THE STADIUM (26).
On the east side of the Palatine, built by Domitian, and only partly excavated. Used for races both for men and women. "Young girls ran races in the Stadium, at which Domitian presided in his sandals, dressed in a purple robe made after the Grecian fashion, and wearing upon his head a golden crown bearing the effigies of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; with the flamen of Jupiter and the college of priests sitting at his side in the same dress, excepting only that their crowns had also his own image on them" (Suetonius).
The work of excavating the Stadium is not yet completed. It appears that the portico surrounding it originally consisted of cipollino columns, with composite capitals. This was rebuilt in the third century in two tiers, supported with half-columns of brick, coated with slabs of marble, having Ionic bases and Doric capitals. A brick stamp informs us that the Imperial tribune was built in the third consulship of Ursus Servianus, under Hadrian, 134. At the edge of the foot-course, below the portico, was a marble channel to carry off the rain-water. Traces of the spina still remain. The Stadium seems to have been altered into a hippodrome in the time of Diocletian by building elliptical walls upon its surface. The following stamp was found on some of the bricks,—A.D. 500 OFFS R. F. MARCI HIPPODROME THEODORIC REGNANTE DN THEODERICO FELIX ROMA,—evidently some of the repairs ordered by the great king during his six months' visit to Rome.