oubt
used by that people for festal representations long before Rome
attempted anything of the kind. The Romans copied these edifices from
the Etruscans. We have historical evidence, also, that gladiatorial
combats had an Etruscan origin, and were borrowed by the Romans.

Amphitheatres were peculiar to the Romans. The gladiatorial shows, and
the chase and combats of wild beasts with which the amphitheatre is
always connected, were at first given in the circus. Its
unsuitableness for such sports determined Julius Caesar, in his
dictatorship, to construct a wooden theatre in the Campus Martius,
built especially for hunting. Caius Scribonius Curio built the first
amphitheatre, for the celebration of his father's funeral games. It
was composed of two theatres of wood, placed on pivots, so that they
could be turned round, spectators and all, and placed face to face,
thus forming a double theatre, or amphitheatre, which ending suggested
its elliptical shape. Statilius Taurus, the friend of Augustus, B.C.
30, erected a more durable amphitheatre, partly of stone and partly of
wood, in the Campus Martius. Others were afterwards built by Caligula
and Nero. The amphitheatre of Nero was of wood, and in the Campus
Martius.

The assembled people in a crowded theatre must have been an imposing
spectacle, in which the gorgeous colors of the dresses were blended
with the azure of a southern sky. No antique rendering of this subject
remains. The spectators began to assemble at early dawn, for each
wished to secure a good seat, after paying his entrance fee. This, not
exceeding two oboloi, was payable to the builder or manager of the
theatre. After the erection of stone theatres at Athens, this entrance
fee was paid for the poorer classes by Government, and formed, indeed,
one of the heaviest items of the budget. For not only at the Dionysian
ceremonies, but on many other festive occasions, the people clamored
for free admission, confirmed in their demands by the demagogues.
Frequently the money reserved for the emergency of a war had to be
spent for this purpose. The seats in a theatre were, of course, not
all equally good, and their prices varied accordingly. The police of
the theatre had to take care that everybody took his seat in the row
marked on his ticket. Most of the spectators were men. In older times
women were allowed only to attend at tragedies, the coarse jokes of
the comedy being deemed unfit for the ears of Athenian ladi