The martyrs of the Coliseum

Front matter

Tlie Martyrs of the Coliseum.

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Introduction

'• And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 'twere, anew the gaps of centuries, Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old, The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their ums."

Byron's Manfred.

N the year 590, when St. Gregory the Great was elected to the chair of St. Peter, ambassadors were sent from the Emperor Justinian in the East to congratulate his Holiness and tender the usual spiritual allegiance to the Vicar of Christ. When they were leaving Rome, they requested the holy Father to give them some relic to take back to their own country. St. Gregory led them to the Coliseum. Taking up some of the clay of the arena, he folded it in a napkin, and handed it to the ambassadors. They seemed not to ap-

IO THE MARTYRS OF THE COLISEUM:

preciate the gift, and respectfully remonstrated. The holy- Pope, raising his eyes and his heart towards heaven, with love and kindness beaming in his countenance, said to them, "You know not what you have; " and taking the napkin in his hand, unfolded it, and showed it to them, stained with blood — the blood of the martyrs who suffered in the Coliseum ! l

There is no ruin of the ancient world so interesting as the great amphitheatre at Rome. It stands in stupendous magnificence, in the midst of the seven hills of the old capital of the world, as a monument of everything that was great or terrible in the past. The immensity and majesty of its designs tell the perfection of art, and its reminiscences recall all the horrors of persecution and the triumphs of Christianity. It was the battlefield in which the Church fought for the conversion of the Pagan world ; the blood of the martyred heroes who fell in the fight still mingles with the clay Of the sanctified arena; it was this blood Gregory gave to the ambassadors who wished to have some relics from the city of the martyrs.

The storms of seventeen centuries have rolled over the mighty amphitheatre, and left it as gigantic in its ruins as thrilling in its history. Tier rises on tier to the blue vault of heaven; the wandering eye cannot grasp its immensity; and although shaken by earthquakes and the lightnings of heaven, and rifled of its travertine by the spoilers of the Middle Ages, it still stands with imperishable grandeur in the midst of the seven hills, "a noble wreck of ruinous perfection."

We remember well our first visit to the ruins of the Coliseum. It was an event of our life. We found in the majestic pile a realization of the highest flights of fancy.

1 The same is recorded of Pius V. See lessons of his feast in the Dominican Breviary.

INTRODUCTION. II

A thousand thoughts rushed to our mind ; the silent majesty that shrouded those immense tottering walls, and their thrilling history, made us stand fixed to the ground in admiration and awe. A momentary glance, a thought filled up the gap of centuries ; the marble seats were again crowded before the mind's eye with thousands of human beings ; the wounded lion — the dying gladiator — the kneeling martyr, appeared in rapid succession on tire blood-stained arena; the deafening shout of the excited populace; the condemnation of the Christians, and the call for their blood to be given to satiate the thirst of the lions; — all formed a picture of the past that sent*a thrill to the heart! We stood on theWena that saw Rome's infancy and the Church's glory. The very clay under our feet was holy ! one day it would give up what, in eternity, would be one of the brightest ornaments of heaven — the blood of the martyrs ! With feelings of awe, veneration, and delight, we knelt at the foot of the cross — that cross which was the standard of Christianity, and which now flings its triumphant shadow over the silent arena in which all the power of man had endeavored to destroy it.

While wrapt in thought, we heard sounds of admiration expressed in several languages from groups of tourists who stood gazing at the mighty ruin. Thousands pour annually into the Eternal City, and justly hasten to the Coliseum as one of the most interesting of the many sights of Rome. Here the trader from beyond the Rocky Mountains ctands beside the gold-digger from Australia, and, as was our case, the missioner on sick - leave from the Cape of Good Hope could shake hands with an old school companion from the British Isles. From morning till night the wondering stranger is seen in the arena of the mighty ruin, and long too after nightfall, when silence and darkness have lent additional romance to its magnificence.

When the pale light of the moon swells its sombre arches into marvellous immensity, the sentimental tourist stands in the bleak solitude of the gigantic fabric, and feeds his vivid fancy with shadowy pictures of castles, and towers, and other amphitheatres that spring from the broken arches and crumbling walls. The Coliseum, once seen, is never forgotten, whether viewed under the full blaze of the scorching Italian sun, or under the magic influence of the pale light of the moon.

Our first hour in the Coliseum was one of regret. The present contributed more than the past to cast a gloom over our thoughts. The terrible scenes that passed in that arena, the wholesale slaughter of innocent victims, the inhuman shout that consigned the brave gladiator to his doom, the horrors of its bloodshed, made it well called by Tertullian a place without mercy y 1 yet the curse of Paganism, that brooded over this temple of the furies, steeled the hearts of the spectators, and brought on demoniac infatuation and blindness. This picture was painful, but another thought gave us sorrow. Thousands that pour into the Coliseum are strangers to the sacred reminiscences that hang around its hallowed ruins. That spirit of infidelity which nowadays robs literature of every sentiment of religion, will not permit history to give the most sacred and solemn part of its records. Irreligious guide-books are in the hands of every traveller, books that devote whole pages to the description of the infamous and bloody practices of Paganism, but dare not give one paragraph, or even make an allusion, to the sufferings of the martyrs. A description is given of the Pagan monument, but no mention is made of its connection with the first ages of the Church. The educated Christian sees more in the Coliseum than imperishable walls, or sublime designs of architecture, shadowed forth

1 De Spectaculis, cap. xix.

INTRODUCTION. 1 3

in the gigantic remnants of the mouldering ruin : he sees before him a monument of that alone which was great and noble in the past — the triumph of his faith. He remembers that every niche of that arena has been dyed with the blood of martyrs. He feels that their triumph is his own. After the lapse of seventeen hundred years he is united with them in the unbroken chain of communion, and at the same moment that he is startled with the majesty and magnificence of the ruin, he kneels to kiss the rude cross that is raised within its precincts to commemorate this greatest battle-field of the followers of the Crucified.

It was this thought which suggested this little work. The Coliseum is the largest and most remarkable of the ruins of Ancient Rome ; it is more remarkable on account of the martyrs who suffered in it, and the miracles it witnessed. These are but little known. We have employed our leisure hours in putting together a few of the most authentic records. We present them in their rough and unadorned simplicity to the Christian who loves to honor the heroes of the early Church, to the student who loves to pore over the records of the martyrology, and to the tourist who visits the Eternal City, and asks in vain from his guide or from his friends, "Who were the martyrs of the Coliseum ? ' '

Chapter II. The Origin And Early History Of The Coliseum

HE memory of the Emperor Augustus was dear to the Roman people. By his great skill and talent, he not only won for himself the sceptre of supreme power, but raised up the Empire itself among the nations of the world, and commenced what is generally known as its golden age. His natural virtues stood in agreeable contrast with the debaucheries and vices of his immediate successors. To him is due the honor of having first designed the erection of the amphitheatre. Having embellished the city with baths and temples of surpassing magnificence, he conceived the idea of erecting an immense amphitheatre for the gladiatorial spectacles, which should exceed in dimensions and splendor every other building in the world. Death cut him off before he could carry out his great project. Years rolled on, and seven Emperors, who had neither energy nor talent to carry out the immense design, sat on the throne of Augustus. Yet it was not forgotten, and the cry of the people for the commencement of the amphitheatre was heard by Vespasian ; and to this enterprising Emperor is due the erection of this greatest work of antiquity, and now grandest ruin in the world. 1

