the masters of
the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that entertainment less
expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity admires, and will long admire,
the awful remains of the amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved
the epithet of Colossal. [91] It was a building of an elliptic figure,
five hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and
sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising, with four
successive orders of architecture, to the height of one hundred and
forty feet. [92] The outside of the edifice was encrusted with marble,
and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave, which formed
the inside, were filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of
seats of marble likewise, covered with cushions, and capable of
receiving with ease about fourscore thousand spectators. [93] Sixty-four
vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished)
poured forth the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and
staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person,
whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order,
arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion. [94] Nothing
was omitted, which, in any respect, could be subservient to the
convenience and pleasure of the spectators.

They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy,
occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally refreshed
by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful
scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage,
was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most
different forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth, like
the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks
and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible
supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain, might
be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels,
and replenished with the monsters of the deep. [95] In the decoration of
these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality;
and we read on various occasions that the whole furniture of the
amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber. [96]
The poet who describes the games of Carinus, in the character of a
shepherd, attracted to the capital by the fame of their magnificence,
affirms that the nets designed