Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/820

Rh 770 A M P A M P buildings he caused to be erected almost everywhere, and this is mentioned in connection with games being held. In constructing many of the amphitheatres in the pro vincial towns, advantage was taken of the natural slope of a hill to lessen the labour of construction; and in some cases a narrow ravine between two hills allowed of both sides being formed on the natural slopes, and of the stream at their feet being dammed up for combats on the water. The conformation of the ground and the caprices of local authorities have produced slight minor differences of plan, but the general description of the Colosseum will suffice for all. For details regarding others the reader may con sult, in addition to other authorities, the descriptions given in this work of the different towns where their remains are still found. Here it may be sufficient to name that at Pompeii, which is probably better known to most persons by the graphic description in Lord Lytton s novel than by any of the illustrated accounts that have been published of that wonderful town; that at Verona, which served as a basis to Maffei s careful investigation of the whole sub ject; those at Capua and Pozzuoli, which almost rival the Colosseum in dimensions; those at Nismes, Aries, and Frejus in France; that at Italica, near Seville in Spain, remarkable for the thickness of its walls and the strength of its masonry leading Florez to remark that its ruin is due not to the injuries of time and the weather, but to the hand of man; that at the ancient Thysdrus, in the province of Carthage, now called El-Djemm, which alone resembles the Colosseum in having five galleries or corridors in the first storey; and that at Pola in Istria, whose external shell the internal fittings, which were probably all of wood, having quite disappeared forms a striking object as seen from the sea. A very fair summary of the whole subject will be found in Smith s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities; and a much more minute and elaborate account, by C. Thierry, with good illustrations, in the Dictionnaire des Antiquites of Daremberg and Saglio, which has the further advantage of giving numerous references to larger works on the subject, its chief defect being one too common in French books, the almost complete ignoring of everything published in this country, where Taylor and Cresy s Architectural Anti quities of Rome, of which a second edition has recently appeared, is entitled to special mention. Nor does it notice that treasure of information about Spanish history and antiquities, the JEspana Sagrada, where (vol. xii. p. 228) will be found the most careful account of the amphitheatre at Italica, with several drawings. The fol lowing table, abridged from Friedlander s Darstdlung aus der SittengeschicJtte Roms (1865, 2d ed. 1867), gives the dimensions, in English feet, of a few of the principal amphitheatres that have been examined : Entire Building. j Arena. Greater Axis. Shorter Axis. Greater Axis. Shorter Axis. Fuzzuoli, Feet. 626J 616 5864 557 551 513 5054 486 457 452 448 445 443 4334 Feet. 475 510J 348 458 289 4394 403 390 392 3694 352 341 3934 3324 Feet. 367 231 250 459 248 277 2534 230; 228 2184 223 227 Feet 216 176 150 197 1454 181 188 147 129 115 984 126| Rome (Colosseum), Falerii, Capua, Julia Csesarea Italica (Seville), Verona, Tarrrvro, ... Thvsdrus, Pola, Aries, Pompeii, Tours, Nismos, (o. n. F.) AMPHITRITE, in Greek Mythology, the supreme god dess of the sea, and as such the wife of Poseidon (Neptune), but, unlike him, so entirely confined in her authority to the sea and the creatures in it, that not only waa her name (from d/x^)l-T/)t oj, the same root as rpv o&amp;gt;) sometimes used as an equivalent for that elernent, but she was never associated with her husband either for purposes of worship or in works of art, except when he was to be distinctly re garded as the god who controlled the sea, though generally his functions extended to the whole watery element. She was one of the nereids, and distinguishable from the others only by her queenly attributes. It was said that Neptune saw her first dancing at Naxus among the other nereids, and carried her off. But in another version of the myth, she then fled from him to the farthest ends of the sea, where the dolphin of Neptune found her out. In works of art she is represented either enthroned beside him, or driving with him in a chariot drawn by hippocamps or other fabulous creatures of the deep, and attended by tritons and nereids. AMPHORA (from 0.^1 and &amp;lt;ep w )&amp;gt; a l ar g e vessel used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for preserving wine, oil, fruits, &c., and so named from its usually having an ear or handle on each side of the neck, whence it was also called diota. It was commonly made of earthenware, but sometimes of stone, glass, or even more costly materials; its usual form was tall and narrow, diminishing below to a point. A number of specimens of the various kinds of amphora are to be seen in the Elgin collection in the British Museum. Homer and Sophocles mention amphorae used as cinerary urns; and a discovery made in 1825 at Salona shows that they were sometimes used as coffins. The amphora was divided lengthwise to receive the corpse, then closed and deposited in the earth, thus preserving the skeletons entire (Steinbiichel, Alttrthum, p. 67). The amphora was a standard measure of capacity among both Greeks and Romans. The Attic amphora contained nearly nine gallons, and the Roman amphora about six. AMPLITUDE, in Astronomy, is the amount of deviation towards the north or south of a celestial object from the true east at rising, and the true west at setting. For the fixed stars it is constant; for the sun and planets it varies with the declination. At the equinoxes the sun rises exactly in the east, and sets in the west point, the am plitude then is zero; at the solstices it amounts at London to 39 44. AMPTHILL, a small neatly -built market town in Bedfordshire, situated about 8 miles south of Bedford. Besides the old parish church, it contains various dissent ing chapels, a county court-house, a savings bank, several schools, and an almshouse. Near the town is Ampthill house, a mansion of the late Lord Holland, containing a valuable collection of paintings, a library, and a museum. The site of the old castle in which Catherine of Aragon resided while her divorce from Henry VIII. was pending, is marked by a cross within the grounds. The district 13 chiefly agricultural, but in Ampthill there is a large brewery, and a considerable amount of straw-plaiting and lace-making. Population in 1871, 2-220. AMPULLA, a Latin word denoting a small jar or flask for holding liquids. In mediaeval church Latin it usually signifies the vessels that contained the consecrated oils, of which the three principal for the catechumens, for the sick, and for confirmation were hallowed by the bishop on the Thursday before Easter. The word has passed into our language in connection with the coronation of the kings of England, and occurs repeatedly in the coronation service. Thus, in that used for Queen Victoria, we read : &quot; The anthem being concluded, the Dean of Westminster, taking the ampulla and spoon from off the altar, holdcth them