225. The Fora, the Centers of Roman Life.—Hitherto in our prolonged “day” in Rome we have carefully avoided visiting those famous quarters or buildings which are the glory of the imperial city. These can only take on true significance when we have first seen the ordinary life of rich and poor. It is now time, however, to visit the “Heart of Rome”—the splendid system of fora in that great hollow where five of the “Seven Hills” almost come together just north of the Palatine, and then to visit the Palatine itself with its abodes of official majesty.

The renowned and original “Forum” is known technically as the Forum Romanum, or the Old Forum, and down to Julius Cæsar’s time it was the only great plaza inside the official limits of the city. Under the emperors it is still revered and famous, but the needs of an enormous metropolis have caused first Cæsar, then Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, and finally Trajan to add other wide public squares surrounded by buildings far more magnificent than most of those around the ancient rallying spot of the men of the Republic.

All these fora are closely connected together, sometimes by no very sharp lines of demarkation. You can start in near the Flavian Amphitheater and follow down the Sacred Way across the Old Forum, with one soaring edifice, triumphal arch, or memorial column succeeding another until at the Temple of Trajan you find yourself on “Broadway” (Via Lata), upon the great avenue leading through the select shopping districts, and then past the Campus Martius, and onward to the northern suburbs. “Going to the Forum” means visiting any place in this crowded, swarming district, where every public and private interest seems to have its stronghold, and where the litters of Senators go past so frequently that nobody stops to count them.

226. Incessant Crowds at the Forum. The Centers of Gossip.—If driving is impossible in the ordinary Roman streets by day, it is doubly impossible in this congested region where only those who delight in crowds should endeavor to force their way from one building to another. Nevertheless, with that informality so characteristic of Mediterranean countries, all the fora are allowed to be overrun with idlers. Ragged boys are scampering between the columns fronting the most sacred temples, and on the steps of the same adult idlers from morn till eve are playing “Robbers” on boards scratched upon the stonework,[138] or rattling dice (nominally forbidden) if the police are not too near. The foul and the elegant therefore are often in amazing juxtaposition.

For the average senator or eques a morning visit to the Forum, after he has received his own callers or clients, is almost a required act of the day. All his associates are doing the same thing; he can easily meet almost any friend without making an appointment, he can read that “Daily Journal” presently to be described (see p. 282), hear the latest tittle-tattle from the palace and get all the trade reports—all this even if he has no real business at the Senate House, the government bureaus on the Palatine, or the Record Office on the slopes of the Capitol.

If the great men do this, all the lesser fry and above all the genteel idlers must do the same. The women frequent the fora almost as much as do the men. If there is nothing else to busy one, one can always wedge into the crowds listening to the distinguished advocates in the Basilicas (Court Houses). It is quite a proper thing to imitate Horace who put in many days simply wandering around the business quarters. “I go on foot (said he) and go alone. I ask the price of kitchen-stuff and grain. I often stroll down toward the cheating [gambling] Circus and around the Forum; then perhaps I stop toward evening at the fortune tellers. Presently I go home to my supper of leeks, pulse, and macaroni.”

Across the fora will parade all personages who wish to put men’s tongues to wagging. People laugh at a certain pretentious senator who likes to pass for a great hunter and who is incessantly sending his slaves around the plazas at the crowded morning hour, bearing nets and spears and driving a mule apparently bearing home a wild boar “which we all know,” whisper the cunning, “he has just bought in the game market.”

Here in the fora also the magistrates with their lictoral fasces pass so often that it is really inconvenient the number of times you have to bow your head to them, or, if in a litter, to dismount and stand at polite attention: and in such frequented places the kissing nuisance takes on its greatest bane. The merest chance acquaintance, if only he is a citizen, will thrust his damp salute upon you, little heeding whether you have a vile cold or his own lips be ulcered and his breath foul.

227. Grandiose Architecture: Vast Quantities of Ornaments and Statues.—In viewing these great public squares and buildings instantly one is impressed by a single fact—the grandiose character of the ornaments and the architecture. All the enormous public buildings are literally overladen with adornments. The architects seemed to have abhorred the idea of blank spaces. There are no reposeful vistas. Everything seems striving to be magnificent and ornate. Statues, singly or in groups, occupy all the gables, roofs, niches, intervals of columns, and even the stairways. The Triumphal Arches are surmounted by equestrian figures or by prancing four-horse chariots. Reliefs and medallions cover all the friezes. If there is any space that cannot be seized for the mounting of sculptures or at least for bas-reliefs, it can be used for painting designs in stucco or colored mosaics. Every detail down to the gutters is highly decorated.

