ive wrestlers and boxers. Of the dramatic
exhibitions we shall speak hereafter: the transplanting of Greek
comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value, but
it formed at any rate the best of the acquisitions made at this time.
The Romans had probably long indulged in the sport of coursing hares
and hunting foxes in presence of the public; now these innocent hunts
were converted into formal baitings of wild animals, and the wild
beasts of Africa--lions and panthers--were (first so far as can be
proved in 568) transported at great cost to Rome, in order that by
killing or being killed they might serve to glut the eyes of the
gazers of the capital. The still more revolting gladiatorial games,
which prevailed in Campania and Etruria, now gained admission to Rome;
human blood was first shed for sport in the Roman forum in 490. Of
course these demoralizing amusements encountered severe censure: the
consul of 486, Publius Sempronius Sophus, sent a divorce to his wife,
because she had attended funeral games; the government carried a
decree of the people prohibiting the bringing over of wild beasts to
Rome, and strictly insisted that no gladiators should appear at the
public festivals. But here too it wanted either the requisite power
or the requisite energy: it succeeded, apparently, in checking the
practice of baiting animals, but the appearance of sets of gladiators
at private festivals, particularly at funeral celebrations, was not
suppressed. Still less could the public be prevented from preferring
the comedian to the tragedian, the rope-dancer to the comedian, the
gladiator to the rope-dancer; or the stage be prevented from revelling
by choice amidst the pollution of Hellenic life. Whatever elements of
culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were
from the first thrown aside; it was by no means the object of the
givers of the Roman festivals to elevate--though it should be but
temporarily--the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry
to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the
period of its prime, or to prepare an artistic pleasure for a select
circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the
managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the
triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their
melodies failing to please, were instructed by the director to box
with one another instead of playing,