THB DECLINE AND FALL

416

chap, custom of the city. The senator presided with^ XXI ,„ dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute theprizes, the gold ring, or the pallium , k as it wasstyled, of cloth or silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual expence and the races, onfoot, on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobledby a tilt and tournament of seventy-two of thefrastinthe K° man youth. In the year one thousand threeColiseum, hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after theSept. 3 . ’ fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was cele-brated in the Coliseum itself; and the livingmanners are painted in a diary of the times.™ Aconvenient order of benches was restored ; anda general proclamation, as far as Rimini andRavenna, invited the nobles to exercise theirskill and courage in this perilous adventure.The Roman ladies were marshalled in threesquadrons, and seated in three balconies, which

have already given an idea of this municipal code. The races of Na-gona and Monte Testaceo are likewise mentioned in the Diary of PeterAntonins, from 1404 to 1417 (Muratori, Script. Rerum Ilalicaruni,tom. xxiv, p. 1124).

* The Pallium , which Menage so foolishly derives from Palmarium,is an easy extension of the idea and the words, from the robe or cloak,to the materials, and from thence to their application as a prize (Mu-ratori, dissert, xxxiii).

> For these expences, the Jews of Rome paid each year 1130florins, of which the odd thirty represented the pieces of silver forwhich Judas had betrayed his master to their ancestors. There wasa foot-race of Jewish , as well as of Christian youths (Statuta Urbis,ibidem).

“ This extraordinary bull-feast in the Coliseum is described, fromtradition rather than memory, by Ludovico Buonconte Monaldesco,•in the most ancient fragments of Roman annals (Muratori, Script.Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii, p. 535, 530); and however fanSiful theymay seem, they are deeply marked with the colours of truth and na-ture