The two “middle pillars” here spoken of constituted the key of the entire building: these falling, the house would he destroyed. Pliny mentions two large theaters built of wood, and planned with such ingenuity that each of them depended on one hinge. Dr. Thomson suggests, from his observations of the peculiar topography of Gaza, that the building was erected on a side-hill, having a steep declivity, and in such a position that the removal of the central columns would precipitate the whole edifice down the hill in ruinous confusion (The Land and the Book, vol. 2, p. 342).