1818.] 



THE CIVIL EXGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



233 



THE THEATRES AND PORTICOS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



Paprr read at a meeting of the Royal In.ttitate of British Architects, 

 June Vith. By tlie Rev. Richard Burgess, B.D. 



In looking among my antiquarian and literary stores to prepare 

 a subject for the Institute, I again found that it was not necessary 

 for me to go out of old Rome, for altliough In a series of papers 

 spread over some twelve years, I have led you " o'er steps of 

 broken thrones and temples," and placed you in forums, baths, or 

 halls, I have never yet described to you the theatres and porticoes 

 which formed so important a feature in the architectural beauties 

 of Rome. 



The amphitlieatre was an edifice unknown to the Greeks, the 

 theatre was hardly ever naturalized among the Romans, and with 

 the exception of some tragedies, ascribed to Seneca, which are lost, 

 it does not ai)pear that a single Roman tragedy was ever composed 

 upon a Roman subject. Porticoes, which were generally in the 

 vicinity of theatres and circuses at Rome, are tlie natural growth 

 of a climate subject to great heat and sudden rains: we lose in 

 these nortliern regions that great ornament of a city, the portico. 

 Our admiration is limited to arcades and covered markets, which 

 it must be confessed are more for use than ornament. But I 

 return to tlie tlieatre. Tlie ancient and modern dranux differ as 

 widely as the buildings in which tliey were respectively acted, and 

 I shall hardly succeed in making my Roman theatre intelligible, 

 unless I first indicate a few of the leading features which run 

 through the Greek drama and its Roman descendant. The subject 

 is by far too vast and intricate for me to attempt anything like an 

 essay upon the Greek stage, and therefore I must limit my obser- 

 vations to what is strictly necessary for explaining the internal 

 arrangements of the edifice. The Greek drama dealt more in set 

 speeches tlian in broken dialogues, and did not admit more than 

 three interlocutors at once : the action or event represented was 

 brought witliiu the space of time in which it might in reality 

 have been accomplished. As a general rule, there was no change 

 of scene during the piece. In every tragedy there was a body 

 called a cltorus, who took no pai't in the action of the piece, but 

 reflected upon what was going on, and generally expressed what 

 might be supposed to be the sense of the audience. The chorus 

 did not come upon the stage, but occupied the orchestra, varying 

 the dialogue which they sometimes held with the actors by choral 

 songs and dancing. 'These terms of stage and orchestra I shall 

 shortly have to explain. 



Dramatic entertainments, both in Greece and Rome, formed 

 part of the public expenditure, or they were exhibited gratuitously 

 by some wealthy or ambitious citizen. The theatres, therefore, 

 were of immense size, for they were meant to contain (in Greece, 

 at least) the whole male population of great cities. The per- 

 formance usually took place also in an uncovered theatre in 

 Greece ; but Roman luxury, at a later period, invented the awning. 

 I once described to you, when I read a paper on the Colosseum, 

 how this awning was contrived to cover such an immense space ; 

 and I must be allowed to suppose that you have not entirely for- 

 gotten that description. If any of you are desirous of satisfying 

 your curiosity upon the Greek stage, I must refer you to " Butenger 

 de Theatro," for I now hasten to the buildings themselves, which it 

 is the principal object of this paper to describe. The origin of 

 the theatre is rather ignoble ; — it was originally a wagon, in wliich 

 Thespis conveyed his actors about, with their faces besmeared 

 with lees of wine, and from which they spoke their parts to the 

 crowd assembled around them. To tlie ambulator)' wagon of 

 Thespis succeeded a moveable wooden structure, which was set up 

 and taken down at pleasui'e, and it was in consequence of one of 

 these structures having given way under an unusual crowd, that 

 the first stone theatre was erected in Greece, by Themistocles, not 

 long after the defeat of Xerxes. From this they began to in- 

 crease in number, and we have the remains of several yet existing, 

 both in Greece and in that part of Italy which was Greek in 

 language and customs long after it came under the Roman 

 dominion. We have also those remains of Greek tlieatres in 

 Rome, to which I shall shortly direct your attention. A theatre 

 became so necessary an appendage to a town, that Vitruvius gives 

 systematic directions concerning the selection of a site. In his 

 fifth book, cap. 3, we have the following : — " When the forum is 

 finished, a healtliy situation must be sought foi-, wherein the 

 theatre may be erected, to exhibit sports on the festival days of 

 the immortal gods, for the spectators are detained in their seats 

 by the entertainment of the games, and remaining quiet for a long 

 time, their pores are opened and imbibe the draughts of air, which, 

 if they come from marshy or otherwise unhealthy places, will pour 



injurious humour into the body. Neither must it front the south, 

 for when the sun fills the concavity, the enclosed air, unable to 

 escape or circulate, is heated, and then extracts and dries up the 

 juice of the body. It is also to be carefully observed that the 

 place be not dull, but one in which the voice may expand as 

 clearly as possible." One cannot let pass this quotation from the 

 great architect of the Augustan age, without remarking that the 

 selection of a site fm' an important public building was considered 

 by Vitruvius as falling within the province of the architect. A 

 healthy place for the theatre selected, we come next to consider its 

 shape and disposition. 



