Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

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Seneca:
His Character and Environment
had no public duty to perform, and wanted to
have
a good
time"? There is abundant evidence within
our reach to enable us to answer this question. He
plunged headlong
that
into debaucheries so shameful
the modern pen shrinks from describing them,
and the mind from contemplating them. Fortunes
were sometimes spent on a single banquet. The
Roman baths ministered equally to luxury and li
centiousness. In short, it seems as if all the in
genuity of the empire had at times been exerted to
the utmost to devise new methods of sensual grati
fication.
But he could not indulge incessantly in baccha
nalian orgies; the jaded body needed some relaxative
that could be found neither in sleep nor in such
business that could not be delegated to a subordinate.
There he regaled himself with the sight of blood-
The huge structures erected for the gladiatorial com
bats testify to the Roman passion for these cruel
sports. Every living creature that could be induced
to fight was exhibited in the arena where men and
women took equal delight in the bloody spectacle.
Lecky, in his History of European Morals, sets
forth in graphic colors the pomp and circumstance
with which these horrible exhibitions were given. I
cannot do better than to transcribe his words: The
gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of
Roman society which to a modern mind is almost in
conceivable in its atrocity. That not only men, but
women, in an advanced period of civilization men
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