The best preserved triumphal arch remain ing in the Eternal City is the Constantine, by the Colosseum, which has been accepted as finished in 315, when Roman art was at low tide. The beauty of its lines and the wealth of its decorations have been accounted for by refusing to credit the conception and achieve ment to that time and claiming that the reliefs and other decorations were taken from an arch erected by Trajan as an entrance to his Forum two centuries before. Recently the fact that it was built' by Constantine has been challenged, and the claim set up that it was one of the arches by Domitian rehabilitated after its despoilment by the senate's degree of Memorize &mimetic, pronouced against the murdered emperor.
The Romans imitated the Greeks in many things but not in their abandonment of human sacrifice, which was a part of the festivities at the funerals of the great. From simpler arenas these event; were transferred to the market Places, the first to the Forum Boarium, 264 s.c. For a long tune the Forum Romanum was one of the most popular .stages for these bloody shows. The Colosseum succeeded It. The Co losseum was the conception and the achieve ment of the Flavian emperors: Vespasian be gan it, Titus advanced it and Domitian com pleted it. Vespasian came from the people; looked to them for popularity and support and built this, the first considerable edifice for the public since the time of Augustus, for the use of the classes. It was in the heart of Rome, a short distance from the Capitol, adjacent to the palaces of the Caesars. About it surged the high tide of Roman life It was massive, architecturally purely Latin, of perfect arrange ment for popular uses and altogether typically Roman. The three lower stones of the four were built with 80 arches supported by piers, faced with half columns. The fourth was a solid mall faced with pilasters. The first story is Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian and the fourth composite. There was a statue for each of the' arches of the second and third floors. The capacity of the building was 50,000 persons; a tier of seats for each external story. Hard by the arena was a marble platform with marble thrones for the Vestals, senators and other dignitaries. Above this platform was the emperor's throne, under a canopy. The em peror entered from the Crlian or the Esquiline, from each of which there was an approach to the throne There were marble steps above the platform, every second one forming a row of numbered seats, admission to them being by ticket, whose issue was governed by special laws as to the classes eligible to receive them. Above
these seats a wall separated them from those still further up. To the topmost seats the women and the lower classes were admitted to see the homicides that made their holiday. The human slaughtering went on throughout the day. Such was pagan Rome a century after the dawn of Christianity. Such indeed it continued, though slowly diminishing in thirst for blood, until Justinian, in the sixth century, put an end to its preying on human victims.
Romulus in his feasts in honor of Neptune— so runs the legend — introduced the most an cient of all Roman spectacles, the circus. Cred iting this popular form of amusement to the mythical founder of Rome means that its origin antedates authentic history. No building dedi cated to the sport of chariot and other horse races, and called a circus, is known to have existed before the time of the elder Tarquin about 616 B.0 The Romulan Circus, afterward known as the Circus Maximus, was in the val ley between the Palatine and the Aventine, and was the only one in Rome for nearly 400 years. The Flaminiau, constructed in 212 ea, was the second, and the Flora came next, the gift of a noted courtesan. The wealthy and powerful then began to attach circuses to their estab lishments — Sallust, between the Quirinal and the Pincian, Caligula in the Vatican gardens, Heliogabalus in the Varian gardens, and Alex ander Severus in his grounds. It was a subject of satirical comment that Rome possessed nine circuses and only three theatres and three amphitheatres. The most celebrated theatres were those of Pompey, Cornelius Balbus and Marcellus. Pompey's was adorned with beauti ful statuary. It held 40,000 persons.
The games in the circus, and indeed all games, the Romans regarded as religious manifesta tions, and they were preceded by so-called religious ceremonies. When the Cir cus Maximus was the scene, the Pompa censis commenced at the Capitol and proceeded by the Forum. It was opened by boys afoot and on horseback, followed by charioteers, horsemen and almost naked athletes, and by three classes of dancers — boys, beardless youths and young men, who moved through the Pyrrhic dance to the sound of the lute and the lyre. Others bore altars and burned per fumes upon them, and still others carried images of gods and demigods and sacred vases and utensils. Entering the circus by the central gate of the Carceres, the Porta ad Pompam, the pomp moved around the circus, and, after offering sacrifices at the first goals and at the altar of the Census, each person who had had a part in the sacrifice took his place in the games.