THE COURTS AND THE ORATORS. THE GREAT BATHS. THE PUBLIC PARKS AND
ENVIRONS OF ROME
=298. Roman Court Procedure Highly Scientific.=--If Publius Calvus
does not have to attend the Senate, two places will assuredly devour
a great part of his normal day--the court-house and the public baths.
Even if he is not plaintiff, defendant, or witness, like every man of
his class he delights in listening to oratory, and etiquette requires
that, whenever one of his numerous friends argues a case, he, with as
many other senators and equites as possible should sit in the front
of the audience, to “lend their distinguished influence,” to lead the
salvos of applause, and even to stand up conspicuously behind the
orator at critical points in his argument.
Roman courts are not like the Athenian dicasteries, huge juries of
many hundreds,[187] with tumultuous appeals from the letter of the
law to the emotions of the members. Personal influence has its part,
but everything is regulated, orderly, scientific. Cases which do not
involve the safety of the state or the fate of distinguished personages
are usually argued coldly, and with a nice attention to technicalities.
Your Roman jurisconsult (expert in the law) is as much superior to
an Athenian in developing the science of formal justice, as another
Athenian might be to a Roman, in breathing life into chiseled marble.
The administration of law is intricate. There are courts behind courts,
with final appeal either to the Senate (as we have just seen) or to
the Emperor.[188] The “law’s delays” are perfectly well understood by
adroit advocates; and Martial records a case that took twenty years
while dragging through three successive courts--to the ruin of both
sets of litigants.
=299. The Great Tribunals in the Basilicas.=--If we visit the great
basilicas, we find two kinds of tribunals steadily functioning. For
much civil business there is the great “Court of the Centumviri,” a
board not of “One Hundred” but actually of one hundred and eighty
distinguished citizens, who sit sometimes all together, sometimes
divided into four groups for conducting trials simultaneously. Their
stronghold is the Basilica Julia. It is a great honor to argue before
the Centumviri, and every advocate exhausts his wiles to induce the
grave judges to pay him the highest compliment (as they did to Pliny
the Younger) by “suddenly leaping to their feet and applauding him as
if they could not help themselves.”
The most of the higher litigation, however, goes before _judices_. A
_judex_ may be one of the great panel of 4000 citizens,--senators,
equites, and plebeians of substance who can be called upon to serve as
a kind of jury for ordinary trials of importance. The size of such a
jury depends on the nature of the case as provided by statute,--you can
have from 32 members up to a full 100. There is a high judge over the
entire body, either the prætor, or a professional expert in the law,
the _judex quæstionis_, who controls the presentation of evidence and
the strictly technical parts of the trial.
After the evidence has been submitted, orally or in writing, and the
orators have exhausted themselves, the jurors take small wax-covered
tablets and vote, each man marking simply letters: A = _absolvo_, “Not
guilty,” C = _Condemno_, “Guilty,” N.L. = _Non Liquet_, “No verdict.” A
bare majority can either acquit or condemn, but, of course, no man is
condemned on a plurality, and a tie means acquittal. If “No verdict”
is the decision, the case can still go to another trial. Roman juries,
therefore, do not have to be locked up for days to compel them to agree.
However, this jury system is often inconvenient and does not adapt
itself to that very technical justice in which the Roman jurisconsults
increasingly delight. More and more cases are being tried by a single
_judex_, or a small bench of _judices_, men highly trained in the
law, and especially appointed by the prætor or other high official,
to investigate a given case and report their findings. Under the
later Empire the large juries will disappear altogether, and a few
professional judges will become arbiters alike of the law and the
evidence--an excellent system from the standpoint of scientific
jurisprudence, but not so excellent if these judges become corrupt,
pliable, or subject to class prejudices.
