except the running.

Looking across this sanded arena westwardly still, there is a
pedestal of marble supporting three low conical pillars of gray
stone, much carven. Many an eye will hunt for those pillars before
the day is done, for they are the first goal, and mark the beginning
and end of the race-course. Behind the pedestal, leaving a passage-way
and space for an altar, commences a wall ten or twelve feet in breadth
and five or six in height, extending thence exactly two hundred yards,
or one Olympic stadium. At the farther, or westward, extremity of
the wall there is another pedestal, surmounted with pillars which
mark the second goal.

The racers will enter the course on the right of the first goal,
and keep the wall all the time to their left. The beginning and
ending points of the contest lie, consequently, directly in front
of the consul across the arena; and for that reason his seat was
admittedly the most desirable in the Circus.

Now if the reader, who is still supposed to be seated on the
consular tribunal over the Porta Pompae, will look up from the
ground arrangement of the interior, the first point to attract
his notice will be the marking of the outer boundary-line of the
course--that is, a plain-faced, solid wall, fifteen or twenty
feet in height, with a balustrade on its cope, like that over
the carceres, or stalls, in the east. This balcony, if followed
round the course, will be found broken in three places to allow
passages of exit and entrance, two in the north and one in the
west; the latter very ornate, and called the Gate of Triumph,
because, when all is over, the victors will pass out that way,
crowned, and with triumphal escort and ceremonies.

At the west end the balcony encloses the course in the form
of a half circle, and is made to uphold two great galleries.

Directly behind the balustrade on the coping of the balcony is
the first seat, from which ascend the succeeding benches, each
higher than the one in front of it; giving to view a spectacle
of surpassing interest--the spectacle of a vast space ruddy and
glistening with human faces, and rich with varicolored costumes.

The commonalty occupy quarters over in the west, beginning at the
point of termination of an awning, stretched, it would seem, for the
accommodation of the better classes exclusively.

Having thus the whole interior of the Circus under view at the
moment of the sounding of the trumpets, let the reader next imag