Very different, therefore, are these fora from the chaste elegance of the public places in Athens. On the other hand much of the effect is splendid as well as startling. The utilization of concrete permits the erection of vast soaring domes, often covered with gilded tiles. The elaborate Corinthian pillars before many of the buildings are often simply superb polished monoliths of colored marbles. The use of the arch (practically unknown in Greece) permits new effects often graceful and pleasing.

The sculptures permitted in such public places are, of course, always of the highest order. Sometimes they are original Greek masterpieces carried as spoils to Italy. Often they are excellent copies of those masterpieces but with small variations, not inelegant, which give the reproductions a real character of their own. At every turn one sees these triumphs of bronze and marble, Apollos, Minervas, Victories, Winged Mercuries, Centaurs, Homeric Heroes, and all the legendary host of Græco-Roman mythology—now singly, now in groups. Interspersed with these gods mounted on pedestals or on the entablatures of the buildings are the honorary statues of the worthies of Rome. Hardly a great leader is absent from Romulus to the reigning Hadrian.

A mere walk about the fora with an explanation of their portrait statues becomes therefore a detailed lesson in Roman history. Besides the images of the truly great and good, there are so many others of sheer mediocrities or worse that one is left wondering whether the honor of a “statue in the Forum” is so important after all. Even in old Cato’s day the abuse was such that he remarked sarcastically that “he would rather that men asked why he had not a statue in the Public Square, than whisper questioning why he had one.”

228. Use of Color on Sculptures and Architecture.—Needless to say, in Rome as in Athens very many of these buildings are brilliantly painted.[139] The great columns of colored or of snow-white Carrara or Græcian marbles are usually left in their natural aspect, but nearly all the backgrounds, architectural members, and details are colored in brilliant greens, reds, and blues. The nude statues are nearly all tinted in flesh color, and the hair darkened, and there is perhaps an overplus of gilding.

Under a bright Italian sky these color combinations make the vast succession of enormous buildings stand out with indescribable grandeur; and to this spectacle must be added the huge crowds incessantly moving about the fora, great masses of soft white togas giving to the wide areas all the exuberance of teeming life. There can be many other great plazas in the future capitals of the world; there will never be any more clearly marked out as the veritable center of an enormous Empire than the succession of fora in Rome.

We are not concerned with archæological descriptions. The arrangement of the fora in this reign of Hadrian must be sketched over lightly or explained completely, otherwise the result is not knowledge but confusion; here a very brief survey will suffice. If we are following Publius Calvus’s litter as it traces the Esquiline on routine business of a senator, a series of convenient side streets probably will bring it past the great baths of Trajan and then down the slope to the spot where the vast bulk of the Flavian Amphitheater rears itself arrogantly. The baths and the Amphitheater both will be visited later (see p. 361 and p. 394), and we can, therefore, ignore them. Then the litter bearers swing west and slightly north—and before us lies the veritable Heart of Rome.

229. Entering the Series of Fora: the Temple of Venus and Rome.—To avoid being overwhelmed by details only the most conspicuous objects and buildings will be mentioned. Some structures are obvious at the very first. To the left, lifting vauntingly above the visitors’ heads, rise tier upon tier the domes, balconies, and pinnacles of the Imperial Palace upon the Palatine, sustained at their base by an enormous mass of arches and buttresses of masonry and concrete. The lords of the palace at any moment can look down from a gilded balcony upon the Old Forum and its bustling life, and they need only descend an inclined plane in order to mingle with the mob, or cross the Plaza to visit the Senate House. Directly ahead—at the end of the vista, rises the Capitol, crowned by the rebuilt Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest (Jupiter Optimus Maximus), its roof flashing with the gold tiles; its enormous pillars proclaiming it the most splendid fane in Rome.

At the head of the Via Sacra (for this famous route of the great Triumphators now opens before us), upon our right, is the new and indescribably splendid Temple of Venus and Rome, a building just completed by Hadrian. This edifice has been reared by demolishing the last of the ruins of the impossibly extravagant “Golden House,” the architectural monstrosity of Nero.

