A Dictionary of Greek and Roman AntiquitiesWilliam Smith |
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Popular passages
Page 78 - In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water, and what had just before appeared a level plain might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels, and replenished with the monsters...
Page 78 - The poet who describes the games of Carinus, in the character of a shepherd attracted to the capital by the fame of their magnificence, affirms that the nets designed as a defence against the wild beasts were of gold wire ; that the porticoes were gilded; and that the belt or circle which divided the several ranks of spectators from each other was studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful...
Page 195 - amongforeigners (peregrini) only one kind of ownership (dominium), so that a man is either the owner of a thing or he is not. And this was formerly the case among the Roman people ; for a man was either owner ex jure Quiritium, or he was not.
Page 71 - After the plebs had formed a distinct estate at Rome, and when the whole body of the citizens had become very greatly increased, we frequently read, in the Roman writers, of the great efforts which it was necessary for candidates to make, in order to secure the votes of the citizens. At Rome, as in every community into which the element of popular election enters, solicitation of votes, and open or secret influence and bribery, were among the means by which a candidate secured his election to the...
Page 78 - In the decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality; and we read on various occasions that the whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber.
Page 394 - Dionysus, of taking the disguise of satyrs, doubtless originated in this feeling, and not in the mere desire of concealing excesses under the disguise of a mask, otherwise so serious and pathetic a spectacle as tragedy could never have originated in the choruses of these satyrs. The desire of escaping from self into something new and strange, of living in an imaginary world, breaks forth in a thousand instances in these festivals of Dionysus.
Page 78 - Nothing was omitted which, in any respect, could be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators. They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy, occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continually refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice the arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it seemed to...
Page 195 - Quiritium, or he was not. But afterwards the ownership was split, so that now one man may be the owner (dominus) of a thing ex jure Quiritium, and yet another may have it in bonis.
Page 358 - Quando tu bona paterna avitaque nequitia tua disperdis, liberosque tuos ad egestatem perducis, ob eam rem tibi ea re commercioque interdico, 3, 4 a, 7.
Page 78 - Sixty-four vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian...