The carriage stopped at one end of the Coliseum, where there was a passage way leading through stupendous arches into the interior.
They dismissed the carriage, Rollo having first paid the coachman the fare. They then, after gazing upward a moment at the vast pile of arches upon arches, towering above them, advanced towards the openings, in order to go in.
There was a soldier with a musket in his hands, bayonet set, walking to and fro at the entrance. He, however, said nothing to Mr. George and Rollo; and so, passing by him, they went in.
They passed in under immense arches of the most massive masonry, and between the great piers built to sustain the arches, until they reached the arena. There was a broad gravel walk passing across the arena from end to end, and another leading around the circumference of it. The rest of the surface was covered with grass, smooth and green.
The form of the arena was oval, as has already been said, and on every side there ascended the sloping tiers, rising one above another to a vast height, on which the seats for the spectators had been placed. Mr. George and Rollo advanced along the central walk, and looked around them, surveying the scene,--their minds filled with emotions of wonder and awe.
"What a monstrous place it was!" said Rollo.
"Is it here where the men fought with the lions and the tigers?" asked Rollo, pointing around him over the arena.
"And up there, all around were the seats of the spectators, I suppose," said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "on those slopes."
You must know that the scats, and all the inside finish of the Coliseum, were originally of marble, and people have stripped it all away, and left nothing but the naked masonry; and even that is all now going to ruin.
"What did they strip the marble off for?" asked Rollo.
"To build their houses and palaces with," replied Mr. George. "Half of the modern palaces of Rome are built of stone and marble plundered from the ancient ruins."
"Come out here where we can sit down," said Mr. George, "and I'll tell you all about it."
[Illustration: LOOKING DOWN FROM THE COLISEUM.]
So saying, Mr. George led the way, and Rollo followed to one side of the arena, where they could sit down on a large, flat stone, which seemed to have been an ancient step. They were over-shadowed where they sat by piers and arches, and by the masses of weeds and shrubbery that were growing on the mouldering summits of them, and waving in the wind.