THE SITE OF ROME—HISTORY OF THE CITY.

The city of Rome is situated (i.e., the observatory of the Collegio Romano) in N. Lat. 41° 53' 52", E. Long. 12° 28' 40". It is about 14 miles in a direct line from the coast, and the cross on the summit of St Peter's church may be seen above the hills from the sea. The mean level of the River Tiber, where it flows through Rome, is 20 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. This stream divides the modern, as it did formerly the ancient city, into two unequal parts, the larger portion having been always on the left or eastern bank. The modern city indeed, while it nominally retains and at one point overlaps the limits of the ancient, is chiefly built on a part only of the ancient site,—i.e., on a plain formed by a sweep of the river to the north of the cluster of hills, seven, as they are commonly reputed, in number, which are historically identified with the name of Rome. These hills, which form the most remarkable feature of the locality, present a nearly continuous ridge extending over a large segment of a circle, and embracing one eminence in the centre, more distinctly marked than any of the others, named the Palatine. To the north, the Capitoline, which forms one horn of this ridge, approaches within 300 yards of the river; while to the south, the Aventine falls almost directly into it. These two hills are almost wholly separated from the common ridge, but the Quirinal, the Viminal, the Esquiline, and the Caelian present a continuous elevation of nearly uniform altitude, and are distinguished from each other only by their interior outline. On the east and south they melt insensibly with a common slope into the Campagna.¹ The Pincian, included at a later period in the city, and not counted among the seven hills, is another offshoot from this plateau to the north; and they are confronted on the opposite side of the Tiber by the Janiculan, from which the best general view of Rome may be taken, and by the Vatican. These hills are spurs of the loftier range of Monte Mario.

The calculations of the height of these hills which pretend to exactness give various and apparently conflicting results. The Janiculan, which is considerably the highest, is said to reach 260 feet near the Villa Spada; while the Vatican hardly exceeds 100. On the left bank the hills attain a nearly equal level of 150 or 160 feet. But the site of the Villa Negroni, at the back of the Esquiline, is said to be 200 feet above the level of the Tiber. As early as

¹ Brocchi and Dr Arnold compare the first three of these hills, with the Pincian farther N.W., to the back of a man's hand, the fingers representing the hills, slightly forked out from one another, but connected with a common surface sloping in the opposite direction at the back, the knuckles forming, as it were, the watershed. Adopting this image, we would liken the Caelian, which is less closely connected, to the thumb; it is the right hand that must be thus compared. (See Arnold's Rome, i. 51, note.) It was the observation of Cicero that Rome was admirably adapted for human habitation, from the healthiness of its situation in the midst of an unhealthy tract of country. This is in a great measure true at the present day, some parts of the city being still remarkably exempt from the malaria common to the Campagna generally, which, however, seems to have encroached upon the site of the city itself far more than in ancient times. Partly, however, for its healthiness, but still more, it may be presumed, from its strength, as a tract of rocky hills in the midst of an extensive plain, this spot seems to have attracted settlers from a very early antiquity. To the traditions regarding these early settlements current among the Romans themselves at a later period we can only allude in passing.

The Capitoline and Janiculan are represented as the first of the summits then occupied, the one by Saturn, the other by Janus, who gave their names to the strongholds erected upon them respectively. The appellation of Janiculan survives to the present day. That of Saturnia was early lost in the name Tarpeian, supposed to be an Etruscan word for "rock," and this again gave way to the more common designation of Capitoline, now transformed into Campidoglio. The original settlement of the Palatine was ascribed to Evander, a fugitive from Arcadia, and the name of the hill itself, which has remained unchanged through all the revolutions which have passed over the site, was derived by the Roman antiquarians from the founder's son Pallas.

A more specific and circumstantial notice of the early city, though not perhaps really more historical, is that of the settlement of Romulus. This, according to the legend, was also upon the Palatine; and the stronghold here erected was said to have been surrounded by a wall running along, not the crest, but the foot of this hill, pierced by three gates, after the fashion of the cities of Etruria. A narrow belt of ground within and without this wall, under the name of pomerium, was kept free from buildings, and formed the limit within which the "auspices" could be taken, and the most important religious and political acts be performed. The limits of this original city are accurately traced by Tacitus, and nearly correspond, as far as we can follow them, with the trapezoidal area of the Palatine Hill, the four sides of which, measuring along the crest, vary from four to five hundred yards in length.

The Palatine and Aventine are separated by a hollow called the Vallis Murcia, through which flows a little stream named by the ancients the Aqua Crabra, now Marrana. Here, outside the walls, Romulus placed his circus, called afterwards Maximus, an oblong inclosure for games of skill, speed, and strength, originally of turf, afterwards fitted with wooden galleries, and lastly with seats of stone and marble. It was 600 yards in length, and was ultimately capable of holding 260,000 spectators. The stream which now creeps through this area must either have been arched over, or carried by an artificial channel on one side of it.

While the Palatine was thus occupied by the tribe of Latins, Etruscans, or mixed races, to whom we give the History name of Romans, the Quirinal, and possibly the Viminal and Esquiline, were held by a Sabine people. The Capitoline seems to have been an object of contention between them, but the Roman tradition represents these hills as originally in possession of the Romans. The reported result of the conflict may be presumed to be historical: the two hostile tribes coalesced together, divided the disputed site between them, and occupied the intervening hollow, under the name of the Forum Romanum, as a common place of meeting.

Of the foundation of cities on the Caelian and Aventine different accounts are given. The Aventine at least seems to have been assigned to an outlying tribe, politically dependent on the Romans, but not admitted to full citizenship with them. We also find this hill used as the place of meeting of the great Latin confederacy, under the patronage of the goddess Diana, whose temple stood throughout the period of Roman history on its summit. This edifice is supposed, but on very slight grounds, to have overlooked the Circus, and faced the Palatine; its exact site may in that case be nearly indicated by the existing church of S. Prisca. The temple of Romulus, under the name of Quirinus, was said to have been erected by the Sabine Numa upon the Quirinal, which then assumed that name, having been previously denominated Agonus. The fortification of the Janiculum is attributed to the fourth king, Ancus Martius, who is also said to have constructed the Mamertine prison, on the N.E. face of the Capitoline.

It was not, according to the Roman authors, till the reign of Servius Tullius that the hills of Rome were united in a vast city, single city, and included in a common line of fortifications, and yet this original circumvallation seems to have presented remains of some places a strong rampart of stone, traces of which are supposed to have been discovered quite recently on the slope of the Aventine, and possibly elsewhere. The rear of the Quirinal and Esquiline was defended by an earthen mound, known as the Agger Servii, and of this also some vestiges may still be detected. The heights of the Tarpeian Hill, which is generally precipitous, were left perhaps to the protection of their natural strength; and we are expressly told that the stream of the Tiber was considered a sufficient defence for the city, where it reached the river-bank. The Janiculum was probably at first an unconnected outpost, communication between the Transtiberine suburb and the city being maintained by a wooden bridge, the Sublician, placed under the care of the pontiffs, who thence derived their name (i.e., bridge-makers), and repaired solely with wood down to the latest period of the empire. The actual position of this celebrated bridge is still a matter of dispute. It is generally supposed, indeed, to have stood immediately under the Aventine, where some stone piers are still visible at low water. There is great difficulty, however, in reconciling the authorities with this position, and besides that the locality seems not sufficiently central, nor to correspond with the lines of traffic on either side of the river, there is an obvious inconsistency in identifying the primitive wooden bridge with existing piers of stone.

1 The seven hills were those on the left bank, viz., the Capitoline, Palatine, Aventine, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian. The Janiculan was not included among them; and the several heights of the Esquiline, the Mons Clapius and Oppius, and others, were all merged in one common appellation.

2 The story of Horatius Cocles, as told both by Livy and Dionysius, seems very clearly to imply that the bridge led directly into the city. On the other hand, the account of the death of C. Gracchus in Val. Maximus and Aurelius Victor is relied on to show that it reached the Campus Martius outside the walls, and the pontis trigession under the Aventine. These latter passages seem, however, to admit another interpretation; at all events, Livy and Dionysius are to be preferred to the inferior writers their successors. The easy access this bridge gave to the open city might be the reason for placing it under the care of the priests and the sanction of religion,—i.e., in the power of the patrician caste; and its construction in wood was to be maintained in order that it might be readily broken down at a moment's notice. Among the citadels which originally crowned the summits of most, perhaps, of these hills, it was natural that one, when all the hills were united together, should assume the pre-eminence, and become the proper citadel, or Arx, of Rome. The Tarpeian Hill rises in two summits, that to the N.E. being about 30 feet higher than the other to the S.W., with a small level space, known to the topographers by the name of the Intermontium, between them. One of these summits was already occupied by the fortress of Rome, the other was crowned by the Tarquins with the national temple which received the name of Capitolium. The precincts of this temple formed a square of about 200 feet each way, surrounded by porticoes, in the centre of which was placed, under a common roof, the triple shrine of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The importance of this building, as the focus of the national rites, caused the whole hill to assume the name of Capitoline, the term Tarpeian becoming specifically restricted to the S.W. summit, or more strictly to that portion of it which presented a precipitous cliff, over which political offenders were thrown. But, strange to say, the critics are utterly disagreed as to which summit was surmounted by the Arx and which by the Capitol. The remains of ancient literature afford us perhaps no decisive passage on the subject, though the constant application of the epithet Tarpeian to the Capitol can hardly in fairness be explained away as merely archaic or poetical phraseology. It is not intended to enter into a discussion of the question here. It will be sufficient to say that the earliest writers on Roman antiquities, following the tradition of the middle ages, assumed that the Capitol stood on the S.W. summit; that this view was first impugned by some Italian writers in the seventeenth century, the most eminent of whom was Nardini, but they seem to have been mainly influenced by a wish to identify the Capitol with the existing church of Araclii; and possibly by a crude idea that the N.E., as the loftiest summit, was the fittest site for the most important temple in the Roman world. This view, however, was accepted with little examination, and generally prevailed among the learned, till a knot of German antiquarians, among whom Niebuhr was the most conspicuous, subjected the question to a critical investigation, and carried the tide of opinion back to the earlier theory. The native antiquarians, the school of Nibby and Canina, never indeed allowed themselves to be convinced on a point which became almost a national question, and within the last few years they have received an accession of strength from the defection to their side of the German Æmilius Braun, carrying with him an English writer of great authority, Mr Dyer. The Italian view now reigns triumphantly in Rome, and most of our countrymen who examine the question under the guidance of local antiquaries are naturally led to adopt it. It has been stereotyped in the minds of English travelers by the compiler of Murray's Hand-Book. The present writer, however, still professes himself a firm adherent of the ancient theory.

