osed to have been originally of wood and to
have been rebuilt in stone considerably later. The groups of seats,
which, with the central arena they commanded, were protected from the
weather by a moveable awning called the velarium, corresponded with the
exterior stories, and to each tier a staircase led up, wide vaulted
corridors connecting the various entrances with each other, running
round the entire building, the whole producing a most harmonious and
pleasing effect.

At Verona, Capria, Pola, and Pezzuoli in Italy, at Syracuse in Sicily,
and at Arles and Nimes in France are remains of important Roman
amphitheatres, and of the rarer theatres used for dramatic
entertainments must be named the two well-preserved examples at Pompeii,
the ruins of the Odeion of Herodes Atticus at Athens, and most ancient
of all, the remains of the so-called Theatre of Marcellus at Rome now
incorporated with the Orsinii Palace, all which appear to have resembled
the Coliseum to a great extent in their general style and decoration.

Of the vast and imposing palaces built or added to by successive Roman
emperors, that included audience chambers, basilicas, stadia for
athletic games, galleries, state dining-halls, baths, and many suites of
apartments for various purposes, there exist unfortunately but a few
remains. Nero's Golden House, several of the ruins of which were
excavated in the 16th century, and inspired Raphael with some of the
decorative details of the loggia of the Vatican, is said to have covered
more than a mile of ground, and at one time the whole of the Palatine
Hill was occupied by stately edifices, with the Palace of Augustus in
the centre and those of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and
Septimius Severus, who greatly added to and modified the work of his
predecessors, grouped about them, but all that can now be fully
identified are some of the ground plans with a few of the minor details
of structure. To atone for this however, much of the Palace of
Diocletian at Spalato in Dalmatia, to which that emperor withdrew after
his abdication in A.D. 305, which originally formed a small town in
itself, is still to a great extent intact, including a temple now used
as a cathedral, a gallery 520 feet long by 24 wide, and a few of the
covered arcades that originally connected its various parts.

What is left of the so-called Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli near Rome proves
that it too was of vast extent, with a great variety of buil