338 Antiquities, &c. R_ 0 
of her language, or the peculiarity of her situation, may re¬ 
flect, that with the same language, and in the same spot of 
earth, the Greeks of the empire existed a thousand years 
without advancing one step in the career of improvement. 
Their advantages, as Gibbon justly says, only tend to aggra¬ 
vate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people. They 
held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers, without 
inheriting the spirit which had created and improved that 
sacred patrimony: they read, they praised, they compiled, 
but their languid sculls seemed alike incapable of thought and 
action. In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single dis¬ 
covery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happi¬ 
ness of mankind. Not a single idea has been added to the 
speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient 
disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the 
next servile generation. Not a single composition of history, 
philosophy, or literature, has been saved from oblivion by the 
intrinsic beauties of style or sentiment, of original fancy, or 
even of successful imitation. In prose, the least offensive of 
the Byzantine writers are absolved from censure by their 
naked and unpresuming simplicity; but the orators, most 
eloquent in their own conceit, are the farthest removed from 
the models whom they affect to emulate. In every page our 
taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and 
obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord 
of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable orna¬ 
ment, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to asto¬ 
nish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke 
of obscurity and exaggeration. Their prose is soaring to the 
vicious affectation of poetry: their poetry is sinking below 
the flatness and insipidity of prose. The tragic, epic, and 
lyric muses, were silent and inglorious: the bards of Con¬ 
stantinople seldom rose above a riddle or epigram, a pane¬ 
gyric or tale; they forgot even the rules of prosody; and 
with the melody of Homer yet sounding in their ears, they 
confounded all measure of feet and syllables in the impotent 
strains which have received the name of political or city 
verses. The minds of the Greeks were bound in the fetters 
of a base and imperious superstition, which extends her 
dominion round the circle of profane science. Their under¬ 
standings were bewildered in metaphysical controversy; 
in thebelief of visions and miracles, they had lost all prin¬ 
ciples of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiated by the 
homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and 
scripture. 
In all the pursuits of active and speculative life, the emu¬ 
lation of states and individuals is the most powerful spring 
of the efforts and improvements of mankind. The cities of 
ancient Greece were cast in the happy mixture of union and 
independence, which is repeated on a larger scale, but in a 
looser form, by the nations of modern Europe: the union 
of language, religion, and manners, which renders them the 
spectators and judges of each other’s merit: the indepen¬ 
dence of government and interest, which asserts their sepa¬ 
rate freedom, and excites them to strive for pre-eminence in 
the career of glory. Nothing of this existed in Constanti¬ 
nople. 
The history of Constantinople will be resumed under the 
article Turkey. 
VI.— Antiquities, and Present State of Rome. 
The eternal city, as Rome has been so vainly called, is 
approached by several grand and extended roads. Of these 
antiquaries enumerate twelve diverging from the gates of an¬ 
cient Rome, and twelve more branched offfrom these at asmall 
distance from the city; eighteen others commenced in different 
parts of Italy, and in the whole there are at least fifty, which 
have been distinguished by appropriate names, without 
including the military roads through the distant provinces; 
such, for example, as in England were distinguished by the 
name of streets, of which many traces yet remain in different 
parts of the country. 
M E. Antiquities, &c. 
Directly to the sea the Romans travelled by the Qstian 
road ; along its shores to the north-west by the Aurelian, and 
to the south-east by the Appian. Next within the Aurelian 
was the Flaminian, then the Salarian, the Nomentanian, the 
Tiburtine, the Praenestine, the Lavican, and the Latin; and 
then the Appian, which was the most ancient of all, having 
been made as far as Capua, in the 442d year of the city, 
accompanied to a considerable distance by an aqueduct. The 
Aurelian road was made in the year 512; the Flaminian 
about 533. 
1 . The Flaminian road still affords the great northern 
approach to Rome by the Porta del Popolo; it led to 
Foligno, Aneona, and Rimini, and was continued by the 
Emilian to Bologna, and thence to Aquilegia, near Venice; 
the present mountain route from Bologna to Rome is still 
facilitated by the remains of the ancient structures. Besides 
the Emilian road, the Flaminian was also connected with 
the Cassian, leading to Modena; the Claudian to Arezzo, 
Florence, and Lucca; there were also six other branches of 
less note, each named after its founder. 
2, 3. The Salarian and the Nomentanian roads lay to the 
east of the Flaminian; the fonner, from the Porta Salara, 
led through the country of the Sabines by Rieti to Hadria; 
the latter from the Porta Sant’ Agnese went north-eastwards 
to Nomentum. 
4. The Tiburtine road led from the Porta Tiburtina, now 
San Lorenzo, to Tivoli, with a branch on the right called the 
Gabian. The large blocks which were employed to form this 
road, near the town of Tivoli, in ascending from the river, 
are still in their ancient places; they are accurately fitted 
together, and present a surface sufficiently smooth, after 
having been in use for about two thousand years. 
5, 6, 7. The three next in order all met at Anagnia, 24 
miles beyond Praeneste or Palestrina. The Praenestine, from 
the Esquiline gate, now called Porta Maggiore, on account 
of the magnitude of the ruins of the aqueduct of Clodius, with 
which it is incorporated, led by Aquinum to Praeneste; the 
Lavican led from the same gate, more to the right, by way 
of Beneventum; and the Latin road, from the Porta Latina, 
went first to Compitum; andfrom Anagnia proceeded to join 
the Appian near Capua. 
8 . The Appian road is as well known from the minute 
description of Horace’s progress, in his journey to Brundusium, 
as from the eagerness with which a modern traveller reckons 
the stages that he has completed, on his way to Naples, with¬ 
out a visit from the banditti that infest it. The original 
extent of this road, from the Coliseum to Capua, was 142 
Roman miles; and it was continued 238 miles further to 
Brundusium by Julius Caesar. It was constructed with large 
stones, or rather rocks, joined together with great care; and 
it is said to have had a foot pavement two feet wide on each 
side, besides the agger, or principal mass of stones in the 
middle, and the two marginal parts, which were probably 
unpaved. 
9. The Ostian road led from the Porta di San Paolo, 
near the Tiber, in a straight line to the mouth of that river. 
10. The Aurelian, from the Porta Aurelia, a gate which 
was near the Moles Adriani, or Castle of Sant’ Angelo, led by 
Laurentum to Centumcellae, or Civita Vecchia, to Genoa, 
and thence by Susa, across the Montcenis, as far as Arles in 
Provence. This seems to have been the oldest passage into 
the Gauls; it was improved by Pompey the Great under the 
name of the Strata Romana. Several other passages over 
the Alps are also particularized in the Itinerary of Antonine 
on the roads from Milan to Arles; from Milan to Vienne in 
Dauphine, either by the Grecian or by the Cottian Alps: 
the former north, the latter south of Montcenis; from Milan 
to Strasburg; and from Milan to Mentz. 
11. 12. The Triumphal road began from the Capitol, and 
went over the Tiber into the country beyond the present site 
of the Vatican. We may consider as the last of the twelve 
great roads, originating from Rome, the Collatine, leading 
due north from the Porta Pinciana on the Monte Pincio. 
Among the less remarkable roads about the metropolis of 
the 
