instigation, according to his account, of his deadly enemy, Clodius, a mob drove the workmen from the spot, and set fire to the adjoining house of his brother Quintus.

The modest mansion of Augustus was upon this hill. "He dwelt," says his biographer, "at first, near the Roman Forum, in a house which had belonged to the orator Calvus; afterwards on the Palatine, but still in the moderate house of Hortensius, which was not conspicuous either for extent or ornament; it had small porticoes of Alban columns, and rooms without any marble or remarkable pavement. For more than forty years he occupied the same chamber, in Winter and in Summer; and although he found the city by no means favourable to his health in the Winter, yet he constantly passed the Winter in it." After the palace had been accidentally destroyed by fire, Augustus had it rebuilt, as we are told, and ordered it to be entirely opened to the public, either because the people had contributed money towards the building of it, or in order that, being Pontifex Maximus, or Chief Priest, he might live in a building which was at once public and private. It is generally said that this edifice was called Palatium, from the name of the hill upon which it stood, and that being afterwards applied to the residence of the Roman emperors, it has passed into most of the languages of Europe as the common appellation of a princely mansion.

It was under the immediate successors of Augustus that the Palatine rose in splendour, till it eclipsed all that we read of magnificence in the profane history of the ancient world, and from having been "long while the seat of Rome," was at last found

with silver, and fished with a golden net, found the hill, as well as the palace, too contracted for his capricious desires. The circuit of the imperial residence was accordingly extended to the Cælian and Esquiline mounts, across the broad valley which divides them from the Palatine; and in this enlarged space were squandered with heedless profusion, the treasures which had been collected with careful rapacity. In that memorable conflagration, “the guilt or misfortune of Nero's reign," which desolated Rome in the sixty-fourth year after the birth of Christ, the palace of the emperor was consumed; but, like the city, it arose with fresh splendour from its ashes, and such was the marvellous magnificence of the new structure, that it obtained the appellation of the Golden House.

In the account of Nero's life by Suetonius, we have a more complete account of this palace than elsewhere. After mentioning some startling instances of the emperor's extravagance, that writer adds, In nothing, however, was he more wasteful than in building. He erected a house reaching from the Palatine to the Esquiline: he called it at first Transitoriam, (probably because it afforded a passage from the one hill to the other;) but afterwards, when it had been destroyed by fire, and restored, he named it Auream (or golden). Concerning its extent and magnificence, it will suffice to relate these particulars. It had a vestibule, in which stood a colossal statue in his own image, one hundred and twenty feet high; its spaciousness was so great that it contained triple porticoes a mile in length, and also a lake like a sea, enclosed around with buildings, having the appearance of cities. Fields, moreover, there were, in all the varieties of corn-lands, and vineyards, and pasture-lands, and woods with a multitude of cattle, and wild animals of every kind. In other parts everything was The imperial possessors of this proud eminence seem covered with gold, and adorned with precious stones and to have regarded it as a theatre for their amusement; and pearls. The banqueting rooms had ceilings furnished with upon it, their "gorgeous tyranny" was amply displayed, in ivory tables, turning round so as to scatter down flowers the vast and costly structures which they erected for the from above, and with pipes so as to sprinkle perfumes; the chief of these apartments was round, and revolved perpetugratification of their personal pleasure or caprice. In reading the history of their labours, one might almost be ally day and night, like the world. The baths flowed with tempted to fancy it a condition attached to their tenure of sea-water, and with aquæ Albula*. When, after its comempire, that he who held it, should add to the "palace" pletion, he was consecrating such a house as this, he which he found, or pull down something which his prede-approved of it just so far as to say, that at length he had cessors had raised, and build something of his own in its begun to dwell like a man.'

stead.

Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge
One in his madness!

