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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



art-objects were designed to embellish, and of 

 which the latter were after all only accessories ? 

 Even when all that remains is only the founda- 

 tion and the first few courses of the masonry, 

 what memories do these ruins awaken ! What 

 precious lessons do they teach us ! What a de- 

 light for the mind to reconstruct the edifice, to 

 restore all its ornaments with the faded paint- 

 ings, the columns, the bits of mosaic which re- 

 main, to see it again in imagination as it was 

 when at its best ! In the popular quarters even, 

 where we find fewer objects of value, what ser- 

 vices may we do to history by collecting what- 

 ever concerns common life, by making out the 

 plans of the houses, the directions of the streets, 

 the sites of public squares in which so many im- 

 portant events have taken place — in a word, by 

 reconstructing the topography of ancient Rome ! 

 If this be the object sought in excavations, 

 then we can affirm that at Rome, however well 

 or ill the works are conducted, they will never 

 be sterile. Wherever the laborer strikes with 

 his mattock, he finds beneath the soil, as it is, 

 the remains of the ancient city. Under the 

 present houses, sleep several buried cities, and 

 the modern monuments rise on the top of two 

 or three tiers of ruins. Every one knows what 

 took place in the excavations made a few years 

 ago at the church of St. Clement, but it will be 

 well to recall it here to show the good luck that 

 attends excavations at Rome. St. Clement's is 

 a fine basilica of the twelfth century, and con- 

 tains some beautiful frescoes by Masaccio. While 

 certain works were in progress, it happened that 

 beneath the present basilica there was discovered 

 a church older still, with curious paintings, and 

 marble and granite columns ; it dated from the 

 time of Constantine, and had been used for seven 

 centuries, until the sack of Rome by Robert 

 Guiscard. Encouraged by this success, the man- 

 agers of the works excavated still deeper, and 

 soon they found, under this primitive church, a 

 sanctuary of Mithra, and some remains of a Ro- 

 man house belonging to the early period of the 

 empire. Descending still deeper, they discovered 

 constructions in tufa which certainly are as old 

 as the early years of the republic, and perhaps 

 even date from the time of the kings. Here, 

 then, is a succession of monuments belonging 

 to all the epochs of Roman history, from the 

 founding of the city down to the Renaissance. 

 Nor is this case altogether exceptional ; it would 

 not be, in my opinion, rash to expect that what 

 has occurred at St. Clement's will occur again 

 and again ; and for this reason : Rome, like all 



great capitals, has been oftentimes rebuilt in 

 the course of its protracted existence, but the 

 Roman mode of renovating and rejuvenating 

 their city is less disastrous than ours to the old 

 ruins of the past. Nowadays old buildings are 

 torn down; formerly they used to be covered 

 over. Our aim is, above all, to have straight 

 avenues, and, in order to facilitate the circulation 

 of the innumerable vehicles that traverse our 

 streets, we level away all elevations of the 

 ground. Hence we may say that the soil of 

 Paris is sinking from day to day, while that of 

 Rome was ever rising. Wealthy Romans, when 

 they desired to feast their eyes on an extended 

 prospect, or when they wished merely to enjoy a 

 purer air in that unwholesome climate, were wont 

 to build their houses upon enormous substruct- 

 ures. So, too, when a new quarter was to be 

 built, they began by filling up the old one with 

 earth, and then built upon this. Hence it is 

 pretty certain that, if we remove this earth, we 

 shall find the original soil and the remains of the 

 ancient buildings. 



But will it be possible amid these ruins for 

 one to know where he is ? This is an impor- 

 tant point. It is plain that history can gain noth- 

 ing from these heaps of rubbish, these founda- 

 tions of houses, these pavements of temples or of 

 streets, unless we can say to what quarter of the 

 city they belonged, or of what group of monu- 

 ments they formed a part. Can we seriously ex- 

 pect to be able to do this? Skeptics have strong 

 doubts ; they even go so far as to ridicule the 

 archaeologists who assume to be ignorant of noth- 

 ing, and who have no hesitation in giving names 

 to the most unimportant ruins they find. Still, I 

 think the archaeologists are in the right. There is 

 abundance of information about ancient Rome: 

 the orators and historians are full of details re- 

 garding the localities in which the events oc- 

 curred which they record. The poets, especially 

 those of them who, like Horaoe, have been 

 pleased to acquaint us with the history of their 

 lives, frequently take occasion to speak cf the 

 quarters where they loved to dwell. What 

 they have to say of these various quarters, and 

 of the monuments they contained, gives many a 

 valuable hint to us ; but there exists still more 

 trustworthy means of information. Nowadays, 

 when a traveler would make his way up and down 

 through the streets of a strange town, he uses a 

 map and a guide-book ; the ancient Romans, too, 

 had their maps and guides for the traveler. A 

 people so inquisitive and so practical, who were 

 obliged to travel all over the world, and who in 



