CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.
Amphitheatres were not invented till a late period in the history of the Romans, and owed their origin to the barbarous disposition of that people, who were fond to excess of sanguinary and horrid entertainments. To the refined and civilized Greeks, combats of gladiators and wild beasts were wholly unknown. But the Romans, who were entirely a martial people, and engaged in per petual war, contracted such a ferocity of temper, that spectacles of carnage and bloodshed became their most favourite pastime. Combats of gladiators, which seen, to have taken their rise From the custom of sacrilieirip; captives at the tombs of those who had hall in battle, were first exhibited in Rome, by the two llruti at the funeral of their father, in the year of the city 490. Wild beasts were first introduced into the public spectacles by Lucius Metellus, who, in the year 502, exhibited in the circus the elephants which lie had taken from the Carthaginians in Sicily. So devotedly were the Roman., attached to these spectacles, that candidates for popular favour could only hope to succeed as they outvied their competitors in exhibiting them with splendour and mag nificence. Incredible sums were expended in these en tertainments by Cxsar and Pompey, and to them, parti cularly to Cxsar, we owe, if not the invention, at least the lirst hint of amphitheatres. The circus was found inconvenient for the combats of wild beasts; for in the games given by Pompey, the elephants had attempted to break down the barriers which confined them ; nor could they he seen equally well from every part of such an extensive building, where the prospect was interrupt ed by the columns at each extremity of the spina.* To obviate these inconveniences, Cxsar caused the nictx or columns, to be removed, and the arena of the circus to be surrounded with a ditch, and suggested the expe diency of constructing edifices, where the games might be seen in security, and without interruption.
Canis Scribonius Curio, one of Cxsar's friends, wish ing to excel his contemporaries in novelty, if not in magnificence, is said to have constructed the first build ing entitled to the name of an amphitheatre. In the games which he presented on occasion of his father's funeral, lie caused two large theatres of timber to be erected, with the backs to each other, in which thea trical representations were exhibited till noon : the scenery was then removed, and the two theatres, with their crowds of spectators, were wheeled round towards each other till they met, and thus formed an amphithea tre, where combats of gladiators were continued till the evening. This invention of Curio soon gave place to the construction of regular amphitheatres, which were at first only temporary fabrics, erected in the Campus Martins, and taken clown as soon as the games were ended. When Julius Cxsar dedicated his new forum,
and the temple of Venus, he gave, among other enter tainments, combats of gladiators and of wild beasts, for which he erected a hunting theatre, without scenes, and furnished with seats all round. This was the first edi fice which received the name of amphitheatre, and which determined the form of arrangement of these immense structures. The trouble and inconvenience of erecting new amphitheatres whenever the spectacles, to which they were appropriated, were to be presented, must have immediately suggested the expediency of giving them a stronger and more permanent form. Vet, from the time of Julius Cxsar till the reign of Vespa sian, these temporary fabrics were almost the only am phitheatres known. Augustus, indeed, is said to have intended to build one of stone, but never accomplished that design. Statilius Taurus, one of his courtiers, did erect a stone amphitheatre in the Campus Martins; but it seems to have been so small as to be almost disregarded; and all the solemn games continued to be exhibited in the circus as before. It seem, too, that only the outer walls were of stone; for, in the reign of Nero, all the internal work became a to the flames. Many amphitheatres of timber, however, Were erected both at Rome and in the provinces ; and though, in general, they were merely temporary, some of them were fixed and permanent structures. In the reign of Augustus, who wished, by amusing the people with these spectacles, to call oft their attention from his projects of ambition, several of these fabrics were reared, both by himself and his governors. Even at Jerusalem, an amphitheatre was constructed by order of Herod, tetrarch of Judea. lint the most remarka ble wooden amphitheatre was one built by Nero, in the neighbourhood of the Campus Martius, and described by Tacitus as a very superb and capacious fabric. Near ly a y car was spent in completing it, and it was con structed of the strongest and largest timber that could be procured. One beam of larch was particularly re markable ; it was 12o feet in length, and two feet in diameter, from one extremity to the other. Atilius, freedman, in the reign of Tiberius, erected a large amphitheatre at Fideme, which suddenly fell, during the exhibition of the games, and by that dreadful acci dent, 50,000 persons were killed, or dangerously hurt. Near Placentia there was another fabric of this kind, celebrated as the largest in Italy, which was burnt to the ground, when that town was besieged in the war be tween Vitellius and Otho.