The Palatium of Augustus stood on the south-western side of the mount, looking across the Circus Maximus to the Aventine hill. Tiberius made extensive additions to it, and seems to have built upon the north-western side, or that overhanging the Forum. After him came the furious Caligula, whose labours are naturally marked with the characteristic stamp of insanity, and by no means unworthy of the man who designed "to build a city on the top of the Alps, and, above all things, to dig through the Isthmus of Corinth." By him, the palace was extended even into the Forum, and a vestibule to it formed from the temple of Castor and Pollux, into which, as his biographer tells us, he was accustomed to betake himself often, and, "standing in the middle between the brother gods, present himself to be worshipped by those who approached." When he afterwards took it into his head that the mighty Jove, who dwelt in the great temple on the summit of the Capitol, had invited him to live there, he proceeded to shorten the road of communication, by throwing a bridge across the Forum, from the one hill to the other; and then, to be nearer still, he laid the foundation of a new residence upon the Capitol. His successor, Claudius, demolished a part of these works; the destruction of the bridge is generally attributed to him, though upon very little authority. The next emperor was Nero-unquestionably one of the greatest builders of antiquity; but his labours will deserve a separate notice.

THE GOLDEN HOUSE OF NERO.

High towers, fair temples, goodly theatres, Strong walls, rich porches, princely palaces, Sweet gardens, stately galleries, Wrought with fair pillars and fine imageries: All those (oh, pity!) now are turned to dust, And overgrown with black oblivion's rust. THE palace which Nero received from his predecessors, might have satisfied an ordinary emperor; the ample space of the mount on which it stood, would have afforded suffirient scope for the display of extraordinary magnificence, in the midst of a huge capital. But the extravagance of Nero was boundless; and the man who shod his mules

Tacitus describes this offspring of folly and extravagance It was not so much the gems and the in a few words. gold which were the wonder, they being customary and quite common in luxury,-as the fields and the lakes,-the woods in one part, the open spaces and prospects in another, after the manner of a wilderness." The caprice which dictated these things was that of a cruel and profligate tyrant; yet the solitude of a desert must have been striking in the heart of a populous city, and in the close vicinity of such a palace as the Golden House

Of glory's gewgaws shining in the van,

Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled! Tacitus has not thought it beneath the dignity of an his torian to record the names of those who had the merit of carrying into execution the fantastic designs of imperial folly. The "directors and architects" were Severus and Celer, men "who had the ability and boldness," using his expressive language, "to seek through Art what Nature had denied, and to mock her with the power of their master." A part of the Golden House was burnt down in the reign of Trajan: it suffered from a second conflagration in the reign of Commodus, but was restored by that emperor.

DESOLATION OF THE PALATINE.

Where are its golden roofs? Where those who dared to build? CONSIDERING the high importance which attached to the Palatine as an imperial residence, and the excessive splendour of the buildings which adorned it, we cannot but wonder extremely that so little should be known of the successive steps of its degradation. The removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, in the early part of the fourth century, was probably a shock from which it never recovered; yet some years before, it must have suffered from the neglect of Diocletian and his associate Maximian, the first Roman emperors who, in time of peace, fixed their permanent residence in the provinces. Its riches could scarcely have escaped the rapacity of Alaric and his Goths in the year 410; eight-and-fortv

Or "whitish waters" of a sulphureous kind, found in the neighbourhood of Rome, and valued for their medicinal properties.

years after, during the fourteen days sack of Rome by Genseric, the Vandal king, the Palatine was occupied by his troops, and despoiled of what treasures it could still afford. "The ruin of the structures themselves," says Sir John Hobhouse, "is involved in the most impenetrable obscurity nor have the immense masses which remain assisted, though they may have stimulated research. Theodoric found their beauty admirable, but impaired by age. From that moment the palace of the Cesars disappears, and the labours of the antiquary have been unable to proluce more than a single word, to show that it was not ruined by Totila, which is the general persuasion." The solitary testimony of this single word is to be found in the history, written by Anastasius, of the life of Pope Constantine, who was elected in 708. When narrating a civil | commotion which took place in Rome, against the emperor Philip, he writes thus: "And it came to pass that while Christopher, who was duke, was contending on this account with Agatho and his followers, a civil war arose, so that they came to arms in the sacred way before the palace." "What a fate!" exclaims Sir John Hobhouse. The palace may have been a fragment, or, as it now is, a word. When the Palatine again rises it rises in ruins."

