The old horrors of the Amphitheatre can be made real to any
person of imaginative mind in the Colosseum. He has but to lend himself
to the contagion of the place, and he will see the circle of ten
thousand eager eyes thirsting for his blood, fill up the ruined benches
and arched tiers as of yore, and hear the savage murmur of human voices,
worse than the dull roar of the beasts below. The past still lives in
these old walls. It is in vain to say that the ghosts of history do not
haunt their ancient habitations. Places, as well as persons, have lives
and influences; and the horror of murder will not away from a spot.
Haunted by its crimes, oppressed and debilitated by the fierce excesses
of its Empire, Rome, silent, grave, and meditative, sighs over its past,
wrapped in the penitent robes of the Church.
Besides, here one feels that the modern Romans are only the children of
their ancient fathers, with the same characteristics,--softened, indeed,
and worn down by time, just as the sharp traits of the old marbles have
worn away; but still the same people,--proud, passionate, lazy, jealous,
vindictive, easy, patient, and able.
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