an anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his visit round
the churches and holy places at Rome, touches on several buildings,
especially porticos, which had disappeared before the xiiith century.]
[Footnote 8: On the Septizonium, see the MÈmoires sur PÈtrarque, (tom.
i. p. 325,) Donatus, (p. 338,) and Nardini, (p. 117, 414.)]
After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the
ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a
thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile
attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the
materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.
I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than
the narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself,
are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, his
life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment. Of a
simple and solid edifice, it is not easy, however, to circumscribe the
duration. As the wonders of ancient days, the pyramids [9] attracted the
curiosity of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of autumn,
have dropped [10] into the grave; and after the fall of the Pharaohs and
Ptolemies, the CÊsars and caliphs, the same pyramids stand erect and
unshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex figure of various and
minute parts to more accessible to injury and decay; and the silent
lapse of time is often accelerated by hurricanes and earthquakes, by
fires and inundations. The air and earth have doubtless been shaken; and
the lofty turrets of Rome have tottered from their foundations; but
the seven hills do not appear to be placed on the great cavities of the
globe; nor has the city, in any age, been exposed to the convulsions of
nature, which, in the climate of Antioch, Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbled
in a few moments the works of ages into dust. Fire is the most
powerful agent of life and death: the rapid mischief may be kindled and
propagated by the industry or negligence of mankind; and every period
of the Roman annals is marked by the repetition of similar calamities.
A memorable conflagration, the guilt or misfortune of Nero's reign,
continued, though with unequal fury, either six or nine days. [11]
Innumerable buildings, crowded in close and crooked streets, supplied
perpetual fuel for the flames; and when they ceased, four only of the
fourteen regions were left entire; three were totally destroyed, and
seven were deformed by the relics of smoking and lacerated edifices. [12]
In the full meridian of empire, the metropolis arose with fresh beauty
from her ashes; yet the memory of the old deplored their irreparable
losses, the arts of Greece, the trophies of victory, the monuments of
primitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of distress and anarchy,
every wound is mortal, every fall irretrievable; nor can the damage be
restored either by the public care of government, or the activity
of private interest. Yet two causes may be alleged, which render the
calamity of fire more destructive to a flourishing than a decayed city.
_1._ The more combustible materials of brick, timber, and metals, are
first melted or consumed; but the flames may play without injury or
effect on the naked walls, and massy arches, that have been despoiled of
their ornaments. _2._ It is among the common and plebeian habitations,
that a mischievous spark is most easily blown to a conflagration; but as
soon as they are devoured, the greater edifices, which have resisted or
escaped, are left as so many islands in a state of solitude and
safety. From her situation, Rome is exposed to the danger of frequent
inundations. Without excepting the Tyber, the rivers that descend from
either side of the Apennine have a short and irregular course; a shallow
stream in the summer heats; an impetuous torrent, when it is swelled in
the spring or winter, by the fall of rain, and the melting of the snows.
When the current is repelled from the sea by adverse winds, when the
ordinary bed is inadequate to the weight of waters, they rise above the
banks, and overspread, without limits or control, the plains and cities
of the adjacent country. Soon after the triumph of the first Punic war,
the Tyber was increased by unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassing
all former measure of time and place, destroyed all the buildings that
were situated below the hills of Rome. According to the variety of
ground, the same mischief was produced by different means; and the
edifices were either swept away by the sudden impulse, or dissolved and
undermined by the long continuance, of the flood. [13] Under the reign
of Augustus, the same calamity was renewed: the lawless river overturned
the palaces and temples on its banks; [14] and, after the labors of
the emperor in cleansing and widening the bed that was encumbered with
ruins, [15] the vigilance of his successors was exercised by similar
dangers and designs. The project of diverting into new channels the
Tyber itself, or some of the dependent streams, was long opposed by
superstition and local interests; [16] nor did the use compensate the
toil and cost of the tardy and imperfect execution. The servitude of
rivers is the noblest and most important victory which man has obtained
over the licentiousness of nature; [17] and if such were the ravages of
the Tyber under a firm and active government, what could oppose, or who
can enumerate, the injuries of the city, after the fall of the Western
empire? A remedy was at length produced by the evil itself: the
accumulation of rubbish and the earth, that has been washed down from
the hills, is supposed to have elevated the plain of Rome, fourteen or
fifteen feet, perhaps, above the ancient level; [18] and the modern city
is less accessible to the attacks of the river. [19]
[Footnote 9: The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, since
Diodorus Siculus (tom. i l. i. c. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide whether
they were constructed 1000, or 3400, years before the clxxxth Olympiad.
Sir John Marsham's contracted scale of the Egyptian dynasties would fix
them about 2000 years before Christ, (Canon. Chronicus, p. 47.)]
[Footnote 10: See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad, (Z. 146.) This
natural but melancholy image is peculiar to Homer.]
[Footnote 11: The learning and criticism of M. des Vignoles (Histoire
Critique de la RÈpublique des Lettres, tom. viii. p. 47--118, ix.
p. 172--187) dates the fire of Rome from A.D. 64, July 19, and the
subsequent persecution of the Christians from November 15 of the same
year.]
[Footnote 12: Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum
quatuor integrÊ manebant, tres solo tenus dejectÊ: septem reliquis pauca
testorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semiusta. Among the old relics
that were irreparably lost, Tacitus enumerates the temple of the moon
of Servius Tullius; the fane and altar consecrated by Evander prÊsenti
Herculi; the temple of Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace of
Numa; the temple of Vesta cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then deplores
the opes tot victoriis quÊsitÊ et GrÊcarum artium decora.... multa quÊ
seniores meminerant, quÊ reparari nequibant, (Annal. xv. 40, 41.)]
[Footnote 13: A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius RomÊ prÊvenit
triumphum Romanorum.... diversÊ ignium aquarumque clades pene absumsere
urbem Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem, vel
diuturnitate vel maguitudine redundans, _omnia_ RomÊ Êdificia in plano
posita delevit. DiversÊ qualitates locorum ad unam convenere perniciem:
quoniam et quÊ segnior inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quÊ
cursus torrentis invenit impulsa dejecit, (Orosius, Hist. l. iv. c. 11,
p. 244, edit. Havercamp.) Yet we may observe, that it is the plan and
study of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of the Pagan
world.]
[Footnote 14:
Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis
Littore Etrusco violenter undis,
Ire dejectum monumenta Regis
Templaque VestÊ. (Horat. Carm. I. 2.)
If the palace of Numa and temple of Vesta were thrown down in Horace's
time, what was consumed of those buildings by Nero's fire could hardly
deserve the epithets of vetustissima or incorrupta.]
[Footnote 15: Ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit, ac
repurgavit, completum olim ruderibus, et Êdificiorum prolapsionibus
coarctatum, (Suetonius in Augusto, c. 30.)]
[Footnote 16: Tacitus (Annal. i. 79) reports the petitions of the
different towns of Italy to the senate against the measure; and we may
applaud the progress of reason. On a similar occasion, local interests
would undoubtedly be consulted: but an English House of Commons would
reject with contempt the arguments of superstition, "that nature had
assigned to the rivers their proper course," &c.]
[Footnote 17: See the Epoques de la Nature of the eloquent and
philosophic Buffon. His picture of Guyana, in South America, is that of
a new and savage land, in which the waters are abandoned to themselves
without being regulated by human industry, (p. 212, 561, quarto
edition.)]
[Footnote 18: In his travels in Italy, Mr. Addison (his works, vol.
ii. p. 98, Baskerville's edition) has observed this curious and
unquestionable fact.]
[Footnote 19: Yet in modern times, the Tyber has sometimes damaged the
city, and in the years 1530, 1557, 1598, the annals of Muratori record
three mischievous and memorable inundations, (tom. xiv. p. 268, 429,
tom. xv. p. 99, &c.) * Note: The level of the Tyber was at one time
supposed to be considerably raised: recent investigations seem to be
conclusive against this supposition. See a brief, but satisfactory
statement of the question in Bunsen and Platner, Roms Beschreibung. vol.
i. p. 29.--M.]
