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In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, (A) two of his
servants, the learned Poggius (1) 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. (2) 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, (3) 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 theatre, the obelisks, the colossal
statues, the porticos 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 enclosed 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." (4)
These relics are minutely described by Poggius, one of the
first who raised his eyes from the monuments of legendary,
to those of classic, superstition. (5) 1. Besides a bridge,
an arch, a sepulchre, and the pyramid of Cestius, he could
discern, of the age of the republic, a double row of vaults,
in the salt-office of the Capitol, which were inscribed with
the name and munificence of Catulus. 2. Eleven temples were
visible in some degree, from the perfect form of the
Pantheon, to the three arches and a marble column of the
temple of Peace, which Vespasian erected after the civil
wars and the Jewish triumph. 3. Of the number, which he
rashly defines, of seven thermae, or public baths, none were
sufficiently entire to represent the use and distribution of
the several parts: but those of Diocletian and Antoninus
Caracalla still retained the titles of the founders, and
astonished the curious spectator, who, in observing their
solidity and extent, the variety of marbles, the size and
multitude of the columns, compared the labor and expense
with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine,
of Alexander, of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige
might yet be found. 4. The triumphal arches of Titus,
Severus, and Constantine, were entire, both the structure
and the inscriptions; a falling fragment was honored with
the name of Trajan; and two arches, then extant, in the
Flaminian way, have been ascribed to the baser memory of
Faustina and Gallienus. (B) 5. After the wonder of the
Coliseum, Poggius might have overlooked small amphitheatre
of brick, most probably for the use of the praetorian camp:
the theatres of Marcellus and Pompey were occupied in a
great measure by public and private buildings; and in the
Circus, Agonalis and Maximus, little more than the situation
and the form could be investigated. 6. The columns of
Trajan and Antonine were still erect; but the Egyptian
obelisks were broken or buried. A people of gods and heroes,
the workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure
of gilt brass, and to five marble statues, of which the most
conspicuous were the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles.
7. The two mausoleums or sepulchres of Augustus and Hadrian
could not totally be lost: but the former was only visible
as a mound of earth; and the latter, the castle of St.
Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modern
fortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless
columns, such were the remains of the ancient city; for the
marks of a more recent structure might be detected in the
walls, which formed a circumference of ten miles, included
three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and opened into the
country by thirteen gates.
This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years
after the fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic
kingdom of Italy. A long period of distress and anarchy, in
which empire, and arts, and riches had migrated from the
banks of the Tyber, was incapable of restoring or adorning
the city; and, as all that is human must retrograde if it do
not advance, every successive age must have hastened the
ruin of the works of antiquity. To measure the progress of
decay, and to ascertain, at each aera, the state of each
edifice, would be an endless and a useless labor; and I
shall content myself with two observations, which will
introduce a short inquiry into the general causes and
effects. 1. Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint
of Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of
Rome. (6) His ignorance may repeat the same objects under
strange and fabulous names. Yet this barbarous topographer
had eyes and ears; he could observe the visible remains; he
could listen to the tradition of the people; and he
distinctly enumerates seven theatres, eleven baths, twelve
arches, and eighteen palaces, of which many had disappeared
before the time of Poggius. It is apparent, that many
stately monuments of antiquity survived till a late period,
(7) and that the principles of destruction acted with
vigorous and increasing energy in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. 2. The same reflection must be
applied to the three last ages; and we should vainly seek
the Septizonium of Severus; (8) which is celebrated by
Petrarch and the antiquarians of the sixteenth century.
While the Roman edifices were still entire, the first blows,
however weighty and impetuous, were resisted by the solidity
of the mass and the harmony of the parts; but the slightest
touch would precipitate the fragments of arches and columns,
that already nodded to their fall.
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.
These general observations may be separately applied to the
amphitheatre of Titus, which has obtained the name of the
COLISEUM, (49) either from its magnitude, or from Nero's
colossal statue; an edifice, had it been left to time and
nature, which might perhaps have claimed an eternal
duration. The curious antiquaries, who have computed the
numbers and seats, are disposed to believe, that above the
upper row of stone steps the amphitheatre was encircled and
elevated with several stages of wooden galleries, which were
repeatedly consumed by fire, and restored by the emperors.