A monument of very great antiquity, popularly ascribed to the period of the Tarquins, and still existing in the Cloaca Maxima, or large subterranean drain, which has been traced from the river as far as the upper part of the Velabrum, a course of about 800 feet. It is said to have been constructed to carry off the waters which accumulated in the hollow between the Palatine and the Capitoline hills, together with the contents of the various sewers directed into it from other parts of the city. The network of ancient sewers beneath the streets of Rome seems to have been complicated and extensive; a few of them have been discovered here and there, but there has been no attempt to make out a regular plan of them. The great Cloaca is an arched channel, vaulted with immense blocks of peperino, and 10 or 12 feet in width. It is high enough to admit one of the small waggons in use among the ancients, and Agrippa, who made a cleansing of it in the time of Augustus, went up it in a boat. The solidity and durability of this extraordinary work are deservedly admired; but an attempt has been recently made to throw suspicion on the great antiquity claimed for it, on the ground that the principle of the arch was certainly not adopted by the Romans when they tunnelled under the Alban Hills, at a much later period. Such an objection will not generally be deemed conclusive.

One other remnant of the so-called kingly period still existing is the Mamertine prison above mentioned. It consists of two chambers, one above the other, with a hole in the floor of the upper one through which prisoners were let down into the cell below. History records the confinement of Jugurtha, Scipius, Vercingetorix, and the Catilinarian conspirators in this dungeon; an ancient ecclesiastical tradition asserts that St Peter was also imprisoned here. The upper chamber has accordingly been fitted up as an oratory dedicated to the apostles; and a church has also been erected above it.

After the period of the Etruscans, or, as Niebuhr seems to hint, the pre-Etruscan Pelasgians, passed away, we have no more monuments of gigantic masonry to point out until we arrive at the historic era of Rome. A century, or perhaps more than one century, intervened from the date of the Cloaca and the Servian walls, and we find the city occupied by a race of degenerate mortals, who built their houses, and probably even their temples, merely of wood or baked mud, and thatched them with straw and shingles. The Forum was still a swamp, the cliffs of the Palatine and Capitoline were still fringed with briars and brushwood, when the Gauls swept away the ancient city in one great conflagration. Roman antiquarians might pretend, indeed, some centuries later, to point out the Ruminal fig-tree, the hut of Romulus, the temple of Vesta, and other monuments of a primitive age; but the genuineness of these alleged antiquities was belied by the admitted records of its history, as well as by its intrinsic improbability. The first topographical notice of the republican period on which we can rely is the reference of Livy and Pliny to the enormous substruction of the Capitoline, by which the hill itself was encased and supported, of which some trifling vestiges only can be traced under the north-east angle at the present day. But after the fire of the Gauls, the city, we are told, was generally rebuilt in a hasty and irregular manner, without regard even to the old lines of the streets, or of the sewers beneath them. The lanes which choked the plains and hollows were tortuous and narrow, with lofty houses obstructing the light and air; while the hills were almost entirely occupied by the temples, or by the mansions and gardens of the nobles. The names of a good many of the streets or alleys of the lower city are recorded; but there is hardly a single one that is known to have run over the summit of any of the hills—a significant indication that the great mass of the population was now confined, and indeed continued always to be confined, to the valleys. But indeed, in all Rome there was at this time but one street that deserves the name of an avenue, and offered a common thoroughfare for men, horses, and vehicles. This was the line along which the procession of the triumphs passed; and it was for this and other sacred ceremonies that its width and straight direction were preserved. Entering the city at the Porta Triumphalis, near the S.W. extremity of the Capitoline, the victorious general was conducted across the Velabrum into the Circus Maximus, and so, following perhaps exactly the line of the ancient pomerium, along the valley which separates the Palatine from the Caelian. At the spot now marked by the arch of Constantine, his route made another angle to the left, climbed the gentle slope of the Velia, at the top of which he came directly in sight of the Arx and the Capitol. From hence he descended, keeping the right side of the Forum, to the foot of the Capitoline, which he ascended, making another bend to the left, by the Clivus Capitolinus, till he reached the temple of Jupiter. This road was dignified with the name of the Sacra Via.

The Appian Way, which branched off from it, and issued from the city at the Porta Capena, was paved in 312 B.C., and the Flaminius in 220; but it was not till 174 that this care was extended to the streets in the city itself, and to the Clivus Capitolinus. Wherever the accretion of the soil has been removed in the line of the Sacred Way, an ancient pavement, consisting of large angular blocks of basaltic lava, has been found, still in admirable preservation.

Of all the localities of Rome at this period, the Forum alone admits of any specific topographical account. This open space, appropriated to the meetings of the Roman people, lay, as has been already indicated, at the foot of the Capitoline, and reached to the slope of the Velia, embracing the area of the modern Campo Vaccino. The Italian antiquaries have generally given it a lateral extension, between the Capitoline and Palatine, in the direction of the Velabrum; but at all events, they must confess that at a later period it was confined on this side by the Basilica Julia. This oblong space, such as we consider it, narrowing as it approached the Velia, was inclosed north and south by the lines of the Sacred and the New Way. Along these lines stood rows of open wooden booths, fronted by stone pillars; the southern row was interrupted by the house of Numa, the temple of Vesta, and possibly that of Castor and Pollux. An altar near the middle of this area marked the site of the Curtian Pool, which in early times had been a mere swamp; and three sacred trees, a vine, a fig, and an olive, were carefully preserved and renewed hard by, still showing that the spot had been formerly a jungle. The Forum was already decorated with some statues of illustrious citizens. The Comitium, an open platform raised a few steps above the Forum, was the meeting-place of the patricians, and was adorned with their curia. Upon it, and opposite to the curia, stood the rostra, the pulpit from which the orators addressed them. The Comitium may best be placed at the N.W. angle of the Forum. C. Gracchus was the first to turn, in his public harangues, from the patricians on the Comitium to the commons in the Forum below.

While the houses of the chief nobles were generally placed on the Palatine, the Caelian, or in a street called the Carinae, on the slope of the Esquiline, the dwellings of the poor plebeians were crowded for the most part about the principal seats of traffic—the Velabrum on the one side of the Forum, and the Suburra on the other. The mansions, however, of the nobles were also frequently surrounded by the cabins of their clients, resting against their walls, so as to form a single block of building with them. A single house, standing by itself, was called a domus; a cluster of dwellings, such as has been just described, received the designation of an insula; but the little cabins which went to form the aggregate insula were often loosely denominated insulae themselves. It was not till after the reduction of the Grecian settlements in Italy, and afterwards of Greece proper, that the Romans began to decorate their city with handsome architectural monuments; and these, it may be supposed, were constructed by Grecian artists, and were simply reproductions, or at least adaptations, of the Greek style. The models generally followed were the florid edifices of the Corinthian order. The most interesting of the temples of the republican period is that of Concord, erected by Opimius after the slaughter of C. Gracchus. It stood immediately beneath the Intermonium, facing the Forum, and became in the last century of the republic the most usual place of meeting for the Senate. It was here that Cicero pronounced the first and last of his speeches against Catiline. Some portion of the pavement of this temple has been discovered on the spot; and the word Concordia, engraved upon one of the stones, sufficiently serves to identify it.

The public amusements of the Romans were consecrated to religion; and, next to the temples, we may refer to the theatres of the city. The first scenic representations at Rome were derived, not from the Greeks, but from the Etruscans, and the first theatres were constructed before the introduction of Grecian models. The Romans, indeed, had not the same facility as the Athenians for excavating their theatres out of the solid rock; it was not, therefore, till they had advanced to a high pitch of luxury and extravagance that they undertook to erect edifices of stone spacious enough to receive a large portion of the citizens. The first permanent theatre in stone was that of the great Pompeius, which was placed in the Campus Martius, the common resort of the people for purposes of entertainment. It was connected with porticoes and groves, and was combined with a temple, to which the seats of the theatre formed, it is said, a magnificent ascent. The consul Flamininus built a second circus, also in the Campus Martius, below the Capitoline. In this quarter stood also the septa, or polling-booths, of the Roman people, when they assembled in their military organization, by classes, to elect the magistrates of the republic; and here also, in the temple of Bellona, their generals were wont to meet the Senate on their return from foreign service, for the citizens of Rome were not suffered to enter the city under arms. During the last century of the republic the erection of basilicas, or halls for public business, and of private palaces, as well as of temples, went on with increasing magnificence, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Forum. The mansions of C. Octavius, of Emilius Scaurus, of Crassus the orator, and of Caecus, the prince of the Senate, are specified among the finest of their day; but these were speedily eclipsed by those of Crassus the Rich, of Lepidus (consul B.C. 78), and others. The house of this last magnate was adorned with a profusion of Numidian marble, and was esteemed the most splendid of its day in Rome; but only thirty-five years later, according to Pliny, it was outshone by no less than a hundred aristocratic mansions. The gardens of Lucullus and Sallust may be mentioned among the chief monuments of advancing luxury. The latter stood on the Pincian Hill, near the Porta Salaria, and continued to hold a high place among the ornaments of the city in the period of the emperors.

Among the most remarkable features of Roman architecture were the aqueducts, which supplied the city with water from many distant sources. Two of these were constructed under the republic,—the Aqua Appia by Appius Cæcins in 312 B.C., and the Anio Vetus, as it was called, B.C. 273, by Curius Dentatus. The first of these was led from a spot on the road to Praeneste, 7 or 8 miles from the city, to the Salina, outside the Porta Trigemina, under the Aventine; but the water was conveyed in leaden pipes to the Porta Capena, and the twelve arches on which it was carried into the city seem to have extended only 60 paces. The second began beyond Tibur, and was not less than 43 miles in length; but this also was built on arches only 221 paces, where it entered the city at the back of the Esquiline. Such were the humble beginnings of a series of works which became at a later period some of the noblest embellishments of the city and neighbourhood.

The tribune Saturninus was blockaded in the Capitoline in the year 100 B.C.; but he was reduced to surrender by cutting the pipes which supplied the citadel, and no injury was done to the buildings. The Capitoline temple was less fortunate in the wars of Marius and Sulla, when it fell a prey to the flames, together with some adjacent buildings. Sulla plundered the unfinished Olympieum at Athens to decorate the restored edifice; and Catulus, who was charged with the task of completing it, had the honour of inscribing his name on the entablature. He added to the splendour of its architectural features, though he was forbidden to make any change in its ground-plan or proportions. Hence, though conspicuous from its position, and the centre of religious interest to the Roman people, the Capitol was neither spacious nor lofty, and we never find it extolled for the grandeur of its dimensions. Catulus rebuilt also the Tabularium, or public record office, in front of the Internomium, between the Arx and the temple; and his name, which he inscribed upon it, has actually been discovered among its ruins in modern times.

