several stories; and the seats which descended
towards the arena, supported throughout upon eighty arches, occupied so
much of the space that the clear opening of the present inner wall next
the arena is only 287 feet by 180 feet. Immediately above and around the
arena was the podium, elevated about twelve or fifteen feet, on which
were seated the emperor, senators, ambassadors of foreign nations, and
other distinguished personages in that city of distinctions. From the
podium to the top of the second story were seats of marble for the
equestrian order; above the second story the seats appear to have been
constructed of wood. In these various seats eighty thousand spectators
might be arranged according to their respective ranks; and indeed it
appears from inscriptions, as well as from expressions in Roman writers,
that many of the places in this immense theatre were assigned to
particular individuals, and that each might find his seat without
confusion. On extraordinary occasions, 110,000 persons could crowd into
it.

Gibbon has given a splendid description, in his twelfth book, of the
exhibitions in the Colosseum; but he acknowledges his obligations to
Montaigne, who, says the historian, "gives a very just and lively view
of Roman magnificence in these spectacles." Our readers will, we doubt
not, be gratified by the quaint but most appropriate sketch of the old
philosopher of France:--

"It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a
great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full
verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order,
and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand
stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow deer, to be killed and
disposed of by the people: the next day to cause an hundred great lions,
an hundred leopards and three hundred bears to be killed in his
presence: and for the third day, to make three hundred pair of fencers
to fight it out to the last,--as the Emperor Probus did. It was also
very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble
without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside
sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments; all the sides of this
vast space filled and environed from the bottom to the top, with three
or four score ranks of seats, all of marble also, and covered with
cushions, where an hundred thousand men might sit placed at their ease;
and the pl