The custom of exposing infants was born of the spirit of fierceness and barbarity that characterized many ancient races. Its direct tendency was to make savages of men by destroying those tender and humane feelings for the weak and helpless which have been the most marked attributes of modern civilizations. Occasionally in our day one hears or reads of a proposition by some pseudo-philanthropist that the good of the race demands the destruction of certain persons—deformed infants, imbecile adults and the like. But the humanity of the age invariably frowns upon such proposals. The benign and merciful features of our Christian creed would be outraged by such a practice.
Gladiatorial Games.—The combats of gladiators were the culmination of Roman barbarity and brutality. All the devotees of vice and crime met and mingled at the arena, and derived strength and inspiration from its bloody scenes. The gatherings in the amphitheater were miniatures of Roman life. There, political matters were discussed and questions of state determined, as was once the case in the public assemblies of the people. Now that the gates of Janus were closed for the third time in Roman history, the combats of the arena took the place, on a diminutive scale, of those battles by which Romans had conquered the world. The processions of the gladiators reminded the enthusiastic populace of the triumphal entries of their conquerors into the Roman capital. Nothing so glutted the appetite and quenched the thirst of a cruel and licentious race as the gorgeous ceremonials and bloody butchery of the gladiatorial shows.
These contests, strange to say, first took place at funerals, and were intended to honor the dead. In 264 B.C., at the burial of D. Junius Brutus, we are told, three pairs of gladiators fought in the cattle market. Again, in 216 B.C., at the obsequies of M. Æmilius Lepidus, twenty-two pairs engaged in combat in the Forum. And, in 174 B.C., on the death of his father, Titus Flaminius caused seventy-four pairs to fight for three days.[171] It will thus be seen that the death of one Roman generally called for that of several others.
In time, the fondness of these contests had grown so great that generals and statesmen arranged them on a gigantic scale as a means of winning the favor and support of the multitude. The Roman proletariat demanded not only bread to satisfy their hunger, but games to amuse them in their hours of idleness. Augustus not only gave money and rations to 200,000 idlers, but inaugurated gladiatorial shows in which 10,000 combatants fought. Not only men but wild beasts were brought into the arena. Pompey arranged a fight of 500 lions, 18 elephants and 410 other ferocious animals, brought from Africa. In a chase arranged by Augustus, A.D. 5, 36 crocodiles were killed in the Flaminian circus, which was flooded for the purpose. Caligula brought 400 bears into the arena to fight with an equal number of African wild animals. But all previous shows were surpassed in the magnificent games instituted by Trajan, A.D. 106, to celebrate his victories on the Danube. These games lasted four months; and, in them, 10,000 gladiators fought, and 11,000 beasts were slain.
Such was the thirst for blood, and to such a pitch had the fury of the passions reached at the beginning of the empire that Romans were no longer satisfied with small fights by single pairs. They began to demand regular battles and a larger flow of blood. And to please the populace, Julius Cæsar celebrated his triumph by a real battle in the circus. On each side were arrayed 500 foot soldiers, 300 cavalrymen, and 20 elephants bearing soldiers in towers upon their backs. This was no mimic fray, but an actual battle in which blood was shed and men were killed. To vary the entertainment, Cæsar also arranged a sea fight. He caused a lake to be dug out on Mars Field, and placed battleships upon it which represented Tyrian and Egyptian fleets. These he caused to be manned by a thousand soldiers and 2,000 oarsmen. A bloody fight then ensued between men who had no other motive in killing each other than to furnish a Roman holiday. Augustus also arranged a sea fight upon an artificial lake where 3,000 men were engaged. But both these battles were eclipsed by the great sea fight which the emperor Claudius caused to be fought on Lake Fucinus, in the presence of a great multitude that lined the shore. Nineteen thousand men engaged in the bloody struggle. On an eminence overlooking the lake, the Empress Agrippina, in gorgeous costume, sat by the side of the emperor and watched the battle.
