Identifier: pompeiiitshist00dyer (find matches)
Title: Pompeii; its history, buildings and antiquities : an account of the destruction of the city, with a full description of the remains, and of the recent excavations and also an itinerary for visitors
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Dyer, Thomas Henry, 1804-1888
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Bell
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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tocracy, that buildings were erected solely for the ac-commodation of gladiatorial shows; buildings entirely be-yond the compass of a subjects wealth, and in which perhapsthe magnificence of imperial Rome is most amply displayed.Numerous examples scattered throughout her empire, in amore or less advanced state of decay, still attest the luxuryand solidity of their construction; while at Rome the Coli-seum asserts the pre-eminent splendour of the metropolis—a monument surpassed in magnitude by the Pyramids alone,and as superior to them in skill and varied contrivance ofdesign as to other buildings in its gigantic magnitude. The Greek word, which by a slight alteration of its termi-nation we render amphitheatre, signifies a theatre, or placeof spectacles, forming a continuous inclosure, in oppositionto the simple theatre, which, as we have said, was semicir- 216 POMPEII. cular, but witli the seats usually continued somewhat inadvance of the diameter of the semicircle. The first amphi-
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theatre seems to have been that of Curio, consisting of twomoveable theatres, which could be placed face to face or back THE AMPHITHEATRE. 217 to back, according to the species of amusement for which theywere required. Usually, gladiatorial shows were given in theForum, and the chase and combats of wild beasts exhibited inthe Circus, where once, when Pompey was celebrating games,some enraged elephants broke through the barrier which sepa-rated them from the spectators. This circumstance, togetherwith the unsuitableness of the Circus for such sports, from itsbeing divided into two compartments by the spina, a lowwall surmounted by pillars, obelisks, and other ornamentalerections, as well as from its disproportionate length, whichrendered it ill adapted to afford a general view to all thespectators, determined Julius Caesar, in his dictatorship,to construct a wooden theatre in the Campus Martins,built especially for hunting (Oiarpov Kw-qyeriKov), whichwas called amphitheatre ( apparentl

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