In order to get sufficient room for his new structure Hadrian also was compelled to move the colossal statue of Nero (99 feet high) located near the site and to set it nearer the Flavian Amphitheater. This had been a great task, executed by the clever architect Decrianus, with the aid of twenty-four elephants—performed to the delight of all the idling crowds in Rome. The statue now towers upon its new pedestal, with Nero’s unworthy head sagaciously lifted from its shoulders and one of the Sun God substituted. The new Temple of Venus and Rome is a truly magnificent object; rising as it does upon a terrace 26 feet high, 500 feet long, and 300 broad, and surrounded by an enormous portico of 400 columns each 40 feet high. The versatile Emperor boasts that he has been the architect himself, and whatever are the real facts no vestibule to the fora could well be more impressive.

230. The Arch of Titus: Continuation of the Sacred Way.—With the Temple of Venus and Rome to our right and the substructures of the Palatine to the left we go straight ahead to the Arch of Titus. Everybody recognizes the shape of that impressive but relatively simple structure. Its bas-reliefs showing the spoils of Jerusalem—the “Golden Table” and more particularly the “Seven Branched Candlestick”—are destined to be reproduced countless times.

Old men in Hadrian’s day can still recall the Triumphal Procession when the son of Vespasian returned in glory; how the great throng of cheering soldiers and citizens swept up toward the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, then halted at the portal of the Temple while Simon Bar-Giora, the captive Jewish leader who had been dragged in the procession, could be taken to a high place overlooking the Forum and deliberately scourged to death. At the news that he had perished all the vast company made the crags and columns quake with their brutal “acclamation,” and Titus entered the shrine to sacrifice and to bear witness how much mightier was Latin Jove than Palestinian Jehovah.

And now the Via Sacra turns at right angles, or, to be more accurate, its thronging ways divide. Go to the left and you will come upon a high street passing under the brow of the Palatine. It runs a considerable distance toward the Capitol, receiving several sloping avenues or broad staircases leading down from the Palatine. This is “New Street” (Nova Via), the most convenient route to certain buildings on the southern side of the Forum.

It is better, however, to follow the denser crowds which are swerving somewhat to the right, and then by a second turn go straight onward again between magnificent structures, with the gilded roofs of the Capitol ever looming ahead more clearly. We are now on the Via Sacra proper; and caught in the eddying throngs of litters, litter bearers, running footmen, following clients, elbowing plebeians with now and then a masterful squad of Prætorians in gilded armor, we find it perhaps impossible to get more than the names of the structures in passing.

231. House and Temple of Vesta: the Regia: the Temple of the Divine Julius.—The venerable temple near which the ways divide is that of Jupiter Stator where Cicero convened the anxious Senate when he delivered his great assault on Catiline. Next comes to view a long high wall broken only by narrow doorways until you see a stately portal at the western end, nearest the Old Forum. From above the wall can be glimpsed the tiles and marble of an elegant mansion inside, also the foliage trees of a really fine garden. This is the House of the Vestals, the abode of the six sacrosanct virgins who are the most revered personages in all Rome, hardly barring the Emperor.

As we advance there come next to view two buildings—one a small round temple of antique and simple structure; the other a handsome arched building of no great size. The first is the Fane of Vesta itself, where burns the eternal hearthfire of Rome, guarded by the Vestals, and the most sacred structure in the entire city. The second is the Regia, the official home of the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the Roman religion, and actually occupied (since that official is now the reigning Emperor) by various clerks and administrative bureaus relating to the upkeep of the State cultus. To the right of these buildings are government warehouses and offices;[140] and then, closing off the Old Forum proper from these structures just named, stands another extraordinarily magnificent Temple, that of the deified Julius Cæsar.

232. The Old Forum (Forum Romanum).—We are now close upon the actual Forum. It can be entered by two methods: you can go between the Temple of Vesta and that of Cæsar, very likely walking through the triumphal arch of Augustus, in which case you will see the pillared façade of the stately Temple of Castor and Pollux (the divine helpers of Rome at the half legendary battle of Lake Regillus), and then across that busy shopping street, the Vicus Tuscus, before reaching the quieter portico of the great Basilica Julia; or you can take a better way by keeping on past the northern side of the Temple of Cæsar and coming out pretty directly upon the Forum. In so doing you will have the second great court house, the old but capacious Basilica Æmilia to the north on your right. Let tribunals and litigants, however, wait—before the visitor at last is opening one of the most famous areas in the entire world—the Forum Romanum.

