SUPERSTRUCTURE.
Views of Parts of the Building.
A. The upper view is taken from the top gallery looking down, and shewing the ruins of the lower brick galleries, with the windows of the corridors. Behind the wall in which these windows are placed is seen part of one of the corridors without its roof or vault, but with the steps of one of the vomitoria, and at the back of that the arches can be seen of the outer corridor; for it must be remembered that there was a double corridor all round this enormous fabric. The object of this was to facilitate ingress and egress from the rest of the building, and the galleries were divided into many distinct parts, each with its own passages and steps, so that there would be no more confusion or pressure in emptying this enormous building than from the emptying of an ordinary room that would hold fifty people. In the upper part of this view, on the right hand, is seen in the distance the church of S. Stefano Rotondo and the trees on the Cœlian Hill.
B. The lower view is taken from the inner side of the chief gallery on the first floor, looking outwards, through one of the arches of the corridor. In this particular compartment was one of the reservoirs of water supplied by the aqueducts. The evidence for this is seen on the right-hand side of the picture, where the lower part of a specus or channel for the water remains, with some of the peculiar cement used only for the aqueducts, against the wall and lining the specus.
Half way along this brick wall is seen a part of one of the narrow piers of travertine which go from the top to the bottom of the building, to carry the upper gallery at that enormous height, as the engineers were afraid to trust the soft tufa wall with the facing of brick. A little further on the right is seen the opening between the brick wall of the gallery and the stone wall of the corridor; the light is seen shining through the opening, which is here about three inches wide, and there is no bonding anywhere between the brick wall of the gallery and the stone wall of the corridor. Towards the south end of the building on this level, in at least two instances, the stone piers have been carried away for building materials, and the lower part of the brick wall, through which it had been cut, stands just as well without it as with it. The object of this tall stone pier was to carry the upper gallery only, not to support the old walls of the lower galleries[245].
THE COLOSSEUM.
PLATE III.
SUPERSTRUCTURE AND SUBSTRUCTURE.
THE COLOSSEUM IN 1812
Description of Plate III.
SUPERSTRUCTURE AND SUBSTRUCTURE.