The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-09-11

built of cobble stones and mud, as
the fashion in these degenerate days
but of solid blocks of granite and mar
BILE, that might well have stood Will
stands the world. 1t was elliptical II
form, four stories high, Joofiess, ant
r covered space of five acres. 1t seat
ed 81, 900 people, and in its great aren'
was space for gladitorial combats be
tween hundreds of men and for nava
battles between squadrons of ships
such as were then in use. Completed
in the year 81 A. ID. it stood for l3O'
years without break in its massy
walls and might well have stood til
the elements were melted with ferven
heat, if it had been let alone. But Il
was not let alone. The Romans be
came too much civilized to use 1t fol
the cruel purposes for which it was
designed, and not enough civilized te
to preserve 1t as a relic Of the past
and so they began tearing it down te
get material for building their houses
For hundreds of years it was regarded
as a common quarry, and churches
and palaces enough to make a city
were built of the stone taken from its
walls. At last some Pope, remember
ing the martyrs that had been immo-
lated there, consecrated 1t as holy
ground and the destruction ceased.
Only about one third of the original
structure now remains, but even this
fragment is enough to fill the behold
er with wonder and awe, for it is the
grandest and most stupendous ruin in
the world. And it is sufficient en-
ployment for a busy hour to stand
there OH the old arena, looking down
into the dens where the wild beasts
were kept, and up at the gray and
sullen walls that supported the seats
where those wilder beasts, the Roman
people, sat, and try to call up the
scenes this spot has witnessed, the
death of the martyrs, given over to
the lion and the tiger because they
sought to worship their own God, the
fighting of the beasts with one anoth-
er and with men trained for the contest,
the battles to the death between men
who had no quarrel of their own, who
were perhaps even brothers or friends,
all, all, "butchered to make ROM
an holiday! 1t is a place for
thoughts and visions, the mournful-
est, the most impressive, the most SOL
emn, the most majestic spectacle in
all the world.
1t is easy and natural to pass from
the Colosseum to the Forum Roman
am, from the physical center of Rome
to its intellectual center. But while
the place of the gladiators stands
massive and towering, the place of
the orators has sunk even beneath the
dust and is broken and fallen and all
but unrecognizable. One may tread
now on the pavement of the old Forum
and upon the worn stones of the Via
Sdcra, along which the triumphal
professions passed, but he finds them
% feet beneath the pavement of mod
ern Rome. The excavations are COM
paratively small, in area perhaps 200
yards wide and three or four times as
long. But here, between the Palatine
aud the Capiloline bills, was the center
of old Rome when it held two million
souls, and the discoveries made even
in this limited space are enough to in
terest and delight even the most SUI
perficial student of Roman history.
The oblong space, about 200 yards |
long by 20 wide, where stood the For
um proper. is marked in one corner of |
the excavations. Only the pavement |
and few pieces of broken column re-
main of the original structure. To the
eft of this are the old walls, fairly
we'll preserved, which supported
the rostrum from which the orators
poke. The ro.trum must have been
100 feet long by ten feet',wide and sew
IN or eight feet high. 1t is tempta-
ion to stop and moralize upon the
scenes these stones have witnessed
md the words they have heard
words that will be read and remem-
,ered long after the very stones are
lust-but neither time nor space per-
nits. Let it only be said in passing,
hat it was to this rostrum Mark An
ony brought the body of Caesar that
ime he ''came to bury Caesar, not to
,raise him." Just above the rostrum
tands the triumphal arch of Septi-
nus Servius, still beautiful and impos-
ne, though hoary with age. To the
light of it stand three or four columns.
III that is left of the once magnificent
temple of Jupiter. Some broken col
INNS are all that remain of the tenn
lie of Concord, where Cicero stood in
he presence of the Roman Senate and
inquired of Cataline how long he in
ended to abuse their patience. Just
Glow the Forum is the Cloaka Max
ma, draining the city now as it has
Dr. the last 900 years and more, the
i'd arches still intact. Still farther
own are two columns marking the
pot where stood the Temple of Castor j
nd Pollux. Near them is the circu- I
II foundation built of brick, of the '