"This was the fate, also, of Trajan's forum, until some papal antiquary, a few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the whole height of the gigantic column, wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the old emperor's warlike deeds (rich sculpture, which, twining from the base to the capital, must be an ugly spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied shaft must be laid before the judgment seat, as a piece of the evidence of what he did in the flesh). In the area before the column stands a grove of stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow space whence these pillars rise.

"One of the immense gray granite shafts lies in the piazza, on the verge of the area. It is a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome actually visible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force of thought, nor magic of song, can so vitally assure us that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people wrought. There is still a polish remaining on the hard substance of the pillar, the polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._

On the north of this forum are two churches: that nearest to the Corso is _Sta. Maria di Loreto_ (founded by the corporation of bakers in 1500), with a dome surmounted by a picturesque lantern by Giuliano di Sangallo, c. 1506. It contains a statue of Sta. Susanna (_not_ the Susanna of the Elders) by _Fiammingo_ (Francois de Quesnoy), which is justly considered the chef-d'uvre of the Bernini School. The companion church is called _Sta. Maria di Vienna_, and (like Sta. Maria della Vittoria) commemorates the liberation of Vienna from the Turks in 1683, by Sobieski, king of Poland. It was built by Innocent XI.

Leaving the forum at the opposite corner by the Via Alessandrina, and passing under the high wall of the Convent of the Nunziatina, a street, opening on the left, discloses several beautiful pillars, which, after having borne various names, are now declared to be the remains of the _Temple of Mars Ultor_, built by Augustus in his new forum, which was erected in order to provide accommodation for the crowds which overflowed the Forum Romanum and Forum Julium.

"The title of Ultor marked the war and the victory by which, agreeably to his vow, Augustus had avenged his uncle's death.

"'Mars ades, et satia scelerato sanguine ferrum; Stetque favor causa pro meliore tuus.

Templa feres, et, me victore, vocaberis Ultor.'[51]

The porticoes, which extended on each side of the temple with a gentle curve, contained statues of distinguished Roman generals.

The banquets of the Salii were transferred to this temple, a circumstance which led to its identification, from the discovery of an inscription here recording the _mansiones_ of these priests.

Like the priesthood in general, they appear to have been fond of good living, and there is a well-known anecdote of the Emperor Claudius having been lured by the steams of their banquet from his judicial functions in the adjacent forum, to come and take part in their feast. The temple was appropriated to meetings of the senate in which matters connected with wars and triumphs were debated....

Here while Tiberius was building a temple to Augustus upon the Palatine, his golden statue reposed upon a couch."--_Dyer's City of Rome._

"Up to the time of Augustus, the god Mars, the reputed father of the Roman race, had never, it is said, enjoyed the distinction of a temple within the walls. He was then introduced into the city which he had saved from overthrow and ruin; and the aid he had lent in bringing the murderers of Caesar to justice, was signalised by the title of Avenger, by which he was now specially addressed.... The temple of Mars Ultor, of gigantic proportions, 'Et deus est ingens et opus,' was erected in the new forum of Augustus at the foot of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills."--_Merivale, Romans under the Empire._

"Ce temple etait particulierement cher a Auguste. Il voulut que les magistrats en partissent pour aller dans leurs provinces; que l'honneur du triomphe y fut decerne, et que les triomphateurs y fissent hommage a Mars Vengeur de leur couronne et de leur sceptre; que les drapeaux pris a l'ennemi y fussent conserves; que les chefs de la cavalerie executassent des jeux en avant des marches de ce temple; enfin que les censeurs, en sortant de leur charge, y plantassent le clou sacre, vieil usage etrusque jusque-la attache au Capitole. Auguste desirait que ce temple fonde par lui prit l'importance du Capitole.

"Il fit dedier le temple par ses petit-fils Caius et Lucius; et son autre petit-fils, Agrippa, a la tete des plus nobles enfants de Rome, y celebra le jeu de Troie, qui rappelait l'origine pretendue troyenne de Cesar; deux cent soixante lions furent egorges dans la cirque, c'etait leur place; deux troupes de gladiateurs combattirent dans les Septa ou se faisaient les elections au temps de la republique, comme si Auguste eut voulu, par ces combats qui se livraient en l'honneur des morts, celebrer les funerailles de la liberte romaine."--_Ampere, Emp._ i. 224.

