ate than that which he had delineated in 1738
for Rollin's history. Experience had improved his knowledge and instead
of Rossi's topography, he used the new and excellent map of Nolli.
Pliny's old measure of thirteen must be reduced to eight miles. It
is easier to alter a text, than to remove hills or buildings. * Note:
Compare Gibbon, ch. xi. note 43, and xxxi. 67, and ch. lxxi. "It is
quite clear," observes Sir J. Hobhouse, "that all these measurements
differ, (in the first and second it is 21, in the text 12 and 345 paces,
in the last 10,) yet it is equally clear that the historian avers that
they are all the same." The present extent, 12 3/4 nearly agrees with
the second statement of Gibbon. Sir. J. Hobhouse also observes that the
walls were enlarged by Constantine; but there can be no doubt that the
circuit has been much changed. Illust. of Ch. Harold, p. 180.--M.]

[Footnote 78: In the year 1709, Labat (Voyages en Italie, tom. iii.
p. 218) reckoned 138,568 Christian souls, besides 8000 or 10,000
Jews--without souls? In the year 1763, the numbers exceeded 160,000.]

[Footnote 79: The accurate eye of Nardini (Roma Antica, l. i. c. viii.
p. 31) could distinguish the tumultuarie opere di Belisario.]

[Footnote 80: The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the wall,
which Procopius observed, (Goth. l. i. c. 13,) is visible to the present
hour, (Douat. Roma Vetus, l. i. c. 17, p. 53, 54.)]

The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles a ditch, broad
and deep, protected the foot of the rampart; and the archers on the
rampart were assisted by military engines; the balistri, a powerful
cross-bow, which darted short but massy arrows; the onagri, or wild
asses, which, on the principle of a sling, threw stones and bullets of
an enormous size. [81] A chain was drawn across the Tyber; the arches of
the aqueducts were made impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian
[82] was converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That
venerable structure, which contained the ashes of the Antonines, was a
circular turret rising from a quadrangular basis; it was covered with
the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the statues of gods and
heroes; and the lover of the arts must read with a sigh, that the works
of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn from their lofty pedestals, and
hurled into the ditch on the heads of the besiegers. [83] To each of his
lieutenants Belisarius assigned the defence of a gate, with