In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, two of his servants, the
learned Poggius[78] and a friend, ascended the Capitoline Hill,
reposed themselves among the ruins of columns and temples, and viewed
from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation.
The place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the
vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of
his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it
was agreed that in proportion to her former greatness the fall of Rome
was the more awful and deplorable:
"Her primeval state, such as she might appear in a remote age, when
Evander entertained the stranger of Troy, has been delineated by the
fancy of Virgil. This Tarpeian Rock was then a savage and solitary
thicket; in the time of the poet it was crowned with the golden roofs
of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged, the
wheel of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred
ground is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the
Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman Empire,
the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the
footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched with the spoils and tributes
of so many nations. This spectacle of the world, how is it fallen! how
changed! how defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines, and
the benches of the senators are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your
eyes on the Palatine Hill, and seek among the shapeless and enormous
fragments the marble theater, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the
porticoes of Nero's palace; survey the other hills of the city,--the
vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The Forum of
the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect
their magistrates, is now inclosed for the cultivation of pot-herbs,
or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes. The public
and private edifices that were founded for eternity lie prostrate,
naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and the ruin is
the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the
injuries of time and fortune."...
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 wonder of ancient days, the Pyramids attracted
the curiosity of the ancients: a hundred generations, the leaves of
autumn, have dropt into the grave; and after the fall of the Pharaohs
and Ptolemies, the Cæsars and caliphs, the same Pyramids stand erect
and unshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex figure of various
and minute parts is 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 in
the dust. Fire is the most powerful agent of life and death....
From her situation, Rome is exposed to the danger of frequent
inundations. Without excepting the Tiber, 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 Tiber was increased by unusual rains; and the
inundation, surpassing all former measure of time and place, destroyed
all the buildings that were situate 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.
Under the reign of Augustus the same calamity was renewed: the lawless
river overturned the palaces and temples on its banks; and after the
labors of the Emperor in cleansing and widening the bed that was
incumbered with ruins, the vigilance of his successors was exercised
by similar dangers and designs. The project of diverting into new
channels the Tiber itself, or some of the dependent streams, was long
opposed by superstition and local interests; nor did the use
compensate the toil and costs 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; and if such
were the ravages of the Tiber 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: and the
modern city is less accessible to the attacks of the river.
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 possest 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, 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 tho 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 Cæsars. Their
moments were indeed precious: the Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth,
the Vandals on the fifteenth day, and tho 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; and that the momentary resentment of Totila 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 demons 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 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
and converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon.
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. 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 stript the bronze tiles
from the roof of the Pantheon.
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 fixt in Italy the seat of
the Western Empire, his genius would have aspired to restore, rather
than to violate, the works of the Cæsars: 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 and Rome. 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 Tiber 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.
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....
IV. I have reserved for the last the most potent and forcible cause of
destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under
the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city
was disturbed by accidental tho frequent seditions: it is from the
decline of the latter, from the beginning of the tenth century, that
we may date the licentiousness of private war, which violated with
impunity the laws of the Code and the gospel, without respecting the
majesty of the absent sovereign or the presence and person of the
vicar of Christ.
In a dark period of five hundred years, Rome was perpetually afflicted
by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles and the people, the Guelphs
and Ghibelines, the Colonna and Ursini; and if much has escaped the
knowledge and much is unworthy of the notice, of history, I have
exposed in the two preceding chapters the causes and effects of the
public disorders. At such a time, when every quarrel was decided by
the sword and none could trust their lives or properties to the
impotence of law, the powerful citizens were armed for safety, or
offense, against the domestic enemies whom they feared or hated.
Except Venice alone, the same dangers and designs were common to all
the free republics of Italy; and the nobles usurped the prerogative of
fortifying their houses and erecting strong towers that were capable
of resisting a sudden attack. The cities were filled with these
hostile edifices; and the example of Lucca, which contained three
hundred towers, her law which confined their height to the measure of
four-score feet, may be extended with suitable latitude to the more
opulent and populous states. The first step of the senator Brancaleone
in the establishment of peace and justice, was to demolish (as we have
already seen) one hundred and forty of the towers of Rome; and in the
last days of anarchy and discord, as late as the reign of Martin the
Fifth, forty-four still stood in one of the thirteen or fourteen
regions of the city.
To this mischievous purpose the remains of antiquity were most readily
adapted: the temples and arches afforded a broad and solid basis for
the new structures of brick and stone; and we can name the modern
turrets that were raised on the triumphal monuments of Julius Cæsar,
Titus, and the Antonines. With some slight alterations, a theater, an
amphitheater, a mausoleum, was transformed into a strong and spacious
citadel. I need not repeat that the mole of Adrian has assumed the
title and form of the castle of St. Angelo; the Septizonium of Severus
was capable of standing against a royal army; the sepulcher of Metella
has sunk under its outworks; the theaters of Pompey and Marcellus were
occupied by the Savelli and Orsini families; and the rough fortress
has been gradually softened to the splendor and elegance of an Italian
palace.
The fame of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and Sixtus the Fifth is
accompanied by the superior merit of Bramante and Fontana, of Raphael
and Michael Angelo; and the same munificence which had been displayed
in palaces and temples was directed with equal zeal to revive and
emulate the labors of antiquity. Prostrate obelisks were raised from
the ground and erected in the most conspicuous places; of the eleven
aqueducts of the Cæsars and consuls, three were restored; the
artificial rivers were conducted over a long series of old, or of new
arches, to discharge into marble basins a flood of salubrious and
refreshing waters: and the spectator, impatient to ascend the steps of
St. Peter's, is detained by a column of Egyptian granite, which rises
between two lofty and perpetual fountains to the height of one hundred
and twenty feet. The map, the description, the monuments of ancient
Rome have been elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the
student; and the footsteps of heroes, the relics, not of superstition
but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new race of pilgrims from the
remote and once savage countries of the North.