317. Roman Festivals: Their Great Number.—One thing only, besides a long session of the Senate, ordinarily will keep men of the class of Publius Calvus away from the great thermæ—the celebration of one of the greater Public Games.

The Ludi Publici, around which so large a part of Roman life revolves, like the Pan-Hellenic games and similar Greek festivals, always have religious origin; they are in honor of some god or group of deities. But the secular has long intruded into their routine. Nobody worries greatly about the fact that the Ludi Apollinares are for the glory of Apollo, save perhaps as one adds an extra fervent invocation of the Delphian god during the placing of wagers. The time consumed by the Public Games represents a period of recreation and festival, which other ages will find in Sundays and Saints’ Days.

Altogether there are some 76 days per year normally set aside for these great Ludi Sollemnes, including such prolonged periods as those of the Ludi Romani or Magni which extend from September 4th to 18th, on a stretch, with several others for six days and more. When to these periods are added various extra or very special holidays, during which the ordinary life of the city is broken up, the courts are closed, and only the most necessary labors of commerce and industry are conducted, it is plain that the plebeians and even the slaves get pretty ample respite in their year of toil. Without attempting a close study of the official lists of holidays it is safe to say that the average Roman gains many more periods of lawful vacation than the laboring classes can enjoy in other ages,—another factor which tends to make the metropolis abound with idlers and parasites.

318. Passion for Public Spectacles: Mania for Gambling.—Besides the great public theaters, amphitheaters, and race courses (circuses) there are many smaller private establishments. Good money can be made from gladiator fights and chariot races, and they are often given by speculators, although more frequently in a provincial town than in Rome.

The passion for such spectacles and contests is incredible;—no “baseball” or “football” of another era can so monopolize the popular mind. The wagering on all kinds of contests is incessant in every insula, shop, or mansion, and, of course, ordinarily it is entirely lawful. Only the few select spirits cry out vainly against the passion, although Juvenal’s famous protest will echo across the centuries, “The Roman people who once gave commands, consulships, legions, and all else now yearn simply for two things—free bread and the Public Games!”

The government doubtless encourages this tendency. If the multitude is engrossed with the merits of two charioteers, so much less is the scrutiny upon strange doings at the Palatine; yet even excellent emperors give very elaborate spectacles as a kind of lawful tribute to the multitudes of that city which affords them their right to the purple. After the conquest of Dacia, Trajan celebrated his victory by giving contests which lasted 123 days, during which 10,000 wild and domestic animals were said to have been killed and 10,000 gladiators fought, although probably most of the latter were allowed to survive. So incessant in fact are the contests of some variety, that rare is the day when a thunderous roar does not reverberate over the city telling that the “Blue” or “Green” jockeys have won, or a favorite gladiator has plunged home his trident.

319. Expenses of Public Spectacles to Great Officials.—Naturally the cost of these contests is enormous. The presidency and supervision of them is distributed around among the magistrates, with the chief glories and burdens falling usually upon the consuls and prætors.[202] The State gives each official a respectable sum to pay for the spectacles, but this falls far short of the actual cost. The glory of presiding in the central box at the Flavian Amphitheater or Circus Maximus is so great that a magistrate is bound to sacrifice a good share of his entire patrimony in order to make a fine display, to win the “Ave!” of the populace, and to hold up his head among his noble rivals. When Hadrian was prætor, his kinsman, Trajan the Emperor, gave him personally 4,000,000 sesterces ($160,000) towards the cost of those games which the prætorship demanded.

Our Publius Calvus, with no imperial connection, deliberately saved and economized for years prior to his elevation to the prætorship, and during his term of office he spent almost as much energy in corresponding with a friend who was legatus of Numidia to get African leopards, and negotiating with certain racing interests to secure a very desirable jockey, as he did in settling a certain great lawsuit before his tribunal. One good set of chariot races can cost 400,000 sesterces ($16,000), and some of Calvus’s richer colleagues have found the prætors’ games coming to a dozen times as much. He congratulated himself, therefore, on getting out of office for about half their outlay; as it was he had to live very sparingly for the next two years, and sell off a villa.[203]

320. Indescribable Popularity of the Games.—Everybody in Rome attends the games. Once slaves were forbidden to be present, but that law had broken down several generations ago. Few are the masters that risk the unpopularity of refusing to let their familia frequent at least the more famous contests. The waiting litter bearers, the idling foot-boys, all the parasitical menials about the great mansions discuss every coming event most frantically and wager all the coppers which their masters give them upon the outcome, and their zeal is matched by the ragged plebeians who infest the fetid insulæ, or sleep under the porticoes.

