some, opening
their jaws, yawned,--one might have said that they wanted to show their
terrible teeth to the audience. But later the odor of blood and torn
bodies, many of which were lying on the sand, began to act on them. Soon
their movements became restless, their manes rose, their nostrils drew
in the air with hoarse sound. One fell suddenly on the body of a woman
with a torn face, and, lying with his fore paws on the body, licked with
a rough tongue the stiffened blood: another approached a man who was
holding in his arms a child sewed up in a fawn's skin.

The child, trembling from crying, and weeping, clung convulsively to the
neck of its father; he, to prolong its life even for a moment, tried to
pull it from his neck, so as to hand it to those kneeling farther on.
But the cry and the movement irritated the lion. All at once he gave
out a short, broken roar, killed the child with one blow of his paw, and
seizing the head of the father in his jaws, crushed it in a twinkle.

At sight of this all the other lions fell upon the crowd of Christians.
Some women could not restrain cries of terror; but the audience drowned
these with plaudits, which soon ceased, however, for the wish to see
gained the mastery. They beheld terrible things then: heads disappearing
entirely in open jaws, breasts torn apart with one blow, hearts and
lungs swept away; the crushing of bones under the teeth of lions.
Some lions, seizing victims by the ribs or loins, ran with mad springs
through the arena, as if seeking hidden places in which to devour
them; others fought, rose on their hind legs, grappled one another like
wrestlers, and filled the amphitheatre with thunder. People rose
from their places. Some left their seats, went down lower through the
passages to see better, and crowded one another mortally. It seemed that
the excited multitude would throw itself at last into the arena, and
rend the Christians in company with the lions. At moments an unearthly
noise was heard; at moments applause; at moments roaring, rumbling, the
clashing of teeth, the howling of Molossian dogs; at times only groans.

Caesar, holding the emerald to his eye, looked now with attention. The
face of Petronius assumed an expression of contempt and disgust. Chilo
had been borne out of the Circus.

But from the cuniculum new victims were driven forth continually.

From the highest row in the amphitheatre the Apostle Peter looked at
them. No one saw him, for al