Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Stadium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

STAD'IUM (στάδιον). A race-course for foot-racing, so named because the famous race-course at Olympia measured exactly one stade (στάδιον), which contained 600 Greek feet, equal to 606¾ English, and about one-eighth of a Roman mile. A course of this description usually formed one of the principal appendages to the Greek gymnasia and Roman thermae, and in these other athletic contests, as well as foot-races, were exhibited; but separate and isolated structures were also laid out for the same purpose. In its general plan the stadium approximated very closely the Greek hippodrome and the Roman circus, without the barrier (spina) and stalls (carceres), forming a narrow oblong area, terminated in a semicircle at one end, and by a straight line at the other, the seats for the spectators being sometimes excavated on the slope of a hill, sometimes formed upon an artificial embankment of earth, or raised upon arches of masonry and brickwork like the Roman circus. The names appropriated to the several parts were the same as those employed for the hippodrome; with the exception of the circular end, which had a special term of its own, being called the σφενδόνη (funda), either from its elliptical figure, or its resemblance to a sling, or to the bezel of a ring; but this was not used in the foot-race, for the 600 feet comprised in the length of the stadium extended only as far as the straight sides of the enclosure, from A, the starting place (ἄφεσις), to the two angular projections of masonry which terminate the σφενδόνη, marked B. The illustration (Stadium/1.1) represents the ground plan of a stadium at Cibyra (now Buraz) in Lycia, still in considerable preservation; to which nothing is added but the two projecting walls, near the circular extremity on the inside, for the purpose of showing the σφενδόνη, and these are copied from existing remains in the stadium at Ephesus. It stands on a hill side, from which a certain portion is cut away to form a long flat terrace, having its outer edge bounded by a walled embankment represented by the double lines on the top of the plan, and sufficiently deep to carry several rows of seats arranged along it; the opposite side, and the circular end is excavated out of the slope of the hill, which is cut into twenty-one rows of seats, rising like steps one above the other, and subdivided by staircases, in the same manner as the cavea of a theatre or amphitheatre.

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  Stadium/1.1