Letter 5042: VARIAE, BOOK 5, LETTER 42

42. King Theodoric to Maximus, vir illustris [a man of illustrious rank], consul. [1] If those who wrestle with their bodies' limbs greased and supple call forth a consul's bounty; if a recompense of prizes is rendered to those who sing to the accompaniment of an instrument; if a delightful song comes to command a price: with what reward must the hunter be filled, who, that he may please the spectators, labors at his own deaths? He furnishes pleasure with his own blood, and, bound by an unhappy lot, hastens to please a people that does not wish for him to escape. A detestable deed, an unhappy contest, to be willing to struggle against wild beasts which he does not doubt he will find stronger than himself. His sole presumption, therefore, lies in deceiving them; his only solace lies in deception. [2] And if he does not deserve to escape the beast, sometimes he will not even be able to find a burial: while the man is still alive his body perishes, and before he is made a corpse he is savagely devoured. Caught, he becomes food for his enemy, and--O sorrow!--he sates the very creature whom he sighs to be able to kill. A spectacle splendid only in its structures, but in its action most base, devised in honor of Scythian Diana, who rejoiced in the shedding of blood. [3] O error of wretched delusion, to have desired to worship her who was appeased by the death of men! First the agrarian peoples, devoted to vows and to hunting, fashioned for themselves through groves and woods this threefold goddess by a false imagining, affirming her to be the very Moon in the heavens, the very mistress in the forests, the very Proserpina among the dead. But perhaps they reckoned not wrongly that she was mistress of Erebus alone, since, deceived by such a falsehood, they entered alive into the deep darkness with their errors. [4] This cruel game, this bloody pleasure, this impious religion, this human ferocity, if I may so call it, the Athenians first brought into the worship of their city--divine justice permitting it, so that what the pursuit of a false religion had devised might come round to the mockery of a spectacle. [5] This the princely power of Titus, with a lavish river of riches, conceived should be made a building, from which it could be the head of cities. And since a theater, which is a hemisphere, is so called in Greek, the amphitheater, as it were two viewing-places joined into one, is rightly held to be named: enclosing its arena in the shape of an egg, so that both fitting space might be given to those running and the spectators might more easily see everything, while a certain extended roundness had gathered all things together. [6] So men go to such things as humanity ought to flee. The first man, trusting in fragile wood, runs toward the jaws of the beasts, and that which he longs to escape he seems with great impetus to seek out. With equal speed both predator and prey hasten against each other, nor can the man be safe in any other way unless he meets the very thing he wishes to avoid. Then, his body raised aloft by a leap into the air, his limbs are flung upturned like the lightest garments, and a certain bodily arch, poised above the beast, while it makes delays in departing, the beast's swiftness passes beneath it. [7] So it happens that he who is seen to be mocked can appear the gentler one; another, presuming with rotatory ease upon corners arranged in the fourfold division of the world, flees without departing, withdraws without making himself more distant, follows the pursuer, keeping himself close upon his hams, so as to avoid the bears' jaws; that one, suspended by his belly on a slender rod, invites the deadly beast, and unless he has been imperiled he acquires nothing whereby he might live; [8] another shuts himself in with a portable wall of reeds against the most savage animal, after the example of the hedgehog, which, suddenly fleeing back into its own hide, is hidden gathered within itself, and although it has nowhere departed, its little body is not to be seen. For just as the hedgehog, rolled into a ball at its adversary's approach, is defended by its natural prickles, so this man, girded round with a stitched-together lattice, is rendered more protected by the fragility of the reeds. [9] Others presume to provoke against themselves the rage made ready for them by means of three little doorways, so to speak, hiding themselves in an open space behind latticed posts, now showing their faces, now their backs, so that it is a marvel that those escape whom you thus behold flitting among the claws and teeth of lions. [10] One is offered to the beasts upon a sliding wheel; by the same wheel another is raised up, so that he may be carried off from the perils. Thus this contrivance, fashioned to the quality of the faithless world, cherishes some with hope, racks others with fear: yet upon all in turn, that it may deceive them, it smiles. [11] It would be long to wander on in words through so many befallings of perils. But it is fitting to join in here what the Mantuan [Virgil] says concerning the underworld: Who could comprehend the forms of crimes, who could run through all the names of punishments? But to you, who must necessarily display such things to the peoples, pour out rewards with a generous hand, so that you may make these things to be longed for by the wretched. Otherwise it is a violent compulsion to withhold the customary gifts and to command detestable deaths. [12] And therefore, whatever has come down by ancient liberality into long-standing custom, grant without any delay to him who supplicates, since it is the guilt of homicide to be niggardly toward those whom your exhibition has invited to their death. Alas, the lamentable error of the world! If there were any regard for fairness, as much wealth ought to be given for the life of mortals as is seen to be poured out upon the deaths of men.

