Chapter VII: Part 7

There have been two theatres excavated, a large and a small one; both of which display the remains of considerable magnificence. They are constructed after the usual plan of a Roman theatre. The theatre is formed upon the side of a hill, the corridor being the highest part, so that the audience, on entering, descended at once to their seats. There is space to contain about five thousand persons. This theatre appears to have been entirely covered with marble, although only a few fragments remain.

The smaller theatre nearly resembles the larger one in plan and disposition of parts; but there is this remarkable difference;—it appears from an inscription to have been permanently roofed. It has been computed that it accommodated one thousand five hundred persons.

The amphitheatre of Pompeii does not differ in any particular from other Roman buildings of the same kind. Its form is oval; its length is four hundred and thirty feet; and its greatest breadth three hundred and thirty-five feet. There were paintings in fresco—one, representing a tigress fighting with a wild boar; another, a stag chased by a lioness; another, a battle between a bull and a bear. There were other representations besides these; but the whole disappeared upon exposure to the atmosphere[127].

Adjoining to the theatre[128], a building has been excavated, called, from the style of its architecture, the Greek temple; otherwise, the temple of Hercules. The date of its erection some have supposed to be as far back as eight hundred years before the Christian era. It is in a very dilapidated state. Before the steps in front there is an inclosure, supposed to have been a pen to contain victims for the sacrifice; and by its side there are two altars.

The temple of Isis[129] is one of the most perfect examples, now existing, of the parts and disposition of an ancient temple. The skeleton of a priest was found in one of the rooms. Near his remains lay an axe, from which it would appear, that he had delayed his departure till the door was closed up, and so attempted to break through the walls with his axe. He had already forced his way through two; but before he could pass the third, was suffocated by the vapour. Within the sacred precincts, doubtless, lay a number of skeletons; probably those of the priests, who, reposing a vain confidence in their deity, would not desert her temple, until escape was hopeless. Several paintings of the priests of Isis, and the ceremonies of their worship, were found, together with a statue of the deity herself.

One of the buildings, surrounding the forum, has received the appellation of the Pantheon, from there having been found in the centre of its area an altar encircled with twelve pedestals; on which, it has been supposed, stood the statues of the mythological deities. The area is one hundred and twenty feet in length, by ninety in breadth. Numerous cells, attached to this building, have been found; these, in all probability, were for the accommodation of priests. Near to this place were discovered statues of Nero and Messalina, and ninety-three brass coins.

Adjoining to the Pantheon[130] is a building, supposed to have been a place for the meeting of the senate or town-council. In the centre is an altar, and on each side of this, in two large recesses, stand two pedestals, which most likely supported effigies of the gods to whom the place was sacred. Near this is a small temple, elevated on a basement. On the altar there is an unfinished bas-relief, representing a sacrifice. In the cells attached to the building were found a number of vessels in which wine was kept.

Adjoining to this is a large building, which, from various inscriptions, appears to have been erected at the expense of a lady named Eumachia, for the benefit of the public. Amongst other relics found, was a statue of this lady, five feet four inches high.

The forum of Pompeii[131] is situated at the north-east corner of the city, and is entered by a flight of steps, leading downwards through an arch in a brick wall, still partly covered with stucco. Upon entering, the spectator finds himself in a large area, surrounded by columns, the ruins of temples, triumphal arches, and other public erections. There are, also, a number of pedestals for the support of statues.

There is a subterranean wine-vault[132] near the city gates, which has been examined with great attention. It is very extensive, and contains the earthen vessels and bottles wherein the wine had been kept. They were arranged in the same precise order as previous to the awful eruption which desolated the city. The interior of this place much resembles cloisters, the roof being arched with strong stones. It was in these vaults where the unhappy inhabitants sought refuge from the sudden and overwhelming shower of fire and ashes.

After such an amazing lapse of time[133], liquids have been found approaching to a fluid state—an instance of which cannot be sufficiently admired, in a phial of oil, conceived to be that of olives. It is white, greasy to the touch, and emits the smell of rancid oil. An earthen vase was found, in the cellars, containing wine, which now resembles a lump of porous dark violet-coloured glass. Eggs, also, have been found, whole and empty.

On the north side[134] of the Pantheon, there runs a street, named the Street of Dried Fruits, from the quantity of fruits of various kinds, preserved in glass vases, which have been found. Scales, money, moulds for pastry and bread, were discovered in the shops, and a bronze statue of Fame, small and well executed; having bright bracelets of gold upon the arms. In the entrance which conducts from this street to the Pantheon a box was found, containing a gold ring with an engraved stone in it; also, forty-one silver, and one thousand and thirty-six brass, coins.

On the walls are representations of Cupid making bread. The mill stands in the centre of the picture, with an ass on each side; from which it has been inferred, that these animals were employed in grinding corn. Besides these, there are in this building a great number of very beautiful paintings.