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, there was not a single edifice standing on the whole mount except the church of St. Nicholas, which was itself in a ruined condition. In the middle of the same century, when a classical taste was reviving in Italy, the learned Poggio Bracciolini, one of the most distinguished scholars of the age, thus addressed a friend with whom he had ascended to the summit of the Capitol, to view from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation: "Cast your eyes on the Palatine, and seek among the shapeless and enormous fragments, the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the porticoes of Nero's palace. The | public and private edifices that were founded for eternity, fie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of mighty giant; and the ruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and fortune."

RUINS OF THE PALACES OF THE CÆSARS.

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower, grown

Matted and massed together; hillocks heaped
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown
In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped
In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,

Deeming it midnight: temples, baths, or halls?
Pronounce who can; for all that learning reaped
From her research hath been, that these are walls.

Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls.

"THE long vaults, where a partial destruction admits a gleam of daylight to their deep recesses; the terraces which seem to bid defiance to time; the half domes and solid piers, attesting the grandeur of their ancient construction; the walls fringed with shrubs, principally evergreen; the very intricacy of plan, and the mixture of kitchen-gardens and vineyards, where once the voice of harmony resounded through lofty halls, decorated with the finest productions of art; all impress the mind with the recollection of past glory. But the feeling here is very different from that excited in the Forum. There the recollection of the lofty virtues of those magnanimous republicans exalts every feeling into admiration; here the shapeless masses of ruin, half-concealed by vegetation, accord better with the melancholy felt in contemplating the decay of Rome, and the wasteful and destructive luxury which followed or accompanied the erection of these palaces."

Such is the description which is given by Mr. Woods of the general effect of those stupendous ruins which are now so thickly strewn over the surface of the Palatine. So confusedly are they jumbled together, that it is difficult to trace in them any plan; yet the skill of the antiquaries has been exercised in attempting to arrange them with some attention to regularity. In one part they have fixed the House of Augustus; in another, the House of Tiberius and Caligula; and in a third, the House of Nero.

"In the present chaos of broken walls and arcades," says Forsyth, "we can no longer retrace the general design of this palace, as it existed in any one reign. Palladio, whose imagination has rebuilt so many ruins, forbore from these. Pauvinio tried in vain to retrace the original design. Bianchini went too far. He spent his fortune and

lost his life in excavating tais ground: but were the few rooms which he discovered in a corner of one quarter of the palace, or the ill-connected ruins above, sufficient data to restore the general design, and to allot, geometrically, each part of the fabric to its imperial founder? Not satisfied with the grander distributions, and with the symmetry which he gives to the whole, Bianchini boldly descends into details ; he fixes the guard-rooms, the oil-cellars, the wood-house, &c., and bodies forth most magnificent stairs, without one ancient step or stone to guide him. Others have brought into these ruins our modern ideas of conve | nience, and have fancied back-stairs, cabinets, &c., contrivances which the ancients never dreamed of."

In the very middle of the flat top of the hill is an immense hall, 138 feet long, by 91 in breadth, called the Palatine Library. It was discovered in the year 1720; till then it had lain hidden under a vast accumulation of rubbish, and, owing to that very circumstance, was still in a state of good preservation. When opened, it was richly decorated with statues and other ornainents of marble; but the colossal figure of Apollo, brazen, and fifty feet in height, which is mentioned by Pliny, and is supposed to have stood there, was not found. The largest masses of ruins are upon the south-western side, towards the Aventine. "A range of lofty arches," says Simond, "still accessible to the top, and affording an airy, but perhaps an unsafe walk, overlooks on one side, a vast extent of fantastic ruins, and on the other ruins, the area of what was once the Circus Maximus, where Olympic charioteers no more urge their panting steeds round the goal, but where cabbages and artichokes flourish remarkably well."

"Half a century ago," says Sir John Hobhouse, " tower, overlooking the site of the Circus Maximus, and which made part of the Cæsarean Palace, was restored; but the curse of Jerusalem hangs over this hill-it is again in ruins."

