204 



1EE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Forum, as the saying was. When we consider 

 that this arrangement of the ground, the small 

 extent of the place, these surrounding hills, these 

 inclosing buildings, supply conditions very favor- 

 able to the voice, it becomes a little less surpris- 

 ing to us that orators should have made them- 

 selves heard here, and that they should have 

 been able to produce such great effect. We must 

 further confess that this Forum, small as it ap- 

 pears, may have been sufficiently large to hold 

 all who wished to be present at important trials 

 or to deposit their ballots on days of voting. It 

 may be that, after all, the number of voters was 

 less than we suppose, and that the place was large 

 enough simply because a portion of those qualified 

 to vote absented themselves. Toward the end of 

 the republic, in proportion as the popular assem- 

 blies became more stormy, wise and moderate 

 men, who everywhere are the most timid, fell 

 into the "habit of staying away. When it was 

 seen that these assemblies usually ended in 

 bloody quarrels, people that disliked strife ceased 

 to attend. Cicero bitterly complains of this de- 

 sertion of the Comitia, and speaks of certain 

 laws as having been passed by a handful of citi- 

 zens, or even by those who had no right at all 

 to vote. This explains why so many Romans 

 should have made so little difficulty about ac- 

 cepting the empire : it was a very small matter 

 for them to be deprived of political rights which 

 they themselves had renounced. 



Still, under the empire, the Forum appeared 



to be too small. The popular assemblies were 

 now no more ; but the promenaders, loungers, 

 sight-seers, were constantly increasing in num- 

 bers, and strangers were coming in from all parts 

 of the world. The plan was now adopted, not 

 of enlarging the old Forum — a thing that could 

 not be done save by destroying the ancient mon- 

 uments — but of constructing other forums all 

 around it. Caesar made the first step in this di- 

 rection, and the other princeps imitated him. As 

 each strove to eclipse his predecessors, the out- 

 lay was larger from reign to reign, and the build- 

 ings finer. Thus it was that there was created 

 in the heart of the sovereign city the finest col- 

 lection of monuments and public places ever 

 seen. The stranger who entered Rome by the 

 Flaminian Way, and who, afcer passing through 

 the Forums of Trajan, Nerva, Vespasian, Augus- 

 tus, and Caesar, came at last to the ancient Forum 

 Romanum, where the beauty of the edifices was 

 enhanced by the grandeur of the memories asso- 

 ciated with them, must have been filled with sur- 

 prise at the spectacle. However great an idea 

 he had conceived in his own country of the 

 wonders of Rome, he had to confess that his 

 dreams fell below the reality. He felt that he 

 stood in the capital city of the whole world, 

 and he went home filled with an admiration, 

 never to be effaced, for that city upon uhich 

 were fixed the eyes of all mankind, and which, 

 as early as the second century, was called the 

 " Holy City." 



A LEAF OF EASTERN IIISTOEY. 



By the Late NASSAU W. SENIOR. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE.— In the month of 

 June, 1855, M. Ferdinand de Lesseps vis- 

 ited England for the purpose of inducing the 

 British Government to withdraw their opposi- 

 tion to the proposed construction of the Suez 

 Canal. He had been for some years the French 

 consul-general in Cairo. His father had filled 

 that post before, and it was mainly by the advice 

 of the elder M. de Lesseps that the sultan select- 

 ed Mehemet Ali to be Pasha of Egypt. 



Mehemet Ali reposed great confidence in M. 

 Ferdinand de Lesseps, and intrusted to him in a 

 great degree the education of his favorite son 

 Said Pasha, who consequently was prepared to 



view with favor M. de Lesseps's important scheme. 

 A firman was submitted to the sultan, who, how- 

 ever, delayed its ratification until the formal con- 

 sent of England could be obtained, and M. de 

 Lesseps was empowered by the French Govern- 

 ment to negotiate with the members of the Brit- 

 ish cabinet. M. Thiers gave him a letter to Mr. 

 Senior, in whose house he became a frequent and 

 a welcome guest. 



A commission, consisting chiefly of engineers 

 from various countries, was appointed to proceed 

 to Egypt in the following winter, and Mr. Senior 

 (who, unlike most of his countrymen, had be- 

 lieved from the first that the proposed canal 