II. The crowd of writers of every nation, who impute the destruction of
the Roman monuments to the Goths and the Christians, have neglected to
inquire how far they were animated by a hostile principle, and how far
they possessed the means and the leisure to satiate their enmity. In
the preceding volumes of this History, I have described the triumph of
barbarism and religion; and I can only resume, in a few words, their
real or imaginary connection with the ruin of ancient Rome. Our fancy
may create, or adopt, a pleasing romance, that the Goths and Vandals
sallied from Scandinavia, ardent to avenge the flight of Odin; [20] to
break the chains, and to chastise the oppressors, of mankind; that they
wished to burn the records of classic literature, and to found their
national architecture on the broken members of the Tuscan and Corinthian
orders. But in simple truth, the northern conquerors were neither
sufficiently savage, nor sufficiently refined, to entertain such
aspiring ideas of destruction and revenge. The shepherds of Scythia and
Germany had been educated in the armies of the empire, whose discipline
they acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use of
the Latin tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles of
Rome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined to
admire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter period. In
the transient possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers
of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victorious
army; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty, portable wealth
was the object of their search; nor could they derive either pride or
pleasure from the unprofitable reflection, that they had battered to the
ground the works of the consuls and CÊsars. Their moments were indeed
precious; the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth, [21] the Vandals on the
fifteenth, day: [22] and, though it be far more difficult to build than
to destroy, their hasty assault would have made a slight impression
on the solid piles of antiquity. We may remember, that both Alaric
and Genseric affected to spare the buildings of the city; that they
subsisted in strength and beauty under the auspicious government of
Theodoric; [23] and that the momentary resentment of Totila [24] was
disarmed by his own temper and the advice of his friends and enemies.
From these innocent Barbarians, the reproach may be transferred to the
Catholics of Rome. The statues, altars, and houses, of the dÊmons, were
an abomination in their eyes; and in the absolute command of the city,
they might labor with zeal and perseverance to erase the idolatry of
their ancestors. The demolition of the temples in the East [25] affords
to _them_ an example of conduct, and to _us_ an argument of belief;
and it is probable that a portion of guilt or merit may be imputed with
justice to the Roman proselytes. Yet their abhorrence was confined to
the monuments of heathen superstition; and the civil structures that
were dedicated to the business or pleasure of society might be preserved
without injury or scandal. The change of religion was accomplished, not
by a popular tumult, but by the decrees of the emperors, of the senate,
and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome were
commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge
be opposed to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majestic
structure of the Pantheon. [26] [261]
[Footnote 20: I take this opportunity of declaring, that in the course
of twelve years, I have forgotten, or renounced, the flight of Odin
from Azoph to Sweden, which I never very seriously believed, (vol. i. p.
283.) The Goths are apparently Germans: but all beyond CÊsar and Tacitus
is darkness or fable, in the antiquities of Germany.]
[Footnote 21: History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii. p. 291.]
[Footnote 22:----------------------vol. iii. p. 464.]
[Footnote 23:----------------------vol. iv. p. 23--25.]
[Footnote 24:----------------------vol. iv. p. 258.]
[Footnote 25:----------------------vol. iii. c. xxviii. p. 139--148.]
[Footnote 26: Eodem tempore petiit a Phocate principe templum, quod
appellatur _Pantheon_, in quo fecit ecclesiam SanctÊ MariÊ semper
Virginis, et omnium martyrum; in qu‚ ecclesiÊ princeps multa bona
obtulit, (Anastasius vel potius Liber Pontificalis in Bonifacio IV., in
Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. i. p. 135.) According
to the anonymous writer in Montfaucon, the Pantheon had been vowed by
Agrippa to Cybele and Neptune, and was dedicated by Boniface IV., on the
calends of November, to the Virgin, quÊ est mater omnium sanctorum, (p.
297, 298.)]
[Footnote 261: The popes, under the dominion of the emperor and of the
exarchs, according to Feas's just observation, did not possess the power
of disposing of the buildings and monuments of the city according to
their own will. Bunsen and Platner, vol. i. p. 241.--M.]