=300. Great Stress on Advocacy.=--Whatever the tribunal may be,
great is the stress laid on the arts of the advocate. Calvus has served
a long probation arguing in the basilicas before his day of glory
came in the Senate. All the young Ciceros in the rhetoric schools
dream of the hour when they can stand in flowing togas before the
high raised platform of the judices, wave their arms, throw out their
voices, and plead the cause of some widow, or arraign some embezzler
or extortioner. The mere fact that senatorial speeches have to be
extremely careful, lest they trench upon imperial prerogative, puts
a greater premium upon private argument in the courts where usually
“Cæsar” has no interests.
The rewards of successful eloquence are great;[189] and if the legal
fees are small, rich clients, at least, never fail with big New Year’s
presents, and with legacies in their wills. Besides there are no
governmental prosecuting attorneys. Criminal actions can be started by
any citizen against any possible offender. To reward such zeal, a good
part of the fines or confiscated property of convicted criminals goes
to the self-appointed prosecutor. It is thus easy to see how, under
Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, the delators (“professional accusers”)
grew fat prosecuting wealthy senators for “treason.” These good days
for the profession seem over, but the incomes of certain of the
leading advocates are princely, some almost vying with those of the
earlier Vibius Crispus and Epirius Marcellus, who had over 200,000,000
sesterces ($8,000,000) apiece.
=301. Cheap Pettifogging Lawyers.=--On the other hand Rome is infested
with starving pettifoggers, pretentious wretches, sleeping in dirty
tenements, and with hardly a decent toga to wear when they argue on
petty cases in the præfect’s court. Sometimes they get a better class
of client, hire a good robe and ring to wear at the trial, and win the
case in the Basilica. Their client will very likely decorate the stairs
to their tenement with palm leaves, but as the only fee[190] send them
a quantity of uncertain edibles--“a dried-up ham, a jar of sprats,
some veteran onions, or five flagons of [very cheap] wine that has
just sailed down the Tiber!” If any money is actually paid, lucky the
advocate who does not have to split his fee with some agent who has
secured the case for him!
=302. Character Witnesses; Torture of Slave Witnesses.=--One thing
more concerning these trials must be noted: the testimony of Roman
citizens carries much greater weight than that of aliens, and the
unreliability of Græco-Levantines is notorious. Freeborn men, Roman or
provincial, testify under oath. Only accusers have the right to compel
the attendance of unwilling witnesses, but the defense can bring not
merely voluntary witnesses to the facts, but can present as many as ten
_laudatores_, character witnesses, and if men of high standing are
vigorous in their friends’ praises, their opinions will offset very
many ugly facts in the testimony.
Frequently enough, however, the statements of slaves have to be taken.
These wretches, having little better status before the law than
animals, can only testify under torture. No master, nevertheless,
except in cases of treason, can ordinarily be compelled to let his
slaves testify _against_ him, but it is assumed that torture is
necessary if a master voluntarily offers his slave as witness,--for
what slave would dare uncompelled to say anything unwelcome to his
master in view of the terrific flogging waiting after he gets home?
The situation in short as to slave testimony is substantially as in
Athens.[191] This use of the rack and flogging post is one of the worst
blots upon the highly scientific and usually reasonable and humane
judicial system of Rome.
=303. Written Evidence; High Development of the Advocate’s Art.=--On
the other hand much weight is given to reliable written evidence.
Public documents from the record office, and the careful entries on
bankers’ ledgers are continually being introduced as testimony.
Much of the forensic oratory also is of a high order. The rhetoric
schools have not taught their better pupils in vain; despite much
silly display, “appeals to the emotions,” and artificiality, the art
of advocacy has never completely lost touch with the promotion of
justice; and usually the verdict goes still to him who best meets Cato
the Elder’s pungent definition of the true orator, _vir bonus, dicendi
peritus_ (“the good man versed in the art of speech”), and who recalls
that great republican’s classic injunction for all advocates--_rem
tene, verba sequentur_ (“Grasp the subject and the words will
follow”).[192]
In all matters not touching certain high interests the Roman courts are
perhaps as disinterested and clean as human tribunals can well be, and
the average _judex_ is charged with a passionate desire to do that
which is formally right. In the courts the spirit of Rome is often to
be seen at its best.