Seemingly half of Rome exists only from one chariot or gladiator exhibition to another. Every contest is a display of social importance. The front seats are assigned to the magistrates, who occupy curule chairs in the order of their rank; there are other seats of honor for the senators, others directly behind them for the equites. If the Emperor is present, he sits in a special box (cubiculum), which Trajan with democratic condescension caused to be thrown wide open that all the spectators might see him.

These seats of honor are free, but the great multitude of well-to-do spectators are expected to purchase tickets for all the better ranges behind the tiers of the equites.[204] The prices ordinarily are low, but concerning these tickets there is a complaint not unknown in another age: that the box-officers (locarii) in charge buy up many reserved seats for the more popular games, then sell them over again at an outrageous advance. However, behind these reserved seats there are still a certain number of others thrown open free to the first comers, and behind these is a wide space where plebeians and slaves can stand as a gesticulating, shouting, steaming mass, gazing down on the spectacles below.

321. The Theater Less Popular than the Circus or Amphitheater.—The public exhibitions are three general kinds,—the theatrical performances, the circus races, and the gladiatorial combats.

For the great masses, the theater can never have the same vulgar appeal possessed by its two rivals; on the other hand some men of intelligence and rank do not hesitate to dismiss the latter as “for the mob” and affect a great contempt for charioteers and “Thracians.” Even the most sophisticated Romans, however, never are true Athenians. Tragedies dealing with profound human problems, such as won trophies for Æschylus and Sophocles, would fall absolutely flat beside the Tiber.[205] There is even a growing distaste for the better kind of comedies. What delights the Roman audience in the theater most is some kind of elaborate horseplay.

The stage as a rule is long and narrow, some 120 by 24 feet, and is raised only about three feet above the orchestra where a chorus can dance and parade.[206] The rear of the stage has a fixed background painted to represent the front of a palace; it is pierced by three doors, and is adorned with columns and niches for the inevitable statues of the Muses, of Apollo, and of like deities. A large curtain, not dropped from above but rolled up from the bottom, can uncover the most amazing spectacles upon this stage. Long ago Horace complained of how a Roman audience would depart discontented if the play did not require in its middle “either a bear or a boxing match.” For four hours and more the curtain is “kept down” while “squadrons of horse and bodies of foot are seen flying, while luckless kings with hands tied behind their backs and chariots of all kinds and even ships go hurrying along, and while spoils of ivory and Corinthian brass are borne by in state.”

There are, however, two kinds of performances more certain to crowd the theater than these very cheap spectacular plays—they are the mimes and pantomimes.

322. The Mimes: Character Plays.—The mimes are a native Latin product, although they have a certain kinship with the Greek “New Comedy.” They are character plays of everyday life without the actors’ masks and buskins; and they are always coarse, vulgar, and in the nature of roaring farces. The language is often exceedingly gross and the situations frequently match the language. The actors wear a kind of harlequin costume, extremely grotesque, and along with the chief mimus, who takes the leading part, there is usually a second actor who draws thunderous applause from the upper benches. He is the strepidus or parasitus, a kind of pantaloon, a clown with puffed cheeks and shaven head, who has to stand a great amount of boisterous slapping from the chief actor.

Other parts can be taken by women, who are forbidden to appear on the stage in “legitimate” tragedy and comedy. Often the dances and postures of these actresses are indescribably vulgar, and their reputation for easy conduct is too well established. For all that, their presence brings unsteady youths to the theaters like flies, and affairs with actresses are quite normal things with a type of young bloods. Once Cicero was defending a free and easy client, a certain Plancus. “He’s accused of having run off with an actress?” declared the advocate. “Why that’s just an amusement excellently sanctioned by custom!”

The stories portrayed by the mimes correspond with their general character:—a robber chief befooling the clumsy constables sent to take him, a lover surprised by the return of a jealous husband and forced to hide in a large box, a beggar who suddenly stumbles into a fortune, a descent into the world of ghosts, episodes revolving around the introduction of a very clever trained dog, etc. Some of the acting is of high order, but there are few mimes which do not abound in lines and situations extremely gross,—for all that the open-air theaters are packed from morn until sunset.

