CHAPTER XII.-ITALY.

ROME, although visited for a thousand years by various calamities, is still the most majestic of cities. The charm of beauty and dignity still lingers around the ruins of ancient, as well as the splendid structures of modern Rome, and brilliant recollections of past ages are connected with the monuments which meet the passing traveller at every step. The characteristics of ancient and modern times are nowhere so distinctly contrasted as within the walls of Rome.

Ancient Rome was built upon several hills, which are now scarcely discoverable, on account of the vast quantities of rubbish with which the valleys are filled. The eastern bank of the Tiber was so low as to subject the city to inundations. The extent and population were very different at different times. We speak here of the most flourishing period. Vopiscus, in his life of Aurelian, relates that the circumference of the city, after its last enlargement by that emperor, was 50,000 paces, for which we must probably read 15,000, as Pliny estimates the circumference, just before the reign of Aurelian, at 13,000 paces, and the accounts of modern travellers agree with this statement. The inhabitants at that time may have amounted to about 300,000. The number of inhabitants enjoying the rights of citizenship was never more than 30,000. Romulus surrounded the city with a wall, or rather with an earthern mound. Of the four gates which he built-the Porta Carmentalis, the Pandana or the Saturnia, the Roman gate, and the Mugionia-the Carmentalis alone remains. The wall ran from Mount Palatine, at the foot of Mount Aventine, to the Tiber; one part of it then extended between the Tiber and the Capitoline hill, and on the other side separated the Palatine from the Cœlian, Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal hills, and finally terminated at the capitol.

The second, or the Servian wall, was much more extensive, and embraced all the abovementioned hills on the southern and eastern sides; ran round under Mount Aventine to the Tiber; thence passed to the west side of the river, where, being continued in the form of a triangle, as far as the summit of Janiculum, it separated this from the other hills; and then, proceeding to the southern end of the island of the Tiber in a direct course, embraced the whole body of the buildings beyond the river. On the north side of the city, the old walls of Romulus were mostly preserved; but the old wall terminated at the summit of Quirinalis, while the Servian extended to its eastermost extremity, and then ran round the other hills toward the east. The Pincian hill, Campus Martius, and the Vatican hill, therefore, lay entirely outside of it. The third, or Aurelian wall, likewise included all these parts. It ran from the northeastern extremity of Quirinalis, northwardly; embraced the Campus Martius, which it separated from the Pincian hill; extended beyond the latter to the river; enclosed, beyond the river, the Vatican, in a large bend; and then joined the old wall, which reached to the summit of Janiculum; so that the island of the Tiber was now contained within the limits of the city. In so large a circuit, the number of gates must have been considerable. Pliny enumerates thirty-seven, of which several yet remain, but under different names.

Ancient Rome had several bridges, of which some are still passable. The lowest and oldest bridge was the Pons Sublicius, which led from Mount Aventine into the valley below Janiculum, and is no longer standing. The second led from the forum to Janiculum, and was called Pons Senatorius, because the solemn procession of the senate passed over it, when the Sybilline books were to be carried from Janiculum. It was the first stone bridge in Rome, and still exists in ruins, under the name of Mary's bridge (Ponte Rotto). Two bridges led to the island in the Tiber, one from the east, and the other from the west side; the former was called Pons Fabricius (now Ponte di Quattro Capi) and the latter Pons Cestius (now Bartholomew's bridge). A fourth bridge, Pons Janiculensis (now Ponte Sisto), led from the Campus Martius, near the theatre of Marcellus, to Janiculum. The ruins of the fifth, Pons Vaticanus, or Triumphalis, may be seen near the hospital St. Spirito, and led from the Campus Martius to the Vatican. The Elian bridge (Pons Ælius, now the beautiful bridge of St. Angelo) led to the Moles Adriani. Beyond the wall, and above the

Pincian hill, was the seventh bridge, Pons Milvius (now Ponte Molle), built by Æmilius Scaurus, after the time of Sylla.

The streets of Rome, even after the city was rebuilt under Nero, were very irreg. ular. The public squares, of which there were a great number, were distinguished into areæ, squares in front of the palaces and temples; campi, open places, covered with grass, which served for popular assemblies, public processions for the exercise of the youth in arms, and for the burning of the dead bodies; and fora, which were paved, and served either for the assembling of the people for the transaction of public affairs, or for the sale of goods, or for ornament. The earliest division of Rome was made by Servius Tullius; he divided it into four quarters, which he called Tribus Urbanæ; they were the Tribus Suburbana, Collina, Esquilina, and Palatina. This division continued till the reign of Augustus, who divided the city into fourteen regions, according to which ancient Rome is generally described: 1st, Porta Capena ; 2d, Cœli Montium; 3d, Isis et Serapis, or Moneta; 4th, Via Sacra, afterward Templum Pacis; 5th Esquilina cum colle et turri Viminali; 6th, Alta Semita; 7th, Via Lata; 8th, Forum Romanum; 9th, Circus Flaminius; 10th, Palatium; 11th, Circus Maximus; 12th, Piscina Publica; 13th, Aventinus; 14th, Trans Tiberim. The temples, theatres, amphitheatres, circuses, naumachiæ, porticoes, basilicæ, baths, gardens, triumphal arches, columns, sewers, aqueducts, sepulchres, &c., are the principal public buildings and monuments.

