where the wall recommenced. The next ceremony was the consecration of the comit'ium, or place of public assembly. A vault was built under ground, and filled with the firstlings of all the natural productions that sustain human life, and with earth which each foreign settler had brought from his own home. This place was called Mun' dus, and was supposed to become the gate of the lower world; it was opened on three several days in the year, for the spirits of the dead. 1 3 4. The next addition made to the city was the Sabine town, which occupied the Quirinal, and part of the Capitoline hills. The name of this town most probably was Qui'rium, and from it the Roman people received the name Quirites. The two cities were united on terms of equality, and the double-faced Janus stamped on the earliest Roman coins was probably a symbol of the double state. They were at first so disunited, that even the rights of intermarriage did not exist between them, and it was probably from Qui'rium that the Roman youths obtained the wives 2 by force, which were refused to their entreaties. 5. The next addition was the Cœlian hill, on which a Tuscan colony settled, under the command of Co'les Vibenna, who seems to have been the leader of a body of wandering mercenaries, ready to sell their services to any monarch that would purchase them. From these three colonies the three tribes of Ram'nes, Ti'ties, and Lu'ceres were formed. 6. The Ram'nes, or Ramnenses, derived their name from Rom'ulus; the Tities, or Titien'ses, from Titus Ta'tius, the king of the Sabines; and the Lu'ceres, from1 Lucumo, the Tuscan title of a general, or leader. From this it was unlawful that any thing unclean should pollute the place which it had touched; but it was obviously necessary that things clean and unclean should pass through the gates of the city. It is remarkable that all the ceremonies here mentioned were imitated from the Tuscans. 1 This, though apparently a mere conjecture, has been so fully proved by Niebuhr, (vol. i. p. 251,) that it may safely be assumed as an historical fact. 2 See Chapter II. of the following History. 3 All authors are agreed that the Coelian hill was so named from Coeles Viben'na, a Tuscan chief; but there is a great variety in the date assigned to his settlement at Rome. Some make him contemporary with Rom'ulus, others with the elder Tarquin, or Servius Tullius. In this uncertainty all that can be satisfactorily determined is, that at some early period a Tuscan colony settled in Rome. 4 Others say that they were named so in honour of Lu'cerus, king of Ardea, according to which theory the third would have been a Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian colony. appears that the three tribes were really three distinct nations, differing in their origin, and dwelling apart. 7. The city was enlarged by Tullus Hostilius, after the destruction of Alba, and the Viminal hill included within the walls; Ancus Martius added mount Aventine, and the 'Esquiline and Capitoline being enclosed in the next reign, completed the number of the seven hills on which the ancient city stood. 8. The hill called Jani'culum, on the north bank of the Tiber, was fortified as an outwork by Ancus Martius, and joined to the city by the bridge; he also dug a trench round the newly erected buildings, for their greater security, and called it the ditch of the Quirites. 9. The public works erected by the kings were of stupendous magnitude, but the private buildings were wretched, the streets narrow, and the houses mean. It was not until after the burning of the city by the Gauls that the city was laid out on a better plan; after the Punic wars wealth flowed in abundantly, and private persons began to erect magnificent mansions. From the period of the conquest of Asia until the reign of Augustus, the city daily augmented its splendour, but so much was added by that emperor that he boasted that "he found Rome a city of brick, and left it a city of marble.” 10. The circumference of the city has been variously estimated, some writers including in their computation a part of the suburbs; according to Pliny it was near twenty miles round the walls. In consequence of this great extent the city had more than thirty gates, of which the most remarkable were the Carmental, the Esquiline, the Triumphal, the Naval, and those called Tergem'ina and Cape'na. 11. The division of the city into four tribes continued until the reign of Augustus; a new arrangement was made by the emperor, who divided Rome into fourteen wards*, 1 We shall hereafter have occasion to remark, that the Lu'ceres were subject to the other tribes. 2 See History, Chapter IV. 3 The Pincian and Vatican hills were added at a much later period, and these, with Janiculum, made the number ten. 4 They were named as follow: 1. Porta Cape'na 2. Cœlimon'tium 3. I'sis and Sera'pis 4. Via Sa'cra 5. Esquili'na 6. Acta Se'mita 7. Via Lata 11. Circus Max'imus 12. Pisci'na Publica [The 8. Forum Roma'num 13. Aventi'nus or regions. The magnificent public and private buildings in a city so extensive and wealthy were very numerous, and a bare catalogue of them would fill a volume1; our attention must be confined to those which possessed some historical importance. 