other property, confiscated after the expulsion of that monarch. It was a large space, where armies were mustered, general assemblies of the people held, and the young nobility trained in martial exercises. In the later ages, it was surrounded by several magnificent structures, and porticoes were erected, under which the citizens might take their accustomed exercise in rainy weather. These improvements were principally made by Marcus Agrippa, in the reign of Augustus. 17. He erected in the neighbourhood, the Panthe'on, or temple of all the gods, one of the most splendid buildings in ancient Rome. It is of a circular form, and its roof is in the form of a cupola or dome; it is used at present as a Christian Church. Near the Panthe'on were the baths and gardens which Agrippa, at his death, bequeathed to the Roman people. 18. The theatres and circi for the exhibition of public spectacles were very numerous. The first theatre was erected by Pompey the Great; but the Circus Maximus, where gladiatorial combats were displayed, was erected by Tarquinius Priscus; this enormous building was frequently enlarged, and in the age of Pliny could accommodate two hundred thousand spectators. A still more remarkable edifice was the amphitheatre erected by Vespasian, called, from its enormous size, the Colosse'um. 19. Public baths were early erected for the use of the people, and in the later ages were among the most remarkable displays of Roman luxury and splendour. Lofty arches, stately pillars, vaulted ceilings, seats of solid silver, costly marbles, inlaid with precious stones, were exhibited in these buildings with the most lavish profusion. 20. The aqueducts for supplying the city with water were still more worthy of admiration; they were supported by arches, many of them a hundred feet high, and carried over mountains and morasses that might have appeared insuperable. The first aqueduct was erected by Appius Cœ'cus, the censor, four hundred years after the foundation of the city; but under the emperors there were not less than twenty of these useful structures, and such was the supply of water, that rivers seemed to flow through the streets and sewers. Even now, though only three of the aqueducts remain, such are their dimensions that no city in Europe has a greater abundance of wholesome water than Rome. 21. The Cloa'cæ, or common sewers, attracted the wonder of the ancients themselves; the largest was completed by Tarquin the Proud. The innermost vault of this astonishing structure forms a semicircle eighteen Roman palms wide, and as many high; this is enclosed in a second vault, and that again in a third; all formed of hewn blocks of pepenno, fixed together without cement. So extensive were these channels, that in the reign of Augustus, the city was subterraneously navigable. 22. The public roads were little inferior to the aqueducts and Cloa'cæ in utility and costliness: the chief was the Appian road from Rome to Brundu'sium; it extended three hundred and fifty miles, and was paved with huge squares through its entire length. After the lapse of nineteen centuries many parts of it are still as perfect as when it was first made. 23. The Appian road passed through the following towns: Ari'cia, Fo'rum Ap'pii, Anx'ur or Terracina, Fun'di, Minturnæ, Sinue'ssa, Cap'ua, Cau'dium, Beneven'tum, Equotu'ticum, Herdo'nia, Canu'sium, Ba'rium, and Brundu'sium. Between Forum Ap'pii and Terracina, lie the celebrated Pomptine marshes, formed by the overflowing of some small streams. In the flourishing ages of Roman history these pestilential marshes did not exist, or were confined to a very limited space; but from the decline of the Roman empire the waters gradually encroached, until the successful exertions made by the Pontiffs in modern times to arrest their baleful progress. Before the drainage of Pope Sixtus, the marshes covered at least thirteen thousand acres of ground, which in the earlier ages was the most fruitful portion of the Italian soil. Questions for Examination. 1. When was Rome founded? 2. What ceremonies were used in determining the pomoerium? 3. How was the comitium consecrated? 4. What was the first addition made to Rome? 5. What was the next addition? 6. Into what tribes were the Romans divided? 7. What were the hills added in later times to Rome? 8. Had the Romans any buildings north of the Tiber? 9. When did Rome become a magnificent city? 10. What was the extent of the city? 11. How was the city divided? 12. Which was the most remarkable of the seven hills? 13. What buildings were on the Capitoline hill? 14. What description is given of the forum? 15. Where was the senate-house and comitium? 16. What use was made of the Campus Martius? 17. What was the Pantheon? 