place. Next, fancy a row of our ordinary-sized houses built around this, another row behind them, and so on, till the arena is surrounded by the thickness of four houses, or a hundred and seventy feet. Pile upon these three more quadruple tiers of houses till they reach the height of a hundred and sixty feet; slope down the inside of this huge mass of masonry towards the arena, like the crater of a volcano, and arrange on it ascending rows of seats; pierce its interior with galleries, arcades, vaulted passages, and wide flights of stairs, in which a stranger might easily be lost; convert each tier of houses into one gigantic story, each entered and lighted by eighty arched openings, divided by columns and pilasters; change the whole material into immense blocks of travertine, and you will then have some faint notion of the size and appearance of this wonder of the world. For centuries it was the quarry from which Popes, Nobles, and Plebeians took and stole materials for their palaces and houses. The Farnese, the Barberini, and the Cancelleria palaces, three of the finest in Rome were thus constructed. The siege of Robert Guiscard destroyed other portions, and two-thirds of the whole original building are thought to have thus disappeared; what then must it have been in its perfection, since such are its ruins! Even in the eighth century, so perfect was it that the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims, identifying it with the seven-hilled Queen of the world, uttered the famous prophecy recorded by the venerable Bede: "While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; The later Popes seem to have felt that their own fate was intimately connected with the edifice, and they have carefully and judiciously preserved and repaired its tottering walls, and sanctified it from future robberies by consecrating it to the memory of the crowds of Christian martyrs who have perished in the arena. Every kiss of the cross in its centre ensures the penitent faithful an Indulgence from the pains of purgatory of a year and two hundred days; and around the circuit are erected fourteen little chapels, containing pictures of the "stations" of the progress of Christ from his prison to Calvary, before each of which a prayer is to be said. The Pontiffs did not consider that this tasteless obtrusion, on such a scene, of the symbols of the present religion of the city, might sometimes lead the spectator to contrast the modern Romans with their ancestors, and perhaps to attribute part of their present degradation to the influence of the superstitions which are here so palpably thrust upon him. Although the crimes and cruelties of the ancient Romans made their fall merited, yet their grandeur half excuses their enormity. Even now, standing on the topmost arch of the amphitheatre, I could almost fancy the circles of marble seats once more rising in rows above rows, and crowded by ninety thousand of the " fierce democracy" of Rome (who were always equally clamorous for "bread" and for "games"), shielded from sun and rain by the awnings, of which the supports yet remain; while in the front seats were the proud Patricians, arrayed in the glories of conquered kingdoms, and before them sat the Emperor, the Senators and the Vestal Virgins-all intently gazing on the fierce struggles of the wild beasts, brought from the farthest extremities of the earth, to delight the even wilder passions of this haughty people, who had five thousand such slain at the dedication of the edifice-or gloating on the murderous contests of the gladiators, who, when at last overcome, might look in vain over the vast assemblage for a single pitying glance, but see only the upturned thumbs, which silently ordered them to be put to death-or exulting in the ferocity with which their pet lions tore limb from limb the Christian martyrs, men and maidens, sacrificed to the Roman thirst for blood. But a thousand years have purified the arena, and looking with the eyes of reality in the place of those of fancy, I saw only a procession of veiled nuns, with slow steps, pass unmolested through the arena, each in turn stopping at the cross in the centre, to say a prayer for the souls of the martyred, and to give the kiss which secured the promised "Indulgence." The warmest admirer of antiquity must confess that the change is much for the better, and he may even be reconciled to see painted on the outer wall the unromantic characters, “R. X. 1208," which indicate that the great Coliseum is "House known in the registers of modern Rome only as No. 1208 of the 10th Ward." If it were in America, it might receive even a worse desecration, for when a New Yorker, now in Rome, a gentleman of high distinction as a statesman and a scholar, first entered its arena, he exclaimed in ecstacy, as a flood of political recollections rushed over his mind, "Good heavens ! What a glorious place for a MASS MEETING!" 36 III. THE CAPITOL. AT the eastern extremity of the Corso, and overlooking the Forum, rises the Capitoline Hill. You ascend it by a noble flight of steps, which nothing less than a triumphal procession ought ever to mount. On each side of their top Castor and Pollux stand on guard beside their marble horses. In front you see the Piazza* of the modern Capitol, enclosed on three sides by as many palaces, designed by Michael Angelo, and displaying in its centre the famous equestrian statue, in bronze, of Marcus Aurelius, unequalled even yet by any modern work. Michael Angelo thought the horse so life-like that he once exclaimed to it "Go!" It is under the charge of an especial officer, and when Rienzi was made Tribune, wine ran from one nostril and water from the other. The "Palace of the Senator," at the farther end of the square, is surmounted by a tower, whence you get the * The word Piazza, which properly means a Place or Square, we strangely misapply to a Portico, or Colonnade. |