III. The value of any object that supplies the wants or pleasures of
mankind is compounded of its substance and its form, of the materials
and the manufacture. Its price must depend on the number of persons
by whom it may be acquired and used; on the extent of the market; and
consequently on the ease or difficulty of remote exportation, according
to the nature of the commodity, its local situation, and the temporary
circumstances of the world. The Barbarian conquerors of Rome usurped
in a moment the toil and treasure of successive ages; but, except the
luxuries of immediate consumption, they must view without desire all
that could not be removed from the city in the Gothic wagons or the
fleet of the Vandals. [27] Gold and silver were the first objects of
their avarice; as in every country, and in the smallest compass, they
represent the most ample command of the industry and possessions of
mankind. A vase or a statue of those precious metals might tempt the
vanity of some Barbarian chief; but the grosser multitude, regardless
of the form, was tenacious only of the substance; and the melted ingots
might be readily divided and stamped into the current coin of the
empire. The less active or less fortunate robbers were reduced to the
baser plunder of brass, lead, iron, and copper: whatever had escaped
the Goths and Vandals was pillaged by the Greek tyrants; and the emperor
Constans, in his rapacious visit, stripped the bronze tiles from the
roof of the Pantheon. [28] The edifices of Rome might be considered as a
vast and various mine; the first labor of extracting the materials was
already performed; the metals were purified and cast; the marbles
were hewn and polished; and after foreign and domestic rapine had been
satiated, the remains of the city, could a purchaser have been found,
were still venal. The monuments of antiquity had been left naked of
their precious ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their own
hands the arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the cost
of the labor and exportation. If Charlemagne had fixed in Italy the seat
of the Western empire, his genius would have aspired to restore, rather
than to violate, the works of the CÊsars; but policy confined the French
monarch to the forests of Germany; his taste could be gratified only by
destruction; and the new palace of Aix la Chapelle was decorated with
the marbles of Ravenna [29] and Rome. [30] Five hundred years after
Charlemagne, a king of Sicily, Robert, the wisest and most liberal
sovereign of the age, was supplied with the same materials by the easy
navigation of the Tyber and the sea; and Petrarch sighs an indignant
complaint, that the ancient capital of the world should adorn from her
own bowels the slothful luxury of Naples. [31] But these examples of
plunder or purchase were rare in the darker ages; and the Romans, alone
and unenvied, might have applied to their private or public use
the remaining structures of antiquity, if in their present form and
situation they had not been useless in a great measure to the city and
its inhabitants. The walls still described the old circumference, but
the city had descended from the seven hills into the Campus Martius; and
some of the noblest monuments which had braved the injuries of time
were left in a desert, far remote from the habitations of mankind.
The palaces of the senators were no longer adapted to the manners or
fortunes of their indigent successors: the use of baths [32] and
porticos was forgotten: in the sixth century, the games of the theatre,
amphitheatre, and circus, had been interrupted: some temples were
devoted to the prevailing worship; but the Christian churches preferred
the holy figure of the cross; and fashion, or reason, had distributed
after a peculiar model the cells and offices of the cloister. Under
the ecclesiastical reign, the number of these pious foundations was
enormously multiplied; and the city was crowded with forty monasteries
of men, twenty of women, and sixty chapters and colleges of canons and
priests, [33] who aggravated, instead of relieving, the depopulation
of the tenth century. But if the forms of ancient architecture were
disregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty, the
plentiful materials were applied to every call of necessity or
superstition; till the fairest columns of the Ionic and Corinthian
orders, the richest marbles of Paros and Numidia, were degraded, perhaps
to the support of a convent or a stable. The daily havoc which is
perpetrated by the Turks in the cities of Greece and Asia may afford a
melancholy example; and in the gradual destruction of the monuments of
Rome, Sixtus the Fifth may alone be excused for employing the stones of
the Septizonium in the glorious edifice of St. Peter's. [34] A fragment,
a ruin, howsoever mangled or profaned, may be viewed with pleasure and
regret; but the greater part of the marble was deprived of substance, as
well as of place and proportion; it was burnt to lime for the purpose of
cement. [341] Since the arrival of Poggius, the temple of Concord, [35] and
many capital structures, had vanished from his eyes; and an epigram of
the same age expresses a just and pious fear, that the continuance of
this practice would finally annihilate all the monuments of antiquity.
