Volume 1 — CHAPTER IV. THE FORUMS AND THE COLISEUM. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Nothing is known with certainty as to the architect of the Coliseum, though a tradition of the Church (founded on an inscription in the crypt of S. Martino al Monte), ascribes it to Gaudentius, a Christian martyr, who afterwards suffered on the spot.[70]
"The name of the architect to whom the great work of the Coliseum was entrusted has not come down to us. The ancients seem themselves to have regarded this name as a matter of little interest; nor, in fact, do they generally care to specify the authorship of their most illustrious buildings. The reason is obvious. The forms of ancient art in this department were almost wholly conventional, and the limits of design within which they were executed gave little room for the display of original taste and special character.... It is only in periods of eclecticism and renaissance, when the taste of the architect has wider scope, and may lead the eye instead of following it, that interest attaches to his personal merit. Thus it is that the Coliseum, the most conspicuous type of Roman civilisation, the monument which divides the admiration of strangers in modern Rome with St. Peter's itself, is nameless and parentless, while every stage in the construction of the great Christian temple, the creation of a modern revival, is appropriated with jealous care to its special claimants.
"The dedication of the Coliseum afforded to Titus an opportunity for a display of magnificence hitherto unrivalled, A battle of cranes with dwarfs representing the pigmies was a fanciful novelty, and might afford diversion for a moment; there were combats of gladiators, among whom women were included, though no noble matron was allowed to mingle in the fray; and the capacity of the vast edifice was tested by the slaughter of five thousand animals in its circuit. The show was crowned with the immission of water into the arena, and with a sea-fight representing the contests of the Corinthians and Corcyreans, related by Thucydides.... When all was over, Titus himself was seen to weep, perhaps from fatigue, possibly from vexation and disgust; but his tears were interpreted as a presentiment of his death, which was now impending, and it is probable that he was already suffering from a decline of bodily strength.... He lamented effeminately the premature decease he too surely anticipated, and, looking wistfully at the heavens, exclaimed that he did not deserve to die. He expired on the 13th September, 81, not having quite completed his fortieth year."—Merivale, ch. Ix.
"Hadrian gave a series of entertainments in honour of his birth-day, with the slaughter of a thousand beasts, including a hundred lions and as many lionesses. One magical scene was the representation of forests, when the whole arena became planted with living trees, shrubs, and flowers; to complete which illusion the ground was made to open, and send forth wild animals from yawning clefts, instantly re-covered with bushes.
"One may imagine the frantic excess to which the taste for gladiatorial combats was carried in Rome, from the preventive law of Augustus that gladiators should no more combat without permission of the senate; that prætors should not give these spectacles more than twice a year; that more than sixty couples should not engage at the same time; and that neither knights nor senators should ever contend in the arena. The gladiators were classified according to the national manner of fighting which they imitated. Thus were distinguished the Gothic, Dacian, Thracian, and Samnite combatants; the Retiarii, who entangled their opponents in nets thrown with the left hand, defending themselves with tridents in the right; the Secutores, whose special skill was in pursuit; the Laqueatores, who threw slings against their adversaries; the Dimachæ, armed with a short sword in each hand; the Hoplomachi, armed at all points; the Myrmillones, so called from the figure of a fish at the crest of the Gallic helmet they wore; the Bustuarii, who fought at funeral games; the Bestiarii, who only assailed animals; other classes who fought on horseback, called Andabates; and those combating in chariots drawn by two horses, Essedarii. Gladiators were originally slaves, or prisoners of war; but the armies who contended on the Roman arena in later epochs, were divided into compulsory and voluntary combatants, the former alone composed of slaves, or condemned criminals. The latter went through a laborious education in their art, supported at the public cost, and instructed by masters called Lanistæ, resident in colleges, called Ludi. To the eternal disgrace of the morals of Imperial Rome, it is recorded that women sometimes fought in the arena, without more modesty than hired gladiators. The exhibition of himself in this character by Commodus, was a degradation of the imperial dignity, perhaps more infamous, according to ancient Roman notions, than the theatrical performances of Nero."—Hemans' Story of Monuments in Rome.
The Emperor Commodus (A.D. 180-182), frequently fought in the Coliseum himself, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts, calling himself Hercules, dressed in a lion's-skin, with his hair sprinkled with gold-dust.
