Valerius: A Roman Story, Band 1W. Blackwood, 1821 - 347 Seiten |
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already altar Amphitheatre appeared arena Aspar assembly Athanasia attention beautiful began beneath bosom Boto Cæsar Capito Centurion cerning Christian commanded concerning countenance crowd dark delight demeanour Demochares Domitian door doubt Dromo dungeon Emperor entered Euphranor eyes face faith father feel Flamens forthwith gazing gladiators Greek grotto hand head hear heard heaven hour immediately insomuch Jews Jupiter knew lady length Licinius lictors lips look luxurious maidens Mamurra manner master mind mother multitude nasia nature Nerva ness never Nevertheless night observed once orator perceive perhaps porch Prætorian present prince quoth regard replied Roman Rome Rubellia Sabinus seemed seen Sempronia sesterces shew side side-thrust silence slaves smile soldier soon sooner sound speak spearman spectacle splendour stedfast stept Stoic stood sure ther things thought Thraso Tiber tion Trajan truth utter Valerius Vespasian voice vomitory walked whispered words Xerophrastes young Sextus
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 220 - ... procession, for I saw among the armed multitude — and that not altogether without some feelings of more peculiar interest*-* two or three gaunt barbarians, whose breasts and shoulders bore uncouth marks of blue and purple, so vivid in the tints, that I thought many months could not have elapsed since they must have been wandering in wild freedom along the native ridges of some Silurian or Caledonian forest. As they moved around the arena, some of these men were saluted by the whole multitude...
Seite 219 - ... animals, or rather, indeed, I should say, so many senseless pieces of ingenious mechanism. The wide diversity of complexion and feature exhibited among these devoted athletes, afforded at once a majestic idea of the extent of the Roman empire, and a terrible one of the purposes to which that wide sway had too often been made subservient. The beautiful Greek, with a countenance of noble serenity, and limbs after which the sculptors of his country might have modelled their godlike symbols of graceful...
Seite 219 - ... left arm a small buckler, and having a short straight sword suspended by a cord around his neck. They marched, as I have said, slowly and steadily ; so that the whole assembly had full leisure to contemplate the forms of the men ; while those who were, or who imagined themselves to be, skilled in the business of the arena, were fixing, in their own minds, on such as they thought most likely to be victorious, and laying wagers concerning their chances of success, with as much unconcern as if they...
Seite 225 - Whether or not the haughtiness of his counter nance had been observed by them with displeasure, I cannot say ; but so it was, that those who had cried out to give him a chance of recovery, were speedily silent, and the Emperor looking round, and seeing all the thumbs turned downwards, (for that is, you know, the signal of death,) was constrained to give the sign, and forthwith the young man, receiving again without a struggle the sword of the Moor into his gashed bosom, breathed forth his life, and....
Seite 221 - I supposed, of the approbation wherewith the feats of some former festival had deserved to be remembered. On the appearance of others, groans and hisses were heard from some parts of the amphitheatre, mixed with contending cheers and huzzas from others of the spectators. But by far the greater part were suffered to pass on in silence : — this...
Seite 66 - ... crowded region, to the westward, my eye ascended to the cliffs and towers of the Capitol; while, still farther removed from me, (although less elevated in natural situation), the gorgeous mansion of the Emperor was seen, lifted up, like some new and separate city, upon its enormous fabric of arcades. Behind me, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the newest and the most majestic of all Roman edifices, detained the eye for a space from all that lay beyond it — the splendid mass of the Esquiline — and...
Seite 220 - ... after which the sculptors of his country might have modelled their god-like symbols of graceful power, walked side by side with the yellowbearded savage, whose gigantic muscles had been nerved in the freezing waves of the Elbe or the Danube, or whose thick strong hair was congealed and shagged on 219 his brow with the breath of Scythian or Scandinavian winters.
Seite 223 - ' At that instant all were silent, in the contemplation of the breathless strife ; insomuch, that a groan, the first that had escaped from either of the combatants, although low and reluctant, and...
Seite 222 - Africans on the other ; wherein it was the well-nigh intransgressible law of the Amphitheatre, that at least one out of every pair of combatants should die on the arena before the eyes of the multitude. Instead of shrinking from the more desperate brutalities of these latter conflicts, the almost certainty of their fatal termination seemed only to make the assembly gaze on them with a more intense curiosity, and a more inhuman measure of delight. Methinks I...