Chap. 24 ] MAEYELLOUS BUILDINGS AT EOME. 345 



tive Stone ;"''° the Argonautaa, who used it for the purposes of 

 an anchor, having left it there. This stone having repeatedly 

 taken flight from the Prytan£eum,^^ the place so called where 

 it is kept, it has been fastened down with lead. In this 

 city also, near the gate which is known as the *' Trachia,"'^ 

 there are seven towers, which repeat a number of times all 

 sounds that are uttered in them. This phenomenon, to which 

 the name of " Echo," has been given by the Greeks, depends 

 upon the peculiar conformation of localities, and is produced 

 in valleys more particularly. At Cyzicus, however, it is the 

 eifect of accident only ; while at Olympia, it is produced by 

 artificial means, and in a very marvellous manner ; in a portico 

 there, which is known as the ** Heptaphonon,"''* from the cir- 

 cumstance that it returns the sound of the voice seven times. 

 At Cyzicus, also, is the Buleuterium,''* a vast edifice, con- 

 structed without a nail of iron ; the raftering being so con- 

 trived as to admit of the beams being removed and replaced 

 without the use of stays. A similar thing, too, is the case 

 with the Sublician Bridge '^ at Borne ; and this by enactment, 

 on religious grounds, there having been such difficulty experi- 

 enced in breaking it down when Horatius Codes '^^* defended it. 



CHAP. 24. — MARVELLOUS BUILDINGS AT HOME, EIGHTEEN IN NUMBER. 



But it is now time to pass on to the marvels in building 

 displayed by our own City, and to make some enquiry into the 

 resources and experience that we have gained in the lapse of 

 eight hundred years ; and so prove that here, as well, the rest of 



'° "Lapis Fugitivus," 



'^ A public place where the Prytanes or chief magistrates assembled, 

 and where the public banquets were celebrated. 



72 Or " Narrow" gate, apparently. Dion Cassius, B. 74, tells a similar 

 story nearly, of seven towers at Byzantium, near the Thracian Gate ; and 

 " Thracia " is given by the Bamberg MS. It is most probable that the two 

 accounts were derived from the same source. 



"3 '^TTTciipwvov, •' seven times vocal." Plutarch also mentions this 

 portico. 



'* BovXturr/piov, the " senate house " or " council-chamber." 



'5 It was the most ancient of the bridges at Rome, and was so called 

 from its being built upon " sublices," or wooden beams. It was originally 

 built by Ancus Martius, and was afterwards rebuilt by the Pontifices or 

 pontiffs. We learn from Ovid, Fasti, B. v. 1. 621, that it was still a 

 wooden bridge in the reign of Augustus. In the reign of Otho it was 

 carried away by an inundation. In later times it was also known as the 

 Pons -5]milius, from the name of the person probably under whose super- 

 intendence it was rebuilt. ''^* See B, xxxiv. c. 11. 



