140 CARTER— EVOLUTION OF THE CITY OF ROME. [April 22. 



violence to the truth in at least two respects ; first in underesti- 

 mating the completeness of the Gallic victory ; and second with 

 that sublime indifference to contradiction which is so apt to char- 

 acterize tradition, by overestimating the amount of physical damage 

 which the Gauls did to the city. At a later time it was customary 

 to attribute all the crookedness and lack of plan which characterized 

 the arrangement of the city streets and buildings to the haste with 

 which Rome was rebuilt after it had been destroyed by the Gauls.^^ 

 But this presupposes that the Gauls wrought an amount of destruc- 

 tion which would partake of an industry quite at variance to what we 

 know of their natural indolence. But quite- aside from the question 

 of destruction the Gallic catastrophe had brought one lesson home 'to 

 the Romans, namely, that their city needed a defence. It is not 

 surprising that in the years following the retreat of the Gauls a 

 new wall was built on a new line so as to include the now populated 

 Aventine. To include the suburb at the south of the Campus Mar- 

 tins was impossible because of engineering difficulties. 



It is no wonder therefore that a passage in the sixth book 

 of Livy (chapter 32) dealing with the year B. C. 378 speaks of 

 the building of a wall,^*^ and that another passage (Book VII., 

 Chapter 20, under the year B. C. 353) speaks of repairs to walls and 

 towers.^^ Rome was beginning her conquest of Italy, and it was 

 necessary that she should herself be protected from hostile forces. 

 This is accordingly the epoch from which dates the so-called Servian 

 Wall. 



^' Cp. the striking passage in Livy (5, 55): antiquata deinde lege 

 promisee urbs aedificari coepta. Tegula publice prsebita est, saxi materiaeque 

 csedendse, unde quisque vellet, ius factum prsedibus acceptis eo anno aedificia 

 perfecturos. Festinatio curam exemit vicos dirigendi, dum omisso sui 

 alienique discrimine in vacuo sedificant. Ea est causa, ut veteres cloacae, 

 primo per publicum ductae, nunc privata passim subeant tecta, formaque urbis 

 sit occupatae magis quam divisae similis. Cp. also the passage in Tacitus 

 (Anna!., 15, 38) where he compares the rebuilding of Rome after the Gallic 

 - catastrophe with the rebuilding after Nero's fire. 



^® Et tantum abesse spes veteris levandi fenoris, ut tributo novum fenus 

 contraheretur in murum a censoribus locatum saxo quadrato faciundum. 



^' Legionibusque Romam reductis reliquum anni muris turribusque 

 reficiendis consumptum, et aedis Apollinis dedicata est. 



