ABSTRACT
One very good specimen of a room, which is illustrated here, has three tiers of seats in a horseshoe, enough to accommodate thirty students, with a professor’s throne (thronos) elevated up six steps at the back of the horseshoe, and a stone stand out at the front of the horseshoe. One stand has a hole in it, which Majcherek takes to be for a lectern to be inserted. e speaker would have stood there. Twenty rooms of similar or smaller size could have accommodated four hundred to ve hundred students. e stand is not found in most rooms, but the throne was eventually recognized in all, although it sometimes took the form of one step, or a block covered with plaster or in one case marble. In most rooms the tiers are rectangular rather than horseshoe shaped, and some rooms have only one tier of seats (see Figure 3.1).
