Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/763

 ROMA. the partner and rival of Constant ine, resided at Rome during the sis years of his reign, and affected to prize the elegance of the ancient metropolis ; whilst his lust and tyranny, supported by squander- ing its treasures, created more disgust among the Romans than the absence of their former sovereigns. Maxentius, however, adorned the city which he pol- luted by his vices, and some of his works are among the last monuments worthy to be recorded. He restored the temple of Venus and Rome, which had been damaged by a tire, and erected that magnificent basilica, afterwards dedicated in the name of Con- stantine, whose three enormous arches may still be viewed with admiration. (Aur. Vict. Caes. c. 40. § 26.) The final transfer of the seat sf empire to IJyzantium by Constantine gave the last fatal blow to the civic greatness of Rome. Yet even that emperor presented the city — we can hardly say adorned it — with a few monuments. One of them, the arch which records his triumph over Jlaxen- tius, still subsists, and strikingly illustrates the depth of degradation to which architectural taste Jiad already sunk. Its beauties are derived from the barbarous pillage of former monuments. The superb sculptures which illustrated the acts and victories of Trajan, were ruthlessly and absurdly constrained to typify those of Constantine ; whilst the original sculptures that were added, by being placed in juxtaposition with those beautiful works, only sen-e to show more forcibly the hopeless decline of the plastic arts, which seem to have fallen with paganism. Rome in the Time of Cotistantius II, — From this period the care of the Romans was directed rather towards the preservation than the adorn- ment of their city. When visited by the Second Con- stantius, a. d. 357, an honour which it had not received for two and thirty years, Rome could still display her ancient glories. The lively description of this visit by Ammianus Marcellinus, though written in a somewhat inflated style, forms a sort of pendant to Strabo's picture of Rome in the age of Augustus, and is striking and valuable, both as exhibiting the condition of the eternal city at that period, and as illustrating the fact that the men of that age regarded its monuments as a kind of Titanic lelics, which it would be hopeless any longer to tiiink of imitating. " Having entered Rome," says the historian, " the seat of empire and of every virtue, Consfantius was overwhelmed with astonishment when he viewed the forum, that most conspicuous monument of ancient power. On whatever side he cast his eyes, he was struck with the thronging wonders. He addressed the senate in the Curia, the people from the tribunal; and was delighted with tiie applause which accompanied his progress to the palace. At the Circensian games which he gave, he was plea.sed with the familiar talk of the people, who, without betraying pride, asserted their here- ditary liberty. He himself observed a proper mean, and did not, as in other cities, arbitrarily terminate the contests, but, as is customary at Rome, permitted them to end as chance directed. When he viewed the different parts of the city, situated on the sides of the seven hills and in the valleys between them, he expected that whatever he first saw must be superior to everything else: such as the temple of the Tarpeian Jove, whose excellence is like divine to human; the baths which occupy whole districts; the enormous mass of the amphitheatre, built of .solid Tiburtine stone, the height of which almost baffles ROMA. 743 the eye; the Pantheon, which may be called a circular Region, vaulted with lofty beauty; the high, but accessible mounds, bearing the statues of precedine princes; the temple of Rome, the forum of Peace; the theatre of Pompey, the odeum, the stadium, and other similar ornaments of the eternal city. But when he came to the forum of Trajan, which we take to be a structure unparalleled in the whole world, he was confounded with astonishment as he surveyed those gigantic proportions, which can neither be described nor again imitated by man. Wherefore, laying aside all hope of attempting any- thing of the kind, he merely expressed the power and the wish to imitate the horse of Trajan, on which that prince is seated, and which stands in the middle of the Atrium. Hereupon prince HonnLsda, who stood near him, exclaimed with national gesti- culation: 'First of all, emperor, order such a stable to be made for it, if you can, that the horse you propose making may lodge as magnificently as the one we behold.' The same prince being asked his opinion of Rome said that the only thing which displeased him was to perceive that men diud there as well as in other places. So great was the em- peror's surprise at all these sights that he complained that rumour, which commonly magnifies everything, had here shown it.self weak and malignant, and had given but a feeble description of tlie wonders of Rome. Then, after much deliberation, he resolved that the only way in which he could add to the ornaments of the city would be by erecting an obelisk in the Circus Maximus" (xvi. 10). The same historian from whom the preceding topographical picture has been transcribed has also left some lively and interesting notices of the man- ners of the Romans at this period. These have been paraphrased in the eloquent language of Gibbon, to whose work the reader is referred for many inte- resting particulars concerning the state of Rome at this time (vol. iv. pp. 70 — 89, ed. Smith). We may here observe with surprise that whilst Alaric, like another Hannibal, was threatening her gates, her nobles were revelling in immoderate wealth, and squandering the revenues of provinces on objects of pomp and luxury, though, as we have seen, the arts had fallen to so low an ebb tl'.at there was no longer any hope of rivalling the works of their ancestors. The poorer citizens, few of whom could any longer boast a pure Roman descent, resembled the inmates of a poorhouse, except that their pleasures were provided for as well as their wants. A liberal dis- tribution of com and bacon, and sometimes even of wine, relieved their necessities, whilst health and recreation were promoted by gratuitous ndmitlunce to the baths and public spectacles. Yet Rome was now struggling for her existence. We have already mentioned the restoration of the walls by Ilonorius. It was under the same cmjicror that the first example occurs of that desecration by which the Romans stripped and destroyed their own ntcmu- ments. If we may credit Zosimus (v. 38), Stilicho was the first to lay violent bands on the temple of the Capitoline Jove, by stripping off the j)lates of gold which lined its doors, when the follow- ing inscription was found beneath them: " Misero ren-i servantur." In alter times this example was but too frequently followed; and it may be said with truth that the Romans themselves were the principal destroyers of their own city. The Barbarians at Rome. — After two sieges, or rather blockades, in 408 and 409, bv the Goths 3'b 4