senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honour, and almost an obligation, to adorn the splendour of their age and country; and the influence of fashion very frequently supplied the want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private benefactors we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest kings.

The family of Herod, at least after it had been favoured by fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus and Cecrops, Ecus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigour of the law, the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne, refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use, without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian still insisted that the treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to use it. Abuse it, then, replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is

your own.*

Many will be of opinion that Atticus literally obeyed the emperor's last instructions, since he expended the greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased by an advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained for his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia; and the young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the munificence of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms (about 100,000l.) for the construction of a new aqueduct. But in the execution of the work the charge amounted to more than double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their

* Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable regulation, which divided all treasure-trove between the right of property and that of discovery. Hist. August. p. 9.

complaints, by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the whole additional expense.*

The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools, disdained to visit either the forum or the senate. He was honoured with the consulship at Rome; but the greatest part of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent villas, perpetually surrounded by sophists, who acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous rival.† The monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and munificence; modern travellers have measured the remains of the stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting the whole body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst Herod was president of the Athenian games, To the memory of his wife Regilla, he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in the empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed in any part of the building. The Ödeum, designed by Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness, as the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the liberality

of that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The most splendid ornaments bestowed on the Temple of Neptune in the isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at

+ Aulus Gellius, in

* Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. 1. 2, p. 548. Noct. Attic. 1, 2. 9, 2. 18, 10. 19, 12. Philostrat. p. 564.

[New theatrical pieces, whether comedies or tragedies, were first heard at the Odeum. They were read or recited there, without music, scenery, or dresses, and until approved there by judges, appointed ad hoc, they could not be admitted for performance at the regular theatre. It was there, also, that poetical prizes were contended for. Ariobar zanes was the king of Cappadocia, who had repaired the Odeum, after it was burnt by Sylla. See Martini's learned Dissertation on the Odeums of the ancients. Leipzig, 1767, p. 10—19.—WENCK.]

Delphi, a bath at Thermopylae, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Euboea, Boeotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his favours; and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron and benefactor.*

In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic edifices designed to the public use ;+ nor was this republican spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and monarchy. It was in works of national honour and benefit, that the most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped by his selfish luxury, was more nobly filled under the succeeding reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico, and the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the genius of Rome. These monuments of architecture, the property of the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful productions of Grecian painting and sculpture; and in the temple of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the learned. At a small distance from thence was situated the forum of Trajan. It was surrounded with a lofty portico, in the form of a quadrangle into which four triumphal arches opened a noble and spa

* See Philostrat. 1. 2, p. 548, 560. Pausanias, 1. 1, and 7, 10. The Life of Herodes, in the thirteenth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions. It is particularly remarked of Athens by Dicæarchus, de Statu Græciæ, p. 8, inter Geographos Minores, edit. Hudson. Donatus de Roma Vetere, 1. 3, c. 4-6. Nardini Roma Antica, 1. 3, 11-13, and a MS. description of ancient Rome, by Bernardus Oricellarius, or Rucellai, of which I obtained a copy from the library of the Canon Ricardi at Florence. Two celebrated pictures of Timanthes and of Protogenes are mentioned by Pliny, as in the temple of Peace; and the Laocoon was found in the baths of Titus. [Vespasian built the temple of Peace, and adorned it, not only with these two pictures, but also with the greater part of the paintings, statues, and other works of art, which had been saved from the destructive violence of civil discord. There the artists and scientific men of Rome were wont to meet daily. Buried beneath its ruins have been discovered many relics of ancient art. See the notes of Reimarius on Dion Cassius, lib. 66, c. 10, p. 1083.-WENCK.]

cious entrance: in the centre arose a column of marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which still subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated the story of his own campaigns, and by an easy illusion of national vanity, the peaceful citizen associated himself to the honours of the triumph.* All the other quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the empire, were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public magnificence, and were filled with amphitheatres, theatres, temples, porticos, triumphal arches, baths, and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures, of the meanest citizen. The lastmentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital claim a just pre-eminence; but the curious traveller, who, without the light of history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude, that those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh water.†

We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the

* [This celebrated marble column, the best preserved among all the remaining monuments of antiquity, is 118 feet high. Twenty-three bands of basso-relievo represent on it Trajan's victories in Dacia. These wind spirally up the pillar, and contain nearly two thousand five hundred figures; but, as in most ancient works of art, the rules of perspective have been too much disregarded. A spiral staircase of 184 steps ascends within, and is lighted by forty-three loop-holes or windows. In 1673-76, Gio. Pietro Bellori published at Rome, in Italian, his Colonna Trajana, with Ciacconi's Commentary, and 128 Engravings. An enlarged Latin edition of this work came out at Rome 1773. There is a more correct delineation in the 3rd volume of Morelli Thesaurus. Numm. Impp. Romm. The best commentary is Raph. Fabretti de Columna Trajani Syntagma, Roma, 1683-90. But this would have been surpassed, had Morell's been completed.-WENCK.] + Montfaucon l'Antiquité Expliquée, tom. 4, p. 2, 1. 1, c. 9. Fabretti has composed a very learned treatise on the aqueducts of Rome.

public works of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative to that subject, without forgetting, however, that, from the vanity of nations, and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently bestowed on Rome and and upon Laurentum. 1. Ancient Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever era of antiquity the expression might be intended,* there is not any reason to believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines than in that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were contained within the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior influence they had been attracted. Those parts of Italy which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war; and the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were amply compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The splendour of Verona may be traced in its remains; yet Verona was less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan, or Ravenna. 2. The spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and had been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away, to open a free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of government; London was already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities;† and though, in the northern

* Elian. Hist. Var. 1. 9, c. 16. He lived in the time of Alexander Severus. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, 1. 4, c. 21. [As Elian says, that Italy had formerly that number of cities, it may be conjectured, that in his time there were not so many. Nor does his estimate necessarily apply to the age of Romulus, but probably to a later period. Even the Roman writers appear to acknowledge, that the population of Italy declined in the last stage of the republic and under the emperors (see T. Liv. lib. 6, c. 22); and in the sequel, this is an historical fact. In after times, the Scriptores Rei rusticæ, and among them Columella (lib. 1, pr. ed. Gesneri, p. 390), confirm this, by their complaints, that Italy, once competent to supply its own demand for corn and wine, was then obliged to import both these commodities.— WENCK.] + Joseph. de Bell. Jud. 2, 16. The number, however, is mentioned, and should be received with a degree of latitude. [This passage in Josephus must certainly not be taken as literally exact. It