In the same quarter is the suite of subterranean chambers, which have been commonly called the Baths of Nero; "for this emperor being a great builder, is generally called in to father all unknown remains." They are assigned, however, at present to the House of Augustus. "We descended," says Simond, "many steps under ground into some ruins, accidentally discovered when part of the arched cieling gave way, in the year 1777; they belonged to a first floor, and their present depth under the modern level of the soil shows the great accumulation which has taken place. Endless suites of apartments adjoining these may still hide the richest treasures of Grecian art under the earth and rubbish which fill them. The accessible parts have, of course, been stripped of all that was worth carrying away, but the walls and ceilings are still covered with small fresco paintings, arabesques, and other trifling ornaments, neatly executed, and some of them gilt."

These chambers were excavated by an Englishman in 1777; house, writing in 1817," is now at the disposal of any one "and the ground of the villa," says Sir John Hobwho chooses to pay a very moderate sum for so imperial a purchase, and the pleasure of experiments. The next garden and vineyard (for so the Palatine is now divided,) playful antiquaries, had, in 1817, chalked upon the gateare in possession of the Irish College; and some rustic, or way, “The Hippodrome, The Temple of Apollo, The House of the Vestals. The shape of the vineyard does resemble a place for equestrian exercises. Apollo and the Vestals may be lodged at will, in any of the towering vaults, may explore above or below, through the arched corridors, or under-ground crypts, of these enormous masses, You a thousand winters, and serve as a floor to the ruins. Reor on the platforms, whose stuccoed floorings have resisted ligion," adds the same writer," is still triumphant after the fall of the palace of the Caesars, the towers of feudal lords, and the villas of papal princes. The church and contiguous monastery of S. Bonaventura, preserves a spark of life upon the site of the town of Romulus. The only lane which crosses the Palatine leads to this church be tween dead walls."

ments of the imperial ruins rising from a hill, which seems In the approach to Rome from the west, the tall fragone wide field of crossed and trellised reeds hung round

with vines, form the most striking portion of the prospect of the old city, seen from the eminences beyond the Tiber. "They are so thickly strewn, and so massive, that it is not surprising the inhabitants of the rising town chose to seek for other sites rather than to attempt to clear them away. But they are not without their use, for the flagging vapours of the malaria are supposed to settle round their summits, as well as those of the Coliseum, and thus to spare the modern city. Where all repair had been hopeless, the descendants of those who reared these mighty fabrics have converted the desolation of the ancient city to the purposes of other havoc. They scrape the old walls of the Palatine, as well as those of the Baths of Titus, for saltpetre, of which a manufacture has been established in both those positions; and thus, if the phrase may be used, ruin begets ruin, destruction propagates destruction."

THE FARNESE VILLA AND GARDENS.

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strikingly impressive. From the latter he looks down
upon the valley through which ran the Sacred Way, and
which is still adorned with the remains of splendid build-
ings; if he turns to the right, the Coliseum meets his view;
and beyond it, remains of the old city, both within and
without the walls, and among them, the long lines of aque-
ducts, stretching across the bare Campagna,-" the arms of
the fallen giant." From the northern angle, he has the
ruins on the Sacred Way upon his right; on his left, he
surveys at a short distance the hill of the Capitol, no
longer shining with the golden roofs of its temple and as
his eye sinks from the modern buildings on its summit, to
the ancient fragments at its base, it gradually rests upon
"the narrow space just underneath," where
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep,"
in what was once the Roman Forum.

TEMPLE OF PEACE, OR BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE. In the valley which bounds the Palatine Hill on the north east, or through which ran the Sacred Way, stand those remarkable remains which have been commonly described as a fragment of the very celebrated "Temple of Peace," which stood in this neighbourhood. "Good reasons, however," says Dr. Burton, are given for making us believe that this name has been wrongly applied." We know from the ancient writers, that the Emperor Vespasian, after termi