12. The most celebrated and conspicuous buildings were in the eighth division of the city, which contained the Capitol and its temples, the Senate-house and the Forum. The Capitoline hill was anciently called Saturnius, from the ancient city of Satur'nia, of which it was the citadel; it was afterwards called the Tarpeian mount, and finally received the name Capitoline, from a 'human head being found on its summit when the foundations of the temple of Jupiter were laid. It had two summits; that on the south retained the name Tarpeian 3; the northern was properly the Capitol. 13. On this part of the hill Romulus first established his asylum, in a sacred grove, dedicated to some unknown divinity; and erected a fort or citadel on the Tarpeian summit. The celebrated temple of Jupiter Capitoli'nus, erected on this hill, was begun by the elder Tarquin, and finished by Tarquin the Proud. It was burned down in the civil wars between Ma'rius and Syl'la, but restored by the latter, who adorned it with pillars taken from the temple of Jupiter at Olympia. It was rebuilt after similar accidents by Vespa'sian and Domitian, and on each occasion with additional splendour. The rich ornaments and gifts presented to this temple by different princes and generals amounted to a scarcely credible sum. The gold and jewels given by Augustus The divisions made by Servius were named: the Suburan, which comprised chiefly the Coelian mount; the Colline, which included the Viminal and Quirinal hills; the Esquiline and Palatine, which evidently coincided with the hills of the same name. 1 Among the public buildings of ancient Rome, when in her zenith, are numbered 420 temples, five regular theatres, two amphitheatres, and seven circuses of vast extent; sixteen public baths, fourteen aqueducts, from which a prodigious number of fountains were constantly supplied; innumerable palaces and public halls, stately columns, splendid porticoes, and lofty obelisks. 2 From caput, 66 a head." 3 State criminals were punished by being precipitated from the Tarpeian rock; the soil has been since so much raised by the accumulation of ruins, that a fall from it is no longer dangerous. 4 In the reign of Numa the Quirinal hill was deemed the citadel of Rome; an additional confirmation of Niebuhr's theory, that Quirium was a Sabine town, which being early absorbed in Rome, was mistaken by subsequent writers for Cu'res. alone are said to have exceeded in value four thousand pounds sterling. A nail was annually driven into the wall of the temple to mark the course of time; besides this chronological record, it contained the Sibylline books, and other oracles supposed to be pregnant with the fate of the city. There were several other temples on this hill, of which the most remarkable was that of Jupiter Feretrius, erected by Romulus, where the spolia opima were deposited. 14. The Forum, or place of public assembly, was situated between the Palatine and Capitoline hills. It was surrounded with temples, basilicks', and public offices, and adorned with innumerable statues 2. On one side of this space were the elevated seats from which the Roman magistrates and orators addressed the people; they were called Rostra, because they were ornamented with the beaks of some galleys taken from the city of Antium. In the centre of the Forum was a place called the Curtian Lake, either from a Sabine general called Curtius, said to have been smothered in the marsh which was once there; or from the Roman knight who plunged into a gulf that opened suddenly on this spot. The celebrated temple of Ja'nus, built entirely of bronze, stood in the Forum; it is supposed to have been erected by Numa. The gates of this temple were opened in time of war, and shut during peace. So continuous were the wars of the Romans, that the gates were only closed three times during the space of eight centuries. In the vicinity stood the temple of Concord, where the senate frequently assembled, and the temple of Vesta, where the palla'dium was said to be deposited. 3 15. Above the rostra was the Senate-house, said to have been first erected by Tullus Hostilius: and near it the Comitium, or place of meeting for the patrician Curiæ. This area was at first uncovered, but a roof was erected at the close of the second Pu'nic war. 16. The Campus Martius, or field of Mars, was originally the estate of Tarquin the Proud, and was, with his 1 Basilicks were spacious halls for the administration of justice. It is called Templum by Livy; but the word templum with the Romans does not mean an edifice, but a consecrated enclosure. From its position, we may conjecture that the forum was originally a place of meeting common to the inhabitants of the Sabine town on the Quirinal, and the Latin town on the Palatine hill. 3 See Chap. XII. Sect. V. of the following History. 4 See the following chapter. |