Opposite the Basilica Julia, in the depth of the Forum, is the _Column of Phocas_, raised to that emperor by the exarch Smaragdus in 608. This is--

"The nameless column with a buried base,"

of Byron, but is now neither nameless nor buried, its pedestal having been laid bare by the Duchess of Devonshire in 1813, and bearing an inscription which shows an origin that no one ever anticipated.

"In the age of Phocas (602--610), the art of erecting a column like that of Trajan or M. Aurelius had been lost. A large and handsome Corinthian pillar, taken from some temple or basilica, was therefore placed in the Forum, on a huge pyramidal basis quite out of proportion to it, and was surmounted with a statue of Phocas in gilt bronze. It has so little the appearance of a monumental column, that for a long while it was thought to belong to some ruined building, till, in 1813, the inscription was discovered. The name of Phocas had, indeed, been erased; but that it must have been dedicated to him is shown by the date.... The base of this column, discovered by the excavations of 1816 to have rested on the ancient pavement of the Forum, proves that this former centre of Roman life was still, at the beginning of the seventh century, unencumbered with ruins."--_Dyer's History of the City of Rome._

"Ce monument et l'inscription qui l'accompagne sont precieux pour l'histoire, car ils montrent le dernier terme de l'avilissement ou Rome devait tomber. Smaragdus est le premier magistrat de Rome,--mais ce magistrat est un prefet, l'elu du pouvoir imperial et non de ses concitoyens;--il commande, non, il est vrai, a la capitale du monde, mais au chef-lieu du duche de Rome. Ce prefet, qui n'est connu de l'histoire que par ses laches menagements envers les Barbares, imagine de voler une colonne a un beau temple, au temple d'un empereur de quelque merite, pour la dedier a un execrable tyran monte sur le trone par des assassinats, au meurtrier de l'empereur Maurice, a l'ignoble Phocas, que tout le monde connait, grace a Corneille, qui l'a encore trop menage. Et le plat drole ose appeler tres-clement celui qui fit egorger sous les yeux de Maurice ses quatre fils avant de l'egorger lui-meme. Il decerne le titre de triomphateur a Phocas, qui laissa conquerir par Chosroes une bonne part de l'empire. Il ose ecrire: 'pour les innombrables bienfaits de sa piete, pour le repos procure a l'Italie et a la liberte.' Ainsi l'histoire monumentale de la Rome de l'empire finit honteusement par un hommage ridicule de la bassesse a la violence."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 389.

A little behind the Column of Phocas are the marble slabs commemorating the sacrifices called Suovetaurilia, consisting of a pig, a sheep, and an ox, animals which are sculptured here in bold relief. On the side towards the Capitol a number of figures are represented, amongst them a woman presenting a child to the emperor, in reference to Trajan's asylum for orphans, or for those who were too poor to bring up their children.

On the other side is a burning of deeds in reference to the famous remission of debts by Trajan.

Beyond this, on the left, the base of the famous statue of Domitian has been discovered as described by Statius:

"Ipse loci custos, cujus sacrata vorago, Famosusque lacus nomen memorabile servat."

_Silv._ i. 66.

Here the Via Sacra turns, almost continuing the Vicus Tuscus. On its right, on a line with the Temple of the Dioscuri, has been discovered the base of the small Temple of Julius Caesar (aedes Divi Julii),[59]

which was surrounded with a colonnade of closely-placed columns and surmounted by a statue of the deified triumvir. This was the first temple in Rome which was dedicated to a mortal.

"Fratribus assimilis, quos proxima templa tenentes Divus ab excelsa Julius aede videt."

_Ovid, Pont. El._ ii. 2.

Dion Cassius narrates that this temple was erected on the spot where the body of Julius was burnt. It was adorned by Augustus with the beaks of the vessels taken in the battle of Actium, and hence obtained the name of Rostra Julia. He also placed here the statue of Venus Anadyomene of Apelles, because Caesar had claimed descent from that goddess. Here, in A.D. 14, the body of Augustus, being brought from Nola, where he died, was placed upon a bier, while Tiberius pronounced a funeral oration over it, before it was carried to the Campus Martius.

The road turns again in front of the remains of the _Temple of Antoninus and Faustina_, erected by the flattery of the senate to the memory of the licentious Empress Faustina, the faithless wife of Antoninus Pius, whom they elevated to the rank of a goddess. Her husband, dying before its completion, was associated in her honours, and the inscription, which still remains on the portico, is "DIVO ANTONINO ET DIVae FAUSTINae.