XLII. MAXIMO V. I. CONSULI THEODERICUS REX. [1] Si consularem munificentiam provocant, qui peruncta corporum flexibilitate luctantur: si organo canentibus redditur vicissitudo praemiorum: si venit ad pretium delectabilis cantilena: quo munere venator explendus est, qui ut spectantibus placeat, suis mortibus elaborat? voluptatem praestat sanguine suo et infelici sorte constrictus festinat populo placere, qui eum non optat evadere. actus detestabilis, certamen infelix cum feris velle contendere, quas fortiores se non dubitat invenire. sola est ergo in fallendo praesumptio, unicum in deceptione solacium. [2] Qui si feram non mereatur effugere, interdum nec sepulturam poterit invenire: adhuc superstite homine perit corpus et antequam cadaver efficiatur, truculenter absumitur. captus esca fit hosti suo, et illum, pro dolor! satiat quem se perimere posse suspirat. spectaculum tantum fabricis clarum, sed actione deterrimum, in honore Scythicae Dianae repertum, quae sanguinis effusione gaudebat. [3] O miserae deceptionis errorem illam desiderasse colere, quae hominum morte placabatur! primum sibi per lucos et silvas agrestium populorum vota et venationibus dedita hanc triplicem deam falsa imaginatione finxerunt, ipsam in caelo Lunam, ipsam in silvis dominam, ipsam apud inferos Proserpinam esse firmantes. sed solum Erebi potentem non improbe forsitan aestimarunt, quando tali falsitate decepti in profundas vivi tenebras cum suis erroribus intraverunt. [4] Hunc ludum crudelem, sanguinariam voluptatem, impiam religionem, humanam, ut ita dixerim, feritatem Athenienses primum ad civitatis suae perduxere culturam, iustitia permittente divina, ut ad irrisionem spectaculi perveniret, quod falsae religionis ambitus invenisset. [5] Hoc Titi potentia principalis, divitiarum profuso flumine, cogitavit aedificium fieri, unde caput urbium potuisset. et cum theatrum, quod est hemisphaerium, Graece dicatur, amphitheatrum quasi in unum iuncta duo visoria recte constat esse nominatum: ovi specie eius harenam concludens, ut et currentibus aptum daretur spatium et spectantes omnia facilius viderent, dum quaedam prolixa rotunditas universa collegerat. [6] Itur ergo ad talia, quae refugere deberet humanitas. primus fragili ligno confisus currit ad ora beluarum et illud, quod cupit evadere, magno inpetu videtur appetere. pari in se cursu festinant et praedator et praeda nec aliter tutus esse potest, nisi huic, quem vitare cupit, occurrerit. tunc in aere saltu corporis elevato quasi vestes levissimae supinata membra iaciuntur et quidam arcus corporeus supra beluam libratus, dum moras discedendi facit, sub ipso velocitas ferina discedit. [7] Sic accidit, ut ille magis possit mitior videri, qui probatur illudi: alter angulis in quadrifaria mundi distributione conpositis rotabili facilitate praesumens non discedendo fugit, non se longius faciendo discedit, sequitur insequentem, poplitibus se reddens proximum, ut ora vitet ursorum: ille in tenuen regulam ventre suspensus invitat exitiabilem feram et nisi periclitatus fuerit, nil unde vivere possit adquirit: [8] alter se gestabili muro cannarum contra saevissimum animal, ericii exemplo, receptatus includit, qui subito in tergus suum refugiens intra se collectus absconditur et cum nusquam discesserit, eius corpusculum non videtur. nam sicut ille veniente contrario revolutus in sphaeram naturalibus defensatur aculeis, sic iste consutili crate praecinctus munitior redditur fragilitate cannarum. [9] Alii tribus ut ita dixerim dispositis ostiolis paratam in se rabiem provocare praesumunt, in patenti area cancellosis se postibus occulentes, modo facies, modo terga monstrantes, ut mirum sit evadere quos ita respicis per leonum ungues dentesque volitare. [10] Alter labenti rota feris offertur: eadem alter erigitur, ut periculis auferatur. sic haec machina ad infidi mundi formata qualitatem istos spe refovet, illos timore discruciat: omnibus tamen vicissim, ut decipere possit, arridet. [11] Longum est per tot periculorum casus sermonibus evagari. sed apte iungendum est, quod sit de inferis Mantuanus: quis scelerum comprehendere formas, quis omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possit? sed vobis, quibus necesse est talia populis exhibere, largitate manus fundite praemia, ut haec miseris faciatis esse votiva. alioquin violenta conpulsio est sollemnia dona subtrahere et mortes detestabiles imperare. [12] Et ideo quicquid in longam consuetudinem antiqua liberalitate pervenit, sine aliqua dilatione concedite supplicanti, quia homicidii reatus est ills esse tenacem, quos editio vestra invitavit ad mortem. heu mundi error dolendus! si esset ullus aequitatis intuitus, tantae divitiae pro vita mortalium deberent dari, quantae in mortes hominum videntur effundi.