Rome swarms with all peoples. Its base is Italian, but it attracts the people of all nations--Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Russians, are very common. The Anglo-Saxon party, guide-book in hand, is still staring at the ruins of ancient Rome. The war has intervened, but it looks as if the tourist, engrossed in his "Baedeker" had been doing the same every day all these years. The post card vendors and would-be guides still fret round the old monuments like crows. They alone disturb the equanimity of the old men and middle-aged ladies who love Rome most. For the lovers of Rome look at those wonderful columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan with whole histories in spiral processionals climbing upwards to the pinnacle of fame--and their thoughts are not on these times. Mightiest of the ruins of Rome is certainly that of the Colosseum, symbol of the decay of a great people debauched by their lusts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity--a mighty stone structure of great height and massivity, with tier upon tier of galleries where could be accommodated surely all the Rome of its day. There is no other place like it--with its two hundred and forty arched entrances, and its cages and prisons. It is vast and cruel and vain even now. All the circles glare down into the empty arena. Imagine a festival at the Albert Hall when that little fragile building is packed from the expensive fringe of the stalls and the boxes to the mysterious height of the gallery, then magnify many times, and change wood into hewn rock, and take off the roof, and give Roman air and sunlight, and change the character and dress of the people, and make them lust for blood and for strange sights, and give voices to their bellies and violent animation and excitability to their limbs and their features, and you have the Roman amphitheatre, built to be a butchering-place for Christians and captives of war, an arena for gladiators and a place of circuses.