beasts by rails, which had been finished off with amber and silver, but did not look very strong. The brute, which had thus shown ‘a wild trick of its ancestors,’ was soon overpowered, for the keeper was skilled in the use of the lasso. But this incident did but whet the appetite of the spectators for blood. They shouted to Pedanius to begin the _venatio_ and the wild-beast fights which formed the morning show. No expense had been spared to sate the insatiable cruelty of the mob. For an hour or two longer they were gratified with a prodigality of anguish. Ostriches and giraffes were chased round and round, and shot to death with arrows. Wild beasts fought with tame beasts and with wild beasts, and beasts with men. Bears, lions, and tigers were worried and hacked by armed _bestiarii_, and sometimes a _bestiarius_ in his turn lay rolling on the sand, crushed by a bear or torn by the fierce struggles of a panther. Lastly, some unskilled, defenceless criminals were turned loose into the amphitheatre amid a fresh batch of animals, infuriated by hunger and mad with excitement. None of the poor weaponless wretches--_sine armis, sine arte, seminudi_--could stand up for a moment against the bear’s hug or the tiger’s leaps. They stood in attitudes of despairing stupefaction, watching the horrible rolling gait of the bears, or the crouching of the tigers as they glared on them with yellow eyeballs and bristling manes, lashing their haunches with their tails, and at last, with a hoarse carnivorous roar, curving their backs for the final spring. The _venatio_ degenerated into a mere butchery meant to fill up the time.[78] All this was regarded as child’s play in comparison with the luxury of courage, skill, and massacre which was expected in the afternoon; but it was already too much for one of the spectators. This was the philosophic thaumaturge Apollonius of Tyana, who happened to be paying a brief visit to Pætus Thrasea. Thrasea had been compelled to be present, because he knew that everything which he did or failed to do was watched with deadly suspicion; and Apollonius had accompanied his host from a desire to see the strange animals which were to be exhibited. At first he had looked on with real delight and interest; but when he saw the noble creatures wantonly killed, his Greek instinct for the beautiful was disgusted. He had been shocked by the callousness with which the vast audience had recovered from its momentary fright when the two poor boys had been slain by the lions; but when he saw them shouting with delight while the arena was wet with the blood of mangled men and tortured beasts, he turned his back on the amphitheatre with disdain and horror, and whispered in the ear of his companion, ‘Rome is a Bacchante rolling in blood and mud.’