While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old:-- The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns."

_Manfred._

"Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume The long-explored but still exhaustless mine Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

"Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given Under the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power And magic in the ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower."

_Childe Harold._

"No one can form any idea of full moonlight in Rome who has not seen it. Every individual object is swallowed in the huge masses of light and shadow, and only the marked and principal outlines remain visible. Three days ago (Feb. 2, 1787) we made good use of a light and most beautiful night. The Coliseum presents a vision of beauty.

It is closed at night; a hermit lives inside in a little church, and beggars roost amid the ruined vaults. They had lighted a fire on the bare ground, and a gentle breeze drove the smoke across the arena. The lower portion of the ruin was lost, while the enormous walls above stood forth into the darkness. We stood at the gates and gazed upon this phenomenon. The moon shone high and bright.

Gradually the smoke moved through the chinks and apertures in the walls, and the moon illuminated it like a mist. It was an exquisite moment!"--_Goethe._

It is believed that the building of the Coliseum remained entire until the eighth century, and that its ruin dates from the invasion of Robert Guiscard, who destroyed it to prevent its being used as a stronghold by the Romans. During the middle ages it served as a fortress, and became the castle of the great family of Frangipani, who here gave refuge to Pope Innocent II. (Papareschi) and his family, against the anti-pope Anacletus II., and afterwards in the same way protected Innocent III.

(Conti) and his brothers against the anti-pope Paschal II. Constantly at war with the Frangipani were the Annibaldi, who possessed a neighbouring fortress, and obtained from Gregory IX. a grant of half the Coliseum, which was rescinded by Innocent IV. During the absence of the popes at Avignon the Annibaldi got possession of the whole of the Coliseum, but it was taken away again in 1312, and placed in the hands of the municipality, after which it was used for bull-fights, in which (as described by Monaldeschi) nobles of high rank took part and lost their lives. In 1381 the senate made over part of the ruins to the Canons of the Lateran, to be used as a hospital, and their occupation is still commemorated by the arms of the Chapter (our Saviour's head between two candelabra) sculptured in various parts of the building. From the fourteenth century it began to be looked upon as a stone-quarry, and the Palazzos Farnese, Barberini, S. Marco, and the Cancellaria, were built with materials plundered from its walls. It is said that the first of these destroyers, Cardinal Farnese, only extorted permission from his reluctant uncle, Paul III., to quarry as much stone as he could remove in twelve hours, and that he availed himself of this permission to let loose four thousand workmen upon the building. Sixtus V. endeavoured to utilize it by turning the arcades into shops, and establishing a woollen manufactory, and Clement XI. (1700--1721) by a manufactory of saltpetre, but both happily failed. In the last century the tide of restoration began to set in. A Carmelite monk, Angelo Paoli, represented the iniquity of allowing a spot consecrated by such holy memories to be desecrated, and Clement XI. consecrated the arena to the memory of the martyrs who had suffered there, and erected in one of the archways the still existing chapel of Sta. Maria della Pieta. The hermit appointed to take care of this chapel was stabbed in 1742, which caused Benedict XIV.

to shut in the Coliseum with bars and gates. After this time destruction became sacrilege, and the five last popes all contributed to strengthen and preserve the walls which remain. Even so late as thirty years ago, however, the interior was (like that of an English abbey) an uneven grassy space littered with masses of ruin, amid which large trees grew and flourished, and the clearing out of the arena, though exhibiting more perfectly the ancient form of the building, is much to be regretted by lovers of the picturesque.[72]

Among the ecclesiastical legends connected with the Coliseum, it is said that Gregory the Great presented some foreign ambassadors with a handful of earth from the arena as a relic for their sovereigns, and upon their receiving the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the soil. Pius V, urged those who wished for relics to gather up the dust of the Coliseum, wet with the blood of the martyrs.

In 1744 "the blessed Leonardo di Porto Maurizio," who is buried in S.

Buonaventura, drew immense crowds to the Coliseum by his preaching, and obtained permission from Benedict XIV. to found the confraternity of "Amanti di Gesu e Maria," for whom the Via Crucis was established here.

Recently the ruins have been associated with the holy beggar, Benoit Joseph Labre (beatified by Pius IX. in 1860), who died at Rome in 1783, after a life spent in devotion. He was accustomed to beg in the Coliseum, to sleep at night under its arcades, and to pray for hours at its various shrines.

The name Coliseum is first found in the writings of the Venerable Bede, who quotes a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls, the world."[73]

The name was probably derived from its size; the amphitheatre of Capua was also called Colossus.

"When one looks at the Coliseum everything else becomes small; it is so great that one cannot keep its true image in one's soul; one only remembers it on a smaller scale, and returning thither again finds it again grown larger."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._

Once or twice in the course of every Roman winter the Coliseum is illuminated with Bengal lights.

