The cruelties then exercised on servants at Rome were truly dreadful;
and we all remember reading that in Augustus's time, when he did a
private friend the honour to dine with him, one of the waiters broke a
glass he was about to present full of liquor to the King; at which
offence the master being enraged, suddenly caused him to be seized by
the rest, and thrown instantly out of the window to feed his lampreys,
which lived in a pond on which the apartment looked. Augustus said
nothing at the moment; to punish the nobleman's inhumanity however, he
sent his officers next morning to break every glass in the house: A
curious chastisement enough, and worthy of a nation who, being powerful
to erect, populous to fill, and elegantly-skilful to adorn such a fabric
as this Coliseum which I have just been contemplating, were yet
contented and even happy to view from its well-arranged seats,
exhibitions capable of giving nothing but disgust and horror;--lions
rending unarmed wretches in pieces; or, to the still deeper disgrace of
poor Humanity, those wretches armed unwillingly against each other, and
dying to divert a brutal populace.
These reflections upon Pagan days and classical cruelties do not disturb
however the peace of an old hermit, who has chosen one of these
close-concealed recesses for his habitation, and accordingly dwells,
dismally enough, in a hole seldom visited by travellers, and certainly
never enquired about by the natives.
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