Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/369

Rh itself scarcely strikes one more than the vastness of these baths which occupy an area of 1,40,000 yards! The Romans came here not for bathing only, but to see races and sports which were held here, to see the training of gladiators, to meet their friends and acquaintances, and to pass their time among crowds of people come for the same purpose. The entire population of Rome turned out here and lounged about the walks and racecourses, or the ornamented walls and fine marble statues of these buildings, and regarded it as a place of public amusement. Some of the finest specimens of ancient sculpture preserved in museums have been found in this place.

In the opposite corner of the city are the Baths of Diocletian, a part of which has been formed into the church of San Maria Degli Angeli, and thus saved from the spoliation to which every other ancient building has been subjected. The superb granite pillars of the church, each consisting of a single block, 43 feet in height, still remain as they stood in the days of Diocletian. The conversion of a part of the baths into a church was the work of Michael Angelo.

The other most important ruins of Ancient Rome are the Pantheon, and the columns of Trajan and of Antonine. The Pantheon was built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, and is therefore eighteen hundred years old. The portico has sixteen magnificent Corinthian columns, with bases and capitals of white marble and with shafts