Of the Old Forum well may one say what Cicero declared of Athens, “On whatever spot we tread we awake a memory.” There is hardly an event connected with the long reaches of Roman history which is not also connected in one manner or another with this public square. The first impression, to be sure, may be one of disappointment: the whole open plaza barely measures 300 by 150 feet. It seems the more confined because a large part of the southern side is hemmed in by the huge Basilica Julia, while directly above the square rise the two hills of the Capitoline and the Palatine, their summits crowned with lofty and noble buildings looking down upon the Forum as a kind of common center.

As one advances, however, the impression deepens as to how earnestly the Romans have tried to concentrate their whole life around this beloved square. If statues abound elsewhere in the city, they seem here more numerous than even the surging throngs around their pedestals. Every kind of human activity is apparently going on simultaneously. Along the north side, as we have seen, are the offices of those great bankers who hold the nations in fee from the Euphrates to Hibernia, yet pedlers are now wandering about, almost under the feet of the consul’s lictors, hawking hot sausages, strings of garlic, and pots of eye salve, while a snake charmer has obtained the license to exhibit two stupid serpents on the actual steps to the Temple of Janus just beyond the Basilica Æmilia.

233. The Forum Area: the Posting of Public Notices.—Walking out into the area itself, we find it solidly paved with rectangular blocks of travertine. The days are gone when closely packed throngs of quirites stood for hours upon this pavement listening to the orators bidding them vote upon peace or war, or for or against some proposed law, as lay in their right as free citizens. Gone, too, is the day of that great funeral pyre of garments, ornaments, trinkets, tables and benches, which the frenzied mob heaped around the corpse of Cæsar after Marcus Antonius had thundered his invective against Cassius and Marcus Brutus. But not gone is the Senate House (the Curia), looking out across the plaza from the northern side of the square, just beyond the Temple of Janus. And around the orator’s stands, the Rostra, at the western end of the area there is still another elaborate funeral in progress; the wearers of the imagines sitting in their curule chairs, and the orator pompously lauding “the noble departed.”

Truth to tell the Forum is frequented every morning largely to get the news. Not merely can you meet the bearers of all sorts of public or confidential information; you can spend an hour merely reading the great “white boards” (albums) bearing official and private notices which stand around everywhere. The “Daily Gazette” is here posted, and we shall consider its contents presently; but apart from that, whether you wish to know the price of grain or the day set for a lawsuit; whether Syphax the Moor will race his four in the next circus, or Epaphroditus the Athenian will lecture to-morrow on the nature of the soul, the Forum placards will tell you everything. Gossip incalculable, often of a kind which no man dare put in writing, you may also pick up, as well as accost half of your acquaintance. A visit to the Forum, therefore, is almost as important to a Roman of parts and activity as in another age will be the perusal of the paper.

234. Western End of Forum: the Rostra: the Golden Milestone: the Tullianum Prison.—At the extreme western end of the area, more temples are seen rising on the slopes of the lofty Capitol. Here is the Temple of Saturn; and higher still the Temple of the deified Vespasian, the Temple of Concord, and the great “Public Record Office,” the Tabularium, and the Rostra are reached just before you quit the level area and take the winding ascents towards the Capitol.

These famous stands for the orators constitute an elaborate platform, with a fine marble balustrade which is adorned with exceptionally good bronze statues of notables such as Sulla and Pompeius; although all these ornaments were added by Julius Cæsar and know not the days of the Old Republic. Some of the original “beaks” (rostra) from captured warships which gave the famous pulpit its name are still in position, however, with others from such battles as Actium added.[141] Even if the Republic is dead, the place remains of decided utility not merely for funerals, but also for formal speeches on state occasions; and sometimes an emperor will still condescend to harangue the loyal quirites from its platform.

Close by the Rostra and near its southern end rises a tall stone pillar coated with gilded bronze. This is the “Golden Milestone” whereon Augustus inscribed the names of the great roads leading out of Rome, and the distances to the chief towns along their course. “All roads lead to Rome,” and leading to Rome find their convergence in the “Golden Milestone.” It comes close, therefore, to being the “Hub” of the entire Roman Empire.