The gladiatorial combats came to an end, when, in A.D. 403, an oriental monk named Telemachus, was so horrified at them, that he rushed into the midst of the arena and besought the spectators to renounce them: instead of listening to him, they stoned him to death. The first martyrdom here was that of St Ignatius, said to have been the child especially blessed by our Saviour—the disciple of John—and the companion of Polycarp—who was sent here from Antioch, where he was bishop. When brought into the arena, he knelt down, and exclaimed, "Romans who are present, know that I have not been brought into this place for any crime, but in order that by this means I may merit the fruition of the glory of God, for love of whom I have been made prisoner. I am as the grain of the field, and must be ground by the teeth of the lions, that I may become bread fit for His table." The lions were then let loose, and devoured him, except the larger bones, which the Christians collected during the night.
"It is related of Ignatius that he grew up in such innocence of heart and purity of life, that to him it was granted to hear the angels sing; hence, when he became bishop of Antioch, he introduced into the service of his church the practice of singing the praises of God in responses, as he had heard the choirs of angels answering each other.... His story and fate are so well attested, and so sublimely affecting, that it has always been to me a cause of surprise as well as regret to find so few representations of him."—Jameson's Sacred Art, 693.
Soon after the death of Ignatius, 115 Christians were shot down here with arrows. Under Hadrian, A.D. 218, a patrician named Placidus, his wife Theophista, and his two sons, were first exposed here to the wild beasts, but when these refused to touch them were shut up in a brazen bull, and roasted by a fire lighted beneath. In 253, Abdon and Sennen, two rich citizens of Babylon, were exposed here to two lions and four bears, but on their refusing to attack them, were killed by the swords of the gladiators. In A.D. 259, Sempronius, Olympius, Theodulus, and Exuperia, were burnt at the entrance of the Coliseum, before the statue of the Sun. In A.D. 272, Sta. Prisca was vainly exposed here to a lion, then starved for three days, then stretched on a rack to have her flesh torn by iron hooks, then put into a furnace, and—having survived all these torments—was finally beheaded. In A.D. 277, Sta. Martina, another noble Roman lady, was exposed in vain to the beasts and afterwards beheaded in the Coliseum. St. Alexander under Antoninus; St. Potitus, 168; St. Eleutherius, bishop of Illyria, under Hadrian; St Maximus, son of a senator, 284; and Vitus, Crescentia, and Modesta, under Domitian, were also martyred here.[71]
"It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest truth, to say: so suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment—actually in passing in—they who will, may have the whole great pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager faces staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon the stranger, the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight, not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.
"To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches overgrown with green, its corridors open to the day; the long grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday springing up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit—chance produce of the seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its chinks and crannies; to see its pit of fight filled up with earth, and the peaceful cross planted in the centre; to climb into its upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimius Severus, and Titus, the Roman Forum, the Palace of the Cæsars, the temples of the old religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome, wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable. Never, in its bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!
"As it tops all other ruins: standing there, a mountain among graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated Coliseum to-morrow."—Dickens.
The spot where the Christian martyrs suffered is now marked by a tall cross, devoutly kissed by the faithful,—and all round the arena of the Coliseum, are the small chapels or "stations," used in the Via Crucis, which is observed here at 4 P.M. every Friday, when a confraternity clothed in grey, with only the eyes visible, is followed by a crowd of worshippers who chaunt and pray at each station in turn,—after which a Capuchin monk preaches from a pulpit on the left of the arena. These sermons are often very striking, being delivered in a familiar style, and upon popular subjects of the day, but they also often border on the burlesque.
"Oswald voulut aller au Colisée pour entendre le Capucin qui devait y prêcher en plein air au pied de l'un des autels qui désignent, dans l'intérieur de l'enceinte, ce qu'on appelle la route de la Croix. Quel plus beau sujet pour l'éloquence que l'aspect de ce monument, que cette arène où les martyrs ont succédé aux gladiateurs! Mais il ne faut rien espérer à cet égard du pauvre Capucin, qui ne connâit de l'histoire des hommes que sa propre vie. Néanmoins, si l'on parvient à ne pas écouter son mauvais sermon, on se sent ému par les divers objets dont il est entouré. La plupart de ses auditeurs sont de la confrérie des Camaldules; ils se revêtent, pendant les exercises religieux, d'une espèce de robe grise qui couvre entièrement la tête et le corps, et ne laisse que deux petites ouvertures pour les yeux; c'est ainsi que les ombres pourraient être représentées. Ces hommes, ainsi cachés sous leurs vêtements, se prosternent la face contre terre, et se frappent la poitrine. Quand le prédicateur se jette à genoux en criant miséricorde de pitié! le peuple qui l'environne se jette aussi à genoux, et répète ce même cri, qui va se perdre sous les vieux portiques du Colisée. Il est impossible de ne pas éprouver alors une émotion profondément religieuse; cet appel de la douleur à la bonté, de la terre au ciel, remue l'âme jusque dans son sanctuaire le plus intime."—Madame de Staël.