The form of the Greek theatre originated, as is thought, in the 

 natural recess of a hill-side, and most of the theatres whose 

 vestiges 1 have visited in Greece, occupy that position. Mantenia, 

 built in a marshy place, offers an exception, and I believe there is 

 another exception in Asia Minor ; but it was evidently the practice 

 to lighten the labour of erecting such buildings by making use of a 

 ravine, or locality adapted to the purpose. At Slegalopolis I was 

 able to trace tlie wliole cai^ea or hollow of the theatre, partly cut 

 out of a hill ; but the seats are overgrown with thick brushwood. 

 The same economy is observed in most of the Greek stadia also, and 

 even the council of Areopagus sat on seats, cut out of, or inserted 

 into Mars' Hill. At Nicopolis, near Prevesa, the foi-m of the thea- 

 tre on the hill-side is preserved, and much of the proscenium. At 

 Smyrna I was able to trace the cnvea in a similar ]»osition, and also 

 at Ephesus we get to the slope of Mount Prion, which overlooked 

 the "Temple of Diana, in the plain of the Cayster, before we find 

 the theatre. Whilst the Greeks, however, hewed seats out of the 

 rock, or excavated to a depth suitable to their purpose, as the 

 nature of the ground allowed, the Romans usually built their 

 theatres upon arches, and massive walls rose (as we see the theatre 

 of Marcellus still existing at Rome), with two or three orders, 

 like the Colosseum. The hollow which perhaps originally was 

 adjusted according to the nature of the ground, in no definite 

 curve, ended in a perfect semicircle. This was called in Greek 

 " KoiKtiv" and in Latin cavea, and was the part for the audience. 

 The other part was devoted to the business of the play, and thus 

 we arrive at the two principal parts or divisions of the theatre. 

 The KoiXov, or cavea, is easily described ; it was bounded by the 

 segments of two concentric circles, the inner arc separating it 

 from the orchestra ; in tlie Roman theatre it seldom exceeded a 

 semicircle, but sometimes the extremities of the semicircular arc 

 were prolonged liy straight lines ; the Greeks took more of the 

 circumference of the circle, and cut the koiAoi' by lines drawn from 

 its extremities converging towards the centre of the circle, by 

 which arrangement more space was made in width for the scena 

 or stage. The cavea was fitted up with rows of seats rising in 

 succession, so as to afford each tier an uninterrupted view : the 

 whole was divided, as in the amphitheatre, into flights by Smtrainara 

 or prwcinciiones, which is the Vitruvian terra for our landing- 

 place. The proseiiictio ran round the whole, and afforded an 

 access from one flight to another. The entire arc was again cut 

 into sub-divisions, called KcpxiSf?, in Latin, cuitei, from being 

 formed like wedges : the lines which effected those sub-divisions 

 were called KAifictfts, or sea ke ; these (which in the Roman circus 

 were called vice) led from the bottom to the top of the theatre, 

 and they all converged to the centre of the orchestra. The 

 lowest seats were considered the best, and were, in fact, the re- 

 served seats for the magistrates and persons of office. As the 

 audience rose in height, it descended in quality, until it reached 

 the open portico at the very top, which has its counterpart in our 

 shilling or sixpenny gallery. This portico, however, in an un- 

 covered building was of some use, in confining the sound and 

 giving shelter to the spectators from a passing storm. A koiAo.-, or 

 cavea, such as I have now described, would contain, in some of the 

 largest theatres, as many as 30,000 to 40,000 spectators, which is 

 about the capacity of those whose remains are yet to be seen in 

 Rome. I now come to the other part of the theatre, which is 

 more complicated and more difficult to describe. In Greek we 

 have to deal with the three terms of op/cjjirpa, oKnv-n, and iropaaicei'io. 

 In the Roman language, we have the three corresponding terms of 

 orchestra, pulpitum or scena, and postscenium, to which we are to 

 add the porticus. I shall content myself with describing the 

 Roman arrangements, and simply pointing out where the Greek 

 theatre differed. Taking the cavea to be a semicircle, the con- 

 centric arc which separates the audience was also a semicircle, 

 and this space, bounded by the diameter, was the orchestra, — not 

 so called from anything relating to music, but because it was the 

 place for the dancers. In the Greek theatre the segment was less 

 than a semicircle ; but if the circle be completed and a square 

 iuscrihed in it, whose sides are parallel tQ. the diameter, the side 



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