People watched their destruction, batch after batch, in a not particularly inventive fashion; though it was expected that the animals themselves, as living creatures are apt to do when hard put to it, would become inventive, and make up, by the fantastic accidents of their agony, for the deficiencies of an age fallen behind in this matter of manly amusement.
It was as a Deity of Slaughter--the Taurian goddess who demands the sacrifice of the shipwrecked sailors thrown on her coasts--the cruel, moonstruck huntress, who brings not only sudden death, but rabies, among the wild creatures that Diana was to be presented, in the person of a famous courtesan.

The aim at an actual theatrical illusion, after the first introductory scene, was frankly surrendered to the display of the animals, artificially stimulated and maddened to attack each other.
And as Diana was also a special protectress of new-born creatures, there would be a certain curious interest in the dexterously contrived escape of the young from their mother's torn bosoms; as many pregnant animals as possible being carefully selected for the purpose.
The time had been, and was to come again, when the pleasures of the amphitheatre centered in a similar practical joking upon human beings.
What more ingenious diversion had stage manager ever contrived than that incident, itself a practical epigram never to be forgottten, [239] when a criminal, who, like slaves and animals, had no rights, was compelled to present the part of Icarus; and, the wings failing him in due course, had fallen into a pack of hungry bears?
For the long shows of the amphitheatre were, so to speak, the novel-reading of that age--a current help provided for sluggish imaginations, in regard, for instance, to grisly accidents, such as might happen to one's self; but with every facility for comfortable inspection.

Scaevola might watch his own hand, consuming, crackling, in the fire, in the person of a culprit, willing to redeem his life by an act so delightful to the eyes, the very ears, of a curious public.

If the part of Marsyas was called for, there was a criminal condemned to lose his skin.

It might be almost edifying to study minutely the expression of his face, while the assistants corded and pegged him to the bench, cunningly; the servant of the law waiting by, who, after one short cut with his knife, would slip the man's leg from his skin, as neatly as if it were a stocking--a finesse in providing the due amount of suffering for wrong-doers only brought to its height in Nero's living bonfires.