2-888-589 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Colosseum - Rome, 1850. 'Attached as the Romans were to these various kinds of entertainment, the gladiatorial combats and the races were those which excited their highest admiration, and the inordinate love of which formed the grand and master passion of all the desires with which dissipation, depravity, or innate ferocity inspired the Roman heart. The lust of blood - at once inflamed and gratified by the sanguinary scenes of the arena - was a perfect furor with the populace, intense as it was lasting; for the gladiatorial shows were the latest remnants of Pagan barbarism that yielded to the humanizing influences of Christianity - the Gospel having been preached full four hundred years before those murderous spectacles were abolished'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.