Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

In the Oscan Period, and afterwards to the end of the Republic, when a performance in the Large Theatre was interrupted by a shower, the spectators in the upper seats could take refuge under the colonnade of the Forum Triangulare; those below found shelter under the rectangular colonnade at the rear, which was obviously built for the purpose, and may be called, by way of distinction, the Theatre Colonnade ([Fig. 71]). It contained seventy-four Doric columns, and enclosed a large open area. The main entrance (2) was near the northeast corner. The entrance hall on the side of the colonnade was supported by three Ionic columns. It was connected at the north end with a short colonnade on the east side of the area back of the stage of the Theatre; this led to the large door at the east end of the stage and the corresponding parodos of the orchestra; the wall at 4 on our plan is a later addition. The Theatre Colonnade must have been used also as a promenade on days when there was no performance; it was connected by a broad passage (1) with Stabian Street.

This colonnade seems too far away to have served as a place for making preparations for the stage; another was erected for that purpose. At the northwest corner a broad stairway leads down from the Forum Triangulare (5; cf. [Fig. 65]); from the foot a small and inconvenient flight of steps leads into the area at the rear of the stage. In a line with the stairway is a series of small rooms opening toward the south. These do not belong to the original structure. In their place there was once a colonnade, which faced the north and connected the large stairway with the short colonnade, the remains of which are still to be seen on the east side of the area; the back of it was at the same time the back of the north division of the Theatre Colonnade. There was thus a covered passage extending from the foot of the stairway along two sides of the area to the east entrance of the stage and of the orchestra, which would answer very well to the second part of Vitruvius's dictum; but it had also another important use.

The portico of the Forum Triangulare, as we have seen, was at the same time the monumental entrance of the Theatre, and the large doorway at the left was used only for the ceremonious admission of the city officials, who with their retinue formed a procession in the Forum and wended their way hither in festal attire in order to open the performance—a formality that may be compared with the parade with which the Roman games were opened at Rome.

The route of such a procession, after entering the Forum Triangulare, is now clear. It passed along under the colonnade adjoining the Theatre, beyond the entrances to the upper portion of the cavea; turned and descended the broad stairway (5), proceeded under the colonnade along the south and east sides of the area behind the stage, and finally came upon the stage through the wide doorway at the east end. It was indeed possible to pass beyond the stage entrance and proceed through the parodos directly to the seats of the orchestra and the lowest section of the cavea; but it is more in accordance with the fondness of the ancients for display to suppose that the procession moved across the stage, receiving as it passed the plaudits of the great audience, and emerged from the entrance opposite that by which it came in, disbanding in the court, whence the members could go to their respective seats. We need not here raise the question whether the procession passed upon the stage behind the triangular side screens (periactoi), or whether these were set in place only after it had already passed.

When the colonnade on the south side of the court had been replaced by rooms, and the Theatre Colonnade itself had been transformed into barracks, this route of the processions was blocked. They could still pass down the street in front of the temple of Isis, turn into Stabian Street, and reach the stage through the passage at the rear of the Small Theatre; but it does not seem probable that they followed this course, for the reason that there are three large stepping stones in the street before one comes to the entrance of the passage; these would have proved a serious obstruction, and would undoubtedly have been removed had the processions gone this way.

We may rather believe that before the usual route was closed the processions themselves had been given up. They were still in vogue, however, when the Small Theatre was built; otherwise the purpose of the wide entrances at the ends of the stage and of the room back of it is not clear. Moreover the sidewalk in front of the Small Theatre, on Stabian Street, is of an altogether unusual width, and was apparently covered by a portico. We infer that the procession to this theatre entered at the west end of the stage, and passed out at the east end; since it could not disperse on the street, it would turn where the sidewalk was broadest, go back through the room at the rear of the stage into the court, and there disband.

The discontinuance of the processions must then be assigned to the period between the building of the Small Theatre and the changing over of the Theatre Colonnade into barracks, which, to judge from the masonry and the remains of the decoration, did not take place before the time of Nero. The processions were abandoned either in the troubled period of the Civil Wars, or in the early years of the Empire; if in the latter period, their discontinuance may have been due to legislation connected with the reorganization of the Empire under Augustus, or to the overshadowing of them by more imposing ceremonies introduced in connection with the religious festivals.

Our information in regard to the later use of the Theatre Colonnade is indeed meagre; not a single inscription bearing upon it has been found. Yet when we take into account the changes that were made in it, and the objects found there, the supposition that it was turned into barracks for gladiators in the time of the Early Empire, and so used till the destruction of the city, is seen to harmonize with almost all the facts.

First, rooms were built on all sides behind the colonnade; on the north side they took the place of the south arm of the colonnade in the area back of the stage. They were in two series, one above the other; the upper rooms were entered from a low wooden gallery accessible by three stairways. They could not have been intended for shops; they were too small, measuring on the average hardly more than twelve feet square, and the doors were too narrow. There were no doors opening from one room into the other. Both lower and upper rooms, we may conclude, were used for men's quarters.