Three bakers’ shops[135] at least have been found, all in a tolerable state of preservation. The mills, the oven, the kneading-troughs, the vessels for containing water, flour, and leaven, have all been discovered, and seem to leave nothing wanting to our knowledge. In some vessels the very flour remained, still capable of being identified, though reduced almost to a cinder. One of these shops was attached to the house of Sallust; the other to that of Pansa. The third seems to have belonged to a sort of capitalist: for instead of renting a mere dependency in another man’s house, he lived in a tolerably good house of his own, of which the bakery forms a part.

Beneath the oven is an ash-pit. To the right is a large room, which is conjectured to be a stable. The jaw of an ass, and some other fragments of a skeleton, were found in it. There is a reservoir for water at the farther end, which passes through the wall, and is common both to this room and the next, so that it could be filled without going into the stable.

In another place[136] there is an oil-mill; in a third, supposed to have been a prison, stocks were found; and in a fourth were pieces of armour, whence it has been called the Guard-room. In this quarter of the city a bronze helmet was found, enriched with bas-reliefs, relating to the principal events of the capture of Troy. Another helmet found represents the Triumph of Rome; greaves of bronze, highly ornamented, also were found.

Contiguous to the little theatre, the house of a sculptor has been cleared. There were found statues; some half finished; others just begun: with blocks of marble, and all the tools required by the sculptor.

The walls, in the interior of the buildings, are generally adorned with fresco paintings, the colours of which are in a state of perfect preservation, and have all the freshness of recent finishing. The shells, also, which decorate some of the public fountains, have sustained no injury from the lapse of ages, or the volcanic products in which they were buried.

During the progress of excavation,[137] at Pompeii, a painting was found in the Casa Carolina, which scarcely held together to be copied, and fell to pieces upon the first rain. It was of grotesque character, and represented a pigmy painter, whose only covering was a tunic. He is at work upon the portrait of another pigmy, clothed in a manner to indicate a person of distinction. The artist is sitting opposite to his sitter, at an awful distance from the picture, which is placed under an easel, similar in construction to ours. By the side of the artist stands his palette, which is a little table with four feet, and by it is a pot to wash his pencils in. He therefore was working with gum, or some sort of water-colours: but he did not confine himself to this branch of the arts; for to the right we see his colour-grinder, who prepares, in a vessel placed over some hot coals, colours mixed with wax and oil. Two amateurs enter the studio, and appear to be conversing with respect to the picture. On the noise occasioned by their entrance, a scholar, seated in the distance, turns round to look at them. It is difficult to explain the presence of the bird in the painting-room. The picture is not complete: a second bird, and, at the opposite side, a child playing with a dog, had perished before Mazois (an artist who has preserved some of the most valuable remains at Pompeii) copied it. This picture is very curious, since it shows how few things, in the mechanical practice of painting, have changed during two thousand years.

There is another picture[138] preserved at Pompeii, representing a female, employed in making a copy of a bearded Bacchus. She is dressed in a light green tunic, without sleeves, over which she wears a dark red mantle. Beside her is a box, such, as we are told by Varro, as painters used, divided into compartments, into which she dips her brush.

Among the recent discoveries at Pompeii[139], may also be enumerated a bronze vase, encrusted with silver, the size and form of which have been much admired, and a bronze statue of Apollo, of admirable workmanship. The deity is represented as sacrificing, with his avenging arm, the family of Niobe; and the beauty of its form, and the life of the figure, are so fine, that it is said to be the finest statue in the Bourbon Museum. “As to the furniture,” says Mr. Mathews, “they illustrate Solomon’s apophthegm, that there is nothing new under the sun; for there is much, that, with a little scouring, would scarcely appear old-fashioned at the present day.”

“It was a source of great amusement,” says Mr. Blunt, “to observe the doors of café-keepers, barbers, tailors, tradesmen, in short, of every description, surmounted by very tolerable pictures, indicating their respective occupations. Thus, at a surgeon and apothecary’s, for instance, I have seen a series of paintings displaying a variety of cases, to which the doctor is applying his healing hand. In one he is extracting a tooth; in another applying an emetic; in a third bandaging an arm or a leg.” In 1819, several surgical instruments were discovered in the ruins of a house near the gate adjoining to the burial-ground[140].

In a street, which conducts to the Forum, called the Street of Fortune, an immense number of utensils have been found. Amongst other articles, were vases, basins with handles, bells, elastic springs, hinges, buckles for harness, a lock, an inkstand, gold ear-rings, a silver spoon, an oval caldron, a saucepan, a mould for pastry, and a weight of alabaster used in spinning, with its ivory axis remaining; a number of lamps, three boxes, in one of which were found several coins of Titus, Vespasian, Domitian, &c. Among the most curious things found, were seven glazed plates, packed in straw; a pair of scales and steelyard were also discovered.

