This was the first permanent theatre that Rome had. It was built
partly on the model of that of Mitylene and it was opened in the year
B.C. 55. This magnificent theatre, which would accommodate 40,000
people, stood in the Campus Martius. It was built of stone with the
exception of the scena, and ornamented with statues, which were placed
there under the direction of Atticus, who was a man of taste. Augustus
embellished the theatre, and he removed thither the statue of
Pompeius, which up to that time had stood in the Curia where Caesar was
murdered. The scena was burnt down in the time of Tiberius, who began
to rebuild it; but it was not finished till the reign of Claudius.
Nero gilded the interior. The scena was again burnt in the beginning
of the reign of Titus, who restored it again. The scena was again
burnt in the reign of Philippus and a third time restored. (Drumann,
_Geschichte Roms_, Pompeii, p. 521; Dion Cassius 39. c. 88, and the
notes of Reimarus.)]

[Footnote 293: Petra, the capital of the Nabathaei, is about half way
between the southern extremity of the Dead Sea and the northern
extremity of the AElanitic Gulf, the more eastern of the two northern
branches of the Red Sea. The ruins of Petra exist in the Wady Musa,
and have been visited by Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, and last by
Laborde, who has given the most complete description of them in his
'Voyage de l'Arabie Petree,' Paris, 1830. The place is in the midst of
a desert, but has abundance of water. Its position made it an
important place of commerce in the caravan trade of the East; and it
was such in the time of Strabo, who states on the authority of his
friend Athonodorus that many Romans were settled there (p. 779). It
contains numerous tombs and a magnificent temple cut in the rock, a
theatre and the remains of houses.

The king against whom Pompeius was marching is named Aretas by Dion
Cassius (37. c. 15).]

[Footnote 294: The Paeonians were a Thracian people on the Strymon.
(Herodotus, v. 1.) It appears from Dion Cassius (49. c. 36) that the
Greeks often called the Pannonians by the name of Paeonians, which
Sintenis considers a reason for not altering the reading here into
Pannonians. Appianus (_Mithridatic War_, c. 102) uses the name
Paeonians, though he means Pannonians.]

[Footnote 295: This is the Roman word. Compare Tacitus (_Annal._ i.
18): "congerunt cespites, exstruunt tribunal."]

[Footnote 296: The circumstances of the rebellion