In ancient Rome, the stage area in front of the scaenae frons (equivalent to the Greek skene) was known as the pulpitum, and the vertical front dropping from the stage to the orchestra floor, often in stone and decorated, as the proscaenium, again meaning "in front of the skene".
However, the Teatro Olimpico's exact replication of the open and accessible Roman stage was the exception rather than the rule in sixteenth-century theatre design.