WALKS IN ROME
Augustus Hare

We now turn to the Coliseum, originally called The Flavian Amphitheatre. This vast building was begun in A.D. 72, upon the site of the reservoir of Nero, by the Emperor Vespasian, who built as far as the third row of arches, the last two rows being finished by Titus after his return from the conquest of Jerusalem. It is said that 12,000 captive Jews were employed in this work, as the Hebrews in building the Pyramids of Egypt, and that the external walls alone cost a sum equal to 17,000,000 francs. It consists of four stories, the first Doric, the second Ionic, the third and
fourth Corinthian. Its circumference is 1641 feet, its length is 287, its width 182, its height 157. The entrance for the emperor was between two arches facing the Esquiline, where there is no cornice. Here there are remains of stucco decoration.
On the opposite side was a similar entrance from the Palatine. Towards S. Gregorio has been discovered the
subterranean passage in which the Emperor Commodus was near being assassinated. The numerous holes visible all over the exterior of the building were made in the middle ages, to extract the iron cramps, at that time of great value.
The arena was surrounded by a wall sufficiently high to protect the spectators from the wild beasts, who were introduced by subterranean passages closed by huge gates, from the side towards the Coelian. The podium contained the places of honour reserved for the Emperor and his family, the Senate, and the Vestal virgins. The places for the other spectators who entered by openings called vomitoria, were arranged in three stages (caveae), separated by a gallery (proecinctio). The first stage for knights and tribunes, had 24 steps, the second (for the common people) 16, the third (for the soldiery) 10.
The women, by order of the emperor, sate apart from the men, and married and unmarried men were also divided.
The whole building was probably capable of containing 100,000 persons. At the top, on the exterior, may be seen
the remains of the consoles which sustained the velarium which was drawn over the arena to shelter the spectators from the sun or rain. The arena could on occasions be filled with water for the sake of naval combats.
Nothing is known with certainty as to the architect of the Coliseum, though a tradition of the church (founded on an inscription in the crypt of S. Martino al Monte), ascribes it to Gaudentius, a. christian martyr, who afterwards suffered on the spot.* "
The name of the architect to whom the great work of the Coliseum was entrusted has not come down to us. The ancients seem themselves to have regarded this name as a matter of little interest; nor, in fact, do they generally care to specify the authorship of their most illustrious buildings. The reason is obvious. The forms of ancient art in this department, were almost wholly conventional, and the limits of design within which they were executed gave little room for the display of original taste and special character. .... It is only in periods of eclecticism and renaissance, when the taste of the architect has wider scope, and may lead the eye instead of following it, that interest attaches to his personal merit. Thus it is that the Coliseum, the most conspicuous type of Roman civilisation, the monument which divides the admiration of strangers in modern Rome with St. Peter's itself, is
nameless and parentless, while every stage in the construction of the great Christian temple, the creation of a modern revival, is appropriated with jealous care to its special claimants. " The dedication of the Coliseum afforded to Titus an opportunity for a display of magnificence hitherto unrivalled. A battle of cranes with dwarfs representing the pigmies was a fanciful novelty, and might afford diversion for a moment; there were combats of gladiators, among whom women were included, though no noble matron was allowed to mingle in the fray ; and the capacity of the vast edifice was tested by the slaughter of five thousand animals in its circuit. The show was
crowned with the immission of water into the arena, and with a sea-fight representing the contests of the Corinthians and Corcyreans, related by Thucydides. . . . When all was over, Titus himself was seen to weep, perhaps from fatigue, possibly from vexation and disgust; but his tears were interpreted as a presentiment of his death, which was now impending, and it is probable that he was already suffering from a decline of bodily strength. . . . He lamented effeminately the premature decease he too surely anticipated, and, looking wistfully at the  