We may date the first imperial period of the city from Julius Caesar, who commenced a great revolution in its external appearance. The Julian basilica on the right, and the Eumian on the left, defined the future limits of the area, which must now be distinctively entitled the Forum Romanum. For Caesar, perceiving that the population and business of the city had outgrown the accommodation provided by the Forum of the early republic, undertook to extend it with characteristic boldness and energy. The Julian Forum, which he laid out with surrounding porticoes, and a temple of Venus in the centre, to the north of the Roman, was the first of a series of works of a similar character with which succeeding emperors filled the level space at the foot of the Viminal and Quirinal. To make room for these open places in the heart of the city great numbers of the inhabitants, even though the population must have been reduced by the civil wars, were undoubtedly displaced; and from this time, perhaps, dates the first encroachment of suburban habitations on the public domain of the Campus Martius. Caesar, indeed, designed a great extension of the Campus by turning the stream of the Tiber; but this and other projected changes were intercepted by his death. On the spot where the dictator's body was consumed—in front, that is, of the temple of Vesta in the Forum—a small chapel was erected to his divinity, which was afterwards embellished and enlarged. The spot was probably a little in advance of the modern church of St. Francesca. The reign of Augustus, who succeeded him, and consolidated the empire on a peaceful foundation, forms an important epoch in the history of the city. In the first place, this emperor undertook a general restoration of the sacred buildings, which had fallen into a lamentable state of decay; but he also founded several temples of his own, together with other public edifices. Of these, the most important were the temple of Mars Ultor, which was placed in the centre of a new Forum to the north of the Julian; the temple and library of Apollo on the Palatine; the portico and library of Octavia, and theatre of Marcellus, at the entrance of the Campus Martius. Augustus constructed also a basin for mimic sea-fights and other amusements on the right bank of the Tiber, below the bridges, and a magnificent mausoleum for his family, near the modern Ripetta. But the efforts of Augustus himself were rivalled by some of his wealthiest nobles. Statilius Taurus erected a theatre in the Campus Martius, and Agrippa constructed several magnificent edifices in the same quarter, embracing baths, fountains, porticoes, and a hall for the payment of the troops, called the Diribitorium, with a roof of wide span than any other in the city. The Pantheon, generally supposed to have been a temple, but the real design of which has not been satisfactorily explained, still remains as the greatest existing monument of the Augustan city.

A tolerably vivid picture of Rome at this period is presented to us in the contemporary description of Strabo, of which we can afford room for a portion only:—“It may be said that the ancient Romans neglected the beauty of their city, being intent upon greater and more important objects; but later generations, and particularly the Romans of our own day, have attended to this point as well, and filled the city with many beautiful monuments. Pompeius Julius Cassar, and Augustus, as well as the children, friends, wife, and sister of the last, have bestowed an almost excessive care and expense in providing these objects. The Campus Martius has been their special care, the natural beauties of which have been enhanced by their designs. This plain is of surprising extent, affording unlimited room not only for the chariot-races and other equestrian games, but also for the multitudes who exercise themselves with the ball or hoop, or in wrestling. The neighbouring buildings, the perpetual verdure of the grass, the hills which crown the opposite banks of the river, and produce a kind of scenic effect, all combine to form a spectacle from which it is difficult to tear oneself. Adjoining this plain is another (the Campus Flaminius), and many porticoes and sacred groves, three theatres, an amphitheatre, and temples, so rich and so close to one another, that they might appear to exhibit the rest of the city as a mere supplement. Hence this place is considered the most honourable and sacred of all, and has been appropriated to the monuments of the most distinguished men and women. The most remarkable of these is that called the Mausoleum, a vast mound near the river, raised upon a lofty base of white stone, and covered to its summit with evergreen trees. On the top is a bronze statue of Augustus; while under the mound are the tombs of himself, his relatives, and friends, and at the back of it a large grove, affording delightful promenades. In the middle of the Campus is an inclosed space where the body of Augustus was burnt, also constructed of white stone, surrounded with an iron rail, and planted in the interior with poplar trees. Then, if we proceed to the ancient Forum, and survey the numerous basilicas, porticoes, and temples which surround it, and view the Capitol and its works, as well as those on the Palatine and in the portico of Livia, we might easily be led to forget all other cities.”

The regulation of Augustus, recorded by this writer, forbidding any houses to be constructed in future of more than 70 feet in height, may serve to remind us that, while the numerous public edifices of this period were systematically erected in the style of Greece, with long columnar façades, strong horizontal lines, and generally of low elevation, the private houses in the older parts of the city still retained their native character, and were tall and narrow, with projecting upper-works, and sometimes with lofty gables. The subsequent career of building in Rome was marked by the gradual displacement of the Italian by Greek features. Augustus could boast, towards the end of his reign, though with considerable exaggeration, that he had found Rome of brick and had left it of marble; no doubt the old Italian materials of wood and brick were displaced also from year to year by masses of solid masonry which befitted a style of architecture fashioned on that of Athens or Corinth. It was not, however, till the time of Nero, when the great fire, presently to be de-

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1 Strabo, lib. v., translated in Mr Dyer's art. "Roma," Smith's Dictionary of Classical Geography. History,' scribed, swept away the larger part of the ancient city, that full scope was afforded for the development of this revolution in taste. Before proceeding to this epoch, we must notice the new division of the city by Augustus into fourteen regions. The four Servian quarters, which occupied the space within the old walls, were now re-distributed into six; but the walls themselves had been long neglected as lines of defence; they had been passed in almost every direction by suburban buildings, and had become obliterated, if not actually demolished, in many places.

It does not seem that Augustus scrupulously preserved the old limitation. At all events, he added as many as ten new regions, including the Trans-Tiberine, making fourteen in all, in which he embraced, we may suppose, all the continuous buildings which had grown up round the city, together with some considerable open spaces which it might be convenient to comprehend in one municipal system.

It seems that the principal addition of private habitations lay in the direction of the Caelian and the lower Aventine; but the public edifices which now thronged the Campus Martius were also included in the new city, as were also the extensive range of private parks and gardens which skirted it on the north and east from the Pincian Hill to the Esquiline.

The house which Augustus first occupied on the Palatine was the modest mansion of a noble but not illustrious family. When this was consumed by fire he was encouraged by the citizens to enlarge and embellish it. He connected it at the same time with the official residence of the chief pontiff, attached to the temple of Vesta. The original palace, as it now came to be called, of the Caesars occupied the north-west angle of the Palatine Hill. The chief architectural works of the next emperors were still further enlargements of the imperial residence. Tiberinus extended it along the west side of the hill. Caligula made considerable additions, and seems to have connected it by open colonnades with other distant buildings. He threw a bridge, possibly of wood, over the Velabrum, to unite it with the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. The conceptions of Nero were still more extravagant. After commencing a temple to Claudius on the Caelian, he suspended or pulled down his work, in order to erect on the spot a wing to his palace; and he connected the house of Maecenas, which had become imperial property, on the Esquiline, with the Palatine, by means of a colonnade, called the Domus Transitoria. These works, however, while yet unfinished, were interrupted by the great fire of Rome, the most important event in the history of the city, in the year 64 of our era. The conflagration commenced in the region of the Porta Capena, near the south-east angle of the Palatine, and was carried by the wind in two directions, following the course of the valleys between the Palatine and Caelian on the one hand, and the Palatine and Aventine on the other. It was not arrested till these two streams of fire had met again in the Forum or the Velabrum. Thus they completely encircled the Palatine, and swept at the same time the base of most of the other hills. They were not yet entirely extinguished when a second conflagration burst out in the Via Lata, N.W. of the Capitoline, and the wind having veered to the opposite direction, some portions of the city which had hitherto escaped fell now a sacrifice to its fury. Of the fourteen regions, four, it is said, were wholly consumed, and seven others more or less injured; three only escaped unhurt. Generally the lower parts of the city, the old plebeian quarters, suffered more than the elevations. The buildings on the Capitoline were uninjured; those on the Palatine only partially damaged; but the old monuments of the republic in the Suburra, the Forum, the Velabrum, were swept entirely away. Space and opportunity were now presented for the re-construction of the city in the fashionable style of Greece, and the very eagerness with which Nero improved the occasion in the taste of the day, lent a colour to the imputation current against him, of having actually kindled the flames, or at least of having forbidden them to be extinguished.

With the aid of his architects, Severus and Celer, Nero undertook to rebuild Rome after the manner of the great oriental capitals. Antioch, indeed, and Alexandria, as well as the chief cities of European Greece proper, occupied areas for the most part level, and it was impossible to carry out on 271, the varied surface of the seven hills the uniform plan of rectangular streets and places which characterised the architecture of the East. But the avenues of the restored city were now widened and straightened as far as was practicable; the great blocks of houses were generally surrounded by colonnades; the height of the private buildings was diminished; and the basements at least, even of the plebeian cabins, were constructed of stone. The old inhabitants complained, we are told, of the loss of their lofty houses and narrow alleys, which at least afforded shade from the sun and shelter against the winds. They were right perhaps in alleging that the architecture of Egypt and Syria was not suited to the variable climate of Rome. The restoration of the city was carried on with great vigour, and seems to have been nearly completed during the four remaining years of Nero's reign. The emperor repaired and completed his palace also, which occupied the heights of the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian, connected together by a vast series of colonnades. The principal entrance seems to have been placed near the site of the Colosseum, erected, as we shall see, a few years later, and named from the colossal statue of Nero in the atrium of the palace. This enormous edifice was not less remarkable for its decorations within and without than for its size, and received from thence the designation of the Golden House. Another of Nero's architectural works was the circus he constructed for his private amusement on the slope of the Vatican, the scene of the cruel martyrdom of the Christians, and possibly the spot on which the church of St Peter's now partly stands.

