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Updated: June 7, 2025
It was found that he was an Egyptian monk named Telemachus, freshly come to Rome. No one knew any more about him, but this noble death of his put an end to shows of gladiators. Chariot races and games went on, though the good and thoughtful disapproved of the wild excitement they caused; but the horrid sports of death and blood were ended for ever.
Was the consular Quintus Catulus, forsooth, to summon forth the senators against the first general of his time and his experienced legions? or was the designated aedile Gaius Caesar to call forth the civic multitude, whose eyes he had just feasted on his three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators with their silver equipments?
Who has not heard of the Emperor Trajan, of his moderation, his clemency, his gashing sympathies, his forgiveness of injuries and forgetfulness of self, his tearing in pieces his own robe, to furnish bandages for the wounded called by the whole world in his day, "the best emperor of Rome;" and so affectionately regarded by his subjects, that, ever afterwards, in blessing his successors upon their accession to power, they always said, "May you have the virtue and goodness of Trajan!" yet the deadly conflicts of gladiators who were trained to kill each other, to make sport for the spectators, furnished his chief pastime.
The enemy now pressing forward both by sea and land, on one hand he opposed against them his brother with a fleet, the new levies, and a body of gladiators, and in another quarter the troops and generals who were engaged at Bedriacum.
Neb and Diogenes regarded the whole thing very much as I suppose the Caesars used to look upon the arena, when the gladiators were the most blood-thirsty. The negroes would laugh, cry "golly!" or shake their heads with delight, when half-a-dozen guns went off together; receiving the reports as a sort of evidence that crashing work was going on, on board the vessels.
When he remembered that Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one and the sister of the other of these gladiators, his heart was touched with sympathy for a woman so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his own situation in the General's household looked hardly so pleasing as usual in the light of these violent transactions.
As for the gladiators! well! they were trained and well paid to die. Not far from the Cæsar's person, and leaning against the wall of the tribune in his wonted attitude, the praefect of Rome had also stood silently by. The Emperor had ordered his presence, nor could the praefect of the city be absent when the sacred person of the Cæsar was abroad amongst his people.
This new race means to enjoy, to assert itself.... We were, however, perhaps happier in our idealism than these stern gladiators who go forth so proudly to mortal combats."
On part of the gardens was begun what was then called the Flavian Amphitheatre, but is now known as the Colosseum, from the colossal statue that stood at its door a wonderful place, with a succession of galleries on stone vaults round the area, on which every rank and station, from the Emperor and Vestal Virgins down to the slaves, had their places, whence to see gladiators and beasts struggle and perish, on sands mixed with scarlet grains to hide the stain, and perfumed showers to overcome the scent of blood, and under silken embroidered awnings to keep off the sun.
Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust and ashes these seventeen hundred years! Thus reads the bill: ROMAN COLISEUM. UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION! NEW PROPERTIES! NEW LIONS! NEW GLADIATORS! Engagement of the renowned MARCUS MARCELLUS VALERIAN! FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY!
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