*This inscription, found in the catacomb of S. Agnese, runs: "
Sic prxmia servas Vespasiane dire
Premiatus es morte Gaudenti letare
Civitatis ubi glorix tua: autori,
Promisit iste Kristus omnia tibi
Qui alium paravit theatrum in ccelo. "

heavens, exclaimed that he did not deserve to die. He expired on the I3th September, 81, not having quite completed his fortieth year."— Merivale, ch. Ix. " Hadrian gave a series of entertainments in honour of his birth-day, with the slaughter of a thousand beasts, including a hundred lions and as many lionesses. One magical scene was the representation of forests, when the whole arena became planted with living trees, shrubs, and
flowers ; to complete which illusion the ground was made to open, and send forth wild animals from yawning clefts, instantly re-covered with bushes. "
One may imagine the frantic excess to which the taste for gladiatorial combats was carried in Rome, from the preventive law of Augustus that gladiators should no more combat without permission of the senate; that praetors should not give these spectacles more than twice a year; that more than sixty couples should not engage at the same time ; and that neither knights nor senators should ever contend in the arena. The gladiators were classified according to the national manner of fighting which they imitated. Thus were distinguished the Gothic, Dacian, Thracian, and Samnite combatants; the Retiarii, who entangled their opponents in nets thrown with the left hand, defending themselves with tridents in the right; the Secutora, whose special skill was in pursuit ;
the Laqueatora, who threw slings against their adversaries; the Dimacfur, armed with a short sword in each hand ; the Hoplomachi, armed at all points ; the Myrmillones, so called from the figure of a fish at the crest of the Gallic helmet they wore ; the Bustuarii, who fought at funeral games ; the Bestiarii, who only assailed animals ; other classes who fought on horseback, called.Andabates ; and those combating in chariots drawn by two horses, Essedarii. Gladiators were originally slaves, or prisoners of war; but the armies who contended on the Roman arena in later epochs, were divided into compulsory and voluntary combatants, the former alone composed of slaves, or condemned criminals. The latter went through a laborious education in their art, supported at the
public cost, and instructed by masters called Lanista, resident in colleges, called Ludi. To the eternal disgrace of the morals of Imperial Rome, it is recorded that women sometimes fought in the arena, without more modesty than hired gladiators. The exhibition of himself in this character by Commodus, was a degradation of the imperial dignity, perhaps more infamous, according to ancient Roman notions, than the theatrical performances of Nero."—Humans' Story of Monuments in Rome. The Emperor Commodus (A.D. 180-182), frequently fought
in the Coliseum himself, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts, calling himself Hercules, dressed in a lion's-
skin, with his hair sprinkled with gold-dust. The gladiatorial combats came to an end, when, in A.D. 403, an oriental monk named Telemachus, was so horrified at them, that he rushed into the midst of the arena and besought the spectators to renounce them: instead of listening to him, they stoned him to death. The first martyrdom
here was that of St. Ignatius, said to have been the child especially blessed by our Saviour—the disciple of John — and the companion of Polycarp—who was sent here from Antioch, where he was bishop. When brought into the
arena, he knelt down, and exclaimed, " Romans who are present, know that I have not been brought into this place for any crime, but in order that by this means I may merit the fruition of the glory of God, for love of whom I have been made prisoner. I am as the grain of the field, and must be ground by the teeth of the lions, that I may become bread fit for His table." The lions were then let loose, and devoured him, except the larger bones, which the Christians collected during the night. 
"It is related of Ignatius that he grew up in such innocence of heart
and purity of life, that to him it was granted to hear the angels sing ;
hence, when he became bishop of Antioch, he introduced into the
service of his church the practice of singing the praises of God in
responses, as he had heard the choirs of angels answering each other. . . . .
His story and fate are so well attested, and so sublimely
affecting, that it has always been to me a cause of surprise as well as
regret to find so few representations of him. "—Jameson's Sacred Art, 693.
