The amphitheatre is a great building, completely cleared out, so that it is seen to the utmost perfection, and the degree of ruin is such as to disclose the internal structure, and yet to exhibit all the external forms. The parts, as is generally the case in buildings of this sort, are but rudely finished. It was built, according to Menard (Histoire des Antiquités de la ville de Nismes) by the liberalities of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, consequently between the years 138 and 161.

One of the Roman gateways of the city is still standing, but it is not an antiquity of much consequence. A ruin called the Tour Magne stands on a hill just out of Nismes; its destination is unknown, but it probably was a magnificent sepulchre; the base appears to have been a polygon, perhaps an octagon,[[21]] but with unequal sides: the upper part was clearly octagonal, but smaller, and ornamented with pilasters; within, it is an irregular oval. At present there is little to be seen but a towering mass of rubble. I found the people at Nismes unwilling to speak about their late sufferings, and still in a state of extreme apprehension.

LETTER XI.
SOUTH OF FRANCE.

Geneva, 18th August, 1816.

We left Nismes on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, for the Pont du Gard. The latter part of the way has some picturesque points of view, adorned by the ruins of old castles perched on rugged rocks; but it is deficient in wood, and in water; though we passed two or three abundant springs, and at each spring a village. We crossed the valley of the Gardon, by means of a bridge built against the ancient aqueduct; and found close by it a very decent country inn, with civil and obliging people, where we slept.

The Pont du Gard is a portion of a Roman aqueduct, formed to convey the water of two springs in the neighbourhood of Uzès, to Nismes; it being imagined to be of a quality superior to any which could be found at a smaller distance. Perhaps also their elevation, by means of which the water could be distributed readily all over the town, contributed to the preference given to them. It is a noble work, consisting of two ranges of large arches, and a third of small ones over them; the latter forming the immediate support of the water-course; the utmost length is 870 feet; the height, from the water of the little stream below, 156 feet.

After spending about four hours of the next morning at the aqueduct, we set off for Beaucaire, passing below the convent of Montfrin, whose ruins are of great extent, and occupy a fine situation. The fair was concluded, the people were packing up their merchandise, and every thing was in confusion. We descended the river to Arles, but a thick fog obscured the prospect, which we had the less cause to regret, since in this part, the Rhone passes through a flat alluvial country, and has little beauty to boast of. Arles stands on a gentle eminence. It is surrounded by walls and towers, which, though useless for defence, form sometimes admirable features in the landscape. It is a dirty disagreeable place, containing however, Roman antiquities of considerable importance; but the bad weather may perhaps have influenced my opinion of the city. Arles, like many other French towns, lays claim to a very remote antiquity, being, according to Lalauziere, (Abrégé Chronologique de l’Histoire d’Arles), a capital city, and the seat of a royal court, in the year of Rome 260, when the Phocæan colony founded Marseille. In order, however, to conciliate the advocates for the antiquity of the latter city, the author is willing to acknowledge a prior establishment of Marseille, before that recorded in history, (B. C. 539,) by two Phocæan chiefs, differing from the others only in name; which does not seem to be much, since we know, that in topographical histories, heroes have the attributes of pantonomism and ubiquity. These, however, arrived in France only forty-six years before the others. I must confess, I think this a very stingy allowance of Arles’s antiquary, when he had many ages at his entire disposal. Arles having been founded, according to the ‘Sçavant Anibert,’ seven hundred years before Rome. Leaving these dreams, Arles appears to have been a city of considerable importance, when the Cæsar Constantius fixed his residence there in 292; and from this time to 312, or perhaps to 324, when Constantine ultimately defeated Licinius, it was considered the capital of the western part of the Roman world; and it is probably to this period that we are to refer its principal monuments. The younger Constantine was born there in 315; and in 316 the first Constantine celebrated there the decennial games with great magnificence. Pownal says, that it is not to the great Constantine that Arles is indebted, but to Constantine the Third, a usurper in the reign of Honorius, who was proclaimed in Britain in 407, and defeated and put to death in 411. This man indeed made Arles for a short period his capital, but his reign was too short and turbulent for the production of extensive monuments of architecture. The amphitheatre is a larger building than that of Nismes, but so encumbered with houses within and without, that it is impossible to obtain a good view of it, and we must collect the parts as we see them here and there, to form an opinion of the whole. We found one open space, where we could walk on the tops of eight or ten of the upper row of vaults. It is said at present to contain within its circuit a thousand houses, but I would not vouch for the truth of this estimate. Lalauziere attributes it to Tiberius Nero, quæstor under Julius Cæsar, forty-six years before Christ.

