ection with it, both for beasts and men.
Children amused themselves by torturing beasts and insects, making them
draw loads, and making fowls and birds fight. They loved the sight of
pain and bloodshed and found their greatest pleasure in it.[2055] Under
Nero women fought in the arena. This was forbidden under Severus. A law,
probably of the time of Nero, forbade masters to give their slaves to
fight beasts. Hadrian forbade the sale of slaves to be gladiators.
Marcus Aurelius forbade the condemnation of criminals to be gladiators,
and he tried to limit the gladiatorial exhibitions. They were far too
popular.[2056] It is thus that amusements and mores react on each other
to produce social degeneration. The whole social standard of "right"
moves down with the moral degeneracy, and at no stage is there a sense
of shame or wrongdoing in the public mind in connection with what is
customary and traditional at the time. There is no contrast between
facts and standards. The great Christian ecclesiastics of the fourth and
fifth centuries denounced the public amusements and tried to keep the
Christians away from them. They tried to convert actors. They pointed
out the subtle corruption of character produced by feigning vice.
Gladiators were not admitted to baptism unless they repented and
renounced their profession.[2057] In 325 Constantine forbade
gladiatorial combats as unfit for a time of peace. He forbade the use of
condemned criminals in the arena. These laws were powerless.[2058]

+641. Compromise between church and customs.+ The _maiuma_ (mock sea
fight on the Tiber in May) was forbidden, probably under Constance, a
prohibition which was repeated by Theodosius. Arcadius tried to allow it
again, under conditions that propriety be observed, but it was
impossible, and he forbade all immodest exhibitions. Theodosius forbade
magistrates to be present at exhibitions after midday, when the most
obscene and bloody were presented, except on the anniversaries of his
own birth and accession. He also forbade actresses to use fine clothes
and jewels, and forbade Christians to be actors. Leo I ([symbol: cross]
461) forbade that any Christian woman, free or slave, should be
compelled to be an actress or meretrix.[2059] Salvianus describes,[2060]
in very emphatic but general terms, the public exhibitions in Gaul and
Africa in the second half of the fifth century. There was, he says,
scarcely a crime or outrage which was not represented on