Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 3): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

h. V.

THROUGH ITALY.

203

qua* ter, especially as they were all of the most
solid and beautiful architecture, and all adorned
with statues and paintings. The number of sta-
tues indeed was incredible, they crowded not the
public buildings only, but even the streets and
the lanes. They were of various sizes and ma-
terials: eleven of colossal magnitude adorned the
Capitol alone, and nineteen of gold, and thirty
of solid silver, shone in different parts of the
city. Those of bronze and marble appeared on
all sides in such profusion as to form, if we may
credit the hyperbolical expression of Cassiodorns,
a population equal in number to the living inha-
bitants.
It is to be remembered, that all the above-
mentioned edifices were supported by pillars,
and that these pillars were all of granite or of
marble oftentimes of the most beautiful species,
and that generally each shaft was of one single
piece. When we take this latter circumstance
into consideration, and combine it with the
countless multitude of these columns, and add
to these again the colonnades that graced the
imperial palaces, and the courts and porticos of
private houses, we shall be enabled to form some
idea of the beauty and magnificence that must
have resulted from the frequent recurrence and
ever varying combinations of such pillared per-