Near the other, the northern end of the Rostra, when one goes a little of the way up to the Capitol, there is quite a different landmark, far more venerable—the old prison of the city, the Tullianum, prepared, according to the story, by King Ancus Martius. It was originally nothing but a kind of well let into the damp rock, with an upper and a lower compartment; this second chamber is only accessible by means of a hole in its vaulted roof through which prisoners were lowered by a rope.

The Tullianum has long since been discarded as the public jail, but state prisoners are sometimes confined or executed there. Familiar is the story of how Jugurtha, the luckless Numidian, was starved to death in the lower dungeon; and how Lentulus and the other Castilinian conspirators were strangled in the upper. Since then, if one accepts the story told by those very despised creatures, the Christians, their great leader, Peter, one of the associates of Christus, was kept there in chains before he was taken out to be executed by Nero’s orders. It is assuredly a gloomy and fearsome enough place to strike terror even into such “Haters of all Mankind,” as official documents assure us these Christians must be.

235. The Basilica Æmilia: the Temple of Janus: the Senate House (Curia).—But to return to the great buildings lining the Forum. The Basilica Æmilia on the north side was erected as early as 179 B.C., and, though often repaired, it is a substantial monument of the great days of the Republic. It is so like the greater Basilica Julia, however, that one description will do later for both. Directly by this court house stands the venerated Temple of Janus, a structure with many arches and sacred to the most characteristic if not the greatest of all the gods of Rome.[142] The gates of the shrine, one notices, are standing carefully open, as a token that some petty frontier wars are still raging. When absolute peace prevails these doors, however, will be carefully shut. The Romans are thrifty and practical people. Why waste good sacrificial victims and incense on the god when his help against the foe is not needed? It would be like paying a doctor when one is feeling entirely well.

Leading away from the Forum and this Temple is a series of vaulted passages also called janus, which form a large part of the banking district. Here, because the Sacred Way is too limited, many great financiers have their offices; here countless clerks are busy with their account books; here great loans are negotiated or investments are placed hourly. It is almost a regular exchange and the scene of many speculations. Regularly one hears of fortunes made or lost “between the janus,” i.e. by the workings of high finance.

Beside the Temple of Janus rises the magnificent porch of the Curia (Senate House). The Conscript Fathers are not yet in session, and a visit to the interior can wait. The structure is very splendid, but it is not the grand old Curia Hostilia, built according to legend by King Tullus Hostilius, and the scene of nearly all those famous Senatorial debates across the long annals of the Republic. That ancient building was burned in 52 B.C. during the riots following the murder of the idol of the populace, the demagogue Clodius. Julius Cæsar, therefore, had a good excuse for building a stately new Senate House. This in turn was damaged in Nero’s great fire, but Domitian carefully repaired it—and with its fine pillars, bronze doors, and galaxy of statues, it forms a worthy meeting place for what is still a venerable and powerful body.

236. The Basilica Julia, the Greatest Court House in Rome; the Lacus Curtius.—The Basilica Julia on the southern side of the Forum is a building into which it is best to enter. The structure was begun by Julius Cæsar to meet the imperative need for a larger court house. More important business is transacted under its roof and ample porticoes, perhaps, than in any other building in Rome; and in bad weather nearly all the Forum loungers take refuge beneath its ample shelter. Its size is worthy of its important functions; it is 270 feet long and in addition to the regular exterior colonnade has a fine inner colonnade.

These double porticoes are the special lounging spots of fashionable idlers of both sexes. Young men of fashion seeking to meet congenial ladies of easy habits have only to loiter around and stroll about a little—their hopes are gratified. Assuredly Venus can hardly reckon up the love affairs that here have ripened. The pavements are even more marked up for gaming boards than elsewhere and some of the players, we note, actually wear the equestrian stripes, while there are senatorial laticlaves in the interested throngs standing around them. Along the sides of the building are roomy offices, where a large corps of city officials and clerks conduct the various municipal boards and bureaus.

The glory of the Basilica Julia, however, is its great hall, used for the chief courts of justice, barring always those of the Emperor and the Senate. The hall is paved with colored marbles of price; the pillars running down either side are splendid monoliths of still rarer marbles, and the ceiling is heavy with gilt fretting and painting. In every possible niche rise statues of famous jurisconsults and advocates. The light streams down abundantly through the windows in the upper clerestory, and in this second story at the present moment there are standing or sitting groups of very respectable men and women listening to the orator pleading before one of the tribunals below. Any guide will tell how the mad Emperor Caligula used to delight to stand in these upper balconies, fling down money, and roar with delight when the crowds trampled one another struggling to get the coins.

