stand the murderous stone throwing by
agreement and appointment. In principle, indeed, it approached the
tournament, and the combat of champions representing two parties is an
expression of the ancient instinct of the Latin peoples; so the Horatii
and Curiatii fought for Rome and Alba--so Francis the First of France
offered to fight the Emperor Charles the Fifth for settlement of all
quarrels between the Kingdom and the Empire--and so the modern Frenchman
and Italian are accustomed to settle their differences by an appeal to
what they still call 'arms,' for the sake of what modern society is
pleased to dignify by the name of 'honour.'

But in the stone-throwing combats of Campo Vaccino there was something
else. The games of the circus and the bloody shows of the amphitheatre
were not forgotten. As will be seen hereafter, bull-fighting was a
favourite sport in Rome as it is in Spain today, and the hand-to-hand
fights between champions of the Regions were as much more exciting and
delightful to the crowd as the blood of men is of more price than the
blood of beasts.

The habit of fighting for its own sake, with dangerous weapons, made the
Roman rabble terrible when the fray turned quite to earnest; the deadly
hail of stones, well aimed by sling and hand, was familiar to every
Roman from his childhood, and the sight of naked steel at arm's length
inspired no sudden, keen and unaccustomed terror, when men had little
but life to lose and set small value on that, throwing it into the
balance for a word, rising in arms for a name, doing deeds of blood and
flame for a handful of gold or a day of power.

Monti was both the battlefield of the Regions and also, in times early
and late, the scene of the most splendid pageants of Church and State.
There is a strange passage in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, a
pagan Roman of Greek birth, contemporary with Pope Damasus in the latter
part of the fourth century. Muratori quotes it, as showing what the
Bishopric of Rome meant even in those days. It is worth reading, for a
heathen's view of things under Valens and Valentinian, before the coming
of the Huns and the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and, indeed, before
the official disestablishment, as we should say, of the heathen
religion; while the High Priest of Jupiter still offered sacrifices on
the Capitol, and the six Vestal Virgins still guarded the Seven Holy
Things of Rome, and held their vast lands and dwelt in their spl