“The Coliseo,” says Dupaty, “is unquestionably the most admirable monument of the Roman power under the Cæsars. From its vast circuit, from the multitude of stones of which it is formed, from that union of columns of every order, which rise up one above the other, in a circular form, to support three rows of porticoes; from all the dimensions, in a word, of this prodigious edifice, we instantly recognise the work of a people, sovereigns of the universe, and slaves of an emperor. I wandered long around the Coliseo, without venturing, if I may so say, to enter it: my eyes surveyed it with admiration and awe. Not more than one half of this vast edifice at present is standing; yet the imagination may still add what has been destroyed, and complete the whole. At length I entered within its precincts. What an astonishing scene! What contrasts! What a display of ruins, and of all the parts of the monument, of every form, every age, and, as I may say, every year; some bearing the marks of the hand of time, and others of the hand of the barbarian. These crumbled down yesterday, those a few days before, a great number on the point of falling, and some, in short, which are falling from one moment to another. Here we see a tottering portico, there a falling entablament, and further on, a seat; while, in the meanwhile, the ivy, the bramble, the moss, and various plants, creep amongst these ruins, grow, and insinuate themselves; and, taking root in the cement, are continually detaching, separating, and reducing to powder these enormous masses; the work of ages, piled on each other by the will of an emperor, and the labour of a hundred thousand slaves. There was it then that gladiators, martyrs, and slaves, combated on the Roman festivals, only to make the blood circulate a little quicker in the veins of a hundred thousand idle spectators. I thought I still heard the roaring of the lions, the sighs of the dying, the voice of the executioners, and what would strike my ear with still greater horror, the applauses of the Romans. I thought I heard them, by these applauses, encouraging and demanding carnage; the men requiring still more blood from the combatants; and the women, more mercy for the dying. I imagined I beheld one of these women, young and beautiful, on the fall of a gladiator, rise from her seat and with an eye which had just caressed a lover, welcome, or repel, find fault with, or applaud, the last sigh of the vanquished, as if she had paid for it.