An impressive silence broods over the monstrous structure where such multitudes of men and women were wont to assemble in other days.

The butterflies have taken the places of the queens of fashion and beauty of eighteen centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred seat of the Emperor.

More vividly than all the written histories, the Coliseum tells the story of Rome's grandeur and Rome's decay.

It is the worthiest type of both that exists.

Moving about the Rome of to-day, we might find it hard to believe in her old magnificence and her millions of population; but with this stubborn evidence before us that she was obliged to have a theatre with sitting room for eighty thousand persons and standing room for twenty thousand more, to accommodate such of her citizens as required amusement, we find belief less difficult.