Who put the Christians in the Colosseum?
Everyone pictures Christians thrown to the lions in the Colosseum. But in 1897 the Jesuit who spent his life checking the stories of the saints went through every account that put a martyr there, and wrote that their names are unknown.
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Sources
Sources
- Hippolyte Delehaye, "L'amphithéâtre Flavien et ses environs dans les textes hagiographiques", Analecta Bollandiana 16 (1897); the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Coliseum" (1908); Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (trans. A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb); Martial, On the Spectacles 2; Tertullian, Apology 40; Eusebius, Church History 5.1; the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity; Ignatius, Letter to the Romans 4; John Chrysostom, Homily on Saint Ignatius; Theodoret, Church History 5.26; Wiseman, Fabiola (1854); Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis (1896); Cellini, Life; Martinelli, Roma ex ethnica sacra (1653); Martigny, Dictionnaire des antiquités chrétiennes (1877).
Pictures
- the silent films Quo Vadis? (1913) and The Sign of the Cross (1914); the pages read in the script in old printed editions; paintings and prints by Gérôme, Amerigo, Eckersberg, Ramboux, Kaisermann, Thomas Cole, Ippolito Caffi, Canaletto, Siemiradzki, Piranesi, Heemskerck, Hieronymus Cock, Du Pérac, Cruyl, Hollar, Jan Luyken, Benlliure, Subleyras and Baciccio; 19th-century photographs by Altobelli, Sommer and others; the Menologion of Basil II, the Ravenna and Poreč mosaics, the Zliten mosaic, the Nuremberg Chronicle; objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum and the Walters Art Museum (CC0).
Credits (via Wikimedia Commons)
- the Colosseum inscription by daryl_mitchell (CC BY-SA 2.0); the leopard mosaic by Dennis G. Jarvis (CC BY-SA 2.0); Baciccio's Cardinal Altieri by Sailko (CC BY 3.0); the Severus Alexander medallion by CNG (CC BY-SA 2.5); Caffi's Colosseum by Francesco Bini (CC BY-SA 4.0).