In the earlier half of the sixteenth century, when Paul the Third filled the Papal throne, the Farnese family, of which he was a member, were ambitious of a summerhouse in the imperial precincts. 'They levelled, they built, and they planted," says Sir John Hobhouse; "Michael Angelo designed, Raffael painted, and the master-pieces of ancient sculpture, statues, reliefs, and coloured marbles, were drawn out from beneath the ruins of Caracalla's Baths, and of the Flavian Amphitheatre, for the embellishment of the rising villa. Following anti-nating the Jewish war, erected near the Forum a temple quaries used to remark, that these peopled gardens had succeeded to the solitude of the long-neglected hill. The extinction or aggrandisement of the Farnese dukes, stripped this retreat, as well as the palace of the family, of all its treasures. Naples was again fated to be enriched by the plunder of Rome. The Palatine villa was abandoned, and in less than half a century has fallen to the ground. The naked fountain and twisted steps of Michael Angelo, and the cockle-shell incrusted walls, form a singular contrast with the lofty arcades on the Cæsarean side."

Under the name of the Villa Farnese, one-half of the surface of the Palatine is now comprised. Its circuit comprises the whole of the north-western side, overlooking the site of the ancient Forum, and about half of the two sides contiguous, overlooking respectively the Sacred Way and the Circus Maximus. The fourth boundary is the public road, which begins at the Arch of Titus. "This villa, the property of the King of Naples," says Mr. Burgess, writing in 1831, “is let and cultivated as a kitchen-garden. The summer-houses and fountains built by the Farnese family, are daily falling into ruins." The principal gate is said to bave been designed by Michael Angelo; it is, however, generally closed. Adjoining this villa, and running along the west side of the hill, which overlooks the Circus, is the Villa Spada, which is supposed to stand over the ruins of the House of Augustus; in the year 1831, it was the property of an English gentleman.

The ruins of a structure erected by the Farnese family. may be seen above those which are assigned to the Emperor Nero. The palace of the Pope, built scarcely three centuries ago, like the palace of the Cæsar, which was built within seventy years of the birth of Christ, is fast crumbling into ruins; and the gradual decay of both must insensibly lead their proud masses to the fate in which the lowly cottage of Romulus has long since been overwhelmed. "Their very ruins," says Simond, are disappearing under the luxuriant vegetation of evergreen oaks, laurels, and aloes; and this residence of the masters of the world, whence, as from a common centre, activity was communicated to the most distant parts of the empire, seems at

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present the very abode of idleness. An old gardener
watching his poultry, which, he said, were all carried away
by foxes, (within the walls of Rome!) and a few beggarly
looking men employed in making ropes, under the shelter
of an old wall, were the only human creatures not asleep
that we
saw during a ramble of several hours. The
Arcadian Academy, one of the literary societies of Rome,
formerly held their meetings here, under a grove of ever-
green oaks, still flourishing; but these Arcadians, also,
have long since deserted the desert; and some fragments
of Corinthian capitals, marble pedestals, and highly-
wrought friezes,-which served them as tables and chairs a
hundred years ago,-now lie in classical disorder on a level
spot of green turf, browzed short by a few goats."

From the northern and eastern angles of the Farnese
Villa, the traveller is accustomed to enjoy a prospect

which he consecrated to Peace*. This is related to have been one of the most magnificent in Rome; it was encrusted with a coating of gilt bronze, and adorned with stupendous columns of white marble; it was also enriched with some of the finest sculptures and paintings of which the ancient world could boast. Among the former, was a colossal statue of the Nile, surrounded by sixteen children, cut out of one block of basalt; among the latter, was the famous picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodest. Here, too, were deposited the candlestick, and some other of the spoils, which Titus brought from Jerusalem. There was also a curious library attached to the edifice.

