said to be haunted by a Roman ghost of peculiar ghastliness—either the spirit of Rictiovarus, who, under Diocletian, was a notorious persecutor of the Christians, or of Catholdus, who built the amphitheatre which lies beyond, and is said to have thrown his unfaithful wife from the top of it. In the first years after the French Revolution it was able to terrify even the sceptical French sentries, as it stalked across the parade-ground and vanished in the ruins of the Roman baths. Orders, however, having been given to the soldiers to fire upon it, if it came again, the apparition discreetly disappeared for good. Passing over this haunted ground along the remains of the mediæval walls, we come to those beautiful ruins called the Roman baths. We are glad to see that the Prussian government has taken measures for purchasing some of the surrounding land, so that the excavations may be continued, and it is probable that valuable discoveries will be made. Nothing can be fairer than the aspect of these ruins in their summer dress; they show to perfection how beautiful an effect may be gained by variegated courses of bricks and tiles. The colours doubtless are, in a great measure, due to time, and exposure to sun and rain. The site of the ruins, when we saw them at the beginning of July, was a perfect botanical garden of every species of wild flower, whose bright coloured blossoms sparkled like gems on the worn edges and in the interstices of the masonry. Through the broken arches an exquisite vignette of the cathedral and other buildings of the town may be seen.
These baths are constructed on a vast scale, with every convenience known to the Romans,—hot-air chambers, flues and cooling-halls. The round swimming-bath is of remarkable size, and suggests the idea that the baths must have been built for accommodation of the Trêves public in general, rather than have formed part of a buried palace. More will be known when the ground has been further explored. Their neighbourhood to the site of the amphitheatre suggests the idea that it was there that the “swells” of Trêves adorned themselves for the savage spectacle, against the moral pollutions of which their physical cleanliness was a very insufficient safeguard.
The remains of the amphitheatre are seen at the foot of a hill to the south-east of the town, in the midst of vineyards and gardens. Unlike the Colosseum at Rome and the amphitheatre at Verona, very little remains of the stonework of these buildings, whose fate it was, like that of the Colosseum, to be used as a quarry in the middle ages. In the grass-covered hollow which now represents the Trêves arena, besides the imposing remains of the main entrances, there is little to tell its story but the two openings in the walls which led from the dens where the wild beasts were kept. From north to south the diameter is 225 feet, from east to west 157. The oval building accommodated 57,000 persons, while the arena at Verona could hold 70,000, and the Colosseum at Rome 87,000.
In this now quiet spot, grass-grown and flowery, used as a safe play-ground for the rising generation of Trêves, as we saw it, Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome (if he was so), caused several thousands of Franks, taken in war, with their leaders—Ascarich and Ragail—to be torn to pieces by wild beasts “to make a Roman holiday.” This monster butchery of men by beasts took place in 306 A.D., and was repeated in 313 on many thousands of captured Bructeri.
The history of Trêves, lying as it did on the outskirts of the Roman dominion, shows the short-sightedness of these savage proceedings. A warning had been given in 261 A.D., when the Trêves territory was devastated by the Alemanni. In 388 the Franks, now grown the stronger, inflicted a signal defeat on the Roman generals Quintinus and Heraclius. In 447, Trêves was harried by the Huns, and finally passed from the Romans to the Franks in 464.
We may be sure that pretty summary vengeance was exacted on account of the blood-baths of the amphitheatre, which were more worthy of his present Majesty of Dahomey than of the great Constantine, whose panegyrist (!) says that, in 313, the beasts lost all their fierceness in consequence of the number of victims they had devoured. As it gets dark, the broken sides of the entrance to the amphitheatre might be imagined in the uncertain light to be two profiles of huge ghosts, holding up their hands in defiance of each other.
The ruin of this great Roman work was consummated by Archbishop Johann, in 1211, giving up the materials to build a house in Trêves, with the quaint remark in the deed of gift, that “these walls had never been of any use yet, and were never likely to be of any for the future.” These are the principal sights of Trêves. A walk in and about the town will discover a multitude of others, such as portions of old monasteries (one of which has turned into the present theatre), and fragments of Roman houses and fortifications. The bridge itself, which spans the Moselle, is of undoubted Roman origin, and led up to what was probably the Porta Principalis sinistra of the Roman winter camp.
As we return to our quarters at the Red House we observe the fountain of St. Peter standing in the market-place, with the image of the saint at the top. It received its present form under an Elector Johann von Schonenburg. It is surrounded by images of four virtues, with caricatures of their opposite vices. Of the older fountain which stood in its place the story is told that the Elector Jacob von Etz, when he entered into Trêves, caused his cook to ride through the streets with a ladle as long as a lance, and when he came to the fountain to skim the water, to show how he meant to deal with the liberties of the people.
Our Red House must not be supposed to have derived its name from the red colour with which it is now washed, which probably was given it on account of the name. As it was, the old Council House or Rath Haus, the corruption into Roth Haus would be natural, especially with the thick pronunciation of the people in these parts. The character of the Trêves people in the middle ages was that of great jollity and philosophic indifference to the sieges, sacks and military occupations which they had to endure so repeatedly.
When the Landgrave Albert of Brandenburg took Trêves in 1552, he was long looking for the municipal authorities, in order to make a requisi-