Soon after the death of Ignatius, 115, Christians were
shot down here with arrows. Under Hadrian, A.D. 218, a patrician named Placidus, his wife Theophista and his two
sons, were first exposed here to the wild beasts, but when these refused to touch them were shut up in a brazen bull, and roasted' by a fire lighted beneath. In 253, Abdon and Sennen, two rich citizens of Babylon, were exposed
here to two lions and four bears, but on their refusing to attack them, were killed by the swords of the gladiators. In A.D. 259, Sempronius, Olympius, Theodulus, and Exuperia, were burnt at the entrance of the Coliseum, before the statue of the Sun. In A.D. 272, Sta. Prisca was vainly exposed here to a lion, then starved for three days, then
stretched on a rack to have her flesh torn by iron hooks, then put into a furnace, and—having survived all these torments— was finally beheaded. In A.D. 277, Sta. Martina, another noble Roman lady, was exposed in vain to the
beasts and afterwards beheaded in the Coliseum. St. Alexander under Antoninus; St. Potitus, 168; St. Eleuthe-
rius, bishop of Illyria, under Hadrian ; St. Maximus, son of a senator, 284; and Vitus, Crescentia, and Modesta, under Domitian, were also martyred here.*  
"It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest truth, to say: so suggestive
and distinct is it at this hour : that, for a moment—actually in passing
in—they who will, may have the whole great pile before them, as it
used to be, with thousands of eager faces staring down into the arena,
and such a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust going on there, as no
language can describe. Its solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter
desolation, strike upon the stranger, the next moment, like a softened
sorrow; and never in his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome
by any sight, not immediately connected with his own affections
and afflictions. 
"To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
overgrown with green, its corridors open to the day; the long grass 
*See Hemans' Catholic Italy

growing in its porches ; young trees of yesterday springing up on its
ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of the seeds dropped
there by the birds who build tlieir nests within its chinks and crannies ;
to see its pit of fight filled up with earth, and the peaceful cross planted
in the centre ; to climb into its upper halls, and look down on ruin,
ruin, ruin, all about it; the triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimius
Severus, and Titus, the Roman Forum, the Palace of the Caesars, the
temples of the old religion, fallen down and gone ; is to see the ghost
of old Rome, wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on
which its people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the
most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable. Never, in
its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and
running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must
move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked : a ruin ! "
As it tops all other ruins : standing there, a mountain among
graves : so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of the old
mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the fierce and
cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the visitor approaches
the city ; its beauty becomes devilish ; and there is scarcely one countenance
in a hundred, among the common people in the streets, that would
not be at home and happy in a renovated Coliseum to-morrow."—
Dickens.
The spot where the christian martyrs suffered is now marked by a tall cross, devoutly kissed by the faithful,—and
all round the arena of the Coliseum, are the small chapels or "stations," used in the Via Crucis, which is observed
here at 4 P.M. every Friday, when a confraternity clothed in grey, with only the eyes visible, is followed by a crowd
of worshippers who chaunt and pray at each station in turn, — after which a Capuchin monk preaches from a
pulpit on the left of the arena. These sermons are often very striking, being delivered in a familiar style, and upon
popular subjects of the day, but they also often border
on the burlesque. " Oswald voulut aller au Colisee pour entendre le Capucin qui devait
y precher en plein air au pied de l'uu des autels qui désignent, dans l'in-téneur de l'enceinte, ce qu'on appelle la ronte de la Croix. Quel plus
beau sujet pour l'éloquence que l'aspect de ce monument, que cette
arène où les martyrs ont succédé aux gladiateurs ! Mais il ne faut rien
espérer à cet egard du pauvre Capucin, qui ne connaît de l'histoire des
hommes que sa propre vie. Néanmoins, si l'on parvient à ne pas
écouter son mauvais sermon, on se sent ëmu par les divers objets dont il
est entouré. La plupart de ses auditeurs sont de la confrérie des
Camaldules ; ils se revêtent, pendant les exercises religieux, d'une espèce
de robe grise qui couvre entièrement la tête et le corps, et ne laisse que
deux petites ouvertures pour les yeux ; c'est ainsi que les ombres pourraient
être représentées. Ces hommes, ainsi cachés sous leurs vêtements,
se prosternent la face contre terre, et se frappent la poitrine. Quand le
prédicateur se jette à genoux en criant miséricorde et pitié ! le peuple
qui l'environne se jette aussi à genoux, et répète ce même cri, qui va se
perdre sous les vieux portiques du Colisée. ll est impossible de ne pas
éprouver alors une émotion profondément religieuse ; cet appel de la
douleur à la bonté, de la terre au ciel, remue l'âme jusque dans son
sanctuaire le plus intime."—Madame de Stall. " '
C'est aujourd'hui Vendredi,' dit Guy, 'il y aura foule au Colisée,
il vaudrait mieux, je crois, y aller un autre jour.' " '
Non, non,' dit Eveline, ' c'est précisément pour cela que je veux
y aller. On m'a dit qu'il fallait la voir ainsi rempli de monde, et que
d'ailleurs cette fête était curieuse.' " '
Ce n'est pas une fête,' dit Guy gravement, ' c'est un simple acte de
dévotion qui se répète tous les Vendredis.' " '
En vérité,' dit Eveline, 'et pourquoi le Vendredi ?' " '
Parceque c'est le jour où Christ est mort pour nous ; par cette
raison, vous ne l'ignorez pas, ce jour est demeuré consacré dans le monde
chrétien .... dans le monde catholique du moins,' repondit Guy. " '
Mais à quel propos choisit-on le Colisée pour s'y réunir ce jour
là?' " ' Parceque le Colisée a été baigné du sang des martyrs et que leur
souvenir se mêle là plus qu'ailleurs à celui de la croix pour laquelle ils
l'ont versé.' "—Mrs. Augustus Craven in Anne Scverin.
