In order to see the gladiators under arms, we must pass over the part of the city that has not yet been uncovered, and through vineyards and orchards, until, in a corner of Pompeii, as though down in the bottom of a ravine, we find the amphitheatre.  It is a circus, surrounded by tiers of seats and abutting on the city ramparts.  The exterior wall is not high, because the amphitheatre had to be hollowed out in the soil.  One might fancy it to be a huge vessel deeply embedded in the sand.  In this external wall there remain two large arcades and four flights of steps ascending to the top of the structure.  The arena was so called because of the layer of sand which covered it and imbibed the blood.

It is reached by two large vaulted and paved corridors with a quite steep inclination.  One of these is strengthened with seven arches that support the weight of the tiers.  Both of them intersect a transverse, circular corridor, beyond which they widen.  It was through this that the armed gladiators, on horseback and on foot, poured forth into the arena, to the sound of trumpets and martial music, and made the circuit of the amphitheatre before entering the lists.  They then retraced their steps and came in again, in couples, according to the order of combat.

To the right of the principal entrance a doorway opens into two square rooms with gratings, where the wild beasts were probably kept.  Another very narrow corridor ran from the street to the arena, near which it ascended, by a small staircase, to a little round apartment apparently the spoliatorium, where they stripped the dead gladiators.  The arena formed an oval of sixty-eight yards by thirty-six.  It was surrounded by a wall of two yards in height, above which may still be seen the holes where gratings and thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution against the bounds of the panthers.  In the large amphitheatres a ditch was dug around this rampart and filled with water to intimidate the elephants, as the ancients believed them to have a horror of that element.

[Illustration:  The Amphitheatre of Pompeii.]

Paintings and inscriptions covered the walls or podium of the arena.  These inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,—­N.  Istadicius, A. Audius, O. Caesetius Saxtus Capito, M. Gantrius Marcellus, who, instead of the plays and the illumination, which they would have had to pay for, on assuming office, had caused three cunei to be constructed on the order of the decurions.  Another inscription gives us to understand that two other duumvirs, Caius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Portius, holding five-year terms, had instituted the first games at their expense for the honor of the colony, and had granted the ground on which the amphitheatre stood, in perpetuity.  These two magistrates must have been very generous men, and very fond of public shows.  We know that they contributed, in like manner, to the construction of the Odeon.