EX. S. C." The front of the temple is adorned with eight columns of cipolino, forty-three feet high, supporting a frieze ornamented with griffins and candelabra. The effect of these remains would be magnificent if the modern road were removed, and the temple were laid bare in its full height, with the twenty-one steps which formerly led to it. It is also greatly injured by the hideous Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, which encloses the cella of the temple, and whose name, says Ampere, naively expresses the admiration in which its builders held these remains.[60]

On the left we now reach the Church of SS. Cosmo and Damian, considered by Nibby and others to occupy the site of a temple of Remus. Ampere has since proved that this temple never existed, and that the remains are those of a _Temple of the Penates_, rebuilt by Augustus. Here Valerius Publicola had a house, to which he removed from the Velia, in deference to the wishes of the Roman people.

"Le sentiment d'effroi que la demeure feodale des Valerius causait, etait pareille a celui qu'inspiraient aux Romains du moyen age les tours des barons, que le peuple, des qu'il etait le maitre, se hatait de demolir. Valerius n'attendit pas qu'on se portat a cette extremite, et il vint habiter au pied de la Velia. C'est le premier triomphe des plebeiens sur l'aristocratie romaine et la premiere concession de cette aristocratie."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ ii. 274.

A little further on are three gigantic arches, being all that remains of the magnificent _Basilica of Constantine_, which was 320 feet in length and 235 feet in width. The existing ruins are those of one of the aisles of the basilica. There are traces of an entrance towards the Coliseum.

The roof was supported by eight Corinthian columns, of which one, remaining here till the time of Paul V., was removed by him to the piazza of Sta. Maria Maggiore, where it still stands. This site was previously occupied by the _Temple of Peace_, burnt down in the time of Commodus. This temple was the great museum of Rome under the empire, and contained the seven-branched candlestick and other treasures brought from Jerusalem,[61] as well as all the works of art which had been collected in the palace of Nero and which were removed hither by Vespasian. A statue of the Nile, with children playing around it, is mentioned by Pliny as among the sights in the temple of Peace.[62]

It was near this that the Via Sacra was crossed by the _Arch of Fabius_, erected B.C. 121, in honour of the conqueror of the Allobroges,--the then inhabitants of Savoy. Close to this portion of the Via Sacra also stood a statue of Valeria, daughter of Publicola, by whom the honours of the virgin Cllia were disputed.

Besides those which we have noticed, there is mention in classical authors of many other buildings and statues which were once crowded into this narrow space; but all trace of many even of those enumerated is still buried many feet below the soil.

The modern name of _Campo Vaccino_, by which the Forum is now known, is supposed by some antiquaries to be derived from Vitruvius Vacco, who once had a house there.

"La guerre aux habitants de Privernum (Piperno) rattache a une localite du Palatin.... Les habitants de Fondi avaient fait cause commune avec les habitants de Privernum. Leur chef, Vitruvius Vacca, possedait une maison sur le Palatin; c'etait un homme considerable dans son pays et meme a Rome. Ils demanderent et obtinrent grace. Privernum fut pris, et Vitruvius Vacca, qui s'y etait refugie, conduit a Rome, enferme dans le prison Mamertine pour y etre garde jusqu'au retour du consul, et alors battu de verges et mis a mort; sa maison du Palatin fut rasee, et le lieu ou elle avait ete garda le nom de _Pres de Vacca_."--_Ampere, Histoire Romaine_, iii. 17.

But the name will seem singularly appropriate to those who are familiar with the groups of meek-faced oxen of the Campagna, which are always to be seen lying in the shade under the trees of the Forum, or drinking at its water-troughs.

"'Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire Carinis.'

"Ce vers m'a toujours profondement frappe, lorsque je traversais le Forum, aujourd'hui Campo-Vaccino (le champ du betail); je voyais en effet presque toujours a son extremite des bufs couches au pied du Palatin. Virgile, se reportant de la Rome de son temps a la Rome ancienne d'Evandre, ne trouvait pas d'image plus frappante du changement produit par les siecles, que la presence d'un troupeau de bufs dans le lieu destine a etre le Forum. Eh bien, le jour devait venir ou ce qui etait pour Virgile un passe lointain et presque incroyable se reproduirait dans la suite des ages; le Forum devait etre de nouveau un lieu agreste, ses magnificences s'en aller et les bufs y revenir.

