mpanies the entire piece: "Campanians,
your victory has been as fatal to you as it was to the people of
Nocera."[K]

The hand of Rome, ever the hand of Rome!

For that matter, the ordinances relating to the amphitheatre applied to
the whole empire. One of the Pompeian inscriptions announces that the
duumvir C. Cuspius Pansa had been appointed to superintend the public
shows and see to the observance of the Petronian law. This law
prohibited Senators from fighting in the arena, and even from sending
slaves thither who had not been condemned for crime. Such things, then,
required to be prohibited!

I have described the arena and the seats; let me now pass on to the show
itself. Would yon like to have a hunt or a gladiatorial combat? Here I
invent nothing. I have data, found at Pompeii (the paintings in the
amphitheatre and the bas-reliefs on the tomb of Scaurus), that reproduce
scenes which I have but to transfer to prose. Let us, then, suppose the
twenty thousand spectators to be in their places on thirty-four ranges
of seats, one above the other, around the arena; then, let us take our
seats among them and look on.

First we have a hunt. A panther, secured by a long rope to the neck of a
bull let loose, is set on against a young _bestiarius_, who holds two
javelins in his hands. A man, armed with a long lance, irritates the
bull so that it may move and second the rush of the panther fastened to
it. The lad who has the javelins, and is a novice in his business, is
but making his first attempt; should the bull not move, he runs no risk,
yet I should not like to be in his place.

Then follows a more serious combat between a bear and a man, who
irritates him by holding out a cloth at him, as the matadors do in
bull-fights. Another group shows us a tiger and a lion escaping in
different directions. An unarmed and naked man is in pursuit of the
tiger, who cannot be a very cross one. But here is a _venatio_ much more
dramatic in its character. The nude bestiarius has just pierced a wolf
through and through, and the animal is in flight with the spear sticking
in his body, but the man staggers and a wild boar is rushing at him. At
the same time, a stag thrown down by a lasso that is still seen dangling
to his antlers, awaits his death-blow; hounds are dashing at him, and
"their fierce baying echoes from vale to vale."

But that is not all. Look at yon group of victors: a real matador has
plunged his spear into the breast