ays."

"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
shalt thou trample under foot."

As this p[ae]an of triumph swelled into louder strain, the gladiators, awed
by its strange power, paused amid their ribald jests, and even the lion
hushed his hungry roar, and the tiger his angry growl.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXV

A ROMAN HOLIDAY.

Early next morning the army of slaves who had charge of the Coliseum,
under the direction of Fulvus, the freedman, were hard at work. Some at
the very summit of the building, with much shouting and pulling of
ropes, were stretching the great _velarium_ or awning, as a protection
from the rays of the sun. Others were sweeping the sand of the arena to
a smooth and even surface. Many cart loads of fresh sand were heaped
around the base of the podium, for the ghastly purpose of being spread
upon the blood-stained surface after each act of the sanguinary drama of
the day. Others were decorating with garlands of flowers, and with gold
and purple bannerets, the seats of the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius,
and those of the senators and other persons of distinction. The great
structure seemed even more striking in its vastness, as a few score
figures crawled like flies over its empty seats, than when filled with
its tumultuous throng of spectators. It was an immense oval six hundred
and fifteen feet in its longer diameter, and five hundred and ten feet
in the shorter. The circling seats rose tier on tier to the giddy height
of one hundred and fifty feet.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLISEUM, ROME.]

As the present writer climbed those cliff-like walls, now crumbling into
ruin, he tried to re-people those long-deserted seats with the eager and
excited throngs which had often filled them to overflowing, when twice
eighty thousand cruel eyes were wont to gloat upon the dying martyr's
pang, "butchered to make a Roman holiday."[49] Then he wandered through
the vast vaulted corridors and stairways, eighty in number, and bearing
still the old Roman numerals by which access was gained to the different
galleries. These were so capacious that the whole multitude could in a
few minutes disperse, and were thence called _vomitoria_. He then
explored the dens and caves for the wild beasts, and the rocky chambers
in which the gladiators and martyr victims awaited the signal that
called them to their doom. The row of seats just above the podium wa