century there were in Rome, 18 public fora, 30 parks and gardens and 8 campi or commons principally used for athletics. To these are to be added the covered ways which sheltered the people from sun and rain, the colonnades and temples which served them in many ways and the public baths for their refreshment - 11 large ones and 926 small, capable of receiving 60,000 bathers at one time. Noteworthy among these were the baths of Agrippa, with the celebrated Pantheon (q.v.), the "temple to all the gods," adjacent. Through all these utilities and many others the currents of Roman life ran from century to century of development - a well-balanced life, expanding constructively and making Rome indeed eternal, and, Jerusalem excepted, the most interesting spot on the globe.

In the fora-the kind called venalia — they trafficked in cattle, corn, fish; in the fora judicialia brokers and money-lenders pursued their calling in offices in the porticoes and buildings which enclosed them. The great forum- not the largest, but called the Forum Romanum Magnum was built between the Palatine and the Capitoline hills. Before its founding this valley was a small lake, with a ferry; later, a morass with its wet and dry seasons - in the latter the scene of occasional battles between denizens of the surrounding hills and finally ideally prepared for its future use by drainage accomplished through the great sewer, Cloaca Maxima, discovered in 1872. The Forum first became useful in the 6th century B.C., as the community assembling place, serving more amply than the area Capitolina which had previously been used. In view of its august history one learns with surprise how small its area was. "We say to ourselves, is it possible the Roman world, even of Cæsar's time, could have transacted its business in such restricted limits? Its greatest length at any time, antiquarians agree, did not exceed 671 feet, its greatest width (under the Capitol) 202 and its least 117, at its eastern end. Under the empire it was but 375 feet long and 150 feet wide at the Capitoline end. It was habitually so encroached upon by the statues and monuments that the senate from time to time required it to be cleared. Lucius Emilius Paulus, with a part of the spoils of the Gallic War, purchased adjacent property and enlarged the forum on the northern side. Cæsar, drawing on the same fund, bought more space, removed houses north and west of the Curia and gave Rome the Forum Julium. Augustus extended the area northward and Vespasian, Domitian and Nerva, each as he came upon the scene, enlarged eastward until the Forum Transitorium and the Forum Pacis were created. Trajan cut away a spur of the Quirinal on the northwest side of the Forum of Augustus and completed the development projected by Paulus and Cæsar with the vast Trajan or Ulpian Forum. "Could we from some vantage point look down and survey all these imperial fora, together with their original parent, the one forum alone now completely exposed for us, that surprise above adverted to would not partake of the nature of a disappointment. We should survey a space covering many thousands of square yards, amazingly rich with temples, basilicas and columns, white with dazzling marbles and whiterobed people, golden with gilt bronze statues,

and here and there beautifully green with favored and sacred trees and flowers." (Baddeley).

On the east side of the Forum, Tullius Hostilius enclosed a space called the Curia, in which the senators, representing patrician Rome, held their meetings; in front of it, in another enclosure, the Comitium, the plebeian vote was polled. From the senate house a flight of steps led to that part of the Comitium where the Rostra stood, from a near-by platform of which foreign ambassadors (Greek) listened to orators in the Rostra and speakers in the Comitium. The Rostra was a simple platform, under an arcade, to which the bronze beaks (rostra) taken from captured vessels were attached.

The Forum was connected with the Summa Sacra Via (the ridge between the Colosseum and the Forum) by a short lane which was the original Sacra Via, whose name was then extended to the entire length of the road from the Capitol to the Esquiline Hill. Baddedey conjectures that it originated in a path leading to the sacred Capanne, or primitive temples and the cemetery above the marsh wherein the "prisci Latini," (Sabini," and their forbears interred their kindred. Varro says the Sacra Via, at its eastern end, originated in the Sacellum Streniae whose site is now unknown; eventually it was extended to the Clivus Capitolinus. "From this long track duly developed the rich Republican street lined with temples and houses, descending from the Velia [the north point of the Palatine] so as to skirt the northern flank of the Regia and then lose itself beside the open Forum. Its conditions, like those of the historic buildings on it, kept on improving until the time of Nero; and from having been a simple path to the place of the ancestral dead, it survived to celebrate for centuries the proudest triumphs of the living." Then Nero appropriated the Velian Ridge and built across it, from the Palatine to the Esquiline, his House of Gold. By this time (A.D. 121) the trade centre of Rome had moved from the imperial fora to the Forum Pacis and the Forum Transitorium, relieving the Sacra Via of the noisy throng going to and from the Colosseum; and the Triumphs out-door displays of great magnificence- thereafter passed more conveniently through the Forum Pacis and thence into the lower Forum Romanum.

