spanned the Clivus Asyli. The arch exhibits the decline of architectural taste. It is a heavy structure, especially the attic; and the columns and bas-reliefs exhibit a great falling off since the time of Trajan. From a medal of Antoninus (Caracalla) it appears that on the summit of the arch was a triumphal car drawn by six horses, with two figures in it, representing probably Severus and Caracalla. At each side of the car was a foot-soldier, and at each extremity a horse-soldier.

The little arch close to the church of S. Giorgio in Velabro, called ARCUS ARGENTARIUS, was also erected in honour of Septimius Severus, his sons Antoninus and Geta, and his wife Julia Pia, by the bankers and merchants who transacted business at this spot, as appears from an inscription on its southern face. This arch marks the boundary between the Velabrum and Forum Boarium. It is, however, properly no arch, but a gateway, the lintel being horizontal. The principal subject of the ill-executed sculptures upon it is a sacrifice.

Septimius Severus is supposed to have constructed an aqueduct, the AQUA SEVERIANA, for the service of some baths, the THERMÆ SEVERIANÆ, which he built in the first region, or Porta Capena; 1 but we have no authentic accounts about either. Severus, who spent his money as liberally as he sought it greedily, was in the habit of presenting his friends with palaces. Among these were the DOMUS LATERANI on the Cælian Hill, and the DOMUS SEPTEM PARTHORUM, which lay in the district to the south of it.2 The former of these buildings had been the property of the consul Plautius Lateranus, who was put to death for his participation in Piso's conspiracy against Nero. His property appears to have been confiscated; and, the palace having thus become an imperial heirloom, Severus was able to present it to a descendant probably of the same 2 Aur. Victor, Epit. 20.

1 Spart. Sever. 19.

3 Tac. Ann. xv. 49, 60.

family. Juvenal insinuates that the wealth of Lateranus was the cause of his destruction, and at the same time intimates the magnificence of his palace :

Temporibus diris igitur, jussuque Neronis,
Longinum et magnos Senecæ prædivitis hortos
Clausit et egregias Lateranorum obsidet ædes
Tota cohors; rarus venit in coenacula miles.1

But there can be no doubt, from the account of Tacitus, that Lateranus was really implicated in Piso's conspiracy. We shall have again to advert to this palace under the reign of Constantine, when by a rare fate it became one of the most distinguished edifices of modern Rome. The Domus Parthorum we know from its being mentioned in the Notitia in the twelfth region, or Piscina Publica, as well as by Victor. It may probably have been the residence of some Parthian nobles whom Severus brought with him to Rome after his eastern conquests, whose effeminate habits have been stigmatised by Tertullian.2 The DOMUS CILONIS, also mentioned in the twelfth region, might have been another of these palaces, probably belonging to Kilo, the friend of Severus and tutor of his sons, who had been præfectus urbi under him. Caracalla sent some soldiers to murder him; but after plundering his house they dragged him almost naked, for they had taken him in the bath, along the Sacra Via towards the palace, which would have been the nearest road in coming from his house. But here his condition excited the commiseration of the people and of the civic guard, formerly under his orders; which so alarmed Caracalla that he thought it prudent to rescue Kilo, and even to display a hypocritical affection for him.3

When we have mentioned the MAUSOLEUM of Septimius Severus, we have named all the monuments of this emperor that are of any importance. This has been sometimes confounded with the Septizonium already de

1 Sat. x. 15 sqq.
2 De cultu fem. i. 6.

3 Dion Cass. lxxvii. 4; cf. Spartian, Carac. 3.

scribed; and, indeed, it appears to have been an imitation of it on a minor scale, and situated on the Via Appia. Severus caused it to be built in his lifetime.1

Caracalla succeeded his father in 211. This murderer and fratricide was fond of building. He was a particular devotee of the goddess Isis, to whom he is said to have erected several temples; but the only one we can mention, and that only on conjecture, is the ISIUM alluded to by Trebellius Pollio on the Cælian.2 His greatest work was his baths, the THERME ANTONINIANE, or CARACALLE, situated on the right-hand side of the Via di Porta S. Sebastiano, anciently the Via Appia, near the church of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo. The remains of them are the most perfect of any of the Roman baths, and cover so enormous an area as to fill the spectator with astonishment. The unsupported roof of the Cella Soliaris, or warm bath, was of such vast extent that the architects and mechanicians of the time of Constantine declared that it could no longer be imitated.3 The porticoes which surrounded the baths were added by Heliogabalus, and completed by Alexander Severus. It now formed a perfect square of 1,100 feet on every side, without reckoning the projections of the circular tribunes. To supply the baths, Caracalla is said to have formed the aqueduct called AQUA ANTONINIANA, of which, however, there is no satisfactory account; and as an approach to them he caused to be made the VIA Nova, one of the handsomest streets in Rome.4