323. The Pantomimes: Their Real Art.—All considered, the pantomimes represent a higher degree of art. Here we have only one actor, who, with the aid of a chorus and a great orchestra of lutes and lyres, undertakes to tell a whole story merely by his dancing and rhythmic motions. A really great pantomimus wins and deserves the favor of highly cultivated aristocrats. Pylades and Bathyllus in Augustus’s day had the fashionable world practically at their feet, and Paris was one of the prime intimates of Nero.

The greater the skill the fewer the words that need to be spoken; the chanting of the chorus while the pantomimus is changing his costumes giving hint enough of the characters he is portraying. The music, florid and descriptive, keeps the audience in mood for the dancing. All sorts of subjects can thus be portrayed, including those of old Greek tragedies, the actor slipping from one character to another with consummate art:—now he is Agamemnon, now Clytemnestra, now Orestes. He can take male or female parts alternately, delineate the deepest passions, and tell a whole story with what his admirers call his “speaking hands,” and his “eloquence of dancing.”

To see a great pantomimus, clad perhaps in fleshings of soft light red Canunian wool, setting off perfectly his graceful figure, dance through the story of how Achilles disguised as a maiden was discovered by Ulysses and summoned away to the Trojan War, is a joy to the most sophisticated and intellectual. The dancer can take many parts—the fair youth concealed in the palace of Lycomedes, the embassy of Ulysses and Diomedes, the young warrior betraying himself by his interest in the helmet and cuirass concealed in the mass of gifts intended for women;—the whole impersonation in short may be wonderful.

Not all the dances, however, are so innocent. Many of the coarsest stories in Græco-Roman mythology are acted out on the stage, and the grosser they are often the louder the applause of the groundlings. Nevertheless, the leading pantomimi rightly have the entrée to lordly houses, enjoy great incomes, and are among the most admired personages in Rome. They are outdistanced, however, by two sets of more vulgar rivals—the charioteers and the gladiators.

324. Extreme Popularity of the Circus.—When a series of superior contests is announced for the Circus all Rome seems to become racing mad. Words fail to describe the excitement, the tense discussion of the charioteers and their fours, the wave of betting from the inner Palatine to the most sordid insula, and then the exuberant joy or immoderate grief over the results.

Superior folk try in vain to appear disdainful of these contests. Thus Pliny the Younger has recorded his deep disgust that “so many thousands of men should be eager, like a pack of children, to see horses running time after time with the charioteers bending over their cars.” “The multitude,” he asserted, “were not interested in the speed of the teams or the skill of the drivers, but solely in the ‘racing colors.’” “If in the middle of the race (he added) the colors were changed, the enthusiasm of the spectators would change with them, and they would suddenly desert the drivers and horses whom they now recognized afar and whose names they shouted aloud. Such is the influence and authority vested in one cheap tunic!”

325. Popular Charioteers (Aurigæ): the Great Racing Factions.—It is all very well to write this, but neither Pliny nor anybody else can prevent the greatest charioteers from enjoying temporary incomes surpassing those of a majority of the senators. Many of these lucky aurigæ are Moors, dark-skinned, hawk-eyed rascals, with sharp white teeth and sinews of iron; but a considerable sprinkling of them are Spaniards, as was that Diocles, whose heirs proudly recorded on his tombstone that in a professional career of twenty-four years he drove in 4257 races, and conquered 1462 times, with total winnings of nearly 36 million sesterces (say $1,440,000). He, however, was not the most fortunate—there are drivers on record who boast of at least 3500 victories, though, of course, many of these were probably won in the provinces.

No sport will ever be more thoroughly standardized and professionalized than that of the chariot races in Rome. When a magistrate or other seeker for applause decides to give a series of contests he appeals to the great circus syndicates (“factions”). There were originally only the Red and the White; then the Blue and the Green have been added, and finally the Purple and the Gold. Each faction maintains huge racing stables with expert drivers, grooms, trainers, and veterinaries, as well as many superb “fours” of horses.

