Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Amphitheatrum

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

AMPHITHEA'TRUM (ἀμφιθέατρον). An amphitheatre; a building originally constructed for the exhibition of gladiatorial combats, but occasionally used for other kinds of spectacles.

The exterior was always formed by an oval wall, divided into one or more stories of arcades, according to the size of the building, and decorated with columns, pilasters, &c., according to the taste of the architect, as shown by the illustration (Amphitheatrum/1.1) introduced, which represents the external wall of an amphitheatre still remaining in a high state of preservation at Pola in Istria.

The interior formed an elliptical cup or hollow (cavea), set round with seats for the spectators, rising in steps one above the other, and was distributed into the following principal parts: the arena, a flat and oval space at the bottom, and in the centre of the edifice, where the combatants fought; the podium, an elevated gallery immediately encircling the arena, reserved for the senators and persons of distinction; gradus, the circles of seats occupied by the public, which, when the building was lofty, were divided into two or more flights, termed maeniana, by broad landing places (praecinctiones) and raised walls (baltei); and vertically, into compartments in the form of an inverted triangle or wedge (cunei) by a number of stair-cases (scalae), which communicated with the avenues of ingress and egress (vomitoria) within the shell of the building. On the top of all was a covered gallery, appropriated to the women. All of these points are discernible in the following illustration (Amphitheatrum/1.2), which represents the interior of the amphitheatre at Pompeii in its existing state; but, as the drawing is necessarily made upon a very reduced scale, and is indistinct in parts from the dilapidations it has suffered, the whole plan and construction of these edifices will be better understood by comparing it with the plan subjoined (Amphitheatrum/1.3) in the following page, which is a restored section, and elevation of a portion of the amphitheatre at Pola, by the Canonico, Pietro Stancovich (Anfiteatro di Pola, tab. 4.), in which all the parts are detailed more perfectly. The company entered the theatre through the arches on the ground-floor at the left hand side of the engraving. A is the podium, which is approached by a short staircase, springing from the third or inner corridor, in the centre of the cut; it is raised above the arena by a blank wall, surmounted by a balustrade, under which is seen one of the doorways through which the wild beasts or combatants emerged upon the arena. The staircase, which commences immediately from the ground entrance, leads directly to the first maenianum (1), which the spectator entered through the doorways (vomitoria) B, and descended the flights of stairs which divide the rows of seats between them into a wedge-shaped compartment (cuneus), until he came to the particular row where his seat was reserved. The high blank wall into which the entrance (B) opens, is the balteus, and its object was to separate the different maeniana, and prevent the classes who were only entitled to a seat in the upper ones from descending into those below. A branch staircase, diverging to the left, leads up to the corridor formed by the arcades of the outer wall; from whence it turns to the right, and conducts to the second maenianum (2), which is entered, and distributed in the same way as the lower one, and separated from the one above by another balteus (C). Other staircases, but which cannot be shown on one section, conduct in like manner to the third maenianum (3) and to the covered gallery for the women above (D). The three solid arches in the centre of the engraving, constructed in the main of the building, form a succession of corridors encircling the whole edifice, from which the different staircases spring, while at the same time they support the seats of the cavea, and the flights of stairs by which the company entered or left the amphitheatre.

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  Amphitheatrum/1.1
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  Amphitheatrum/1.2
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  Amphitheatrum/1.3