[Illustration: Colosseum or Coliseum of Rome.]
When the imperial power was firmly established at Rome, the sports of
the amphitheatre were conducted upon a scale to which the Consuls of the
republic had scarcely dared to aspire. Caligula, on his birth-day, gave
four hundred bears, and as many other wild beasts to be slain; and on
the birth-day of Drusilla, he exhibited these brutal spectacles,
continued to the succeeding day on a similar scale[1]. Claudius
instituted combats between Thessalian horsemen and wild bulls; and he
also caused camels to fight for the first time with horses. Invention
was racked to devise new combinations of cruelty. Many of the emperors
abandoned themselves to these sports with as passionate an ardour as the
uncultivated multitude. Sensuality debases as much as ignorance, because
it is ignorance under another name. Claudius rose at daylight to repair
to the Circus, and frequently remained, that he might not lose a single
pang of the victims, while the people went to their afternoon meal.
Sometimes, during the reigns of Claudius and Nero, an elephant was
opposed to a single fencer; and the spectators were delighted by the
display of individual skill. Sometimes, hundreds and even thousands of
the more ferocious beasts were slaughtered by guards on horseback; and
the pleasure of the multitude was in proportion to the lavishness with
which the blood of man and beast was made to flow. The passion for these
sports required a more convenient theatre for its gratification than the
old Circus. The Colosseum was commenced by Vespasian, and completed by
Titus (A. D. 79). This enormous building occupied only three years in
its erection. Cassiodorus affirms that this magnificent monument of
folly cost as much as would have been required for the building of a
capital city. We have the means of distinctly ascertaining its
dimensions and its accommodations from the great mass of wall that still
remains entire; and although the very clamps of iron and brass that held
together the ponderous stones of that wonderful edifice were removed by
Gothic plunderers; and succeeding generations have resorted to it as to
a quarry for their temples and their palaces; yet the “enormous
skeleton” still stands, to show what prodigious works may be raised by
the skill and perseverance of man, and how vain are the mightiest
displays of his power when compared with those intellectual efforts
which have extended the empire of virtue and of science.
The Colosseum, which is of an oval form, occupies the space of nearly
six acres. “It may justly be said to have been the most imposing
building, from its apparent magnitude, in the world; the pyramids of
Egypt can only be compared with it in the extent of their plan, as they
cover nearly the same surface[2].” The greatest length, or major axis,
is 620 feet; the greatest breadth, or minor axis, 513 feet. The outer
wall is 157 feet high in its whole extent. The exterior wall is divided
into four stories, each ornamented with one of the orders of
architecture. The cornice of the upper story is perforated for the
purpose of inserting wooden masts, which passed also through the
architrave and frieze, and descended to a row of corbels immediately
above the upper range of windows, on which are holes to receive the
masts. These masts were for the purpose of attaching cords to, for
sustaining the awning which defended the spectators from the sun or
rain. Two corridors ran all round the building, leading to staircases
which ascended to the several stories; and the seats which descended
towards the arena, supported throughout upon eighty arches, occupied so
much of the space that the clear opening of the present inner wall next
the arena is only 287 feet by 180 feet. Immediately above and around the
arena was the podium, elevated about twelve or fifteen feet, on which
were seated the emperor, senators, ambassadors of foreign nations, and
other distinguished personages in that city of distinctions. From the
podium to the top of the second story were seats of marble for the
equestrian order; above the second story the seats appear to have been
constructed of wood. In these various seats eighty thousand spectators
might be arranged according to their respective ranks; and indeed it
appears from inscriptions, as well as from expressions in Roman writers,
that many of the places in this immense theatre were assigned to
particular individuals, and that each might find his seat without
confusion. The ground was excavated over the surface of the arena in
1813; a great number of substructions were then discovered, which by
some antiquaries are considered to be of modern date, and by others to
have formed dens for the various beasts that were exhibited. The
descriptions which have been left by historians and other writers of the
variety and extent of the shows, would indicate that a vast space and
ample conveniences were required beneath the stage, to accomplish the
wonders which were, doubtless, there realized in the presence of
assembled Rome. We subjoin, from Messrs. Cresy and Taylor’s work, an
interior view looking west, taken at the time when the arena was so
excavated. It has since been filled up. The external view of this
remarkable building is given as it existed in the time of Piranesi, in
the last century.