"'C'est aujourd'hui Vendredi,' dit Guy, 'il y aura foule au Colisée, il vaudrait mieux, je crois, y aller un autre jour.'
"'Non, non,' dit Eveline, 'c'est précisément pour cela que je veux y aller. On m'a dit qu'il fallait le voir ainsi rempli de monde, et que d'ailleurs cette fête était curieuse.'
"'Ce n'est pas une fête,' dit Guy gravement, 'c'est un simple acte de dévotion qui se répète tous les Vendredis.'
"'En vérité,' dit Eveline, 'et pourquoi le Vendredi?'
"'Parceque c'est le jour où Christ est mort pour nous; par cette raison, vous ne l'ignorez pas, ce jour est demeuré consacré dans le monde chrétien ... dans le monde catholique du moins,' repondit Guy.
"'Mais à quel propos choisit-on le Colisée pour s'y réunir ce jour là?'
"'Parceque le Colisée a été baigné du sang des martyrs et que leur souvenir se mêle là plus qu'ailleurs à celui de la croix pour laquelle ils l'ont versé.'"—Mrs. Augustus Craven in Anne Severin.
The pulpit of the Coliseum was used for the stormy sermons of Gavazzi, who called the people to arms from thence in the revolution of March, 1848.
It is well worth while to ascend to the upper galleries (a man who lives near the entrance from the Forum will open a locked door for the purpose), as then only is it possible to realize the vast size and grandeur of the building.
"May, 1827.—Lastly, we ascended to the top of the Coliseum, Bunsen leaving us at the door, to go home; and I seated myself just above the main entrance, towards the Forum, and there took my farewell look over Rome. It was a delicious evening, and everything was looking to advantage:—the huge Coliseum just under me, the tufts of ilex and aliternus and other shrubs that fringe the walls everywhere in the lower part, while the outside wall, with its top of gigantic stones, lifts itself high above, and seems like a mountain barrier of bare rock, enclosing a green and varied valley. I sat and gazed upon the scene with an intense and mingled feeling. The world could show nothing grander; it was one which for years I had longed to see, and I was now looking at it for the last time. When I last see the dome of St. Peter's I shall seem to be parting from more than a mere town full of curiosities, where the eye has been amused, and the intellect gratified. I never thought to have felt thus tenderly towards Rome; but the inexplicable solemnity and beauty of her ruined condition has quite bewitched me, and to the latest hour of my life I shall remember the Forum, the surrounding hills, and the magnificent Coliseum."—Arnold's Letters.
The upper arches frame a series of views of the Aventine, the Capitoline, the Cœlian, and the Campagna, like a succession of beautiful pictures.
Those who visit the Coliseum by moonlight will realize the truthfulness of the following descriptions:—
"I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,—upon such a night, I stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Cæsar's palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Began and died upon the gentle wind:— Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levell'd battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths; Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;— But the gladiator's bloody circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection! While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old:— The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns." Manfred.
"Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume The long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume "Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Under the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower." Childe Harold.
"No one can form any idea of full moonlight in Rome who has not seen it. Every individual object is swallowed in the huge masses of light and shadow, and only the marked and principal outlines remain visible. Three days ago (Feb. 2, 1787) we made good use of a light and most beautiful night. The Coliseum presents a vision of beauty. It is closed at night; a hermit lives inside in a little church, and beggars roost amid the ruined vaults. They had lighted a fire on the bare ground, and a gentle breeze drove the smoke across the arena. The lower portion of the ruin was lost, while the enormous walls above stood forth into the darkness. We stood at the gates and gazed upon this phenomenon. The moon shone high and bright. Gradually the smoke moved through the chinks and apertures in the walls, and the moon illuminated it like a mist. It was an exquisite moment!"—Goethe.
