hese years. The post card vendors and would-be
guides still fret round the old monuments like crows. They alone
disturb the equanimity of the old men and middle-aged ladies who love
Rome most. For the lovers of Rome look at those wonderful columns of
Marcus Aurelius and Trajan with whole histories in spiral processionals
climbing upwards to the pinnacle of fame--and their thoughts are not on
these times.

Mightiest of the ruins of Rome is certainly that of the Colosseum,
symbol of the decay of a great people debauched by their lusts and
their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the
wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable
ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence
and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as
provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already
survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It
stands to-day in grey serenity--a mighty stone structure of great
height and massivity, with tier upon tier of galleries where could be
accommodated surely all the Rome of its day. There is no other place
like it--with its two hundred and forty arched entrances, and its cages
and prisons. It is vast and cruel and vain even now. All the circles
glare down into the empty arena.

Imagine a festival at the Albert Hall when that little fragile building
is packed from the expensive fringe of the stalls and the boxes to the
mysterious height of the gallery, then magnify many times, and change
wood into hewn rock, and take off the roof, and give Roman air and
sunlight, and change the character and dress of the people, and make
them lust for blood and for strange sights, and give voices to their
bellies and violent animation and excitability to their limbs and their
features, and you have the Roman amphitheatre, built to be a
butchering-place for Christians and captives of war, an arena for
gladiators and a place of circuses.

It is the symbol of the decay of Rome. Bede is said to have
prophesied: "Whilst the Colosseum stands Rome will stand; when the
Colosseum falls the world itself will fall," but that was merely
testimony to its mighty structure. Five or six palaces have been built
of the marbles and other materials which have been taken away, and
still the Colosseum stands in all its architectural impressiveness.
But the thing this amphitheatre was built for ruined Rome. The tas