The pulpit of the Coliseum was used for the stormy sermons of Gavazzi, who called the people to arms from
thence in the revolution of March, 1848.
It is well worth while to ascend to the upper galleries (a man who lives near the entrance from the Forum will
open a locked door for the purpose), as then only is it possible to realize the vast size and grandeur of the
building. 
"May, 1827.—Lastly, we ascended to the top of the Coliseum,
Bunsen leaving us at the door, to go home ; and I seated myself just
above the main entrance, towards the Forum, and there took my farewell
look over Rome. It was a delicious evening, and everything was
looking to advantage:—the huge Coliseum just under me, the tufts
of ilex and aliternus and other shrubs that fringe the walls everywhere
in the lower part, while the outside wall, with its top of gigantic stones,
lifts itself high above, and seems like a mountain barrier of bare rock,
enclosing a green and varied valley. I sat and gazed upon the scene
with an intense and mingled feeling. The world could show nothing
grander ; it was one which for years I had longed to see, and I was now
looking at it for the last time. When I last see the dome of St. Peter's
I shall seem to be parting from more than a mere town full of curiosities,
where the eye has been amused, and the intellect gratified. I never
thought to have felt thus tenderly towards Rome ; but the inexplicable
solemnity and beauty of her ruined condition has quite bewitched me,
and to the latest hour of my life I shall re-member the Fornm, the surrounding
hills, and the magnificent Coliseum."—Arnold's Lefters.
The upper arches frame a series of views of the Aventine, the Capitoline, the Ccelian, and the Campagna, like a succession of beautiful pictures. Those who visit the Coliseum by moonlight will realize the truthfulness of the following descriptions :— 
"I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,—upon such a night,
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome ;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber ; and
More near from out the Cesar's palace came

The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind :—
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot where the Caesars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements.
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths ;
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;—
But the gladiator's bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection !
While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries ;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old :—
The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule
O'er spirits from their urns." Manfred. "
Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome,
Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine
As 't were its natural torches, for divine

Should be the light which streams here, to illume
The long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume "
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, 

but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower."
Childe Harold. 
"No one can form any idea of full moonlight in Rome who has not
seen it. Every individual object is swallowed in the huge masses of
light and shadow, and only the marked and principal outlines remain
visible. Three days ago (Feb. 2, 1787) we made good use of a light
and most beautiful night. The Coliseum presents a vision of beauty.
It is closed at night ; a hermit lives inside in a little church, and beggars
roost amid the ruined vaults. They had lighted a fire on the bare
ground, and a gentle breeze drove the smoke across the arena. The
lower portion of the ruin was lost, while the enormous walls above
stood forth into the darkness. We stood at the gates and gazed upon
this phenomenon. The moon shone high and bright. Gradually the
smoke moved through the chinks and apertures in the walls, and the
moon illuminated it like a mist. It was an exquisite moment!"—
Goethe.
It is believed that the building of the Coliseum remained entire until the eighth century, and that its ruin dates from the invasion of Robert Guiscard, who destroyed it to prevent its being used as a stronghold by the Romans.
