When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those monuments, whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most eloquent descriptions, he was astonished at the supine indifference (65) of the Romans themselves;(66) he was humbled rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend Rienzi and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the Rhone was more conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and natives of the metropolis. (67) The ignorance and credulity of the Romans are elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city which was composed about the beginning of the thirteenth century; and, without dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the Capitol(68) may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. "The Capitol," says the anonymous writer, "is so named as being the head of the world; where the consuls and senators formerly resided for the government of the city and the globe. The strong and lofty walls were covered with glass and gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and most curious carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold for the greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and whose value might be esteemed at one-third of the world itself. The statues of all the provinces were arranged in order, each with a small bell suspended from its neck; and such was the contrivance of art or magic,(69) that if the province rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of the Capitol reported the prodigy, and the senate was admonished of the impending danger.” A second example of less importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, which have since been transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal hill. The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not have been removed above four hundred years from the age of Pericles to that of Tiberius: they should not have been transformed into two philosophers or magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth and knowledge, who revealed to the emperor his most secret actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary recompense, solicited the honour of leaving this eternal monument of themselves.(70) Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues were visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which chance or design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age. (71) The Nile, which now adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some labourers, in digging a vineyard near the temple or convent, of the Minerva; but the impatient proprietor, who was tormented by some (65) Yet the Statutes of Rome (1. iii. c. 81, p. 182,) impose a fine of 500 aurei on whosoever shall demolish any ancient edifice, ne ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua ædificia decorem urbis perpetuo representent, (66) In his first visit to Rome (A. D. 1337. See Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.) Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerum tantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus.... Præsentia vero, mirum dictû, nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hâc urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror (Opp. p. 605. Familiares, ii. 14. Joanni Columnæ). (67) He excepts and praises the rare knowledge of John Colonna. Qui enim hodie magis ignari rerum Romanorum, quam Romani cives? Invitus dico nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ. (68) After the description of the Capitol, he adds, statuæ erant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibet tintinnabulum ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio rebellis erat, statim imago illius provinciæ vertebat se contra illam; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. tions an example of the Saxons, and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by Agrippa, again rebelled: tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat in speculo in hebdomada senatoribus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched back and reduced the Persians (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297, 298). He men (69) The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the xith century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury (de Gestis Regum Anglorum, l. ii. p. 86); and in the time of Flaminius Vacca (No. 81. 103), it was the vulgar belief that the strangers (the Goths) invoked the demons for the discovery of hidden treasures. (70) Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191,) justly observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias (Olympiad lxxxiii.) or Praxiteles (Olympiad civ.), who lived before that conqueror (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 19). (71) William of Malmsbury (1. ii. p. 86, 87,) relates a marvellous discovery (A. D. 1046,) of Pallas, the son of Evander, who had been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his sepulchre, a Latin epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young giant, the enormous wound in his breast (pectus perforat ingens), &c. If this fable rests on the slightest foundation, we may pity the bodies, as well as the statues, that were exposed to the air in a barbarous age. visits of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its former grave.(72) The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet in length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It had been found under a partition-wall; the equitable judge had pronounced, that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims of the contiguous owners; and the sentence would have been executed, if the intercession of a cardinal, and the liberality of a pope, had not rescued the Roman hero from the hands of his barbarous countrymen.(73) [A. Ď. 1420, &c.] But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and the peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his successors, restored the ornaments of the city as well as the order of the ecclesiastical state. The improvements of Rome, since the fifteenth century, have not been the spontaneous produce of freedom and industry. The first and most natural root of a great city, is the labour and populousness of the adjacent country, which supplies the materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of foreign trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness; the overgrown estates of the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the lazy hands of indigent and hopeless vassals; and the scanty harvests are confined or exported for the benefit of a monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of the growth of a metropolis, is the residence of a monarch, the expense of a luxurious court, and the tribute of dependent provinces. Those provinces and tributes had been lost in the fall of the empire; and if some streams of the silver of Peru and the gold of Brazil have been attracted by the Vatican; the revenues of the cardinals, the fees of office, the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant of ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply, which maintains, however, the idleness of the court and city. The population of Rome, far below the measure of the great capitals of Europe, does not exceed one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants;(74) and within the spacious enclosure of the walls, the largest portion of the seven hills is overspread with vineyards and ruins. The beauty and splendour of the modern city may be ascribed to the abuses of the government, to the influence of superstition. Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been marked by the rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childless pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly monuments of elegance and servitude; the perfect arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture have been prostituted in their service, and their galleries and gardens are decorated with the most precious works of antiquity, which taste or vanity has prompted them to collect. The ecclesiastical revenues were more decently employed by the popes themselves in the pomp of the Catholic worship; but it is superfluous to enumerate their pious foundations of altars, chapels, and churches, since these less stars are eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St. Peter, the most glorious structure that ever has been applied to the use of religion. The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and Sixtus the Fifth, is accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael and Michael Angelo; and the same munificence which had been displayed in palaces and temples, was directed with equal zeal to revive and emulate the labours of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from the ground, and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven aqueducts of the Cesars and consuls, three were restored; the (72) Prope porticum Minerva, statua est recubantis, cujus caput integrâ effigie, tantæ magnitudinis, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam ad-plantandos arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum plures in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuntium fastidiumque pertesus, horti patronus congestâ humo texit (Poggins de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12). (73) See the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, No. 57, p. 11, 12, at the end of the Roma Antica of Nardini. (1704, 4to.) (74) In the year 1709, the inhabitants of Rome (without including eight or ten thousand Jews) amounted to 138,568 souls (Labat, Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. iii.p. 217, 218). In 1740, they had increased to 146,080; and in 1756, I left them, without the Jews, 161, 899. I am ignorant whether they have since continued in a progressive state. artificial rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new, arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and refreshing waters; and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises between two lofty and perpetual fountains, to the height of one hundred and twenty feet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student;(75) and the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition, but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the remote, and once savage, countries of the North. Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will be excited by a history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire; the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind. The various causes and progressive effects are connected with many of the events most interesting in human annals: the artful policy of the Cesars, who long maintained the name and image of a free republic; the disorders of military despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity; the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the invasion and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia; the institutions of the civil law; the character and religion of Mahomet; the temporal sovereignty of the popes; the restoration and decay of the Western empire of Charlemagne; the crusades of the Latins in the East; the conquest of the Saracens and Turks; the ruin of the Greek empire; the state and revolutions of Rome in the middle age. The historian may applaud the importance and variety of his subject; but, while he is conscious of his own imperfections, he must often accuse the deficiency of his materials. It was among the ruins of the Capitol, that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity and candour of the Public. LAUSANNE, June, 27, 1787. (75) The Pere Montfaucon distributes his own observations into twenty days, he should have styled thein weeks, or months, of his visits to different parts of the city (Diarium Italicum, c. 8-20, p. 104-301). That learned Benedictine reviews the topographers of ancient Rome; the first efforts of Blondus, Fulvius, Martianus and Faunus, the superior labours of Pyrrhus Ligorius, had his learning been equal to his labours; the writings of Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes obscuravit, and the recent, but imperfect books of Donatus and Nardini. Yet Montfaucon still sighs for a more complete plan and description of the old city, which must be attained by the three following methods: 1. The measurement of the space and intervals of the ruins. 2. The study of inscriptions, and the places where they were found. 3. The investigation of all the acts, charters, diaries of the middle ages, which name any spot or building of Rome. The laborious work, such as Montfaucon desired, must be promoted by princely or public munificence: but the great modern plan of Nolli (A. D. 1748) would furnish a solid and accurate basis for the ancient topography of Rome. INDEX.. The Roman numerals refer to the volume, and the figures to the page. ABAN, the Saracen, heroism of his widow, Abassides, elevation of the house of, to the office Abdallah, the Saracen, his excursion to plunder ceeds his brother as king of the Goths, and con Adoption, the two kinds of, under the Greek cm- Adoration of the Roman emperor, custom of, and Adorno, the Genoese governor of Phocæa, con- Abdalmalek, caliph of the Saracens, refuses tri-veys Amurath II. from Asia to Europe, iv. 287. Abdalrahman, the Saracen, establishes his throne Abdelaziz, the Saracen, his treaty with Theo- Abderame, his expedition to France, and victories Abdol Motalleb, the grandfather of the prophet Abgarus, inquiry into the authenticity of his cor- the last king of Edessa, sent in chains to Rome, i. 118. Ablavius, the confidential præfect under Constan- Abu Caab commands the Andalusian Moors who -Sophian, prince of Mecca, conspires the death 488. Taher, the Carmathian, pillages Mecca, iii. Abulfeda, his account of the splendour of the Abulpharagius, primate of the eastern Jacobites, Abundantius, general of the east, and patron of Abyla, the fair of, plundered by the Saracens, iii. 425. Abyssinia, the inhabitants of, described, iii. 122. Acacius, bishop of Amida, an uncommon instance Achaia, its extent, i. 15. Acre, the memorable siege of, by the crusaders, Actions, institutos of Justinian respecting, iii. 180. Adauctus, the only martyr of distinction during Adolphus, the brother of Alaric, brings him a re- Adrian I. pope, his alliance with Charlemagne Adultery, distinctions of, and how punished by Ælius Patus, his Tripartite, the oldest work of Emilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mœsia, Eneas of Gaza, his attestation of the miraculous Eneas Silvius, his account of the impracticability Era, of the world, remarkable epochas in, pointed Gelalæan of the Turks, when settled, iv. 99. the Roman general under Valentinian III., Africa, its situation and revolutions, i. 16. Great is distracted with religious discord in the -revolt of count Boniface there, ii. 305. expedition of Belisarius to, iii. 60. Is re- invasion of, by the Saracens, iii. 442. Con- |