So large is this hall that not one but four tribunals have been set up in different quarters of the building, and litigation often proceeds before all four of them simultaneously, although in the absence of partitions strong-lunged advocates sometimes interfere with their neighbors; they tell of a certain stentorian Trachalus who once while speaking before one tribunal not merely was heard by but drew applause from the audiences in the other three. Here Quintilian, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and other orators of the generation just departed, won their fame, and at present every windy amateur in the rhetoric schools dreams of the day when he can wave out his toga in the Basilica Julia before a crowded and cheering balcony.

These are some of the more famous monuments in and around the Forum Romanum. Were one to descend to particulars the task were endless. Perhaps there should be mentioned a certain modest altar in the very center of the open plaza. This marks the so-called Lacus Curtius. Antiquarians give one several stories concerning it, but the accepted version is this.—Once in the good old days a yawning gulf opened at this very spot, the portent, perhaps, of the devouring of the entire city—when lo! the brave youth, Marcus Curtius “devoted” himself for his country and plunged unflinchingly into the abyss. The earth closed over him, he was seen no more, but Rome held his name in eternal remembrance. Doubtless he had thus taken upon himself the anger of the infernal gods and had saved the state![143]

237. The New Fora of the Emperors: the Temple of Peace.—After surveying the Forum Romanum we are told that five other fora—the creations of high-minded Emperors—still await inspection. Truth to tell, however, these great plazas—not marking the growth and events of centuries, but the mandates of wealthy despots—give one a sense of anticlimax. Of them it will be properly written: “The fora of the Empire were as much superior in magnificence to the Forum Romanum as they were inferior in historical interest and association.”

They are the work of master architects mobilizing armies of laboring slaves, stone cutters, and artists. The eye becomes weary with the incessant sheen of costly marble; the equestrian statues, the forests of ornate Corinthian pillars, the great reaches of tessellated pavements, the quantities of colored paint, enamel, and heavy gilding. At first these imperial fora appear to the visitor as a hopeless complex of pretentious splendor; but after a little, a clever method appears in their arrangement by which one great plaza or system of public buildings joins itself to another.

Four of these public squares join closely together, but the fifth stands a little apart. This last is located near the northeast end of the Old Forum, verging toward the Subura and the Esquiline, and is the “Forum of Peace,” constructed by Vespasian about 75 A.D. The open area, however, is relatively small, for its center is occupied by the imposing “Temple of Peace.” This temple is adorned with a perfect gallery of sculptures and paintings, nearly all of them masterpieces by the Greeks. These works of art had formerly occupied Nero’s Golden House until that grandiose structure was destroyed by the thrifty Vespasian. In this Temple of Peace likewise are kept those precious Jewish spoils shown on the Arch of Titus, and there is not merely a fine library but a hall for the savants and scientists when they meet for their learned conventicles.

238. The Fora of Julius, Augustus, and Nerva.—In dealing with the four connected fora it profits little to multiply detailed descriptions; one glittering marble edifice succeeds another around each square. Nearest to the Old Forum lies the Forum Julium. Julius Cæsar paid out 100,000,000 sesterces ($4,000,000) merely for the land which it occupies, and its buildings are worthy of the costly soil whereon they stand. In its center rises the great Temple of Venus Genetrix, “mother” of the Julian line. Here at times the Senate can convene, while the shops under the porticoes around are among the finest in Rome.

Directly north of this Forum Julium is the Forum Augustum. When young Octavius went forth to avenge his adopted father against Brutus and Cassius he vowed a temple to Mars Ultor (“Mars the Avenger”). Later as the Emperor Augustus, most splendidly he fulfilled this vow. The porticoes around the plaza are of Numidian marble, and variegated marbles compose the pavements; the open area is covered with bronze quadrigæ (four-horse chariots), triumphal arches, and, of course, numerous statues, some of precious metals, while the Temple of Mars Ultor itself matches all its rivals in magnificence.