Whatever was precious, or portable, or profane, the statues
of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments of sculpture
which were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves of
silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or
fanaticism, of the avarice of the Barbarians or the
Christians. In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes
are discerned; and the two most probable conjectures
represent the various accidents of its decay. These stones
were connected by solid links of brass or iron, nor had the
eye of rapine overlooked the value of the baser metals; (50)
the vacant space was converted into a fair or market; the
artisans of the Coliseum are mentioned in an ancient survey;
and the chasms were perforated or enlarged to receive the
poles that supported the shops or tents of the mechanic
trades. (51) Reduced to its naked majesty, the Flavian
amphitheatre was contemplated with awe and admiration by the
pilgrims of the North; and their rude enthusiasm broke forth
in a sublime proverbial expression, which is recorded in the
eighth century, in the fragments of the venerable Bede: "As
long as the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the
Coliseum falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the world
will fall." (52) In the modern system of war, a situation
commanded by three hills would not be chosen for a fortress;
but the strength of the walls and arches could resist the
engines of assault; a numerous garrison might be lodged in
the enclosure; and while one faction occupied the Vatican
and the Capitol, the other was intrenched in the Lateran and
the Coliseum. (53)
The abolition at Rome of the ancient games must be
understood with some latitude; and the carnival sports, of
the Testacean mount and the Circus Agonalis, (54) were
regulated by the law (55) or custom of the city. The senator
presided with dignity and pomp to adjudge and distribute the
prizes, the gold ring, or the pallium, (56) as it was styled,
of cloth or silk. A tribute on the Jews supplied the annual
expense; (57) and the races, on foot, on horseback, or in
chariots, were ennobled by a tilt and tournament of
seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year one thousand
three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the
fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the
Coliseum itself; and the living manners are painted in a
diary of the times. (58) A convenient order of benches was
restored; and a general proclamation, as far as Rimini and
Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and
courage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were
marshalled in three squadrons, and seated in three
balconies, which, on this day, the third of September, were
lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova di Rovere led the
matrons from beyond the Tyber, a pure and native race, who
still represent the features and character of antiquity. The
remainder of the city was divided as usual between the
Colonna and Ursini: the two factions were proud of the
number and beauty of their female bands: the charms of
Savella Ursini are mentioned with praise; and the Colonna
regretted the absence of the youngest of their house, who
had sprained her ankle in the garden of Nero's tower. The
lots of the champions were drawn by an old and respectable
citizen; and they descended into the arena, or pit, to
encounter the wild bulls, on foot as it should seem, with a
single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalist has selected
the names, colors, and devices, of twenty of the most
conspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most
illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical state: Malatesta,
Polenta, della Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti,
Annibaldi, Altieri, Corsi: the colors were adapted to their
taste and situation; the devices are expressive of hope or
despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms. "I
am alone, like the youngest of the Horatii," the confidence
of an intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate," a weeping
widower: "I burn under the ashes," a discreet lover: "I
adore Lavinia, or Lucretia," the ambiguous declaration of a
modern passion: "My faith is as pure," the motto of a white
livery: "Who is stronger than myself?" of a lion's hide: "If
am drowned in blood, what a pleasant death!" the wish of
ferocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini
restrained them from the field, which was occupied by three
of their hereditary rivals, whose inscriptions denoted the
lofty greatness of the Colonna name: "Though sad, I am
strong:" "Strong as I am great:" "If I fall," addressing
himself to the spectators, "you fall with me;" - intimating
(says the contemporary writer) that while the other families
were the subjects of the Vatican, they alone were the
supporters of the Capitol. The combats of the amphitheatre
were dangerous and bloody. Every champion successively
encountered a wild bull; and the victory may be ascribed to
the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on the
field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on
the side of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families
might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals, in the churches
of St. John Lateran and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a
second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not in such
conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been
shed; yet, in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to
applaud their gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who
display their magnificence, and risk their lives, under the
balconies of the fair, excite a more generous sympathy than
the thousands of captives and malefactors who were
reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter. (59)
This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a singular,
festival: the demand for the materials was a daily and
continual want which the citizens could gratify without
restraint or remorse. In the fourteenth century, a
scandalous act of concord secured to both factions the
privilege of extracting stones from the free and common
quarry of the Coliseum; (60) and Poggius laments, that the
greater part of these stones had been burnt to lime by the
folly of the Romans. (61) To check this abuse, and to prevent
the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated in the vast
and gloomy recess, Eugenius the Fourth surrounded it with a
wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground
and edifice to the monks of an adjacent convent. (62) After
his death, the wall was overthrown in a tumult of the
people; and had they themselves respected the noblest
monument of their fathers, they might have justified the
resolve that it should never be degraded to private
property. The inside was damaged: but in the middle of the
sixteenth century, an aera of taste and learning, the
exterior circumference of one thousand six hundred and
twelve feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple
elevation of fourscore arches, which rose to the height of
one hundred and eight feet. Of the present ruin, the
nephews of Paul the Third are the guilty agents; and every
traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse the
sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princes. (63) A similar
reproach is applied to the Barberini; and the repetition of
injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the Coliseum
was placed under the safeguard of religion by the most
liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the Fourteenth, who
consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained
with the blood of so many Christian martyrs. (64)