Fishing-nets[141], some of them quite entire, have been found in great numbers in Herculaneum as well as in Pompeii. Linen, also, with the texture well defined. In the shop of a baker a loaf was found, still retaining its form, with the baker’s name stamped upon it, and which, to satisfy the curiosity of modern professors of the art, we shall give: it was “Eleris J. Crani Riser.” On the counter of an apothecary’s shop was a box of pills; and by the side of it, a small cylindrical roll, evidently ready for cutting up.

Along the south-side of another building runs a broad street, which, from various articles of jewellery being found there, is called the Street of the Silversmiths. On the walls of the shops several inscriptions appear, one of which has been thus translated: “The Scribe Issus beseeches Marcus Cerrinius Vatia, the Ædile, to patronise him; he is deserving.”

Near to the small theatre, a large angular inclosure has been excavated, which has been called the Provision Market by some, by others the Soldiers’ Quarters. It contains a number of small chambers, supposed to have been occupied by butchers, and vendors of meats, liquors, &c. In one of these was discovered utensils for the manufacture of soap.

If we again fancy for a moment the furniture[142], implements, and utensils, which would be brought to light in our own houses and shops, supposing them to be overwhelmed, and thus laid open some centuries hence, we might conjecture that many of the same description must have belonged to those of a nation so civilised as the Romans; but still it is pleasing to ascertain, from a testimony that cannot deceive us, the evidence of the relics themselves, that they had scales very little different from our own; silver spoons, knives (but no forks), gridirons, spits, frying-pans, scissars, needles, instruments of surgery, syringes, saws, and many more, all made of fine brass; that they had hammers, and picks, and compasses, and iron crows, all of which were met with in a statuary’s shop; and that they had stamps which they used, as well for other purposes, as for impressing the name of its owner on bread before it was sent to the oven. Thus on a loaf, still preserved, is legible: _Siligo C. Glanii_:—This is Caius Glanius’ loaf.

Many of their seals were preserved in this manner; consisting of an oblong piece of metal, stamped with letters of the motto; instruments very similar to those used in England for marking linen. Thus possessed of types and of ink, how little were the Romans removed from the discovery of the art and advantages of printing!

At the end of one of the streets[143], was discovered a skeleton of a Pompeian, who, apparently for the sake of sixty coins, a small plate, and a saucepan of silver, had remained in the house till the street was already half filled with volcanic matter. From the situation in which he was found, he had apparently been arrested in the act of escaping from the window. Two others were also found in the same street.

Only sixty skeletons[144] have been discovered in all; it is, therefore, clear, that the greater part of the inhabitants had found time to escape. There were found in the vault of a house in the suburbs, the skeletons of seventeen individuals, who appear to have sought refuge there from the showers of ashes which poured from the sky. There was also preserved, in the same place[145], a sketch of a woman, supposed to have been the mistress of the house, with an infant locked in her arms. Her form was imprinted upon the work, which formed her sepulchre; but only the bones remained. To these a chain of gold was suspended; and rings, with jewels, were upon her fingers. The remains of a soldier, also, were found in a niche, where, in all probability, he was performing the office of sentinel. His hand still grasped a lance, and the usual military accoutrements were also found there.

In one of the baths[146], as we have before stated, was found the skeleton of a female, whose arms and neck were covered with jewels. In addition to gold bracelets, was a necklace; the workmanship of which is marvellous. Our most skilful jewellers could make nothing more elegant, or of a better taste. It has all the beautiful finish of the Moorish jewels of Granada, and of the same designs which are to be found in the dresses of the Moorish women, and of the Jewesses of Tetuan, on the coast of Africa.

It is generally supposed, that the destruction of this city was sudden and unexpected; and it is even recorded, that the people were surprised and overwhelmed at once by the volcanic storm, while in the theatre. (Dionys. of Hal.) But to this opinion many objections may be raised, amongst which this; that the number of skeletons in Pompeii does not amount to sixty; and ten times this number would be inconsiderable, when compared with the extent and population of the city.

The most perfect and most curious object, however, that has yet been discovered, is a villa at a little distance from the town. It consists of three courts; in the third and largest is a pond, and in the centre a small temple. There are numerous apartments of every description, paved in mosaic, coloured and adorned with various paintings on the walls; all in a very beautiful style. This villa is supposed to have belonged to Cicero.

“The ruins of Pompeii,” says Mr. Eustace, “possess a secret power, that captivates and melts the soul! In other times, and in other places, one single edifice, a temple, a theatre, a tomb, that had escaped the wreck of ages, would have enchanted us; nay, an arch, the remnant of a wall, even one solitary column, was beheld with veneration; but to discover a single ancient house, the abode of a Roman in his privacy, the scene of his domestic hours, was an object of fond, but hopeless longing. Here, not a temple, nor a theatre, nor a house, but a whole city rises before us, untouched, unaltered—the very same as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when inhabited by Romans. We range through the same streets; tread the very same pavement; behold the same walls; enter the same doors; and repose in the same apartments. We are surrounded by the same objects; and out of the same windows we contemplate the same scenery. In the midst of all this, not a voice is heard—not even the sound of a foot—to disturb the loneliness of the place, or to interrupt his reflections. All around is silence; not the silence of solitude and repose, but of death and devastation:—the silence of a great city without one single inhabitant:

‘Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.’

