The Aqueducts were, beyond all question, some of the noblest designs of the Romans. Frontinus, a Roman author, and a person of consular dignity, who compiled a treatise on this subject, affirms them to be the clearest token of the grandeur of the empire. The first invention of them is attributed to Appius Claudius, A. U. C. 441, who brought water into the city by a channel eleven miles in length. But this was very inconsiderable compared to those that were afterwards carried on by the emperors and other persons; several of which were cut through the mountains, and all other impediments, for above forty miles together; and of such height, that a man on horseback, as Procopius informs us, might ride through them without the least difficulty. This, however, is meant only of the constant course of the channel; for the vaults and arches were, in some places, 109 feet high.
Procopius makes the Aqueducts only fourteen; but Aurelius Victor has enlarged the number to twenty. The Claudian Aqueduct conveyed 800,000 tons of water each day into the city.
The Forums of Rome were of two kinds; one a place of popular assembly, both for business, and pleasure; serving at once the purposes of what we call an Exchange, certain courts of justice, and of hustings for the election of public functionaries: the other consisted of market-places. The chief forum was emphatically called the Roman, or the Great Forum.
The second forum, built in Rome, was erected by Julius Cæsar. The third was called sometimes the Augustan, from its having been formed by Augustus; and sometimes the Forum of Mars from the temple of that god, erected by him. Some remains are still in existence. The fourth forum was begun by Domitian, but being finished by Nerva, it was called after his name. A fifth forum was built by the emperor Trajan; said to have been the most celebrated work of the kind in the city. It was built with the spoils he had taken in his wars. The roof was of brass.
Ammianus Marcellinus, in his description of Constantine’s triumphal entrance into Rome, when he has brought him, with no ordinary admiration, by the Baths, the Pantheon, the Capitol, and other noble structures, as soon as ever he gives him a sight of the Forum of Trajan, he puts him into an ecstacy, and cannot forbear making a harangue upon the matter. We meet in the same place with a very smart repartee, which Constantine received at the time from Ormisdas, a Persian prince. The emperor, as he greatly admired everything belonging to this noble pile, so he had a particular fancy for the statue of Trajan’s horse, which stood on the top of it, and expressed his desire of doing as much for his own beast. “Pray, sir,” says the prince, “before you talk of getting such a horse, will you be pleased to build such a stable to put him in?”
Besides these there was another. This was situated not in the city, but in its neighbourhood. It was called the Forum Populi, which is frequently mentioned in the history of the republic; and which interests us as being the popular and commercial resort of a free people. At stated periods, the Romans, and their friends and allies, used to meet at that spot, and celebrate the Latinæ Feriæ; on which many holidays and religious ceremonies were accompanied by renewals of treaties of amity, by the interchange of commodities, and by manly sports and pastimes. While the Roman citizens came from the Tiber, the free confederates descended from their mountains, or wended their way from the fertile plains beyond the river. Sir William Gell thinks he can fix this interesting spot. The habitations around the temple of Jupiter Latialis, on Mont Albano, are supposed to have constituted the village called Forum Populi. It is probable that the meeting of the Latin confederates upon the mountain, and the fair held there, led to its erection. Here the consuls had a house where they sometimes lodged, which Dio Cassius (lib. iii.) says was struck with lightning.
We now return to the Great Forum.
... It was once, And long the centre of their universe, The Forum,—whence a mandate, eagle-winged, Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend Slowly. At every step much may be lost. The very dust we tread stirs as with life; And not a breath but from the ground sends up Something of human grandeur. ... We are come:— And now where once the mightiest spirits met In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free, The noblest theatre on this side heaven!—Rogers.
The Forum[152] was an entirely open space; it had public buildings in it, as well as around it; we even read of streets passing through it. The Curia, or Senate-house, stood near the foot of the Palatine hill, in about the middle of the eastern side of the Forum. It was built originally by Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome; and, after having been repaired by Sylla, was destroyed by fire in the year 53 B. C., when the body of Clodius, who had been murdered by Milo, was carried into it by a tumultuous multitude, and there burnt on a funeral pile, formed of benches of the senators, the tables, the archives, and such other materials as the place afforded. Sylla’s son rebuilt it; but under the false pretence of erecting a temple to “Felicity.” It was again restored by Julius Cæsar.