This temple was burnt in the reign of Commodus, or towards the close of the second century of the Christian that the ruins were lying on the ground in his time. It is æra; and Procopius, a writer of the sixth century, tells us not likely that it was rebuilt after that age; so that we can hardly imagine the remains which have so long gone by the name of the "Temple of Peace," to be a part of the building erected by Vespasian. Some think, too, that they do not belong to any temple at all. "Every man," says Vasi, "who examines this ruin with attention, will be forced to admit that it is not a temple, because it has not the form of one; that it is not the Temple of Peace, because there is no authority for believing it to be such, because the style of construction has no resemblance to that of the

age of Vespasian, because the stuccoes and fragments of sculpture which we see in it are far from exhibiting the delicacy of that age, and because we recognise in it at a glance the style of the age of Constantine. It must also be remarked, that it is wrong to believe what is commonly said, that the inscription which begins Paci Æternæ, &c., (To Eternal Peace) was found in this vicinity; it was discovered in 1547 near the arch of Septimius. Whatever, then, may have been the destination of this immense building, it is certain that it is not the Temple of Peace." what it is. Nibby calls it the Basilica of Constantine; It is, however, much easier to say what it is not, than and as basilicas have been very much in fashion among the Roman antiquaries of late years, that denomination is the prevailing one at the present day. The disposition of of the whole edifice, certainly justify the supposition that the existing remains, and the plan which has been traced "They they belong rather to a basilica than to a temple.

*See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., p. 29.

+ Protogenes was a celebrated Greek painter, who flourished about the same time as Apelles, and, therefore, in the latter half of the fourth century before the Christian æra. The picture in question was one of his master-pieces, and, indeed, one of the most famous specimens of ancient art. A part of it represented a hound panting, and with froth upon his mouth. Pliny relates that the artist was for a long time unable to satisfy himself in the execution of this froth, that he exerted his utmost skill in numerous attempts, without suecess, when at last, in a fit of anger, he threw the sponge which he used to wipe off his colours, upon the painting, and thus accidentally produced the required effect. The picture was destroyed when the temple was burnt.

private citizens; sometimes they were a festival of rejoicing | upon these occasions," says Dr. Burton, "is truly wonderon account of successes obtained in war, at others, they assumed the nature of a religious ceremony, resorted to for appeasing the wrath of the gods. Before the games commenced, there was a grand procession from the Capitol to the Circus; the images of the gods were conveyed on carriages, and in frames, or on the shoulders of men, accompanied by a great train of attendants. After the performance of sacred rites, the games began. The raising of a rope or chain which stretched across the carceres, at which the horses stood, was a signal for the people to retire to their seats from the open area, in which they used to amuse themselves with conjurers, jugglers, fortune tellers, and other professors of similar arts. The order in which the chariots were to stand was determined by lot; and the person who presided at the games, gave the signal from his seat over the entrance, by dropping a napkin or cloth. The chain was then dropped, the horses sprang forward, and after running seven times round the course, whoever came in first at the meta near the carceres, or rather at a white line traced with chalk upon the ground, across the circus near that meta, was the victor. That the people might know at any time during the race how often the chariots had gone round, an egg was placed upon one of the cones of the meta, as each successive circuit was accomplished. The name of the victor was proclaimed by a herald; he was crowned with a palm-wreath, and received a considerable sum of money. Of these races there were usually twenty-five in the course of the day.

There is nothing in the domestic history of the Romans more remarkable, than the extraordinary factions which sprung up from the colours of the drivers at these races, and agitated not only the Circus itself, but the whole city. "The race, in its first institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a bright green, and a cœrulean blue, were afterwards introduced: and as the races were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots contributed in the same day to the pomp of the Circus. The four factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature, in the four seasons of the year; the red dog-star of Summer, the snows of Winter, the deep shades of Autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the Spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons; and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced, either a plentiful harvest, or a prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardour of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to the colour which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest princes; but the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or green factions of the Circus: they frequented their stables, applauded their favourites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected imitation of their manners. The bloody and tumultuous contest continued to disturb the public festivity till the last age of the spectacles of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or affection, interposed his authority, to protect the greens against the violence of a consul and a patrician, who were sionately addicted to the blue faction of the Circus."

