THE COLISEUM AT ROME.
Silliman, speaking of the Coliseum, says, “It is the most magnificent and imposing monument of ancient Rome. After all the spoliation it has suffered for many centuries, by which two-thirds of its materials have been plundered, to build palaces and other structures, it still stands a stupendous ruin, solemn, awful, and even in desolation beautiful. Its position is very near to the forum, and we pass to it through the arch of Titus. We felicitate ourselves that we saw the almost perfect amphitheater at Nismes, as from that, and even from the less perfect one at Arles, we obtained those strong and correct impressions, which have enabled us more justly to appreciate the gigantic ruin, which still towers in venerable majesty, above both the Rome of the Cæsars, and the Rome of the popes. The Coliseum was begun A. D. 73, by Vespasian, and finished by Titus, A. D. 80, ten years after the conquest of Jerusalem. Church tradition states that its architect was Gaudentius, a Christian martyr, and that some twelve thousand captive Jews and Christians were employed in its construction. It is built chiefly of travertine, although there are large quantities of bricks and tufa in the structure. Its form is elliptical: there are four stories adorned by columns: the lower is Doric, thirty feet high: the second is Ionic, thirty-three feet high; the third, Corinthian, fifty-four feet, and above this, was the frieze and cornice. The hight of the outer wall was one hundred and fifty-seven English feet. The longer axis, walls included, was six hundred and twenty feet; the shorter, five hundred and thirteen; circumference, seventeen hundred and seventy feet; the arena, two hundred and eighty-seven feet long and a hundred and eighty feet broad. The superficial area was nearly six acres. The arches were numbered, externally, from one to eighty. One arch is not numbered, and this is believed to have been the private entrance of the emperor. There were, within the amphitheater, four groups of seats, corresponding, as at Nismes, to the different orders of people. The seats could receive eighty-seven thousand persons, or one hundred and ten thousand, including those who stood. The interior has been very much despoiled, and the seats are almost ruined; but a staircase has been constructed, by which we ascended securely to the top of the building, and enjoyed a grand view, not only by day, but by a full moon. Byron’s splendid description in Manfred, does it no more than justice.”
The building, as may be seen in the cut on the preceding page, is much decayed; and it is, also, “deformed by innumerable holes on the outside, believed to have been produced by the extraction of the dowels of bronze, which were originally placed in the joints to keep the stones in place. At the dedication of the amphitheater by Titus, five thousand, or according to some, nine thousand wild beasts were slaughtered, and the savage exhibition went on during one hundred days. On the occasion of the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, the shows were continued one hundred and twenty-three days; eleven thousand animals were slain, and one thousand gladiators matched against each other. Besides malefactors, captives and slaves, freeborn citizens, even those of noble birth, hired themselves as gladiators; and women volunteered on the arena, to exhibit their skill in murder. The barbarous gladiatorial games were continued during four hundred years; the last show of the wild beasts was under Theodoric, and these brutal entertainments were abolished by Honorius.”
THE PANTHEON.
The Pantheon, says a late tourist, “is the most perfect, as a whole, of all the structures which have come down to us from ancient Rome. The invasion of time alone would not have injured it materially, and, notwithstanding the spoliations of popes and other depredators, it still remains a grand and beautiful building. It stands in a dirty, disagreeable herb market, and the accumulations of earth and rubbish have almost entirely covered its lofty steps, which were seven in number, until its floor is now nearly on a level with the street. Its dome was covered with gilt bronze, and its portico lined with the same metal, which was plundered to be cast for the pillars and other parts of the baldacchino in St. Peter’s. On this occasion, four hundred and fifty thousand pounds were taken. The emperor Constans II. had previously, in 657, stripped the roof, and plundered the silver from the interior of the dome. He destined these things for the ornament of his imperial palace at Constantinople; but being murdered at Syracuse, on his return, the plunder was borne to Alexandria. It was, originally, the spoils of Egypt after the battle of Actium, and now returned to Egypt again. The external facings of polished marble, have also been torn off; but although thus despoiled, the Pantheon is still magnificent, notwithstanding that the fires have often heated it, the overflowing Tiber has deluged its floor, and the rains have poured in at the only opening, which is in the dome. This is a circular hole in the center of the dome, twenty-eight feet in diameter, and is said to have been once glazed. The rich marble facings and magnificent columns of the interior, still remain. The beautiful columns are of polished granite and porphyry. The niches, originally filled by the statues of the pagan gods, have not been disturbed; but they are now occupied by saints, and virgins, and other symbols of Catholic worship. The interior is one vast room, one hundred and forty-three feet in diameter, exclusive of the walls, which are twenty feet thick, and it is of the same hight, one hundred and forty-three feet: the dome occupies one-half of the hight. It is not inaptly illustrated by the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, which, although smaller, is of the same form. When in the Roman Pantheon, you look up to its sky-lighted dome, there is an impression of simple grandeur which even St. Peter’s does not produce:
“‘Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime—
Shrine of all saints, and temple of all gods.’
“An inscription on the frieze records that the Pantheon was erected by Agrippa, B. C. anno 26; and another inscription on the architrave records its subsequent restoration by Septimius Severus. In 608, Boniface obtained from the emperor Phocas permission to consecrate the Pantheon as a Christian church, which, doubtless, saved it from destruction. How much is it to be regretted that a similar protection had not saved the Coliseum and other precious works, whose ruins bear testimony to the misdirected zeal of the Christian church in early ages. The portico is one hundred and ten feet long and forty-four deep. It contains sixteen Corinthian monolithic columns of oriental granite, forty six and one-half feet high and five feet in diameter, with capitals and bases of Greek marble. The pediment still shows where the figures in bass-relief were attached.
“The magnificent bronze doors are thirty-nine feet high, and the entire opening is nineteen wide. It is believed that they are the original doors erected by Agrippa. No doubt they would have been used for the decoration of St. Peter’s, had not the Pantheon been consecrated as a church. The interior cornice at the bottom of the dome has been perfectly preserved, with its rich sculptures. The pavement of the Pantheon is of porphyry, alternating with other polished stones in geometric figures. Some antiquarians have argued that the Pantheon was originally an appendage of the baths of Agrippa, and that the portico was of subsequent construction, when the building was converted into a temple. However this may be, it is one of the most interesting structures of ancient or modern times; and had it not been most shamefully robbed it would have stood to-day perfect in beauty as it was when Christ died, and when Paul preached and suffered in Rome. We bent with deep interest over the grave of Raphael, whose remains still slumber beneath the pavement of the Pantheon, marked only by a humble slab of marble level with the floor. It is well known that until 1833 his place of interment was only matter of conjecture; in that year, owing to unexpected evidence, the present grave was opened in presence of the pope and numerous artists. The skull was of a singularly fine form; and its discovery spoiled the speculations of the phrenologists on another skull in the academy of St. Luke’s, which had before been supposed to be that of the great painter.”