Identifier: historyofromepop01gris (find matches)
Title: History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Grisar, Hartmann, 1845-1932
Subjects: Papacy
Publisher: London, Paul
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ction an interestinginscription, which musthave been transcribed onthe spot. According toit, the Christian EmperorsArcadius and Honoriusmade attempts to pre-serve, by restoration, thealready badly dilapidatedtheatre and its surround-ings.3 Even the GothicKing Theodoric tried toshield Pompeys Theatreagainst the inroads oftime and neglect. Hiscounsellor, Cassiodorus, inthe Kings name, gave the Patricius Symmachus urgent instructions 1 Jordan, Forma urbis, tab. iv.; Schneider, Das alte Rom, PI. 5, No. 3. 2 For the theatre, see RiCHTER, Topographie, p. 144 ; NlBBY, Roma antica, 2, 609.For the fragment of the marble plan, see Jordan, Forma urbis, PI. IV. Cp. Lubke,Geschichte der Architekticr (1884), 1, Fig. 265. For the recent excavations during theworks in the Via del Monte di Farina, see D. Marchetti in the Bullett. archeol. com.,1892, p. 146. Porticoes of the theatre were again met near S. Andrea della Valle andnear the former Hospital Tata Giovanni. 3 Corpus inscr. lat., VI., No. 1191.
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111. 62.—Pompeys Theatre.Fragment of the Severian plan of the city. 260 ROME AND THE POPES (no. i74 to this effect. The letter written on this occasion highly praisesthe beauty of the theatre, which, according to the writer, mightaccount sufficiently for Pompey being called the Great. Allthe same, as a good Christian, he cannot suppress his regret thatthe theatre during Romes last days had become a perfect hot-bedof moral depravity. With all his enthusiasm—seeing how steadilydecay was gaining on the building—he exclaims : What canresist Thee, O Age, Thou who hast shaken the strength of suchwalls! Sooner should we expect to see mountains broken upthan such solid masses of stone.1 This was the first stone theatre to be erected at Rome. UntilPompey built it, 55 B.C., a permanent theatre in the city hadbeen considered an impossibility, and a danger to public morals.Pompey, however, erected a temple to Venus Victrix at thetop of his theatre, and the tiers of the theatre continued tos

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