=304. Popularity and Necessity of the Baths.=--As the afternoon
advances, however, unless the case is extremely urgent, or the
advocates unwontedly skilful, the impassive toga-clad figures upon
the high seats of the tribunals begin to show signs of uneasiness.
The pleaders themselves reach in turn a suitable climax, as the
last filling of the water clocks runs out;--if necessary they can
finish their castigations or their excuses to-morrow. The courts are
adjourned, and judges, litigants, advocates, spectators, all hasten
from the Basilicas possessed with the thought which is common to nigh
every man in Rome not of the most unfortunate class--“To the Baths!”
The warm Italian climate makes frequent ablutions not merely
comfortable but necessary, but in the stern old days of the
earlier Republic Seneca specifically assures us that the fathers
of Rome were not wont to wash all over oftener than once a week
(_nundinæ_).[193] Long before the age of Hadrian, however, a daily
bath became a personal necessity. No dinner can be enjoyed without it.
No respectable man can feel comfortable deprived of it.
As the bathing habit grows, its luxury and elaboration grow
correspondingly. The daily bath becomes a social ceremony, and the
bathing place becomes almost as indispensable as the forum, or the
triclinium. Other peoples and ages may equal or surpass the Romans in
actual cleanliness; none can develop institutions really corresponding
to the enormous public _thermæ_ scattered over the capital.[194]
=305. Luxurious Private Baths.=--Probably every senator and all
the more pretentious equites have sumptuous private baths in their
own mansions. Here they can go when visits to the public thermæ are
inconvenient, or to refresh themselves between the long courses of
their great dinner parties.
The luxury of these private baths can be so prodigious as to afford
constant texts for the Stoical philosophers. Seneca has waxed almost
frantic telling how an aristocrat feels somewhat poverty-stricken
unless “the walls [of his bath] shine with great costly slabs, and
marbles of Alexandria tricked out with reliefs in stone from Numidia,
and with the whole ceiling elaborately covered with all varieties
of paintings, and unless Thasian marbles inclose the swimming pool,
and the water gushes out of silver taps”; likewise “how many a rich
freedman adorns his baths with fine collections of statues and a
multitude of pillars supporting nothing but serving only as ornaments.”
Essential, too, are such private baths for those so devoted to the
enjoyment that they insist on bathing several times a day.
=306. Government and Privately Owned Public Baths: Both Very
Popular.=--Even great nobles, however, enjoy the society and
recreations afforded by the public establishments; and there is often
no better way for a rich senator to display pomp and circumstance than
to enter one of the huge thermæ followed by a long train of slaves,
freedmen, and clients. Men of business, and, of course, mere toilers
must visit the baths when their duties give temporary leisure, but for
everybody who can control his time there is one preferable period--the
eighth or ninth hour, two or three P.M. It is around this time
that the bath attendants heat all their huge tanks to boiling and make
ready with an endless supply of anointing oils and “strigils” (metal
scrapers) to care for the onrush of the multitudes.
There are about sixteen enormous public baths in Rome owned by the
government, although often their care is leased to contractors. Small
baths, privately owned, opened to anybody at a tolerable fee and
managed solely for profit, exist in addition all over the city, and
nearly nine hundred stand licensed on the City Præfect’s books. Some of
these privately owned baths are elegant establishments, offering great
luxuries at corresponding prices.
