346 pltts't's natural HISTOHT. [Book XXXVI. 



the world has been outdone by us : a thing which will appear, 

 in fact, to have occurred almost as many times as the marvels 

 are in number which I shall have to enumerate. If, in- 

 deed, all the buildings of our City are considered in the aggre- 

 gate, and supposing them, so to say, all thrown together in one 

 vast mass, the united grandeur of them would lead one to 

 suppose that we were describing another world, accumulated 

 in a single spot. 



Not to mention among our great works, the Circus Maxi- 

 mus, that was constructed by the Dictator Caesar, one stadium 

 in width and three in length, and occupying, with the ad- 

 jacent buildings, no less than four jugera, with room for two 

 hundred and sixty thousand spectators seated ; am 1 not to 

 include in the number of our magnificent constructions, the 

 Basilica of Paulus,''^ with its admirable Phrygian columns ; the 

 Forum of the late Emperor Augustus ; the Temple of Peace, 

 erected by the Emperor Vespasianus Augustus — some of the 

 finest works that the world has ever beheld — the roofing, 

 too, of the Vote-Office,"' that was built by Agrippa ? not to 

 forget that, before his time, Valerius of Ostia, the architect, 

 had covered in a theatre at Eome, at the time of the public 

 Games celebrated by Libo ?'^ 



"We behold with admiration pyramids that were built by 

 kings, when the very ground alone, that was purchased by the 

 Dictator Caesar, for the construction of his Forum, cost one 

 hundred millions of sesterces ! If, too, an enormous expendi- 

 ture has its attractions for any one whose mind is influenced 

 by monetary considerations, be it known to him that the house 

 in which Clodius dwelt, who was slain by Milo, was purchased 

 by him at the price of fourteen million eight hundred thou- 

 sand sesterces ! a thing that, for my part, I look upon as no 

 less astounding than the monstrous follies that have been dis- 

 played by kings. And then, as to Milo himself, the sums in 

 which he was indebted, amounted to no less than seventy mil- i 



1^ L. JEmilius Paulus, who was consul with C. Marcellus, a.u.c. 703. : 

 His Basilica, a building which served as a court of law and as an ex- 

 change, was erected in the Eighth Eegion of the City, at the cost of 1500 

 talents ; which were sent to him by Caesar, Plutarch says, as a bribe to 

 gam hirn over from the aristocratical party. It was surrounded with an 

 open peristyle of columns of Phrygian marble. 



^' "Diribitorium." See B. xvi. c. 76. 



''^ ScriboniuB Libo, who was .^dile during the consulship of Cicero. 



