THE COLOSSEUM, ROME. This mammoth ruin, originally known as the Flavian amphitheatre, is the most magnificent relic of ancient Rome. Begun by Vespasian in A. D. 72, it was dedicated by Titus in A. D. 80 and was subsequently added to by Domitian. As the circus of the public games for nearly four hundred years, it was the scene of gladiatorial conflicts and of the persecution of the Christian martyrs. After the triumph of Christianity it fell into neglect, and suffered continuous spoliation as a quarry for the material of new buildings. Finally, in 1750, Benedict XIV rescued it in its present condition by dedicating it to the memory of the Christian martyrs who had suffered therein. A cross in the middle of the amphitheatre is continually visited by the pious. “As it now stands,” says Forsyth, “the Colosseum is a striking image of Rome itself, decayed, vacant, serious, yet grand, half gray and half green, exact on one side and fallen on another, with consecrated ground in its bosom.” Hillard calls it “a great tragedy in stone.” It was originally built to seat ten thousand spectators. There were three orders of architecture used in the four stories; the first, Doric; second, Ionic; third and fourth, Corinthian. In each of the lower tiers there were eighty arches. The height of the outer wall was one hundred and fifty-seven feet, the circumference one thousand six hundred and forty-one feet, the entire superficial area being six acres.
THE PANTHEON, ROME. This is one of the grandest, as it is the most perfectly preserved, of all the ancient monuments of Rome. Except for the ridiculous belfries superimposed by Bernini on the outside, it is to-day substantially in the same condition as when Marcus Agrippa in B. C. 27, after the establishment of universal peace, consecrated it to all the gods. In A. D. 608 it was dedicated as a Christian church by Pope Boniface IV, under the name of Santa Maria ad Martyres. The portico is of faultless beauty, and the interior, as the picture shows, is a perfect rotunda, impressive in its grand simplicity. The domed ceiling is lighted solely by an aperture twenty-three feet in diameter, the wall being supported by a huge bronze ring. An additional interest for moderns lies in the tombs of Raphael, Caracci and other painters who are buried therein, and more recently the remains of Victor Emmanuel have been added to those of the artistic brotherhood.
TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA, ROME, ITALY. The Via Appia of ancient Rome was one of the great avenues leading out from the city, and the principal line of communication with the South. It is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the censor, who began its construction in B. C. 312. Under Pius IX the ancient road was once more laid open. To-day it presents the appearance of an avenue, eleven Roman miles in length, lined on each side by ruins, mostly of magnificent tombs, which were built by the patrician families of ancient Rome to the memory of their dead. The best preserved of these is the tomb of Cecilia Metella, the wife of Crassus, a circular tower seventy feet in diameter, resting upon a quadrangular base. The battlements upon it are mediæval additions, made for the purpose of defense by the Caetanis.
FORUM ROMANUM, ROME, ITALY. The ancient Forum of Rome exists only in ruins. That it lay at the foot of the Capitoline and Palatine Hills in Rome is certain from the remnants that survive. But the exact area it occupied and the true situation of the various buildings which once covered it are matters of dispute and uncertainty. Conspicuous among the ruins are three beautiful Corinthian columns of white marble belonging to the temple raised to Vespasian by Domitian; eight granite columns belonging to the Temple of Saturn, a beautiful fragment, consisting of three Corinthian columns with a rich entablature, a solitary column which Byron calls,
The nameless column with a buried base,
but whose now excavated base reveals that it was erected to the Emperor Phocas, the arches of Septimus Severus and of Titus, and a profusion of columns, pavements, foundations and walls of other structures.
