Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/205

 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. I47 Pantheon (No. 54), and a step towards Gothic principles of con- struction. The pendentives are of the rudest kind, and probably were entirely masked by the original decoration. THEATRES AND AMPHITHEATRES. The design of Greek theatres was adapted to suit Roman requirements. The auditorium, instead of being rather more than a semicircle as in the Greek theatres, was here restricted to a semicircle, and consisted of tiers of seats one above the other, with wide passages and staircases communicating with the external porticos on each story. At the ground level, separating the auditorium of sloping seats from the stage, was a semicircular area which was occupied by the Senators, and which in its original circular plan in Greek theatres was occupied by the chorus. The stage thus becoming all important, was raised con- siderably and treated with great richness, and became connected more completely with the auditorium. Theatres were still con- structed on the slope of a hill, but where the site did not allow of this they were, by means of the new art of vaulting, constructed tier upon tier of connecting corridors, in which the people might retreat in case of sudden showers. The Theatre at Orange, South France (No. 34 b), held 7,000 spectators, and is an example where the auditorium is constructed and not hollowed out of the side of a hill. In diameter it is 340 feet between the inclosing walls. Staircases for access to the various levels were placed on either side of the stage, which is 203 feet wide by 45 feet deep, and inclosed by return walls at right angles to the back wall. The great wall at the back of this stage. 314 feet long by 116 feet high, is ornamented by blind arcading, and has at the summit two tiers of corbel stones, pierced with holes, through which the velarium poles were placed. It originally had a portico attached to it. The Theatre of Marcellus, Rome (b.c 23-13), is the only existing example of a theatre in that city. The remains consist of the arcading, two stories high, of the semicircular auditorium, the fa9ade of which was ornamented with the Tuscan order and the Ionic order superimposed. The Theatre of Herodes Atticus, Athens (No. 17) (a.d. 161), is also a fine example, seating 6,000 people. It is partly hewn out of the Acropolis rock and partly constructed, the seats having a marble casing. It is held to have been roofed with cedar, but this, however, probably only applied to the stage. Pompeii had two important theatres, which in recent years have been excavated. The theatres at Taormina, on the east coast of Sicily, at Fiesole, near Florence, and Aspendus, in Asia Minor, are other examples. L 2