The temple of Mars stands at the north-eastern corner of the magnificent _Forum of Augustus_, which extended from here as far as the present Via Alessandrina, surpassing in size the forum of Julius Caesar, to which it was adjoining. It was of sufficient size to be frequently used for fights of animals (venationes). Among its ornaments were statues of Augustus triumphant and of the subdued provinces--with inscriptions illustrative of the great deeds he had accomplished there; also a picture by Apelles representing War with her hands bound behind her, seated upon a pile of arms. Part of the boundary wall exists, enclosing on two sides the remains of the temple of Mars Ultor, and is constructed of huge masses of peperino. The arch, in the wall close to the temple, is known as Arco dei Pantani. The sudden turn in the wall here is interesting as commemorating a concession made to the wish of some proprietors, who were unwilling to part with their houses for the sake of the forum.

"C'est l'histoire du moulin de Sans-Souci, qui du reste parait n'etre pas vraie.

"Il est piquant d'assister aujourd'hui a ce menagement d'Auguste pour l'opinion qu'il voulait gagner. Envoyant le mur s'inflechir parce-qu'il a fallu epargner quelques maisons, on croit voir la toute-puissance d'Auguste gauchir a dessein devant les interets particuliers, seule puissance avec laquelle il reste a compter quand tout interet general a disparu. L'obliquite de la politique d'Auguste est visible dans l'obliquite de ce mur, qui montre et rend pour ainsi dire palpable le manege adroit de la tyrannie, se deguisant pour se fonder. Le mur biaise, comme biaisa constamment l'empereur."--_Ampere, Emp._ i. 233.

(The street on the left--passing the Arco dei Pantani--the Via della Salita del Grillo, commemorates the approach to the castle of the great mediaeval family Del Grillo; the street on the right leads through the ancient Suburra.)

At the corner of the next street (Via della Croce Bianca)--on the left of the Via Alessandrina--is the ruin called the "Colonnace," being part of the _Portico of Pallas Minerva_, which decorated the _Forum Transitorium_, begun by Domitian, but dedicated in the short reign of Nerva, and hence generally called the _Forum of Nerva_, on account of the execration with which the memory of Domitian was regarded. Up to the seventeenth century seven magnificent columns of the temple of Minerva were still standing, but they were destroyed by Paul V., who used part of them in building the Fontana Paolina. The existing remains consist of two half-buried Corinthian columns with a figure of Minerva, and a frieze of bas-reliefs.

"Les bas-reliefs du forum de Nerva representent des femmes occupees des travaux d'aiguille, auxquels presidait Minerve. Quand on se rappelle, que Domitien avait place a Albano, pres du temple de cette deesse, un college de pretres qui imitaient la parure et les murs de femmes, on est tente de croire qu'il y a dans le choix des subjets figures ici une allusion aux habitudes effeminees de ces pretres."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 161.

"The portico of the temple of Minerva is most rich and beautiful in architecture, but woefully gnawed by time, and shattered by violence, besides being buried midway in the accumulation of the soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood-tide. Within this edifice of antique sanctity a baker's shop is now established, with an entrance on one side; for everywhere, the remnants of old grandeur and divinity have been made available for the meanest neccessities of to-day."--_Hawthorne._

It was in this forum that Nerva caused Vetronius Turinus, who had trafficked with his court interest, to be suffocated with smoke, a herald proclaiming at the time, "Fumo punitur qui vendidit fumum."

Returning a short distance down the Via Alessandrina, and turning (left) down the Via Bonella, we traverse the site of the _Forum of Julius Caesar_, upon which 4000 sestertia (800,000 _l._) were expended, and which is described by Dion-Cassius as having been more beautiful than the Forum Romanum. It was ornamented with a Temple of Venus Genetrix--from whom Julius Caesar claimed to be descended--which contained a statue of the goddess by Archesilaus, a statue of Caesar himself, and a group of Ajax and Medea by Timomacus. Here, also, Caesar had the effrontery to place the statue of his mistress, Cleopatra, by the side of that of the goddess. In front of the temple stood a bronze figure of a horse--supposed to be the famous Bucephalus--the work of Lysippus.

"Cedat equus Latiae qui, contra templa Diones, Caesarei stat sede Fori. Quem tradere es ausus Pellaeo Lysippa Duci, mox Caesaris ora Aurata cervice tulit."

_Statius, Silv._ i. 84.

The only visible remains of this forum are some courses of huge square blocks of stone (Lapis Gabinus), in a dirty court.

