sand ostriches, bears, deer, ibexes, wild sheep, and other graminivorous animals, amidst a forest which had been transplanted into the Amphitheatre. Pompey exhibited in the last five days of his spectacles, four hundred tigers, five hundred lions, and several elephants, rhinoce roses, and other strange beasts brought from Ethiopia.

Destruction of the Amphitheatres.

THESE structures owed their origin to the barbarity of the ancients, and their ruin to the humanity of the moderns; for when Christianity became the religion of the empire, it meliorated the dispositions of the Romans, and induced them to lay aside these barbarous exhibitions. Constantine the Great terminated the gladiatorial combats in the east during his reign: but they were not finally abolished at Rome until the beginning of the fifth century, in the reign of Honorius.

Cassiodorus and Theodoret relate, that in the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the shows in the Flavian Amphitheatre, before the usual immense concourse of people, when Telemachus, an eastern monk, who had travelled to Rome, intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to separate the combatants. The Prætor Alypius, a person extremely attached to these games, gave instant orders to the gla

diators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abolished the shows of gladiators, which were never after revived. The combats of wild beasts however, continued sometime longer, but during the progress of the fifth century these gradually declined, and were finally abolished, and the Amphitheatres were abandoned to the ravages of time and accident. During the middle ages they were sometimes employed for judicial conflicts, tilts, and tournaments; but these practices having been discontinued, the Amphitheatres experienced universal neglect and ruin.

AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. ANTIQUARIES differ much about the date of this Amphitheatre; some supposing it to have been built in the days of Augustus, others in those of Maximin. There is great reason to think that the former date cannot be correct, as it is not probable that so large an edifice should have been built of stone, in a distant province before one had been erected of similar materials in the capital. It is equally improbable that it should have been erected in the time of Maximin, when the empire was harassed by enemies, and the frontiers particularly ex

posed to the incursions of barbarians. Pliny, who died in the latter days of Adrian, mentions an Amphitheatre, as existing in his time, at Verona. It may be conjectured that the present was built before the death of that Emperor.

Vitruvius Cerdone is supposed to have been the architect:

According to Lalande, its diameter is four hundred and sixty-four feet by three hundred and sixty-seven; and that of the arena, two hundred and twenty-five by one hundred and thirty-three. Its circumference one thousand three hundred and thirty-one feet. From some stones which still are seen, it is conceived that it had a fourth story, and that the total height was from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty feet. There were forty-five rows of seats, which could contain above twenty-two thousand persons; allowing a foot and a half for each place. The whole superficies is about four acres, and nearly one third. The whole building was erected without cement, and joined and secured by iron cramps, overlaid with lead. Only four of the external arches now remain.