“The Coliseo,” says Dupaty, “is unquestionably the most admirable monument of the Roman power under the Cæsars. From its vast circuit, from the multitude of stones of which it is formed, from that union of columns of every order, which rise up one above the other, in a circular form, to support three rows of porticoes; from all the dimensions, in a word, of this prodigious edifice, we instantly recognise the work of a people, sovereigns of the universe, and slaves of an emperor. I wandered long around the Coliseo, without venturing, if I may so say, to enter it: my eyes surveyed it with admiration and awe. Not more than one half of this vast edifice at present is standing; yet the imagination may still add what has been destroyed, and complete the whole. At length I entered within its precincts. What an astonishing scene! What contrasts! What a display of ruins, and of all the parts of the monument, of every form, every age, and, as I may say, every year; some bearing the marks of the hand of time, and others of the hand of the barbarian. These crumbled down yesterday, those a few days before, a great number on the point of falling, and some, in short, which are falling from one moment to another. Here we see a tottering portico, there a falling entablament, and further on, a seat; while, in the meanwhile, the ivy, the bramble, the moss, and various plants, creep amongst these ruins, grow, and insinuate themselves; and, taking root in the cement, are continually detaching, separating, and reducing to powder these enormous masses; the work of ages, piled on each other by the will of an emperor, and the labour of a hundred thousand slaves. There was it then that gladiators, martyrs, and slaves, combated on the Roman festivals, only to make the blood circulate a little quicker in the veins of a hundred thousand idle spectators. I thought I still heard the roaring of the lions, the sighs of the dying, the voice of the executioners, and what would strike my ear with still greater horror, the applauses of the Romans. I thought I heard them, by these applauses, encouraging and demanding carnage; the men requiring still more blood from the combatants; and the women, more mercy for the dying. I imagined I beheld one of these women, young and beautiful, on the fall of a gladiator, rise from her seat and with an eye which had just caressed a lover, welcome, or repel, find fault with, or applaud, the last sigh of the vanquished, as if she had paid for it.
“But what a change has taken place in this arena! In the middle stands a crucifix, and all round this crucifix, at equal distances, fourteen altars, consecrated to different saints, are erected in the dens, which once contained the wild beasts. The Coliseo was daily hastening to destruction; the stones were carried off, and it was constantly disfigured, and made the receptacle of filth; when Benedict XIV. conceived the idea of saving this noble monument by consecrating it; by defending it with altars, and protecting it with indulgences. These walls, these columns, and these porticoes, have now no other support but the names of those very martyrs with whose blood they were formerly stained. I walked through every part of the Coliseo; I ascended into all its different stories; and sat down in the box of the emperors. I shall long remember the silence and solitude that reigned through these galleries, along these ranges of seats, and under these vaulted porticoes. I stopped from time to time to listen to the echo of my feet in walking. I was delighted, too, with attending to a certain faint rustling, more sensible to the soul than to the ear, occasioned by the hand of time, which is continually at work, and undermining the Coliseo on every side. What pleasure did I not enjoy, too, in observing how the day gradually retired, and the night as gradually advanced over the arcades, spreading her lengthening shadows. At length I was obliged to retire; with my mind, however, filled with and absorbed in a thousand ideas, a thousand sensations, which can only arise among these ruins, and which these ruins in some degree inspire. Where are the five thousand wild beasts that tore each other to pieces, on the day on which this mighty pile was opened? Silent now are those unnatural shouts of applause, called forth by the murderous fights of the gladiators:—What a contrast to this death of sound!”
“Ascending among the ruins,” says Mr. Williams, “we took our station where the whole magnitude of the Coliseum was visible. What a fulness of mind the first glance excited; yet how inexpressible, at the same time, were our feelings! The awful silence of this dread ruin still appealed to our hearts. The single sentinel’s tread, and the ticking of our watches, were the only sounds we heard, while the moon was marching in the vault of night, and the stars were peeping through the various openings; the shadows of the flying clouds being all that reminded us of life and of motion.”
