THEATRE, Theatrum, the Place where publick Shews were exhibited. These kinds of Buildings were in the Form of a Semicircle, in which the Spectators beheld the Games that were represented on the Scene or Stage over-against them: The Musick was placed in the Orchestrum. The Reader may find these things treated of at length in such Authors as have wrote upon the Roman Antiquities. The Word Theatre is found but once in the Holy Scriptures: In the Tumult that was raised by Demetrius the Silver-smith at Ephesus,1 on occasion of the Worship of Diana, the whole City was filled with confusion; and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the Theatre.
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Footnotes
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Acts xix. 29. In the 57th Year of the Vulgar Æra. ↩