were overpowered and cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained, at least, an honorable death and the satisfaction of a just revenge."
"There are few finer characters in Roman history," says Storr, "than the Thracian Spartacus, who escaped from the gladiators' school of Lentulus, at Capua, and for three years defied the legions of Rome."
The gladiators fought with various weapons; the Samnites, with a short sword, a plumed helmet, and a shield; the Thracians, with a round buckler and a dagger; some others with a net and a trident, some with a lasso, and many with the deadly cestus.
The public interest in the shows may be judged from the fact that in the Circus Maximus there were seats for three hundred and fifty thousand; or, as Juvenal says, "it held the whole of Rome."
When the debauched people tired of merely human blood, the wilds of the world were ransacked for wild beasts to fight with each other and with the gladiators. The generals and proconsuls were ordered in far countries to purchase giraffes, tigers, lions, and crocodiles! Sulla, in a single show, had one hundred lions. Pompey had six hundred lions, besides elephants, which fought Gætulian hunters. When the Colosseum was opened nine thousand beasts were killed!
