Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Gladiator
I see before me the gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop’d head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him—he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won.
Byron.—Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanza 140.
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
Byron.—Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanza 141.