[66] Corp. Inscr. Lat. i. 591, 592. Mommsen, Ann. Inst. 1858, p. 211. Canina, Rom. Ant. p. 290. Virgil’s use of the plural tabularia is not, therefore, merely poetical: Georg. ii. 502.
[67] Seneca’s letter was written from Baiæ, which seems to place the building he speaks of there and not at Rome. The word “meta” was used by the Latin classical writers in speaking of haystacks or cream-cheeses made in a conical shape. Columella, ii. 19; Mart. i. 44.
[68] See Casaubon’s note on Spartian, Hist. Aug. p. 40; B.C. Tac. Ann. vi. 17; xvi. 22.
[69] The great amphitheatre at El Djemm in Tunis is 480 feet by 420 and 102 feet in height, that at Pola in Istria 437 by 346 feet and 97 feet in height. Shaw’s ‘Travels,’ i. p. 220. Ann. dell’ Inst. 1852. Allason’s Pola.
[70] The tomb of Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican is another curious instance of this mixture of Doric and Ionic decorative forms.
[71] This portico is shown in the medals of Titus and Alexander Severus. The remains of a similar portico exist in the amphitheatre at Thysdrus (El Djemm) in Tunis. See Canina in the Ann. dell’ Inst. 1852, tav. d’Agg. U.
[72] Suet. Vesp. viii. 13.
[73] Gibbon, ‘Decline and Fall,’ ch. lxxi.
[74] Suet. Jul. ii. Propert. iv. ii. 46.
[75] Gibbon, ‘Decline and Fall,’ ch. x.