In the eyes of the Roman people the magnificence of the games and public shows was the one test of munificence. Hence it was something to have checked those degrading spectacles, but here, as afterwards in his persecution of the martyrs, he yielded complaisance to conventional views. He lacked the strength of will to enforce his own ideals; and perhaps it was as well that he recognised his deficiency and did not attempt what was, for one of his calibre, the impossible. On great occasions, to please his colleague Lucius or his wife Faustina, or in deference to the popular wishes, he used to attend these shows in state. But when he was present there was to be no shedding of human blood, at any rate by a fellow-man, though he seems to have allowed the fights with the beasts. Dion Cassius records this fact: “The Emperor Marcus was so far from taking delight in spectacles of bloodshed, that even the gladiators in Rome could not obtain his inspection of their contests, unless, like the wrestlers, they contended without imminent risk; for he never allowed the use of sharpened weapons, but universally they fought before him with weapons blunted.” He himself, even when presiding, took little interest in the contests. He spent his time in reading or writing or transacting official business, giving audiences or signing State papers, much to the disgust of the populace. They hated such superior refinement and would have preferred a sportsman to a philosopher as their ruler. They looked on the Emperor as a milksop, not altogether without reason, though the right reason was not their reason. He showed his contempt for their opinions on one occasion in a most emphatic manner. A lion, trained by a slave to devour human beings, acquitted himself so well in one of these spectacles in the Emperor’s presence that the whole amphitheatre rang with applause, and on every side a shout was raised that a slave who had served the people’s pleasures so well, deserved freedom. The Emperor, angered at the brutality which he could not prevent, had averted his eyes, and now replied, “The man has done nothing worthy of liberty.” Another anecdote shows his care for even the most outcast of his subjects--those whom the ordinary Roman valued and heeded less than the beasts of burden. He was present one day at an exhibition of rope-dancing, when suddenly one of the performers--a boy--missed his footing, fell into the arena and was hurt. Thereupon the Emperor ordered that nets and mattresses should always be spread beneath the rope-walkers.