Two other streets Vicus Jugarius and Vicus Tuscus - were important features of the environs of the great forum. Both originated in the unknown street which lay along the south side of the Forum; the Jugarius at the western end of the Basilica Julia, and running close under the Capitoline to the Porta Carmentalis, near the Theatre of Marcellus. its entrance into the Forum was the fountain Lacus Servilus where were exposed the heads of senators assassinated during the proscriptions of Sulla. The Vicus Tuscus ran along the eastern end of the Bascilica Julia, through the Velabrum to the Circus Maximus. It was

At

a busy shopping street where almost everything was sold from the finest silks, frankincense and perfumes to fruits, vegetables and fish. Festal pageants moved along it from the Forum to the circus. On one side of the Forum stood the Tabernæ Argentariæ, silversmiths'

shops, and in front of S. Adriano, beyond the Taberna Nova, Virginia was stabbed by her father. The front of S. Adriano is a fragment of the Basilica of Emilius Paulus. This Basilica occupied the site of the famous Curia of Tullus Hostilius. The three gigantic arches are all that remain of the Basilica of Constantine. Little remains of the once superb temple of Venus and Rome, except a cella, countless fragments of columns, and a mass of Corinthian cornice facing the Colosseum. This was the last pagan temple which remained in use in Rome. Near the church of Saint Francesca the Sacra Via passes under the Arch of Titus, the most beautiful monument of its kind remaining in Rome, erected by the senate to commemorate the taking of Jerusalem. Of the orginal erection of 81 A.D. only the central part. of the arch remains; the sides were restored as late as 1823. The triumphal procession of Titus occupies two reliefs on the inner sides of the jambs of the arch. The chariot bearing the conqueror is drawn by horses led by the goddess Roma. Victory holds a crown above his head, and Lictors surround him, while the procession passes under the triumphal arch. On the opposite jamb a relief displays the spoils of the Temple of Solomon-the table for the shew-bread, the seven-branched candlestick and the golden trumpets. The apotheosis of Titusthe emperor ascending, borne by an eagle— is represented on the soffit of the arch, while the friezes carry sacrificial scenes. The doings that made the fame of Titus won for him the abhorrence of the Jews, and to this day hatred of him is a part of the creed of that race, which will never forget that captives from Jerusalem marched in chains in the procession of their conquerors, slaved (12,000 of them) in the building of the Colosseum and were forced to lay the stones in the foundation of this very arch, beneath which, it is said, no Jew who respects his religion and racial traditions has ever passed willingly. Vespasian exacted from the Jews the same tribute which they had given to the Temple, and Domitian, who erected the arch, drove them out of Rome, from which they remained exiled until Alexander Severus extended amnesty and permitted them to return to the Ghetto.

The best_preserved triumphal arch remaining in the Eternal City is the Constantine, by the Colosseum, which has been accepted as finished in 315, when Roman art was at low tide. The beauty of its lines and the wealth of its decorations have been accounted for by refusing to credit the conception and achievement to that time and claiming that the reliefs and other decorations were taken from an arch erected by Trajan as an entrance to his Forum two centuries before. Recently the fact that it was built by Constantine has been challenged, and the claim set up that it was one of the arches by Domitian rehabilitated after its despoilment by the senate's degree of Memoria damnatio pronouced against the murdered emperor.

