The exhibitions were no longer confined to funerals;
they formed an integrant part of every election, and were found more
powerful than merit in opening a way to office. The utter
demoralization of the Roman people, and the facility with which the
tyranny of the emperors was established, unquestionably was owing, in
a great degree to the pernicious prevalence of these scandalous
exhibitions.
5. To supply the people with gladiators, schools were, established in
various parts of Italy, each under the controul of a _lanis'ta_, or
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.
6. So numerous were the gladiators, that Spar'tacus, 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 Cras'sus, the colleague of Pompey.
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