"Les etrangers se donnent parfois l'amusement d'eclairer le Colisee avec des feux de Bengale. Cela ressemble un peu trop a un finale de melodrame, et on peut preferer comme illumination un radieux soleil on les douces lueurs de la lune. Cependant j'avoue que la premiere fois que le Colisee m'apparut ainsi, embrase de feux rougeatres, son histoire me revint vivement a la pensee. Je trouvais qu'il avait en ce moment sa vraie couleur, la couleur du sang."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 156.

CHAPTER V.

THE VELABRUM AND THE GHETTO.

S. Teodoro--Sta. Anastasia--Circus Maximus--S. Giorgio in Velabro--Arch of Septimius Severus--Arch of Janus--Cloaca-Maxima--Sta. Maria in Cosmedin--Temple of Vesta--Temple of Fortuna Virilis--House of Rienzi--Ponte-Rotto--Ponte Sublicio--S. Nicolo in Carcere--Theatre of Marcellus--Portico of Octavia--Pescheria--Jewish Synagogue--Palazzo Cenci--Fontana Tartarughe--Palazzo Mattei--Palazzo Caetani--Sta. Caterina dei Funari--Sta. Maria Campitelli--Palazzo Margana--Convent of the Tor de' Specchi.

The second turn on the right of the Roman Forum is the Via dei Fienili, formerly the _Vicus Tuscus_, so called from the Etruscan colony established there after the drying up of the marsh which occupied that site in the earliest periods of Roman history. During the empire, this street, leading from the Forum to the Circus Maximus, was one of the most important. Martial speaks of its silk-mercers; from an inscription on a tomb we know that the fashionable tailors were to be found there; and the perfumers' shops were of such abundance as to give to part of the street the name of Vicus Thurarius. At its entrance was the statue of the Etruscan god, Vertumnus, the patron of the quarter.[74] This was the street by which the processions of the Circensian games passed from the Forum to the Circus Maximus. In one of the Verrine Orations, an accusation brought by Cicero against the patrician Verres, was that from avaricious motives he had paved even this street--used for processions of the Circus--in such a manner that he would not venture to use it himself.[75]

All this valley was once a stagnant marsh, left by inundations of the Tiber, for in early times the river often overflowed the whole valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline hills, and even reached as far as the foot of the Quirinal, where the Goat's Pool, at which Romulus disappeared, is supposed to have formed part of the same swamp. Ovid, in describing the processions of the games, speaks of the willows and rushes which once covered this ground, and the marshy places which one could not pass over except with bare feet:

"Qua Velabra solent in Circum ducere pompas, Nil praeter salices crassaque canna fuit, Saepe suburbanas rediens conviva per undas Cantat, et ad nautas ebria verba jacit.

Nondum conveniens diversis iste figuris Nomen ab averso ceperat amne deus.

Hic quoque lucus erat juncis et arundine densus, Et pede velato non adeunda palus.

Stagna recesserunt, et aquas sua ripa coercet: Siccaque nunc tellus. Mos tamen ille manet."

_Fast._ vi. 405.

We even know the price which was paid for being ferried across the Velabrum: "it was a _quadrans_, three times as much as one pays now for the boat at the Ripetta."[76] The creation of the Cloaca Maxima had probably done much towards draining, but some fragments of the marsh remained to a late period.

According to Varro the name of the Velabrum was derived from _vehere_, because of the boats which were employed to convey passengers from one hill to the other.[77] Others derive the name from _vela_, also in reference to the mode of transit, or, according to another idea, in reference to the awnings which were stretched across the street to shelter the processions,--though the name was in existence long before any processions were thought of.

It was the waters of the Velabrum which bore the cradle of Romulus and Remus from the Tiber, and deposited it under the famous fig-tree of the Palatine.

On the left of the Via dei Fienili (shut in by a railing, generally closed, but which will be opened on appealing to the sacristan next door) is the round _Church of S. Teodoro_. The origin of this building is unknown. It used to be called the temple of Romulus, on the very slight foundation that the famous bronze wolf, mentioned by Dionysius as existing in the temple of Romulus, was found near this spot. Dyer supposes that it may have been the Temple of Cybele; this, however, was upon, and not under, the Palatine. Be they what they may, the remains were dedicated as a Christian church by Adrian I., in the eighth century, and some well preserved mosaics in the tribune are of that time.

"It is curious to note in Rome how many a modern superstition has its root in an ancient one, and how tenaciously customs still cling to the old localities. On the Capitoline hill the bronze she-wolf was once worshipped as the wooden Bambino is now. It stood in the Temple of Romulus, and there the ancient Romans used to carry children to be cured of their diseases by touching it. On the supposed site of the temple now stands the church dedicated to S.

