It Is
Of An Oval Figure, One Thousand And Eighty Feet In Circumference,
Capacious Enough To Hold Twenty Thousand Spectators.
The
architecture is of the Tuscan order, sixty feet high, composed of
two open galleries, built one over another, consisting each of
threescore arcades.
The entrance into the arena was by four great
gates, with porticos; and the seats, of which there were thirty,
rising one above another, consisted of great blocks of stone,
many of which still remain. Over the north gate, appear two
bulls, in alto-relievo, extremely well executed, emblems which,
according to the custom of the Romans, signified that the
amphitheatre was erected at the expence of the people. There are
in other parts of it some work in bas-relief, and heads or busts
but indifferently carved. It stands in the lower part of the
town, and strikes the spectator with awe and veneration. The
external architecture is almost intire in its whole circuit; but
the arena is filled up with houses - This amphitheatre was
fortified as a citadel by the Visigoths, in the beginning of the
sixth century. They raised within it a castle, two towers of
which are still extant; and they surrounded it with a broad and
deep fossee, which was filled up in the thirteenth century. In
all the subsequent wars to which this city was exposed, it served
as the last resort of the citizens, and sustained a great number
of successive attacks; so that its preservation is almost
miraculous.
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