The donor of the games has to arrange with these organizations how many contests he will require, each “faction” entering a chariot in each race. Ten races a day is the minimum; twenty-four the ordinary maximum. After the contracts have been signed and the programs posted all over the city, anxious days follow for all concerned to insure an honest race. The wagering is always so general and so reckless, that infinite precautions are needful to keep the horses from being drugged, the drivers from being bribed to throw the contests, or (if they prove incorruptible) the charioteers from being poisoned enough to make them lose. The tricks of the race-track will simply endure across the ages.

326. The Circus Maximus.—After such preparations and excitement no wonder that people complain that the Circus Maximus is sometimes too small. This long narrow depression between the Palatine and Aventine has provided an excellent natural race course since the days of the Tarquins. At first the slopes of the hills were simply lined with crude wooden benches. By Julius Cæsar’s time many of these benches were made of stone, and in all could seat at least 150,000 spectators. After a great fire in 36 A.D. Claudius presently rebuilt the whole structure so there are now seats, partly of marble and partly of wood; and Trajan added still more tiers and more marble ornaments. At present the Circus Maximus covers the enormous area of 600 by 2000 feet, and it is declared that there is at least standing room, if not seats, for 385,000 spectators—a good fraction of the entire adult population of Rome.[207]

327. The Race-Track: Procession before the Races.—Inasmuch as horse races are not peculiar to the Imperial Age let a brief description of the Great Circus and its contests suffice. The long reaches of seats are, of course, portioned off to give the senators and equites the coigns of vantage. There is a lofty imperial box (pulvinar) on the northern side leading directly down from the Palatine. Here the Emperor and his suite can refresh themselves, and from a wide terrace command a marvelous view over the long area of the immense hippodrome.

Down the center of this area runs its central “backbone” (spina), forming a long low wall separating the outward and inward tracks, adorned with an unusually elaborate set of statues, columns upholding trophies, and even with one or two tapering obelisks imported from Egypt. In a kind of open pavilion at either end of the spina can be seen seven huge marble eggs and as many marble dolphins. One of each of these will be removed as each lap is finished, there being seven laps normally in every race.

The great yellow race-track on gala occasions can be sprinkled with some powerful perfumes, and with glittering particles of mica or with red lead. When at last the multitudes have gathered, the contestants enter in solemn procession by the Triumphal Gate at the extreme eastern end of the Circus, and ahead of the array of chariots first of all there goes the magistrate giving the games, himself in a magnificent car and surrounded by a brilliant hedge of attendants on horse and foot. Very likely he is then followed by certain priestly colleges in pontifical vestments, by statues of deities piously borne on gilded litters, by bands of trumpeters and harpists raising their clangor, and then last, but not least, come the racing cars themselves.

328. Beginning a Race in the Circus.—The master of the games takes his seat in the podium, the center of the reserved benches near the end of the track. The chariots disappear in the great line of carceres, “prison houses,” the carefully closed stalls at the western end of the Circus. After due waiting, fidgeting, chattering, wagering along the mountainous slopes of the benches, all the trumpets blow together. Silence for an instant grips the tens of thousands, while the president rises in his lodge and waves out a broad mappa, a white cloth visible far up and down the entire circus.

Instantly the doors of the carceres fly open; the six chariots[208] dash forth at full bound. The aurigæ, in tight-fitting tunics of the colors of their factions, stand erect in the light cars, the reins looped around their waists, snapping the loose ends over the flying horses. Instantly they have dashed to the three tall pillars of the nearer goal (meta), and only by miraculous chance is a disastrous collision avoided at the outset. Then the whole circus rises and shouts together. The familiar figure of Scorpus the Moor, a brown giant in the tunic of the Greens, shoots ahead. His magnificent quadriga of bays have taken the wall at one leap. The flying dust cloud, as the other five cars dash after him, almost dims the sight of the race. The noise from the benches is deafening. The backers of the trailing cars are in an agony.

