stasis, or the bridge of Caligula. It must appear strange that the simple expedient of digging to the base to look for an inscription was delayed until 1813, on purpose, as it were, to give scope to further conjecture.* It seems that some struggle was made to believe it dedicated to the emperor Maurice, the name of the fallen tyrant being carefully erased. The affection of Gregory the Great, who then exercised a powerful influence over the Romans, towards his Piety the emperor Phocas, is well known to have been as great as that of the exarch Smaragdus in whose name the column was erected: and indeed that murderer has found a defender even in modern times. † The gilded * optIMO CLEMENTIS. felicissimOQUE PERPETUO A DO CORONATO TRIVMPHATORI SEMPER AVGVSTO SMARAGDVS EX PREPOS SACRI PALATII PRO INNVMERABILIBVS PIETATIS EIVS PROCVRATA ITAL. AC CONSERvatA LIBERTATE AVRI SPLENDore micanTEM. HVIC See Lettera sopra la Colonna dell' Imperatore Foca, scritta da + Two Dutchmen sat down to protect and attack this worthy character. Ant. de Stoppelaar, Oratio pro Phoca Imperatore, Amstel. 1732, and Simon Van den Brink, Orat. in Phocam Imperatorem statue representing a hideous monster, and such as the decayed arts could then furnish, the style and even the letters of the inscription, the shattered repaired column, transferred from some other structure and defaced by rude carving, must have forcibly bespoken the degrada-· tion of the Forum and of the Roman race. Amstel. 1732. Gibbon, vol. viii. 8vo. cap. lxvi. p. 212, overlooked or despised these authors, who were awakened from their repose by the Abate Cancellieri, the friend of Visconti. Lettera. Ibid., p. 10. ADDITIONAL NOTE. It was reserved for the 13th of March, 1813, to discover that this pillar did not form part of an ancient edifice, but was a triumphal column; and the excavations directed by the late Duchess of Devonshire at the base of it, and renewed in 1816, uncovered a pavement of white travertine flag-stones and a basement ascended by eights steps a cubit in height, of which one range was completely laid bare. The same labours exposed two other square basements of brickwork, on which it appears that isolated columns had formerly been raised; for here were found two or three immense fragments of oriental granite pillars, many pieces of sculptured marble, capitals and cornices, and some inscribed stones, one of which, with a sort of unaccountable indifference, had been again laid down to serve as a step. Two of the inscriptions are half in Greek and half in Latin :— These votive inscriptions are remarkable for the elegance of the character and for the accents which are placed over the Latin words. It has also been observed that the anwσikaкois has never been discovered in any Greek author, although of an obvious meaning. An b other inscription found on the same spot is composed of these letters M. CISPIVS. L. F. PR. and records a Prætor belonging, it is thought, to the last age of the republic. A fragment shows the following letters : VSIVNIVS, and other inscriptions of doubtful import were also found, and were removed. Amongst them was a fragment of the Capitoline Fasti, which was not submitted to profane inspection. The excavators on this site had to work through the foundation walls of modern buildings, and an accumulation, composed in a great measure of broken marble, travertine, and brick-work, all of which, mingled with rubbish and common earth, gave to the spectator who looked into the deep pit below him, from the footway of modern Rome to the level of the ancient city, a lively conception of the variety and succession of structures that crowded this part of the Forum, and of the ruins that laid them low. The column of Phocas itself was a fragment probably of some building of the age of the Antonines certainly not of the wretched times when it was raised, 608 A.D. (For. Rom., p. 165.) The inscriptions underwent the same fate as those on the Arch of Severus, erased and altered after the murderer Phocas had been killed by Heraclius. CHAPTER XIV. St. Martina-St. Hadrian - Basilica Emilia- Cosmas and Damianus-Temple of Remus, or of the Penates-St. Lorenzo in Miranda - Antoninus and Faustina - Basilica of Constantine Temple of Venus and Rome Arch of Titus - Sta. Maria Liberatrice-Curia Hostilia - Church of St. Theodore - Temple of Romulus or Vesta - Basilica Julia. ROMAN FORUM. THE local sanctity of the Roman Forum is somewhat impaired by the doubts which obscure the greater part of the conspicuous remains in this quarter. The site of the Forum itself, at least the exact position of it, is not quite determinately known. Some antiquaries previous to Panvinius thought it to be near the temple supposed that of Pallas in what is now called the Forum of Nerva.* Fulvius laid it down between the Capitoline and Palatine hills.† Marlianus extended it as far as the Arch of Titus, and Baronius lengthened it to St. Nicholas in Carcere.‡ Donatus believed in the more restricted sense,§ and he is followed by Nardini. Some * Nardini, lib. iii. cap. xiii. + Ibid., lib. v. cap. ii. Ibid. ibid. ibid. § Donat., lib. ii. cap. xvi. cap. xix. idea may be formed of the size from that of the Forum of Trajan, which was probably the larger of the two. When Constantius visited Rome it was regarded as a venerable remnant of former power. The destruction of the monuments and the desolation of the site must date at least as early as the fire of Guiscard. The name of the Roman Forum seems to have been obliterated in the earliest times, and when it reappears the modern denomination by a singular coincidence shows that time had accomplished the repented vow of Totila.† The Forum was the Cow-field in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the sacred precincts are usually known by no other name to this day. The accretion of soil is so great in the Campo Vaccino, that the excavations to the ancient level have thrown up heaps of earth, the disposal of which has become a matter of difficulty. The dissection has not yet led to a correct anatomy of the ancient structure. Despairing of any discoveries at the foot of the three columns (the pretended Comitium), the Abate Fea was superintending the labours of the convicts in the summer, 1817, to ascertain the actual * "Perspectissimum priscæ potentia forum obstupuit."-Amm. Marcell., lib. xvi. cap. 10, p. 143. Totila said he would make Rome a sheep-walk, μŋλóßorov. The coincidence would be more striking, if, as the Latin translation interprets it, and as Gibbon has apparently followed that translation, the Gothic king had used the words "in gregum pascua,' 66 a pasture for cattle." See Decline and Fall, cap. xliii. tom. vii. at p. 369. This was written in 1817. What has been done towards the above-named object will be seen in the subsequent pages. |