18. Were the theatres and circi remarkable? 19. Had the Romans public baths? 20. How was the city supplied with water? 21. Were the cloaca remarkable for their size? 22. Which was the chief Italian road? 23. What were the most remarkable places on the Appian road? CHAPTER IV. THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. By virtue built, It touch'd the skies, and spread o'er shelter'd earth But when, with sudden and enormous change, Before ambition still; and thundering down, At last beneath its ruins crush'd a world.-THOMSON. 1. Immigra'tion, s. the removal of a people from their native place into a new land. 3. Intes'tate, adj. without having made a will. 6. Legi'slative, adj. having the power of making laws. 9. Remod'elled, v. altered to a different form. 12. Aristocrat'ic, adj. belonging to the nobility. 14. Metropolitan, adj. having the seat of government. 20. Equalization, s. the establishment of equality. 1. THE most remarkable feature in the Roman constitution is the division of the people into Patricians and Plebeians, and our first inquiry must be the origin of this separation. It is clearly impossible that such a distinction could have existed from the very beginning, because no persons would have consented, in a new community, to the investing of any class with peculiar privileges. We find that all the Roman kings, after they had subdued a city, drafted a portion of its inhabitants to Rome, and if they did not destroy the subjugated place, garrisoned it with a Roman colony. The strangers thus brought to Rome were not admitted to a participation of civic rights; they were like the inhabitants of a corporate town who are excluded from the elective franchise; by successive immigrations, the number of persons thus disqualified became more numerous than that of the first inhabitants, or old freemen, and they naturally sought a share in the government, as a means of protecting their persons and properties. On the other hand, the men who possessed the exclusive power of legislation, struggled hard to retain their hereditary privileges, and when forced to make concessions, yielded as little as they possibly could to the popular demands. Modern history furnishes us with numerous instances of similar struggles between classes, and of a separation in interests and feelings between inhabitants of the same country, fully as strong as that between the patricians and plebeians at Rome. 2. The first tribes were divided by Rom'ulus into thirty curia, and each cu'ria contained ten gentes or associations. The individuals of each gens were not in all cases, and pro. bably not in the majority of instances, connected by birth1; the attributes of the members of a gens, according to Cicero, were, a common name and participation in private religious rites; descent from free ancestors; the absence of legal disqualification. 3. The members of these associations were united by certain laws, which conferred peculiar privileges, called jura gentium; of these the most remarkable were, the succession to the property of every member who died without kin, and intestate, and the obligation imposed on all to assist their indigent clansmen under any extraordinary burthen 2. 4. The head of each gens was regarded as a kind of father, and possessed a paternal authority over the members; the chieftaincy was both elective and hereditary3; that is, the individual was always selected from some particular family. 5. Besides the members of the gens, there were attached to it a number of dependents called clients, who owed submission to the chief as their patron, and received from him assistance and protection. The clients were generally foreigners who came to settle at Rome, and not possessing municipal rights, were forced to appear in the courts of law, &c. by proxy. In process of time, this relation assumed a feudal form, and the clients were bound to the same duties as vassals in the middle ages. 6. The chiefs of the gentes composed the senate, and were called "fathers" (patres). In the time of Romulus, the senate at first consisted only of one hundred members, 1 The same remark may be applied to the Scottish clans and the ancient Irish septs, which were very similar to the Roman gentes. 2 When the plebeians endeavoured to procure the repeal of the laws which prohibited the intermarriage of the patricians and plebeians, the principal objection made by the former was, that these rights and obligations of the gentes (jura gentium) would be thrown into confusion. 3 This was also the case with the Irish tanists, or chiefs of septs; the people elected a tanist, but their choice was confined to the members of the ruling family. * See Historical Miscellany, Part III. Chap. I. |