Caracalla died in 217, and was succeeded, after the brief reigns of Macrinus and Diadumenus, by Elagabalus, in 218. To this emperor are attributed a CIRCUS and gardens near the AMPHITHEATRUM CASTRENSE and present

Spartian, Geta, 7.

2 Trig. Tyrr. 25; cf. Spart. Car. 9.

3 Spartian. ibid. 9; Sever. 21. By cella soliaris Spartian appears to

mean the apartment for the warm bath, called solium by Cicero, In Pison. 27.

4 Victor, De Cas. xxi.; Spart. Carac, 9.

church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. It is impossible to say by whom the amphitheatre just mentioned was constructed; but some antiquarians infer from the style of the building that it was earlier than the Colosseum, and refer it to the reign of Tiberius, or at latest of Nero.1 Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus, dedicated a temple to his namesake, the Syrian sun-god, on the Palatine, and opened there a public bath which appears to have been worse than a brothel.2

Alexander Severus, who obtained the imperial crown after the assassination of this despicable tyrant in 222, enriched the city with a few structures, but none of them of much importance. He constructed an aqueduct, the AQUA ALEXANDRINA, identical with the present Acqua Felice, for the service of some baths which he had built; and he erected a diæta, or sort of casino, which he dedicated to his mother, Julia Mammæa, and which hence obtained the name of AD MAMMAM. He is said also to have paved some of the streets upon the Palatine with porphyry and verde antico; in which he followed the example of Elagabalus.1

From the time of Alexander Severus to the accession of Aurelian in 270, we find few notices of any interest respecting the city, and indeed it would be wearisome to recount every minor alteration that took place in these declining days of Roman splendour. The celebration of the secular games for the thousandth anniversary of the city by the Emperor Philippus the Arab (244-249) deserves, indeed, both for its singularity and for the occasion, a passing word of notice. A large collection of rare animals, prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, was exhibited at this festival. The zebra, the elk, the giraffe, the ostrich, and other strange animals

1 Nibby, Roma nell' anno 1838,

t. i. 397

p. sq.

2 Heliogab. c. 8.

Lampr.

3 Lamprid. Alex. Sever. 25.
4 Ibid. and c. 26.

were then seen for the first time by the great majority of the Roman people, mixed with elephants, African hyænas, and Indian tigers. From this period there is nothing to detain us till the reign of Aurelian; though we may mention by the way the ARCH OF GALLIENUS, which is still extant close to the church of S. Vito and at no great distance from Sta. Maria Maggiore. The inscription shows it to have been dedicated to Gallienus and his consort Salonina. It has been thought to occupy the site of the Porta Esquilina of the Servian wall, and at all events it could not have been far distant from that gate.

The time was now at hand when the Romans, who had hitherto thought only of extending or securing their conquests over the greater part of the known world, would have to fight for their own existence. In the year 259, in the reign of Gallienus, the Alemanni had invaded Italy and appeared almost in sight of Rome; and again in 270 vast hordes of them, having eluded the vigilance of Aurelian, once more crossed the Alps and penetrated into Umbria. In a great battle fought at Placentia, the balance of victory had appeared to incline in favour of the barbarians; but Aurelian succeeded in defeating them at Fanum Fortunæ in Umbria, and in almost exterminating their host in a third battle near Pavia. But these vicissitudes admonished him of the necessity of providing for the safety of the capital. The Servian walls had not only been long overstepped by the growing suburbs of the city, but even every trace of them had almost entirely vanished; and Rome, with all her temples and treasures, the portentous growth of ten centuries of conquest and empire, appeared to lie at the mercy of any barbarians who might be attracted by the fame of her wealth and her widespread renown. In the contemplation of such a calamity, Aurelian determined again to surround the city with a wall.

1 Capitol. Gordiani Tres, c. 33.