The civil wars which followed on the death of this tyrant are memorable in the history of the city, from the burning of the Capitol, the narrative of which clearly shows that the Arx had become wholly untenable, and was held of no account for the defence of the hill. Vespasian undertook the restoration of the temple, and was allowed to raise its elevation, but not to enlarge its foundations. The restoration was hardly finished when the temple was again destroyed or damaged by an accidental fire, and the repairs of Domitian seem to have been still more magnificent. The gilding of the roof is said alone to have cost the incredible sum of 12,000 talents, or nearly three millions sterling. The embellishment of the city by the Flavian emperors and their next successors was conducted on a more magnificent scale than ever. Vespasian destroyed the greater part of the Golden House, restricting the imperial palace once more to the Palatine Hill, and transferring to public uses the areas thus recovered from it. One part of the site he devoted to a temple of Claudius on the Caelian, some remains of which are supposed now to exist, from which we may estimate the extent of ground it occupied at not less than one of the squares of London. He constructed a new forum at the foot of the Esquiline, which received its name from the temple of Peace in its centre; above all, he converted the site of Nero's fish-ponds into an arena for his vast amphitheatre, which is known by the name of the Colosseum. Titus transformed a portion of the palace on the brow of the Esquiline into public baths of unprecedented extent and splendour. Domitian erected the triumphal arch, which still exists, in honour of his brother. This prince commenced also a new forum, to connect that of Peace with the older constructions of Julius and Augustus, and adorned it with a temple of Minerva, but the work was completed by Nerva. The equestrian statue of Domitian in the Roman Forum has been described by Statius in lines interesting to the topographer, from the aid they give him in determining the sites of various buildings in that quarter,—of the basilicas, for instance, of Julius and Emilius, of the temples of Vespasian and of Concord under the Capitol, of Castor and Pollux and of Vesta at the foot of the Palatine.

The long period of peace and prosperity which followed was signalized by the erection of a series of magnificent buildings. Trajan completed the imperial forums by opening a new area beyond the Julian and Augustan, cutting through the low ridge which joined the Capitoline and Quirinal, to get a level space for his extensive works. This Place also was decorated with a temple, and its site is defined for us by the column still standing in its centre, which was surmounted by a statue of the emperor. The principal works of Hadrian, besides the completion of Trajan's forum and temple, were the temple of Venus and Rome, with two cells back to back, the largest of all the sacred edifices of the city, on the eastern slope of the Velia, and the colossal mausoleum erected for his own sepulchre, now known as the castle of St. Angelo, on the other side of the Tiber. The Mole of Hadrian, as this building was popularly designated, was connected with the Campus Martius, now almost wholly occupied with buildings, by the Pons Aelius, still existing.

The fashion of erecting commemorative columns, first set, at least on a large scale, by Trajan, was followed by both the Antonines. The column of Pius was indeed of much smaller dimensions. It was found in fragments lying on the ground early in the last century, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to raise it. The base has been since removed to the garden of the Vatican. The column of Aurelius still stands, and forms one of the most conspicuous objects in the centre of the modern city. Under Commodus the city suffered again from fire, but the particulars of the disaster are not known. Severus built the Septizonium, a large edifice raised on seven ranges of columns, in imitation perhaps of the mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian. This building is frequently mentioned in the history of Rome in the middle ages, but its site has not been satisfactorily determined. The triumphal arch of Severus, still standing at the foot of the Capitoline, is the noblest of the ancient monuments of its kind now existing. The Antonine baths, which exceeded in extent those already mentioned of Titus, filled a large space beyond the Porta Capena, and seem to show that the population was not densely located at this time in that quarter. The erection of this work is ascribed to Caracalla; probably it was finished by Alexander Severus. The series of aqueducts introduced into the city, already eight in number, was completed by the Aqua Alexandrina of this latter emperor, by which these baths are supposed to have been supplied. Alexander constructed also a new circus in the Campus Martius, the limits of which are precisely defined by the existing Piazza Navona. The city had arrived at the height of its splendour, extent, and population, when it was finally encircled with a continuous line of fortification by the policy of the Emperor Aurelian.

The walls with which Aurelian surrounded Rome were meant as a defence against the attacks, now first apprehended, of the barbarians, and were so drawn as to embrace all the continuous buildings pertaining to the city. They of Aurelian comprehended pretty exactly the whole of the fourteen regions of Augustus, with the addition of the camp of the praetorians, which had lain originally beyond their limits. On the left bank of the river they corresponded very closely with the line of walls now existing; on the right they included the Janiculan Hill, but did not extend to the Vatican. No certain vestiges, however, of this fortification can now be discovered. A space, indeed, of about 40 feet at the slope of the Pincian Hill, remarkable for the inclination of the wall from the perpendicular, presents a specimen of opus reticulatum, a species of brick-work belonging, it is said, to the period of the early Caesars. It would seem, therefore, that at this point at least Aurelian connected his work with some building already in existence. We have, however, no other traces of construction which can be referred with confidence to any very ancient date. Even in the time of Honorius these walls had fallen into decay, and required considerable repairs; an operation which was repeated, as we shall see, by Belisarius, and again by Narses.

The actual circuit of the walls of Rome has been very variously stated. Some of the ancient authorities on the subject have been misunderstood, but others are manifestly in error. The best measurements have been made by the simple process of walking round them. The Servian cunicule, as far as it can be traced, has thus been found to extend to about 8 miles, that of Aurelian to 12½. This agrees very nearly with the statement of Pliny, that the moenia of Rome had a circuit of 13 m.p. The word mania has been taken for the walls; and as the walls of Pliny's time were the so-called Servian, it has been thought that for xiii. we should read viii. Mania, however, properly implies not walls, but continuous edifices, and was used no doubt by the author to indicate the extent of the regions of Augustus, comprehending the actual city of his day.

This conclusion is important, as it furnishes us with the best data we possess for determining the population of Rome. There are, indeed, a variety of proofs that the suburbs of the city were never either extensive or populous, derived from the paucity of remains beyond the walls, from the practice of lining the roads for miles with sepulchral monuments, from the absence of bridges across the Tiber either above or below the walls, and from the frequent mention of country villages, lanes, and retired woods at but a short distance from the gates. We may conclude, then, that the mass of the population was strictly confined to the limits comprised within the walls of Aurelian.

Although, however, these walls are above 12 miles in circuit, about the same as the outer boulevards of Paris, it must be observed that they do not include a regular figure, and the area they embrace is far less than it would be if the circumference, as at Paris or ancient Athens, approached a circle or ellipse. We have seen that, in the time of Augustus, a large proportion of the area was very thinly inhabited; and even in later times indications are not

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1 Lord Broughton's Italy, i., p. 308, note. The author adds, however, that in trying the distance with a pedometer, he found it considerably less. 2 This is the solution adopted by Durean de le Malle in his Écon. Pol. des Romains, i. 345, after D'Anville. 3 The area of Rome has been accurately measured at 3263 acres. We may compare this with the areas of some modern cities, as given in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii., p. 445—

| City | Acres | Population | Average Density | |---------------|-------|------------|----------------| | 1. West London | 2547 | 190,885 | 75 | | 2. Central London | 1938 | 293,556 | 203 | | 3. Liverpool (Central) | 1830 | 255,055 | 131 | | 4. Calcutta (excluding the suburbs) | 4796 | 413,182 | 86 | | 5. Florence | 1297 | 95,927 | 74 | | 6. Frankfort-on-Main | 1412 | 66,244 | 50 | | 7. Paris | 8026 | 1,050,000 | 130 | wanting that great spaces within the city were still occupied by gardens and pleasure-grounds, while the extent of the public buildings seems to have constantly increased. The emperors appear to have experienced no difficulty in clearing the ground for their enormous constructions. On the whole, Rome in the Augustan age cannot have stood on more ground than the city of the present day, nor in the time of Aurelian did it occupy a greater space than Naples; and these Italian cities present in many respects the fittest objects to compare with it. When we add that, while repeated fires were thinning the density of habitation, new regulations were introduced for reducing the height of houses; that Trajan fixed the limit at 60 feet, while in London they rise very generally to 70 or 80, and in modern Rome and Naples still higher,—we shall be content perhaps with a very moderate estimate of the population of the ancient city. Into other data, at best uncertain, for fixing it, we cannot here enter; but, judging from the extent of the area, and the character and density of the buildings, we shall hardly believe that it ever approached to the number of one million.

From the time of M. Aurelius, the Roman world was visited by a succession of pestilences, which, it may be supposed, would fall most heavily on the areas of densest population. It seems probable, however, that whatever loss Rome sustained from this cause during the century which followed would be compensated by the crowding into it of the distressed and impoverished people from the towns and country round. We cannot infer that the numbers of the urban population actually diminished along with the undoubted decline of the empire generally in the third century.

The first great blow that was struck at the numbers of the city was the building of Constantinople. Several of the noblest and wealthiest families then quitted the Tiber for the Bosphorus, and carried with them their troops of clients and families of slaves. The servile population had now ceased to draw recruits from successful frontier wars, and the decay of general affluence must have rendered the breeding and maintenance of this class unprofitable. The construction, however, of splendid edifices still continued after the age of the Severi, though we may guess, from the example of the arch of Constantine, that older buildings were often pillaged to decorate the new. Aurelian erected the temple of the Sun on the Quirinal, the substructions of which are still seen in the gardens of the Colonna palace; the arches of Gallienus and Constantine exist at the present day; the baths of Diocletian were equal in extent and splendour to those of Titus or Caracalla; Maxentius and Constantine erected the great Basilican, the remains of which are among the most conspicuous monuments of Roman antiquity. The walls, it is said, were completed by Probus.

But with these works the additions to the splendour of the ancient city terminate. When Constantius visited Rome he was struck with admiration at its architectural magnificence, and despairing of leaving any monument of himself which should vie with those of his predecessors, was satisfied with offering, as his humble tribute, an obelisk erected in the Circus Maximus. Two centuries later, a noble column, still standing, was raised to the Emperor Phocas in the Forum; but this, it is supposed, was taken from some earlier edifice. Honorius is extolled by the poet Claudian for breathing new life into the ancient city, but his merits seem to have been really confined to some partial repairs of the walls, which we cannot suppose to have fallen into general decay in little more than a hundred years. His minister, Stilicho, set the first example of pilage, in carrying off the gilded plates on the doors of the Capitoline temple. The first assault of the barbarians quickly followed. Alaric entered Rome in 410 by the Salarian Gate, and gave the nearest parts of the city to the flames. Procopius, writing a century and half later, ascribes the destruction of the house of Sallust, such as he witnessed it in his own day, to this disaster. The extent indeed of the damage may not have been great. The Goths remained only six days in Rome, and could not, had they been inclined, have demolished or injured many of the buildings in that short time.

