But he could not indulge incessantly in bacchanalian orgies; the jaded body needed some relaxative that could be found neither in sleep nor in such business that could not be delegated to a subordinate. There he regaled himself with the sight of blood. The huge structures erected for the gladiatorial combats testify to the Roman passion for these cruel sports. Every living creature that could be induced to fight was exhibited in the arena where men and women took equal delight in the bloody spectacle. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, sets forth in graphic colors the pomp and circumstance with which these horrible exhibitions were given. I cannot do better than to transcribe his words: “The gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of Roman society which to a modern mind is almost inconceivable in its atrocity. That not only men, but women, in an advanced period of civilization—men and women who not only professed, but very frequently acted upon, a high code of morals—should have made the carnage of men their habitual amusement; that all this should have continued for centuries, with scarcely a protest, is one of the most startling facts in moral history. It is, however, perfectly normal, and in no degree inconsistent with the doctrine of natural moral perceptions, while it opens out fields of ethical enquiry of a very deep, though painful interest.” “The mere desire for novelty impelled the people to every excess or refinement of barbarity. The simple combat became at last insipid, and every variety of atrocity was devised to stimulate the flagging interest. At one time a bear and a bull, chained together, rolled in fierce contest along the sand; at another, criminals dressed in the skins of wild beasts, were thrown to bulls, which were maddened by red-hot irons, or by darts tipped with burning pitch. Four hundred bears were killed in a single day under Caligula; three hundred on another day under Claudius. Under Nero, four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants; four hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished. Under Trajan, the games continued for one hundred and twenty-three successive days. Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and serpents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle. Nor was any form of human suffering wanting. The first Gordian, when edile, gave twelve spectacles, in each of which from one hundred and fifty to five hundred pair of gladiators appeared. Eight hundred pair fought at the triumph of Aurelian. Ten thousand men fought during the games of Trajan. Nero illumined his gardens during the night by Christians burning in their pitchy shirts. Under Domitian, an army of feeble dwarfs was compelled to fight, and more than once female gladiators descended to perish in the arena.”