Not far from thence is a mutilated Roman statue, which the moderns have placed there, unconscious that they thus display a striking symbol of Rome as it is. This figure has neither head nor feet; but the trunk and drapery that remain have still the beauty of antiquity. At the top of the stairs are two colossal statues, thought to represent Castor and Pollux; then come the trophies of Marius; then the two columns which served to measure the Roman empire; lastly the statue of Marcus Aurelius, calm and beautiful amid contending memories. Thus the heroic age is personated by these colossal shapes, the republic by the lions, the civil wars by Marius, and the imperial day by Aurelius.
To the right and left of the modern Capitol two churches have been erected, on the ruins of temples to Jupiter Feretrius and Capitolinus. In front of the vestibule is a fountain, over which the geniuses of the Tiber and the Nile are represented as presiding, as does the she-wolf of Romulus. The name of the Tiber is never pronounced like that of an inglorious stream; it is a proud pleasure for a Roman but to say, "Come to the Tiber's banks! Let us cross the Tiber!" In breathing such words he seems to invoke the spirit of history, and reanimate the dead.
Going to the Capitol by the way of the Forum, you find, to your right, the Mamertine prisons, constructed by Ancus Martius for ordinary criminals; but excavated by Servius Tullius into far more cruel dungeons for state culprits; as if they merit not most mercy, who err from a zealous fidelity to what they believe their duty. Jugurtha, and the friends of Catiline, perished in these cells; it is even said that St. Peter and St. Paul were confined there. On the other side of the Capitol is the Tarpeian Rock, at the foot of which now stands the Hospital of Consolation, as if the severe spirit of antiquity, and the sweet one of Christianity, defying time, here met, as visibly to the eye as to the mind. When Oswald and Corinne had gained the top of the Capitol, she showed him the Seven Hills, and the city, bounded first by Mount Palatinus, then by the walls of Servius Tullius, which inclose the hills, and by those of Aurelian, which still surround the greatest part of Rome. Corinne repeated verses of Tibullus and Propertius, that glorify the weak commencement of what became the mistress of the world.[2] Mount Palatinus once contained all Rome; but soon did the imperial palace fill the space that had sufficed for a nation. A poet of Nero's day made this epigram:—
"Roma domus fiet. Veios migrate, Quirites;
Si non et Veios occupat ista domus."
'Rome will soon be but one house. Go to Veios, citizens! if you can be sure that this house will not include even Veios itself.' The Seven Hills are far less lofty now than when they deserved the title of steep mountains; modern Rome being forty feet higher than its predecessor, and the valleys which separated them almost filled up by ruins; but what is still more strange, two heaps of shattered vases have formed new hills, Cestario and Testacio. Thus, in time, the very refuse of civilization levels the rock with the plain, effacing, in the moral as in the material world, all the pleasing inequalities of nature.
Three other hills, Janiculum, Vaticanus, and Mario, not comprised in the famous seven, give so picturesque an air to Rome; and afford such magnificent views from her interior, as perhaps no other city can command. There is so remarkable a mixture of ruins and new buildings, of fair fields and desert wastes, that one may contemplate Rome on all sides, and ever find fresh beauties.
Oswald could not weary of feasting his gaze from the elevated point to which Corinne had led him. The study of history can never act on us like the sight of that scene itself. The eye reigns all powerfully over the soul. He now believed in the old Romans, as if he had lived amongst them. Mental recollections are acquired by reading; those of imagination are born of more immediate impressions, such as give life to thought, and seem to render us the witnesses of what we learn. Doubtless we are annoyed by the modern dwellings which intrude on these wrecks, yet a portico beside some humble roof, columns between which the little windows of a church peep out, or a tomb that serves for the abode of a rustic family, so blends the grand with the simple, and affords us so many agreeable discoveries, as to keep up continual interest. Everything is common-place and prosaic in the generality of European towns; and Rome, more frequently than any other, presents the sad aspect of misery and degradation; but all at once some broken column, or half-effaced bas-relief, or a few stones, bound together by indestructible cement, will remind you that there is in man an eternal power, a divine spark, which he ought never to weary of fanning in his own breast, and reluming in those of others. The Forum, whose narrow inclosure has been the scene of so many wondrous events, is a striking proof of man's moral greatness. When in the latter days of Rome, the world was subjected to inglorious rulers, centuries passed from which history could scarce extract a single feat. This Forum, the heart of a circumscribed town, whose natives fought around it against the invaders of its territories—this Forum, by the recollections it retraces, has been the theme of genius in every age. Eternal honors to the brave and free, who thus vanquish even the hearts of posterity!
Corinne observed to Nevil that there were but few vestiges left of the republic, or of the regal day which preceded it. The aqueducts and subterranean canals are the only luxuries remaining, while of aught more useful we have but a few tombs and brick temples. Not till after the fall of Sicily did the Romans adopt the use of marble; but it is enough to survey the spots on which great actions have been performed; we experience that indefinite emotion to which we may attribute the pious zeal of pilgrims. Celebrated countries of all kinds, even when despoiled of their great men and great works, exert a power over the imagination. That which would once have attracted the eye exists no more; but the charm of memory still survives.
The Forum now retains no trace of that famed tribunal whence the people were ruled by the force of eloquence. There still exist three pillars of a temple to Jupiter Tonans, raised by Augustus, because a thunderbolt had fallen near him there, without injury. There is, too, the triumphal arch erected by the Senate to requite the exploits of Septimus Severus. The names of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were inscribed on its front; but as Caracalla assassinated his brother, his name was erased; some marks of the letters are yet visible. Farther off is a temple to Faustina, a monument of the weakness of Marcus Aurelius. A temple to Venus, which, in the republican era, was consecrated to Pallas, and, at a little distance, the relics of another, dedicated to the sun and moon, by the emperor Adrian, who was so jealous of the Greek architect Apollodorus, that he put him to death for censuring its proportion. On the other side are seen the remains of buildings devoted to higher and purer aims. The columns of one believed to be that of Jupiter Stator, forbidding the Romans ever to fly before their enemies—the last pillar of the temple to Jupiter Custos, placed, it is said, near the gulf into which Curtius threw himself—and some belonging either to the Temple of Concord or to that of Victory. Perhaps this resistless people confounded the two ideas, believing that they could only attain true peace by subduing the universe. At the extremity of Mount Palatinus stands an arch celebrating Titus's conquest at Jerusalem. It is asserted that no Jews will ever pass beneath it; and the little path they take to avoid it is pointed out. We will hope, for the credit of the Jews, that this anecdote is true; such enduring recollections well become the long-suffering. Not far from hence is the arch of Constantine, embellished by some bas-reliefs, taken from the Forum, in the time of Trajan, by the Christians, who resolved thus to deck the monument of the Founder of Peace. The arts, at this period, were already on the wane, and thefts from the past deified new achievements.
The triumphal gates still seen in Rome perpetuated, as much as man could do, the respect paid to glory. There were places for musicians at their summits; so that the hero, as he passed, might be intoxicated at once by melody and praise, tasting, at the same moment, all that can exalt the spirit.