Teodoro, or Santo Toto, as he is called in Rome. Though names must have changed and the temple has vanished, and church after church has here decayed and been rebuilt, the old superstition remains, and the common people at certain periods still bring their sick children to Santo Toto, that he may heal them with his touch."--_Story's Roba di Roma._[78]

Further on the left, still under the shadow of the Palatine Hill, is the large _Church of Sta. Anastasia_, containing, beneath the altar, a beautiful statue of the martyred saint reclining on a faggot.

"Notwithstanding her beautiful Greek name, and her fame as one of the great saints of the Greek Calendar, Sta. Anastasia is represented as a noble Roman lady, who perished during the persecution of Diocletian. She was persecuted by her husband and family for openly professing the Christian faith, but being sustained by the eloquent exhortations of St. Chrysogonus, she passed triumphantly, receiving in due time the crown of martyrdom, being condemned to the flames. Chrysogonus was put to death with the sword and his body thrown into the sea.

"According to the best authorities, these two saints did not suffer in Rome, but in Illyria; yet in Rome we are assured that Anastasia, after her martyrdom, was buried by her friend Apollina in the garden of her house under the Palatine hill and close to the Circus Maximus. There stood the church, dedicated in the fourth century, and there it now stands. It was one of the principal churches in Rome in the time of St. Jerome, who, according to ancient tradition, celebrated mass at one of the altars, which is still regarded with peculiar veneration."--_Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art._

It was the custom for the mediaeval popes to celebrate their second mass of Christmas night in this church, for which reason Sta. Anastasia is still especially commemorated in that mass.

To the left of the high altar is the tomb of the learned Cardinal Mai, by the sculptor Benzoni, who owed everything to the kind interest with which this cardinal regarded him from childhood. The epitaph is remarkable. It is thus translated by Cardinal Wiseman:

"I, who my life in wakeful studies wore, Bergamo's son, named Angelo, here lie.

The empyreal robe and crimson hat I bore, Rome gave. Thou giv'st me, Christ, th' empyreal sky.

Awaiting Thee, long toil I could endure: So with Thee be my rest now, sweet, secure."

Through this church, also, we may enter some of the subterraneous chambers of the Palace of the Caesars.

The valley near this, between the Palatine and the Aventine, was the site of the _Circus Maximus_, of which the last vestiges were destroyed in the time of Paul V. Its ground plan can, however, be identified, with the assistance of the small circus of Maxentius on the Via Appia, which still partially exists. It was intended for chariot-races and horse-races, and is said to have been first instituted by Tarquinius Priscus after his conquest of the Latin town of Apiolae. It was a vast oblong, ending in a semicircle, and surrounded by three rows of seats, termed collectively _cavea_. In the centre of the area was the low wall called the _spina_, at each end of which were the _metae_, or goals.

Between the metae were columns supporting the _ova_, egg-shaped balls, and _Delphinae_, or dolphins, each seven in number, one of which was put up for each circuit made in the race. At the extremity of the Circus were the stalls for the horses and chariots called _Carceres_. This, the square end of the Circus, was termed _oppidum_, from its external resemblance to a town, with walls and towers. In the Circus Maximus, which was used for hunting wild beasts, Julius Caesar made a canal, called _Euripus_,[79] ten feet wide, between the seats and the racecourse, to protect the spectators. The _Ludi Circenses_ were first established by Romulus, to attract his Sabine neighbours, in order that he might supply his city with wives. The games were generally at the expense of the aediles, and their cost was so great, that Caesar was obliged to sell his Tiburtine villa, to defray those given during his aedileship. Perhaps the most magnificent games known were those in the reign of Carinus (Imp. A.D. 283), when the Circus was transformed into an artificial forest, in which hundreds of wild beasts and birds were slaughtered. At one time this Circus was capable of containing 385,000 persons.

At the western extremity of the Circus Maximus stood the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera (said to have been vowed by the Dictator Albus Postumius, at the battle of the Lake Regillus), dedicated by the Consul Sp. Cassius, B.C. 492.

"Quand le pere de Cassius l'eut immole de ses propres mains a l'avidite patricienne, il fit don du pecule de son fils--un fils n'avait que son pecule comme un esclave--a ce meme temple de Ceres que Spurius Cassius avait consacre, et par une feroce ironie, mit au bas de la statue faite avec cet argent, et qu'il dediait a la deesse: 'Don de la famille Cassia.'

"L'ironie etait d'autant plus amere, que l'on vendait aupres du temple de Ceres ceux qui avaient offense au tribun.

"Ce temple, mis particulierement sous la surveillance des ediles et ou ils avaient leurs archives, etait le temple de la democratie romaine. Le farouche patricien le choisit pour lui faire adresser par son fils mort au service de la democratie un derisoire hommage."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ ii. 416.

We must now retrace our steps for a short distance, and descend into a hollow on the left, which we have passed, between the churches of S.

Teodoro and Sta. Anastasia.