The keepers of a bath-house (_balneatores_) rank low in social
estimation, for many of their places are the scenes of gross reveling
and debauchery; but there is excellent money in the business. Their
baths have names something like inns, and going about the metropolis,
we have noticed the “Baths of Daphne,” “The Æolian,” “The Diana,” “The
Mercury,” or they are simply called from the names of the owners, as
“Faustinian Baths” or “The Crassian.” On a signboard one can read
that the “Thermæ of Marcus Crassus” offer both salt- and fresh-water
baths.[195]
=307. The Great Baths of Trajan: Baths, Club-House, and
Café.=--However, if one would see and meet the world, a visit to the
great public baths is absolutely necessary. Some of these are located
on the outskirts of the capital; for example, the magnificent Baths
of Agrippa stand near the Pantheon in the Campus Martius; but only a
short distance from Publius Calvus’s mansion on the Esquiline rise what
are, perhaps, the finest public thermæ as yet existing in Rome, those
of Trajan, which were rebuilt on the site of a similar establishment
earlier erected by Titus.[196]
The Baths of Trajan constitute more than a vast establishment where
perhaps a thousand persons can bathe in the various tanks and pools
simultaneously. They supply many of the needs which another age
will meet partly by the club-house and partly by the café. They are
frequented by women as well as men, although the former are expected
to make their visits particularly during the morning hours and certain
special rooms are set aside for their use. These rules, however, are
often violated, and scenes can take place at the Baths of Trajan which
from the standpoint of a later time are simply indescribable.
=308. Heterogeneous Crowds in the Great Baths.=--One of the glories of
the great thermæ is their apparent democracy. Any freedman is entitled
to make use of them, although there are doubtless special recreation
and reposing rooms reserved for the rich elect. In theory the public
baths are free, but except on gala occasions when the Emperor wishes to
win popularity, there is usually a standard charge for admission of a
_quadrans_, a small copper coin (about ¼ cent). This simply covers the
expense of the attendants who look after one’s clothes, and provides
the oil for anointing--the use of the magnificent building goes for
nothing.
In such a place persons of every station can be seen mingling
together, social barriers partially break down, and a delightful
informality prevails. It is recorded of Hadrian that when he is in
the city, he proves his “liberal” habits by frequenting the public
baths and bathing in the great pools along with the meanest of his
subjects. Every afternoon, therefore, the thermæ are the scenes of
intensely bustling life. The noise rising from their great halls is
terrific--the shouting, laughing, splashing, running, exercising, going
on continuously.[197]
The Romans are preëminently a sociable people. They delight in the free
and easy contacts of the baths. What place has witnessed more financial
bargains struck, quarrels started or abated, lawsuits arranged,
marriage treaties negotiated, philosophical theories spun, artistic
points discussed, or even matters of imperial policy promoted than the
thermæ of Trajan? At the thermæ are continued all those matters you
talked over in the Forum this morning and which you will finish on the
supper couches to-night. The place, however, to a stranger is utterly
bewildering in its hugeness, its noise and the hurrying of its crowds
and its complexity, and few scenes in Rome could be more novel to a
visitor from another civilization.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ROMAN PUBLIC BATHS: partly
conjectural.]
=309. Entering the Thermæ.=--We can follow Calvus as he approaches
by the great southern portal which looks down from the slopes of the
Esquiline upon the great gray cylinder of the Flavian Amphitheater.
Before us stretches an enormous portico, fronting a high masonry
wall, of course crowned at many points with statues. The entrance
is relatively narrow in order to control the thousands of persons
streaming inside, each passing his copper to the attendants at the
gate. But once past the barrier, we see before us the vista, apparently
not of a bathing establishment, but of an ample, inclosed park, girded
on every side with handsome porticoes, scattered with trees, bright
shrubbery, and groups of sculpture, but with the domes seemingly of a
magnificent palace rising from the middle of the area.
This park is teeming with life; young men in the scantiest of costume
are running races on a long sandy track, others are tossing ball,
others engaged in a wrestling contest, Greek fashion, before a crowd
of spectators wedged upon seats along a kind of stadium. In a kind
of kiosk, or small temple, in a remote corner behind the shrubbery a
venerable man with the long beard of a philosopher is expounding the
theory of atoms to a small but select audience. We are told that there
are also _aulæ_ for learned conventicles, likewise excellent
libraries within the central building.
