“Of all the ruins in Rome, none is at once so beautiful, so imposing, and so characteristic as the Colosseum.[4] Here throbbed the Roman heart in its fullest pulses. Over its benches swarmed the mighty population of the centre city of the world. In its arena, gazed at by a hundred thousand eager eyes, the gladiator fell, while the vast _velarium_ trembled as the air was shaken by savage shouts of ‘_Habet_,’ and myriads of cruel hands, with upturned thumbs, sealed his unhappy fate. The sand of the arena drank the blood of African elephants, lions, and tigers—of _Mirmilli_, _Laqueatores_, _Retiarii_, and _Andabatæ_—and of Christian martyrs and virgins. Here emperor, senators, knights, and soldiers, the lowest populace and the proudest citizens, gazed together on the bloody games, shouted together as the favourite won, groaned together fiercely as he fell, and startled the eagles sailing over the blue vault above with their wild cries of triumph. Here might be heard the trumpeting of the enraged elephant, the savage roar of the tiger, the peevish shriek of the grave-rifling hyena; while the human beasts above, looking on the slaughter of the lower beasts beneath, uttered a wilder and more awful yell. Rome—brutal, powerful, bloodthirsty, imperial Rome—built in its days of pride this mighty amphitheatre, and, outlasting all its works, it still stands, the best type of its grandeur and brutality. What St Peter’s is to the Rome of to-day, is the Colosseum to the Rome of the Cæsars. The baths of Caracalla, grand though they be, sink into insignificance beside it. The Cæsars’ palaces are almost level with the earth. Over the pavement where once swept the imperial robes now slips the gleaming lizard; and in the indiscriminate ruins of those splendid halls the _contadino_ plants his potatoes, and sells for a _paul_ the oxidised coin which once may have paid the entrance fee to the great amphitheatre. The golden house of Nero is gone. The very Forum where Cicero delivered his immortal orations is all but obliterated, and antiquarians quarrel over the few columns that remain. But the Colosseum still stands; despite the assault of time and the work of barbarians it still stands, noble and beautiful in its decay—yes, more beautiful than ever.” Footnote 4: