At Present Strict Orders Are Given And Sentries Are Posted To
Prevent All Further Dilapidations, And Buttresses Have Been Made To Prop Up
Those Parts Which Had Given Way.
What a pity it is that the Arena has not
been left empty, instead of being fitted up with tawdry niches and images
representing the different stations of the Crucifixion!
In the centre is an
immense Cross, which whoever kisses is entitled to one hundred days
indulgence. To what reflections the sight of this vast edifice leads! What
combats of gladiators and wild beasts! What blood has been spilled! Was it
not here that the tyrannical and cowardly Domitian ordered Ulpius Glabrio,
of consular dignity, to descend into the arena and fight with a lion? The
Christian writers mention that many of their sect suffered martyrdom here
by being compelled to fight with wild beasts; but even this was not half so
bad as the conduct of the Christians, when they obtained possession of
political power and dominion, in burning alive poor Jews, Moors and
heretics some centuries afterwards. Indeed the cruelty of the Pagans was
much exaggerated by the above writers and were it even true to its full
extent, their severity was far more excusable than that of the Christians
in later times, for the efforts of the Christian sect in the times of
Paganism were unceasingly directed towards the destruction of the whole
fabric of polytheism, on which was based the entire, social and political
order of the Empire; and they thus brought on themselves perhaps merited
persecution, by their own intolerance; whereas, when they got the upper
hand, they showed no mercy to those of a different religion, and Orthodoxy
has wallowed successively in the blood of Arians, Jews, Moors and
Protestants.
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