Suetonius, seems to have been the largest
ever made; Xiphilinus even adds to the number, and says, that including
wild-boars, cranes, and other animals, no less than nine thousand were
killed. In the reigns of succeeding emperors, a new feature was given to
these spectacles, the Circus being converted into a temporary forest, by
planting large trees, in which wild animals were turned loose, and the
people were allowed to enter the wood and take what they pleased. In this
instance, the game consisted principally of beasts of chase; and, on one
occasion, one thousand stags, as many of the ibex, wild sheep (mouflions
from Sardinia?), and other grazing animals, besides one thousand wild
boars, and as many ostriches, were turned loose by the emperor Gordian.]

[Footnote 790: "Diem perdidi." This memorable speech is recorded by
several other historians, and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles.]

[Footnote 791: A.U.C. 832, A.D. 79. It is hardly necessary to refer to
the well-known Epistles of Pliny the younger, vi. 16 and 20, giving an
account of the first eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny, the historian,
perished. And see hereafter, p. 475.]

[Footnote 792: The great fire at Rome happened in the second year of the
reign of Titus. It consumed a large portion of the city, and among the
public buildings destroyed were the temples of Serapis and Isis, that of
Neptune, the baths of Agrippa, the Septa, the theatres of Balbus and
Pompey, the buildings and library of Augustus on the Palatine, and the
temple of Jupiter in the Capitol.]

[Footnote 793: See VESPASIAN, cc. i. and xxiv. The love of this emperor
and his son Titus for the rural retirement of their paternal acres in the
Sabine country, forms a striking contrast to the vicious attachment of
such tyrants as Tiberius and Caligula for the luxurious scenes of Baiae,
or the libidinous orgies of Capri.]

[Footnote 794: A.U.C. 834, A.D. 82.]

[Footnote 795: A.U.C. 804.]

[Footnote 796: A street, in the sixth region of Rome, so called,
probably, from a remarkable specimen of this beautiful shrub which had
made free growth on the spot.]

[Footnote 797: VITELLIUS, c. xv.]

[Footnote 798: Tacitus (Hist. iii.) differs from Suetonius, saying that
Domitian took refuge with a client of his father's near the Velabrum.
Perhaps he found it more safe afterwards to cross the Tiber.]

[Footnote 799: One of Domitian's coins bears on the reverse a captive
female and