Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/864

 844 ROJIA. part of the building;. (Dion Cass. 1. 10.) Au- gustus rebuilt the Pulvinar, or place on which the imao;es of the gods were laid, and erected the first obelisk between the metae. (^Mon. Ancyr.; Suet. Aug. 45 ; Plin. xxxvi. 14. .s. 5.) The side to- wards the Aventine was again burnt in the reign of Tiberius. (Tac. Ann. vi. 45.) Claudius much improved the appearance of the circus by substi- tuting marble carceres for those of tufo, and meiae of gilt bronze for the previous ones of wood. He also appropriated certain seats to the senators. (Suet. Claiid. 21.) We have seen that the fire of Nero broke out in the circus, whence it is natur.-il to conclude that it must have been completely de- stroyed. Yet it must have been soon restored, since Nero caused his ridiculous triumphal procession to pass through it, and hung his triumphal wreaths round the obelisk of Augustus. (Dion Cass. Ixiii. 21.) The effects of another fire under Domilian were repaired with the stone from his naumachin, and it was now, perhaps, that 12 carceres were first erected. (Suet. Bom. 5, 7.) We read of another restoration on a still more magnificent scale by Trajan. (Dion Cass. Iviii. 7.) During the cele- bration of the Ludi ApoUinares in the reign of Anto- iiinus Pius, some of the rows of seats fell in and killed a large number of persons. (Capitol. Anton. P. 9; Catal Imp. Vienn. ii. p. 244.) We know but little more of the history of the Circus JIaximus. Constantine the Great appears to have made some improvements (Aur. Vict. Caes. 40. § 27), and we hear of the games being celebrated there as late as the 6th century. (Cassiod. Var. iii. 51.) The circus was used for other games besides the chariot races, as the Ludus Trojae, Certamen Gymnicum, Venatio, Ludi ApoUinares, &c. The number of persons it was capable of accommodating is vari- ously stated. Pliny (xxxvi. 24. s. 1) states it at 260,000. One codex of the Notitia mentions 485.000, another 385,000 ; the latter number is prolxibly the more correct. (Preller, Reyionen, p. 191.) The circus seems to have been enlarged after the time of Pliny, in the reign of Trajan. The CiucL'S Flaminius was founded in B.C. 220 by the censor of that name. (Liv. Epit. sx.; Cass. Chron. p. 178.) We have but few notices respecting this circus, which lay under the Capito- line, with its carceres towards the hill, and its cir- cular end towards the river. The Ltidi Pleheii, and those called Taurii, were celebrated here (Val. Max. i. 7. § 4; Varr. L.L. v. § 154), and Augustus af- forded in it the spectacle of a crocodile chase. (Dion Cass. Iv. 10.) It also served for meetings of the people, which had previously been held in the Praia Flaminia. (Liv. xxvii. 21 ; Cic. ad Att. i. 14.) We find no mention of the Circus Flaminius after the first century of our era ; and in the early part of the 9th century it had been so completely forgotten that the Anonymous of Einsiedlen mistook the Piazza Navona for it. Yet remains of it are said to have existed till the 16th century, at the church of S. Caterina d^ Funari and the Palazzo Mattel. (And. Fulvio, Ant. Urh. lib. iv. p. 264 ; Lucio Fauno, Ant. di Roma, iv. 23. p. 138.) What is sometimes called by modern topographers the CiKCU.s Agonalis, occupied, as we have said, the site of the Piazza Navona. But the Ago- nalia were certainly not celebrated with Circensian games, and there are good reasons for doubting whether this was a circus at all. Its form, how- ever, shows that it was a place of the same kind, ROMA. and hence Becker's conjecture seems not impro- bable {Handb. p. 670), that it was the Stadium founded by Domitian. The Grecian foot-races had been introduced at Rome long before the time of Domitian. Both Caesar and Augustus had built temporary stadia in the Campus Martius (Suet. Ca£S. 39; Dion Cass. liii. 1), and Domitian seems to have constructed a more permanent one. (Suet. Pom. 5; Cassiod. Chron. t. ii. p. 197.) We are not indeed told that it was in the Campus Martius, but this is the most probable place for it, and the Notitia after mentioning the three theatres and the Odenm in the 9th Region names the Stadium. It is also mentioned in conjunction with the Odeum by Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10. § 14). It is discriminated from thecirci by Lampridius : " Omnes de circo, de theatro, de stadio — meretrices collegit." (Heliog. 26.) In the middle ages it seems to have been called " Circus Alexandrinus," an appellation doubtless derived from the neighbouring thermae of Alexander Severus. By the Anonymus Einsiedlen- sis it was confounded, as we have said, with the Cir- cus Flaminius. Putting this on one side, therefore, the third circus, properly so called, founded at Rome, would be that which Caligula built in the gardens of his mother Agrippina in the Vatican. (Plin. xvi. 40, xxxvi. 11; Suet. Claud. 21.) From him the place subsequently obtained the name of Caianuji (Dion Cass. lix. 14). by which we find it mentioned in the Notitia. (^Reg. xiv.) This circus was also used by Nero, wlience it commonly obtained the name of Circus Neronis. (Plin. /. c. ; iinet. Nei: 22; Tac. Ann. xiv. 14.) In the middle ages it was called Palatium Neronis. Some writers assume another circus in this neighbourhood, which Canina {Indie, p. 590) calls Circus Hauriani, just at the back of the mausoleum of that empeior; but this seems hardly probable. (Of. Urlichs, in Class. Mus. vol. iii. p. 202.) The chief passage on which this assumption is founded is Procopius, de Bell. Goth. ii. 1 (Preller, Regionen, p. 212). A fourth circus was that of JIaxentius about two miles on the Via Appia, near the tomb of Caecilia Metella. It used to be commonly attributed to Caracalla; but an mscription dug up in 182.5 mentions Romulus, the son of Maxentius (Orell. Inscr. 1069); and this agrees with the Catalogus Imperatorum Viennensis, which ascribes the build- ing of a circus to Maxentius (ii. p. 248, Konc). Tills building is in a tolerable state of preservation ; the spina is entire, and great part of the external walls remains; so that the spectator can here gain a clear idea of the arrangements of an ancient circus. A complete description of it has been published bv the Rev. Richard Burgess (London, Murray, 1828.) The fifth and last of the circuses at Rome, which can be assumed with certainty, is the Circus Heliogabali, wJiich lay near the Amphitheatrum Castrense, outside the walls of Aurelian. (Urlichs, Rom. Topogr. p. 126, seq. ; Becker, Antwort, p. 81.) We have already said that the existence of a Circus Florae in the 6th Region, is a mere invention; and that of a Circus Sallustii, in the same district, rests on no satisfactory authority. Although theatrical entertainments were intro- duced at Rome at an early period, the city possessed no permanent theatre before the Theatrum Pom- peii, built in the second consulship of Pompev, B. c. 55. (Veil. Pat. ii. 48; Plut. Pomp. 52.) Pre-