ORIGIN AND EARL Y HISTOR V OF THE COLISEUM. 1 5

Vespasian was proud and ambitious ; he sought to rival the fame of Augustus, and in the second year after his elevation to the throne he commenced the Coliseum : this was in the year of our Lord 72. He died before it was completed ; and although there were more than thirty thousand persons constantly employed, it took eight years in its erection, and was dedicated by Titus in a. d. 80. The work was not perfectly finished until the reign of Domitian. This stupendous building was erected on the site of a fish-pond in the gardens of Nero. Standing .in the midst of the seven hills, and in the very heart of the ancient city, it not only surpassed in immensity and magnificence the two other marble amphitheatres which Rome possessed, but even outshone the glittering splendors of the golden house of Nero. Both Vespasian and Titus availed themselves of the experience of their travels in the East, for they cast into the designs of the amphitheatre all the boldness and majesty of the Syrian and Egyptian architecture, with the embellishment and refinement of Grecian art. Its immensity, even in its ruins, is surprising, whilst its arches rise in magical proportions over each other, in the Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian orders. Size, beauty, and strength have been combined to render it the largest, the most beautiful, and the most durable of ancient monuments. Raised in the air as high as the Palatine and Celian hills, a mountain without and a valley within, it unquestionably surpassed anything that Greece, or Egypt, or Rome had seen before. Martial, the poet, who saw it spring from its foundation, declares 1 that Rome had no longer anything to envy in the 1 " Barbara pyramidum sileat 'miracula Memphis :

Martial, Spec. i. 1.

East, since her superb amphitheatre was more wonderful than the pyramids of Memphis or the works of Babylon. Yet the most approved critics define the Coliseum as an Oriental edifice dressed in a Grecian costume.

The greatest works of man have generally their origin in destruction. In the history of the world there has scarcely ever been a great building or a nation that did not rise on the ruins of another. The workmen of the Coliseum were the captive Jews that adorned the triumph of Titus; the material was partly taken from the fallen house of Nero. Christians may look on it as a mighty monument, raised to commemorate the fulfilment of prophecy. The plough has passed over the city and temple of Jerusalem; its proud people have been humbled to the dust and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Seventy thousand of this conquered race were brought to Rome by Titus. Having adorned his triumph, they were divided into three classes; the women and children up to sixteen years of age were sold as slaves for the most miserable prices. Our Blessed Lord. was sold for thirty pieces of silver ; after the triumph of Titus, you could get thirty Jews for one piece of silver. Some of the men were sent to Egypt to work in the marble quarries, but by far the largest number were retained for the works of the Coliseum. The number is variously estimated from thirty thousand to fifty thousand. Thus the walls of that mighty emblem of everything gloomy and horrible were cemented with the tears of a fallen people.

The upper structures of the Coliseum were raised by material taken from the fallen house of the Caesars on the Palatine. When Vespasian and Titus gave orders for the destruction of the greater part of the house of Nero, they performed an act most pleasing to the Roman people. It was a monument of hateful splendor that rose on the ruins of their burned city ; its riches and its grandeur could but remind them of tyranny and oppression. No sooner was

ORIGIN AND EARL Y HIS TOR Y OF THE COLISE UM. I J

the order given than the populace joined in the work of devastation. Immense boulders of gilded travertine, columns, and capitals, and marble cornices of the most elaborate carving, bonds of iron and gold, and imperishable masses of brickwork, were rudely and indiscriminately hurried away to ornament or fill up the great work of the Coliseum.

The mighty amphitheatre itself will become a ruin, and, after the lapse of centuries, will be stricken by the hand of time, and will, in its own turn, lend the material of its fallen arches to build the mediaeval and modern palaces of the Eternal City. The immense quadrilateral palace of the Venetian embassy, the Farnese, the Barbarini, and others of lesser note, sprung from the ruins of the Coliseum. Thus it is in the history of man ; the greatest monuments of modern splendor have risen, phcenix-like, from the ruins of the mighty structures that our ancestors vainly imagined imperishable.

We must now take a view of the amphitheatre in its perfect state. Scattered fragments of description have been collected from ancient historians, and the picture is nearly complete. Fancy can fill up many details from the ruins as they now stand.

It has a beautiful elliptic figure, 564 feet in length and 467 in breadth. It was raised on eighty immense arches, and rose in four successive orders of architecture to the height of 140 feet. The whole building covered a space equal to six English acres. The outside was incrusted with marble and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave which formed the inside were filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble, covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease a hundred thousand spectators. 1 Sixty-four vomitories (for by that

1 Cardinal Wiseman, in a note in Fabiola, says, it could hold at least 2* B name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the immense multitudes ; the entrances, the passages, and staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of the senatorian, equestrian, or plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion.

