ence of sedentary occupations. The Assyrians and Greeks had trimonthly holidays, besides annual revels, and great national festivals at longer intervals. In ancient Etruria every new month was ushered in by a day of merrymaking in honor of a tutelary deity; the patricians and plebeians of republican Rome had their field-days; the festivals of the seasons united the pleasure-seekers of all classes, and even the slaves had their Saturnalia weeks when some of their privileges were only limited by their capacity of enjoyment. la the first centuries of the Roman Empire, when the growth of the cities and the scarcity of game began to circumscribe the private pastimes of the poorer classes, the rulers themselves provided the means of public amusements; at the death of Septimus Severus (a. d. 211), the capital alone had six free amphitheatres and twelve or fourteen large public baths, where the poorest were admitted gratis, and none but the poorest could complain about the half-cent entrance-fee to the luxurious thermæ. The circenses, or public games, were by no means confined to the gladiatorial combats that have exercised the eloquence of our Christian moralists; dramatic entertainments, trials of strength, and the exhibition of outlandish curiosities, seem to have been as popular as the grandest prize-fights, unless the combatants were international champions. And it would be a great mistake to suppose that only the wealthy capital could afford to amuse its citizens at the public expense; from Gaul to Syria every town had a circus or two, every larger village an arena, a free bath, and a public gymnasium. The Colosseum of Vespasian seated eighty thousand spectators, but was rivaled by the amphitheatres of Narbonne, Syracuse, Antioch, Berytus, and Thessalonica.[1] Children, married women, old men, and many trades-unions had their yearly carnivals, and, during the celebration of the Olympian and Capitoline games and various local festivals, even strangers enjoyed the freedom of the larger towns.
And now?—Professor Wirgmann, in his "Annalen des Russischen Reiches," estimates that since the accession of Nicholas I, the modern Cæsars have expended an average annual sum of seventeen million dollars for the torture of their subjects; how many cents have they ever spent for national pastimes? How many spectators (since the abolition of the "Tyburn-days") have ever been entertained at the expense of the wealthy British Empire? What has our Great Republic done in the matter of circenses, except to pass an occasional sabbath law for the suppression of public amusements on the only day in which a large plurality of our workingmen find their only leisure for recreation? The spoils of a Roman consul would dwindle before the rents of our American, German, and French financiers: what have our commercial triumphators ever achieved for the entertainment of their poor fellow-citizens? Cooper Institute lectures, street revivals, and prize distributions at the examination of a sabbath-school for adults?
- ↑ Tacitus, "Annalen," xii-xiv.
