DOI Kapitel:
Chap. V: Magnificence of Ancient Rome - its Cloacæ - Aqueducts - Viæ - Forums - Temples - Thermæ - Theatres - Instances of private Magnificence - Greatness, the Characteristic of Roman Taste at all times
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0215
Ch. V. THROUGH ITALY. 205
thousand bronze statues.* The other is perhaps
still more astonishing- in execution, though less
magnificent in appearance. It was a wooden
edifice erected by Curio, for the celebration of
funeral games in honor of his father, and was so
contrived as to form according to the nature of
the exhibition, either a theatre or an amphi-
theatre. In the morning the semicircles were
placed back to back, so that the declamations,
music, and applauses of the one did not reach
the other: in the afternoon they were rolled
round face to face, and the circle was completed.
It is to be observed that these changes were
performed without displacing the spectators,
who seem to have trusted themselves without
scruple to the strength of the machinery, and to
the judgment of the artist. These two instances
must, to the unlearned reader, appear incredible,
and will perhaps be admitted with some degree
of diffidence by the scholar, even though he
knows that they rest on the authority of the
Elder Pliny, and from their great publicity were
* This theatre was capable of containing eighty thousand
persons. The lower range of pillars were thirty-eight feet
in the shaft, and their weight such that Scaurus was obliged
to give security for the reparation of the Cloacze, if damaged
by their conveyance.
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thousand bronze statues.* The other is perhaps
still more astonishing- in execution, though less
magnificent in appearance. It was a wooden
edifice erected by Curio, for the celebration of
funeral games in honor of his father, and was so
contrived as to form according to the nature of
the exhibition, either a theatre or an amphi-
theatre. In the morning the semicircles were
placed back to back, so that the declamations,
music, and applauses of the one did not reach
the other: in the afternoon they were rolled
round face to face, and the circle was completed.
It is to be observed that these changes were
performed without displacing the spectators,
who seem to have trusted themselves without
scruple to the strength of the machinery, and to
the judgment of the artist. These two instances
must, to the unlearned reader, appear incredible,
and will perhaps be admitted with some degree
of diffidence by the scholar, even though he
knows that they rest on the authority of the
Elder Pliny, and from their great publicity were
* This theatre was capable of containing eighty thousand
persons. The lower range of pillars were thirty-eight feet
in the shaft, and their weight such that Scaurus was obliged
to give security for the reparation of the Cloacze, if damaged
by their conveyance.
5