When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of those
monuments, whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most
eloquent descriptions, he was astonished at the supine
indifference (65) of the Romans themselves; (66) he was
humbled rather than elated by the discovery, that, except
his friend Rienzi, and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the
Rhone was more conversant with these antiquities than the
nobles and natives of the metropolis. (67) The ignorance and
credulity of the Romans are elaborately displayed in the old
survey of the city which was composed about the beginning of
the thirteenth century; and, without dwelling on the
manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the Capitol
(68) may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. "The
Capitol," says the anonymous writer, "is so named as being
the head of the world; where the consuls and senators
formerly resided for the government of the city and the
globe. The strong and lofty walls were covered with glass
and gold, and crowned with a roof of the richest and most
curious carving. Below the citadel stood a palace, of gold
for the greatest part, decorated with precious stones, and
whose value might be esteemed at one third of the world
itself. The statues of all the provinces were arranged in
order, each with a small bell suspended from its neck; and
such was the contrivance of art magic, (69) that if the
province rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to
that quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of
the Capitol repeated the prodigy, and the senate was
admonished of the impending danger." A second example, of
less importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn
from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, who
have since been transported from the baths of Constantine to
the Quirinal hill. The groundless application of the names
of Phidias and Praxiteles may perhaps be excused; but these
Grecian sculptors should not have been removed above four
hundred years from the age of Pericles to that of Tiberius;
they should not have been transferred into two philosophers
or magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth or
knowledge, who revealed to the emperor his most secret
actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary recompense,
solicited the honor of leaving this eternal monument of
themselves. (70) Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans
were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five
statues were visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the
multitudes which chance or design had buried under the
ruins, the resurrection was fortunately delayed till a safer
and more enlightened age. (71) The Nile which now adorns the
Vatican, had been explored by some laborers in digging a
vineyard near the temple, or convent, of the Minerva; but
the impatient proprietor, who was tormented by some visits
of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its former
grave. (72) The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet in
length, was the occasion of a lawsuit. It had been found
under a partition wall: the equitable judge had pronounced,
that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy
the claims of the contiguous owners; and the sentence would
have been executed, if the intercession of a cardinal, and
the liberality of a pope, had not rescued the Roman hero
from the hands of his barbarous countrymen. (73)
But the clouds of barbarism were gradually dispelled; and
the peaceful authority of Martin the Fifth and his
successors restored the ornaments of the city as well as the
order of the ecclesiastical state. The improvements of
Rome, since the fifteenth century, have not been the
spontaneous produce of freedom and industry. The first and
most natural root of a great city is the labor and
populousness of the adjacent country, which supplies the
materials of subsistence, of manufactures, and of foreign
trade. But the greater part of the Campagna of Rome is
reduced to a dreary and desolate wilderness: the overgrown
estates of the princes and the clergy are cultivated by the
lazy hands of indigent and hopeless vassals; and the scanty
harvests are confined or exported for the benefit of a
monopoly. A second and more artificial cause of the growth
of a metropolis is the residence of a monarch, the expense
of a luxurious court, and the tributes of dependent
provinces. Those provinces and tributes had been lost in
the fall of the empire; and if some streams of the silver of
Peru and the gold of Brazil have been attracted by the
Vatican, the revenues of the cardinals, the fees of office,
the oblations of pilgrims and clients, and the remnant of
ecclesiastical taxes, afford a poor and precarious supply,
which maintains, however, the idleness of the court and
city. The population of Rome, far below the measure of the
great capitals of Europe, does not exceed one hundred and
seventy thousand inhabitants; (74) and within the spacious
enclosure of the walls, the largest portion of the seven
hills is overspread with vineyards and ruins. The beauty
and splendor of the modern city may be ascribed to the
abuses of the government, to the influence of superstition.
Each reign (the exceptions are rare) has been marked by the
rapid elevation of a new family, enriched by the childish
pontiff at the expense of the church and country. The
palaces of these fortunate nephews are the most costly
monuments of elegance and servitude: the perfect arts of
architecture, sculpture, and painting, have been prostituted
in their service; and their galleries and gardens are
decorated with the most precious works of antiquity, which
taste or vanity has prompted them to collect. The
ecclesiastical revenues were more decently employed by the
popes themselves in the pomp of the Catholic worship; but it
is superfluous to enumerate their pious foundations of
altars, chapels, and churches, since these lesser stars are
eclipsed by the sun of the Vatican, by the dome of St.
Peter, the most glorious structure that ever has been
applied to the use of religion. 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 Caesars 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: (75) 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.
Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will
be excited by a History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire; the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the
history of mankind. The various causes and progressive
effects are connected with many of the events most
interesting in human annals: the artful policy of the
Caesars, who long maintained the name and image of a free
republic; the disorders of military despotism; the rise,
establishment, and sects of Christianity; the foundation of
Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the invasion
and settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia;
the institutions of the civil law; the character and
religion of Mahomet; the temporal sovereignty of the popes;
the restoration and decay of the Western empire of
Charlemagne; the crusades of the Latins in the East: the
conquests of the Saracens and Turks; the ruin of the Greek
empire; the state and revolutions of Rome in the middle age.
The historian may applaud the importance and variety of his
subject; but while he is conscious of his own imperfections,
he must often accuse the deficiency of his materials. It
was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived
the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near
twenty years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my
own wishes, I finally delivered to the curiosity and candor
of the public.
LAUSANNE, June 27 1787