The Height And Extent Of It May Be Guessed From The Number Of
Spectators It Contained, Amounting To One Hundred Thousand; And
Yet, According To Fontana's Mensuration, It Could Not Contain
Above Thirty-Four Thousand Persons Sitting, Allowing A Foot And
An Half For Each Person:
For the circuit of the whole building
did not exceed one thousand five hundred and sixty feet.
The
amphitheatre at Verona is one thousand two hundred and ninety
feet in circumference; and that of Nismes, one thousand and
eighty. The Colossaeum was built by Vespasian, who employed
thirty thousand Jewish slaves in the work; but finished and
dedicated by his son Titus, who, on the first day of its being
opened, produced fifty thousand wild beasts, which were all
killed in the arena. The Romans were undoubtedly a barbarous
people, who delighted in horrible spectacles. They viewed with
pleasure the dead bodies of criminals dragged through the
streets, or thrown down the Scalae Gemoniae and Tarpeian rock,
for their contemplation. Their rostra were generally adorned with
the heads of some remarkable citizens, like Temple-Bar, at
London. They even bore the sight of Tully's head fixed upon that
very rostrum where he had so often ravished their ears with all
the charms of eloquence, in pleading the cause of innocence and
public virtue. They took delight in seeing their fellow-creatures
torn in pieces by wild beasts, in the amphitheatre.
They shouted with applause when they saw a poor dwarf or slave
killed by his adversary; but their transports were altogether
extravagant, when the devoted captives were obliged to fight in
troops, till one side was entirely butchered by the other. Nero
produced four hundred senators, and six hundred of the equestrian
order, as gladiators in the public arena: even the women fought
with wild beasts, as well as with each other, and drenched the
amphitheatres with their blood. Tacitus says, "Sed faeminarum
illustrium, senatorumque filiorum plures per arenam faedati
sunt," "But many sons of Senators, and even Matrons of the first
Rank, exposed themselves in this vile exercise." The execrable
custom of sacrificing captives or slaves at the tombs of their
masters and great men, which is still preserved among the negroes
of Africa, obtained also among the antients, Greeks as well as
Romans. I could never, without horror and indignation, read that
passage in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, which describes
twelve valiant Trojan captives sacrificed by the inhuman Achilles
at the tomb of his friend Patroclus.
Dodeka men Troon megathumon uias eathlous
Tous ama pantas pur eathiei.
Twelve generous Trojans slaughtered in their Bloom,
With thy lov'd Corse the Fire shall now consume.
Even Virgil makes his pious Hero sacrifice eight Italian youths
to the manes of Pallas. It is not at all clear to me, that a
people is the more brave, the more they are accustomed to
bloodshed in their public entertainments. True bravery is not
savage but humane. Some of this sanguinary spirit is inherited by
the inhabitants of a certain island that shall be nameless - but,
mum for that.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 222 of 276
Words from 114741 to 115254
of 143308