To the south-east of the Forum of Augustus and joining it to the Forum of Peace is the smaller Forum of Nerva. This plaza was really begun by Domitian, but when that tyrant perished ere completing the task, it was finished and named by the eirenic Nerva. It is really a kind of broad thoroughfare leading down from the Subura district, although upon it fronts a fine Temple of Minerva. One of the features of this square is a stately avenue of statues of the deified Emperors.

239. The Forum, Column, and Libraries of Trajan.—By far the finest of the imperial fora, however, is that of Trajan—and all the buildings, when we visit them, are still relatively new. It opens to the northwest of the Forum of Augustus, and is not really a single square but a genuine series of squares.

To get the level space for their great areas, it was needful to cut away a whole spur of the Quirinal, excavating to a depth equal to the height of Trajan’s Column (128 feet). On entering this precinct, if one has been marveling before, it is right to be astounded now. First there comes the Forum Trajani proper, a square of most imposing size, with lofty porticoes, semi-circular at the ends; and in the center stands a remarkable equestrian statue of the imperial founder himself. Then there is the vast Basilica Ulpia, the third great court house of the city, which spreads lengthwise across the northwestern boundary of this forum. It is 300 feet long, 185 feet broad, and five lines of pillars divide it into four separate halls for different kinds of business; in fact it is really a finer building than the older Basilica Julia.

Going through this enormous but very open structure, we come to a second smaller plaza, and here rises one of the noblest sights of Rome—a monument that will draw the admiration of all ensuing ages—the Column of Trajan itself. The bas-reliefs telling in picturesque detail the whole story of the Dacian Wars, the 2500 human figures executed with infinite fidelity and care, wind spirally from the top of the 18 foot pedestal clear to the summit. This last is crowned by a colossal bronze-gilt statue of Trajan looking down upon the sculptured record of his military glory.

This column is, perhaps, the worthiest monument of the whole imperial age.[144] The marvels of Trajan’s forum-system, however, are not exhausted. North and south of the Column are two fine buildings of moderate size; these are the Bibliothecæ, the two public “Libraries of Trajan,” one Latin, one Greek—containing on the whole the finest collections of books in Rome; and directly facing the Column and the Libraries across another open area of considerable extent is the Temple of Trajan, where the priests daily offer their sacrifice to the deified manes of the terror of Dacia and of Parthia.

240. The Park System of the Campus Martius: the Pantheon.—These exhaust for the moment the structures we can survey around the fora: and it were well to stop lest sheer confusion may follow. With time, however, we could wander after the throngs again northwestward along “Broadway” past the great porticoes and fine shops of the Sæpta Julia, and saunter about the great park system of Campus Martius.

The public baths there located and such structures as the Theater of Pompey and the Flaminian Circus can, perhaps, be explained later; but a word must be spoken for the one great temple which is here situated away from the center of Rome. The Pantheon, dedicated to Mars, Venus, the deified Cæsar, and to all the other deities of the Julian line was the erection of Marcus Agrippa, the mighty coadjutor of Augustus. It has just been rebuilt from its very foundations by Hadrian.[145] Its noble dome shines with the golden tiles. The soaring rotunda inside is encircled with stately altars to the gods the building honors. Already one can stand and look upward 143 feet to that patch of blue 18 feet in diameter through which sun and stars will shine down across at least eighteen centuries of changing history—making the Pantheon the one great building, not a ruin, which shall link the Rome of the Cæsars with the Rome of another day.

241. The Daily Gazette (Acta Diurna). How Rome Gets Its News.—One thing, to avoid complexity, we omitted while crossing the old Forum Romanum. It behooves us to return and to explain it. Before a series of tall white boards set up against certain pillars is gathered an elbowing, gesticulating throng. Many of the company have tablets and seem copying vigorously. The crowd is always receiving additions, while others are departing. The white boards (“albums”) when we get near enough are seen to be covered with somewhat fine writing. There is a special rush and flutter in the crowd when a petty official sets up still another white board, and a hundred styli instantly become busy. It is easy to learn the excitement caused by these notices: they constitute the publication of the new Acta Diurna.

