THE LION. 37 



Pompey, the triumvir, and thrice consul, born 106 B.C., eclipsed 

 all previous exhibitions of lions, for at the opening of his theatre 

 the combat of wild beasts alone included the slaying of 500 of 

 them, it being recorded that the majority had manes and were there- 

 fore males, a feat which occupied five days in its consummation. 



Putting aside the cruelty and barbarity of such an exhibition, 

 what a magnificent sight it must have been. The baiting of one 

 animal alone by a couple of frightened dogs has been known 

 within the present century to have worked up to a high pitch of 

 excitement an audience composed of comparatively cold-blooded 

 phlegmatic Englishmen. What must have been the feelings of 

 the thousands of excitable and passionate Eoman men and women 

 who suri^ounded that arena filled with hundreds of lions struggling 

 in mortal combat? The stupendous roaring of the savage 

 animals, mad with rage and wounds, red with gore, and writhing 

 in their dying paroxysms, heard even above the fierce shouting 

 of the audience, who doubtless looked in their excitement little 

 less ferocious than the beasts themselves, must have been a spec- 

 tacle appalling in its grandeur, and one that even now stirs the 

 blood to think of. 



The Emperor Domitian (a.d. 81 — 96) exhibited in the circus a 

 woman in. combat with a hon, which shows to what a debased 

 condition popular feeling had sunk in the eagerness for amuse- 

 ments of a novel and exciting character. 



The Emperor Probus (a.d. 281) had a great quantity of large 

 trees, torn up by the roots, transplanted into the midst of the 

 circus. " The spacious and shady forest was immediately filled 

 with a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand fallow 

 deer, and a thousand wild boars ; and all this variety of game 

 was abandoned to the riotous impetuosity of the multitude. The 

 tragedy of the succeeding day consisted in the massacre of a 

 hundred lions and equal number of lionesses, two hundred 

 leopards, and three hundred bears." 



Even this exhibition and the preceding ones, not exempting 

 the wanton butchery that distinguished the secular games of the 

 Emperor Philip (a.d. 248), were surpassed by the superior mag- 

 nificence of the Emperor Oarir^us (a.d. 284). 



