“That people, victor once, now vile and base, Deservedly made vassal; who, once just, Frugal, and mild, and temp’rate, conquered well; But governed ill the nations under yoke, Peeling their provinces, exhausted all By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown Of triumph, that insulting vanity; Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed; Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, And from the daily scene effeminate.” For four hundred years Rome was given over to displays, in which the most brutal passions were aroused, and of which the Spanish bull-fight is the sole modern representative. The great circus where these exhibitions took place was the Colosseum, in which five thousand wild beasts were slaughtered at its dedication by Vespasian; and its skeleton-walls still stand to-day, a monument to the skill and misdirected talent of the people of that time. The Roman circus was thoroughly a government institution, and a part of the political machinery of the time in this way, that the exhibitions of strange wild beasts was devised by the victorious Roman rulers to show to their constituents and countrymen the wonders of the foreign countries they had conquered. According to Pliny, Mutius Scævola (102 B.C.) first exhibited a combat of lions at the circus, and C. Scipio Trasica and C. Lentulus were the originators of contests between men and wild beasts. In these terrific struggles, lions and tigers were let loose in the arena, and fought with human slaves and convicts. When Pompey dedicated his theatre, he gave the most remarkable exhibition on record. Five hundred lions and eighteen hundred elephants are said to have been pitted against a body of armed men. The huge animals were attacked in every possible way,—sometimes by swords, again by lances. In the second consulate of Pompey (54 B.C.), a herd was matched against a company of Getulian archers; and, according to Pliny, one of the elephants, enraged by its wounds, rushed upon an archer, and hurled his shield high in air. Another, wounded by a javelin, created a panic among the rest; the great animals rushing against the railing of the circus with such force, that it gave way, and numbers of the spectators were wounded.