Even without the Acta Diurna (“Daily Doings”) a city like Rome would have its supply of news. There are professional gad-abouts who make themselves desirable guests at dinner-parties merely because they are “very well informed.” They have picked up all the stories about the Parthian king, the new chiefs of the Germans, the number of legionaries mobilized on the Rhine, and the corn prospects in Africa and Egypt, as well as every kind of commercial information. Other wiseacres of a less reliable cast are known as “subrostrani,”—“Rostra-haunters,”—for at the Rostra all gossipers have their tryst. These people specialize in rumors of calamity, reports of great military disasters, of the sudden death of magistrates, etc., and take a peculiar glee in circulating vile stories about the Emperors—the danger of repeating such rumors only adding spice to their game. Usually, however, they are too insignificant fry for the government to consider worth prosecuting.

242. Contents of the Acta Diurna.—The Acta Diurna, however, is issued by a government bureau, and a certain degree of official responsibility is attached to the more formal statements. The editors, nevertheless, are allowed to add racy anecdotes of a personal nature, especially concerning the higher aristocracy. The relations between the senatorial nobility and the freedmen and equites in the imperial government bureaus are none the best; and Hadrian himself is not on perfect terms with the Conscript Fathers.[146]

Official circles, therefore, are never careful to suppress spicy bits about the aristocrats. The public record offices and dispatches from the provinces supply most of the items, but some of the material can only have come from direct reportorial activity. In any case the interest in this Daily Gazette is enormous. Its single copy will be multiplied many times, copies being made of the copies, and the same sent to wealthy people in all parts of the Empire. A month from now groups will probably be gathering in Spanish Corduba and Syrian Antioch to read the items published to-day in Rome.

Owing to the limitations of space, despite the use of many “white boards,” the Acta Diurna has to maintain a very dry journalistic style indeed. The lively Italian imagination, however, can provide most of the details, even if they are not at once eked out by quantities of that “smoke,” oral rumor, which is passed about amid the copyists the moment the new gazette is posted. This is a very commonplace issue, and the albums read something like this:[147]

“Records for the tenth day of June. Yesterday —— boys and —— girls were born in the city of Rome. —— bushels of grain were landed at the Emporium. —— head of cattle [and other commodities specified] were also brought into the city. On this same day the palace slave Mithridates was ordered crucified for blaspheming the guardian genius of his master the Emperor. At the imperial treasury —— million sesterces, which it proved impossible to loan out at interest, were ordered returned to the public funds. A fire broke out in the insula of Nasta in the Viminal district but was extinguished.”

243. Miscellaneous Entries and Gossip in the Gazette.—The entries go on to give the doings in the petty police courts, the copies of important wills with especial mention of any bequests that were left the Emperor, the statement that a certain eques had caught his wife in gross misconduct and divorced her; that a procurator for a large trading house was being prosecuted for embezzlement, and a summary of the evidence in a great violation of contract case between two marble importers now on trial in the Basilica Æmilia. Then follow magisterial edicts, lists of judicial appointments, and careful entries about all the doings of the Emperor and of his progress back toward Rome. Next is given a rather elaborate summary (evidently made by shorthand reporters) of the latest debate in the Senate, with careful entry of the applause and interruptions which the orators received.

All this is more or less “official”; but the newsmongers are really more interested in “human interest stories” added by the publishers’ private authority. Thus it makes good reading to tell how a frantic admirer of a certain “Red” charioteer who was killed in the last races, cast himself on the funeral pyre of the beloved jockey, in order not to survive his idol; or to relate how a citizen of Fæsule has just visited Rome and sacrificed to Jupiter along with “eight children, thirty-six grandchildren, and nineteen great grandchildren.”[148] Furthermore, the report of love affairs among the noble and mighty is never omitted—how a senator’s wife has eloped with a gladiator, and how a certain oft-mentioned lady is about to wed an eighth husband. Finally (perhaps the most copied of all) there are, of course, the announcements for the coming exhibitions in the theater, amphitheater, and circus, with lists of the actors, gladiators, and charioteers, and other data, which can enable all Rome to arrange its wagers and its holidays.

The Acta Diurna therefore goes about as far as is possible to create a real newspaper in the days of mere penmanship. Its vogue is immense. Many a fine lady sends her slave or freedman to the Forum every day to bring home a special copy. Its items will focus the conversation at a thousand dinner tables.

Finally this publication will enjoy a certain degree of historic importance. After each issue has served its daily purpose, fair copies are deposited in the Public Record Office, and here they can be consulted many years later by the learned. It is from the files of the Acta Diurna that Tacitus and Suetonius have apparently drawn a great many of their anecdotes about the days of the early Emperors.