Emperor, except for the purpose of showing his skill, whether it was the man or the beast that escaped unhurt. One hundred lions were next let loose, and one hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the arena. Neither the bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could save them from his aim.

Such were the entertainments of the Romans. But again,— when the gladiator had fought bravely, and endured his wounds, showing no fear of death, if the spectators desired to save his life, they held up their thumbs; if not satisfied, they turned them down, and he died! When the fight was over, a river of water was sent from the aqueducts through the arena, to wash away the blood spilled!

Such were the bloody spectacles and enjoyments of the greatest, the proudest, and the bravest nation of heathen antiquity.

The

The Romans were particularly fond of commemorating their great men. They did that in different ways:-one was by triumphal arches, of which several stand to this day. Those who have seen the arch in the park in London may form an idea of what they were, For example, according to Scripture, after Titus destroyed Jerusalem, we find a triumphal arch erected to him; and the very spoils torn from the Temple are described in marble upon that arch. serenity of the climate, and the fact that they had no coal, preserved the beauty of the marble; the arches stand as white and perfect to-day as they did when built. The Romans placed those arches at the most striking points of the city; and you may well conceive how much they added to its beauty. Again, they subdued Egypt, and there found amongst others an obelisk covered with hieroglyphics, engraved about the time of Moses. This immense mass of stone they

bore away in the reign of Augustus from the place in which it stood, opposite the Temple of the Sun, at Heliopolis, and, having constructed a ship that could carry it, they brought

the honor of

it to Rome in triumph, and erected it there to their emperor and in ornament of their city. It stands to this day in Rome, placed in a commanding position, so as to be seen from two or three different streets; and as no other city, save Paris, possesses an Egyptian obelisk, it is an object of the greatest interest to the traveller.

And now let me say a word about their tombs. These were very peculiar; a few are still extant. In ancient times they buried a hero as he ought to be buried. Not very long ago, the tomb of Scipio was discovered, and as all such discoveries create the greatest interest in Italy, the ornaments found were taken out and put in the great Museum. The sarcophagus of Scipio was placed in the Vatican. It was found to consist of peperino stone, and had upon it the simplest inscription, exactly showing to us what the Roman people were in the days of their virtue and their freedom. We have standing likewise a little pyramid erected to one Caius Cestius. How did that happen to be preserved? When there was a Gothic invasion, resisted by the great Belisarius, in repairing the defences, he came to the little pyramid and built it into the wall; there it remains to the present day, a structure which is not likely to suffer by the lapse of time. There is another tombstone of a very different kind, but of a very interesting character; it is that of Eurysaces, the baker. That he was an ordinary baker, I do not believe; but that he was a very good baker, I am quite sure; and as the Roman citizens liked pure water, they were likewise resolved to have pure bread. This gentleman's tomb is of a very large size; and instead of a futile, frivolous inscription, he had carved around it, in figures that have proved imperishable, the whole operation of making

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THE CITY OF ROME AND ITS VICISSITUDES.

the bread, from the very beginning of the operation until weighed out honestly to the customers.

There is, at a little distance from the Campagna, on which poets have written so many verses, (for there is nothing in Rome which has not been the subject of poetical inspiration), the tomb of Cecilia Metella, a lady for whom her husband entertained such an affection, that he determined she should never be forgotten. Accordingly he built to her memory a Martello Tower: there it stands, not like our Irish Martello Towers, to puzzle posterity, but to explain to us what a high opinion her husband had of the virtuous woman whose memory he thus preserved in stone.

The tombs of the Emperors were grand and magnificent in the extreme, but the Castle of St. Angelo, which you hear so much of at the present day, and into which the Popes fly for refuge when in trouble, was nothing but the tomb of an Emperor. The Emperor Hadrian built it, with an entrance to it through which triumphal chariots could pass-its chambers were covered round with paintings, originally brighter and more splendid than they now appear. That which is at this moment a castle, and was a tomb, contained, on the day I visited it, four or five hundred prisoners.

Vastness, grandeur, prodigious labor, marked all the public works of the Romans, and so with everything they did, because they were determined their works should endure.

CHAPTER II.

ANCIENT Romans-Habits of the Citizens-Roman Roads-St. Paul in Rome-Influence of Christianity on Rome-Constantine-The Patriarchs of Constantinople-The Goths and Vandals-Church of Rome in Eighth Century-The Battle of the Images-The Eastern and Western Schism-The Battle of the Popes.

Now, having noticed their games, their sports, and their public buildings, it may be asked what were the habits of the citizens? what was their character with all those enjoyments provided for them? They became the most corrupt, profligate, and utterly contemptible populace that ever lived on the face of the earth! The Roman citizens, as they called themselves, became by degrees so debased and so enslaved, that they admired most that emperor who gave them the largest share of public entertainments-who provided them with such spectacles as I have described gratis. They flocked out to their games in the morning; they then resorted to the baths, which they enjoyed at the cost of about one farthing of our money; they then went to the granaries and received a certain portion of corn for nothing; and thus became, not the industrious citizens of a free state, but the depraved slaves of despotic tyrants! So it would be at this moment in our country if, instead of honest wages, laboriously earned by men who respect themselves, and who are respected by others, the State undertook to support every man who hears me, and he were told to do nothing but run about the city and ask the news from morning till night. Unless such men were paragons of virtue, they would become the most contemptible beings in creation.

The gardens of the Romans were sometimes of uncommon magnificence. The garden of Sallust, so called, consisted of spacious grounds, in which were towers, and obelisks, and lakes, and statues-on which the wealth of the world would appear to have been spent. The very man who planned that garden writes a history, in which he describes the vices of the Romans; and the critic upon that historian asserts that he practised the vices he denounced. The entertainments of the Romans were magnificent. Sometimes the scale of a supper depended upon the room in which they supped. Lucullus was so expensive a man that Cicero and Pompey determined to find out in what style he supped. Accordingly, they met him one day, and said to him-" Lucullus, we will sup with you to-night." "Very well," said he, "but you will allow me to fix the apartment in which supper shall be served." They did not understand him, but assented. Accordingly, he named the apartment, and, to their amazement, a supper was served up of uncommon magnificence. "What,” they said, "do you sup in this way when alone?" He left them in doubt for a time, but in the end informed them that the scale of the supper depended merely upon the apartment in which he thought fit to enjoy his banquet! No wonder that such a nation, about the period of the Christian era, should be trembling to its fall, because, as I have said, industry was abandoned in the city, the provinces were plundered, while profligacy, corruption, and luxury overpowered the morals and virtues of the rulers and the people.

The ancient Romans made their public roads in a way that no modern pavior could imitate: for example, I find that the Censor Appius made a road-the Appian Way,-and those who travelled upon it, 900 years after it was made, found that not a single stone was displaced, not the slightest break had occurred in the pavement laid down by that incom