“Perhaps the whole world does not exhibit so awful a spectacle as Pompeii; and when it was first discovered, when skeletons were found heaped together in the streets and houses, when all the utensils, and even the very bread, of the poor suffocated inhabitants, were discernible, what a speculation must this ill-fated city have furnished to a thinking mind! To visit it even now, is absolutely to live with the ancient Romans; and when we see houses, shops, furniture, fountains, streets, carriages, and implements of husbandry, exactly similar to those of the present day, we are apt to conclude, that customs and manners have undergone but little alteration for the last two thousand years.”

“In walking through this city of the dead,” says Chateaubriand, “one idea has pursued me. As the labourers clear the different edifices, they remove whatever they discover,—household utensils, implements of divers trades, pieces of furniture, statues, MSS., &c., all of which are promiscuously carried to the Portici Museum. In my opinion, people might have employed their time better. Why not have left these things as they found them, and where they found them? Instead of their removal, they should have preserved them on the spot;—roofs, ceilings, floors, and windows, should have been carefully restored, in order to prevent the destruction of the walls and paintings. The ancient inclosure of the town should be rebuilt, the gates repaired, and a guard of soldiers stationed there, together with some individuals well versed in the arts. Would not this have been the most interesting museum in the world? A Roman town preserved quite entire, as if its inhabitants had issued forth but a quarter of an hour before!”

“I am filled with astonishment,” says Dupaty, “in walking from house to house, from temple to temple, from street to street, in a city built two thousand years ago, inhabited by the Romans, dug out by a king of Naples, and in perfect preservation. I speak of Pompeii.

“The inhabitants of this city were asleep, when suddenly an impetuous wind arose, and, detaching a portion of the cinders which covered the summit of Vesuvius, hurried them in whirlwinds through the air over Pompeii, and within a quarter of an hour entirely overwhelmed it, together with Herculaneum, Sorento, a multitude of towns and villages, thousands of men and women, and the elder Pliny. What a dreadful awakening for the inhabitants? Imprudent men! Why did you build Pompeii at the foot of Vesuvius, on its lava, and on its ashes? In fact, mankind resemble ants, which, after an accident has destroyed one of their hillocks, set about repairing it the next moment. Pompeii was covered with ashes. The descendants of those very men, who perished under those ashes, planted vineyards, mulberry, fig, and poplar trees on them; the roofs of this city were become fields and orchards. One day, while some peasants were digging, the spade penetrated a little deeper than usual; something was found to resist. It was a city. It was Pompeii. I entered several of the rooms, and found in one of them a mill, with which the soldiers ground their corn for bread; in another an oil-mill, in which they crushed the olives. The first resembles our coffee-mills; the second is formed of two mill-stones, which were moved by the hand, in a vast mortar, round an iron centre. In another of these rooms I saw chains still fastened to the leg of a criminal; in a second, heaps of human bones; and in a third, a golden necklace.

“What is become of all the inhabitants? We see nobody in the shops! not a creature in the streets! all the houses are open! Let us begin by visiting the houses on the right. This is not a private house; that prodigious number of chirurgical instruments prove this edifice must have had some relation to the art in which they are used. This was surely a school for surgery. These houses are very small; they are exceedingly ill contrived; all the apartments are detached; but then what neatness! what elegance! In each of them is an inner portico, a mosaic pavement, a square colonnade, and in the middle a cistern, to collect the water falling from the roof. In each of them are hot-baths, and stoves, and everywhere paintings in fresco, in the best taste, and on the most pleasing grounds. Has Raffaele been here to copy his arabesques?

“Let us pass over to the other side of the street. These houses are three stories high; their foundation is on the lava, which has formed here a sort of hill, on the declivity of which they are built. From above, in the third story, the windows look into the street; and from the first story, into a garden.

“But what do I perceive in that chamber. They are ten death’s-heads. The unfortunate wretches saved themselves here, where they could not be saved. This is the head of a little child: its father and mother then are there! Let us go up stairs again; the heart feels not at ease here. Suppose we take a step into this temple for a moment, since it is left open. What deity do I perceive in the bottom of that niche? It is the god of Silence, who makes a sign with his finger, to command silence, and points to the goddess Isis, in the further recess of the _sacrarium_.

“In the front of the porch there are three altars. Here the victims were slaughtered, and the blood, flowing along this gutter into the middle of that basin, fell from thence upon the head of the priests. This little chamber, near the altar, was undoubtedly the sacristy. The priests purified themselves in this bathing-place.

