Nero was in his thirty-second year. He had reigned nearly fourteen years. Tacitus says of him, "The race of Cæsars ended with Nero; he was the last, and perhaps the worst, of that illustrious house."
The tidings of his death filled Rome with joy. Men ran wildly about the streets, their heads covered with liberty caps. Acclamations of gladness resounded in the Forum. Icelus, Galba's freedman and agent in Rome, whom Nero had thrown into prison, was released and took control of affairs. He ordered that Nero's body should be burned where he had died, and this was done so quickly and secretly that many would not believe that he was dead. The report got abroad that he had escaped to Asia or Egypt, and from time to time impostors appeared claiming to be Nero. The Parthians were deluded by one of these impostors and offered to defend his cause. Another made trouble in the Greek islands. Nero's profligate companions in Rome, who alone mourned his death, while affecting to believe him still alive raised a tomb to his memory, which for several years they annually dressed with the flowers of spring and summer. But the world at large rejoiced in its delivery from the rule of a monster of iniquity.
THE SPORTS OF THE AMPHITHEATRE.
In no other nation upon the earth and no other period of history has enjoyment taken so cruel and brutal a shape as in the Roman empire. The fierce people of the imperial city seemed to have a native thirst for blood and misery, which no amount of slaughter in the arena, of the sufferings of captives and slaves, or of the torments of persecuted Christians sufficed to assuage. The love of theatrical representations, which has proved so potent and unceasing with other nations, had but a brief period of prevalence in Rome, its milder enjoyment vanishing before the wild excitement of the gladiatorial struggle and the spectacle of rending beasts and slaughtered martyrs.
It was not in the theatre, but in the amphitheatre, that the Romans sought their chief enjoyment, and few who wished the favor of the Roman people failed to seek it by the easy though costly means of gladiatorial shows. The amphitheatre differed from the theatre in forming a complete circle or oval instead of a semicircle, with an arena in the centre instead of a stage at the side. It also greatly surpassed the theatre in size, the purpose being to see, not to hear.
These buildings were at first temporary edifices of wood, but of enormous size, since one which collapsed at Fidenæ, during the reign of Tiberius, is said to have caused the death of fifty thousand spectators. The first of stone was built by the command of Augustus. But the great amphitheatre of Rome, the Flavian, whose mighty ruins we possess in the Colosseum, was that begun by Vespasian, and finished by Titus ten years after the destruction of Jerusalem.
This vast building is elliptical in shape and covers about five acres of ground, being six hundred and twelve feet in its greatest length and five hundred and fifteen in greatest breadth. It is based on rows of arches, eighty in number, and rises in four different orders of architecture to a height of about one hundred and sixty feet. The outside of this great edifice was encrusted with marble and decorated with statues. Interiorly its vast slopes presented sixty or eighty rows of marble seats, covered with cushions, and capable of seating more than eighty thousand spectators. There were sixty-four doors of entrance and exit, and the entrances, passages, and stairs were so skilfully constructed that every person could with ease and safety reach and leave his place.