The second sack of Rome was that by Genseric and the Vandals in 455. The Gothic historian Jornandes, who had denied the imputation of barbaric violence applied to his own countrymen, speaks of the desolation inflicted by the rival conqueror. The Vandals occupied the city fourteen days; but they employed themselves too diligently in collecting its treasures to spend time in destroying its massive edifices. The golden candelsticks and table of the Holy of Holies, taken from Jerusalem by Titus, are specified among the spoils of Genseric. When these objects were recovered by Belisarius, they were sent as precious trophies to the Christian capital of the empire. The Vandals carried off one-half of the gilt tiles on the roof of the Capitol; and a vessel laden with gold and silver statues was lost on its way to Africa. In 472 Rome was sacked a third time by Ricimer; but the object of this adventurer was a political revolution, and he was animated by no hostility to the people or city. It is not probable that he inflicted any great amount of damage, and indeed he too died within forty days.

Thus far we cannot suppose that Rome had suffered any material damage in her external appearance, nor such as might not have been speedily effaced had she retained spirit and resources for repairing the loss. To some extent, indeed, both of these were supplied by Theodoric, who succeeded to the supreme power in Rome in the year 493. Cassiodorus mentions by name several of the chief monuments of the city as existing at this epoch in their ancient splendour, and considerable sums were now set apart for the repair of those which time or violence had injured. For this purpose also, marble was imported from Greece by the successors of Theodoric, Amalasuntha and Deodatus. At this period the public games might still be witnessed in the Circus Maximus, and the Claudian aqueduct was in play. Such indeed was the case with the aqueducts generally, which were first broken down, as we are expressly told, in the attack of Vitiges (A.D. 537), when the country round Rome was devastated by the Goths. To resist this attack, Belisarius, who then held the city for the Greek emperor, repaired the walls, and fortified the Mole of Hadrian. In the course of the siege the defenders hurled many statues from the walls of this edifice upon the heads of the assailants. But the sack of Totila, which followed in 546, was

It will be seen that, computing the area of Rome at 3263 acres, it would contain, if peopled on the scale

| Of No. 1, a population of 274,224 | Of No. 4, a population of 250,618 | |----------------------------------|--------------------------------| | " 2, " | " 5, " | | " 3, " | " 6, " | | " 4, " | " 7, " |

Of No. 7, a population of 424,190

The population of modern Rome, it may be added, is now about 180,000; that of Naples 450,000.

Besides the numerous large edifices, theatres, circuses, &c., already specified, we are informed that Rome possessed 424 temples, most of them with external areas and sacred groves attached; 265 squares or open places, and that Agrippa alone erected 170 baths for the use of the people. See these and many other details in *Dureau de la Malle*, L. 350, &c. marked by the burning of some portions of the city, especially that beyond the Tiber. This conqueror overthrew also a third part of the walls. The city is said to have been deserted by its inhabitants, and the barbarians threatened to turn its site into pasture ground. It is still affirmed, however, that he was diverted from the execution of his threats against the buildings and monuments of Rome by the remonstrances of Belisarius, who, on the retreat of the Goths, once more repaired the walls, and repulsed another attack. The city, indeed, was subsequently surrendered to Totila by treachery; but the invader now established himself there, not as an enemy, but a sovereign, and caused no further injury. After his death it reverted once more to the rulers of Constantinople, after having been taken and retaken five times in the course of twenty years, but with more loss perhaps to the harassed population than to the buildings themselves. With Totila the damage inflicted by the barbarians may be said to terminate. The Lombards devastated the Campagna in 578 and 593, but did no injury to the city. As late as 754 the walls were assaulted by the German Astulphus, and the buildings which lay near them may have suffered from his violence; and we thus reach the era of Charlemagne, and the general recognition of Papal Rome as the centre of medieval civilization.

During the period of five centuries, at which we have glanced in the last section, while Rome was subjected to the effects of imperial neglect on the one hand, and of barbarian crime on the other, a third cause of decay was also in operation, which contributed no doubt more than either of these to change the face of the city, and obliterate its ancient topography. This was the establishment of Christianity, or, to speak more precisely, the transition from the old religion to the new.

Constantine first allowed the Christians to make use of some public halls for their worship. We cannot indeed specify any such case with certainty; but the application of the term basilica to five of the larger and eight smaller churches in Rome, and the evident derivation of the style of Roman ecclesiastical architecture, sufficiently attest the fact. Though the internal decorations, especially the statues, of these pagan edifices, would be destroyed on their application to the religious service of the Christians, we may believe that the practice of conversion was on the whole favourable to the preservation of this class of structures externally. But with the temples the case was different. It is impossible but that, in the decline of paganism, these sacred buildings must have suffered from neglect, even before the churches of Christianity rose to supplant them. Neither Constantine nor his immediate successor ventured to close them. Theodosius, who destroyed the temples at Alexandria, still spared those of the pagan metropolis. But the violence of the Christians grew with their strength. In 399 the edict of Honorious suspended all the temple services; and the clause which forbade any outrages to be committed on the buildings themselves seems to show, not only that such were to be apprehended, but that they had been already offered. Augustine boasts in one place that all the statues in the Roman temples had been demolished, but he speaks elsewhere of temples and sacred groves being appropriated to Christian worship and sanctified thereby; and we must suspect Jerome of his usual exaggeration where he exults in the general ruin which, as he asserts, had fallen upon the sacred places of the heathens. At all events, there is no more brilliant description of the pagan shrines of Rome than that of Claudian, himself a pagan, at the very epoch to which we are now referring. At last, in 426, the younger Theodosius issued an edict for their destruction, and this edict is generally supposed to have been carried out pretty completely. It is said that from this era we meet with no reference to the temples in the imperial legislation; but this indeed was hardly to have been expected when the temples had ceased to be public property or objects of public interest. It is not strictly true that from henceforth there is no mention of them in the narrative of political events. Procopius in the sixth century alludes to the temple of Peace as then existing, with other similar monuments, and particularly describes the form, the dimensions, and the material of the temple of Janus. The populace, he says, Christians though they nominally were, attempted to open the gates of this temple as a protection against an advancing enemy; a trait of superstition which shows that they still retained a lurking respect for the ideas of antiquity; and would have revolted against any indiscriminate attack upon their monuments and emblems. If, however, these venerable edifices escaped a general proscription and demolition, they fell for the most part by a more lingering process, being despoiled from time to time by the cupidity or caprice of the private owners into whose hands they came. Thus in the reign of Justinian, a Roman matron, the proprietor of a ruined temple on the Quirinal, presented eight of its columns to the emperor for the decoration of S. Sophia. Vast numbers of columns, friezes, and entablatures, were thus transferred to Christian churches. The application of the temples themselves to ecclesiastical uses was more rare, and is believed to have begun rather later. The Pantheon had escaped destruction or serious mutilation down to the seventh century; it was converted into a church in the year 604, in which year the gilded tiles of the temple of Venus and Roma were also transferred to the roof of St Peter's basilica. We know, however, of four or five only of the ancient temples which were equally fortunate with the Pantheon,—those, namely, which were dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damianus; to St Stephen, St Hadrian, and that of Vesta or Romulus, which has assumed the name of St Theodore. On the other hand, we read of not less than fifty-six churches erected on the sites of temples either previously destroyed or actually pulled down for the purpose. The destruction of the theatres, baths, and circuses, together with other places of public resort, in which the magnificence of the ancient city had most conspicuously displayed itself, must be ascribed more directly than even that of the temples to the change of religion, sentiments, and manners. Against the social institutions to which these buildings were devoted the early Christian preachers had most sedulously inveighed; the converts were instructed to shun them, as the strongholds of the idolatry, cruelty, and sensuality which disgraced the heathen world. It was long indeed before the Roman populace, even when Christian in name, could be effectually weaned from their fascinations: the games of the circus did not, it is said, finally cease till 496, and the baths were not perhaps wholly deserted till the overthrow of the aqueducts which supplied them. But as early as the tenth century there were three churches standing within the area of the baths of Alexander, which must have been previously deserted and in ruins. The immediate causes of the destruction of these monuments must be looked for in those natural agencies to which we shall next refer, and which we shall find to have been really far more effectual in their operation than either the fury of the barbarians or the fanaticism of the Christians.

The popular charges against Pope Gregory the Great, Decay of having urged the destruction of temples, the demolition of statues, and the burning of libraries, have been chiefly derived from the declamatory assertions of John of Salisbury, a writer of the twelfth century. Gregory himself, we may believe, would have disclaimed the praises of his fanatical panegyrist. He has left us in memorable words his own mournful impression of the decay and ruin of the great city around him, which he ascribes to the operation of tempests, earthquakes, and inundations. Such agencies, as we learn, had been always more or less in activity on the spot, but in better times the injury they inflicted was speedily repaired by the energy of a vigorous and increasing population; at this period there was neither strength nor spirit to retrieve the accumulating disasters. Pestilence and famine had repeatedly succeeded to the calamities of war; the remnant of the citizens had been driven more than once into terror from their dwellings, and many no doubt had abandoned them forever. At the second siege of Totila there was so much vacant soil within the city as would have sufficed to maintain both the inhabitants and the garrison. Sufferings and apprehensions had blunted every sentiment of national pride or interest. The Romans had become ignorant of their own history, or at least indifferent to its monuments; they were wholly insensible to the grandeur and beauty of their works of art; they felt their noblest statues to be buried in the gradual accretion of soil, as in the baths of Antoninus and Titus; while the names and uses of their most illustrious edifices sank into oblivion around them.

Against the agencies above enumerated a people so listless could not contend. The rains swept the soil from the hills into the valleys; the inundations undermined the buildings; the earthquakes overthrew them. A rank vegetation grew up among the ruins, and embedded them in its accumulating debris. There is evidence, from certain appearances in the walls, that even when Honorius repaired them the soil had already risen in some places to several feet above the original level. In modern times excavations on the hills, but still more in the lower parts of the city, and especially in the Forum, have exhibited a rise of level of 10, 15, or even 20 feet. The process of accretion is thus described by Lord Brougham: "Such open spots as were decorated by single monuments were likely to be first overwhelmed by the deposit left by the water and collected round those monuments." On this account the forums, and even the Palatine, though on an eminence, being crowded with structures, appear to have been buried deeper than the other quarters under the deposit of the river and the materials of the crumbling edifices. The latter accumulation must be taken into account when it is recollected that the broken pottery of the old city has at some unknown period been sufficient to form a mound of 150 paces high and 500 paces in length. The population was too languid to dig away the obstruction, and employed their remaining strength in transporting the smaller materials to the more modern and secure quarter of the town. The failure of the supply of water from the aqueducts would help to drive the dwindling population to the banks of the river; and in the eighth and ninth centuries, when the number of inhabitants had fallen perhaps to its lowest point, a large proportion of the area within the walls was occupied with fields and vineyards, the people crowded together under the western slope of the Capitoline, and in the nearest portions of the Campus Martius, where the oldest parts of the modern city are at this day to be found.