329. Perils of the Races; Proclaiming the Victors.—Scorpus’s chariot whirls around the lower goal like lightning and comes tearing back on the opposite track, while each one of the balls and dolphins is removed to indicate the progress of the race. The other cars press hard; and as the teams gather speed it is a marvel how the drivers keep their stand with the cars leaping hither and thither under them, their wheels barely touching the flying track.[209]

Five times around they go, with Scorpus gallantly maintaining his lead. Then at the sixth turn the “Gold” driver reins too sharply. His chariot crashes over in a complete somersault, but, by a desperate maneuver just as he is thrown, he whips out the knife held ready in his belt and cuts the reins about his waist. By a miracle he is flung out sprawling upon the yielding sands, yet escapes death under the car racing just behind. The spectators, therefore, escape the brutal and familiar sight of an auriga trampled or crushed to death by the rushing chariots and horses. Meantime Scorpus losing not an instant has hurried again past the upper goal; a frantic attempt by Cresconius, the “Red” driver just behind, fails to head his steeds, and amid a deafening tumult he sweeps past the president of the games to victory.

The official jubilatores immediately stride out into the track crying with loud voice the name of the winner, and the news is soon flying all over the city. Nay, some of the outlying towns are speedily informed of the general results, for a certain sports-loving senator has come with a cage of homing pigeons, each colored to match one of the factions. The instant Scorpus is acclaimed, green pigeons are released to tell all the gamblers in Ostia and Præneste that the “Green” cars have won the first round.

After the noise has subsided, the trumpets blow again, another set of chariots is ready and the whole excitement is repeated. So the contests keep up through the day. If there is a long interval between the races, rope-dancers, acrobats, and trick-riders are ready to amuse the populace. Probably at the end there will be the crowning and decisive race between the winners of the preceding contests. If Scorpus can triumph in this also, he will carouse with his companions, doubtless more praised and fêted for one glad night than even the Emperor.

330. Gladiatorial Contests Even More Popular than the Circus.—Yet Scorpus with all his adulation and ephemeral wealth turns green with jealousy toward a rival for fame—the victorious gladiator in the last combats in the Flavian. The sports of the arena perhaps excite greater favor with the mob, betting more reckless, passions more frantic than do even the contests of the Circus.

The gladiatorial games are peculiar to Roman civilization; nothing exactly like them will follow in later ages.[210] They illustrate completely the pitiless spirit and carelessness of human life lurking behind the pomp, glitter, and cultural pretensions of the great imperial age. True it is that persons of intellectual tastes sometimes affect greater contempt for these contests than they do for the Circus. “No doubt the gladiators,” such men as Seneca write to one another, “are criminals deserving their fate, but what have you done to deserve being compelled to witness their last agonies?” No matter; nothing will gain “popularity” for a ruler or for a magnate sooner than announcing a fight in the arena.

The very best Emperors arrange elaborate series of combats—perhaps with a sigh in their hearts, as colossal and bloody bribes which must be thrown constantly to the mob; and Imperator, great officials, senators, priests, nay, the Vestal Virgins themselves, will all be on hand in the reserved front benches. There is even given out a philosophical justification for the butcheries, namely, that the spectators become hardened to the sight of death and are, therefore, the more courageous when their own hour comes. The reigning Hadrian considers the arena combats to be useful also for keeping up the military spirit; in short the whole Latin half of the Empire delights in them, although they never have become very popular in the Greek portion.[211]

331. Gladiator Fights at Funerals.—Gladiatorial fights claim an Etruscan origin, and in Rome they were first exhibited at funerals of the great, possibly with the idea that the spirits of the slain would serve the dead lord in the underworld. It is still very fashionable to give a sizable gladiator fight as the aftermath of any pretentious funeral, but this is perhaps more common in the provincial towns than in Rome, where the government likes to control such martial spectacles.

We actually hear of the populace of one small city that would not let the funeral procession of a distinguished lady proceed through the gates until her husband had promised them some public combats. Pliny the Younger’s friend Maximus presented a gladiator fight to the citizens of Verona “in honor of his most estimable wife,” a native of the place, but the exhibition was not quite a success because “on account of bad weather the numerous African panthers he had bought failed to arrive on the expected day.”

332. Gladiator “Schools” (Ludi): Inmates Usually Criminals.—There are four great imperial “schools” (ludi) of gladiators in Rome maintained as public institutions. These can be drawn upon for the regular public games; but there are plenty of private “schools” maintained by speculators who can often supply quite as good fighters.