The Romans imitated the Greeks in many things but not in their abandonment of human sacrifice, which was a part of the festivities at the funerals of the great. From simpler arenas these events were transferred to the market places, the first to the Forum Boarium, 264 B.C. For a long time the Forum Romanum was one

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of the most popular stages for these bloody shows. The Colosseum succeeded it. The Colosseum was the conception and the achievement of the Flavian emperors: Vespasian began it, Titus advanced it and Domitian completed it. Vespasian came from the people; looked to them for popularity and support and built this, the first considerable edifice for the public since the time of Augustus, for the use of the classes. It was in the heart of Rome, a short distance from the Capitol, adjacent to the palaces of the Cæsars. About it surged the high tide of Roman life. It was massive, architecturally purely Latin, of perfect arrangement for popular uses and altogether typically Roman. The three lower stories of the four were built with 80 arches supported by piers, faced with half columns. The fourth was a solid wall faced with pilasters. The first story is Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian and the fourth composite. There was a statue for each of the arches of the second and third floors. The capacity of the building was 50,000 persons; a tier of seats for each external story. Hard by the arena was a marble platform with marble thrones for the Vestals, senators and other dignitaries. Above this platform was the emperor's throne, under a canopy. The emperor entered from the Cælian or the Esquiline, from each of which there was an approach to the throne. There were marble steps above the platform, every second one forming a row of numbered seats, admission to them being by ticket, whose issue was governed by special laws as to the classes eligible to receive them. Above these seats a wall separated them from those still further up. To the topmost seats the women and the lower classes were admitted to see the homicides that made their holiday. The human slaughtering went on throughout the day. Such was pagan Rome a century after the dawn of Christianity. Such indeed it continued, though slowly diminishing in thirst for blood, until Justinian, in the sixth century, put an end to its preying on human victims.

Romulus in his feasts in honor of Neptune— so runs the legend - introduced the most ancient of all Roman spectacles, the circus. Crediting this popular form of amusement to the mythical founder of Rome means that its origin antedates authentic history. No building dedicated to the sport of chariot and other horse races, and called a circus, is known to have existed before the time of the elder Tarquin — about 616 B.C. The Romulan Circus, afterward known as the Circus Maximus, was in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine, and was the only one in Rome for nearly 400 years. The Flaminian, constructed in 212 B.C., was the second, and the Flora came next, the gift of a noted courtesan. The wealthy and powerful then began to attach circuses to their establishments Sallust, between the Quirinal and the Pincian, Caligula in the Vatican gardens, Heliogabalus in the Varian gardens, and Alexander Severus in his grounds. It was a subject of satirical comment that Rome possessed nine circuses and only three theatres and three amphitheatres. The most celebrated theatres were those of Pompey, Cornelius Balbus and Marcellus. Pompey's was adorned with beautiful statuary. It held 40,000 persons.

The games in the circus, and indeed all games,

the Romans regarded as religious manifestations, and they were accordingly preceded by so-called religious ceremonies. When the Circus Maximus was the scene, the Pompa Circensis commenced at the Capitol and proceeded by the Forum. It was opened by boys afoot and on horseback, followed by charioteers, horsemen and almost naked athletes, and by three classes of dancers-boys, beardless youths and young men, who moved through the Pyrrhic dance to the sound of the lute and the lyre. Others bore altars and burned perfumes upon them, and still others carried images of gods and demigods and sacred vases and utensils. Entering the circus by the central gate of the Carceres, the Porta ad Pompam, the pomp moved around the circus, and, after offering sacrifices at the first goals and at the altar of the Consus, each person who had had a part in the sacrifice took his place in the games.

The Roman theatre was of early origin. The dramatic representations, like the games in the circus and the amphitheatre, were religious. As early as 114 B.C. the Censors Massala and Cassius desired to erect a permanent theatre, but were not permitted to do so for fear that the morals of the people would suffer. The first plays were given al fresco, and then in wooden structures without seats, the senate having decreed against seats in order that "the manly habit of standing, combined with mental relaxation, might be the peculiar mark of the Roman people." A century after Massala and Cassius were refused a permit, a permanent theatre was erected by Pompey. As a peaceoffering to the many who still regarded permanent theatres as immoral agencies he erected on the top of his a temple to Venus Vincitrix, "thus," as Tertullian conceived, "screening a censurable project under the veil of religion."

