We now passed under the shade of an immense range of lofty buildings, whose gloomy and solid strength seemed to bid defiance to chance and time. A sudden scream appalled me. [Sidenote: In the Arena] A ring of fire swept round its summit; burning cordage, sheets of canvas, and a shower of all things combustible flew into the air above our heads. An uproar followed, unlike all that I had ever heard, a hideous mixture of howls, shrieks, and groans. The flames rolled down the narrow street before us and made the passage next to impossible. While we hesitated, a huge fragment of the building heaved, as if in an earthquake, and fortunately for us fell inward. The whole scene of terror was then open. The great amphitheater of Statilius Taurus had caught fire; the stage with its inflammable furniture was blazing below. The flames were wheeling up, circle above circle, through the seventy thousand seats that rose from the ground to the roof. I stood in unspeakable awe and wonder on the side of this colossal cavern, this mighty temple of the city of fire. At length a descending blast cleared away the smoke that covered the arena. The cause of those horrid cries was now visible. The wild beasts kept for the games had broken from their dens. Maddened by affright and pain, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, whole herds of the monsters of India and Africa, were enclosed in an impassable barrier of fire. They bounded, they fought, they screamed, they tore; they ran howling round and round the circle; they made desperate leaps upward through the blaze; when flung back, they fell, only to fasten their fangs in each other, and with their parching jaws bathed in blood, die raging. [Sidenote: Mamartine, the Roman Prison] I looked anxiously to see whether any human being was involved in this fearful catastrophe; but to my relief, I could see none. The keepers and attendants had obviously escaped. As I expressed my gladness I was startled by a loud cry from my guide, the first sound that I had heard him utter. He pointed to the opposite side of the amphitheater. There indeed sat an object of melancholy interest—a man who had either been unable to escape or had determined to die. Escape was now impossible. He sat in desperate calmness on his funeral pile. He was a gigantic Ethiopian slave, entirely naked. He had chosen his place, as if in mockery, on the imperial throne; the fire was above him and around him, and under this tremendous canopy he gazed without the movement of a muscle on the combat of the wild beasts below, a solitary sovereign, with the whole tremendous game played for himself, and inaccessible to the power of man.