Pliny: Natural History
et ianua in publicum reiceretur. hoc erat clarissimum insigne inter triumphales quoque domos.
113Non patiar istos duos Gaios vel duos Nerones1 ne hac quidem gloria famae frui, docebimusque etiam insaniam eorum victam privatis opibus2 M. Scauri, cuius nescio an aedilitas maxime prostraverit mores maiusque sit Sullae malum tanta privigni 114potentia quam proscriptio tot milium. in aedilitate hic sua fecit opus maximum omnium quae umquam fuere humana manu facta, non temporaria mora, verum etiam aeternitatis destinatione. theatrum hoc fuit; scaena ei triplex in altitudinem ccclx columnarum in ea civitate quae sex Hymettias non tulerat sine probro civis amplissimi. ima pars scaenae e marmore fuit, media e vitro, inaudito etiam postea genere luxuriae, summa e tabulis inauratis; columnae, ut diximus, imae duodequadragenum 115pedum. signa aerea inter columnas, ut indicavimus, fuerunt i͞i͞i͞ numero; cavea ipsa cepit hominum l͞x͞x͞x͞, cum Pompeiani theatri totiens multiplicata urbe tantoque maiore populo sufficiat large x͞x͞x͞x͞ sedere.3 relicus apparatus tantus Attalica veste, tabulis pictis,
Book XXXVI
most notable mark of distinction in the houses even of men who had celebrated a triumph.
I shall not allow these two birds of a feather, twoScaurus’ temporary theatre. Gaiuses or two Neros as you please, to enjoy unchallenged even renown such as this; and so I shall show that even their madness was outdone by the resources of a private individual, Marcus Scaurus, whose aedileship may perhaps have done more than58 b.c. anything to undermine morality, and whose powerful ascendancya may have been a more mischievous achievement on the part of his stepfather Sulla than the killing by proscription of so many thousands of people. As aedile he constructed the greatest of all the works ever made by man, a work that surpassed not merely those erected for a limited period but even those intended to last for ever. This was his theatre, which had a stage arranged in three storeys with 360 columns; and this, if you please, in a community that had not tolerated the presence of six columns of Hymettus marble without reviling a§ 7. leading citizen. The lowest storey of the stage was of marble, and the middle one of glass (an extravagance unparalleled even in later times), while the top storey was made of gilded planks. The columns of the lowest storey were, as I have stated, each 38§ 6. feet high. The bronze statues in the spaces between the columns numbered 3000, as I mentioned earlier, XXXIV. 36. As for the auditorium, it accommodated 80,000; and yet that of Pompey’s theatre amply meets all requirements§ 41. with seats for 40,000 even though the city is so many times larger and the population so much more numerous than it was at that time. The rest of the equipment, with dresses of cloth of gold,b scene