The city of the Caesars had sunk to its lowest degradation about the end of the eighth century; its old habitations had been destroyed, even the course of most of its streets obliterated; the remains of antiquity were confined to the bare walls of palaces and temples, and a few other monuments of unusual strength and solidity. Of these remains a list is given by a topographer of the next age, according to the division, still it seems remembered, of the fourteen regions. It includes the baths of Alexander, Commodus, Trajan, Sallust, Diocletian, and Constantine; temples of Jupiter and Minerva; the Roman Forum and that of Trajan; the three circuses; the arches of Severus, Titus, Gracian, Theodosius, and Valentinian; the Flavian and praetorian amphitheaters; the Capitol, the Septizonium, the palace of Nero, and another, pretending to be that of Pontius Pilate; the theatres of Pompey and Marcellus; the Trajan and Antonine columns; a Nymphaeum; an obelisk; several remains of aqueducts and porticoes; together with various specimens of ancient sculpture. These monuments, it will be observed, still for the most part exist; their continued preservation will be presently accounted for; but the demolition of the ancient city had already advanced at this period almost to the point at which it has now arrived, a thousand years later. A change, however, now occurs in the history of Rome. The spiritual importance which begins to attach to her as the centre of Christendom, and the spot from whence the chief of the revived empire is content to derive his authority, inspires her government with a renewed sense of dignity. The Popes, now the acknowledged masters of the venerable city, attempted in every interval of domestic tranquility to repair the most vital injuries she had suffered. The Aqua Virgo was made again to convey water to the dwellings about the Pantheon, and the Claudia to those which encircled the Lateran. A new town was rising under the protection of St Peter's, which Pope Leo VI. fortified in 846, and gave it the name of the Civitas Leonina, now the Borgo. Rome had become a cluster of little towns, one of which grew up around each of her principal sanctuaries; and from this time her records teem with notices of the building of new churches, and even the restoration of old ones. The Papal city had itself become an antiquity.

The exemption, however, which Rome now enjoyed from foreign assault encouraged the citizens to dissensions among themselves. The strongest monuments of the old city still standing were seized by the barons and converted into fortresses. Even the monasteries sought to protect themselves by similar means. Thus the convent of S. Gregory on the Caelian had its outposts in the Septizonium and the arch of Constantine; while other religious houses made use of the columns of Trajan and Antonine for bulwarks. In the twelfth century the noble family of the Frangipani had possession of many ancient buildings, such as the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, the Septizonium, the arches of Titus and Janus; the Orsini occupied about the same time the mole of Hadrian and the theatre of Pompeius; the Colonna the mausoleum of Augustus and the baths of Constantine; the Savelli maintained themselves in the theatre of Marcellus and the tomb of Cecilia Metella; the Corsi had fortified the Capitol, and were in possession of the basilica of S. Paul. The Pantheon was defended as a fortress for the Pope. We may suppose that the defiant attitude assumed by the holders of these places of strength provoked mutual hostilities; but they were preserved at least from natural decay by the pains taken to fortify them. We can trace, however, some of the damage inflicted upon them in the struggle between the Popes and Emperors, and we may guess at more. Rome was attacked more than once by the emperor Henry IV. In the siege of 1082 the portico of St Peter's suffered injury; in the following year that of Hadrian's mole, or castle of S. Angelo, was destroyed. The assaults were generally directed

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1 Lord Broughton's Italy, I. 373. 2 Bunsen's Rome, I. 245; Lord Broughton's Italy, I. 387. 3 The modern name of this monument is derived from a chapel once erected on its summit by Pope Gregory the Great at the close of the sixth century, and dedicated to the archangel Michael, who was said to have appeared on the spot and protected the city from a pestilence. The name of S. Angelo, however, does not seem to have been applied till several centuries later. The mole was first fortified by John XII. about 960, again in 1378, and finally in 1644. It is now used as a state prison. All the upper part is modern. against the Trastiberine portion of the city, and in 1084 the Borgo was overthrown. At the same time the long colonnade which connected St Paul's beyond the walls with the city was demolished. Thus far the injury inflicted had lighted chiefly on objects comparatively modern; but the emperor now penetrated the walls, and made a furious attack on the Capitol, which caused the ruin of many ancient remains. The outrages of the imperialists, however, were far exceeded by those of the Normans and Saracens, who recovered the city for Pope Gregory VII. under Robert Guiscard. These savage allies burnt their way from the Flaminian Gate to the Antonine column, and they assaulted with barbarian violence both the Capitol and the Colosseum, and laid waste the area of the city from thence to the Lateran. The greater part indeed of this space was at this time uninhabited, and even uncultivated. The remains of the several borgos were thus separated by desert tracts; and William of Malmesbury, in writing of this lamentable period, could describe Rome as "quite a small city." At the end of this century, under Innocent III., it is said to have contained only 35,000 inhabitants.

In the thirteenth century the violence of the nobles was brought in some degree under the control of the municipal government, and the senator Brancaloni caused the demolition of 140 baronial "towers." These were perhaps for the most part turrets of brick erected on the summit of the ancient monuments, but their destruction extended in many cases, as we are specially assured, to the monuments themselves; the extent, however, of the demolition has probably been exaggerated,—at least the check it inflicted was incomplete and transient. We continue to hear, again and again, of the feudal castles in Rome; as many as forty-four existed, it is said, at a much later period in a single borgo.

The removal of the Popes to Avignon in the fourteenth century tended on the whole to the preservation of the ancient remains. It was a period of stagnation, with less of violence on the one hand, and less of improvement and embellishment on the other, which were almost equally fatal to monuments of merely antiquarian interest. The lamentations of Petrarch over the desolation of Rome are generally taken as a sign of its advancing ruin. Perhaps they should rather be regarded as a favourable symptom. They exhibit the first indication of an interest in antiquity, and an anxiety to preserve what was perishing. The abortive attempts of Rienzi were not ineffectual for the great end he had in view, to revive among his countrymen the love of their city and pride in their historic recollections. But in the middle of the century the venerated spot was visited with an inundation and an earthquake of more than usual violence, in which some of the ancient as well as more modern monuments were overthrown. The continued absence of the Popes, as Lord Broughton remarks, might have been fatal to the city, and reduced it to a solitude; "but such a solitude," he adds, "would have protected many a fragment, and preserved the ruins at least for the eyes of a more inquisitive generation." The return of the Popes, and the new population which followed in their train, introduced a new series of injuries, in the conversion of the old materials to other objects. "The Colonna and the Orsini, the people and the church, fought again for the Capitol and the towers; the fortress of the Popes, the refitted mole of Hadrian, repeatedly bombarded the town;" but the injuries thus inflicted on the imperial remains were less serious than the pillage to which they were to be again subjected by the Papal re-constructors and beautifiers.

The return of the Popes from Avignon was soon succeeded by the great western schism, which suspended the restoration of the city for forty years; but the era of its re-construction in the general form it now presents may be dated from the pontificate of Martin V. (1417). This was the most flourishing period of the Papal power, when its revenues were most abundant, and its authority throughout Europe uncontested. The last revolt of the Romans was the modern suppressed in 1434 by Eugenius IV., and the work of city to the building and restoring was now carried on rapidly and middle of without interruption for many years. A great many of the 17th churches of Rome date their origin from this century, and perhaps a still larger proportion of its palaces, erected for the most part by the Popes themselves, or by the families they founded. The monuments of imperial Rome still existing, and especially the enormous Colosseum, supplied inexhaustible quarries of travertine to the builders. Nicolas V. has been called the Augustus of modern Rome; but he stripped the ancient edifices of their marble to burn into lime, and left only the brick. So rapidly did the work of demolition proceed that Pius II. was obliged to interfere with a bull in 1462 to arrest it. But the interdict seems to have been little regarded, and this Pope is himself accused of building the palace of St Mark with materials taken from the Colosseum. In 1474 Sixtus IV. destroyed what remained of the stone piers of the supposed Sublician bridge to make cannon balls. Alexander VI. constructed his gallery from the Vatican to the castle of St Angelo with the fragments of a pyramid destroyed for the purpose. Pius III. plundered the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the arch of Titus, the forum of Trajan, and the theatre of Marcellus; and built the Farnese palace with stone from the Colosseum. Sixtus V. removed some works of art from the Septizonium to decorate St Peter's. "The stupendous vaults of the Diocletian thermae were converted into churches; the walls of those of Constantine were adjusted into the Rospigliosi palace; the Alexandrine thermae supplied with columns the repairs of the Pantheon; a circus was gradually cleared away for the opening of the Piazza Navona; the marble of a temple on the Quirinal was cut into the 124 steps which ascend to the church of Araceli." The fountain of Trevi and the Barberini palace were constructed by Urban VIII. with materials taken from the Colosseum; he also stripped the porch of the Pantheon of some sheets of bronze, which, strange to say, had so long escaped the spoilers of the city. These last and other acts of barbarism were perpetrated in the middle of the seventeenth century; and finally, Alexander VII. destroyed the arch of M. Aurelius about 1660, as an obstruction to the street called the Corso. "Those who peruse the topographers from Blondel to Nardini will assign to the latter half of the fifteenth century, and the succeeding 150 years, a greater activity of destruction than to those immediately preceding ages in which we have no authentic writers to tell us what was left or what was lost."

The laying out of the plan of the city as it now exists dates from the pontificate of Sixtus IV. (1471-1484). A peculiar feature of modern Rome, as distinguished from other cities, is the combination it presents of long and straight avenues with clusters of the narrowest and most tortuous alleys. We see before us in this respect a repetition of Rome as it was rebuilt after the fire of Nero. From the Capitoline (Campidoglio), the Quirinal, and the centre of the old Campus Martius respectively, three streets, the Corso, the Babuino, and the Scrofa, converge upon the Porta del Popolo, near to the site of the old Flaminian Gate. The first of these runs partly, possibly indeed altogether, in the line of the Flaminian Way, and it is evident that they must have all been driven through the habitations, long deserted perhaps, of an earlier generation, and that many ancient remains must have been sacrificed to them. In the same manner, we are informed, the remnant of Nerva's forum was removed.

