cirque

[stanza 22] […] Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank / Soil to a plash? toads in a poisoned tank, / Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage— / [stanza 23] The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

Nero exhibited theſe Spectacles in his own Gardens, impiouſly joining to them the Diverſions of the Cirque, and appearing himſelf publicly in the Habit of a Charioteer, ſitting in his Chariot; which yet the People entertain'd more with Pity than Pleaſure, knowing that they were not done for the publick Benefit, but meerly to gratifie his own private Rage and Malice. Thus barbarouſly were the Chriſtians treated at Rome; […]