red the elements to
the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to
represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation, and the
hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd
than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and
fortunes to the color which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained
and indulged by the wisest princes; but the names of Caligula, Nero,
Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in
the blue or green factions of the circus; they frequented their stables,
applauded their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of their
manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to disturb the
public festivity, till the last age of the spectacles of Rome; and
Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection, interposed his
authority to protect the greens against the violence of a consul and
a patrician, who were passionately addicted to the blue faction of the
circus. [43]

[Footnote 41: Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad, a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and spirit of
the chariot race West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games (sect.
xii.--xvii.) affords much curious and authentic information.]

[Footnote 42: The four colors, albati, russati, prasini, veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 51,)
who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical mystery. Of these
colors, the three first may be fairly translated white, red, and green.
Venetus is explained by coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is
properly the sky reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience
may allow blue as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence's
Polymetis, p. 228.)]

[Footnote 43: See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis Circensibus, l. i. c. 10,
11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou's History of the Germans; and Aleman
ad c. vii.]

Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient
Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the circus, raged with
redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the reign of Anastasius, this
popular frenzy was inflamed by religious zeal; and the greens, who
had treacherously concealed stones and daggers under baskets of
fruit, massacred, at a solemn festival, thr