If, as a magistrate, or as a bereaved kinsman or widower, you decide to give some combats, and if your purse is full, the rest is easy. You merely contract with the lanista (keeper and trainer of a school) for so many contests upon specified terms; although, in really pretentious affairs, gladiators from several rival schools can be pitted together—this adds to the excitement. When the fight is over the free gladiators are paid off, the slave fighters are returned to their owners and indemnification is given the owners of the slain—all on set business terms. There is great expense in training good gladiators and slain champions cannot fight again; and this solid fact often prevents combats from being too destructive, while wounded survivors may be carefully nursed just as a sick race horse may be cared for.

Anybody will tell us that no pity need be wasted on gladiators. Many a low-born criminal is dragged from the præfect’s court with a relieved grin on his felonious countenance; the magistrate has not ordered “To the cross with him!” but merely “Train him for the amphitheater.” Many an incorrigible slave has been sold to a lanista by his master instead of being promptly whipped to death.

Not a few unfortunate prisoners of war and kidnapped persons, however, if they have stout physiques, find their way also to the lanistæ instead of to the ordinary slave markets, and brutal masters will sometimes sell perfectly innocent slaves if the latter appear likely to make good swordsmen. On the other hand many plebeians of the baser sort are caught by the glitter and glory of the arena, and submit voluntarily to the discipline of the “schools,” while under the tyrannous emperors even men claiming noble rank have fought upon the sands to truckle to the whims of an evil Cæsar.

333. Severe Training of Gladiators; Their Ephemeral Glory.—The lanistæ’s discipline is terribly severe, as is perhaps needful considering the wretches placed under it. The gladiators are kept in prison-like barracks. Nothing is omitted to brutalize them and to make their whole life center around mere skill with their weapons. They are fed upon great quantities of meat. Cruel floggings follow the least breach of discipline, and in every ludus is a lock-up, with a long line of stocks and shackles, which never wants its many occupants.

On the other hand many a stupid wretch is made to forget the doom probably awaiting him in the next combats, by dreaming of the glories promised a truly successful gladiator. If he can emerge victorious from a series of combats, he is more talked of than even the most daring charioteer; great nobles will visit his quarters to watch his training and feel of his muscles; his owners will do everything to pamper such a valuable piece of property; innumerable women, even among the silken-robed clarissimæ, will dote upon him; and perhaps he can actually elope with a senator’s wife.

Not merely the youths but all the girls in Rome will sing the champion’s praises and dream of his valor. He will be named in countless wall-scribblings as “The Maiden’s Sigh,” “The Glory of the Girls,” “The Lord of the Lasses,” or “The Doctor (medicus) of the Little Darlings.”[212] If he has lost an ear, if his face is one mass of disfiguring scars, the women run after him all the more. “Never mind that,” scolds Juvenal, “he is a gladiator.”

The end of this glory ordinarily comes speedily and tragically, but sometimes the very fortunate and skilful fighter will win such favor that, at the popular demand, the giver of the games will present him with a wooden sword—the token of honorable discharge. If he is not a slave-criminal, he can now quit the ludus with plenty of money and a merry life before him, but the taint of his “profession” will always stick to him. He can never become a Roman citizen, much less can he be enrolled as an eques whatever the extent of his wealth.

334. Normal Arrangements for an Arena Contest.—Strictly speaking the amphitheater is used for two kinds of entertainments—wild beast hunts (venationes) and direct combats between men. Each form is extremely popular, although human gore appears a little cheap and ordinary compared with that of an expensive tiger, panther, or lion. It always makes a hit with the crowd to turn, for example, a tigress and a fierce bull-elephant loose on the sands and watch the two brutes rend one another.

It is true nevertheless that nothing can really take the place of a sustained combat between two thoroughly trained pupils of the “schools.” Ordinarily the management will have the hunts in the morning at the amphitheater and the human contests in the afternoon. That will send the myriads away happily satiated after a day spent amid the perpetual sniff of gore.

No scene visited in our prolonged “day” in Rome can be more repellent to non-Roman tastes than that of the amphitheater, but to complete the picture it must not be omitted, although horrid deeds will be dismissed with few words and still less of moralizing. Publius Calvus’s friend, Decimus Cluentius, this year is Prætor. He is a wealthy senator and has been saving money carefully for “his games.” He has already made a good public impression by his program of races in the Circus; now he will “add to the luster of his fame” by a day of contests in the Flavian. Already the notice writers have distributed the list of the gladiators that he has engaged, in every eating-house and wine-room in the city.

