Architecture
Theatre of Marcellus, detail of existing arcades with radial openings.
Drawing of the column orders used in Roman architecture, the Doric and Ionic columns were used in the theatre's lower tiers.5
The theatre's exterior had the two superimposed arcades still visible today and an upper one now missing.1 The arcades are framed by engaged columns, Doric on the lower level and Ionic on the upper. It is assumed that the third level would have used Corinthian columns to complete the design,2 and perhaps pilasters rather than engaged ones.3 This super-imposition of architectural orders would be replicated and embellished in the design of the Colosseum. The varied columns would have helped limit the visual heaviness of such a bulky building.
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1 Amanda Claridge, Judith Toms, and Tony Cubberley, Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 275.
2 Hazel Dodge, “The Architecture of Roman Spectacle,” in A Companion to Roman Architecture, ed. Caroline K. Quenemoen and Roger B Ulrich (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 292.
3 Claridge, Rome, 275.