The Traces Of The Row Of Columns Which Formed The Scene - The Permanent Back-Scene - Remain; Two Marble Pillars - I Just Mentioned Them - Are Upright, With A Fragment Of Their Entablature.

Be fore them is the vacant space which was filled by the stage, with the line of the prosoenium distinct, marked by a deep groove, impressed upon slabs of stone, which looks as if the bottom of a high screen had been in- tended to fit into it.

The semicircle formed by the seats - half a cup - rises opposite; some of the rows are distinctly marked. The floor, from the bottom of the stage, in the shape of an arc of which the chord is formed by the line of the orchestra, is covered by slabs of colored marble - red, yellow, and green - which, though terribly battered and cracked to-day, give one an idea of the elegance of the interior. Every- thing shows that it was on a great scale: the large sweep of its enclosing walls, the massive corridors that passed behind the auditorium, and of which we can still perfectly take the measure. The way in which every seat commanded the stage is a lesson to the architects of our epoch, as also the immense size of the place is a proof of extraordinary power of voice on the part of the Roman actors. It was after we had spent half an hour in the moonshine at the arena that we came on to this more ghostly and more exquisite ruin.

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