=310. Interior of the Baths: the Cold Room (_Frigidarium_).=--This
building itself is an enormous mass of brick and concrete, formed into
correspondingly enormous vaulted apartments and domes, their entire
surface covered with polished marbles or at least with brilliantly
colored stucco. At every point there are statues, singly and in groups,
historical and mythological, in the round or in high reliefs, in stone
and in bronze. Particularly to be noted is a marvelous if overrealistic
Laocoön group destined to be celebrated through the coming ages.[198]
It boots little to describe all the special chambers and features of
the Baths of Trajan; we can only notice those prime features common
to all public thermæ even in the provincial cities. The great mass of
visitors makes for the hall of the _frigidarium_ (“cold room”), a vast
unheated space, albeit comfortable enough on a warm Italian afternoon.
Here they toss off their garments, to their own personal slaves if they
are visitors of consequence, although there is a great force of regular
attendants (_capsarii_) whose prime business it is to take charge of
togas and tunics. For all their pains, thefts of clothes in the baths
are very common and give rise to frequent uproars.
Once stripped, even the gravest and oldest visitors are likely to
indulge in all kinds of gymnastics and horseplay. If they do not go
outside to limber themselves with tossing ball at trigon (see p. 206)
or with amateur races in the stadium, there are plenty of diversions
in the frigidarium itself. One can behold the “Very Noble” Varus, the
presiding consul, forgetful of all official dignity, competing with an
imperial legatus, both with their hands tied behind them and trying
by leaning backward to touch their heads against the tips of their
toes; while a prætor, an hour earlier an austere judge in the Basilica
Æmilia, is leaping up and down “murdering a good song by trying to sing
it.”[199]
=311. The Great Swimming Pool and the _Tepidarium_.=--All this
is usually preliminary to a splashing plunge into the clear cool
_natatio_, the great swimming pool of unheated water, which is nearly
200 feet long by 100 broad, and in which scores of Rome’s noblest
dignitaries now are to be seen splashing, swimming, and cavorting, with
perfect self-respect beside a much greater number of the plebeians. For
the many who do not prefer a warm bath, this is sufficient refreshment
on a summer day, and presently they will call their attendants to
bring towels, strigils, and ointments and hasten home. But your true
_habitué_ makes almost as much of his baths as of his dinners. He
delights in hot baths and all the refreshments that go with them.
“People want to be parboiled,” once declared Seneca disgustedly.
A hot bath involves an elaborate process. Often one will omit the
frigidarium with its cold shock, or take it later. In any case one
goes on to a second enormous chamber, perhaps the finest in the whole
building. A majestic dome soars over broad pavement. The pillars and
the fretwork on the ceiling and vaulting groan with heavy gilding. The
groups of statues flanking each of the huge marble-incrusted piers are
themselves of heroic size. The light streams down over the polished
marbles of the walls and pendentives, upon hundreds of persons lolling
about on stone benches, conversing, or lazily meditating. A warm mist
is rising; one feels as if in a plant house of tropical exotics, while
the elaborate mosaic designs are pleasantly warm under one’s bare feet.
Such luxury of course is enjoyed in the _tepidarium_ where the bathers
are gently warmed before the actual hot bath. It is an oblong hall,
nearly as large as the great cold swimming tank,[200] and, as stated,
the decorations are almost overpowering in their richness. Anybody will
explain that the floors are composed largely of hollow tiles through
which warm air of just the right temperature is being continually
forced from the great system of charcoal furnaces (“hypocausts”)
located in the substructures of the thermæ.
