led and vowed that we were perfectly
safe.

So I sat beside him through that unforgettable December day, at the end of
which came the culmination of what I have been describing.

The day was perfect, clear, crisp, mild and windless. It was not cold
enough to be chilling, but was cold enough to make completely comfortable
a pipe-clayed ceremonial toga over the full daily garments of a noble or
senator, so that the entire audience enjoyed the temperature and basked in
the brilliant sunrays; for, so late in the year, as the warmth of the sun
was sure to be welcome, the awning had not been spread. I, in my bizarre
oriental attire, wore my thickest garments and my fullest curled wig and
felt neither too cold nor too warm.

I never saw the Colosseum so brilliant a spectacle. It was full to the
upper colonnade under the awning-rope poles, not a seat vacant. Spectators
were sitting on the steps all up and down every visible stair; two or even
three rows on each side of each stair, leaving free only a narrow alley up
the middle of each for the passage in or out of attendants or others.
Spectators filled the openings of the entrance-stairs, all but jamming
each. In each of the cross-aisles spectators stood or crouched against its
back-wall, ducking their heads to avoid protests from the luckier
spectators in the seats behind them. The upper colonnade was packed to its
full capacity with standees.

The program was unusual, gladiatorial exhibitions from the beginning of
the show; and nothing else. The morning was full of brisk fights between
young men; provincials, foreigners and some Italians, volunteer
enthusiasts. The noon pause was filled in by routine fights of old or
aging gladiators nearly approaching the completion of their covenanted
term of service. It ended with a novelty, the encounter of two tight-rope
walkers on a taut rope stretched fully thirty feet in the air. It was
proclaimed that they were rivals for the favor of a pretty freedwoman and
that they had agreed on this contest as a settlement of their rivalry.
Certainly the two, naked save for breech-clouts and each armed with a
light lance in one hand and a thin-bladed Gallic sword in the other,
neared each other with every sign of caution, enmity and courage. Their
sparring for an opening lasted some time, but was breathlessly
interesting. The victor kept his feet on the rope and pierced his rival,
who fell and died from the spear-wound or the fall or both.