The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-02-24

Died aromatic liquids oozed from CuDes
distilled from pipes and rained gently
on the multitudes, and filed the air
with odors of hyacinth, and heliotrope,
and frankincense, and balsam, and
myrrh, and saffron, so that Lucan, the
poet, says of it:
At once ten thousand saffron currents dow,
And rain their odors on the crowd below.
But where was the sport to come
FRONT Well, l went into the cellars
opening off from the arena, and saw
the places where they kept the hyenas
and lions and panthers and wild boars
and beastly violences of all sorts, with
out food or water until made fierce
enough for the arena, and saw the
underground rooms where the gladia-
tors were accustomed to wait until the
clapping of the people outside de-
manded that they come forth armed to
murder or to be murdered. All the
arrangements were complets, as enough
of the cellars and galleries still re-
manned to indicate. What fun they
must have had turning lions without
food or drink for week upon an I'M
armed disciple of Jesus Christ! At the
dedication of this colosseum, nine
thousand wild beasts and ten thousand
immortal men were slain; SO that the
blood of men and beast was not
brook but a river, not a pool but
a lake. Having been in that way
dedicated, be not surprised when / tell
you that Emperor Probus on one occa-
sion threw into that arena of the Col
osseum one thousand stays, one thou
sand boars and one thousand ostriches.
What fun it must have been the
sound of trumpets, the ruar of wild
beasts and the groans of dying men
while in the gallery the wives and
children of those down under the lions
paw wrung their hands and shriel1ed
out in widowhood and orphanage,
while one hundred thousand people
clapped their hands, and there was
''Ha! Ha p wide as Rome and deep as
perdition. The corpses of that arena
were put on a cart or dragged by q
hook through what was called the
Gate of Death. What an excitement it
must have been when two combat
ants entered the arena, the one
with sword and shield and the
other with net and spear. The swords
man strikes at the man with the
net and spear; he lodges the sword.
and then filings the net over the head
of the swordsman and jerks him to the
floor of the arena, and the man who
flung the net puts his foot on the neck
of the fallen swordsman, and, spear in
hand, looks up to the galleries, as much
as to say: "Sball let him up, or shall
II tn+n h
he is dead?" The audience had two
signs, either of which they might give
If they waved their flags it meant spare
the fallen contestant If they turned
their thumbs down it meant STAY him.
Occasionally the audience would wave
their flags and the fallen would be let
up, but that was too tame sport
for most occasions, and generally the
thumbs from the galleries were turned
down, and with that sign would be
heard the accompanying shout of
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!''
Yet it was far from being a mono
tone of sport, for there was a change
of program me in that wondrous Colos-
scum. Under strange and powerful
machinery, beyondanyt thing of modern
begin to rock and roll and hen give
away, and there would appear n lake
of bright water, and on its banks trees
would spring up rustling with foliage,
and tigers appeared among the jungles,
and armed men would come forth, and
there would be a tiger hunt. Then, on
the lake in the Colosseum, armed ships
would float and there would be a sea
fight. What fun! What lots of fun!
When pestilence came, in order to APP
pease the gods, in this Colosseum a
sacrifice would be made, and the peo-
pie would throng that great amphi-
theater, shouting: 1.-The Christians to
the wild beasts" and there would be
a cracking of human bones in the jaws
of leonine erocity.
But all this was to be stopped. BY
the outraged sense of public decency?
No There is only one thing that has
ever stopped cruelty and.sin, and that
is Christianity, and it was Christianity,
whether you like its form or not, that
stopped this massacre of centuries. One
day, while in the Colosseum, Roman
victory was being celebrated, and one
hundred thousand enraptured specta-
tors were looking down upon two
gladiators in the arena stabbing and
slicing each other to death, an Asiatic
monk by the name of Telemachus was
SO overcome by the cruelty that he
leaped from the gallery into the arena
and ran in between the two swordsmen,
and pushed first one back and then the
other back, and broke up the contest.
OF course the audience was affronted
at having its sport stopped, and they
hurled stones at the head of Telemachus
until he fell dead in the arena. But
when the day was passed and the pas
sions of the people had cooled off, they
deplored the martyrdom of the brave
and Christian Telemachus, and, as a
result of the overdone cruelty, the hui
man sacrifices of the Colosseum were
forever abolished.
What a good thing, say you, that
such cruelties have ceased. Ny friends,
the same spirit of ruinous amusements
and of moral sacrifice is abroad in the
world to-day, although it takes other
shapes. Last summer in our country
there occurred a scene of pugilism on
which all Christendom looked down,
for saw the papers on the other side
of the Atlantic ocean giving whole
columns of it. VIII some one tell me
in what respect that brutality of last
summer was superior to the brutality
of the Roman colosseum? In some re-
spects it was worse, by so much as the
nineteenth century pretends to be
more merciful and more decent than