"I see before me the gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low,—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him—he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
"He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
All this rushed with his blood—shall he expire,
And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!"
Byron, Childe Harold.
It is delightful to read in this room the description in Transformation:—
"It was that room in the centre of which reclines the noble and most pathetic figure of the dying gladiator, just sinking into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a snake.
"From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a broad flight of stone steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of the Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate Forum (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun), passing over a shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with ancient brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, built on the old pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very pillars that once upheld them. At a distance beyond—yet but a little way, considering how much history is heaped into the intervening space—rises the great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through its upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut in by the Alban mountains, looking just the same, amid all this decay and change, as when Romulus gazed thitherward over his half-finished wall.
"In this chamber is the Faun of Praxiteles. It is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree: one hand hangs carelessly by his side, in the other he holds a fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of music. His only garment, a lion's skin with the claws upon the shoulder, falls half-way down his back, leaving his limbs and entire front of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but has a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and less of heroic muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their types of masculine beauty. The character of the face corresponds with the figure; it is most agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously developed, especially about the throat and chin; the nose is almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm of geniality and humour. The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems so really to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue—unlike anything else that ever was wrought in the severe material of marble—conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image, without conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes very near to some of our pleasantest sympathies."—Hawthorne.
"Praxitèle avait dit à Phryné de choisir entre ses ouvrages celui qu'elle aimerait le mieux. Pour savoir lequel de ses chefs-d'œuvre l'artiste préférait, elle lui fit annoncer que le feu avait pris à son atelier. 'Sauvez, s'écria-t-il, mon Satyre et mon Amour!'"—Ampère, Hist. Rom. iii. 309.
The west or right side of the Capitoline Piazza is occupied by the Palace of the Conservators, which contains the Protomoteca, the Picture Gallery, and various other treasures.
The little court at the entrance is full of historical relics, including remains of two gigantic statues of Apollo; a colossal head of Domitian; and the marble pedestal, which once in the mausoleum of Augustus supported the cinerary urn of Agrippina, wife of Germanicus, with a very perfect inscription. In the opposite loggia are a statue of Rome Triumphant, and a group of a lion attacking a horse, found in the bed of the Almo. In the portico on the right is the only authentic statue of Julius Cæsar; on the left, a statue of Augustus, leaning against the rostrum of a galley, in allusion to the battle of Actium.
The Protomoteca, a suite of eight rooms on the ground floor, contains a collection of busts of eminent Italians, with a few foreigners considered as naturalised by a long residence in Rome. Those in the second room, representing artists of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, were entirely executed at the expense of Canova.