The lowest row of seats next to the arena, now completely covered by earth and debris, was assigned to the senators and foreign ambassadors, and was called the podium. There, also, on an elevated platform was the Emperor's throne, shaded by a canopy like a pavilion. The place for the manager, or editor of the games, as he was called, and the vestal virgins, was beside the Emperor's seat.

The podium was secured with a breastwork or parapet of gold or gilt bronze against the irruption of the wild beasts. As a further defence, the arena was surrounded with an iron railing and a canal. The equites, or second order of nobles, sat in fourteen rows behind the senators. The rest of the people sat behind on seats called fiopularia, rising tier above tier to a gallery with a colonnade in front, running all round the amphitheatre immediately under the awning, and generally occupied by females, soldiers, and attendants.

Nothing was omitted that could in any way be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators. The immense canopy or awning, which at times was stretched over the entire expanse from the outer wall, as a protection from the sun or rain, was one of the wonders of the Coliseum. It requires a stretch of imagination to believe it. When we stand, even now, in the midst of the ruins, and see the vast expanse of the heavens above us, the

a hundred and fifty thousand spectators ; but none of the Italian antiquaries have mentioned more than a hundred thousand.

ORIGIN AND EARL Y HIS TOR Y OF THE COLISE UM. 1 9

mind is lost in doubt and conjecture about the possibility of such a marvellous fact. Yet all the historians who have written of the Coliseum mention it as if there were nothing extraordinary about it. Lampridius mentions that the men who were to work this awning were dressed as sailors, and numbered several hundreds. 1 At a signal given, when there was fear of rain, or the sun was too hot, there would be a simultaneous movement among the attendants — the cords would creak, and the mighty sails would roll gradually to the centre, each sail meeting in perfect harmony, and forming together an immense sheet that completely covered the interior. Stranger still the fact that this awning, in the time of Titus, was purple silk, fringed with gold. 3 The air was continually refreshed by the playing fountains, and an infinity of small tubes dispersed a shower of the most delicious perfumes which descended on the spectators like aromatic dews. The arena, in the centre of which stood the statue of Jupiter, formed the stage, and derived its name from being usually strewed with the finest white sand. Underneath, they had mechanism of the most extraordinary and complicated character, so that the arena could, during the games, assume different forms in quick succession. At one time it would seem to rise out of the earth like the Garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns of Thrace. Subterranean pipes conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water, and what just before appeared a level plain, might be suddenly converted into a wide lake covered with armed vessels, to delight the people with nautical entertainments.

l " A militibus classiariis qui vela ducebant in amphitheatre*," etc. — Lamprid. in Commotio.

Chapter III. The Entertainments And Spectacles Of The Coliseum

HE games and amusements which delighted the people of Rome present a spectacle of horror that sends a thrill to the very heart. No entertainment was popular unless accompanied by bloodshed and the loss of life ; no mock tragedies would be cheered in this temple of the furies. The amusements of the Coliseum form the darkest page in the records of the past.

During the greater celebrations there was scarcely a day passed in which some hundreds of mangled carcasses of men and beasts were not dragged from the arena to the spoliorium or dead-house. The games commenced about ten, and often lasted till dark; during all these hours, victim was falling upon victim ; the spectators, more and more intoxicated by each new draught of blood, drunk in by their glistening eyes, yelled for fresh victims and more blood. On more than one occasion it happened that every animal in the vivarium was slain in one day. Eutropius, speaking of Titus, says, "And when he had built the amphitheatre at Rome, he inaugurated the games, and caused five thousand beasts to be slain." (Eutropius, book ix. ch. x.) Gladiators, slaves, and Christians were the principal victims of the games.

ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE COLISEUM. 21

Yet there were bright spots in this picture of carnage — there were moments when the universal applause of the populace rang through every portion of the building in approbation of scenes of beauty, innocence, and mechanism, that can scarcely be rivalled in modern art. Their great games, which often lasted for entire weeks, were a strange mixture of the comic and the tragic, the jovial and the horrible. A favorite amusement was to witness the acting of trained animals in the circus. The writers of those times tell us of an elephant that was a rope-walker, 1 of a bear which would sit in a chair, dressed as a matron, while carried around the arena by attendants. 2 Then we have an account of the king of the forest, with gilt claws, and mane bespangled with gold and precious stones, which, as a strange contrast to successive scenes, was made to represent the virtue of clemency, being trained to play with a hare. He would take the frightened little animal in his mouth, put it on his back, and lavish on it a thousand caresses. 3 Then we read of twelve tame elephants, six male and six female, dressed in the togas of men and women, who would sit at table, and eat delicate viands

Also Suetonius in Galba, cap, vi., says : " Galba elephantos funambulos dedit."

Martial, lib. i. Epigram, cv. 14.

and drink wine from golden cups, and would use with the greatest delicacy and care that extraordinary trunk, with which they can lift a pin from the ground, or tear the forest-oak from its roots. 1 Others were trained to the Pyrrhic dance, and would spread flowers on the arena. They had a peculiar strong drink to which the elephants were partial ; it inebriated them, and caused them to go through antics and manoeuvres that produced incessant roars of laughter from the spectators.

We learn from Martial and others that there was another species of amusement of a grander and more exciting character, but intermingled and tainted with that spirit of cruelty which characterized most of the games of the amphitheatre. As already mentioned, the underground passages served as keeps and caves for the beasts, or might become immense aqueducts to flood the arena, which became a lake for naval entertainments. Ships with armed men were floated, and fought desperately with each other, as if an empire depended on the issue of the battle. On one occasion a large ship was introduced to this artificial lake, full of men and animals, and at a given signal it opened its sides and fell to pieces, and cast its living freight into the waters. Then came all the horrors of a shipwreck : the screams from the animals and the piteous cries of the drowning slaves, sounded like music to the Roman ear.

By a combination of mechanical skill, the fable of Orpheus was almost realized. The soil of the arena was ma.de to open suddenly in a hundred places, and trees would spring up clothed in the deepest green foliage, and bearing golden apples in imitation of the fabulous trees of the Garden of the Hesperides. Wild animals were let loose into this enchanting forest ; the trees would move to the sound of a flute; and that nothing might be wanting to

1 See Buling de Venation. Circ. cap. xx.

ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE COLISEUM. 2$

the reality of the representation, the unfortunate slave who had the honor of representing the Orpheus of the spectacle was torn to pieces by a bear. 1 A failure in any of the mechanism of these shows was considered a slight to the Emperor, and the director was punished with public death. Were it not for this inhuman and barbarous custom, which cramped with fear the greatest genius of the Empire, the Coliseum would have witnessed many a triumph of mechanical art.

Among the spectacles founded on Pagan mythology, Martial makes mention in his Epigrams of a parricide who was crucified in the Coliseum ; also of a horrible scene of Daedalus raised in the air with false wings, and then permitted to fall into the arena, where he was devoured by wild animals. On another occasion a slave was obliged to represent Mutius Scsevola, and to put his hand into a fire until completely burned. The wretch who had to suffer this awful cruelty had another alternative, for his garments were covered with pitch and tar, and if he wavered or flinched for a moment, he was burned alive.

But by far the most common amusement of the Coliseum were the combats with the beasts and the gladiators. The wild animals were made to fight with each other, then with men ; and lastly, man with his fellow-man. When wild animals were put into the arena to fight with each other, everything that could rouse or excite them was studied with the most cruel skill. The colors they hated most were scattered in profusion around them ; they were beaten with whips, and their sides were torn with iron hooks ; hot plates of iron were fastened to them, and even balls of fire were placed on their backs. Thus the enraged animals would run round the arena ; the earth would tremble under the thunder of their agonizing roars, and the inflated chest would seem to 1 Martial, Spect. xxi. I.

burst under the fire of passion that drove them mad. Their eyes sparkled with rage, and tearing up the sand with their claws, they enveloped themselves in a cloud of dust. In their fury they tore each other in pieces.