“Here are some inscriptions: ‘Popidi ambleati, Cornelia celsa.’ This is a monument erected to the memory of those who have been benefactors to Isis; that is to say, to her priests.

“I cannot be far from the country-house of Aufidius; for there are the gates of the city. Here is the tomb of the family of Diomedes. Let us rest a moment under these porticoes, where the philosophers used to sit.

“I am not mistaken. The country-house of Aufidius is charming; the paintings in fresco are delicious. What an excellent effect have those blue grounds! With what propriety, and consequently with what taste, are the figures distributed in the panels! Flora herself has woven that garland. But who has painted this Venus? this Adonis? this youthful Narcissus, in that bath? And here again, this charming Mercury? It is surely not a week since they were painted.

“I like this portico round the garden; and this square covered cellar round the portico. Do these amphoræ contain the true Falernian? How many consulates has this wine been kept?

“But it is late. It was about this time the play began. Let us go to the covered theatre: it is shut. Let us go to the uncovered theatre; that too is shut.

“I know not how far I have succeeded in this attempt to give you an idea of Pompeii.” Excellently[147].

NO. XX.—RAMA.

Rama is supposed to have been built with materials, furnished by the ruins of Lydda, three miles distant; and it is the spot in which our titular saint, St. George, is said to have suffered martyrdom; although, according to most authors, his remains repose in a magnificent temple at Lydda.

Notwithstanding the present desolate condition of Rama, it was, when the army of the Crusaders arrived, a magnificent city, filled with wealth, and abundance of all the luxuries of the East. It was exceedingly populous, adorned with stately buildings, and well fortified with walls and towers.

The Musselmans here reverence the tomb of Locman, the wise; also the sepulchres of seventy prophets, who are believed to have been buried here.

Rama is situated about thirty miles from Jerusalem, in the middle of an extensive and fertile plain, which is part of the great field of Sharon. “It makes,” says Dr. Clarke, “a considerable figure at a distance; but we found nothing within the place except traces of devastation and death. It exhibited one scene of ruin: houses, fallen or deserted, appeared on every side; and instead of inhabitants, we beheld only the skeletons or putrifying carcasses of horses and camels. A plague, or rather murrain, during the preceding year, had committed such ravages, that not only men, women, and children, but cattle of all kinds, and every thing that had life, became its victims. Few of the inhabitants of Europe can have been aware of the state of suffering, to which all the coast of Palestine and Syria was exposed. It followed, and in part accompanied, the dreadful ravages, caused by the march of the French army. From the accounts we received, it seemed as if the exterminating hand of Providence was exercised in sweeping from the earth every trace of ancient existence. ‘In Rama[148] there was a voice heard; lamentation and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and could not be comforted, because they were not.’”[149]

NO. XXI.—ROME.

To seek for Rome, vain stranger, art thou come,
And find’st no mark, within Rome’s walls, of Rome?
See here the craggy walls, the towers defaced,
And piles that frighten more than once they pleased:
See the vast theatres, a shapeless load,
And sights more tragic than they ever show’d.
This, this is Rome! Her haughty carcass spread
Still awes in ruin, and commands when dead.
The subject world first took from her their fate;
And when she only stood unconquer’d yet,
Herself she last subdued, to make the work complete.
But ah! so dear the fatal triumph cost,
That conquering Rome is in the conquer’d lost.
Yet rolling Tiber still maintains his stream,
Swell’d with the glories of the Roman name.
Strange power of fate! unshaken moles must waste;
While things that ever move, for ever last.—VITALIS.

As the plan of this work does not admit of our giving any thing like a history of the various trials and fortunes of Rome; we must confine ourselves, almost entirely, to a few particulars relative to its origin, summit of glory and empire, its decay, and ultimate ruin.

There is no unquestionable narrative of facts, on which any writer can build the primitive history of this vast city and empire; but in its place we have a mass of popular traditions and fabulous records. On the taking of Troy, Æneas, a prince of that city, quitted his native land, and after a long period, spent in encountering a variety of vicissitudes, he arrived on the coast of Italy, was received with hospitality by the King of Latium, whose name was Latinus, and afterwards obtained his throne, from the circumstance of having married his daughter.

Æneas after this built the city of Lavinium, and, thirty years after, his son founded that of Alba Longa, which then became the capital of Latium. Three hundred years after, Romulus founded Rome.

