Chapter IV: The Forums and the Coliseum (3)

"To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
overgrown with green, its corridors open to the day; the long
grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday springing
up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit--chance produce of the
seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its
chinks and crannies; to see its pit of fight filled up with earth,
and the peaceful cross planted in the centre; to climb into its
upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the
triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimius Severus, and Titus, the
Roman Forum, the Palace of the Cæsars, the temples of the old
religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its
people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most
solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable. Never, in its
bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and
running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it
must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!

"As it tops all other ruins: standing there, a mountain among
graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of
the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the
fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the
visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there
is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people
in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated
Coliseum to-morrow."--_Dickens._

The spot where the Christian martyrs suffered is now marked by a tall cross, devoutly kissed by the faithful,--and all round the arena of the Coliseum, are the small chapels or "stations," used in the Via Crucis, which is observed here at 4 P.M. every Friday, when a confraternity clothed in grey, with only the eyes visible, is followed by a crowd of worshippers who chaunt and pray at each station in turn,--after which a Capuchin monk preaches from a pulpit on the left of the arena. These sermons are often very striking, being delivered in a familiar style, and upon popular subjects of the day, but they also often border on the burlesque.

"Oswald voulut aller au Colisée pour entendre le Capucin qui devait
y prêcher en plein air au pied de l'un des autels qui désignent,
dans l'intérieur de l'enceinte, ce qu'on appelle _la route de la
Croix_. Quel plus beau sujet pour l'éloquence que l'aspect de ce
monument, que cette arène où les martyrs ont succédé aux
gladiateurs! Mais il ne faut rien espérer à cet égard du pauvre
Capucin, qui ne connâit de l'histoire des hommes que sa propre vie.
Néanmoins, si l'on parvient à ne pas écouter son mauvais sermon, on
se sent ému par les divers objets dont il est entouré. La plupart
de ses auditeurs sont de la confrérie des Camaldules; ils se
revêtent, pendant les exercises religieux, d'une espèce de robe
grise qui couvre entièrement la tête et le corps, et ne laisse que
deux petites ouvertures pour les yeux; c'est ainsi que les ombres
pourraient être représentées. Ces hommes, ainsi cachés sous leurs
vêtements, se prosternent la face contre terre, et se frappent la
poitrine. Quand le prédicateur se jette à genoux en criant
_miséricorde de pitié!_ le peuple qui l'environne se jette aussi à
genoux, et répète ce même cri, qui va se perdre sous les vieux
portiques du Colisée. Il est impossible de ne pas éprouver alors
une émotion profondément religieuse; cet appel de la douleur à la
bonté, de la terre au ciel, remue l'âme jusque dans son sanctuaire
le plus intime."--_Madame de Staël._

"'C'est aujourd'hui Vendredi,' dit Guy, 'il y aura foule au
Colisée, il vaudrait mieux, je crois, y aller un autre jour.'

"'Non, non,' dit Eveline, 'c'est précisément pour cela que je veux
y aller. On m'a dit qu'il fallait le voir ainsi rempli de monde, et
que d'ailleurs cette fête était curieuse.'

"'Ce n'est pas une fête,' dit Guy gravement, 'c'est un simple acte
de dévotion qui se répète tous les Vendredis.'

"'En vérité,' dit Eveline, 'et pourquoi le Vendredi?'

"'Parceque c'est le jour où Christ est mort pour nous; par cette
raison, vous ne l'ignorez pas, ce jour est demeuré consacré dans le
monde chrétien ... dans le monde catholique du moins,' repondit
Guy.

"'Mais à quel propos choisit-on le Colisée pour s'y réunir ce jour
là?'

"'Parceque le Colisée a été baigné du sang des martyrs et que leur
souvenir se mêle là plus qu'ailleurs à celui de la croix pour
laquelle ils l'ont versé.'"--_Mrs. Augustus Craven in Anne
Severin._

The pulpit of the Coliseum was used for the stormy sermons of Gavazzi, who called the people to arms from thence in the revolution of March, 1848.

It is well worth while to ascend to the upper galleries (a man who lives near the entrance from the Forum will open a locked door for the purpose), as then only is it possible to realize the vast size and grandeur of the building.

"_May, 1827._--Lastly, we ascended to the top of the Coliseum,
Bunsen leaving us at the door, to go home; and I seated myself just
above the main entrance, towards the Forum, and there took my
farewell look over Rome. It was a delicious evening, and everything
was looking to advantage:--the huge Coliseum just under me, the
tufts of ilex and aliternus and other shrubs that fringe the walls
everywhere in the lower part, while the outside wall, with its top
of gigantic stones, lifts itself high above, and seems like a
mountain barrier of bare rock, enclosing a green and varied valley.
I sat and gazed upon the scene with an intense and mingled feeling.
The world could show nothing grander; it was one which for years I
had longed to see, and I was now looking at it for the last time.
When I last see the dome of St. Peter's I shall seem to be parting
from more than a mere town full of curiosities, where the eye has
been amused, and the intellect gratified. I never thought to have
felt thus tenderly towards Rome; but the inexplicable solemnity and
beauty of her ruined condition has quite bewitched me, and to the
latest hour of my life I shall remember the Forum, the surrounding
hills, and the magnificent Coliseum."--_Arnold's Letters._

The upper arches frame a series of views of the Aventine, the Capitoline, the Cœlian, and the Campagna, like a succession of beautiful pictures.

