cities are defined; and when future generations (we augur no speedy destruction to the Eternal City!) shall look upon ruins further extended than we now see, they will easily distinguish between the ruins of Imperial and Papal Rome. DISSERTATION THE TENTH. THE TENTH REGION, OR PALATIUM, WHICH COMPRISES THE WHOLE OF THE PALATINE HILL; THE THIRTEENTH REGION, CALLED AVENTINA, IN WHICH IS INCLUDED ALL THE AVENTINE HILL; AND ON THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS. " Ages and realms are crowded in this span, ... CHILDE HAROLD, canto iv. stanza 109. THERE is a spot on the Palatine Hill whence may be comprehended, at one view, all we have yet to see of ancient Rome; it is from a mouldering wall at that angle of the Villa Farnese which commands the churches of S. Anastasia and S. Georgio in Velabro, and which rises just above the vineyard attached to the church of S. Theodoro. A curve of the Tyber flows past the hospital of S. Michele, and on the left bank the Aventine hill suddenly rises, bearing on its summit the church and convent of S. Sabina, with the fortress-like walls which form the enclosure. The church of S. Prisca, with the adjoining Casale, built upon a ruin, seems to take under its protection the scattered graves of the poor Jews, to which the once assembled thousands of the Circus Maximus have left the entire possession of the Murican Valley. The church of S. Saba, with its arched corridor, keeps the summit of the pseudo-Aventine. The horizon is bounded towards the Mediterranean by the forests of Laurentum; and the eye, in wandering round for the more distant objects, is soon fixed on the blue hills of Albano. Beyond the Tyber rises the Janiculum, which, from the Montorio to the Vatican, presents a varied and beautiful landscape; the enraptured eye, comprehending the whole at one glance, returns with delight to dwell on the trees and shrubberies of the Corsini Villa, and is arrested for a moment by Tasso's oak, until it is filled by the majesty of St. Peter's dome. The walls of the Leonine city, and the buildings of the Vatican, shut up the scene towards the west: but, turning northward, we are met by the Capitoline hill, which, from the ragged gardens on the Tarpeian rock to the Campidoglio, exhibits a strange contrast to what it once was: the columns of the temple of Fortune, the pillar of Phocas, the arch of Septimius Severus, the remains of the Curia, and the portico of Antoninus and Faustina's temple, now lie in the foreground of the picture: the Villa Medici, seen past Trajan's column, a glimpse of the modern splendour of the Monte Cavallo, the heavy tower "delle Milizie," -all meet us in this rapid survey. The snowy tops of the Sabine mountains are discovered beyond the baths of Diocletian; and, finally, the twin cupolas of S. Maria Maggiore complete the well-nigh panorama. But the splendour of the Palatine hill, over which the destructive genius of fourteen centuries has had complete dominion, is now waned and waning; the magnificence of the Cæsars is for ever laid prostrate in the dust; and time, ever waging war against the memory of tyrants, seems to have conjured up again the spirit of the poor Evander, dividing the Pallanteum with his Arcadian shepherds. From the traditional account of that transaction to a more authentic period of history, may be reckoned about 700 years, through which space any description of the Palatine hill should rather belong to the poet than to the antiquary. From that period (that is to say, from the kings of Rome) to the last century of the republic, it belongs to neither: it grew into importance as luxury gained place in the republic, and arrived at the zenith of its glory during the lives of the twelve Cæsars. The notices relative to the "Imperial Mount," subsequent to that period, are very scanty, and from the fall of the Western Empire to the sixteenth century, it is almost lost sight of altogether. But in the general description we are now about to make, it may be expedient to examine the few records which relate to the different epochs of its history. Sixty years before the destruction of Troy [A. C. 1244.], Evander, at the head of a colony of Arcadians, left the city of Pallantium, and is said to have fixed his settlement on this hill, to which he gave the name of Pallatium from his native city of Arcadia. Dionysius1, Livy, So 1 Antiquitat. Rom. lib. ii. cap. 2. p. 76. 2 Lib. i. cap. 5. linus, Virgil 4, and other ancient writers, agree in giving this as a received tradition; and if at this distance we should attempt to call it in question, it would only be to involve ourselves in greater doubt and perplexity. Varro, in the true spirit of an etymologist, affords us matter for contention.5 "It might be called," he says, "Palatium, because the companions of Evander were Palantes, wanderers; or because the inhabitants of Palanteum, which is the Reatine territory, who were also the Aborigines, settled there; or because Palatia was the name of the wife of Latinus; or, finally, because the bleating sheep, ، Balantes,' were accustomed to stray upon it," which is the opinion of Nævius. One historical fact seems to stand unshaken amidst the conflict of opinions, that the Palatine hill, previous to the foundation of Rome, was inhabited by a Greek colony. Out of this fact spring the enchanting names which allure the poet, but distract the antiquary, - the Lupercal, and the prophetic nymph Carmenta, the Argiletum, and the den of Cacus, "with every footstep of Alcides' son." " We are invited to picture to ourselves the primi 3 " Palatium verò nemo dubitaverit, quin Arcades habeat autores, à quibus primùm Palanteum oppidum conditum: quod aliquamdiu Aborigines habitârunt, sed propter incommodum vicinæ paludis, quam præterfluens Tyberis fecerat, profecti Reate, postmodum reliquerunt." - C. Jul. Solin. Polyhist. de Consecrat. Urbis, lib. ii. 4 Æneid. lib. viii. 51. 5 Varro de Ling. Lat. lib. iv. p. 161. 6 Virgil. Æneid. lib. viii. 339. et seq. 7 Id. lib. viii. 193-260.; Tit. Liv. lib. i. cap. 7. |