The impression thus made has been excellent: “Cluentius is living up to his riches. Many of his gladiators are freemen—the finest blades, no running away, the kind of fellows that will stand right up and be butchered in mid-arena. Besides, he’s been lucky enough to get from the præfect a farm steward who was caught insulting his master’s wife—a good dinner for the lions. These fights won’t be as when that miserly Norbanus exhibited—his gladiators were such a cowardly, feeble lot they’d have fallen flat if you breathed on ’em.”[213]

335. The Flavian Amphitheater (Later “Colosseum”).—Such an exhibition can only be held in the Flavian Amphitheater, the vast structure known to later ages as the “Colosseum.” In Republican days gladiator fights were held in the open Forum or in the Circus, but these were ill-adapted for the purpose. To see the fine points of the combats the audience must be concentrated around the contestants as closely as possible; hence the “amphitheater”—an immense oval of seats looking down upon a central arena.

The building of such a quantity of seats out of permanent materials is very expensive and wooden structures were largely used until about 70 A.D., when Vespasian and Titus began their vast “Flavian” (dedicated in 80 A.D. by an enormous beast hunt), now among the chief wonders of Rome. Common report has it that thousands of Titus’s Jewish captives had to toil first on the masonry and then for the most part to lose their lives fighting one another in the opening games.

To avoid prolixity any description of this vast structure must be very brief: it stands an oval cylinder, its outer major diameter 620 feet; and the greatest diameter of its inner arena 287. Its innumerable blocks of travertine are bound together by metal clamps; the exterior is faced with marble and adorned with hundreds more of those statues which populate Rome. The structure rises 157 feet in four stories. The lower three of these tiers are composed each of a series of eighty arches backed by piers. In the first story the flanking columns are Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian. The fourth story has no arches but merely windows and pilasters of the “composite” order. Between these upper pilasters project stone brackets which hold lofty wooden masts for the great awnings that stretch over the arena. These masts and awnings (red, blue, and yellow) when spread out under a brilliant sky, make the Flavian look somewhat like an enormous galley under a cloud of sail—the effect, of course, being heightened by the sheen of the marbles of the exterior and the garish paint and gilding covering the statues.

336. Exterior and Ticket Entrances to the Flavian Amphitheater.—Outside of the Amphitheater is a wide circular area whereon converge many thoroughfares. This open space is scattered with huckster’s booths and with small ticket stands much like those around many amusement places in another age.[214] Here one can place wagers, purchase programs for the day, obtain food to consume between the events, and very probably buy or hire cushions in case the stone benches prove too hard.

Also on the outside and close to the foot of the main structure runs a high wooden palisade. This is to aid in controlling the crowds. You go in at one or two entrances, showing your tickets, then circle the masonry until you reach one of the staircases, located under every fourth arch, and next you can promptly mount to your reserved seat in one of the seventy-six sub-sections (cunei).

337. Interior Arrangements of the Flavian.—Once inside, the admirable arrangements of the structure impress the visitor no less than its enormous mass. Everything converges upon the central arena; even from the topmost seats one can see all the details of the contests below. The seats are divided into three great terraces, so easily accessible by the stairways and corridors that the fifty thousand spectators can pass in and out with the minimum of confusion. The lowest tiers, made of marble and comfortably cushioned, are reserved here as elsewhere for the senators; and for the editor (the giver of the contests), his fellow magistrates, the chief priests, and the Vestal Virgins, there are seats of peculiar honor directly upon the podium, the crest of the twelve-foot wall girding the arena;—seats which are protected alike from chance missiles and from the leap of desperate beasts by a heavy trellis-work of gilded metal.

Above this podium like the billows of a frozen ocean rise the enormous tiers of masonry seats; first those for the equites, then the great mass for the paying spectators, then the space crowded with wooden benches for the slaves and least select plebeians. An open gallery runs around the entire summit of the benches and here alone, by a restriction doubtless often lamented, women are allowed to watch the contests from afar, unless they are Vestal Virgins or ladies of the Imperial family, with the special privilege of the podium.

All the arches, stairways, sections, and tiers are numbered. If you have a ticket, it may read “VIth section (cuneus), lowest row, seat No. 18,” marked upon a round or flat piece of bone. The attendants are lynx-eyed for impostors, but legitimate visitors are quickly seated. A detachment of sailors from the fleet of Misenum shifts the enormous awnings so that the thousands[215] can sit comfortably in the shade while a full blaze of sunlight falls on the arena.

