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 258 from the humiliating ceremony of preceding on foot the Imperial chariot, was treated with the decent reverence which Stilicho always affected for that assembly. The people was repeatedly gratified by the attention and courtesy of Honorius in the public games, which were celebrated on that occasion with a mag- nificence not unworthy of the spectator. As soon as the ap- pointed number of chariot races was concluded, the decoration of the Circus was suddenly changed ; the hunting of wild beasts afforded a various and splendid entertainment ; and the chase was succeeded by a military dance, which seems in the lively description of Claudian to present the image of a modern tournament.

In these games of Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators polluted, for the last time, the amphitheatre of Rome. The first Christian emperor may claim the honour of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; but this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse, which de- graded a civilised nation below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were annu- ally slaughtered in the great cities of the empire ; and the month of December, more peculiarly devoted to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty. Amidst the general joy of the victory of Pollentia, a Christian poet exhorted the emperor to extirpate by his authority the horrid custom which had so long resisted the voice of humanity and religion. The pathetic representations of Prudentius were less effectual than the generous boldness of Telemachus, an Asiatic monk, whose death was more useful to mankind than his life. The Romans were provoked by the interruption of their pleasures ; and the rash monk, who had descended into the arena to separate the gladiators, was overwhelmed under a shower of stones. But the