ROMAN EXCAYATIOXS. 



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many great men. But these flags are now all 

 cracked and broken, and the street pavement is 

 in ruins. We may add that, in order to maintain 

 communication between the two halves of the 

 modern city, it has been necessary to leave in 

 the middle of the excavations an unsightly cause- 

 way known as the "Bridge of Consolation." It 

 cuts the Forum in two, and prevents a general 

 view of it from any side. To see the Forum as 

 it used to be, we must first in imagination remove 

 this obstacle, and then— a more difficult thing to 

 do — we must repair and reconstruct these ruins. 

 Here, II. Dutert's reconstruction becomes of ser- 

 vice, as aiding our imaginations in the effort to go 

 back into the distant past. 



Suppose, then, that we have before our eyes 

 not heaps of ruins, but the Forum in its entirety 

 and intact, just as it was when the empire began 

 to decline, after the time of the Antonines. Let 

 us take our stand at some convenient and cen- 

 tral point, from which we may command a gen- 

 eral view, for instance, on Caesar's hustings, and 

 contemplate the spectacle which presents itself 

 to our gaze. I should not be surprised if the 

 first glance were to fall short of our expectations. 

 We are wont to reckon great size and regularity 

 of plan among the principal qualities of a public 

 square, and the Forum is small and irregular. 

 Originally, indeed, the Forum included areas at 

 different levels and with uneven surface. The 

 Comitium rose out of a swampy plain ; the Vul- 

 canal rose above the Comitium ; and from the 

 Vulcanal a steep ascent led to the Capitol. In 

 the course of time the construction of great edi- 

 fices led to a partial concealment of these differ- 

 ences of level; but these edifices, built at ran- 

 dom, and at very different periods, do not always 

 correspond to each other. Time, it may be said, 

 made the Forum what it was. No architect drew 

 its plan beforehand, fixed its proportions or dis- 

 tributed the monuments over its surface; and 

 hence they are huddled and crowded together 

 without order. Each of the great personages 

 that ruled the republic having been intent on 

 leaving some memorial of himself in the most 

 famous and most frequented locality in Rome, 

 the result is a multitude of temples, basilicas, 

 and triumphal arches, fairly bewildering. New 

 structures were constantly building, and, when 

 old ones were repaired, they were always in- 

 creased in size. In consequence of these suc- 

 cessive invasions of its area, the free space of 

 the Forum grew more and more contracted. 

 Even the spaces between these edifices which 

 should have been left open for public use, were 



encumbered with trophies, cediculce, columns, and 

 above all with statues, which, in the language of 

 Chateaubriand, formed a population of the dead 

 in the midst of the living population of the city. 

 Vanity so multiplied these monuments that from 

 time to time the Senate was compelled to have 

 some of them removed. Among the columns 

 were some of considerable prominence ; they 

 were surrounded by a balcony commanding a 

 view of the whole Forum. On days when a suc- 

 cessful and grateful candidate gave a spectacle 

 to the people, the descendants of those in whose 

 honor the column was erected were entitled, them- 

 selves and their families, to occupy this balcony 

 for the purpose of viewing the performances of the 

 gladiators or athletes. Hence, I do not doubt 

 that on first view the Forum would have an un- 

 pleasing effect; such a crowding together of mon- 

 uments wearies the mind, and one regrets the 

 absence of all order, simplicity, and symmetry. 



I nevertheless am of the opinion that, if for 

 a moment we forget our habits of thought, our 

 eye will adapt itself to this rather confused spec- 

 tacle, and that we will find therein a certain pict- 

 uresqueness that is never met with in the cold 

 and stately regularity of our great public squares. 

 We shall then be able without difficulty to com- 

 prehend the general plan of the Forum, though 

 at first it appeared to have no plan. It stretched 

 from west to east, and formed not a long quad- 

 rangle, but rather a sort of trapezium, being 

 wider at the end toward the Capitol than at its 

 other extremity. In the middle of the streets 

 surrounding the Forum, there was a certain 

 space paved with broad flagstones, and reserved 

 for promenaders and loungers. At the extremity 

 of this promenade toward the Capitol was the 

 hustings of the republican period, the same from 

 which the Gracchi and Cicero addressed the peo- 

 ple. Its foundations are still to be seen near 

 the Arch of Severus. The hustings erected by 

 Ctesar stood just opposite. Supposing ourselves 

 to stand on Caesar's hustings, we see right in 

 front of us the Rostra of republican times; 

 behind this the temple of Concord, erected by 

 Camillus; and in the background the Tabula- 

 rium, in which were kept the archives of state. 

 To the right the Via Sacra, entering the Forum 

 near the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, 

 crossed it on its north side — the side not yet ex- 

 plored ; it skirted first the basilica of Paulus 

 jEmilius situated in front of that of Ca?sar, and 

 which rivaled the latter structure, and then the 

 palace of the Curia, in which the Senate met. 

 After passing under the Arch of Severus it 



