It was brought from Thebes to Alexandria, down the Nile, by Constantine. Constantius fulfilled the designs of his father; and, in a vessel provided with 300 oars, transported it to the Tyber, and landed it three miles below Rome in the year 357. With considerable labour it was set up in the Circus Maximus 99, and, in the course of time, was involved in the ruins of that edifice. Sixtus V. found it interred twenty-four Roman palms deep, and broken into three pieces. Under the direction of the architect Fontana, it was taken up, and erected before the new Lateran palace, in 1588.100

It is now approaching to 800 years since Robert Guiscard laid waste with fire and sword the Lateran district as far as the Colosseum 101 ; and in that devastation were probably involved the edifices we have sought for in vain. The waste is now reple

who was drowned in the Red Sea in following the Israelites on the Lateran obelisk; and that he was Thoutmosis the Seventh, king of the eighteenth dynasty! This is his hieroglyphic name, which a friend of mine copied from a Scarabæus brought from Egypt:

ALF

99 Ammian. Marcellin. p. 176. Edit. Lugd. Batav. 1693. 4to. 100 The obelisk is now 144 Roman palms in length, without reckoning the base or pedestal (see Vasi's Itinerary, tom. i. p. 166.); but it has probably been shortened in fitting the pieces together.

101 Vide Rerum Italic. Scriptores, tom.i ii. parti. p. 313.

nished with a few habitations, the convent of the Quattro Coronati, the church of SS. Pietro and Marcellino, and the sumptuous Basilica of the Lateran, with its appendages: and if the Norman could now revisit the scene, he might wonder at the magnificence of the popes, whilst he recognised the traces of his own destructive labours. But we may rather be inclined to contemplate the obelisk, which takes us back to the Pharaohs and to the glory of the Egyptian Thebes, which proclaims the extensive dominions of Rome, and finally celebrates her fallen grandeur, which could furnish out of its ruins such a durable and stupendous

monument.

180

DISSERTATION THE FIFTH:

COMPRISING TWO REGIONS; VIZ. REGIO III. CALLED ISIS AND SERAPIS MONETA, AND REGIO V. CALLED ESQUILINA WITH THE VIMINAL HILL.

Εἷς δόμος ἄςυ πέλει, πόλις ἄςεα μύρια τεύχει.

OLYMPIODORUS APUD PHOTIUM.

WHEN the valour and discipline of the Romans were acknowledged and felt in all the world, and their senate was called an assembly of kings, Rome could boast of no grandeur or ornament except the virtue of her citizens. As that hereditary virtue, which influenced the senators to live in a modest and frugal manner, began to decline, the magnificence of the city began to rise: and when at length the glory of the republic was swept away, it seemed as if the Cæsars were left but to emulate each other in erecting monuments to its mighty shade. The empire became the grave of the republic; and although in contemplating those monuments we see the works of the emperors, yet we insensibly imagine that we behold in them the greatness of the consuls. In vain do we attempt to separate true glory from virtue; nor are we equally shocked at the cruelty of Sylla and the wanton barbarity of Nero. The tomb of the Scipios unites all the qualities we look for in a

monument of antiquity. The golden house of Nero, if even it existed to astonish our eyes, would disgust our feelings when we turned to ask its use, and the name of its author. It is to avoid the nausea which would follow the contemplation of such an object, however astonishing, that we wish to refer whatever is great to something that is noble and, fortunate enough for this laudable sentiment, two of the most splendid works of Rome were erected by men whom we almost identify with the most virtuous of the consuls. We make these reflections with reference to a survey of the third and fifth regions; and perhaps they may accord with the feelings of some who look with us upon the ruins scattered over the Esquiline hill, the painted vaults under the baths of Titus, and the mighty walls of the Colosseum.

The two regions, taken together, will comprise a main portion of the uninhabited ground lying within the walls of the city. The fifth is so extensive, and its limits so interwoven with the third, that it would be difficult to delineate the boundaries of each. In the third region our attention will be chiefly confined to two things, the Colosseum and the baths of Titus; in the fifth will be found a variety of objects of minor importance, and more doubtful nomenclature: but the space of more than four miles in circuit, which we are now about to go over, will be best considered by blending the two districts together, and calling the whole the Esquiline hill. The extreme points will lie at the Basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme and the Villa Strozzi in length, and at the temple of Minerva Medica and the Colosseum in breadth. This space,

which was once crowded with 150,000 inhabitants', in which were twenty-three streets, containing 5,657 insulæ and 340 great houses 2, which was adorned with numerous temples, and, according to a modern writer, not less than seven groves3, is now peopled by a few peasants who cultivate the vineyards, and a few solitary "custodi" of the deserted villas. It is here where we are left to ruminate when we have retired from the noise of the modern city, without going beyond the walls of Rome. It is on the green pathway which leads from the Lateran to the Basilica of S. Croce, between the walls and the arches of the lofty aqueduct, that the mind enters into another sphere of thought, and becomes a portion of the solemnity around it.

Within the precincts of the monastery of " Santa Croce," there remains the outer wall of half an amphitheatre. Since the time of Honorius, as is probable, it has formed a part of the city walls.

1 The calculation of the Abbé Brottier is here adopted, who reckons about twenty-one inhabitants to each insulæ, and eighty to each house or palace. We shall have occasion to examine this estimate more closely in another place.

2 Compare the Regionaries of Victor and Rufus with the "Notitia."

3" See the "Carta Fisica del suolo di Roma," appended to the work of G. Brocchi. In that map are the names of all the groves and their localities, assigned with great ingenuity, but with too much precision to inspire confidence.

4 The cultivated grounds within the city are called "Vigna," or Orto. Vegetables, especially broccoli, are the chief production; they generally present the appearance of large kitchen gardens.

5 The probability rests upon the inscription still legible over the neighbouring " Porta Labicana," from which it appears that