PHYSICAL EDUCATION,. 451 



ence of sedentary occupations. The Assyrians and Greeks had tri- 

 monthly holidays, besides annual revels, and great national festivals at 

 longer intervals. In ancient Etruria every new month was ushered in 

 by a day of merrymaking in honor of a tutelary deity ; the patricians 

 and plebeians of republican Rome had their field-days ; the festivals of 

 the seasons united the pleasure-seekers of all classes, and even the 

 slaves had their Saturnalia weeks when some of their privileges were 

 only limited by their capacity of enjoyment. la the first centuries of 

 the Roman Empire, when the growth of the cities and the scarcity of 

 game began to circumscribe the private pastimes of the poorer classes, 

 the rulers themselves provided the means of public amusements ; at 

 the death of Septimus Severus (a. d. 211), the capital alone had six 

 free amphitheatres and twelve or fourteen large public baths, where 

 the poorest were admitted gratis, and none but the poorest could com- 

 plain about the half-cent entrance-fee to the luxurious thermce. The 

 circenses, or public games, were by no means confined to the gladia- 

 torial combats that have exercised the eloquence of our Christian 

 moralists ; dramatic entertainments, trials of strength, and the exhibi- 

 tion of outlandish curiosities, seem to have been as popular as the 

 grandest prize-fights, unless the combatants were international cham- 

 pions. And it would be a great mistake to suppose that only the 

 wealthy capital could afford to amuse its citizens at the public ex- 

 pense ; from Gaul to Syria every town had a circus or two, every 

 larger village an arena, a free bath, and a public gymnasium. The 

 Colosseum of Vespasian seated eighty thousand spectators, but was 

 rivaled by the amphitheatres of Narbonne, Syracuse, Antioch, Berytus, 

 and Thessalonica.* Children, married women, old men, and many 

 trades-unions had their yearly carnivals, and, during the celebration of 

 the Olympian and Capitoline games and various local festivals, even 

 strangers enjoyed the freedom of the larger towns. 



And now? Professor Wirgmann, in his "Annalen des Russischen 

 Reiches," estimates that since the accession of Nicholas I, the modern 

 Caesars have expended an average annual sum of seventeen million 

 dollars for the torture of their subjects ; how many cents have they 

 ever spent for national pastimes ? How many spectators (since the 

 abolition of the " Tyburn-days ") have ever been entertained at the 

 expense of the wealthy British Empire ? What has our Great Repub- 

 lic done in the matter of circenses, except to pass an occasional sab- 

 bath law for the suppression of public amusements on the only day in 

 which a large plurality of our workingmen find their only leisure for 

 recreation ? The spoils of a Roman consul would dwindle before the 

 rents of our American, German, and French financiers : what have our 

 commercial triumphators ever achieved for the entertainment of their 

 poor fellow-citizens ? Cooper Institute lectures, street revivals, and 

 prize distributions at the examination of a sabbath-school for adults ? 



* Tacitus, " Annalen," xii-xiv. 