Though Livy has given a very circumstantial account of the origin of this city, sufficient data have been afforded, since his history was written, to justify our doubting many of his statements. The first author in modern times, that led Europe to these doubts, was, we believe, Dr. Taylor; who, in a work written about sixty years ago, entitled Elements of Civil Law, has the following passage:—“It was not peculiar to this people, to have the dawn of their history wrapped up in fable and mythology, or set in with something that looked like marvellous and preternatural. There is scarce a nation, that we are acquainted with, but has this foible in a greater or lesser degree, and almost pleads a right to be indulged in it. “Datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora faciat.” (Liv. I. Præf.) Indeed the Romans themselves had some suspicion of their own history. They generally dated their periods not AB U. C. but began their æra from their consuls, by whom they always reckoned. The records of Rome were burned at the irruption of the Gauls: they had nothing for it but tradition before that period. Nor was there an author extant of that age, or near it, at the time that Livy compiled his history. Diocles Peparethius (the father of Roman history, since Fabius Pictor, the first historian that Rome produced, and all his followers, copied him implicitly) was a writer of no very great credit. The birth and education of Romulus, is the exact counter-part of that of another founder of a great empire; and Romulus, I am satisfied, could not resemble more his brother Remus, than his brother Cyrus. The expedient of Tarquin’s conveying advice to his son, by striking off the heads of flowers, is given with the minutest difference, by Aristotle to Periander of Corinth, and by Herodotus to Thrasybulus. Which similarity is very ill accounted for by Camerarius. This was one of those ambulatory stories which (Plutarch in his Greek and Roman Parallels will furnish us with many such) seem confined to no one age, race, or country; but have been adopted in their turn, at several periods of time, and by several very different people, and are perhaps, at least some of them, true of none. And, lastly, one would imagine, that the history of the seven kings, which has such an air of romance in it, was made on purpose for Florus to be ingenious upon in his recapitulation of the regal state of Rome.”

The truth of this subject we leave to abler hands; proceeding at once to the manner in which the ceremonies are recorded to have been adopted at the first laying down the foundations of the city. Romulus, having sent for some of the Tuscans, to instruct him in the ceremonies that ought to be observed in laying the foundations, and they having instructed him according to his desire, his work began in the following manner:—First, he dug a trench, and threw into it the first-fruits of all things, either good by custom, or necessary by nature; and every man taking a small turf of earth of the country from which he came, they all cast them in promiscuously together. Making their trench their centre, they described the city in a circle round it. Then the founder fitted to a plough a brazen ploughshare; and yoking together a bull and a cow, drew a deep line or furrow round the bounds; those that followed after, taking care that the clods fell inwards towards the city. They built the wall upon this line, which they called Pomœrium, from pone mœnia. Though the phrase of Pomœrium proferre be commonly used in authors, to signify the enlarging of the city, it is, nevertheless, certain that the city might be enlarged without that ceremony. For Tacitus and Gellius declare no person to have had a right of extending the Pomœrium, but such a one as had taken away some part of an enemy’s country in war; whereby, it is manifest, that several great men, who never obtained the honour, increased the buildings with considerable additions. It is remarkable that the same ceremony with which the foundations of their cities were first laid, they used, too, in destroying and rasing places taken from the enemy; which we find was begun by the chief commander’s turning up some of the walls with a plough.

We do not, as we have before stated, propose to give even a slight history of this celebrated city. It is sufficient for our purpose to state, that it was first governed by kings, and then by consuls, up to the time when the Gauls took the city, under their commander Brennus. This was the first calamity that Rome experienced at the hands of an enemy; and this occurred in the three hundred and sixty-fifth year after its foundation.

The city of Veii had just surrendered to Camillus after a ten years’ siege, when the Gauls made an irruption into Italy, and had begun to besiege Clusium, a Tuscan city; at which time a deputation arrived at Rome with an entreaty from the Clusians, that the Romans would interfere in their behalf, through the medium of ambassadors. This request was immediately complied with; and three of the Fabii, persons of the highest rank, were despatched to the Gallic camp. The Gauls, out of respect to the name of Rome, received these ambassadors with all imaginable civility; but they could not be induced to raise the siege. Upon this, the ambassadors going into the town, and encouraging the Clusians to a sally, one of them was seen personally engaged in the action. This, being contrary to the generally received law of nations, was resented in so high a manner by the enemy, that, breaking up from before Clusium, their whole army marched directly against Rome. At about eleven miles from the city, they met with the Roman army, commanded by the military tribunes; who, engaging without any order or discipline, received an entire defeat. Upon the arrival of this ill news at Rome, the greatest part of the inhabitants immediately fled. Those that resolved to stay, however, fortified themselves in the Capitol. The Gauls soon appeared at the city gates; and, destroying all with fire and sword, carried on the siege of the Capitol with all imaginable fury. At last, resolving on a general assault, they were discovered by the cackling of geese; and as many as had climbed the ramparts were driven down by Manlius; when Camillus, setting upon them in the rear with twenty thousand men he had got together about the country, gave them a total overthrow.

The city, however, had been set on fire by the barbarians, and so entirely demolished, that, upon the return of the people, they resolved upon abandoning the ruins, and seeking a more eligible abode in the recently conquered city of Veii, a town already built and well provided with all things. But this being opposed by Camillus, they set to work with such extraordinary diligence, that the vacant space of the old city was quickly covered with new buildings, and the whole finished within the short space of one year. The Romans, however, on this occasion, were in too great a hurry to think of either order or regularity. The city was, therefore, rebuilt without any reference to order; no care being taken to form the streets in straight lines.