ful; and if the accounts were not well attested, we might be incredulous as to the possibility of so many being sup plied." In the days of imperial splendour, nearly every rare animal that Western Asia or Northern Africa could produce, was commonly exhibited to the Roman people. In the year 252 B.C., one hundred and forty-two elephants, brought from Sicily, were exhibited in the Circus; whether they were put to death or not, is unknown. Cæsar, in his third dictatorship, showed a vast number of wild beasts, among which were four hundred lions, and a camelopard. The Emperor Gordian devised a novel kind of spectacle; he converted the Circus into a temporary wood, and turned into it two hundred stags, thirty wild horses, one hundred wild sheep, ten elks, one hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred ostriches, thirty wild asses, one hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred ibices, and two hundred deer. He then allowed the people to enter the wood, and take what they pleased. Forty years afterwards, the Emperor Probus imitated his example; "Large trees were pulled up by the roots," says an ancient writer, "and fastened to beams which were laid down crossing each other. Soil was then thrown upon them, and the whole circus planted like a wood." One thousand ostriches, one thousand stags, one thousand ibices, wild sheep, and other grazing animals, as many as could be fed or found, were turned in; and the people admitted as before. Of the trouble which was taken, even in the republican times, to procure rare animals for exhibition in Rome, we have a curious illustration in the letters of Cicero. The orator went out in the year 52 B.C., as governor of a province of Asia Minor; and while there, he was thus addressed by his friend Caelius:

"I have spoken to you, in almost all my letters, about the panthers. It will be disgraceful to you, that Patiscus has sent ten panthers to Curio, while you have scarcely sent a greater number to me. Curio has made me a present of these, and ten others from Africa. If you will only keep it in mind, and employ the people of Cybira, and also send letters into Pamphylia, (for I understand that the greatest number are taken there,) you will gain your object." To this the proconsul replies, "I have given particular orders abo the panthers to those who are in the habit of hunting them; but they are surprisingly scarce; and it is said, that those which are there, make a great complaint that there are no snares laid against any one in my province but themselves. It is accordingly supposed, that they are determined to quit my province, and go into Caria. However, I shall use all diligence, particularly with Patiscus." The passionate attachment of the Romans to the games of the Circus, was carried to a most extravagant pitch. Long after the inhuman combats of gladiators in the Am phitheatre had been suppressed, "the Roman people still considered the Circus as their home, their temple, and the seat of the republic. The impatient crowd rushed at the dawn of day to secure their places, and there were many who passed a sleepless and anxious night in the adjacent porticoes. From the morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spectators, who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand, remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of the colours which they espoused; and the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race. The same pas-immoderate ardour inspired their clamours, and their applause, as often as they were entertained with the hunting of wild beasts, and the various modes of theatrical representation." Suetonius, in his life of Caligula, speaks of that emperor being so disturbed by the noise of those who occupied the "gratuitous seats," in the middle of the night, that he ordered them all to be driven out with sticks; and among those expelled, were more than twenty knights, as many matrons, besides an innumerable crowd.

The chariot and horse-races formed the principal attraction of the games of the Circus; but there were other spectacula or shows exhibited, such as contests in the five exercises, of running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, and throwing the discus or quoit. There was also a Ludus Troja-a mock-fight performed by young noblemen on horseback; it was revived by Julius Cæsar, and frequently celebrated under the emperors. Naumachia, or sea-fights, were also represented in the Circus in the earlier times; but Augustus dug a lake for the purpose, near the Tiber, and Domitian built a Naumachia, or sea-fight theatre.

Next to the chariot-races, however, the most attractive part of the Circensian games was the venatio, or exhibition of wild beasts, who either fought with one another, or with men who were forced to the encounter by way of punishment, as the primitive Christians often were, or induced to enter upon it by love of gain. When amphitheatres were introduced, the Circus was not so much used for this spectacle as before; but still we read of these combats in the Circus till a late period, "The number of beasts killed

The avidity with which the amusements of the Circus were sought, increased with the decline of the empire and the corruption of morals. Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote in the fourth century of the Christian era, gives us the following description:-" The people spend all their earnings in drinking and gaming, in spectacles, amusements, and shows. The Circus Maximus is their temple, their dwelling-house, their public-meeting, and all their hopes. In the fora, the streets, and squares, multitudes assemble together and dispute, some defending one thing, and some another. The oldest take the privilege of their age, and cry out in the temples and fora, that the republic must fall, if, in the approaching games, the person whom