ROMAN LADIES AT THE COLISEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8916, 3 December 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROMAN LADIES AT THE COLISEUM.

What a murmur of fierce expectation stirs the assembled crowd, like the wind among the aspens, as the Destined come in, raising their weapons as they group themselves before the Imperial seat, with that mournful cry of servile degradation: "Ave, Casar 1 Morituri te aalutanfc!"—the Vestals, sitting by, unmoved save, to rejoicing. When the trumpet sounds after the first sham show has been gone through, and the real business of the day is to begin, how those languid, heavy-lidded eyes open wide and blaze with hungry fire ! how the mobile nostrils dilate its they scent the coming reek of blood 1 And when the fatal cast has been made, and the poor fish-crested mirmillo is entangled in » net while the retiarius has his trident raised for the fatal' blow— the conquered lifts his hand and prays the people for his life, While the victor waits the determining sign —how their eager faces press forward above the bearded throng— hearts wildly beating, their white bosoms heaving, their nervous .hands tightly clenched, with the cruel thumbs turned up, and their shrill voices, sharpened to a scream, crying out, "Habet 1 habet 1 hoo habet 1" Better than I the delirious secrets of the Mysteries— sweeter than the love of singer or of athlete is this satisfying carnival of blood. Christian men and women—wives, maidens, and 'mothers ; lovers and fathers and husbands--for their impiety to the gods justly sacrificed to the wild beasts, which tear them limb from limb and toss the bleeding fragments on the reddened sand—what, shouts of wild hysteric laughter, what thunders of applause drown their deulh*crit!B and sing their ro» Quiem !—E. Lynn Linton, in Fortnightly.