The Roman religion was a vast symbolism of things seen and of qualities apprehended. The gods representing conceptions of physical phenomena were characteristically Latin. The oldest document which has come down from Roman antiquity- the Calendar of the Roman Community is filled with the festivals of the gods and goddesses of germination, of seed sowing, harvest, the granary, protection of vines and vats, the shepherds, the fecundation of flocks, etc. The Roman desired the partnership of his gods in his every-day employments, to promote increase of substance by whatever means he resorted to, whether in the keeping of flocks, seafaring or commerce. There were innumerable deities for the field, the forest and the stream, and 12 great gods Mars, Jupiter, Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Mercury, Ceres, Venus, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo and Diana. The greatest of these was Mars, the god of killing, the divine hurler of the spear and the protector of Roman life and substance. It was a religion devoid of morality and moral purposes, and rose no higher than the sphere of business and, eventually, under Greek influence, of physical and intellectual pleasure. "As the Romans saw gods everywhere; as all nature sky, earth and water was to them full of divinities who watched over human beings with benevolent or jealous eyes, there was no act of life which did not require a prayer or an offering, a sacrifice or a purification, according to the rights prescribed by the

ministers of religion. This piety, being the offspring of fear, was all the more attentive in observing signs considered favorable or the reverse; so that everything depended on religion-private life, from the cradle to the tomb; public life from the comitia to the field of battle; even business and pleasure. Games and races were celebrated in honor of the gods; the people's songs were hymns; their dances a prayer; their music uncouth but sacred harmonies; and, as in the Middle Ages, the earliest dramas were pious mysteries. By the continual intervention of the pontiffs, who knew the necessary rites and sacred formulæ, by that of augurs, aruspices and all the interpreters of omens, this religion, devoid of dogmas and of clergy, of ideal and of love, was yet a great force of cohesion for the state and a powerful discipline for the citizen." (Duruy).

While there was no clergy there were priesthoods, the most ancient bearing relation to Mars. But those who desired anything of the gods made their prayer to them and not to the priests. This was not always a simple matter, and the habit of consulting men of skill - not mere altar menials resulted in two so-called colleges or corporations: the augurs and the pontifices. The former-six in number — interpreted the language of the gods from the flight of birds; the latter, five engineers, derived their name (pontifices, bridge-builders) from their profession, managed the calendar of the state and saw that every religious and judicial function was performed on the right day.

Temples, unknown in the earliest Roman worship, came to hold a large place in the life of the city, and were probably the first public buildings in time and importance. There were eight types; the ædes, a sacred edifice with prescribed parts; the templum, an open space or edifice consecrated by the augurs; the fanum, a plot of ground consecrated by the pontiff; the dulubrum, an edifice consecrated to several divinities; the tesca, for the deities of a desert place; the ædicula, a little temple apart; the sacellum, a roofed or unroofed cella containing the statue of its divinity, and the lucus, a sacred grove.

Paganism was leaving its wonted temples and fanes and the Christian religion was entering. Rodolfo Lanciani, after 25 years of active exploration of ancient Rome, by excavation and otherwise, declared that every pagan building that was capable of giving shelter to a congregation was transformed, at one time or another, into a church or a chapel, and that patient investigation of the ruins of such edifices always disclosed traces of the work of the Christians, as in the faint delineation of the Saviour and the four saints in the temple of the Sybil at Tivoli and the diminutive figure of Christ on the Cross in one of the flutings of a column in the temple of Neptune. There were discernible remains of religious painting in the apse of the Basilica of Constantine disclosed by the excavations in 1828. The same excellent authority bears testimony to the great number of churches, there seeming to be, at one period, more of them than of habitations. Saint Paul could have said in the Eternal City that the Romans were in all things religious, whether they were of the pagan ages or the succeeding