Part of the site of the forum of Julius Caesar is now occupied--on the right near the end of the Via Bonella--by the _Accademia di San Luca_, founded in 1595, Federigo Zuccaro being its first director. The collections are open from 9 to 5 daily. A ceiling representing Bacchus and Ariadne, is by _Guido_. The best pictures are:--

Bacchus and Ariadne: _Poussin_.

Vanity: _Paul Veronese_.

Calista and the Nymphs: _Titian_.

The murder of Lucretia: _Guido Cagnacci_.

Fortune: _Guido_.

Innocent XI.: _Velasquez_.

The Saviour and the Pharisee: _Titian_.

A lovely fresco of a child: _Raphael_.

St. Luke painting the Virgin: _Attributed to Raphael_.

"St. Luke painting the Virgin has been a frequent and favourite subject. The most famous of all is a picture in the Academy of St.

Luke, ascribed to Raphael. Here St. Luke, kneeling on a footstool before an easel, is busied painting the Virgin with the Child in her arms, who appears to him out of heaven, sustained by clouds; behind St. Luke stands Raphael himself, looking on."--_Mrs.

Jameson._

A skull preserved here was long supposed to be that of Raphael, but his true skull has since been found in his grave in the Pantheon.

"On a longtemps venere ici un crane que l'on croyait etre celui de Raphael; crane etroit sur lequel les phrenologistes auront prononce de vains oracles, devant lequel on aura bien profondement reve et qui n'etait que celui d'un obscur chanoine bien innocent de toutes ces imaginations."--_A. Du Pays._

Just beyond St. Luca, we enter the Forum Romanum.

The interest of Rome comes to its climax in the Forum. In spite of all that is destroyed, and all that is buried, so much still remains to be seen, and every stone has its story. Even without entering into all the vexed archaeological questions which have filled the volumes of Canina, Bunsen, Niebuhr, and many others, the occupation which a traveller interested in history will find here is all but inexhaustible; and, after the disputes of centuries, the different sites seem now to be verified with tolerable certainty. The study of the Roman Forum is complicated by the _succession_ of public edifices by which it has been occupied, each period of Roman history having a different set of buildings, and each in a great measure supplanting that which went before. Another difficulty has naturally arisen from the exceedingly circumscribed space in which all these buildings have to be arranged, and which shows that many of the ancient temples must have been mere chapels, and the so-called "lakes" little more than fountains.

"This spot, where the senate had its assemblies, where the rostra were placed, where the destinies of the world were discussed, is the most celebrated and the most classical of ancient Rome. It was adorned with the most magnificent monuments, which were so crowded upon one another, that their heaped-up ruins are not sufficient for all the names which are handed down to us by history. The course of centuries has overthrown the Forum, and made it impossible to define; the level of the ancient soil is twenty-four feet below that of to-day, and however great a desire one may feel to reproduce the past, it must be acknowledged that this very difference of level is a terrible obstacle to the powers of imagination; again, the uncertainties of archaeologists are discouraging to curiosity and the desire of illusion. For more than three centuries learning has been at work upon this field of ruins, without being able even to agree upon its bearings; some describing it as extending from north to south, others from east to west. The origin of the Forum goes back to the alliance of the Romans and Sabines. It was a space surrounded by marshes, which extended between the Palatine and the Capitol, occupied by the two colonies, and serving as a neutral ground where they could meet. The Curtian Lake was situated in the midst. Constantly adorned under the republic and the empire, it appears that it continued to exist until the eleventh century. Its total ruin dates from Robert Guiscard, who, when called to the assistance of Gregory VII., left it a heap of ruins. Abandoned for many centuries, it became a receptacle for rubbish, which gradually raised the level of the soil. About 1547, Paul III. began to make excavations in the Forum.

Then the place became a cattle-market, and the glorious name of Forum Romanum changed into that of Campo Vaccino.

"The Forum was surrounded by a portico of two stories, the lower of which was occupied by shops (tabernae). In the beginning of the sixth century of Rome, two fires destroyed part of the edifices with which it had been embellished. This was an opportunity for isolating the Forum, and basilicas and temples were raised in succession along its sides, which in their turn were partly destroyed in the fire of Nero. Domitian rebuilt a part, and added the temple of Vespasian, and Antoninus that of Faustina."--_A. Du Pays._

The excavations which were made in the Forum before 1871 are for the most part due to the generosity of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The papal government always displayed the most extraordinary apathy about extending them, and, when a large excavation was made in the winter of 1869--70, by the British Archaeological Society, in front of the Church of Sta. Martina, insisted on its being immediately filled up again, instead of extending it, as might easily have been done, to join the excavation which had long existed on the Clivus Capitolinus. Lately the excavations have been considerably increased, but were the roads leading to the Forum to be closed, and a large body of efficient labourers set to work, the whole of the Roman Forum and its surroundings might be laid bare in a month, without any injury to the interesting churches in its neighbourhood. At present, even that part which is disinterred is cut up by a number of raised causeways, which distract the eye and mar the general effect, and the excavations, recommenced by the Italian government, are slowly and inadequately carried on.