By the middle of the morning the multitudes are in place; Cluentius the Prætor, with full official magnificence, is in the central box of the podium; and strong detachments of Prætorians have been quietly distributed in certain half-concealed guard inclosures near the lower railing—for gladiators have been known to mutiny and desperate lions can leap very high.

338. Procession of Gladiators.—Presently now trumpets and cymbals announce the procession which files through one of the four gates leading directly into the arena. The gladiators, some forty in number, march two and two, nearly naked save for their glistening armor; knitted foreheads, white teeth, wolfish scowls, magnificent physiques are displayed by all of them. From far up the applauding benches they can be recognized, and many favorite retiarii and Thraces are met with a storm of cheering.

The company marches solemnly down the arena led by an enormous lanista, one of their trainers, the scarred hero of all the youth of Rome. Before Cluentius on the podium they halt and flourish their weapons defiantly. Everybody knows that they have just taken their fearful oath “to be bound, to be burned, to be scourged, to be slain, and to endure all else required of them as proper gladiators, giving up alike their souls and their bodies.”[216]

339. Throwing a Criminal to the Beasts. The Animal Hunt.—However, the contests do not begin immediately; there is a preliminary spectacle in store. The Prætor’s friend, the City Præfect, most luckily has handed over to him a vicious freedman caught maltreating his patron’s lady. The wretch, of course, deserves death:—how proper, therefore, that he can be made to amuse more honest folk by his very exit! Into the middle of the arena they lead him, a pitiful gibbering object, half-dead already with fright. The guards strike off his fetters, thrust a cheap sword into his hands, and themselves hastily retire into one of the numerous caged chambers lining the arena. A tense stillness for an instant holds the Flavian.

Suddenly the rattle of chains is heard. In the very center of the sands (part of which are over wooden substructures) the arena opens; a cage appears lifted by pulleys, and then is opened by some mechanism. Forth bounds a tawny lion, lashing his tail and growling with hunger and rage. The unskilled victim has been given a sword with the vain promise that if he can actually kill the lion his own life will be spared. His chances are infinitesimal, but a few desperadoes have thus actually saved themselves.

Will the prisoner fight? To the infinite disgust of the thousands he collapses upon the sands in sheer terror before the lion can so much as strike him. The beast finishes his life almost instantly. The multitude hoot and curse—they have been cheated of their passionate desire to see a human victim struggling in desperate combat with the great beast. Fortunately, they remind themselves, this is only the beginning of the performance.

If one need not moralize, one need not linger. After the sacrifice of the criminal there are more beasts turned loose in the arena. Of course, no Prætor can be expected to show the hundreds of animals which an Emperor will exhibit in his greater games, but Cluentius has done the thing very respectably. He has in all ten bears, eighteen panthers, five lions, and six tigers.

First the animals are goaded on to fight one with another. A bear is torn to death by a lion, but kills the lion in a last mortal hug. Then the trumpet sounds—some of the gladiators rush into the arena. The arena is now covered with frightened, snarling, reckless beasts. Even with keen weapons and skill, it is desperate work to slay them. One fine young German slips as a tiger bounds on him. His life is crushed out at the very foot of the editor’s stand. One panther, driven frantic, with a terrific leap almost clears the trellis directly before a Vestal Virgin; there is a general scream and recoil from the podium as the luckless beast drops back upon the spear of a hunter.

340. Interval in the Contests: Scattering of Lottery Tickets.—At last the venatio is over. All the beasts have been killed with reasonable skill, and barring only the German, with no accidents. It is now noon and a comfortable intermission follows. Food has been brought by many, or is passed about by hawkers. Cluentius, with great condescension, remains in the editor’s seat, and dines in public so that everybody present can go home boasting merrily, “We have been to prandium with the Prætor!”[217]

After hunger has been appeased the spectators begin to grow restive. It is the immemorial privilege of the crowds to shout out whatever they wish in the Circus or Amphitheater. An unpopular Commissioner of the Grain Supply is seen rising in the podium; instantly the great awning quakes with the hootings. There is even a volley of date and olive stones; when, luckily for the Commissioner, the Prætor orders the attendants to begin scattering lottery tickets along the benches.