Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-07-22
SACRAMENTO, SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 22, 1882
ROMAN CRUELTY.

The games of the Roman Colosseum,
which, according to Juvenal, had become
as much necessarIes of life to the people as
their daily bread, supplies OF itself most
remarkable illustration of the particular
phase of human nature. That in an ad-
vanced period of material civilization spec
tacles whereof the one grand interest con-
sisted in the elaborate and wholesale
torture and carnage of men and animals
should not only have been tolerated with
scarcely a protest for centuries, but should
have formed the chief and indispensable
amusement of both sexes and all classes of
the population, including the highest this
appears at first sight to modern thinkers a
moral fact almost incredible in its atrocity.
And go firm, moreover, was their hold on
popular sympathy that they lasted long
after the conversion of the empire to Chris
tianity Constantine, to be sure, issued an
edict suppressing the gladiatorial shows,
but it was suffered to remain a dead
letter, and it was not until nearly
a century later, when the Asiatic monk
Telemachus leaped into the arena and
separated the combatants at the cost of his
own life-he was stoned to death by the
indignant spsctators-that these games
were finally abolished. Something may be
due to the religious origin of the custom,
which is commonly alleged to have sprung
out of rite of human sacrifice offered at
the tombs of great men, though some
scholars, like Mommsen, deny the exist
ence of human sacrifice at Rome. Later
on motives of policy conspired to sustain
the practice, both as a means of keeping
up the military spirit of the people and as
offering the sole opportunity under a
despotic Emperor for the thousands of
citizens then assembled in presence of their
sovereign and his ministers to present petit
tions and make known their grievances.
Still these explanations do not carry US
very far. Theatrical entertainments, such
as the Greeks delighted in, would have
answered the latter purpose at least quite
as well, but for appreciating such refined
amusements these CHASTITY orgies of blood
quite untitled the Roman populace. And
it is a curious fact noted by distin-
guished modern writer that, as different
kinds of vice which might appear to have
no mutual connection do yet act and react
on one another, SO here the intense craving
after excitement engendered and grati6ed
by gladiatorial combats served to stimulate
the taste for such orgies of sensuality as
are described by historians like Tacitus and
Suetonius. And hence not only was Her.
cules burned on the stage, not in effigy but
in the person of condemned criminal, but
the deeds of gods and heroes were repre-
sented, as Juvenal says, to the life. Nor
can it be questioned-and it is chiefly in
order to illustrate that terrible lesson that
we have referred to the subject here-t that
the gladiatorial shows betrayed not merely
indifference to human suffering, but that
capacity for real and keen pleasure in the
contemplation of suffering, as such, which
many are 10th for the credit of human ma
ture to admit. Suetonius for instance,
tells us that it was the special delight
of Claudius to watch the faces of the
expiring gladiators, as he had come to take
kind OF artistic pleasure in observing the
variations of their agony. Heliogabalus
and Galerius used to regale themselves
while at table with the spectacle of ami
mails devoured by wild beasts, and Lactan.
titus says of Gslerius that she never sup
ped without human blood" And, what is
more horrible still, beautiful eyes, trem-
bling with passion, looked down upon the
fight, and the n0blest ladies in Rome, even
the Empress herself, had been known to
crave the victor's love-" a story told by
St. Augustine exhibits the CHASTITY fascina.
tion of the spectacle. A Christian friend
of his had somehow been drawn into the
amphitheater, which Christians were
strictly forbidden to enter, and resolved to
guard against the temptation to sinful en-.
joyment by keeping his eyes closed sud
den cry led him to look up, and he was un-
able to withdraw his gaze again L The
Saturday Review.