Gibbon, the historian, has given a splendid description, in his twelfth
book, of the exhibitions of the Colosseum; but he acknowledges his
obligation to Montaigne, who, says the historian, “gives a very just and
lively view of Roman magnificence in these spectacles.” Our readers
will, we doubt not, be gratified by the quaint but most appropriate
sketch of the old philosopher of France:--
“It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a
great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full
verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order,
and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand
stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow deer, to be killed and
disposed of by the people: the next day to cause an hundred great lions,
an hundred leopards and three hundred bears to be killed in his
presence: and for the third day, to make three hundred pair of fencers
to fight it out to the last,--as the Emperor Probus did. It was also
very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble
without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside
sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments; all the sides of this
vast space filled and environed from the bottom to the top, with three
or four score ranks of seats, all of marble also, and covered with
cushions, where an hundred thousand men might sit placed at their ease;
and the place below, where the plays were played, to make it by art
first open and cleft into chinks, representing caves that vomited out
the beasts designed for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be
overflowed with a profound sea, full of sea-monsters, and loaded with
ships of war, to represent a naval battle: and thirdly, to make it dry
and even again for the combats of the gladiators; and for the fourth
scene, to have it strewed with vermilion and storax, instead of sand,
there to make a solemn feast for all that infinite number of people--the
last act of one only day.
[Illustration: Interior View of the Colosseum.]
“Sometimes they have made a high mountain advance itself, full of
fruit-trees and other flourishing sorts of woods, sending down rivulets
of water from the top, as from the mouth of a fountain: other whiles, a
great ship was seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of
itself; and after having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred
beasts for fight, closed again, and vanished without help. At other
times, from the floor of this place, they made spouts of perfumed waters
dart their streams upward, and so high as to besprinkle all that
infinite multitude. To defend themselves from the injuries of the
weather, they had that vast place one while covered over with purple
curtains of needle-work, and by and by with silk of another colour,
which they could draw off or on in a moment, as they had a mind. The
net-work also that was set before the people to defend them from the
violence of these turned-out beasts, was also woven of gold.”
“If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these,” continues
Montaigne, “it is where the novelty and invention create more wonder
than expense.” Fortunately for the real enjoyments of mankind, even
under the sway of a Roman despot, “the novelty and invention” had very
narrow limits when applied to matters so utterly unworthy and
unintellectual as the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. Probus, indeed,
transplanted trees to the arena, so that it had the appearance of a
verdant grove; and Severus introduced four hundred ferocious animals in
one ship sailing in the little lake which the arena formed. But on
ordinary occasions, profusion,--tasteless, haughty, and uninventive
profusion,--the gorgeousness of brute power, the pomp of satiated
luxury--these constituted the only claim to the popular admiration. If
Titus exhibited five thousand wild beasts at the dedication of the
amphitheatre, Trajan bestowed ten thousand on the people at the
conclusion of the Dacian war. If the younger Gordian collected together
bears, elks, zebras, ostriches, boars, and wild horses, he was an
imitator only of the spectacles of Carinus, in which the rarity of the
animals was as much considered as their fierceness. Gibbon has well
remarked, “While the populace gazed with stupid wonder on the splendid
show, the naturalist might indeed observe the figure and properties of
so many different species, transported from every part of the ancient
world into the amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which
science might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such
a wanton abuse of the public riches.” The prodigal waste of the public
riches, however, was not the weightiest evil of the sports of the
Circus. The public morality was sacrificed upon the same shrine as its
wealth. The destruction of beasts became a fit preparation for the
destruction of men. A small number of those unhappy persons who engaged
in fight with the wild animals of the arena, were trained to these
dangerous exercises, as are the matadors of Spain at the present day.
These men were accustomed to exhaust the courage of the beast by false
attacks; to spring on a sudden past him, striking him behind before he
could recover his guard; to cast a cloak over his eyes, and then
despatch or bind him at this critical moment of his terror; or to throw
a cup full of some chemical preparation into his gaping mouth, so as to
produce the stupefaction of intense agony. But the greater part of the
human beings who were exposed to these combats, perilous even to the
most skilful, were disobedient slaves and convicted malefactors. The
Christians, during their persecutions, constituted a very large number
of the latter class. The Roman power was necessarily intolerant; the
assemblies of the new religion became objects of dislike and suspicion;
the patience and constancy of the victims increased the fury of their
oppressors; and even such a man as the younger Pliny held that their
obstinacy alone was deserving of punishment. Thus, then, the imperial
edicts against the early Christians furnished more stimulating
exhibitions to the popular appetite for blood, than the combat of lion
with lion, or gladiator with gladiator. The people were taught to
believe that they were assisting at a solemn act of justice; and they
came therefore to behold the tiger and the leopard tear the quivering
limb of the aged and the young, of the strong and the feeble, without a
desire to rescue the helpless, or to succour the brave.
⁂ Abridged from Menageries, vol. ii.
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Footnote 1:
Dion, lib. lix.
Footnote 2:
The Architectural Antiquities of Rome, by E. Cresy and G. L. Taylor: a
work of equal accuracy and splendour.
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