Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/79

CHAP. II.
_____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 Delphi, a bath at Thermopylae, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Eubcea, Bceotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his favours ; and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron and benefactor^[1].

Most of the Roman monuments for public use; temples, theatres, aqueducts, etc.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 destined to the public use^[2]: 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^[3]. 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 sur-

1. See Philostrat. 1. ii. p. 548. 560. Pausanias, 1. i. and vii. 10. The life of Herodes, in the thirtieth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.
2. It is particularly remarked of Athens by Dicaearchus, de Statu Graeciae, p. 8. inter Geographos Minores, edit. Hudson.
3. Donatus de Roma Vetere, 1. iii. c. 4, 5, 6. Nardini Roma Antica, l.iii. 11, 12, 13. and a manuscript 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 j and the Laocoon was found in the baths of Titus.