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LAST PAYS

OF

ALEXANDER AT BABYLON.

HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.

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FTER an absence from Babylon-that wondrous city where all the refinements of Eastern luxury found a home, and whose famous hanging gardens were not the most remarkable of its marvelsAlexander, having accomplished the military purposes for which he had left that town, prepared to return to it. Apollodorus had the government in his absence, and wishing still longer to enjoy the power, he prevailed upon his brother Pythagoras, a diviner, to announce that the omens were unfavourable, and to threaten the divine displeasure against the king should he enter the gates of Babylon. Notwithstanding this menace, Alexander, after reducing the Cossæans, approached towards that city with his army. He was met by a long train of Chaldæan priests, who conjured him to change his resolution, because they had received an oracle from Belus, declaring that his journey thither would prove fatal. The interest of the Chaldæans conspired with the views of Apollodorus. The temple of Belus, a stupendous edifice, situate in the heart of Babylon, had been very richly endowed by the Assyrian kings. But the produce of the consecrated ground, instead of being applied to its original destination of repairing the temple, and offering sacrifices to the gods, had, ever since the impious reign of Xerxes, been appropriated by the Chaldæan priests. Alexander, it was well known, intended to reform this abuse, and although his mind was not altogether unmoved by the admonition of the priests, he discerned their motives, and answered them by a verse of Euripides, "He's the best prophet that conjectures best." Foiled in their first attempt, the Chaldæans had recourse to another artifice. Since the king had determined at every hazard to visit Babylon, they entreated him at least not to enter it on the eastern side, but to fetch a compass round, and to march with his face towards the rising sun. He prepared to comply with this advice, but the design being impracticable, he was compelled to enter the city by the forbidden road. Alexander was much disturbed by superstitious terrors for some time, and these were heightened by a very remarkable incident which is said to have occurred at this time.

CORINTHIAN COLUMNS AND FRAGMENTS AT BABYLON.

He had brought with him from his Indian expedition a sage named Calanus, in whose sayings he placed implicit confidence. Calanus became ill, and determined to terminate his sufferings by a voluntary death. A funeral pyre was constructed and kindled, and this he

made him decline witnessing the extraordinary death of a friend who, for his sake, had abandoned his native land. But before Calanus was carried to the funeral pile the king affectionately paid him the last visit. Calanus having embraced all present, refused to take leave

GRECIAN WARRIOR IN THE PANOPLY OF WAR.

having mounted with a serene countenance, expired amidst the flames, singing a hymn to the gods of his country.

The curiosity of Alexander was unbounded, but his humanity likewise was great. This principle, which is too often a stranger to the breast of conquerors,

of Alexander, saying that "he should again see him in Babylon." The words of a dying man were considered by the Greeks as prophetical. Those of Calanus sunk deep into the mind of Alexander, and the painful impression which they made hastened his departure from a city

in which so many concurring circumstances forbade him to reside.

His superstitious terrors, however, seem to have been diverted by the voyage down the Euphrates and by directing the improvements in the canal of Pallacopas. Having resumed his courage, he ventured to return to Babylon, gave audience to some Grecian ambassadors, who presented him with golden crowns from the submissive flattery of their several republics; and having reviewed his troops and galleys, prepared to execute the enterprises which he had so long meditated. But his designs and his life were now drawing to a close. Whether to conquer his melancholy or to triumph in the victory. which he had already gained over it, he indulged, without moderation, in that banqueting and festivity to which, after the fatigues of war, he had often shown himself too much addicted; and a fever, occasioned, or at least increased, by an excessive abuse of wine, the vice of his nation and of his family, put a period to his life in the thirty-third year of his age, and in the thirteenth of his reign. After the first days of the disorder he had been conveyed to the cool verdure of a beautiful garden, but the malady increasing, he was soon brought back to the palace. The last remains of strength he spent in assisting at daily sacrifices to the gods. During his illness he spoke but little, and that only concerning his intended expeditions. The temples were crowded by his friends, the generals waited in the hall, the soldiers surrounded the gates. Such was the grief of many and the respectful admiration of all, that none ventured to announce to him his

approaching dissolution, none ventured. to demand his last orders. When all hopes of recovery had vanished his favourite troops were admitted to behold him. He was speechless, but had still strength to stretch forth his hand.

Thus died Alexander the Great, perhaps the most remarkable conqueror the world has ever seen. Nor were his triumphs merely those of war, for he founded not less than seventy cities, the situation of which being chosen with consummate wisdom, tended to facilitate communication, to promote commerce, and to diffuse civility through the greatest nations of the earth. It may be suspected, indeed, that he mistook the extent of human power when, in the course of one reign, he undertook to change the face of the world, and that he miscalculated the stubbornness of ignorance and the force of habit when he attempted to enlighten barbarism, to soften servitude, and to transplant the improvements of Greece into an African and Asiatic soil, where they have never been known to flourish. Yet, let not the designs of Alexander be too hastily accused of extravagance. Whoever seriously considers what he actually performed before his thirty-third year, will be cautious of determining what he might have accomplished had he reached the ordinary term of human life. His resources were peculiar to himself, and such views as well as actions became him as would have become none besides. In the language of a philosophical historian, “he seems to have been given to the world by a peculiar dispensation of Providence, being a man like to none other of the human kind.”

EE

"J SEE

BEFORE ME THE GLADIATOR LIE."

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T seems to us now quite incredible that highly civilised men and tenderly nurtured women should sit and see men fighting for their lives, and that such a sight should be the most famous and popular

sport of the day. It was so in old Rome, however. If we remember the bull fights in Spain of the present day, and the bull and bear baiting that used once to be so common in England, as well as the cruel cock-fighting that used to be so popular within the memory of men yet living, we shall not be inclined to plume ourselves very greatly on our superior humanity, as compared with that of the ancient Romans.

"The first rise of the gladiators is referred to the ancient practice of killing persons at the funerals of great men; for the old heathens, fancying the ghosts of the deceased to be pleased, and made more kind by human blood, at first used to buy captives, or stubborn slaves, and offer them at the funeral solemnities. Afterwards they contrived to veil over their impious barbarity with the specious show of pleasure, and voluntary combat; and therefore training up such persons as they had procured in some tolerable knowledge of arms, upon the day appointed for the sacrifices to the departed ghosts, they obliged them to maintain a mortal encounter at the tombs of their friends. The first show of gladiators, exhibited at Rome, was that of M. and D. Brutus, upon the death of their father, A.U.C. 490, in the consulship of Appius Claudius and M. Fulvius.

After some time, when they found the people exceedingly pleased with such

bloody entertainments, they resolved to give them the same diversion as soon as possible; and therefore it soon grew into a custom, that not only the heir of any great or rich citizen lately deceased, but all their principal magistrates, took occasion to present the people with these shows, in order to procure their esteem and affection. Nay, the very priests were sometimes the exhibitors of such impious exhibitions. As for the emperors, it was so much their interest to ingratiate themselves with the people, that they obliged them with these shows almost upon all occasions; as on their birthday, at the time of a triumph, or after any signal victory, at the consecration of public edifices, at the games which several of them instituted to return in such a term of years, with many others, which occur in every historian. And as the occasions of these solemnities were very much increased, in the same manner was the length of them, and the number of the combatants. At the first show exhibited by the Bruti, it is probable there were only three pairs of gladiators.

To supply the people with gladiators, schools were established in various parts of Italy, each under the control of a fencing-master, who instructed them in martial exercises. The victims were either prisoners of war, or refractory slaves, sold by their masters; but in the degenerate ages of the empire, freemen and even senators ventured their lives on the stage along with the regular gladiators. Under the mild and merciful influence of Christianity, these combats were abolished, and human blood was no longer shed to gratify a cruel and sanguinary populace. So numerous were the gladiators, that Spartacus, one of their number, having escaped

from a school, raised an army of his fellow-sufferers, amounting to seventy thousand men; he was finally subdued by Crassus, the colleague of Pompey. Julius Caesar, during his ædileship, exhibited at one time three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators; but even this was surpassed by the emperor Trajan, who displayed no less than one thousand. The gladiators were named from their peculiar arms; the most common were the retiarius, who endeavoured to hamper his antagonist with a net; and his opponent, the secutor, or follower.

On the day of the exhibition, the gladiators were led along the arena in procession. Then they were matched by pairs, and their swords examined by the exhibitor of the games. The gladiators, as a prelude to the battle, at first fought with wooden swords, or the like, flourishing their arms with great dexterity. Then, upon a signal given by a trumpet, they laid aside these, and assumed their proper arms. They adjusted themselves with great care, and stood in a particular posture. Then they pushed at one another, and repeated the thrust. They not only pushed with the point, but also struck with the edge. It was more easy to parry or avoid direct thrusts, than back or side strokes. They therefore took particular care to defend their side. Some gladiators had the faculty of not winking. Two such, belonging to the emperor Claudius, were on that account invincible.

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in his seat, looking carelessly, or at least tranquilly, on. One gladiator has completely conquered the other, and stands with his foot on the neck of his prostrate foe, who looks appealingly up at the Roman ladies. Their hearts seem to be touched, as they are eagerly turning down their thumbs, and thus are proclaiming their command to spare the life of the unfortunate. We abridge the following vivid account of such an exhibition from one of the works of Lord Lytton.

A mighty crowd has collected to view the inhumam combat, and first on the upper tier (but apart from the male spectators) sat the women, their gay dresses resembling some gaudy flowerbed; it is needless to add that they were the most talkative part of the assembly; and many were the looks directed up to them, especially from the benches appropriated to the young and the unmarried men. On the lower seats round the arena sat the more high-born and wealthy visitors-the magistrates and those of senatorial or equestrian dignity: the passages which, by corridors at the right and left, gave access to these seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages prevented any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the beasts, and confined them to their appointed prey. Around the parapet which was raised above the arena, and from which the seats gradually rose, were gladiatorial inscriptions, and paintings wrought in fresco, typical of the entertainments for which the place was designed. Throughout the whole building wound invisible. pipes, from which, as the day advanced, cooling and fragrant showers were to be sprinkled over the spectators. The officers of the amphitheatre were still

When any gladiator was wounded, the people exclaimed, "He has got it!" The gladiator lowered his arms as a sign of his being vanquished; but his fate depended on the pleasure of the people, who, if they wished him to be saved, pressed down their thumbs; if to be slain, they turned them up, and ordered him to receive the sword, to which gladiators usually submitted with amaz-employed in the task of fixing the vast ing fortitude." In our picture we have a fine representation of this decisive

awning (or velaria) which covered the whole, and which luxurious invention the

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