The Colosseum forms a very extraordinary monument of the barbaric splendor which characterized ancient Rome. It was commenced by Vespasian, and completed by Titus (A. D. 79). This enormous building occupied only three years in its erection. Cassiodorus affirms that this magnificent monument of folly cost as much as would have been required for the building of a capital city. We have the means of distinctly ascertaining its dimensions and its accommodations from the great mass of wall that still remains entire; and although the very clamps of iron and brass that held together the ponderous stones of that wonderful edifice, were removed by Gothic plunderers, and succeeding generations have resorted to it as to a quarry for their temples and their palaces, yet the "enormous skeleton" still stands, to mark its original gigantic character.

The Colosseum, which is of an oval form, occupies the space of nearly six acres. "It may justly be said to have been the most imposing building, from its apparent magnitude, in the world; the pyramids of Egypt can only be compared with it in the extent of their plan, as they cover nearly the same surface." The greatest length is six hundred and twenty feet; the greatest breadth, five hundred and thirteen feet. The outer wall is one hundred and fifty-seven feet high, in its whole extent. The exterior wall is divided into four stories, each ornamented with one of the orders of architecture. The cornice of the upper story is perforated, for the purpose of inserting wooden masts, which passed also through the architrave and frieze, and descended to a row of corbels immediately above the upper range of windows, on which are holes to receive the masts. These masts were for the purpose of attaching cords to, for sustaining the awning which defended the spectators from the sun or rain. Two corridors ran all round the building, leading to staircases which ascended to the several stories; and the seats which descended toward the arena, supported throughout upon eighty arches, occupied so much of the space that the clear opening of the present inner wall, next the arena, is only two hundred and eightyseven feet by one hundred and eighty feet. Immediately above and around the arena was the podium, elevated about twelve or fifteen feet, on which were seated the emperor, senators, ambassadors of foreign nations, and other distinguished personages in that city of distinctions. From the podium to the top of the second story were seats of marble for the equestrian order; above the second story, the seats appear to have been constructed of wood.

The order and arrangement of the seats are still visible, and nothing can be more admirably contrived than the vomitories for facilitating the ingress and egress of all classes to and from their respective seats without disorder or confusion. There was, it is thought, an upper gallery for the multitude, of which there are now no remains. It must, indeed, when filled, have offered a most imposing spectacle. The very lowest computation allows that it would contain eighty thousand spectators.

Such is the last and noblest monument of Roman grandeur and of Roman crime,

the scene of the greatest magnificence, and of the greatest barbarity, which the world ever saw-the stupendous fabric

"Which on its public shows unpeopled Rome,

And held uncrowded nations in its womb."

"Never," says an eloquent observer, "did human art present to the eye a fabric so well calculated, from its size and form, to surprise and delight. Let the spectator first place himself to the north, and contemplate that side which depredation, barbarism, and ages, have spared: he will behold with admiration its wonderful extent, well-proportioned stories, and flying lines, that retire and vanish without break or interruption. Next, let him turn to the south, and examine those stupendous arches which, stripped as they are of their external decorations, still astonish us by their solidity and duration. Then let him enter, range through the lofty arcades, and, ascending the vaulted seats, consider the vast mass of ruin that surrounds him-insulated walls, immense stones suspended in the air, arches covered with weeds and shrubs, vaults opening upon other ruins; in short, above, below, and around, one vast collection of magnificence and devastation, of grandeur and decay."

Gibbon, the historian, has given a splendid description, in his twelfth book, of the exhibitions of the Colosseum; but he acknowledges his obligations to Montaigne, who, says the historian, "gives a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these spectacles." Our readers will, we doubt not, be gratified by the quaint, but most appropriate sketch of the old philosopher of France:

"It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order, and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people; the next day to cause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred bears, to be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three hundred pair of fencers to fight it out to the last, as the emperor Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments; all the sides of this vast space filled and environed from the bottom to the top, with three or four score ranks of seats, all of marble also, and covered with cushions, where a hundred thousand men might sit placed at their ease; and the place below, where the plays were played, to make it by art first open and cleft into chinks, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed with a profound sea, full of sea-monsters, and loaded with ships-of-war, to represent a naval battle; and thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combats of the gladiators; and for the fourth scene, to have it strewed with vermilion and storax, instead of sand, there to make a solemn feast for all that infinite number of people-the last act of one only day.

"Sometimes they have made a high mountain advance itself, full of fruit-trees and other flourishing sorts of woods, sending down rivulets of water from the top, as from the mouth of a fountain; other whiles, a great ship was seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and, after having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor of this place, they made spouts of perfumed waters dart their streams upward, and so high as to besprinkle all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and by-and-by with silk of another color, which they could draw off or on in a moment, as they had a mind. The network, also, that was set before the people to defend them from the violence of these turned-out beasts, was also woven of gold."

"If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these," continues Montaigne, "it is where the novelty and invention create more wonder than expense." Fortunately for the real enjoyments of mankind, even under the sway of a Roman despot, "the novelty and invention" had very narrow limits when applied to matters so utterly unworthy and unintellectual as the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. Probus, indeed, transplanted trees to the arena, so that it had the appearance of a verdant grove; and Severus introduced four hundred ferocious animals in one ship sailing in the little lake which the arena formed. But on ordinary occasions, profusion-taste