Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/362

316 Titus won the title, the "Delight of Mankind." He was unwearied in acts of benevolence and in bestowal of favors. Having let a day slip by without some act of kindness performed, he is said to have exclaimed reproachfully, "I have lost a day."

Titus completed and dedicated the great Flavian amphitheatre begun by his father, Vespasian. This vast structure, which accommodated more than eighty thousand spectators, is better known as the Colosseum—a name given it either because of its gigantic proportions, or on account of a colossal statue of Nero which happened to stand near it.

The reign of Titus, though so short, was signalized by two great disasters. The first was a conflagration at Rome, which was almost as calamitous as the Great Fire in the reign of Nero. The second was the destruction, by an eruption of Vesuvius, of the Campanian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The cities were buried