mpt for those unwieldy animals; and he no longer dreaded to
encounter them in the ranks of war.

The hunting or exhibition of wild beasts was conducted with a
magnificence suitable to a people who styled themselves the masters of
the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that entertainment less
expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity admires, and will long admire,
the awful remains of the amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved
the epithet of Colossal. It was a building of an elliptic figure, five
hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and sixty-seven
in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising, with four
successive orders of architecture, to the height of one hundred and
forty feet. The outside of the edifice was encrusted with marble, and
decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave, which formed the
inside, were filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats
of marble likewise, covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with
ease about fourscore thousand spectators. Sixty-four vomitories (for
by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the
immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and staircases were
contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of
the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order, arrived at his
destined place without trouble or confusion. Nothing was omitted, which,
in any respect, could be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of
the spectators. They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample
canopy, occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally
refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the
grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena,
or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the
most different forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth,
like the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into
the rocks and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an
inexhaustible supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level
plain, might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with
armed vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. In the
decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth
and liberality; and we read on various occasions that the whole
furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold,