He made it known, as
the very highest gratification which the case allowed, that (in the
language of our modern auctioneers) the whole, "without reserve," should
perish before their eyes. Even such spectacles must have hardened the
heart, and blunted the more delicate sensibilities; but these would soon
cease to stimulate the pampered and exhausted sense. From the combats of
tigers or leopards, in which the passions could only be gathered
indirectly, and by way of inference from the motions, the transition must
have been almost inevitable to those of men, whose nobler and more varied
passions spoke directly, and by the intelligible language of the eye, to
human spectators; and from the frequent contemplation of these authorized
murders, in which a whole people, women [Footnote: Augustus, indeed,
strove to exclude the women from one part of the circension spectacles;
and what was that? Simply from the sight of the _Athletae_, as being
naked. But that they should witness the pangs of the dying gladiators, he
deemed quite allowable. The smooth barbarian considered; that a license of
the first sort offended against decorum, whilst the other violated only
the sanctities of the human heart, and the whole sexual character of
women.
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