=312. The Hot Baths (_Caldaria_): Their Sensuous Luxury.=--At intervals
some person rises from the couches and hastens away to one of the
smaller chambers located at the four corners of the tepidarium. These
are the actual _caldaria_ (hot baths), wherein a perpetual fine steam
is rising. The water here is so hot that only experienced bathers can
find a plunge in the large porphyry tanks enjoyable. If one can endure
the heat, however, soon it becomes a kind of stupid bliss to lie back
motionless in the heated water, gazing upward to the vaulted ceiling
which is skilfully painted in a deep blue interspersed with trees,
foliage, birds, and gilt stars, as if one were dropping off to slumber
in the forest some summer evening! If the acme of life is merely
sensuous enjoyment, what can existence offer greatly surpassing this!
After you have lain quiescent in the caldarium until its pleasure has
begun to pall, the proper thing next is to pass to the _laconicum_.
Here the hypocausts have heated the floor and walls with an intense dry
heat. The bathers loll again upon marble slabs, and first are dried off
and then burst into a profuse perspiration. The ceremony of the bath is
at last over.
Your slaves or the regular attendant now will scrape you down with
the thin flexible bronze strigils, rub you thoroughly with towels,
and anoint you with unguents, the more costly and highly perfumed the
better. In the numerous small chambers around the great laconicum, open
for special fees, there is a greater luxury still;--here such elderly
magnates as Varus, or even young noblemen of the more effeminate type,
will be elaborately massaged and finally rubbed down with very soft
woolen blankets, by at least three expert masseurs working together.
After such an experience surely body and mind ought to be prepared for
the pleasures of the dinner party.
=313. Restaurants, Small Shops, and Sports in or around the
Baths.=--Very much more might be added about the Great Baths. For
those people who wish to linger until the edge of meal time, there is
no need to go hungry. Close by the entrance are numerous restaurants
(_popinæ_) of more than ordinary elegance. Here you can send your
slave for sweet cakes, slices of toasted honey bread, sausages, eggs,
and like viands; and in the great frigidarium and tepidarium the
peddlers from these restaurants are always going about with trays of
such food, crying their wares and making the ordinary bedlam so much
the greater. Directly in the thermæ themselves are small shops for
the sale of fine perfumes and unguents; and often in the corridors
and antechambers you can find crowds gazing at special displays of
paintings, or of new statuary--for the public baths are practically the
art galleries of Rome.
As for the frequenters of the baths, here even more than in the fora
are the trysting spots for parasites. Let an approachable nobleman be
seen lolling at ease in the tepidarium and he is instantly spotted by
some dinner hunter. Innumerable are the attentions that can then be
paid him. Does he wish to play handball?--The parasite retrieves for
him. Does he lay aside a fine garment?--At once “his remarkable taste”
is praised to the skies. Does he lie perspiring in the laconicum?
His “friend” tries to anticipate the slaves in wiping the sweat from
his brow. No act is too obsequious--all in hopes of hearing those
delightful words, “Come home and dine!” In the halls of the women
similar scenes are enacted, but we cannot pursue them.
At last the sun dials that stand in every open spot around the thermæ
indicate that the afternoon is well spent. From the laconicum the
refreshed bathers return to the milder tepidarium, to recover from the
shock of the intense heat and to resume their garments. Then the crowds
all hasten out again. Some of the privately owned bathing-places may
remain open all night, but the great thermæ, lately the scene of such
boisterous life, stand vast, dark, and empty.
=314. The Great Porticoes along the Campus Martius. The Park System
towards the Tiber.=--The public baths are not the only places for
daily enjoyment which a solicitous government has provided for the
quirites. The fora are limited and the city proper is very closely
built, but around its outskirts and especially to the north and west
there is a genuinely magnificent park system. The beginnings of this
are reached after you go through the Forum of Trajan and follow along
“Broadway.” Here are the great porticoes and promenades of the Sæpta
Julia. The famous stores (see p. 228) are mostly on the east side of
the avenue verging off towards the slopes of the Quirinal, but the west
side, going clear across the broad Campus Martius to the Tiber, is more
strictly public property.