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1 Lord Broughton, Italy, i. 421. 2 Ibid., i. 423. to make way for the Via Alessandrina; and other antiquities were demolished to effect a communication between the forum of Trajan and St Maria Maggiore. During almost the whole of the period now before us, the modern church of St Peter's was rising in its incomparable grandeur (1450-1626). Before the secession to Avignon, the Popes had inhabited the Lateran. On their return, they took up their residence in the Vatican, chiefly on account of its proximity to the friendly shelter of St Angelo. From that time they continued to enlarge and beautify this palace, till its length has extended to 1151 and its breadth to 767 feet, and it contains by exact computation 4422 rooms. The square of palaces which occupies the centre of the Campidoglio was built by Paul III. (1534-1549), from the designs of Michael Angelo, and is ascended by a stair on the northern slope of the hill, the side which in ancient times was regarded as inaccessible. The Popes have another residence on the Quirinal, in a palace commenced by Gregory XIII. in 1574, and enlarged by several succeeding pontiffs down to Urban VIII.

By the middle of the seventeenth century Papal Rome had reached perhaps its full extent, and enjoyed a splendour which it has hardly since maintained. Though not free from the ravages of fire and inundation, once only during the period of its restoration it suffered a great disaster from martial violence. In 1527 it was stormed by the constable Bourbon, and surrendered to a lawless soldiery for the space of nine months. Churches and palaces were pillaged, and the paintings and frescoes which had begun to decorate their walls were subjected to considerable damage. Nevertheless, the outcry of the sufferers, who declared that the troops of Charles V. inflicted more devastation than the Goths, is no doubt exaggerated. They plundered, but they do not seem to have destroyed. At all events, the condition of Rome was now very different from what it had been in the fifth or sixth century. The spirit of the people and their rulers was vigorous and elastic; their resources were overflowing; and whatever injury they might occasionally suffer from the hands of man or from natural causes they easily retrieved and obliterated. Had Charles V., says Donatus, returned to Rome in the pontificate of Urban VIII. (1623-1644), he would not have recognised the city he had seen from the top of the Pantheon.

Petrarch and Rienzi in the fourteenth, and Poggio in the next century, pleaded for the ruins of ancient Rome, and raised at least a momentary enthusiasm in their behalf. The revival of classical learning gave force and permanence to the feeling they had awakened. The sixteenth century witnessed first its development in the classical and almost pagan tastes of Leo X. and other chiefs of the Papacy, by whom the first steps were taken in collecting statues and works of art, and uncovering the foundations of imperial Rome. About 1520, Raphael, who had witnessed the discovery of the remains on the Esquiline, and had himself copied the arabesques in the chambers of the palace of Nero, could venture to draw a plan of ancient Rome from his own investigations and conjectures; but the great painter's zeal as an antiquarian met with little encouragement. Some of Leo's successors affected to condemn the devotion of the classicists to the monuments of a godless superstition; and though Paul III. (1534) is favourably known for his enforcement of the edict against their destruction, as well as for the erection of the noble Piazza del Campidoglio from the designs of Michael Angelo, Sixtus V. (1585) distinguished himself on the other side by removing "the heathen statues on the towers of the Capitol," by which we may understand perhaps the marbles there collected by the taste of his predecessors.

This Pope deserves honourable mention, however, for his repairs of the Trajan and Antonine columns, and for the species of consecration he bestowed on them by crowning them with statues of St Peter and St Paul respectively. He sought perhaps to preserve the Colosseum from further spoliation by establishing a manufactory in it, an experiment which was repeated by Clement XI. a century later; but in both cases the scheme proved abortive. It was not till 1750 that the building was consecrated by Benedict XIV. to the memory of the Christian martyrs who had perished in the arena. The arch of Constantine had been restored by Clement XII. in 1733, on the ground of its connection with the triumph of the Christian faith. It would seem that some excuse of this kind was necessary to plead the cause of heathen antiquity against the interest or fanaticism of the populace. In 1817 Lord Broughton might remark, perhaps with bitter truth, that "the frequent repairs of the Pantheon, those of the Antonine and Trajan columns, the erection of the obelisks, the restoration of the Cestian pyramid, and the late protection of the Flavian amphitheatre, with that of the arch of Constantine, seem to compose the sum of all the merits of all the Popes, as far as respects the stable fabrics of antiquity." "The taste and magnificence of the Popes must be sought and will be found," he adds, "in the museum of the Capitol and the Vatican,"—the first commenced by Clement XII. (1730), the latter designed and executed by Clement XIV. and Pius VI., from whom it derives the name of Museo Pio-Clementino. "It was reserved," he continues, "for the conquerors who plundered those noble repositories to recompense Rome for her losses by clearing away the offals and dirt which had accumulated for ages round the buried temples at the foot of the Capitol and under the windows of the Senate-house, by cleansing the base and propping the porches of the Colosseum, by removing the soil in front of the temple of Peace [the basilica of Maxentius], by re-opening the baths of Titus, and, finally, by excavating the forum of Trajan." In 1838 the same author has added in a note—"There is no doubt that in that short period (1810-1814) more was planned and executed by the French administration than by all the Popes and other successive masters of the Eternal City from the fall of the empire to the beginning of the present century. But it would be unjust not to acknowledge that recent Popes have not forgotten their duties in this respect. Gregory XVI. in particular, whose political policy has been denounced as cruel and unjust, cannot be said to have neglected the arts of peace." Of late years the greatest pains have been taken to strengthen and preserve the Colosseum and other antiquities. The bases of several temples, arches, and columns, especially in the Forum, have been laid open, and the original pavement of the Sacred Way uncovered through a portion of its course. Pius VII. established the Museo Chiaramonti and Braccio Nuovo for ancient sculptures in the Vatican; and Gregory XVI., the Etruscan museum in the Vatican, as well as a museum of Christian antiquities in the Lateran. Under Pius IX. the rows of tombs on both sides of the Appian and other ancient roads have been uncovered, and a new class of objects of the highest antiquarian interest brought to light. The same pontiff, now reigning, has evinced a laudable zeal in promoting the exploration of the catacombs; and the promised work of the Cavaliere di Rossi, in which the subject will be critically discussed after the investigation is

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1 Murray's Hand-Book of Rome, p. 173. 2 Lord Broughton's Italy, i. 420. 3 Bargnani, "De Obeliscis," in Grav. Thes. iv. 1931. Hansen, in Rom. i. 257, misquotes his authority. In this section of his work we notice several inaccuracies; among others, the substitution of Sixtus V. (1585) as the constructor of modern Rome, for Sixtus IV. (1471). completed, may be expected to settle at last the questions so long debated about their use and origin.

STATISTICS OF ROME.

It has been said that perhaps no city in the world abounds with such a number of churches as Rome, or with fewer handsome ones as respects their architecture. Seven of the earliest churches of Rome are still called Basilicas, and enjoy a metropolitan rank. Four of them are within the walls,—St Peter's, St John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, Sante Croce in Gierusalemme; and three outside the walls,—S. Paolo, S. Sebastiano, and S. Lorenzo.

Foremost among them all is St Peter's, which Gibbon styles "the most glorious structure that has ever been applied to the use of religion." It occupies the site of a Basilica built by Constantine in 306; but has nothing except the name in common with the ancient style of buildings. Of the present church the foundation was laid by Julius II. in 1506, and the building was dedicated by Urban VIII. in 1626; its erection having been spread over the reigns of twenty Popes, and carried on by twelve different architects, the most celebrated of whom were Bramante, who planned the building in the form of a Greek cross with a hexastyle portico, and a cupola in the centre, and erected the piers and arches that support the dome; Raphael, who changed the plan from a Greek to a Latin cross; Michael Angelo, who returned to the former, and designed the dome; Giacomo della Porta, who completed the dome; and Maderno, who returned to the Latin cross plan, and added the façade. Of all the parts of the building, the work of the last architect is the most open to criticism; for the front, as seen from the piazza, is so prominent as almost to hide the dome; whereas, had Bramante and Michael Angelo's plan of a Greek cross, and a façade like that of the Pantheon, been followed, the whole dome would have been seen from the piazza. The situation, too, of the building is singularly unfortunate, in a hollow surrounded on three sides with hills; so that the exterior view does not show the church to advantage. But the interior is unrivalled for grandeur and beauty; its immense size is not perceived on account of the exquisite proportions of the whole, and the colossal dimensions of the statues in the niches and the mosaics on the dome.

The stupendous dome, viewed in its design, its altitude, or even its decoration, is altogether unrivalled, and has justly been pronounced the triumph of modern architecture. The ascent to the top of the church is so gradual as to be accessible to persons on horseback; from thence the dome is reached by a succession of ingeniously-contrived staircases. From the top an extensive prospect may be obtained of the beautiful amphitheatre of hills which incloses the Campagna on all but the western side; the summits of the loftier Apennines behind, wreathed with snow; the Tiber in its sinuous windings through the district; in the distance the blue waters of the Mediterranean gleaming in the sunbeams; and, far beneath, Rome, with her churches, her palaces, her dark and distant ruins, the rich verdure, and golden fruit of the orange gardens of her convents, contrasting with the deep shade of their mournful cypresses. Beneath the dome stands the high altar, under a canopy of solid bronze, covered with the richest ornaments. The monuments are for the most part unworthy of the church; but to an English visitor there is a singular interest in Canova's monument of the last of the infatuated and unfortunate race of Stuart. The principal dimensions of St Peter's are as follows:—Length in the interior, 613 feet; breadth of the nave and aisles, including the pilasters that divide them, 197½ feet; height of the nave, 152 feet; length of the transepts, 446½ feet; diameter of the dome, including the walls, 195 feet, or nearly 2 feet more than that of the Pantheon; diameter of the dome in the interior, 139 feet, or 3 feet less than that of the Pantheon; height from the pavement to the base of the lantern, 405 feet; to the summit of the cross outside, 448 feet. Thus the whole of St Paul's cathedral in London might stand within the shell of St Peter's, and yet leave 46½ feet at either end, 25 feet all round the cupola, and 64 feet above the dome. The semicircular colonnades on each side of the piazza in front of the church, form, along with the covered galleries that extend from them to the portico, a magnificent approach to St Peter's.

The basilica of St John Lateran is another most interesting church, and as it is considered the "mother of all churches Lateran, in the city and the world," its chapter takes precedence even of that of St Peter's. It stands at the east of the Caelian Hill, on the site of the house of Plautius Lateranus, a senator put to death by Nero, but has been so frequently restored and altered as to retain little of its original form. In a portico to the north of this church stands the Scala Santa, twenty-eight marble steps, said to have belonged to the palace of Pontius Pilate, and protected by planks of wood from the attrition caused by the knees of the devout who ascend. This church was the place where the five general councils, known in history under the name of Lateran councils, were held in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215, and 1512.

The basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, more than any other in Rome, preserves the simple character of the ancient buildings, and has one of the finest interiors in this style.

The old basilica of St Paul fuori le mura, founded by St Paul's, Constantine, and rebuilt by Theodosius and Honorius, contained 138 pillars of the rarest marble and granite, the spoils of some of the noblest edifices of antiquity. In 1823 this church was destroyed by fire, but it has since been rebuilt in a style of even greater magnificence than before, and open to public worship, and dedicated by Pius IX., in 1854.

The church of St Clement, on the slope of the Esquiline, has the reputation of occupying the site of the house of Clement, the companion of Paul. The churches of the Jesuits and of St Ignatius are distinguished for their riches, and the immense number of ornaments which they contain. The church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, built on the site of Pompey's temple of Minerva, contains the celebrated "Christ" of Michael Angelo, and in the church of St Pietro in Vincoli is the famous statue of Moses by the same artist. Many of the churches of Rome are adorned with fine paintings by the greatest masters, but their beauty and colouring has generally suffered much from time, neglect, dirt, and damp. In the church of Santa Maria della Pace are the four "Sibyls" of Raphael, and the church of St Augustine contains his inimitable fresco of "Isaiah." A number of admirable paintings in fresco by Domenichino adorn a chapel in the church of San Luigi de Francesi. The church of the Capuchins possesses Guido's celebrated painting of the "Archangel Michael trampling upon Satan." Domenichino's "Ecstasy of St Francis," and a cartoon by Francesco Beretta representing St Peter walking upon the waves also adorn this church. Daniel da Volterra's "Deposition from the Cross," which Poussin pronounced to be the third picture in the world, enriches the church of the SS. Trinità de Monti. The house of Claud Lorraine stood beside this church; on the opposite side of the way was that of Nicholas Poussin, and close by it a house once inhabited by Salvator Rosa. The church of San Andrea della Valle is built upon the spot where the curia of Pompey once stood, in which Caesar fell. It contains some fine paintings in fresco by Domenichino, representing the Four Evangelists. In the church of San Onofrio the remains of Tasso repose.

There are in Rome 54 parishes and 364 churches, 186 convents, and numerous benevolent institutions.

Nothing strikes a stranger with more admiration on his arrival in Rome than the immense number of fountains Statistics, which pour forth on every side an inexhaustible supply of the finest water. They exhibit great variety in their composition. Some of them are beautiful; one or two grand; but they are all, generally speaking, deficient in simplicity, and several of them, such as the renowned fountain of Trevi, are completely overloaded with mythological sculpture.

Palaces. Rome has more palaces, or noblemen's houses, than any other city in the world. Of these, no fewer than seventy-five are of a superior kind, uniting in their external appearance something of the fortress, the prison, and the palace. Many of the families to which these buildings once belonged have sunk into poverty, and their residences are now turned into ecclesiastical colleges or hotels, or let to foreign ambassadors or consuls. In the others which have escaped this fate the lower storey is sometimes let for shops, sometimes retained for stables, coach-houses, and servants' rooms. The second storey is generally a picture gallery, consisting of a suite of rooms opening into one another, and richly adorned with marble columns and painted ceilings. The owner of the building and of these precious works of art often lives in the third or highest storey, and generously throws open the gallery to artists and to all who choose to give two or three paoli to the servants. The exterior of these palaces is in general grand and magnificent in architecture; but in the interior, notwithstanding the magnitude of the apartments and the magnificence of the decorations, they are, generally speaking, uncomfortable dwellings, and most of them are deficient in cleanliness and order. The immense palaces of the Doria, the Colonna, and the Borghese, are still occupied only by their own families and dependants. The Doria palace contains the largest collection of paintings in Rome, among which are found some of the finest specimens of the ancient masters. The gallery of the Colonna palace, which is by far the grandest hall in the city, once contained a number of celebrated paintings, but the finest have been sold. The palace garden, which hangs on the steep side of the Quirinal Hill, contains the picturesque remains of a magnificent ancient edifice, the name of which is unknown. The palace of the Barberini family formerly contained that celebrated museum of ancient sculpture, vases, gems, medals, &c., which was so long the wonder and admiration of Europe, but it is now sold and dispersed. The famous Portland vase was brought from this museum. There are still some interesting pictures, among which the famous "Cenci" by Guido Reni. The palace of the Borghese once contained a fine museum of sculpture, and it still possesses one of the best collections of paintings in Rome. In the Palazzo Massimi is the famous "Discobolus," found in the grounds of the Villa Palombari on the Esquiline Hill. The Palazzo Spada contains the celebrated statue of Pompey, at the foot of which Caesar fell. In the palace of the Braschi once stood the beautiful colossal statue of Antinous, which was dug up on the site of the ancient Gabii, and has been removed to the Lateran museum. The Palazzo Nuovo di Torlonia, the residence of Torlonia the Roman banker, who has purchased the title and estate of the Duca di Bracciano, is fitted up with all the magnificence that wealth can command. The gallery is adorned with Canova's colossal group of "Hercules and Lycas." The Farnese palace contains the far-famed gallery painted in fresco by Annibal Caracci. In the gallery of the Sciarra palace are Raphael's "Player on the Fiddle," Leonardo da Vinci's "Vanity and Modesty," and other masterpieces.

The Vatican has long been celebrated for its unrivalled splendour and magnificence. Its ceilings richly painted in fresco; its pictured pavements of ancient mosaic; its magnificent gates of bronze; its polished columns of ancient porphyry, the splendid spoils of the ruins of imperial Rome; its endless accumulation of Grecian marble, Egyptian granite, and oriental alabasters; its bewildering extent and prodigality of magnificence; but, above all, its amazing treasures of sculpture, far surpass even the gorgeous dreams of eastern magnificence. In common with all the other collections of the fine arts in Rome, the Vatican suffered materially from the rapacity of the French, but on the downfall of Bonaparte the stolen treasures were restored to their rightful owners. The Vatican contains a museum filled with the most splendid specimens of ancient sculpture; the tapestry chambers hung with tapestry woven in the looms of Flanders, and copied from the cartoons of Raphael; a picture gallery, filled with the masterpieces of painting; "the Camere" and "Loggie" of Raphael, painted in fresco by himself and his pupils; the Sistina and Paolina chapels, painted in fresco by Michael Angelo; and the library, the halls and galleries of which alone are more than 1300 feet in length. The view from the balcony in front of the windows gave the name of Belvedere to an octagon court of this museum, surrounded by porticos and cabinets, in which is the matchless statue of Apollo Belvedere, pronounced by universal consent to be the finest statue in the world. It was found near Antium, in the ruins of a Roman villa, supposed to have originally belonged to Nero. The name of its artist is unknown. Here, also, are the Belvedere "Antinous," "Perseus," and the "Two Boxers," by Canova, and the celebrated group of the "Laocoon," which Pliny states to have been executed by Agesander the Rhodian, and Athenodorus and Polyclorus, who are believed to have been his sons. This wonderful masterpiece was found in the palace of Titus, on the very spot where it is described by Pliny to have stood; and every successive generation that has passed since it was found has gazed with admiration on its matchless sublimity. The Vatican also contains the two finest paintings in the world,—the "Transfiguration" by Raphael, and Domenichino's "Communion of St Jerome." The library contains a splendid collection of books, and is peculiarly rich in rare and valuable manuscripts. But a minute account of the immense treasures of art accumulated in this magnificent building would occupy too much of our space. Another of the Pope's palaces, the Lateran, was converted into a hospital in 1693, and into a museum in 1843.

The museum of the Capitol contains a very extensive collection of specimens of ancient sculpture. The finest works in it are the famous statue called the "Dying Gladiator," found at Antium in the same spot with the "Apollo Belvedere," and the "Fighting Gladiator;" the two Furietti "Centauri;" the group of "Cupid and Psyche;" the noble seated statue of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus; the "Camillus;" the bronze urn which bears the name of Mitridates; the four doves, a mosaic, which must be either the original or a copy of the famous mosaic of Sozus, in the temple of Pergamus, described by Pliny; the "Venus" of the Capitol; and the celebrated bronze wolf, with the Roman twins, supposed to be that alluded to by Cicero as having been struck by lightning. The Capitol contains also a museum of painting, but it is of comparatively inferior interest. The academy of St Luke, in the Forum, contains Raphael's famous picture of "St Luke painting the Virgin's portrait." Rome contains eleven public libraries, some of which are excellent. In the Augustine convent there is one, called the Angelica, containing upwards of 90,000 vols. and 3000 MSS.; and the Minerva, adjoining the Dominican convent of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, contains 120,000 vols. and 4500 MSS. They are open daily to the public.

There are a great many villas in the immediate vicinity of Rome, and even within its walls. The gardens of the Villa Borghese, which were by far the most beautiful pleasure-grounds at Rome, were almost wholly ruined during the revolution of 1848. The villa, with its works of art, however, was preserved. The Villa Ludovisi, within the walls of the city, is nearly two miles in circuit. It contains an invaluable collection of celebrated pieces of ancient statuary, of which no copies are known to exist. The magnificent Villa Medici, on the Pincian Hill, is now converted into the French academy, where a number of young artists of promise are supported at the charge of the French government, with the view of enabling them to enjoy the advantages of a few years' study at Rome. The Villa Albani is enriched with the most precious collection of ancient sculpture that any private cabinet ever contained. The finest specimens of this collection are the famous "Apollo Sauroctonos," the most beautiful bronze statue now left in the world, and which, in the judgment of Winckelmann, is the original of Praxiteles, described by Pliny; the statue of Minerva, which is pronounced by Winckelmann to be the only monument now existing at Rome of the sublime age of art that lasted from the age of Phidias to that of Praxiteles; and the far-famed relievo of Antinous, which, says the same critic, "after the 'Apollo' and 'Laocoön,' is perhaps the most beautiful monument of antiquity which time has transmitted to us."

The castle of St. Angelo, "the mole which Hadrian rear'd on high," was originally called "Moles Hadriani," from the name of its founder, who destined it to hold his remains forever. It is a circular building, and was formerly reckoned very strong; it has stood many sieges, but as a fortress it is wholly untenable against modern tactics. It has been so often taken and retaken, repaired and altered, that but little of the original structure now remains, except the walls. It communicates with the Vatican by a long covered gallery, made by Pope Alexander VI., to afford him a way of escape from the just fury of his subjects. The castle of St. Angelo is now used as a place of confinement for prisoners sentenced to the galleys. The upper part of it also serves as a state prison for criminals of rank, and those who fall under the suspicion and displeasure of the Pope.