Darkness and Dawn; Or, Scenes in the Days of Nero. An Historic Tale

by F. W. Farrar

‘Quid vesani sibi vult ars impia ludi?

Quid mortes juvenum? quid sanguine parta voluptas?’

Prudentius.

‘Mera homicidia sunt.’—Seneca, Ep. 7.

The morning broke in cloudless splendour. Long before the dawn thousands of the Roman populace had thronged into the amphitheatre to secure the best places. The City Præfect was known to be a man of taste and a favourite of Nero, and the Emperor himself was certain to grace the display with his idolised presence. The pairs of gladiators were not numerous, nor were there many wild beasts; but everything was to be choice of its kind, and it was rumoured that some beautiful foreign youths were to make their first appearance as fighters.

About eleven o’clock the rays of the sun became too strong for comfort, and a huge awning, decorated with gay streamers, was drawn over the audience by gilded cords.

By this time the amphitheatre, except the seats reserved for distinguished persons, was thronged from the lowest seats to the topmost ambulatory, where stood a dense array of slaves and of the lowest proletariat. They did not get tired of waiting, for the scene was one of continual bustle and brightness, as group after group of burghers, in their best array, took their seats with their wives and families. Any well-known patrician or senator was greeted with applause or with hisses. The buzz of general conversation sometimes rose into a roar of laughter, and sometimes sank into a hush of expectancy. Little incidents kept occurring every moment. Interlopers tried to thrust themselves into the fourteen rows of seats which were set apart for the knights, and an altercation often ensued between the seat-keeper, Oceanus, and these impostors. Now the people laughed at the unceremonious way in which he shook one of them who, to escape notice, had pretended to be asleep. They were still more amused when the impatient official turned out a finely dressed personage who protested that he was a knight, but unluckily dropped in the scuffle a large key, which showed him to be a slave.

At last the shouting of the multitude who thronged about the principal entrance announced the arrival of the Præfect. Amid the acclamations of the populace, the magnificent procession by which Pedanius was accompanied passed round the arena to the reserved seats. Pedanius was scarcely seated, when the Emperor, surrounded by a group of his most brilliant courtiers, took his place in the imperial box. As the roar of applause continued, he rose again and again with his hand on his heart, to bow and cringe before the public—omnia serviliter pro imperio. For the mob of Rome was at once his master and his slave, and was as ready at slight excuse to burst into open menaces as into blasphemous adulation. Nero was as well aware as Tiberius that ‘he was only holding a wolf by the ears;’ and he often quoted the saying of that keen observer, that few realised ‘what a monster Empire was.’

Then Pedanius rose in his seat and flung down the scarlet napkin which was the signal that the sports were to begin.

The opening amusements were harmless and curious. First a number of German aurochs were led round the circus. They had been trained to stand still while boys hung from their huge horns, or danced and fenced standing on their broad backs. A tiger was guided by its keeper with a chain of flowers. Four chariots swept past in succession, the first drawn by leopards with gay silken harness, the second by stags champing golden bits, the third by shaggy bisons, the fourth by four camels who amused the people by their expression of supercilious disapproval. Then an elephant performed some clumsy dances under the bidding of its black keeper. Next a winged boy led in a wild boar by a purple halter. Last of all, a tame lion was introduced, which, to the delight of the shouting populace, dandled a hare in its paws without hurting it, and then suffered its keeper to put his head and his hand in its open mouth. But at this point a frightful tragedy occurred. Wherever the dazzling white sand of the arena chanced to have been disturbed or stained, it was raked smooth, and fresh sand sprinkled, by boys dressed as Cupids with glittering wings. One of these boys, presuming on the lion’s tameness, hit it rather sharply with his rake. The royal brute had been already excited by hearing the howling of the animals of all sorts with which the vivarium was crowded, as well as by the shouts of the spectators, and its keeper had stupidly neglected to notice the signs of its rising rage.But when the sharp edge of the rake struck it, the lion’s mane bristled, and with a terrific snarl he first laid the poor lad dead with one stroke of his paw, and then sprang with a mighty bound upon a second lad, on whose quivering limbs he fleshed his claws and teeth.[77] A cry of horror and alarm rose from the people, and those who sat just above the level of the amphitheatre started up in terror, for they were only protected from the wild beasts by rails, which had been finished off with amber and silver, but did not look very strong. The brute, which had thus shown ‘a wild trick of its ancestors,’ was soon overpowered, for the keeper was skilled in the use of the lasso. But this incident did but whet the appetite of the spectators for blood. They shouted to Pedanius to begin the venatio and the wild-beast fights which formed the morning show. No expense had been spared to sate the insatiable cruelty of the mob. For an hour or two longer they were gratified with a prodigality of anguish. Ostriches and giraffes were chased round and round, and shot to death with arrows. Wild beasts fought with tame beasts and with wild beasts, and beasts with men. Bears, lions, and tigers were worried and hacked by armed bestiarii, and sometimes a bestiarius in his turn lay rolling on the sand, crushed by a bear or torn by the fierce struggles of a panther. Lastly, some unskilled, defenceless criminals were turned loose into the amphitheatre amid a fresh batch of animals, infuriated by hunger and mad with excitement. None of the poor weaponless wretches—sine armis, sine arte, seminudi—could stand up for a moment against the bear’s hug or the tiger’s leaps. They stood in attitudes of despairing stupefaction, watching the horrible rolling gait of the bears, or the crouching of the tigers as they glared on them with yellow eyeballs and bristling manes, lashing their haunches with their tails, and at last, with a hoarse carnivorous roar, curving their backs for the final spring.The venatio degenerated into a mere butchery meant to fill up the time.[78]