DOI Kapitel:
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 Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62268#0199
C/i.V.
THROUGH ITALY.
189
When this wonderful edifice was destroyed it
would be difficult to determine; the triumphal
arch which formed its entrance was dismantled
so early as the reign of Constantine, as its mate-
rials, or at least its ornaments, were employed
to o-race the arch erected in honor of that em-
peror. The forum itself existed, as I have al-
ready observed, in the time of Gregory the Great,
and consequently had survived, at least as to its
essential and constituent parts, the repeated
sieges and disasters of the city. It seems, from
an expression of John the Deacon, to have ex-
isted in the beginning of the ninth century; its
destruction must therefore be ascribed to the
avarice or the fury of the Romans themselves in
their intestine contests.
rienced by Ammianus Marcellinus, who, in his semi-barbarous
style, betrays the confusion both of his feelings and his lan-
guage. His words are uniranslateable—Cum ad Trajani
Forum venisset, (Constantins) singularem sub omni czelo
structuram ut opinamur, etiam Numinum assertione mirabi-
lem, haerebat attonitus per giganteos contextus circumferens
mentem, nec relatu effabiles, nec rursus mortalibus expe-
tendos.—Among the statues that decorated this forum, two
were remarkable for their materials, one of Nicoinedes king
of Bithynia, of ivory; the other of amber, representing Au-
gustus. The celebrated equestrian statue of Trajan was in
front of the Basilica,
THROUGH ITALY.
189
When this wonderful edifice was destroyed it
would be difficult to determine; the triumphal
arch which formed its entrance was dismantled
so early as the reign of Constantine, as its mate-
rials, or at least its ornaments, were employed
to o-race the arch erected in honor of that em-
peror. The forum itself existed, as I have al-
ready observed, in the time of Gregory the Great,
and consequently had survived, at least as to its
essential and constituent parts, the repeated
sieges and disasters of the city. It seems, from
an expression of John the Deacon, to have ex-
isted in the beginning of the ninth century; its
destruction must therefore be ascribed to the
avarice or the fury of the Romans themselves in
their intestine contests.
rienced by Ammianus Marcellinus, who, in his semi-barbarous
style, betrays the confusion both of his feelings and his lan-
guage. His words are uniranslateable—Cum ad Trajani
Forum venisset, (Constantins) singularem sub omni czelo
structuram ut opinamur, etiam Numinum assertione mirabi-
lem, haerebat attonitus per giganteos contextus circumferens
mentem, nec relatu effabiles, nec rursus mortalibus expe-
tendos.—Among the statues that decorated this forum, two
were remarkable for their materials, one of Nicoinedes king
of Bithynia, of ivory; the other of amber, representing Au-
gustus. The celebrated equestrian statue of Trajan was in
front of the Basilica,