Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/137

Rh themselves about any conformity with what had gone before. Cicero and Augustus are said to have had here quite simple houses, and it is said also that a great number of insignificant dwellings were interspersed amongst the magnificent temples and palaces. In the mean time it is known that here it was, and also between the heights of the Capitol, the Esquinal and Aventine hills, that the highest splendor of imperial Rome, in its palaces and temples, was to be met with. It was here that formerly was found, and still is to be found—although as shadows of their ancient splendors—the Baths of Livia; here were the gardens of Adonis, laid out in the luxurious taste of the East. It was at the foot of the Palatine hill that Nero's golden house was situate, with its three thousand columns, and a world of plundered treasure. Of all these palaces nothing now remains but some walls and heaps of rubbish. Here and there only may be distinguished the form of a rotunda, a tower, an arched passage, a gate, or a room; and here and there also a piece of bas-relief. Bushes of laurel, rosemary, and a species of oak, garland these shapeless masses, and constitute the only beauty which now belongs to them.

A large cabbage-garden occupies the height of Monte Palatino, and cabbage grows excellently in the old classical soil. The cabbage garden seems to me, in this situation, properly symbolic; because the last of the great Roman Emperors, Diocletian, laid aside his crown to be at rest, and “plant cabbage.” Nevertheless, he was not able to eat his cabbage in peace, but was obliged to purchase his imperial elevation by