If we

the Campagna, towards the Alban hills. chance to be on this platform at the close of one of those sunny days which are the pride of Italy, and turn our eyes towards the Alban hills, our glance will pass over the inexpressible grace and beauty of the shifting lines of the Campagna bounded by those hills, flushed with the glorious hues of the setting sun. Such a scene may serve to lift up our thoughts into a more pleasurable sphere from the desolation and ruin which surround us.

THE history of the Roman Forum is the history of the Roman people. It was the great centre of Roman life and business. Here were held the comitia, or

public meetings of the Roman people; here the yearly consuls were elected, and here also the tribunes were appointed as protectors of the rights of the people. In the Forum the decemvirs set up the laws, so that every one should know them, and no man should be unjustly oppressed. Here the orators addressed the people. From the earliest period of the history of Rome this spot was the battle-ground of the Roman people. Here the struggle for their political rights was fought out.

'No spot on earth,' writes Mr. Hillard, 'is more imposing, for it is overshadowed with the power and majesty of the Roman people. Here were laid the foundations of that wonderful political system which lasted so long and worked so well, which was strong enough to hold the whole world in its grasp, and wise enough to exercise a controlling influence over the legislation and jurisprudence of the civilized world

down to the present day. It is a place illustrated equally by the wisdom of great statesmen and the eloquence of great orators. Here was trained that unrivalled power of constructive legislation which was the great redeeming feature in the Roman mind, and which has transmitted to posterity that precious bequest, the Roman law-a gift quite equal in value to the splendid legacy of Greek literature. Who that has the least sense of what the present owes to the past can approach such a spot without reverence and enthusiasm ?'

The Roman Forum is the centre of all historical associations connected with the great city and its people. All interest in Rome converges in the Forum. Along the Via Sacra, which went through it, passed in splendid array the triumphal processions, the evidences of the military glory and renown, of the conquests, and of the extension of the empire of the Roman people. Of these one of the most remarkable was that of Paulus Æmilius, which took up three days. Along this also passed the four triumphal processions in celebration of Cæsar's victories. In the first procession in celebration of his Gallic victories, when Cæsar reached the foot of the Capitoline he took his route of triumph to the left, and ascended to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, while Vercingetorix, the Gaulish hero, was led away to the right and strangled in the subterranean dungeon.

On this same Via Sacra Horace imagined the unconquered Briton passing along in chains.

history took place in the centre of the Forum, in front of the rostra. Here Cæsar was seated in his golden chair presiding over the solemn ceremonies of the Lupercalia, when Antonius offered him twice a diadem, exclaiming, 'it was the gift of the Roman people.' The proffered gift was twice put away, Cæsar repeating, 'I am not a king; the only king of the Romans is Jupiter.'

Within the area of the Forum took place several of the tragic scenes connected with Roman history. On this spot occurred the tragic drama of Virginia, slain by her father, to save her from the decemvir Appius Claudius. Upon the rostra in the Forum were hung up the head and hands of Cicero. Here, too, Antonius harangued the Roman populace over the body of Cæsar, and in front of the Regia was his body burnt on a funeral pile composed of chairs, benches, tables, snatched from the adjacent buildings. Upon this pile the people threw branches and brushwood; the musicians and players added their costly garments to the heap, the veterans their arms, the matrons their ornaments; even the trinkets which adorned the children's frocks were torn off, and offered in the blazing conflagration.

4

We now give a short history of the Forum and its buildings.

The earliest allusion to the primitive state of the Forum occurs in Virgil, where he mentions the herds of Evander wandering where the Forum now is. Propertius also bids us remember that before the coming of Æneas it was nothing but a grassy plain

upon which the herds of Evander strayed and fed. Further, we are told that before its enclosure within the circuit of the city it was a marsh. The earliest historical allusion to the Forum is when we are told that Mettius Curtius, the general of the Sabines, advancing from the Capitol, drove back the routed Romans the whole length of the Forum, almost as far as the gate of the Palatine, and that here Romulus vowed a temple to Jupiter, upon which the Romans rallied, and the Sabines were driven back.

Dionysius tells us that Romulus, after he had made peace with Tatius, cut down the wood that grew on the plain at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, filled up the greatest part of the lake, which, by lying in a hollow place, always abounded with water that came from the hills, and converted this place into a Forum, having upon it the altar of Saturn, erected by Hercules, at about the middle of its western side, and the Vulcanal, or Area Vulcani, on its north-west side, which was the oldest place used for public meetings, especially those of the Comitia Tributa.* Under Numa Pompilius, the temple of Janus, the Regia, and temple of Vesta, were built in the Forum. Ancus Martius built a prison close to the Forum. Tullus Hostilius adorned it with a curia, or senate house, called after him the Curia Hostilia; he also improved the comitium. Under Tarquinius Priscus the Forum received many new architectural improvements: he

* From this Vulcanal Collatinus is said, after the death of Lucretia, to have addressed the people, and to have called on them to expel the Tarquins.