Immediately behind the church are the arched buildings of travertine blocks which have already been mentioned as belonging to the Carceres of the Circus. The largest of these is now used as a store-room for articles of church furniture, and stands on the right side of the tribune of the church. They are perhaps situated too far towards the river to be portions of the actual Carceres from which the chariots started, but they may have formed one side of a courtyard behind the Carceres, in which the harnessing and preparation for the races took place.
Theatre of Marcellus.
The ruins of the Theatre of Marcellus which are still standing in the Piazza Montanara afford us a fixed point from which to begin our survey of the region of the Circus Flaminius, which lies to the north-west of the Velabrum. For it appears certain that the ancient half columns, arches, and other ruins evidently belonging to a semicircular theatre, which are now covered by the Palazzo Orsini Savelli, belonged to the theatre of Marcellus. Suetonius distinctly places this theatre under the Tarpeian hill, and of the other two stone theatres at Rome we know that the Pompeian lay further to the north-west, and that the theatre of Balbus was near the Ponte Sisto. The masonry and architectural details of this building, though corresponding in many respects with the Coliseum are more carefully worked, and show an earlier and better period of art.
Theatre of Marcellus.
There had previously been a stone scena built near this spot by Æmilius Lepidus, which was perhaps used by Julius Cæsar who first began to build this theatre. It was not finished until the year B.C. 11 when Augustus opened it, and named it after his nephew Marcellus, son of Octavia. In the time of the Flavii the scena was restored, having perhaps suffered from the fire which burnt the Porticus Octaviæ, and it seems to have again required repairs in the time of Alexander Severus, who is said to have wished to restore it.[83]
The Curiosum mentions it as if still in use, and gives the number of spectators it would contain as 20,000. In the Middle Ages it was, like all the other great buildings of Rome, turned into a castle by Pietro Leone, a nobleman of great power in the time of Urban II. and Pascal II., and celebrated for his factious violence. The shape of the building was thus completely altered. The great family of the Savelli came into possession of it in the twelfth century, following Pietro Leone, and after them the Orsini. The lower stories are now occupied by workshops, small wine vaults, and rag and bone warehouses, frequented by the rustics of the Campagna, who are usually to be seen in considerable numbers in the Piazza Montanara in front of it.
From the piazza two rows of the exterior arcades are visible, each containing twelve arches and thirteen columns of travertine. The lower arcade is now buried to the depth of one third of its surface below the level of the present ground. Its half columns are of the Doric order, with a Doric entablature and triglyphs, and are surmounted by a low attica with projecting bases for the half columns of the upper arcade. The height of this upper arcade was originally somewhat less than that of the lower. It has half columns of the Ionic order, carrying a simple entablature with an architrave of three projecting ledges, a plain frieze, and a cornice with toothed mouldings. No actual remains of a third arcade above these two are now to be found, but it can hardly be doubted that one existed originally, and that it was of the Corinthian order. Some parts of the substructions of the seats are said to be still extant in the cellars of the Savelli residence, consisting of diverging walls similar to those still to be seen in the Coliseum. By means of these, the ground plan of the cavea of the theatre can be completely restored. There are no remains of the scena. Upon one of the fragments of the Capitoline plan, partly restored, the name Theatrum Marcelli is legible. There seems, however, to be some doubt as to the genuineness of this fragment.
The Ponte Rotto.
The bridge near the theatre of Marcellus is now called the Ponte Rotto from its broken condition. The two remaining arches are not ancient, but probably stand upon the site of an ancient bridge which was called the Pons Æmilius. Livy mentions this bridge as the first stone bridge built over the Tiber, and states that it was begun in B.C. 179 by M. Fulvius Nobilior, and M. Æmilius Lepidus the censor, whose name was given to the Basilica Æmilia, and that it was finished in B.C. 142 by the Censors Publius Scipio Africanus, and L. Mummius. The bridge was named after M. Æmilius Lepidus as Pontifex Maximus, and as a more popular statesman than Fulvius. The bridge afterwards bore the name pons lapideus, from being the first stone bridge built over the Tiber, and in contradistinction to the pons sublicius.