It is believed that the building of the Coliseum remained entire until the eighth century, and that its ruin dates from the invasion of Robert Guiscard, who destroyed it to prevent its being used as a stronghold by the Romans. During the middle ages it served as a fortress, and became the castle of the great family of Frangipani, who here gave refuge to Pope Innocent II. (Papareschi) and his family, against the anti-pope Anacletus II., and afterwards in the same way protected Innocent III. (Conti) and his brothers against the anti-pope Paschal II. Constantly at war with the Frangipani were the Annibaldi, who possessed a neighbouring fortress, and obtained from Gregory IX. a grant of half the Coliseum, which was rescinded by Innocent IV. During the absence of the popes at Avignon the Annibaldi got possession of the whole of the Coliseum, but it was taken away again in 1312, and placed in the hands of the municipality, after which it was used for bull-fights, in which (as described by Monaldeschi) nobles of high rank took part and lost their lives. In 1381 the senate made over part of the ruins to the Canons of the Lateran, to be used as a hospital, and their occupation is still commemorated by the arms of the Chapter (our Saviour's head between two candelabra) sculptured in various parts of the building. From the fourteenth century it began to be looked upon as a stone-quarry, and the Palazzos Farnese, Barberini, S. Marco, and the Cancellaria, were built with materials plundered from its walls. It is said that the first of these destroyers, Cardinal Farnese, only extorted permission from his reluctant uncle, Paul III., to quarry as much stone as he could remove in twelve hours, and that he availed himself of this permission to let loose four thousand workmen upon the building. Sixtus V. endeavoured to utilize it by turning the arcades into shops, and establishing a woollen manufactory, and Clement XI. (1700—1721) by a manufactory of saltpetre, but both happily failed. In the last century the tide of restoration began to set in. A Carmelite monk, Angelo Paoli, represented the iniquity of allowing a spot consecrated by such holy memories to be desecrated, and Clement XI. consecrated the arena to the memory of the martyrs who had suffered there, and erected in one of the archways the still existing chapel of Sta. Maria della Pietà. The hermit appointed to take care of this chapel was stabbed in 1742, which caused Benedict XIV. to shut in the Coliseum with bars and gates. After this time destruction became sacrilege, and the five last popes all contributed to strengthen and preserve the walls which remain. Even so late as thirty years ago, however, the interior was (like that of an English abbey) an uneven grassy space littered with masses of ruin, amid which large trees grew and flourished, and the clearing out of the arena, though exhibiting more perfectly the ancient form of the building, is much to be regretted by lovers of the picturesque.[72]
Among the ecclesiastical legends connected with the Coliseum, it is said that Gregory the Great presented some foreign ambassadors with a handful of earth from the arena as a relic for their sovereigns, and upon their receiving the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the soil. Pius V, urged those who wished for relics to gather up the dust of the Coliseum, wet with the blood of the martyrs.
In 1744 "the blessed Leonardo di Porto Maurizio," who is buried in S. Buonaventura, drew immense crowds to the Coliseum by his preaching, and obtained permission from Benedict XIV. to found the confraternity of "Amanti di Gesù e Maria," for whom the Via Crucis was established here. Recently the ruins have been associated with the holy beggar, Benoit Joseph Labré (beatified by Pius IX. in 1860), who died at Rome in 1783, after a life spent in devotion. He was accustomed to beg in the Coliseum, to sleep at night under its arcades, and to pray for hours at its various shrines.
The name Coliseum is first found in the writings of the Venerable Bede, who quotes a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims.
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls, the world."[73]
The name was probably derived from its size; the amphitheatre of Capua was also called Colossus.
"When one looks at the Coliseum everything else becomes small; it is so great that one cannot keep its true image in one's soul; one only remembers it on a smaller scale, and returning thither again finds it again grown larger."—Goethe, Romische Briefe.
Once or twice in the course of every Roman winter the Coliseum is illuminated with Bengal lights.
"Les étrangers se donnent parfois l'amusement d'éclairer le Colisée avec des feux de Bengale. Cela ressemble un peu trop à un finale de mélodrame, et on peut préférer comme illumination un radieux soleil on les douces lueurs de la lune. Cependant j'avoue que la première fois que le Colisée m'apparut ainsi, embrasé de feux rougeâtres, son histoire me revint vivement à la pensée. Je trouvais qu'il avait en ce moment sa vraie couleur, la couleur du sang."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 156.