, the causes of which they do not understand.”
Juvenal, writing about A.D. 100, also mentions the pegmata in the Colosseum[94], with the velaria.
There is a small stream of water in front of the dens, supplied by the aqueducts, from which the animals could drink. Behind each den is a small cell, four feet square, descending from above, called catabolicus[95], but not lower than ten feet from the ground, apparently for a man to go down and feed them safely.
In what seems the earliest part of the two tufa walls, near the south-west end of the building, the apertures in the inner part are square-headed doorways, and not arches[96]. These are filled up with brick walls of the time of the Flavian emperors, or later[97]. In other parts of these tufa walls there are arches in the inner wall, also supported by brick arches of the time of the Flavian emperors, in which the bricks are thicker, and there is more mortar between them than in those of the time of Nero.
On the floor of the central passage is a remarkable piece of ancient wooden framework lying on the ground[98], which has the appearance at first sight of having been burnt, but long exposure to wet will have the same effect on wood that fire has. (The Irish bog-oak often appears as if it had been burnt, and wood has been dug from under the foundations of an Irish round tower that had the same appearance.) This framework is a good deal worn, as if it had been much used; it has all the appearance of a dry dock, or a cradle for a vessel to stand upon. When the stagnum navale of Nero was in use, there must have been some machinery for lifting up the vessels and placing them on the canals. They must also have been removed out of the way when the water was let off, and the boarded floor of the stage or arena replaced[99].
On each side of this wooden framework is a series of slabs of stone about a yard square, placed upright, with a hole through each for a water-course. These seem to have been for fixing the wooden frame of a cradle for the vessels to stand upon, and to keep them upright. This plan is well shewn in a drawing of a trireme that was made for Napoleon III., to shew the French people what a Roman trireme was like[100].
It is well known that the general form of the Colosseum is oval, and that it had four principal entrances, one of which only remains; this is said to have been the entrance for the emperor and his suite, it is not numbered as the other entrances and seats were[101]. The theatre, as we are told in the Regionary Catalogues, was calculated to hold 87,000 people, and was admirably adapted for its purpose. There were four principal staircases, by which the spectators could ascend to the highest tier of seats, and these were so arranged that the different orders could disperse without meeting each other. The numerous places of egress, called vomitoria, and the windows to light the staircases, were contrived with great skill.
Vast as this amazing edifice still is, the whole of the outer wall with the arcades and corridors, on the south and west sides, have been destroyed, having been used as a stone quarry for building some of the largest palaces in Rome, but on the north and east sides it is tolerably perfect. A correct idea of the whole can only be formed by mounting to the top, and surveying the whole extent from thence. The finest view of the exterior is from the Thermæ of Titus, or the windows or the garden of the monastery of S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the hill opposite the north front.
The great mass of the building under the corridors is of tufa, and was probably taken from that part of the second wall of Rome which passed under the south end of the Palatine close at hand; each block of tufa, being of large size and a ton in weight, was likely to be brought from the nearest point. It has been mentioned that there are piers of travertine at short intervals, as if the builders were afraid to trust the soft tufa to carry so great a weight[102]. These piers go right through the walls from top to bottom, to carry the weight of the upper gallery when full of people; tufa is too soft a material to be trusted for this purpose, and the brick facing did not add materially to the strength. It is faced with cut stone (travertine) on the exterior, and with brick on the interior. The work, as said before, was evidently carried on for a long time. Three periods may be perceived[103] in the stonework, with apparently an interval of some years between them. The upper storey is of a later date, of the time of Alexander Severus and Gordianus, and was evidently completed in great haste, of materials previously prepared, (as may be distinctly seen in the interior); this upper wall is built also in the most slovenly manner, with portions of cornices and of columns, or fragments of old tombs, built into it as mere pieces of stone[104]. On the interior of this wall large corbels remain distinctly visible, which could only be for the floor of the wooden gallery.
In the lower series of seats the vaults under them are not original, except those on the ground-floor; and in the corridors the large corbels for wooden floors and galleries still project from the face of the wall very distinctly[105]. The mixture of stone and brick in the construction is curious, and in several parts indicates the great repairs in the fifth and sixth centuries recorded by inscriptions found during the excavations.