[36] The smallness of their numbers was the sole check on the demands and
depredations of the Romans. The imagination of Petrarch might create the
presence of a mighty people; [37] and I hesitate to believe, that, even
in the fourteenth century, they could be reduced to a contemptible list
of thirty-three thousand inhabitants. From that period to the reign of
Leo the Tenth, if they multiplied to the amount of eighty-five thousand,
[38] the increase of citizens was in some degree pernicious to the
ancient city.
[Footnote 27: Flaminius Vacca (apud Montfaucon, p. 155, 156. His memoir
is likewise printed, p. 21, at the end of the Roman Antica of Nardini)
and several Romans, doctrin‚ graves, were persuaded that the Goths
buried their treasures at Rome, and bequeathed the secret marks filiis
nepotibusque. He relates some anecdotes to prove, that in his own time,
these places were visited and rifled by the Transalpine pilgrims, the
heirs of the Gothic conquerors.]
[Footnote 28: Omnia quÊ erant in Êre ad ornatum civitatis deposuit,
sed e ecclesiam B. MariÊ ad martyres quÊ de tegulis Êreis cooperta
discooperuit, (Anast. in Vitalian. p. 141.) The base and sacrilegious
Greek had not even the poor pretence of plundering a heathen temple, the
Pantheon was already a Catholic church.]
[Footnote 29: For the spoils of Ravenna (musiva atque marmora) see the
original grant of Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, (Codex Carolin. epist.
lxvii. in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 223.)]
[Footnote 30: I shall quote the authentic testimony of the Saxon poet,
(A.D. 887--899,) de Rebus gestis Caroli magni, l. v. 437--440, in the
Historians of France, (tom. v. p. 180:)
Ad quÊ marmoreas prÊstabat Roma columnas,
Quasdam prÊcipuas pulchra Ravenna dedit.
De tam longinqu‚ poterit regione vetustas
Illius ornatum, Francia, ferre tibi.
And I shall add from the Chronicle of Sigebert, (Historians of
France, tom. v. p. 378,) extruxit etiam Aquisgrani basilicam plurimÊ
pulchritudinis, ad cujus structuram a Roma et Ravenna columnas et
marmora devehi fecit.]
[Footnote 31: I cannot refuse to transcribe a long passage of Petrarch
(Opp. p. 536, 537) in Epistol‚ hortatori‚ ad Nicolaum Laurentium; it is
so strong and full to the point: Nec pudor aut pietas continuit quominus
impii spoliata Dei templa, occupatas arces, opes publicas, regiones
urbis, atque honores magistrat˚um inter se divisos; (_habeant?_) quam
un‚ in re, turbulenti ac seditiosi homines et totius reliquÊ vitÊ
consiliis et rationibus discordes, inhumani fderis stupend‡ societate
convenirent, in pontes et mnia atque immeritos lapides desÊvirent.
Denique post vi vel senio collapsa palatia, quÊ quondam ingentes
tenuerunt viri, post diruptos arcus triumphales, (unde majores horum
forsitan corruerunt,) de ipsius vetustatis ac propriÊ impietatis
fragminibus vilem quÊstum turpi mercimonio captare non puduit. Itaque
nunc, heu dolor! heu scelus indignum! de vestris marmoreis columnis, de
liminibus templorum, (ad quÊ nuper ex orbe toto concursus devotissimus
fiebat,) de imaginibus sepulchrorum sub quibus patrum vestrorum
venerabilis civis (_cinis?_) erat, ut reliquas sileam, desidiosa
Neapolis adornatur. Sic paullatim ruinÊ ipsÊ deficiunt. Yet King Robert
was the friend of Petrarch.]
[Footnote 32: Yet Charlemagne washed and swam at Aix la Chapelle with a
hundred of his courtiers, (Eginhart, c. 22, p. 108, 109,) and Muratori
describes, as late as the year 814, the public baths which were built at
Spoleto in Italy, (Annali, tom. vi. p. 416.)]
[Footnote 33: See the Annals of Italy, A.D. 988. For this and the
preceding fact, Muratori himself is indebted to the Benedictine history
of PËre Mabillon.]
[Footnote 34: Vita di Sisto Quinto, da Gregorio Leti, tom. iii. p. 50.]