If we stand on the causeway in front of the arch of Septimius Severus, and turn towards the Capitol, we look upon the Clivus Capitolinus, which is perfectly crowded with historical sites and fragments, viz.:--

1. The modern Capitol, resting on the _Tabularium_. This is one of the earliest architectural relics in Rome. It is built in the Etruscan style, of huge blocks of tufa or peperino placed long-and cross-ways alternately. It was formerly composed of two stages called Camellaria.

Only the lower now remains. It contained the tables of the laws. The corridor which remains in the interior is used as a museum of architectural fragments. The Tabularium probably communicated with the _aerarium_ in the temple of Saturn.

2. On the right of the excavated space, and nearest the Tabularium, the site of the _Tribune_, in front of which were the _Rostra_, to which the head of Octavius was affixed by Marius, and the head and hand of Cicero by Antony, and where Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, spat in his dead face, and pierced his inanimate tongue with the pin which she wore in her hair. In front of the rostrum were the statues of the three Sibyls called Tria Fata.

3. Below, a little(**typo? little?) more to the right, is the site of the _Comitium_, where the survivor of the Horatii was condemned to death, and saved by the voice of the people. Here, also, was the trophied pillar which bore the arms of the Curiatii. In the area of the Comitium grew the famous fig-tree which was always preserved here in commemoration of the tree under which Romulus and Remus were suckled by the wolf, and beneath which was a bronze representation of the wolf and the children.

4. A little more to the left, is the site of _the Vulcanal_, so called from an altar dedicated to Vulcan, a platform (still defined) where, in the earliest times, Romulus and Tatius used to meet on intermediate ground and transact affairs common to both; and where Brutus was seated, when, without any change of countenance, he saw his two sons beaten and beheaded. Adjoining the Vulcanal was the _Graecostasis_, where foreign ambassadors waited before they were admitted to an audience of the senate.

5. Below the Vulcanal, and just behind the Arch of Severus, is the site of the _Temple of Concord_, dedicated, with blasphemous inappropriateness, B.C. 121, by the consul Opimius, immediately after the murder of Caius Gracchus. Here Cicero pronounced his orations against Catiline before the senate. A pavement of coloured marbles remains. At its base are still to be seen some small remains of the _Colonna Maenia_, which was surmounted by the statue of C. Maenius, who decorated the rostra with the iron beaks of vessels taken in war.

6. The three beautiful columns which are still standing were attributed to a temple of Jupiter Tonans, but are now decided to belong to the _Temple of Vespasian_. The engravings of Piranesi represent them as buried almost to their capitals, and they remained in this state until they were disinterred during the first French occupation. The space was so limited in this part of Rome, that in order to prevent encroaching upon the street Clivus Capitolinus, which descends the hill between this temple and that of Saturn, the temple of Vespasian was raised on a kind of terrace, and the staircase which led to it was thrust in between the columns. This temple was restored by Septimius Severus, and to this the letters on the entablature refer, being part of the word _Restituere_.

Instruments of sacrifice are sculptured on the frieze.

7. On the left of the excavated space, close beneath the Tabularium, a low range of columns recently re-erected represents the building called the _School of Xanthus_, chambers, for the use of the scribes and persons in the service of the curule aediles, which derived their name from Xanthus, a freedman, by whom they were rebuilt.

8. The eight Ionic columns still standing, part of the _Temple of Saturn_, the ancient god of the Capitol. Before this temple Pompey sate surrounded by soldiers, listening to the orations which Cicero was delivering from the rostrum, when he received the personal address, "Te enim jam appello, et ea voce ut me exaudire possis." Here the tribune Metellus flung himself before the door and vainly attempted to defend the treasure of the _aerarium_ in this temple against Julius Caesar. The present remains are those of an indifferent and late renovation of an earlier temple, being composed of columns which differ in diameter, and a frieze put together from fragments which do not belong to one another.