8. Another rougher sketch in pencil.
9. Rough sketch in ink of section with elevation.
10. Drawing in pencil of section of external wall, with dimensions figured thereon.
The only one of these drawings sufficiently completed to admit of reproduction is the general ground plan, which is of great interest [[Pl. XI.]] Many sketches of the building itself have been published, generally very inaccurate; but no subsequent traveller ever took sufficiently precise measurements to permit the construction of a ground plan. I have added, by permission of an esteemed friend (Dr. Ritchie, of Belfast), two autotypes [[Pl. XII.] and [XIII.]] of photographs taken by his son, the late Mr. Frank Ritchie. One represents a general view of the exterior of the edifice, and the other the interior of the lower corridor. It was almost the last act of his life to take these photographs. ‘Sit tibi terra levis!’
This edifice offers the same exterior divisions as the principal monuments of a similar kind built elsewhere by the Romans, three outside open galleries, or arcades, rising one above another, crowned by a fourth storey with windows. But at El-Djem the architect seems to have tried to surpass, in some respects, the magnificence of existing structures. In the Coliseum at Rome the lower storey is decorated with a Doric half-engaged order, the second with an Ionic, and the third with a Corinthian. The fourth storey was pierced by windows like this one, but pilasters alone are employed, so that the general aspect is that of three storeys, gradually increasing in magnificence as they rise, crowned by a high attic, which supported the masts destined to receive the ropes of the velum. In many other amphitheatres the Doric order is alone employed. But here, at El-Djem, the orders of the first and third galleries are Corinthian; the middle one is composite; the fourth was probably Corinthian also, if it ever was completed.
Plate XI.
J. LEITCH &. Co. Sc.
AMPHITHEATRE OF THYSDRUS (EL DJEM)
PLAN OF LOWER STOREY