Those who visit the Coliseum by moonlight will realize the truthfulness of the following descriptions:--

"I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,--upon such a night,
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind:--
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths;
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;--
But the gladiator's bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old:--
The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns."

_Manfred._

"Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,
Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine
As 't were its natural torches, for divine
Should be the light which streams here, to illume
The long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

"Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Under the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower."

_Childe Harold._

"No one can form any idea of full moonlight in Rome who has not
seen it. Every individual object is swallowed in the huge masses of
light and shadow, and only the marked and principal outlines remain
visible. Three days ago (Feb. 2, 1787) we made good use of a light
and most beautiful night. The Coliseum presents a vision of beauty.
It is closed at night; a hermit lives inside in a little church,
and beggars roost amid the ruined vaults. They had lighted a fire
on the bare ground, and a gentle breeze drove the smoke across the
arena. The lower portion of the ruin was lost, while the enormous
walls above stood forth into the darkness. We stood at the gates
and gazed upon this phenomenon. The moon shone high and bright.
Gradually the smoke moved through the chinks and apertures in the
walls, and the moon illuminated it like a mist. It was an exquisite
moment!"--_Goethe._

It is believed that the building of the Coliseum remained entire until the eighth century, and that its ruin dates from the invasion of Robert Guiscard, who destroyed it to prevent its being used as a stronghold by the Romans. During the middle ages it served as a fortress, and became the castle of the great family of Frangipani, who here gave refuge to Pope Innocent II. (Papareschi) and his family, against the anti-pope Anacletus II., and afterwards in the same way protected Innocent III. (Conti) and his brothers against the anti-pope Paschal II. Constantly at war with the Frangipani were the Annibaldi, who possessed a neighbouring fortress, and obtained from Gregory IX. a grant of half the Coliseum, which was rescinded by Innocent IV. During the absence of the popes at Avignon the Annibaldi got possession of the whole of the Coliseum, but it was taken away again in 1312, and placed in the hands of the municipality, after which it was used for bull-fights, in which (as described by Monaldeschi) nobles of high rank took part and lost their lives. In 1381 the senate made over part of the ruins to the Canons of the Lateran, to be used as a hospital, and their occupation is still commemorated by the arms of the Chapter (our Saviour's head between two candelabra) sculptured in various parts of the building. From the fourteenth century it began to be looked upon as a stone-quarry, and the Palazzos Farnese, Barberini, S. Marco, and the Cancellaria, were built with materials plundered from its walls. It is said that the first of these destroyers, Cardinal Farnese, only extorted permission from his reluctant uncle, Paul III., to quarry as much stone as he could remove in twelve hours, and that he availed himself of this permission to let loose four thousand workmen upon the building. Sixtus V. endeavoured to utilize it by turning the arcades into shops, and establishing a woollen manufactory, and Clement XI. (1700--1721) by a manufactory of saltpetre, but both happily failed. In the last century the tide of restoration began to set in. A Carmelite monk, Angelo Paoli, represented the iniquity of allowing a spot consecrated by such holy memories to be desecrated, and Clement XI. consecrated the arena to the memory of the martyrs who had suffered there, and erected in one of the archways the still existing chapel of Sta. Maria della Pietà. The hermit appointed to take care of this chapel was stabbed in 1742, which caused Benedict XIV. to shut in the Coliseum with bars and gates. After this time destruction became sacrilege, and the five last popes all contributed to strengthen and preserve the walls which remain. Even so late as thirty years ago, however, the interior was (like that of an English abbey) an uneven grassy space littered with masses of ruin, amid which large trees grew and flourished, and the clearing out of the arena, though exhibiting more perfectly the ancient form of the building, is much to be regretted by lovers of the picturesque.[72]

Among the ecclesiastical legends connected with the Coliseum, it is said that Gregory the Great presented some foreign ambassadors with a handful of earth from the arena as a relic for their sovereigns, and upon their receiving the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the soil. Pius V, urged those who wished for relics to gather up the dust of the Coliseum, wet with the blood of the martyrs.

In 1744 "the blessed Leonardo di Porto Maurizio," who is buried in S. Buonaventura, drew immense crowds to the Coliseum by his preaching, and obtained permission from Benedict XIV. to found the confraternity of "Amanti di Gesù e Maria," for whom the Via Crucis was established here. Recently the ruins have been associated with the holy beggar, Benoit Joseph Labré (beatified by Pius IX. in 1860), who died at Rome in 1783, after a life spent in devotion. He was accustomed to beg in the Coliseum, to sleep at night under its arcades, and to pray for hours at its various shrines.

The name Coliseum is first found in the writings of the Venerable Bede, who quotes a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the world."[73]

The name was probably derived from its size; the amphitheatre of Capua was also called Colossus.

"When one looks at the Coliseum everything else becomes small; it
is so great that one cannot keep its true image in one's soul; one
only remembers it on a smaller scale, and returning thither again
finds it again grown larger."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._

Once or twice in the course of every Roman winter the Coliseum is illuminated with Bengal lights.

"Les étrangers se donnent parfois l'amusement d'éclairer le Colisée
avec des feux de Bengale. Cela ressemble un peu trop à un finale de
mélodrame, et on peut préférer comme illumination un radieux soleil
on les douces lueurs de la lune. Cependant j'avoue que la première
fois que le Colisée m'apparut ainsi, embrasé de feux rougeâtres,
son histoire me revint vivement à la pensée. Je trouvais qu'il
avait en ce moment sa vraie couleur, la couleur du sang."--_Ampère,
Emp._ ii. 156.