During the middle ages it served as a fortress, and became the castle of the great family of Frangipani, who here gave refuge to Pope Innocent II. (Papareschi) and his family, against the anti-pope Anacletus II., and afterwards in the same way protected Innocent III. (Conti) and his brothers against the anti-pope Paschal II. Constantly at war with the Frangipani were the Annibaldi, who possessed a neighbouring fortress, and obtained from Gregory IX. a
grant of half the Coliseum, which was rescinded by Innocent IV. During the absence of the popes at Avignon the
Annibaldi got possession of the whole of the Coliseum, but it was taken away again in 1312, and placed in the hands of the municipality, after which it was used for bullfights, in which (as described by Monaldeschi) nobles of high rank took part and lost their lives. In 1381 the senate made over part of the ruins to the Canons of the Lateran, to be used as a hospital, and their occupation is still commemorated by the arms of the Chapter (our Saviour's head between two candelabra) sculptured in various parts of the building. From the fourteenth century it began to be looked upon as a stone-quarry, and the Palazzos Farnese, Barberini, S. Marco, and the Cancellaria, were built with materials plundered from its walls. It is said that the first of these destroyers, Cardinal Farnese, only extorted permission from his reluctant uncle, Paul III., to quarry as much stone as he could remove in twelve
hours, and that he availed himself of this permission to let loose four thousand workmen upon the building.
Sixtus V. endeavoured to utilise it by turning the arcades into shops, and establishing a woollen manufactory, and
Clement XI. (1700-1721) by a manufactory of saltpetre, but both happily failed. In the last century the tide of restoration began to set in. A Carmelite monk, Angelo Paoli, represented the iniquity of allowing a spot consecrated by such holy memories to be desecrated, and Clement XL consecrated the arena to the memory of the martyrs who had suffered there, and erected in one of the archways the still existing chapel of Sta. Maria della Pieta.
The hermit appointed to take care of this chapel was stabbed in 1742, which caused Benedict XIV. to shut in the Coliseum with bars and gates. Destruction has now become sacrilege, and the five last popes have all contributed
to strengthen and preserve the walls which remain. Even so late as thirty years ago, however, the interior was (like that of an English abbey) an uneven grassy space littered with masses of ruin, amid which large trees grew
and flourished, and the clearing out of the arena, though exhibiting more perfectly the ancient form of the building,
is much to be regretted by lovers of the picturesque.* Among the ecclesiastical legends connected with the
Coliseum, it is said that Gregory the Great presented some foreign ambassadors with a handful of earth from the arena as a relic for their sovereigns, and upon their receiving the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the soil. Pius V. urged those who wished for relics to gather up the dust of the Coliseum, wet with the blood of the martyrs.
In 1744 "the Blessed Leonardo di Porto Maurizio," who is buried in S. Buonaventura, drew immense crowds to the
Coliseum by his preaching, and obtained permission from Benedict XIV. to found the confraternity of " Amanti di
Gesu e Maria," for whom the Via Crucis was established here.
Recently the ruins have been associated with the holy beggar, Benoit Joseph Labre (beatified by Pius IX. in 1860) who died at Rome in 1783, after a life spent in devotion. He was accustomed to beg in the Coliseum, to sleep at night under its arcades, and to pray for hours at its various shrines.
The name Coliseum is first found in the writings of the Venerable Bede, who quotes a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims. 
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the world." t  
*A work on the Flora of the Coliseum has been published by S. Deakin.
t Quamdiu stat ColysEeus, stat et Roma; quando cadet Colysaeus, cadet et Roma
cadet et mundus.
The name was probably derived from its size ; the amphitheatre of Capua was also called Colossus. Once or twice in the course of every Roman winter the Coliseum is illuminated with Bengal lights. 
"Les étrangers se donnent parfois l'amusement d'éclairer le Colisée
avec des feux de Bengale. Cela ressemble un peu trop à un finale de
mélodrame, et on peut préférer comme illumination un radieux soleil ou
les douces lueurs de la lune. Cependant j'avoue que la première fois
que le Colkée m'apparut ainsi, embrasé de feux rougeâtres, son histoire
me revint vivement à la pensée. Je trouvais qu'il avait en ce moment
sa vraie couleur, la couleur du sang."—Amfère, Emp. ii. 156.

ABOUT THE COLOSSEUM