--But the national spectacle of the Romans was the
fight of gladiators (men armed with swords). Armed men descended into
the arena and fought a duel to the death. From the time of Caesar[152]
as many as 320 pairs of gladiators were fought at once; Augustus in
his whole life fought 10,000 of them, Trajan the same number in four
months. The vanquished was slain on the field unless the people wished
to show him grace.

Sometimes the condemned were compelled to fight, but more often slaves
and prisoners of war. Each victory thus brought to the amphitheatre
bands of barbarians who exterminated one another for the delight of the
spectators.[153] Gladiators were furnished by all countries--Gauls,
Germans, Thracians, and sometimes negroes. These peoples fought with
various weapons, usually with their national arms. The Romans loved to
behold these battles in miniature.

There were also, among these contestants in the circus, some who
fought from their own choice, free men who from a taste for danger
submitted to the terrible discipline of the gladiator, and swore to
their chief "to allow themselves to be beaten with rods, be burned
with hot iron, and even be killed." Many senators enrolled themselves
in these bands of slaves and adventurers, and even an emperor,
Commodus, descended into the arena.

These bloody games were practised not only at Rome, but in all the
cities of Italy, Gaul, and Africa. The Greeks always opposed their
adoption. An inscription on a statue raised to one of the notables in
the little city of Minturnae runs as follows: "He presented in four
days eleven pairs of gladiators who ceased to fight only when half of
them had fallen in the arena. He gave a hunt of ten terrible bears.
Treasure this in memory, noble fellow-citizens." The people,
therefore, had the passion for blood,[154] which still manifests
itself in Spain in bull-fights. The emperor, like the modern king of
Spain, must be present at these butcheries. Marcus Aurelius became
unpopular in Rome because he exhibited his weariness at the spectacles
of the amphitheatre by reading, speaking, or giving audiences instead
of regarding the games. When he enlisted gladiators to serve against
the barbarians who invaded Italy, the populace was about to revolt.
"He would deprive us of our amusements," cried one, "to compel us to
become philosophers."

=The Roman Peace.=--But there was in the empire something else than
the populace of Rome. To be just to