The Coliseum by Esther Singleton

I. EDWARD GIBBON

Whatever is fortified will be attacked: and whatever is attacked may / be destroyed. Could the Romans have wrested from the popes the Castle / of St. Angelo, they had resolved by a public decree to annihilate / that monument of servitude. Every building of defence was exposed to / a siege; and in every siege the arts and engines of destruction were / laboriously employed. After the death of Nicholas the Fourth, Rome, / without a sovereign or a senate, was abandoned six months to the fury / of civil war. "The houses," says a cardinal and poet of the times, / "were crushed by the weight and velocity of enormous stones; the walls / were perforated by the strokes of the battering-ram; the towers were / involved in fire and smoke; and the assailants were stimulated by / rapine and revenge. " The work was consummated by the tyranny of the / laws; and the factions of Italy alternately exercised a blind and / thoughtless vengeance on their adversaries, whose houses and castles / they razed to the ground. In comparing the _days_ of foreign, / with the _ages_ of domestic, hostility, we must pronounce, that / the latter have been far more ruinous to the city; and our opinion is / confirmed by the evidence of Petrarch. "Behold," says the laureat, "the / relics of Rome, the image of her pristine greatness! neither time, / nor the barbarian, can boast the merit of this stupendous destruction: / it was perpetrated by her own citizens, by the most illustrious of her / sons, and your ancestors (he writes to a noble Annibaldi) have done / with the battering-ram, what the Punic hero could not accomplish with / the sword. " The influence of the two last principles of decay must in / some degree be multiplied by each other; since the houses and towers, / which were subverted by civil war, required a new and perpetual supply / from the monuments of antiquity.

These general observations may be separately applied to the / amphitheatre of Titus, which has obtained the name of the / COLISEUM, either from its magnitude, or from Nero's colossal / statue: an edifice, had it been left to time and nature, which might / perhaps have claimed an eternal duration. The curious antiquaries, who / have computed the numbers and seats, are disposed to believe, that / above the upper row of stone steps, the amphitheatre was encircled and / elevated with several stages of wooden galleries, which were repeatedly / consumed by fire, and restored by the emperors. Whatever was precious, / or portable, or profane, the statues of gods and heroes, and the / costly ornaments of sculpture, which were cast in brass, or overspread / with leaves of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or / fanaticism, of the avarice of the barbarians or the Christians. In the / massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes are discerned; and the two / most probable conjectures represent the various accidents of its decay. / These stones were connected by solid links of brass or iron, nor had / the eye of rapine overlooked the value of the baser metals; the vacant / space was converted into a fair or market; the artisans of the Coliseum / are mentioned in an ancient survey; and the chasms were perforated or / enlarged to receive the poles that supported the shops or tents of the / mechanic trades.

Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian amphitheatre / was contemplated with awe and admiration by the pilgrims of the north; / and the rude enthusiasm broke forth in a sublime proverbial expression, / which is recorded in the Eighth Century, in the fragments of the / venerable Bede: "As long as the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when / the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the world will / fall. " In the modern system of war, a situation commanded by three / hills would not be chosen for a fortress; but the strength of the walls / and arches could resist the engines of assault; a numerous garrison / might be lodged in the enclosure; and while one faction occupied the / Vatican and the Capitol, the other was entrenched in the Lateran and / the Coliseum.

The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be understood with / some latitude; and the carnival sports, of the Testacean mount and the / Circus Agonalis, were regulated by the law or custom of the city. The / senator presided with dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute the / prizes, the gold ring, or the _pallium_, as it was styled, of / cloth or silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expense; and / the races, on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a / tilt and tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year one / thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the fashion / of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the Coliseum itself; and / the living manners are painted in a diary of the times. A convenient / order of benches was restored; and a general proclamation, as far as / Rimini and Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and / courage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled / in three squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which on this day, / the third of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova / di Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tiber, a pure and native / race, who still represent the features and character of antiquity.