The Wonders of Pompeii

by Marc Monnier

It is reached by two large vaulted and paved corridors with a quite steep inclination. One of these is strengthened with seven arches that support the weight of the tiers. Both of them intersect a transverse, circular corridor, beyond which they widen. It was through this that the armed gladiators, on horseback and on foot, poured forth into the arena, to the sound of trumpets and martial music, and made the circuit of the amphitheatre before entering the lists. They then retraced their steps and came in again, in couples, according to the order of combat.

To the right of the principal entrance a doorway opens into two square rooms with gratings, where the wild beasts were probably kept. Another very narrow corridor ran from the street to the arena, near which it ascended, by a small staircase, to a little round apartment apparently the spoliatorium, where they stripped the dead gladiators. The arena formed an oval of sixty-eight yards by thirty-six. It was surrounded by a wall of two yards in height, above which may still be seen the holes where gratings and thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution against the bounds of the panthers. In the large amphitheatres a ditch was dug around this rampart and filled with water to intimidate the elephants, as the ancients believed them to have a horror of that element.

Paintings and inscriptions covered the walls or podium of the arena. These inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,—N. Istadicius, A. Audius, O. Caesetius Saxtus Capito, M. Gantrius Marcellus, who, instead of the plays and the illumination, which they would have had to pay for, on assuming office, had caused three cunei to be constructed on the order of the decurions. Another inscription gives us to understand that two other duumvirs, Caius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Portius, holding five-year terms, had instituted the first games at their expense for the honor of the colony, and had granted the ground on which the amphitheatre stood, in perpetuity. These two magistrates must have been very generous men, and very fond of public shows. We know that they contributed, in like manner, to the construction of the Odeon.

Would you now like to go over the general sweep of the tiers—the visorium? Three grand divisions as in the theatre; the lowermost separated, by entries and private flights of steps, into eighteen boxes; the middle and upper one divided into cunei, the first by twenty stairways, the second by forty. Around the latter was an inclosing wall, intersected by vomitories and forming a platform where a number of spectators, arriving too late for seats, could still find standing-room, and where the manœuvres were executed that were requisite to hoist the velarium, or awning. All these made up an aggregate of twenty-four ranges of seats, upon which were packed perhaps twenty thousand spectators. So much for the audience. Nothing could be more simple or more ingenious than the system of extrication by which the movement, to and fro, of this enormous throng was made possible, and easy. The circular and vaulted corridor which, under the tiers, ran around the arena and conducted, by a great number of distinct stairways, to the tiers of the lower and middle cavea, while upper stairways enabled the populace to ascend to the highest story assigned to it.

One is surprised so see so large an amphitheatre in so small a city. But, let us not forget that Pompeii attracted the inhabitants of the neighboring towns to her festivals; history even tells us an anecdote on this subject that is not without its moral.

The Senator Liveneius Regulus, who had been driven from Rome and found an asylum in Pompeii, offered a gladiator show to the hospitable little city. A number of people from Nocera had gone to the pageant, and a quarrel arose, probably owing to municipal rivalries, that eternal curse of Italy; from words they came to blows and volleys of stones, and even to slashing with swords. There were dead and wounded on both sides. The Nocera visitors, being less numerous, were beaten, and made complaint to Rome. The affair was submitted to the Emperor, who sent it to the Senate, who referred it to the Consuls, who referred it back again to the Senate. Then came the sentence, and public shows were prohibited in Pompeii for the space of ten years. A caricature which recalls this punishment has been found in the Street of Mercury. It represented an armed gladiator descending, with a palm in his hand, into the amphitheatre: on the left, a second personage is drawing a third toward him on a seat; the third one had his arms bound, and was, no doubt, a prisoner. This inscription accompanies the entire piece: "Campanians, your victory has been as fatal to you as it was to the people of Nocera."[K]

The hand of Rome, ever the hand of Rome!

For that matter, the ordinances relating to the amphitheatre applied to the whole empire. One of the Pompeian inscriptions announces that the duumvir C. Cuspius Pansa had been appointed to superintend the public shows and see to the observance of the Petronian law. This law prohibited Senators from fighting in the arena, and even from sending slaves thither who had not been condemned for crime. Such things, then, required to be prohibited!

I have described the arena and the seats; let me now pass on to the show itself. Would yon like to have a hunt or a gladiatorial combat? Here I invent nothing. I have data, found at Pompeii (the paintings in the amphitheatre and the bas-reliefs on the tomb of Scaurus), that reproduce scenes which I have but to transfer to prose. Let us, then, suppose the twenty thousand spectators to be in their places on thirty-four ranges of seats, one above the other, around the arena; then, let us take our seats among them and look on.