"J'aimais a les contempler a travers quelques colonnes moins vieilles que les souvenirs qu'ils me retracaient, reprenant possession de ce sol d'ou les avait chasses la liberte, la gloire, Ciceron, Cesar, et ou devait les ramener la plus grande vicissitude de l'historie, la destruction de l'empire romain per les barbares.

Ce que Virgile trouvait si etrange dans le passe n'etonne plus dans le present; les bufs mugissent au Forum; ils s'y couchent et y ruminent aujourd'hui, de meme qu'au temps d'Evandre et comme s'il n'etait rien arrive."--Ampere, Hist. Rom. 1. 211.

"In many a heap the ground Heaves, is if Ruin in a frantic mood Had done his utmost. Here and there appears, As left to show his handy-work not ours, An idle column, a half-buried arch, A wall of some great temple. It was once, And long, the centre of their Universe, The Forum--whence a mandate, eagle-winged, Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend Slowly. At every step much may be lost, The very dust we tread stirs as with life, And not a breath but from the ground sends up Something of human grandeur.

Now all is changed; and here, as in the wild, The day is silent, dreary as the night; None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd, Savage alike; or they that would explore, Discuss, and learnedly; or they that come, (And there are many who have crossed the earth,) That they may give the hours to meditation, And wander, often saving to themselves, 'This was the Roman Forum!'"

_Rogers' Italy._

"We descended into the Forum, the light fast fading away and throwing a kindred soberness over the scene of ruin. The soil has risen from rubbish at least fifteen feet, so that no wonder that the hills look lower than they used to do, having been never very considerable at the first. There it was one scene of desolation, from the massy foundation-stones of the Capitoline Temple, which were laid by Tarquinius the Proud, to a single pillar erected in honour of Phocas, the eastern emperor, in the fifth century. What the fragments of pillars belonged to, perhaps we can never know; but that I think matters little. I care not whether it was a temple of Jupiter Stator or the Basilica Julia, but one knows that one is on the ground of the Forum, under the Capitol, the place where the tribes assembled, and the orators spoke; the scene, in short, of all the internal struggles of the Roman people."--_Arnold's Journal._

"They passed the solitary column of Phocas, and looked down into the excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and shattered blocks and shafts--the crumbs of various ruins dropt from the devouring maw of Time--stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is little more) now rose abruptly above them. The ponderous masonry, with which the hillside is built up, is as old as Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains any substance or permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now bears up the great pile which the mediaeval builders raised on the antique foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a larger page of deeper historic interest than any other scene can show. On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will doubtless arise, and vanish like ephemeral things.

"To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman history, and of Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, around the birthtime of Christianity, as well as the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember these mediaeval times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The reason may be, that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the subsequent ones.

"The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence, and makes it look nearer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the grey walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet every brick and stone, which we pick up among the former, had fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was begun."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._

"A Rome, vous marchez sur les pierres qui ont ete les dieux de Cesar et de Pompee: vous considerez la ruine de ces grands ouvrages, dont la vieillesse est encore belle, et vous vous promenerez tous les jours parmi les histoires et les fables.... Il n'y a que Rome ou la vie soit agreable, ou le corps trouve ses plaisirs et l'esprit les siens, ou l'on est a la source des belles choses. Rome est cause que vous n'etes plus barbares, elle vous a appris la civilite et la religion.... Il est certain que je ne monte jamais au Palatin ni au Capitole que je n'y change d'esprit, et qu'il ne me vienne d'autres pensees que les miennes ordinaires.

Cet air m'inspire quelque chose de grand et de genereux que je n'avais point auparavant: si je reve deux heures au bord du Tibre, je suis aussi savant que si j'avais etudie huit jours."--_Balzac._

Before leaving the Forum we must turn from its classical to its mediaeval remains, and examine the very interesting group of churches which have sprung up amid its ruins.

