ulated and maddened to attack each other.
And as Diana was also a special protectress of new-born creatures,
there would be a certain curious interest in the dexterously contrived
escape of the young from their mother's torn bosoms; as many pregnant
animals as possible being carefully selected for the purpose.

The time had been, and was to come again, when the pleasures of the
amphitheatre centered in a similar practical joking upon human beings.
What more ingenious diversion had stage manager ever contrived than
that incident, itself a practical epigram never to be forgottten, [239]
when a criminal, who, like slaves and animals, had no rights, was
compelled to present the part of Icarus; and, the wings failing him in
due course, had fallen into a pack of hungry bears? For the long shows
of the amphitheatre were, so to speak, the novel-reading of that age--a
current help provided for sluggish imaginations, in regard, for
instance, to grisly accidents, such as might happen to one's self; but
with every facility for comfortable inspection. Scaevola might watch
his own hand, consuming, crackling, in the fire, in the person of a
culprit, willing to redeem his life by an act so delightful to the
eyes, the very ears, of a curious public. If the part of Marsyas was
called for, there was a criminal condemned to lose his skin. It might
be almost edifying to study minutely the expression of his face, while
the assistants corded and pegged him to the bench, cunningly; the
servant of the law waiting by, who, after one short cut with his knife,
would slip the man's leg from his skin, as neatly as if it were a
stocking--a finesse in providing the due amount of suffering for
wrong-doers only brought to its height in Nero's living bonfires. But
then, by making his suffering ridiculous, you enlist against the
sufferer, some real, and all would-be manliness, and do much to stifle
any false sentiment of compassion. The philosophic emperor, having no
great taste for sport, and asserting here a personal scruple, had
greatly changed all [240] that; had provided that nets should be spread
under the dancers on the tight-rope, and buttons for the swords of the
gladiators. But the gladiators were still there. Their bloody
contests had, under the form of a popular amusement, the efficacy of a
human sacrifice; as, indeed, the whole system of the public shows was
understood to possess a religious import. Just at this point,
certainly, the