CHAPTER IX.
THE PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS AND PRIVATE LIFE OF THE ROMANS.
Butchered to make a Roman holiday .-- _Byron_.
The inferiority of the Romans to the Greeks in intellectual acquirements, was no where more conspicuous than in their public amusements.

While the refined Grecians sought to gratify their taste by music, the fine arts, and dramatic entertainments, the Romans derived their chief pleasure from contemplating the brutal and bloody fights of gladiators; or at best, such rich shows and processions as gratify the uneducated vulgar.

The games in the circus, with which the Romans were so delighted, that they considered them of equal importance, with the necessaries of life, consisted of athletic exercises, such as boxing, racing, wrestling, and gladiatorial combats.

To these, chariot-racing was added under the emperors, and exhibitions of combats between wild beasts, and, in numerous instances, between men and beasts.
2.

After the establishment of the naval power of Rome, naumachiae, or naval combats, were frequently exhibited in circi built for the purpose.