If, as sometimes happened, an infuriated lioness or tigress should kill the men and animals presented to her, frantic shouts of applause rose from every side of the amphitheatre, and whilst, mistress of the battle-field, she walked over the bodies of her victims, the people called aloud for her liberty, to have her sent back again to her native deserts.

The combats between men and beasts were still more popular. The Emperors themselves used to take part in them, and even women had the hardihood to enter the arena, and combat with the most ferocious animals. There Lsvere two classes of people destined for this species of sport ; — one was armed — they carried weapons according to their choice ; the others were poor slaves, captives, or criminals, who were exposed defenceless to the beasts. To this class the Christians belonged. They were distinguished from the gladiators by the opprobrious sobriquet of Bestiaries.

The combat of gladiators is supposed to have been of Etruscan origin. It formed part of the funeral obsequies of great men, according to the Pagan belief that the shades or manes of the dead were appeased by the shedding of blood. This strange funeral rite was first introduced into Rome at the obsequies of Junius Brutus in the year 490 of the city, and about 260 years before the Christian era. It seems to have been so pleasing to the cruel tastes of the Roman people, as to have soon become a common pastime. The gladiatorial fights were, strictly speaking, the games of the Coliseum, and to these it owes its existence. Such was the rage of the people for these sights, that it is believed that a hundred thousand gladiators fell within its walls.

ENTERTAINMENTS OF THE COLISEUM. 2$

During twelve days Trajan made- as many as ten thousand gladiators fight successively; almost all the succeeding Emperors followed his example. The men who fought as gladiators were generally captives taken in war, or slaves. At a later period, it became a kind of profession, and freemen and noblemen, maddened by enthusiasm, are said to have entered the lists to fight in deadly combat with the poor captive from Thrace or Gaul. Even women appeared in the arena as Amazons, and fought frantically and bravely, amid the unceasing acclamations of the people.

We are told by Herodian and Lampridius that the Emperor Commodus, not content with witnessing the fights of the gladiators, entered the arena himself, almost naked and armed with a short sword, and would challenge them to combat. Those who contended with him were enjoined not to inflict any wound ; but the moment they received a slight wound they fell on their knees before him, and declaring themselves defeated, sued for mercy. Having thus defeated a thousand gladiators, he ordered the head to be taken from the colossal statue of the sun, and his own image placed in its stead ; on the base of the monumenthe put this inscription, Mille gladiatorum victor? — "The conqueror of a thousand gladiators."

After the procession of the gods (with which the games of the amphitheatre, as well as those of the circus, were commenced), the gladiators who were doomed to fight, were also led around the arena in procession ; 2 then they were matched in pairs, and their swords examined by the manager. As a prelude to the battle, and to create the proper pitch of excitement, they fought first with wooden swords ; then, upon a signal being given by sound of trum-

1 Marangoni, p. 38.

pet, these were laid aside and deadly weapons were substituted. The interest of the assembled thousands was soon carried to the highest pitch of excitement ; from time to time they burst into deafening shouts of applause, or a dread silence reigned throughout the vast amphitheatre, a suspense which only ended in death of one of the combatants. When a gladiator received a wound, his adversary would cry out, " He has got it ! " — {Hoc habet /) Sometimes the wounded wretch would endeavor to conceal his wound, or pretend it was of no account, and perhaps would fall to the ground in making his last and desperate rush on his adversary. But his fate depended on the pleasure of the people ; if they wished him to be saved, they pressed down their thumbs, and if to be slain, they turned up their thumbs. The latter was more generally the awful verdict of the unfeeling mob ; the cry of recipe ferrum would fall with terrible vehemence on the dying man's ears. This simply meant that he was to submit to his fate bravely and with dignity; that he should show_ no disgraceful writhings or contortions of pain, that he should have even an art in the awful agonies of death. "The people," says Seneca, "thought themselves insulted when he would not die willingly; and by look, by gesture, and by vehemence of manner, called for his immediate execution."