NOTE XI.
The gladiatorial combats were of Etrurian origin, and were at first only exhibited as funeral games. Afterwards the curule ediles, upon entering their office, gave to their fellow-citizens a spectacle calculated to please a warlike people. After the spectators were seated a great gate was thrown open, from whence a number of young men, remarkable for strength and agility, appeared upon the arena, round which they marched two by two. The combats were of several kinds; at first the combatants fenced with wooden swords, which were changed at the sound of the trumpet to blades of sharp steel. The sight of blood and wounds seemed to give pleasure even to the female part of the audience, and the men betted largely upon the combatants, just as in our days they do upon favourite race-horses. The gladiators usually fought till one fell. If the defeated implored the mercy of the spectators, and they were disposed to grant it, they raised their hands with the thumb bent, whereupon the attendants of the theatre removed the wounded man and conveyed him to a place where his wounds were dressed and his health restored. But if they resolved upon his death, they displayed their right hand with the thumb advanced, which was followed by the coup de grâce which terminated his miserable existence.
These cruel combats did not cease till the reign of the emperor Honorius, a. d. 404. The Roman people, deeply attached to these barbarous spectacles, would not give them up. Christianity had eloquently pleaded the cause of the unhappy victims annually slaughtered at Rome. Theodosius had enacted laws for their protection, but the magistrates were not careful to have them enforced. It was a Christian monk who claims the honour of putting an end to these barbarities throughout the empire. Telemachus interposed his feeble arm, but noble courage, to separate the combatants. He descended alone into the arena to prevent the unholy warfare. The spectators, enraged at this interruption to their sports, assailed the Christian with a shower of stones. He died under their hands, but the gladiatorial combats ceased for ever; for the people lamented their victim, and, respecting the philanthropy of Telemachus, “submitted to the laws of Honorius” which abolished entirely the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre. Nor was the abolition of this abhorrent custom one of the least triumphs ascribed to Christianity.
NOTE XII.
The final restoration of the Jews to their own land after their conversion to Christianity is foretold in many parts of Scripture, particularly in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth verses of the eleventh chapter of the prophet Isaiah. Indeed throughout his prophecy the return of his people is declared. Some pious persons, I am aware, conclude from these passages that the conversion of the Jews to Christianity and their becoming inheritors of the spiritual Jerusalem is alone to be inferred. The words, however, appear to bear a plain and positive meaning. This last stupendous prophecy still remains to be accomplished, but a general feeling throughout the Christian world in favour of the ancient people of the Lord, excites a hope that the time is not far distant when they shall be gathered together from the lands whither they are scattered, and become “one fold under one Shepherd,” in their own pleasant land.
NOTE XIII.
The tragedy in the Vestal College, of which the Emperor Domitian in his character of Supreme Pontiff was the author, originated in causes unknown to the historians who have recorded it. Suetonius seems to consider the victims guilty; but Pliny the Younger was an eye-witness of the living interment of the Maxima (chief priestess) Cornelia Cossi, and recorded it in his bitter speeches on the illegality of the proceedings against her, the heroism of the Roman knight, Celer, and the cowardice of Valerius Licinianus, who purchased his life by slandering himself and the unfortunate priestess. He relates in another letter the poverty and degradation of this prætor. Pliny describes the conduct of Cornelia as dignified and courageous, notices the manner in which she repulsed the executioner, and her delicacy in arranging her drapery while descending into the cavern, but concludes his account with these words—for his epistle was written at the time when the tragedy occurred, and he did not forget that he was writing in Domitian’s reign,—“Whether she were innocent or guilty I know not, but she was treated as a criminal.” It is from this last immolation that Plutarch has doubtless described the lugubrious ceremony so exactly in his Life of Numa, for it appears to have been performed according to the ancient heathen ritual.
NOTE XIV.
The particulars respecting the church of Jerusalem are gathered from the fragments of Hegesippus, the oldest historian of the church, quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History. He states that Hegesippus travelled from place to place to collect the materials of his history, and that he talked with men who had known and conversed with the apostles. He describes the martyrdom of Simeon the brother of Jude, which took place in the reign of Trajan, when the apostle, who was second bishop of Jerusalem, was one hundred and twenty years old. The manner in which the church of Jerusalem was preserved from the miseries of the first siege of Jerusalem is better known than its second retreat, when the city was besieged again by the emperor Adrian. As the Christians composing it were converted Jews, who still adhered to the Mosaic ritual, a separation would have grown up between them and the Gentile churches. The rescript of Adrian, which compelled the Jews to leave Palestine, put an end to this order of things, but not till fifteen Jewish bishops had successively governed this church for 150 years. The second church of Jerusalem was composed of converted Gentiles or their descendants.