If one desires to use his time in Rome to the best advantage let him have nothing to do with half-educated guides, whose information is often untrustworthy. There are promenade lectures given by well-informed English archæologists, who have spent years in Rome, making a special study of the ruins and modern excavations. The Chautauqua quartette were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. S. Russell Forbes, whose recent book, entitled “Rambles in Rome,” gains for him the gratitude of all those who have felt the need of just such a printed guide. Our first morning was spent at the Roman Forum and Colosseum, under Mr. Forbes’s delightful leadership. Starting from the temple of Castor and Pollux we went over the whole ground of the Forum, pausing before the mound which covers the ashes of the great Cæsar, seeing the rostrum from which Mark Antony made his funeral oration, and also the rostrum where Cicero delivered his famous speeches, and on which, after his assassination, his head and hands were nailed, “that everybody might see them in the very place where he had formerly harangued with so much vehemence.” We walked over the identical pavement used in the days when Rome was mistress of the world, and saw ruts in the stone made by chariot wheels, when England was but a barbarous isle. The Flavian Amphitheater, known to us as the Colosseum, received this name from the colossal statue of Nero, that stood near, and it was first spoken of in this way by Venerable Bede, of England. Byron is responsible for the mis-spelling of the word, which he writes _Coliseum_. Mr. Forbes thinks there is no evidence that Christians suffered in this arena, with the exception of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. The cross which formerly stood in the center is now removed, and the excavations have revealed three parallel curving walls, which were put up by the Emperor Commodus, who boasted that he could kill an hundred lions with as many javelins. Standing in safety on one of these high walls the beasts were led out to meet the cruel, murderous spears cast at them with unerring aim by this brutal emperor. From the upper gallery one can look down on what Richter calls “the crater of this burnt out volcano” and imagine the vast Amphitheater in the year of its dedication, A. D. 80, when the games continued for one hundred days, and 5,000 beasts were slain, while from 80,000 to 100,000 spectators crowded these now deserted spaces. Visiting the Colosseum by moonlight a solemn hush broods over the place where was once such abounding, riotous life, the roar of wounded and infuriated wild beasts, mingling with the death-groans of gladiators and martyrs. The silence is broken by the musical monotone of a tolling church bell, suggesting the new light which had just risen on the world when this amphitheater was in process of construction, and which has been the chief force in extinguishing the desire for such brutal and bestial exhibitions.