tch their
delicate thumbs reverse.

There was no cowardice in that arena. If by chance any hesitation were
discernible, instantly there were hot irons, the sear of which
revivified courage at once. But that was rare. The gladiators fought
for applause, for liberty, for death; fought manfully, skilfully,
terribly, too, and received the point of the sword or the palm of the
victor, their expression unchanged, the face unmoved. Among them, some
provided with a net and prodigiously agile, pursued their adversaries
hither and thither, trying to entangle them first and kill them later.
Others, protected by oblong shields and armed with short, sharp swords,
fought hand-to-hand. There were still others, mailed horsemen, who
fought with the lance, and charioteers that dealt death from high
Briton cars.

As a spectacle it was unique; one that the Romans, or more exactly,
their predecessors, the Etruscans, had devised to train their children
for war and allay the fear of blood. It had been serviceable, indeed,
and though the need of it had gone, still the institution endured, and
in enduring constituted the chief delight of the vestals and of Rome.
By means of it a bankrupt became consul and an emperor beloved. It had
stayed revolutions, it was the tax of the proletariat on the rich.
Silver and bread were for the individual, but these things were for the
crowd.

During the pauses of the combats the dead were removed by men masked as
Mercury, god of hell; red irons, that others, masked as Charon, bore,
being first applied as safeguard against swoon or fraud. And when, to
the kisses of flutes, the last palm had been awarded, the last death
acclaimed, a ballet was given; that of Paris and Venus, which Apuleius
has described so well, and for afterpiece the romance of Pasipha? and
the bull. Then, as night descended, so did torches, too; the arena was
strewn with vermilion; tables were set, and to the incitement of
crotals, Lydians danced before the multitude, toasting the last act of
that wonderful day.

It was with such magnificence that Nero showed the impresario's skill,
the politician's adroitness. Where the artist, which he claimed to be,
really appeared, was in the refurbishing of Rome.

In spite of Augustus' boast, the city was not by any means of marble.
It was filled with crooked little streets, with the atrocities of the
Tarquins, with houses unsightly and perilous, with the moss and dust of
ages; it compared with Alex