There are two other temples, particularly worth notice, not so much for the magnificence of the structure, as for the customs that depend upon them, and the remarkable use to which they were put. These are the temples of Saturn and Janus.
The first was famous on account of serving for the public treasury—the reason of which some fancy to have been because Saturn first taught the Italians to coin money; but most probably it was because this was the strongest place in the city. Here were preserved all the public registers and records, among which were the libri elephantini, or great ivory tables, containing a list of all the tribes and the schemes of the public accounts.
The other was a square building, some say of entire brass, so large as to contain a statue of Janus, five feet high, with brazen gates on each side, which were kept open in war, and shut in time of peace.
CHAPTER VIII.
Of other public Buildings.
Theatres, so called from the Greek θεαομαι, to see, owe their origin to Bacchus.
That the theatres and amphitheatres were two different sorts of edifices, was never questioned, the former being built in the shape of a semicircle; the other generally oval, so as to make the same figure as if two theatres should be joined together. Yet the same place is often called by these names in several authors. They seem, too, to have been designed for quite different ends: the theatres for stage plays, the amphitheatres for the greater shows of gladiators, wild beasts, &c. The following are the most important parts of both.
Scena was a partition reaching quite across the theatre, being made either to turn round or draw up, to present a new prospect to the spectators.
Proscenium was the space of ground just before the scene, where the pulpitum stood, into which the actors came from behind the scenes to perform.