This wide level area formed by the great bend in the river has
long since ceased to be a mere parade ground for the army. There
are broad masses of greenery, grateful shade trees, spreading over
neatly graveled walks, as well as literally miles of lofty porticoes
stretching in every direction and giving comfortable places for
strolling in bad weather. The greatest of these porticoes is, of
course, the long Sæpta Julia, but there is a succession of others, so
that you can almost wander from the Column of Trajan across the Campus
clear to the Ælian Bridge completely defiant of any rain.
In the open pleasure grounds there are always people exercising without
the restraints inevitable at the thermæ, playing ball, wrestling,
exhibiting horses and chariots, as well as very many children chasing
about with hoops. If legionaries are passing through the city, their
leathern tents probably stand here, and here, too, can be held all the
vast open-air pageants which cannot accommodate themselves inside any
building.
=315. Public Buildings upon the Campus Martius.=--Out of the lofty
trees, however, there rise still loftier structures. Two of the great
public thermæ, those of Nero and Agrippa, are here upon the Campus
Martius. In this region, also, are three of the principal theaters,
that of Pompeius, accommodating some 25,000 people, and two others
(Theaters of Marcellus and Balbus) only slightly smaller. Here is the
Flaminian Circus and the Amphitheater of Taurus for those horse races
and gladiator fights which do not demand the huge Circus Maximus or
Flavian. Here again is the golden-roofed Pantheon and a great number
of other temples to such ill-assorted gods as the Egyptian Serapis
and Isis, Neptune, Minerva of the Campus, and the old Latin goddess
Juturna. Notable, too, are the triumphal arches raised across several
of the broad avenues.
You can in fact wander on across this region from one marvelous
structure to another until the eye and brain become weary trying to
enumerate, much more to comprehend the succession of buildings every
one of which is a triumph of marble and of sculpture. Pressing on to
the marge of the Tiber itself, the river above the commercial bridges
is seen covered with gay pleasure skiffs plying about under bright
flags. The shores are lined with handsome little houses, usually
decorated in the doors with potted shrubs or boughs of foliage.
Innocent they look in the day time but at night when their windows
blaze with lamps they will be veritable traps of iniquity for the
enjoyment and then the ruin of the unwary.
=316. The Tombs of Hadrian and Augustus.=--Across the river near
its main bend, can be noticed the green slopes of the hill of the
Vatican uncrowned as yet by any temple of fame, but with the suburban
Circus of Nero stretching along its slopes. Directly across the
current, also, is rising the enormous circular mass of the Mausoleum
of Hadrian, with the derricks and staging still above it swinging to
place the last of that galaxy of statues which will look down upon the
Tiber.[201]
[Illustration: CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO: Tomb of Hadrian
in its present state.]
We do not cross over to the new structure, but proceeding along the
bank to the point where the Via Flaminia continuing “Broadway” bears
down beside the river, we see before us the older but very majestic
Mausoleum of Augustus. It lifts itself fully 220 feet in the air, its
base composed of a vast cylinder coated with sculptured marbles, above
which there is heaped a conical mound of earth, planted with evergreen
trees, while on the summit stands a colossal statue of its mighty
builder himself. Within repose the urns not merely of Augustus, but of
nearly all the worthier members of the imperial families.
[Illustration: TOMB OF HADRIAN. _Restored after
Von Falke._]
These are only some of the features of the Campus Martius which foreign
visitors such as Strabo acclaim as the most remarkable section of
Rome, if not the one most charged with her past history. Time fails
to visit the other great public pleasure-grounds upon the slopes of
the Pincian--the “Gardens of Lucullus” and the “Gardens of Sallust,”
or that other wide park northeast of the Esquiline, the “Gardens of
Mæcenas,” presenting yet other vistas of shrubbery, groves, promenades,
and green lawns, interspersed with pleasure pavilions. It behooves us
now to return to Rome and to visit some of the most important centers
of its life--the theater, the amphitheater, and the circus.