In this conflagration, all the public records were burned; but there is no reason to believe, that it was accompanied by any losses, which a lover of the arts should mourn for. As many writers have remarked, the Romans were not naturally a people of taste. They never excelled in the fine arts; and even their own writers invariably allow, that they were indebted for every thing that was elegant in the arts to the people of Greece[150].

It is possible that, during the three hundred and fifty years, which elapsed from the Gallic invasion till the reign of Augustus, many magnificent buildings may have been erected; but we have no evidence that such was the case; and the few facts, which we are enabled to glean from the pages of ancient writers, are scarcely favourable to the supposition. The commencement of the age of Roman luxury is generally dated from the year 146 B. C., when the fall of Carthage and of Corinth elevated the power of the republic to a conspicuous height. Yet, more than fifty years afterwards, no marble columns had been introduced into any public buildings; and the example of using them as decorations of private houses was set by the orator Crassus, in the beginning of the first century before the Christian era.

The architectural splendour of the city must be dated from the age of Augustus. “I found it of brick,” he was accustomed to say; “I shall leave it of marble.” Nor was he content with his own labours; at his instigation many private individuals contributed to the embellishment of the capital. The Pantheon, one of the noblest structures of Rome, and several others, were the works of his chief minister, Agrippa.

Tiberius and Caligula betrayed no wish to imitate their predecessor; but several works of utility and magnitude were completed under Claudius. Then came, however, the emperor Nero; with whose reign is associated that memorable conflagration, which malice attributed to the Christians, and which raged beyond all example of former ages. This fire left, of the fourteen regions into which Augustus had divided the city, only four parts untouched. It was, therefore, fatal to many of the most venerable fanes and trophies of the earlier ages. This conflagration lasted from six to nine days. In the time of Titus, too, another fire ravaged the city for three days and nights; and in that of Trajan, another conflagration consumed part of the Forum, and the Golden House of Nero; after which few remains of the ancient city were left; the rest being, to use the language of Tacitus, “scanty relics, lacerated and half-burned.”

The city, nevertheless, soon rose with fresh grandeur and beauty from its ashes. Trajan performed his part; and Hadrian followed with redoubled assiduity. They were followed by the Antonines; and so effective was the example they set, that most of the more opulent senators of Rome deemed it an honour, and almost an obligation, to contribute to the glory and external splendour of their native city. These monuments of architecture were adorned with the finest and most beautiful productions of sculpture and painting. Every quarter of Rome was filled with temples, theatres, amphitheatres, porticoes, triumphal arches, and aqueducts; with baths, and other buildings, conducive to the health and pleasure, not of the noble citizens only, but of the meanest.

The principal conquests of the Romans, were achieved under the republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the senators, and the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was for Augustus, to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce moderation into the public councils. He bequeathed a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries:—on the west the Atlantic ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and towards the south the deserts of Africa and Arabia.

The first exception to this policy was the conquest of Britain; the second the conquests of Trajan. It was, however, revived by Hadrian; nearly the first measure of whose reign was the resignation of all that emperor’s eastern conquests.

The Roman empire, in the time of the Antonines, was about two thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer. It extended, in length, more than three thousand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates; it was situated in the finest part of the temperate zone, between the twenty-fourth and fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and it was supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles, for the most part of fertile and well cultivated land.

Pius studied the defence of the empire rather than the enlargement of it—a line of policy, which rendered him more serviceable to the commonwealth than the greatest conqueror. Marcus and Lucius (Antonini) made the first division of the empire. At length it was put up to public sale and sold to the highest bidder. It was afterwards arrested in its ruin by Alexander Severus. The fortunes of the empire, after the progress of several successive tyrants, was again restored by the courage, conduct, and extraordinary virtues of Claudius the Second; to whom has been attributed, with every probability of truth, the courage of Trajan, the moderation of Augustus, and the piety of Antoninus.

Then followed Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus; and Rome felt redeemed from the ruin that awaited her: but Constantine laid the inevitable ground-work of its destruction, by removing the imperial throne to Byzantium. Rome became an easy prey to her barbarian enemies; by whom she was several times sacked, pillaged, and partially burned. The most powerful of these enemies was Alaric:—the people he had to conquer and take advantage of, are thus described by Ammianus Marcellinus:—“Their long robes of silk purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated, by art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the street with the same impetuous speed, as if they had travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered-carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman people. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the refreshments of the bath, they resume their rings, and the other ensigns of their dignity; select from their private wardrobe of the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen persons, the garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till their departure the same haughty demeanour, which, perhaps, might have been excused in the great Marcellus, after the conquest of Syracuse.

“Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous achievements; they visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by the toil of servile hands, the amusements of the chase. If at any time, but more especially on a hot day, they have courage to sail in their painted galleys, from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cajeta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Cæsar and Alexander. Yet, should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas; should a sun-beam penetrate through some unregarded and imperceptible chink they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness.”

Such was the character of the nobles of Rome at the period in which their city was taken possession of by Alaric. As soon as the barbarian had got possession of the Roman port, he summoned the city to surrender at discretion; and his demands were enforced by the positive declaration, that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the life of the Roman people depended. The clamours of that people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate. They listened without reluctance to the proposing of a new emperor on the throne of Honorius; and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, the præfect of the city. Attalus was created emperor by the Goths and Romans; he was, however, soon degraded by Alaric, and Rome subjected to a general sack. The conqueror no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder. The trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics. At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilised so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Scythia and Germany. A cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies, which, during the consternation, remained unburied. The despair of the inhabitants was sometimes converted into fury; and whenever the barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless. The private revenge of 40,000 slaves was exercised without pity or remorse; and the ignominious lashes, which they had formerly received, were washed away in the blood of the guilty, or obnoxious families. The matrons and virgins of Rome were exposed to injuries more dreadful, in the apprehension of chastity, than death itself.

When the portable riches had been seized, the palaces were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture; the sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the wagons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled, or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of the battle-axe. The sack lasted six days.

The edifices, too, of Rome received no small injury from the violence of the Goths; but those injuries appear to have been somewhat exaggerated. At their entrance they fired a multitude of houses; and the ruins of the palace of Sallust remained, in the age of Justinian, a stately monument of the Gothic conflagration. Procopius confines the fire to one peculiar quarter; but adds, that the Goths ravaged the whole city. Cassiodorus says, that many of the “wonders of Rome,” were burned; and Olympiodorus speaks of the infinite quantity of wealth, which Alaric carried away. We collect, also, how great the disaster was, when he tells us, that, on the retreat of the Goths, 14,000 returned in one day.

The injury done by Genseric (A. D. 455), is said to have been not so great as that, perpetrated by the Goths; yet most writers record that the Vandals and Moors emptied Rome of most of her wealth. They revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen days and nights; and all that yet remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, were transported to the vessels of Genseric. Among the spoils, the splendid relics of two temples, or rather of two religions, exhibited the remarkable example of the vicissitude of human things. Since the abolition of Paganism, the capital had been violated and abandoned; yet the statues of the gods and heroes were still respected, and the curious roof of gilt bronze was reserved for the rapacious hands of Genseric. The holy instruments of the Jewish worship had been ostentatiously displayed to the Roman people, in the triumph of Titus. They were afterwards deposited in the temple of Peace; and, at the end of four hundred years, the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred to Carthage, by a barbarian who derived his origin from the shores of the Baltic. It was difficult either to escape or to satisfy the avarice of a conqueror, who possessed leisure to collect, and ships to transport, the wealth of the capital. The imperial ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furniture and wardrobe, the sideboards of massy plate, were accumulated with disorderly rapine; the gold and silver amounted to several thousand talents; yet even the brass and copper were laboriously removed. The empress was rudely stripped of her jewels, and, with her two daughters, the only surviving remains of the great Theodosius, was compelled, as a captive, to follow the haughty Vandal; who immediately hoisted sail, and returned, with a prosperous navigation, to the port of Carthage. Many thousand Romans of both sexes, chosen for some useful or agreeable qualifications, reluctantly embarked on board the fleet of Genseric; and their distress was aggravated by the unfeeling barbarian, who, in the division of the booty, separated the wives from their husbands, and the children from their parents.

The consequences of this Vandal invasion, to the public and private buildings, are thus regarded by the same authority (Gibbon):—“The spectator, who casts a mournful view over the ruins of ancient Rome, is tempted to accuse the memory of the Goths and Vandals, for the mischief which they had neither the leisure, nor power, nor perhaps the inclination, to perpetrate. The tempests of war might strike some lofty turrets to the ground; but the destruction which undermined the foundations of those massy fabrics, was prosecuted, slowly and silently, during a period of ten centuries. The decay of the city had gradually impaired the value of the public works. The circus and theatres might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the desires of the people; the temples, which had escaped the zeal of the Christians, were no longer inhabited, either by gods or men; the diminished crowds of the Romans were lost in the immense space of their baths and porticoes; and the stately libraries and halls of justice became useless to an indolent generation, whose repose was seldom disturbed, either by study or business. The monuments of consular or imperial greatness were no longer revered as the immortal glory of the capital; they were only esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper and more convenient than the distant quarry. Specious petitions were addressed to the easy magistrates of Rome, which stated the want of bricks or stones for some necessary service; the fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced for the sake of some paltry or pretended repairs; and the degenerate Romans, who converted the spoil to their own emolument, demolished, with sacrilegious hands, the labours of their ancestors.”