The Ivory King: A popular history of the elephant and its allies

by Charles Frederick Holder

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.