Almost opposite the Mamertine Prisons, surmounted by a handsome dome, is the _Church of Sta. Martina_, which contains the original model, bequeathed by the sculptor Thorwaldsen, of his Copenhagen statue of Christ in the act of benediction. The opposite transept contains a very inferior statue of Religion by _Canova_. The figure of Sta. Martina by _Guerini_ reposes beneath the high altar. The subterranean church is well worth visiting. An ante-chapel adorned with statues of four virgin martyrs leads to a chapel erected at the cost and from the designs of Pietro da Cortona, whose tomb stands near its entrance, with a fine bust by _Bernini_. In the centre of the inner chapel lamps are burning round the magnificent bronze altar which covers the shrine of Sta. Martina, and beneath it, you can discover the martyr's tomb by the light of a torch which a monk lets down through a hole. In the tribune is an ancient throne. A side chapel contains the grave in which the body of the virgin saint, with three other martyrs, her companions, was found in 1634: it is adorned with a fine bas-relief by _Algardi_.

"At the foot of the Capitoline hill, on the left hand as we descend from the Ara Cli into the Forum, there stood in very ancient times a small chapel dedicated to Sta. Martina, a Roman virgin, who was martyred in the persecution under Alexander Severus. The veneration paid to her was of very early date, and the Roman people were accustomed to assemble there on the first day of the year.

This observance was, however, confined to the people, and not very general till 1634; an era which connects her in rather an interesting manner with the history of art. In this year, as they were about to repair her chapel, they discovered, walled into the foundations, a sarcophagus of terra-cotta, in which was the body of a young female, whose severed head reposed in a separate casket.

These remains were very naturally supposed to be those of the saint who had been so long venerated on that spot. The discovery was hailed with the utmost exultation, not by the people only, but by those who led the minds and consciences of the people. The pope himself, Urban VIII., composed hymns in her praise; and Cardinal Francesco Barberini undertook to rebuild her church. Amongst those who shared the general enthusiasm was the painter, Pietro da Cortona, who was at Rome at the time, who very earnestly dedicated himself and his powers to the glorification of Sta. Martina. Her church had already been given to the Academy of Painters, and consecrated to St. Luke, their patron saint. It is now 'San Luca and Santa Martina.' Pietro da Cortona erected at his own cost, the chapel of Sta. Martina, and when he died, endowed it with his whole fortune. He painted for the altarpiece his best picture, in which the saint is represented as triumphing over the idols, while the temple in which she has been led to sacrifice, is struck by lightning from heaven, and falls in ruins around her. In a votive picture of Sta. Martina kneeling at the feet of the Virgin and Child, she is represented as very young and lovely; near her, a horrid instrument of torture, a two-pronged fork with barbed extremities, and the lictor's axe, signifying the manner of her death."--_Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art._

The feast of the saint is observed here on Jan. 30, with much solemnity.

Then in all the Roman churches is sung the Hymn of Sta. Martina--

"Martinae celebri plaudite nomini, Cives Romulei, plaudite gloriae; Insignem mentis dicite virginem, Christi dicite martyrem.

Haec dum conspicuis orta parentibus Inter delicias, inter amabiles Luxus illecebras, ditibus affluit Faustae muneribus domus.

Vitae despiciens commoda, dedicat Se rerum Domino, et munifica manu Christi pauperibus distribuens opes Quaerit praemia clitum.

A nobis abigas lubrica gaudia Tu, qui martyribus dexter ades, Deus Une et trine: tuis da famulis jubar, Quo clemens animos beas. Amen."

There is nothing especial to notice in _S. Adriano_, which is built in the ruins of the basilica of Emilius Paulus, or in _S. Lorenzo in Miranda_, which occupies the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, but _Sta.

Maria Liberatrice_, built on the site of the house of Numa and the convent of the Vestals, commemorates by its name a curious legend of the fourth century. On this site, it is said, dwelt in a cave, a terrible dragon who had slain three hundred persons with the poison of his breath. Into this cave, instructed thereto by St. Peter, and entrusting himself to the care of the Virgin, descended St. Silvester the Pope, attended by two acolytes bearing torches, and here, having pronounced the name of Christ, he was miraculously enabled to bind the dragon, and to shut him up till the day of Judgment. But when he ascended in safety, he found at the mouth of the cave two magicians who had followed him in the hope of discovering some imposture, dying from the poison of the dragon's breath,--and these also he saved alive.

We now reach the circular building which has been so long known as the temple of Remus. To the right of the entrance are two pillars of cipolino, almost buried in the soil. The porphyry pillars at the entrance, supporting a richly sculptured cornice, were probably set up in their present position when the temple was turned into a church. The bronze doors were brought from Perugia. If, as is now supposed, the temple on this site was that of the Penates, the protectors against all kinds of illness and misfortune, the modern dedication to the protecting physicians Cosmo and Damian may have had some reference to that which went before.