the lower orders; and perhaps in this part of the thermæ were the inferior baths.

(o) Principal entrances into the great area, probably dedicated to some gods as temples; the more perfect one is now the church of S. Bernard; the other, near the Strozzi gardens, is formed into a granary.

(p) The Bibliothecæ, where perhaps the Greek and Latin libraries brought from the Basilica Ulpia were deposited. Of these nothing remains.

(q) The Theatridium, now enclosing a bleaching yard. (r) The grand area or open space for games and

exercises, now the Piazza Termini.

(s) The reservoir for supplying the whole establishment with water (existing in the Villa Strozzi).

We think it unnecessary to enter into any farther details of this once stupendous fabric: indeed, those already given depend much upon conjecture, aided however by the more certain distribution of the baths of Caracalla. The curious spectator may compare in these ruins the brick construction of the fourth century, with that of the third in the ruins of the other thermæ just mentioned; and it may not be uninteresting to consult the memorials which contain accounts of the paintings and ornaments at different times discovered about the baths of Diocletian. 78

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Within the limits of the sixth region were comprised the Forum and gardens of Sallust; in which, according to Victor and Rufus, was situated a temple of Venus, and, we may add, a Circus of no small dimensions. These things are all to be recognised in the Villa Barberini and its vicinity, where the old city was enclosed toward the northeast by the "agger" of Servius Tullius, joining with the extremity of the Quirinal hill. From the Via Pia, by a gateway opposite to the great granary now converted into a workhouse, is an entrance into the Villa above named, by which we may immediately ascend upon the "agger," and look down upon the site of the Circus. An attentive observer will not fail to remark how faithfully the form of the city is here preserved, as it existed previous to the time of Aurelian. From the hillock which turns nearly at a right angle, and verges to the "Via Pia," the eye may trace the direction of the celebrated agger as far as the highest point of it, which has already been visited in the Villa Negroni; and whilst the spectator lingers with delight upon the station we have chosen, we may recapitulate the history of the gardens of Sallust, and endeavour to ascertain the position of several objects which once existed in the vicinity of the ancient Porta Collina. "The plunder of Numidia" (to adopt the language of an elegant historian") "was employed by Sallust in adorning his palace and gardens at Rome. After existing for more than 400 years, and

striking to the first view of a stranger, than the interior of St. Peter's.

79 See Gibbon's History, &c. ch. xxxi.; and Aulus Gellius, lib. xvii. cap. 18.

perhaps in each succeeding century with increased magnificence, their situation, so near to the Porta Salara, exposed them to the first ravages of the fire of the Goths; and since that calamitous period they have doubtless lain in ruins. The gardens and palace of the historian do not owe all their celebrity to their founder, but to their situation, which often tempted the emperors to leave the Palatine hill, and enjoy the more tranquil repose of a villa beneath the walls of the city. Here was the occasional retreat of Nero, and here Nerva died: Aurelian preferred the gardens of Sallust and Domitia to the palace of the Cæsars, and continued his exercises in a portico he constructed for the purpose, when his health began to decline. 80 Maxentius was the last of the emperors who inhabited them; for soon after his death the emperors began to desert Rome."

The position of the ancient Porta Collina is fixed by universal consent at the angle made here by the turning of the " agger;" and applying the authorities of Dionysius and Strabo, already referred to in a former Dissertation", that gate must have stood where these substructing arches begin to fall away in smaller masses of brickwork. And supposing the fortifications to have turned in the direction of this eminence and its substructions, it will be observed that the gardens of Sallust, with the Circus, were thus left without the city. The Forum was more probably within the gate, both as appears from some ecclesiastical records 2, and the propriety of its being included in the city. It is sufficiently clear that the place where the unchaste vestal virgins were interred alive, and which was called the "Campus Sceleratus," was within the Porta Collina, and under the finishing of the "agger." 83 Livy, with still greater precision, informs us it was on the right hand of the road leading out of the gate 84; and thus we are enabled to recognise, almost to a nicety, the situation of the "Campus Sceleratus,” i. e. where the Via Pia interrupts the continued line of the "agger."

Notwithstanding the laborious care of the kings for defending this side of the city, it was always the most liable to the attacks of an enemy. The Gauls, who had so nearly cut short the career of the mistress of the world, entered her sacred precincts by this her feeblest bulwark. 85 If Hannibal

82 Baronius, Annal. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. Anno. 294. and 295. 83 Ζῶσα κατορύτλεται παρὰ τὴν Κολλίνην λεγόμενην πύλην, ἐν ᾗ ἐσί τις ἐντὸς τῆς πόλεως ὀφρὺς γεώδης παρατείνεσα πόῤῥω· καλείται δὲ χῶμα διαλέκιῳ τῇ Λατίνων· ἐνθαδὲ κατασκευάζεται κατάγειος οἶκος ἐ μέγας ἔχων ἄνωθεν κατάβασιν. – Plutarch. in Numa, p. 67. edit. Lutetiæ Parisior. in folio.

Dionysius describes the subterraneous vault " at the Porta Collina within the walls." (Antiquitat. &c. lib. ii. cap. 67. p. 380. tom. 1. edit. Reiske; and compare Festus, lib. xvii. p. 486. edit. Amstelod. 1700.

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84 " Eo anno (A. C. 334.) Minucia Vestalis viva sub terram ad Portam Collinam, dextra via sTRATA defossa Scelerato Campo: credo ab incesto id et loco nomen factum." Tit. Liv. lib. viii. cap. 15. For "strata," Gronovius proposes to read " salaria," which would make Livy write an easier sentence, at the expense of his accuracy. For the ceremony of interring the Vestal Virgins alive, see Plutarch in the place above referred to, and Dionysius, lib. ii. cap. 67.

85 Tit. Liv. lib. v. cap. 41. ; et vide lib. vii. cap. 11.; et Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xv. cap. 18.