[Picture: The Roman Forum, Rome] Sometimes, at the bidding of the wicked Emperor Nero, one hundred Christians would be brought into the arena, when a vast crowd would be present to watch four or five lions and as many tigers turned in, wild with fury, and mad with hunger, the Christian martyrs were soon delivered from their fleshly tenement and went up to their reward. It is said that St. Ignatius was brought from Antioch to be devoured by these wild beasts. Church traditions record many martyrs within these now ruins. Byron says:
“I see before me the Gladiator lie; He leans upon his hand, his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony. The arena swims around him, he is gone E’er ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away. There were his young barbarians all at play. There was their Dacian mother—he their sire Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”
“And now the gratings ope, with hideous roar Leap forth those hungry brutes, while kneel in prayer, Those heaps of Christians, how their spirits soar Above or wounds or death.”
I stood and gazed, and thought, by those terrible ruins. I think I was as much affected as when I stood and gazed upon those marvellous structures, the Pyramids of Egypt. I took a snap-shot of my dear little wife within the ruins of the Colosseum, and we left it to ponder over its history and its ruin. We thought of the prophecy in prose of an Anglo-Saxon Pilgrim. He said: “While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand; when falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall. And when Rome falls—the world.”
“The Pantheon” was one of the places we were delighted with. This dated from before Christ’s time, and is now in a wonderful state of preservation. It was originally dedicated by Agrippa to “All the gods.” It was consecrated as a church in the year 610 A.D. by Pope Boniface IV., under the name of St. Maria. The portico consists of sixteen granite corinthian columns nearly forty feet high, eight in the front and the others in three colonnades. Inside, we were struck with its beauty, especially by the arrangement for light which comes from a vast dome over our heads. We walked reverently as we knew we were walking on the very same pavement as Augustus and Agrippa, and others whose dust has long centuries ago, gone to its mother earth. Here rest the remains of one of the world’s greatest painters—Raphael. He was buried in 1620. In recent years a doubt was raised as to whether he really was buried here, and a search was allowed and made in 1833, it was then ascertained beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was buried here, as his remains were intact. On leaving the Pantheon, and before crossing the Tiber, we were reminded of the poet’s words referring to this church: “Simple, erect, austere, sublime—Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods from Jove to Jesus—Spared and blest by time, looking tranquilly while falls or nods arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods his way through thorns and ashes—glorious dome! shalt thou not last? Times’ scythe and tyrant’s rods shiver upon thee—Sanctuary and home of art and piety—Pantheon! Pride of Rome.”