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164 General History of Europe France and Germany to the Balkan Peninsula. Similarly, in North Africa west of Carthage the ruins of whole cities with magnificent public buildings still survive to show us how Roman civilization developed there. These Roman buildings, still encircling the Mediterranean, reveal to us the fact that as a result of ages of human progress THE VAST AMPHITHEATER AT ROME NOW CALLED THE COLOSSEUM (RESTORED AFTER LUCKENBACH) This enormous building, one of the greatest in the world, was an oval arena surrounded by rising tiers of seats, accommodating nearly fifty thou- sand people. We see here only the outside wall, as restored. It was built by the emperors Vespasian and Titus, and was completed in 80 A.D. At the left is the colossal bronze statue of Nero, about one hundred feet high, which originally stood in this vicinity, near the entrance of his famous " Golden House," just east of the Forum which we have studied, the whole Mediterranean world, West as well as East, had now gained a high civilization. 260. New Public Buildings of Rome. As for Rome itself, a visitor at the close of the reign of Hadrian found it the most magnificent monumental city in the world of that day. It had by that time quite surpassed Alexandria in size and in the number and splendor of its public buildings. It was especially in and alongside the old Forum that the grandest structures of the