DOI chapter:
Chap. V: Magnificence of Ancient Rome - its Cloacæ - Aqueducts - Viæ - Forums - Temples - Thermæ - Theatres - Instances of private Magnificence - Greatness, the Characteristic of Roman Taste at all times
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0175
Ch. V.
THROUGH ITALY.
165
Great macle those pathetic complaints, of the
scenes of misery and ruin that surrounded him ·
and yet the magnificence of Trajan’s forum,
which was still standing though disfigured, was
such as to draw from that Pontiff, who neither
wanted taste nor feeling, an exclamation of affec-
tionate regard towards its founder.*
* When I say that Gregory wanted neither taste nor feel-
ing, I am aware that I speak in opposition to Gibbon, who
represents him as deficient in both, as well indeed as in every
other generous and liberal accomplishment. Gregory lived
at a period perhaps the most disastrous recorded in history ;
when Italy and Rome itself had been successively visited
and desolated by the four severest scourges that heaven em-
ploys in its anger to chastise guilty nations—-war, inundation,
famine, and pestilence. The war was the Gothic war, the
most destructive contest ever carried on in the bosom of
Italy, not excepting the invasion of Annibal in ancient,
and of the French under Charles of Anjou in modern
times. This contest was followed after a short interval
by the irruption of the Langobard!, who continued to waste
and convulse Italy from the end of the sixth to the beginning
of the ninth century. The inundation was occasioned by the
Goths, who imprudently during the siege, broke several of
the aqueducts, and let the rivers confined in them range
without control over the plain; to w hich we may add an
overflow of the Tiber, that rose to a prodigious height, and
not only deluged the country but flooded the streets, and
undermined several edifices in the city itself. Famine is the
natural consequence of war, when carried on without mercy
THROUGH ITALY.
165
Great macle those pathetic complaints, of the
scenes of misery and ruin that surrounded him ·
and yet the magnificence of Trajan’s forum,
which was still standing though disfigured, was
such as to draw from that Pontiff, who neither
wanted taste nor feeling, an exclamation of affec-
tionate regard towards its founder.*
* When I say that Gregory wanted neither taste nor feel-
ing, I am aware that I speak in opposition to Gibbon, who
represents him as deficient in both, as well indeed as in every
other generous and liberal accomplishment. Gregory lived
at a period perhaps the most disastrous recorded in history ;
when Italy and Rome itself had been successively visited
and desolated by the four severest scourges that heaven em-
ploys in its anger to chastise guilty nations—-war, inundation,
famine, and pestilence. The war was the Gothic war, the
most destructive contest ever carried on in the bosom of
Italy, not excepting the invasion of Annibal in ancient,
and of the French under Charles of Anjou in modern
times. This contest was followed after a short interval
by the irruption of the Langobard!, who continued to waste
and convulse Italy from the end of the sixth to the beginning
of the ninth century. The inundation was occasioned by the
Goths, who imprudently during the siege, broke several of
the aqueducts, and let the rivers confined in them range
without control over the plain; to w hich we may add an
overflow of the Tiber, that rose to a prodigious height, and
not only deluged the country but flooded the streets, and
undermined several edifices in the city itself. Famine is the
natural consequence of war, when carried on without mercy