Announcement of gladiatorial fights in the amphitheater was made by posters on the walls of the city. In these advertisements, the number and names of the fighters were announced. On the day of the performance a solemn procession of gladiators, walking in couples, passed through the streets to the arena. The arrangements of the building and the manner of the fights were so ordered as to arouse to the highest pitch of excitement the passions and expectations of the spectators. The citizens were required to wear the white toga. The lower rows of seats were occupied by senators, in whose midst were the boxes occupied by the imperial family. The equestrian order occupied places immediately above the senators. The citizens were seated next after the equestrians, and in the top-most rows, on benches, were gathered the Roman rabble. An immense party-colored awning, stretched above the multitude, reflected into the arena its variegated hues. Strains of music filled the air while preparations for the combat were being made. The atmosphere of the amphitheater was kept cool and fragrant by frequent sprays of perfume. The regular combat was preceded by a mock fight with blunt weapons. Then followed arrangements for the life-and-death struggle. The manager of the games finally gave the command, and the fight was on. When one of the gladiators was wounded, the words "hoc habet" were shouted. The wounded man fell to the earth, dropped his weapon, and, holding up his forefinger, begged his life from the people. If mercy was refused him, he was compelled to renew the combat or to submit to the death stroke of his antagonist. Attendants were at hand with hot irons to apply to the victim to see that death was not simulated. If life was not extinct, the fallen gladiator was dragged out to the dead room, and there dispatched. Servants then ran into the arena and scattered sand over the blood-drenched ground. Other fighters standing in readiness, immediately rushed in to renew the contest. Thus the fight went on until the Roman populace was glutted with butchery and blood.
Gladiators were chosen from the strongest and most athletic among slaves and condemned criminals. Thracians, Gauls, and Germans were captured and enslaved for the purpose of being sacrificed in the arena. They were trained with the greatest care in gladiatorial schools. The most famous of these institutions was at Capua in Italy. It was here that Spartacus, a young Thracian, of noble ancestry, excited an insurrection that soon spread throughout all Italy and threatened the destruction of Rome. Addressing himself to seventy of his fellow-gladiators, Spartacus is said to have made a bitter and impassioned speech in which he proposed that, if they must die, they should die fighting their enemies and not themselves; that, if they were to engage in bloody battles, these battles should be fought under the open sky in behalf of life and liberty, and not in the amphitheater to furnish pastime and entertainment to their masters and oppressors. The speech had its effect. The band of fighters broke out of Capua, and took refuge in the crater of Mount Vesuvius (73 B.C.). Spartacus became the leader, with Crixus and œnomaus, two Celtic gladiators, as lieutenants. Their ranks soon swelled to the proportions of an army, through accessions of slaves and desperadoes from the neighborhood of the volcano. During two years, they terrorized all Italy, defeated two consuls, and burned many cities. Crixus was defeated and killed at Mount Gargarus in Apulia by the prætor Arrius. Spartacus compelled three hundred Roman prisoners, whom he had captured, to fight as gladiators, following Roman custom, at the grave of his fallen comrade and lieutenant. Finally, he himself was slain, sword in hand, having killed two centurions before he fell. With the death of their leaders, the insurgents either surrendered or fled. Those who were captured were crucified. It is said that the entire way from Capua to Rome was marked by crosses on which their bodies were suspended, to the number of ten thousand.[172]
Throughout Italy were amphitheaters for gladiatorial games. But the largest and most celebrated of all was the Coliseum at Rome. Its ruins are still standing. It was originally called the Flavian Amphitheater. This vast building was begun A.D. 72, upon the site of the reservoir of Nero, by the emperor Vespasian, who built as far as the third row of arches, the last two rows being finished by Titus after his return from the conquest of Jerusalem. It is said that twelve thousand captive Jews were employed in this work, as the Hebrews were employed in building the Pyramids of Egypt, and that the external walls alone cost nearly four millions of dollars. It consists of four stories: the first, Doric; the second, Ionic; the third and fourth, Corinthian. Its circumference is nearly two thousand feet; its length, six hundred and twenty feet; and its width, five hundred and thirteen. The entrance for the emperor was between two arches facing the Esquiline, where there was no cornice. The arena was surrounded by a wall sufficiently high to protect the spectators from the wild beasts, which were introduced by subterranean passages, closed by huge gates from the side. The Amphitheater is said to have been capable of seating eighty-seven thousand people, and was inaugurated by gladiatorial games that lasted one hundred days, and in which five thousand beasts were slain. The emperor Commodus himself fought in the Coliseum, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts. He insisted on calling himself Hercules, was dressed in a lion's skin, and had his hair sprinkled with gold dust.
