Rollo in Rome Part 10

"Yes," said Rollo, as soon as he came in sight of it. "Yes, this is the very place."

If Rollo had had any doubts of his being right, they would have been dispelled by the sight of Mr. George, who was standing at the hotel door at the time they arrived.

"So you come home in a carriage," said Mr. George.

"Why, we got lost," said Rollo. "I did not take notice of the name of our hotel when we went out, and so we could not find our way home again."

"That's of no consequence," said Mr. George. "I am glad you had sense enough to take a commissioner. Whenever you get into any difficulty whatever in a European town, go right to a commissioner, and he will help you out."

So Rollo paid the coachman and the commissioner, and then he and Charles went into the hotel.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLISEUM.

The grandest of all the ruins in Rome, and perhaps, indeed, of all the ruins in the world, is the Coliseum.

The Coliseum was built as a place for the exhibition of games and spectacles. It was of an oval form, with seats rising one above another on all sides, and a large arena in the centre. There was no roof. The building was so immensely large, that it would have been almost impossible to have made a roof over it.

The spectacles which were exhibited in such buildings as these were usually combats, either of men with men, or of men with wild beasts.

These were real combats, in which either the men or the beasts were actually killed. The thousands of people that sat upon the seats all around, watched the conflict, while it was going on, with intense excitement, and shouted with ferocious joy at the end of it, in honor of the victors.

The men that fought in the arena were generally captives taken in battle, in distant countries, and the wild beasts were lions, tigers, and bears, that were sent home from Africa, or from the dark forests in the north of Europe.

The great generals who went out at the head of the Roman armies to conquer these distant realms and annex them to the empire, sent home these captives and wild beasts. They sent them for the express purpose of amusing the Roman people with them, by making them fight in these great amphitheatres. There was such an amphitheatre in or near almost every large town; but the greatest, or at least the most celebrated, of all these structures, was this Coliseum at Rome.

Mr. George and Rollo went to the Coliseum in a carriage. After pa.s.sing through almost the whole length of the Corso, they pa.s.sed successively through several crooked and narrow streets, and at length emerged into the great region of the ruins. On every side were tall columns, broken and decayed, and immense arches standing meaningless and alone, and mounds of ancient masonry, with weeds and flowers waving in the air on the top of them. There were no houses, or scarcely any, in this part of the city, but only gra.s.sy slopes with old walls appearing here and there among them; and in some places enclosed fields and gardens, with corn, and beans, and garden vegetables of every kind, growing at the base of the majestic ruins.

The carriage stopped at one end of the Coliseum, where there was a pa.s.sage way leading through stupendous arches into the interior.

They dismissed the carriage, Rollo having first paid the coachman the fare. They then, after gazing upward a moment at the vast pile of arches upon arches, towering above them, advanced towards the openings, in order to go in.

There was a soldier with a musket in his hands, bayonet set, walking to and fro at the entrance. He, however, said nothing to Mr. George and Rollo; and so, pa.s.sing by him, they went in.

They pa.s.sed in under immense arches of the most ma.s.sive masonry, and between the great piers built to sustain the arches, until they reached the arena. There was a broad gravel walk pa.s.sing across the arena from end to end, and another leading around the circ.u.mference of it. The rest of the surface was covered with gra.s.s, smooth and green.

The form of the arena was oval, as has already been said, and on every side there ascended the sloping tiers, rising one above another to a vast height, on which the seats for the spectators had been placed. Mr.

George and Rollo advanced along the central walk, and looked around them, surveying the scene,--their minds filled with emotions of wonder and awe.

"What a monstrous place it was!" said Rollo.

"It was, indeed," said Mr. George.

"Is it here where the men fought with the lions and the tigers?" asked Rollo, pointing around him over the arena.

"Yes," said Mr. George.

"And up there, all around were the seats of the spectators, I suppose,"

said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "on those slopes."

You must know that the scats, and all the inside finish of the Coliseum, were originally of marble, and people have stripped it all away, and left nothing but the naked masonry; and even that is all now going to ruin.

"What did they strip the marble off for?" asked Rollo.

"To build their houses and palaces with," replied Mr. George. "Half of the modern palaces of Rome are built of stone and marble plundered from the ancient ruins."

"O, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo.

"Come out here where we can sit down," said Mr. George, "and I'll tell you all about it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING DOWN FROM THE COLISEUM.]

So saying, Mr. George led the way, and Rollo followed to one side of the arena, where they could sit down on a large, flat stone, which seemed to have been an ancient step. They were over-shadowed where they sat by piers and arches, and by the ma.s.ses of weeds and shrubbery that were growing on the mouldering summits of them, and waving in the wind.

In the centre of the arena was a large cross, with a sort of platform around it, and steps to go up. And all around the arena, on the sides, at equal distances, there extended a range of little chapels, with crucifixes and other Catholic symbols.

The arena of the Coliseum was kept in very neat order. For a wonder, there were no beggars to be seen, but instead of them there were various parties of well-dressed visitors walking about the paths, or sitting on the ma.s.sive stone fragments which lay under the ruined arches.

High up above these arches, the sloping platforms, on which the seats formerly were placed, were to be seen rising one above another, tier after tier, to a great height, with the ruins of galleries, corridors, and vaulted pa.s.sage ways pa.s.sing around among them. The upper surfaces of all these ruins were covered with gra.s.s and shrubbery.

"What has become of all the seats, uncle George?" said Rollo.

"Why, the seats, I suppose, were made of marble," replied Mr. George, "or some other valuable material, and so all the stones have been taken away."

Presently Rollo saw a party of visitors coming into view far up among the upper stories of the ruins.

"Look, uncle George! Look!" said he; "there are some people away up there, as high as the third or fourth story. How do you suppose they got up there? Couldn't you and I go?"

"I presume so," said Mr. George. "I suppose that, in the way of climbing, you and I can go as high as most people."

While Mr. George was saying this, Rollo was adjusting his opera gla.s.s to his eyes, in order to take a nearer view of the party among the ruins.

"There are four of them," said he. "I see a gentleman, and two ladies, and a little girl. They seem to be gathering something."

"Plants, perhaps," said Mr. George, "and flowers."

"Plants!" said Rollo, contemptuously; "I don't believe that any thing grows out of such old stones and mortar but weeds."

"We call such things weeds," said Mr. George, "when they grow in the gardens or fields, and are in the way; but when they grow in wild places where they belong, they are plants and flowers."

"The gentleman is gathering them from high places all around him," said Rollo, "and is giving them to the ladies, and they are putting them in between the leaves of a book."