into a wide lake, covered with armed vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. In the decoration of the scenes the Roman Emperors displayed their wealth and liberality; and we read, on various occasions, that the whole furniture of the Amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber. The poet (Calpurnius) who describes the games given by the Emperor Carinus, in character of a shepherd attracted to the capital by the fame of their magnificence, affirms that the nets designed as a defence against the wild beasts were of gold wire; that the porticoes were gilded; and that the belt, or circle, which divided the several ranks of spectators from each other, was studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful stones." This sumptuous pile was originally called the Amphitheatrum Flavium, or Flavian Amphitheatre, in honour of the family name of the Emperors by whom it was commenced, continued, and completed; and the first mention of the name Coliseum, derived from its stupendously colossal dimensions, occurs in the works of the Venerable Bede, who records the famous prediction of the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims :-" Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Colyseus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus." "While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; From our own land Thus speak the pilgrims o'er the mighty wall In Saxon times." We have given our readers an idea of the pristine splendour of this mighty structure: we must now speak of its decay. Two-thirds of the original building have wholly passed away; the western and southern sides having been destroyed during the siege of Rome by the Norman freebooter, Robert Guiscard. In the middle ages it was converted into a fortress; and afterwards, from its apparently inexhaustible stores, the Roman princes for nearly two centuries pillaged the materials of their palaces. The Farnese, and the Barberini, and the Palace of St. Mark, were in great part built from its ruins. The Popes, in their greed and lust of money, endeavoured to convert it to some profitable purpose; Sixtus V. would have made it a woollen manufactory, and Clement XI. sought to hand it over to the makers of "villanous saltpetre." Benedict XIV., to preserve so splendid a memorial of the olden world from further spoliation, solemnly consecrated it to the memory of the Christian martyrs who had perished within its walls; and his successors have zealously contributed towards its repair and preservation. In the centre of the arena- -where the dying gladiator so often turned his gaze in vain on the wolfish eyes that glared, with cruel indifference to his agonies, from the crowded tiers-where the weak virgin was made strong by her faith in Christ to endure, unflinching, the tortures of a violent death-where the Indian tiger and the Libyan lion met in savage combat, or were confronted with some pitiful Dacian captive, Butchered to make a Roman holiday" now stands a cross, in symbolic commemoration of the establishment of Christianity; and, at intervals, fourteen emblems of our Lord's Passion are placed around it. In a rude wooden pulpit a monk preaches every Friday, and the truths of Christ's gospel are proclaimed within the walls which once echoed with the ferocious shouts of the persecutors of Christ's disciples ! We have given the dimensions of the Coliseum as recorded by Gibbon. Later measurements, however, have shown that its total height is 157 feet; its major axis, including the thickness of the walls, 584 feet; the minor axis, 468 feet. The length of the arena is 278 feet; the width 177 feet. The superficial area comprises nearly six acres. The outer elevation consists of four stories, and in each of the lower tiers there were eighty arches. The first story, of the Doric order, is nearly thirty feet high; the second, Ionic, about 38 feet; the third, Corinthian, of the same height; and the fourth, also Corinthian, 44 feet high. At the base surrounding the arena was the Podium, a species of covered gallery, reserved for the uses of the emperor, the senators, and the vestal virgins. The two lower stories were appropriated to the patricians; the two upper to the plebeians. Such was the Coliseum of Imperial Rome. Now turn we to its most splendid religious edifice, known as the Church of Sancta Maria ad Martyres-sometimes named La Rotunda-but more familiar by its ancient appellation of " THE PANTHEON. Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime- Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods Of Art and Piety-Pantheon! pride of Rome!" * This justly famous edifice is situated in a piazza between the Corso and the Piazza Navona, in a Dædalian labyrinth of mean and narrow streets. The massiveness of its construction, which has enabled it to withstand the assaults of * Lord Byron, "Childe Harold." |