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Updated: October 2, 2025
In the arena which formed the centre of the amphitheatres, the early Christians often endured martyrdom by being exposed to ravenous beasts. In modern Rome there are various things to excite the curiosity of the stranger, but in my observations I could only see four elements predominating above everything, monks, nuns, priests and beggars.
At 1 a.m., terrestrial time, the projectile, like a balloon carried into space, hung over this superb mountain. Barbicane could perfectly distinguish its chief features. Copernicus is comprehended in the series of annular mountains of the first order in the division of the large amphitheatres.
We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan buildings the Great Pillared Halls which constitute the glory of Arian architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres, Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals.
The Romans shaded the spectators in their theatres and amphitheatres by means of a velarium or awning, but it is extremely doubtful whether even this expedient was in use in Greek theatres. The Openings. The most important characteristic of the openings in Greek buildings is that they were flat-topped, covered by a lintel of stone or marble, and never arched.
But, even in Italy, the medieval town is indebted to classical antiquity for nothing more than mouldering walls and aqueducts and amphitheatres and churches. The barbarians had ignored the institutions of the municipium, though it often served them as a fortress or a royal residence or a centre of administration.
The promptness and activity required to keep up the ball is very great, and the impetus with which it strikes is such, that the boxes for spectators in the amphitheatres dedicated to this game are protected by strong netting. It is a very complicated game, and, I am told, somewhat resembles tennis.
Nero produced four hundred senators, and six hundred of the equestrian order, as gladiators in the public arena: even the women fought with wild beasts, as well as with each other, and drenched the amphitheatres with their blood.
We may presume that over five hundred thousand persons were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizing sports; and the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of the empire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand inhabitants which had not its theatres, amphitheatres, or circus.
Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heart and rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres are to the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-races are to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans. The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of the custom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces.
These awnings did not extend to the arena, which was usually left open, but were universally adopted in all the Roman amphitheatres, after their introduction by Q. Catullus.
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