season by the river, when the races were transferred to the Campus Martialis, an open space on the Cælian Hill. The Campus Martius was also employed for the exercises and evolutions of the troops; and when a victorious general was waiting outside the gates for the honours of a triumph, it must have presented the aspect of a camp. Besides these more solemn uses, it was also the playground of the Roman populace, where multitudes might be daily seen amusing themselves with wrestling matches, or in playing at ball or hoop.1 If we stroll onwards to the banks of the river, the eye is entertained with a different and more businesslike scene. Here, according to their contrary directions, the light skiff is rapidly descending with the stream, while the heavy barge is being slowly towed up against it.2 Here, too, opposite the Prata Quinctia, near the present Porto di Ripetta, are the Navalia, and station of the war galleys.

But it is the district called Circus Flaminius, at the southern extremity of the Campus Martius, stretching from near the point where we have entered the Campus, to the wall which runs from the Capitoline Hill to the Tiber, which, from the beauty, grandeur, and number of its buildings, chiefly excited the admiration of Strabo; which he expresses by the somewhat strong phrase that all the rest of Rome might seem but a mere supplement, or addition, to this quarter. This confirms the view we have taken of the comparative meanness of the ancient parts of the city. The district of the Circus Flaminius comprised a broad level space, and was thus admirably adapted for architectural display. This quarter, however, did not attain all its beauty till the close of Augustus'

1 Strabo, loc. cit.

2 Et modo tam celeres mireris currere lintres,

Et modo tam tardas funibus ire rates. Prop. i. 15 (14), 2. 3 It seems to have included all

that part of the modern city to the south of a line continued from the Via del Gesù to the Tiber, as far as the church of S. Nicola in Carcere, opposite the southern extremity of the Isola Tiberina.

reign. Strabo enumerates in it, besides many porticoes and groves, three theatres, an amphitheatre, and a crowd of temples. We are here surprised to miss the Circus Flaminius itself, which Strabo could hardly have designated as an amphitheatre. He appears to allude to the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus, the first built of stone, which had been completed and dedicated in B. c. 30. Topographers, however, are quite at a loss as to the site of this structure; its remains have been sought at Monte Citorio and other places, but on no other foundation than conjecture. Dion Cassius says that it was in the Campus Martius; but he may possibly have used that name in a lax and general sense to denote all the plain between the hills and the Tiber. Of the three theatres mentioned here by Strabo, one only was extant at the beginning of the reign of Augustus, that, namely, of Pompey, which we have already described. But we shall enter into no further description of this district at present, as we shall have to return to it when mentioning the buildings erected here in the time of Augustus.

Rome had, of course, like other large cities, its favourite resorts and fashionable promenades. The Forum, as the centre of commercial and legal business, was naturally the great centre of attraction, and besides those who really had affairs there, must have attracted that crowd of idlers with whom Rome abounded, who came to see what was going on, and to pick up the news of the day. There, no doubt, might still be found the same congregation of braggarts, false swearers, swaggerers, scandal-mongers, gourmands, beggars with an ostentatious air, and rich men with a quiet retired one, as might have been seen in the time of Plautus.2 The narrow thoroughfares which led to the Forum must often have been so thronged as to be scarcely passable. That this was the case with the

