ledge of tactics and strategy. This will partially account for the character of the operations, and the slaughter of this civil war; since it would indeed have been marvellous had leaders, few of whom have ever previously commanded even a battalion, not been somewhat unequal to, and indexterous in, the direction of great armies.
THE BOY MARTYR.
(NERO IMPERATOR.)
I.
Now that the bull with gilded horns was stricken by the priest,
The arena swam with human blood and with the blood of beast;
The tigers felled, the leopards stabbed, the huge snakes mashed to death,
Resting awhile to fan themselves, the multitudes take breath.
High up above the curtain-roof the great white-rose clouds blew,
High up above the circling seats the whirling pigeons flew;
Below in arching shadows cool the children hide and play,
No warning growl, nor hiss, nor moan can Roman boy dismay.
The sand was levelled smooth and dry, the babble once more swells,
The gladiators cut and gashed are resting in their cells,
The tridents and the gory nets, the axes and the swords,
Are lying in a dusty heap beside the hooks and cords.
The people laugh;—the senator, the juggler, and the mime,
The cobbler and the augur’s man, the actors jest and rhyme;
The bath slaves and the soldiers sit shouldering seat by seat,
The drover and the fisherman, the thief and boxer meet.
The mountain palaces of Rome, the Forum’s busy walks,
Have sent their wicked thousands here, and each of bloodshed talks;
The Tyber’s bare, the temple’s shut, the baths are empty all,
There only is one sleeping slave in Cæsar’s golden hall.
The purple awning over head, three acres Tyrian wove,
Flaps breezily as Auster now whispers with breath of love;
And Nero tired, leans back to rest on his great ivory seat,
His robe unloosed, his pimps and slaves basking around his feet.
Not one of all those thousands there thought of the death-doomed men
Who lay—hands bound—with bleeding backs in the subterranean den;
Nor of that little Christian boy, brought from the chalky shore,
Where Dorobernium’s fort looks down upon the channel’s roar.
Weary of pleasure was the Plebs, weary the Cæsar too,
In vain the slaves from swaying roof rain the sweet scented dew;
The gladiators, quaffing draughts of myrrh and Sabine wine,
Felt that a gloom was on the Plebs, and dread the fatal sign.
For storms had kept the corn fleet back, the Plebs was hard to please,
From Cæsar to the meanest churl, not one seemed at his ease;
All day the thumbs had been turned down, howe’er a man might fight,
For hungry folks are sour and sad, and full of spleen and spite.
They murmur for some newer thing, some combination wild,
A snake and wild cat, or a cub, to grapple with a child;
Or ostriches and antelopes—here Nero rose and cried
For some fresh combat man and beast that ne’er had yet been tried.
II.
The lituus and the tuba roar, the soldiers’ drums resound,
The Nubian cymbals clash and chime the amphitheatre round;
As open fly a dozen doors, and robed in red and blue,
The gladiators doomed to death come pacing two and two.
With shining limbs and faces bruised, and strong arms white with scars,
The cestus-wearers march and sing their noisy hymns to Mars;
The netters and the light-armed lads, the agile targeteers,
Syrian and Greek, Arab and Gaul, heedless of hiss or cheers.
But lo! a whisper, Nero stands, and waves his Lydian lyre,
Made of Parnassus laurel wood, and strung with golden wire;
Again the gladiators pass through the Vomitory’s door,
And the dull arena’s ring of blood is silent as before.
What Libyan lions now with manes drifting upon the sand,
With lolling tongues and stealthy walk, till chafed by blow and brand;
Or German boars to gore and rush chasing the bleeding man;
Or mighty snakes to wind and leap as only such things can?
But no! an Epicure’s surprise—voluptuous cruelty,
A Briton’s child to struggle with a thief from Thessaly,
A brawny giant scarred and burnt, covered with dust and blood,
His feet all red as vineyard men’s with the grapes’ purple flood.
The boy was pale with dungeon gloom, yet was he still and stern,
Smiling at bony Death, who shook o’er him a funeral urn;
