The cross, which the blind-man raised skywards, seemed to grow till it was four, five times as tall as the kneeling man. The galleries of the amphitheatre were deserted. The senators and vestal virgins vanished in smoke; the Sovereign of the World and his court were lost in thin air; every living creature was swallowed up in the yawning depths of a vast gulf. The splendid arcades were empty and silent, the marble and stucco facings dropped away from the pillars, clinking as they fell, till the rough masonry and brickwork of the main structure stood unadorned and bare. Nettles, darnel and ferns sprouted from every seam. Crows and daws fluttered in flocks from arch to arch, filling the air with melancholy croaking--but still, down there in the arena, the cross stood up on its stone plinth, the triumphant emblem of a despised faith, whose adherents were torn to pieces to feast lions and tigers by Caesar’s commands. Barbillus sat gazing at the awful picture, that his brain had raised, his eyes almost starting out of his head. He wanted to shriek, but he was speechless; only a choked rattle came from his lips, a groan of torture and terror. Utterly overpowered and bewildered, he covered his face with his robe. A roar of applause roused him from his trance, and he looked up once more. The hideous vision was gone. There sat Caesar on his purple throne, and the wind still flapped the waving screen. A hoarse growl resounded through the arena, the lion crouched for his spring, and in a moment was standing victorious over the body of his defenceless prey. Calenus was no more than a bleeding and lifeless mass. Barbillus rose from his seat, tottering and half-stunned; the ground seemed to burn under his feet. He hastily made his way out. "When, when is this vision to be fulfilled?"[152] he asked in his trembling soul. Then he rushed home, bolted himself up in his room, and wrote: “I, Barbillus, the priest of Isis, saw on the second day of the secular games, in the sixteenth year of Domitian, a wonderful vision--whether sent me by the gods (if gods there be), or a trick played me by some _daemon_. I thought I saw with these eyes things which were not there to be seen....” So he wrote, and told his story. In the Flavian Amphitheatre meanwhile--the Coliseum as it is now called--the bloody festival goes on--only interrupted for a while by the dinner-hour--till supper-time puts an end to it for to-day.[153] Tired and exhausted, but not yet satiated with blood, the Roman people withdraw to the triclinium, to discuss the incidents of the day over sparkling Falernian or the muddy liquor of Veii. All are looking forward to the morrow, for each day of this glorious festival is to be more delightful than the last.