Via Sacra, one of the best of them, we learn from Cicero: 'Equidem, si quando ut fit, jactor in turba, non illum accuso qui est in Summa Sacra Via, cum ego ad Fabium Fornicem impellor, sed eum qui in me ipsum incurrit atque incidit.' So great was the crowd, so insufficient the accommodation for it, that Augustus hurried on the construction of a third Forum for the despatch of legal business; and it was thrown open to public use before the Temple of Mars Ultor, to whom it was dedicated, could be completed." The elegant throng of fashionable loungers, however, sought a more distant and retired promenade, such as that afforded by the porticoes near the Circus Flaminius; while those who wanted a ride or drive seem to have repaired to the Appian Way; just as the Roman cardinals and nobles may now be met outside the Porta Pia, on the road to Sta. Agnese. It was fortunate that the use of carriages and horses, within the walls at least, was but little known, and we do not find the risk of being run over, which now adds so large an item to the casualties of great cities, enumerated by Roman authors among the désagréments of a town life. A negative advantage arising hence must also have been the absence of noise; though Rome no doubt abounded with clamour enough of a different sort. In this respect the street-cries must have enjoyed a bad preeminence; for the ancient Roman was no doubt blessed with as strong a pair of lungs as his modern successor. Martial complains that he could neither sleep nor meditate for these noises. The schoolboys and their masters annoyed him in the morning, the bakers at night, the hammers of the coppersmiths all day long. The cries of the vendors of sulphur and buyers of broken glass, of hoarse cooks with hot sausages, mixed with the vociferous supplications of shipwrecked mariners and

other beggars of various sorts, besides a thousand other infernal noises, were enough to distract a meditative poet. All Rome seemed to be at his door with the set purpose of annoying him.1 Luckily the barrel-organ, the standing grievance of the poet or philosopher in London, was not yet invented. Things were as bad in Horace's time:

Tu me inter strepitus nocturnos atque diurnos

Vis canere ? 2

The Augustan poet gives us also a peep into the bustle of the streets. Here you were interrupted by an energetic builder, always in haste and sweat, hurrying along with his mules and porters, and followed by machines bearing immense beams or stones. Sometimes the street was blocked up by a funeral disputing the passage with a huge cumbersome wagon; sometimes a mad dog was flying at full speed, or a filthy swine threatened to run between your legs. Such were the sights and sounds of Rome; of the smells we will say nothing. They may be inferred from some specimens in the modern city; but let us pass on to a more savoury subject.

The long period of lawlessness which had preceded the establishment of the Empire, must have been fatal to the municipal government and the police of the city; or rather it had demonstrated that none of an effective kind existed. It was one of the principal cares of Augustus to remedy this defect. Rome, though it had long outgrown the limits of the Servian walls, had no divisions for municipal purposes but the four established by that monarch. Augustus increased their number to fourteen. It is not our intention to enter here into a minute description of the Augustan Regions. We shall content ourselves with enumerating their names and noting a few of the principal objects which they contained. The four

1 Martial, xii. 57, i. 41, &c.

2 Epp. ii. 2, 79.

3 The best work on the subject is

that of Preller, Regionen der Stadt Rom.

regions of Servius, and something more, were included in the first six of Augustus. Thus Regio I., called Porta Capena,1 comprised the new suburb which had sprung up outside that gate to the south of the Cælian Hill, embracing the tomb of the Scipios and other noted sepulchres in this neighbourhood, the Temple of Mars, &c. Regio II., or Cælimontana, comprehended the Cælian Hill. Regio III., or Isis and Serapis, included the district where the Colosseum afterwards stood and Mons Oppius, or the southern tongue of the Esquiline. Regio IV., or Templum Pacis and Sacra Via, lay westward of the preceding region, and embraced the valley lying between the Palatine, Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal, as far as the eastern extremity of the Forum, as well as the north side of the Forum and the Vulcanal. Thus it included the Subura and the greater part of the Via Sacra. Regio V., or Esquilina, comprised Mons Cispius, or the northern tongue of the Esquiline, the Viminal, and a considerable tract lying beyond and to the east of the Servian walls. Regio VI., or Alta Semita, embraced the Quirinal and the site of the subsequent Prætorian Camp. Regio VII., or Via Lata, comprised the space between the hills on the east, and the Via Lata on the west. The extent of the Via Lata cannot be accurately determined. It ran close to, if not exactly upon, the southern portion of the Corso, and probably extended northwards almost to the Antonine column. Regio VIII., or Forum Romanum Magnum.2 This district, for some unknown reason, had been omitted in the Servian division. It was now of course the most important in Rome, and embraced besides the Forum, with the exception of the buildings on its north side, the district south of it as far as the Velabrum, the Capitoline