"I, Barbillus, the priest of Isis, saw on the second day of the secular games, in the sixteenth year of Domitian, a wonderful vision--whether sent me by the gods (if gods there be), or a trick played me by some _daemon_. I thought I saw with these eyes things which were not there to be seen...." So he wrote, and told his story.
In the Flavian Amphitheatre meanwhile--the Coliseum as it is now called--the bloody festival goes on--only interrupted for a while by the dinner-hour--till supper-time puts an end to it for to-day.[153] Tired and exhausted, but not yet satiated with blood, the Roman people withdraw to the triclinium, to discuss the incidents of the day over sparkling Falernian or the muddy liquor of Veii. All are looking forward to the morrow, for each day of this glorious festival is to be more delightful than the last.
Lycoris and her friend went to Stephanus. Parthenius, Clodianus, and the colonel of the body-guard, supped with Caesar. Rome was quiet, Rome was happy. So, at least, said Clodianus in the speech in which he proposed health to Caesar, the glorious president over these unequalled centennial games, and drank it in Opimian wine.
[125] TO-DAY, THE SIXTH AFTER THE CALENDS. The first day of every month was called Kalendae (from _kalare_, to proclaim). The beginning of the month was originally fixed by the new moon. An official, in later times the Pontifex Maximus, proclaimed the appearance of the new moon from a house (_Curia Calabra_) specially built for the purpose on the Capitoline Hill. The days of the second half of the month were reckoned in such a manner, that they were mentioned as before the calends of the following month; for instance, the 24th of March was the 9th day before the calends of April. The day from which, and the one to which the computation was made, were included in the reckoning. The phrase used here, "the sixth day after the calends, corresponds identically to no Latin form of speech."
[126] THREE HUNDRED LIONS. "We are most amazed"--says Friedländer--"at the number of animals of one species, as well as the whole number of those belonging to different species, gathered at the great Roman spectacles. These numbers sound incredible; of course it must not be forgotten, that within two thousand years the species of the large animals have sustained a vast, scarcely computable diminution. Doubtless Dio's remark, that all such numbers are exaggerated, is correct; but even after great reductions, nay, even if cut down one half, they remain enormous. The spectacles exhibited by Pompey and Caesar, are not only unsurpassed, but unequalled in this respect. In the former 17 or 18 elephants, 500 or 600 lions, and 410 other African animals were displayed; in the latter 400 lions and 40 elephants. Among the historians of the empire, the statement is by no means rare that 100, 200 and even 300 lions, 300, 400 and 500 bears, an equal number of African wild beasts (and still larger numbers of the ordinary kinds of animals) were exhibited or hunted at a single spectacle. All the Zoological gardens in Europe at the present day could be abundantly supplied with the animals gathered in Rome for a single great festival. According to Augustus' own statement--he took great pleasure in 'vast numbers of animals and unfamiliar wild beasts'--3,500 African animals alone perished in the 26 spectacles he gave. At the hundred-day festival given by Titus in the year 80 to commemorate the opening of the Flavian amphitheatre, 5,000 wild beasts of all kinds were exhibited in a single day, and the whole number of wild and tame ones killed reached 9,000."