The manner, in which the traveller should survey the curiosities of Rome, must be determined by the length of time which he can afford for that purpose. “There are two modes of seeing Rome,” says Mr. Mathews; “the topographical, followed by Vasi, who parcels out the town into eight divisions, and jumbles every thing together,—antiquities, churches, and palaces, if their situation be contiguous; and the chronological,—which would carry you regularly from the house of Romulus to the palace of the reigning pontiff. The first mode is the most expeditious, and the least expensive; for even if the traveller walk afoot, the economy of time is worth considering; and after all that can be urged in favour of the chronological order, on the score of reason, Vasi’s plan is perhaps the best. For all that is worth seeing at all is worth seeing twice. Vasi’s mode hurries you through every thing; but it enables you to select and note down those objects that are worthy of public examination, and these may be afterwards studied at leisure. Of the great majority of sights it must be confessed that all we obtain for our labour is the knowledge that they are not worth seeing;—but this is a knowledge, that no one is willing to receive upon the authority of another, and Vasi’s plan offers a most expeditious mode of arriving at this truth by one’s own proper experience. His plan is, however, too expeditious; for he would get through the whole town, with all its wonders, ancient and modern, in eight days!”
Expeditious as it is, some of our indefatigable countrymen have contrived to hit upon one still more so. You may tell them that the antiquaries allow eight days for the tour, and they will boast of having beaten the antiquaries, and “done it in six.” This rapid system may do, or rather must do, for those who have no time for any other; but to the traveller who wishes to derive instruction and profit from his visit, a more leisurely survey is essential. “For my own part,” says Mr. Woods, “the first eight days I spent in Rome were all hurry and confusion, and I could attend to nothing systematically, nor even examine any thing with accuracy; a sort of restless eagerness to see every thing and know every thing, gave me no power of fixing my attention on any one particular.”
We must now close our account: not that we have by any means exhausted the subject, for it demands volumes and years; whereas our space is limited, and our time is short. We shall, therefore, devote the remainder of our space and time to the impressions with which the ruins of this city have been viewed by several elegant and accomplished travellers.
“At length I behold Rome,” said Dupaty. “I behold that theatre, where human nature has been all that it can ever be, has performed every thing it can perform, has displayed all the virtues, exhibited all the vices, brought forth the sublimest heroes, and the most execrable monsters, has been elevated to a Brutus, degraded to a Nero, and re-ascended to a Marcus Aurelius.”
“Even those who have not read at all,” says Dr. Burton, “know, perhaps, more of the Romans than of any other nation[194] which has figured in the world. If we prefer modern history to ancient, we still find Rome in every page; and if we look with composure upon an event so antiquated as the fall of the Roman empire, we cannot, as Englishmen, or as protestants, contemplate with indifference the sacred empire which Rome erected over the minds and consciences of men. Without making any invidious allusion, it may be said that this second empire has nearly passed away; so that, in both points of view, we have former recollections to excite our curiosity.”
“Neither the superb structures,” says Sir John Hobhouse, “nor the happy climate, have made Rome the country of every man, and ‘the city of the soul.’ The education, which has qualified the traveller of every nation for that citizenship, prepares enjoyments for him at Rome, independent of the city and inhabitants about him, and of all the allurements of site and climate. He will already people the banks of the Tiber with the shades of Pompey, Constantine, and Belisarius, and other heroes. The first footsteps within the venerable walls will have shown him the name and magnificence of Augustus, and the three long narrow streets, branching from the obelisk in the centre of the Piazza del Popolo, like the theatre of Palladio, will have imposed upon his fancy with an air of antiquity congenial to the soil. Even the mendicants of the country asking alms in Latin prayers, and the vineyard gates of the suburbs, inscribed with the ancient language, may be allowed to contribute to the agreeable delusion.”
“What,” says Chateaubriand, gazing on the ruins of Rome by moonlight, “what was doing here eighteen centuries ago, at a like hour of night? Not only has ancient Italy vanished, but the Italy of the middle ages is also gone. Nevertheless, the traces of both are plainly marked at Rome. If this modern city vaunts her St. Peter’s, ancient Rome opposes her Pantheon and all her ruins; if the one marshals from the Capitol her consuls and emperors, the other arrays her long succession of pontiffs. The Tiber divides the rival glories; seated in the same dust, pagan Rome sinks faster and faster into decay, and Christian Rome is gradually re-descending into the catacombs whence she issued.”