There is a series of arches on the first floor within, some of them begun, and some completed, in stone, but the greater part have springing stones only upon the stone jambs, the arches afterwards being completed in brick, and brick vaults introduced in place of the original wooden floors and galleries; above, nearly all is brick, except the corridors and the outer facing. The construction of this part is very good throughout; the stones are in large oblong blocks, closely fitted together, originally held with iron clamps, fragments of which remain, as may be seen or felt in the interior of the building in apertures of the wall: the holes where other iron clamps have been, are left all over the face of the building, and in the corridors, always at the edges of the stones, where in rusting they have split the stone and fallen out. They were of this form (illustration of the form: it is shaped like a table)[106]. On the west side, where the outer wall is gone, the inner wall (now external) shews distinctly the flat pilasters of stone carried up nearly to the top, but left unfinished, and continued with brick afterwards.
Nothing is known with certainty of the architect of the work; an inscription found in the Catacomb of S. Agnes, in memory of Gaudentius, has given rise to the legend that he was the architect[107], and that he afterwards suffered as a martyr within its walls. Twelve thousand Jewish slaves are said to have been employed upon it during five years, and ten million Roman scudi expended upon it in the same time.
The fine tomb of one of the family of the Aterii found at Cento Celle, and now preserved in the Lateran Museum, is covered with panels of sculpture of numerous buildings packed closely together, of which there is reason to believe some are only designs, and were never executed. This makes it probable that it was the tomb of an architect, and one of the sculptures represents the Summa Sacra Via as he thought it ought to have been. One building is a triumphal arch, with a colossal figure under it, and an inscription on the cornice—ARCVS IN SACRA VIA SVMMA; another triumphal arch has the inscription ARCVS AD ISIS. Between these two is seen the Colosseum looking down upon it, represented as of two storeys only, and not quite the same as the existing building, but the figures under the arches are shewn as on the coin. Another sculpture on the same tomb represents the machine for raising large stones to the top of a high wall or building, described in Part III. of this work (Construction, p. 91). From the circumstance of this machine being represented upon the tomb, it seems most probable that the person here interred was the inventor, or had made some improvement in it, and that it was especially intended for the Colosseum, for which it certainly would have been very useful. The date of the tomb is of the first century[108]. Such a machine is mentioned by Vitruvius, and similar machines are still in use in some parts of Switzerland.
The numerous walls that intersect the space under the stage shew clearly that there could be no area in this theatre, that there is no open space excepting on the stage itself, and this was the boarded floor, called the arena, from the sand with which it was covered. The latter is quite a different thing from an area, and yet almost all the modern writers on the antiquities of Rome fall into this mistake. The passage cited in a previous page from Dio Cassius, who describes what he saw, is quite decisive that the arena was a boarded floor covered with sand.
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. Probably the cords for the awning were caught on the entablature of this colonnade as they passed, the length from top to bottom being too great to keep them tight. There must have been at least a hundred of these columns; possibly there were two colonnades, the second on the edge of one of the lower galleries, but they are work of the third century, not earlier, and as the upper gallery was added at that time, they must have belonged to that period.
The Flavian Amphitheatre and Meta Sudans are represented on four coins of the emperors, one of Vespasian[109], A.D. 80, with the head of Titus, and inscription on the obverse. This is a bird’s-eye view, represented with the walls of the two storeys, and with the Meta Sudans on one side, and a double range of columns on the opposite side, one over the other. This medal was used by Fontana in his plans and drawings of a restoration[110], though he does not give an engraving of it. The upper storey is very different from the existing building; in the interior the upper gallery is evidently represented on this medal as of wood; the colonnade or arcade, of two storeys, connecting the amphitheatre with the Cœlian, seen on the coin, was most probably to carry the shallow open channel of water from the Aqueduct[111]. The second of Domitian, nearly the same as the last, but with a double arcade instead of colonnade; the third of Alexander Severus, with the Meta Sudans[112] on the right, and a group of figures on the left. There are two coins of this emperor with the same subject on the reverse, not of the same size, and not quite alike. The fourth of Gordianus III., with the legend on the obverse, IMP . 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.
A.D. 150. By the time of Antoninus Pius the amphitheatre needed repairs, as we learn that it was restored by him[115].
In A.D. 191, Dio Cassius, who was a Roman senator in the time of Commodus, was an eye-witness of the games, and gives an account of the manner in which that emperor amused himself in this amphitheatre.