The remains of a theatre, where a frieze ornamented with foliage is found over an architrave enriched with triglyphs, announce a great decline of art, and such as we can hardly suppose to have taken place before Constantine. In the progress of the fine arts towards perfection, it seems probable that the capital would take the lead. At least, in modern Europe, the metropolis seems to afford the example to the provinces; and in architecture, as in dress in the time of Steele and Addison, we may sometimes find a fashion commencing in the country, when it has had its day, and is already exploded in the city. Will this take place at all times? I do not mean in every particular instance, but may it be considered as a general rule, applicable to all periods? I incline to the affirmative, and conclude, that the earliest corruptions, as well as the earliest improvements, would take place in the chief towns: yet I suspect, that even at Rome, we shall be unable to find a greater absurdity than this at Arles, before the expiration of the third century. In the court of a convent of Cordeliers, are two columns of variegated marble without flutes, supposed also to belong to the theatre. They are of the Corinthian order, and appear to stand in their original position. The abacus of the capitals contains ovolos and dentils, as if it were a reduction of the cornice; yet the foliage seems to have been in good taste, and well carved, but it is much injured; these and the bases are of white marble, and are supposed to have been taken from the temple of Diana, and placed at the principal door of the Scene. We find a number of fragments in the same spot, of similar material; portions of shafts of columns of four different sizes, and as many different cornices; and morsels of sculpture, which show themselves to have belonged to very fine statues. In another place there are two capitals, and a piece of an entablature, which, together with two granite shafts on a larger scale than the parts they now support, are of a purer style: these are said to have belonged to the ancient capitol, but a capitol was a fortress, and for its own construction required no columns, and hardly admitted them. These columns were perhaps, those of a temple within the capital, or are we to suppose that the whole became a sacred inclosure, as at Athens, and was ornamented with a propylæon. Whatever it was, the edifice is believed to have been begun by the second Constantine in 339, and finished by his brother Constantius about 353. The architecture contradicts the history, unless we suppose it to have been composed of the spoils of more ancient buildings; which is the more probable, since these granite columns are too large for their capitals. If it formed part of a tetrastyle front, about one-third of the frieze and architrave remain, and these have holes in them, which doubtless supported letters of metal, and from these holes, and on that supposition, M. Seguier, who decyphered the holes at Nismes, has restored the whole inscription; a degree of supersagacity, which rather weakens the credit of his former exploit. An obelisk, 47 feet high, adorns the principal square of Arles, but it is not well mounted. The pedestal has a fulsome dedication to Louis the Fourteenth, and another, as fulsome, to Napoleon; but the latter was covered with a board, on which was painted a third, to Louis the Eighteenth. The investigation of the antiquities of Arles would be a fine subject for a skilful antiquary, but the attention of the French is more directed to the accurate examination of what is not in their own country, than to what is. Even the political condition of Arles down to 1251, when the Republic submitted itself to the counts of Provence, would form a curious subject. We feel an interest in the history of a free and independent state, where the mind and character are able to display themselves; but with the loss of liberty, the events of a provincial city lose all attraction for a stranger; and in all these states, which were once free, but are now subject to arbitrary power, it is extremely instructive to trace both the causes and consequences of the loss of freedom.

Beside the buildings already mentioned, there are several Roman vaults, the remains of baths; but all the parts of these that are known, are occupied as cellars, and make no appearance above ground. There are also in the neighbourhood, the fragments of an aqueduct, which collected the water of different springs in the principality of Baux, and conducted them to Arles, but I did not visit them.

What strikes a stranger the most at Arles, is the immense number of sarcophagi, of which the best are now collected in an old church. The sculpture shews that some are of Pagan, and some of Christian origin; but all of the lower empire, and of poor workmanship. One of them exhibits the fragment of a temple, where the supports seem to have been alternately columns and caryatides; but it is much damaged, and I am not quite sure that there were any columns. At the other end of the same sarcophagus, is an ornament which resembles those in the portal of Nôtre Dame at Dijon. On others, one might fancy it possible to trace the origin, both of the pointed arch, and of what has been called the trefoil ornament. One of them is ornamented with a range of Corinthian columns, supporting alternately semicircular and triangular arches, if they may be called so. I think, however, that we ought to consider both as pediments, where the horizontal cornice has been omitted; especially as they are ornamented with dentils. Another has a little point hanging down in the middle of the arch, thus: