the wise and
peremptory instruction, that, whatever might be the alarm, they should
steadily adhere to their respective posts, and trust their general for
the safety of Rome. The formidable host of the Goths was insufficient to
embrace the ample measure of the city, of the fourteen gates, seven only
were invested from the Proenestine to the Flaminian way; and Vitiges
divided his troops into six camps, each of which was fortified with a
ditch and rampart. On the Tuscan side of the river, a seventh encampment
was formed in the field or circus of the Vatican, for the important
purpose of commanding the Milvian bridge and the course of the Tyber;
but they approached with devotion the adjacent church of St. Peter; and
the threshold of the holy apostles was respected during the siege by a
Christian enemy. In the ages of victory, as often as the senate decreed
some distant conquest, the consul denounced hostilities, by unbarring,
in solemn pomp, the gates of the temple of Janus. [84] Domestic war now
rendered the admonition superfluous, and the ceremony was superseded by
the establishment of a new religion. But the brazen temple of Janus was
left standing in the forum; of a size sufficient only to contain the
statue of the god, five cubits in height, of a human form, but with two
faces directed to the east and west. The double gates were likewise
of brass; and a fruitless effort to turn them on their rusty hinges
revealed the scandalous secret that some Romans were still attached to
the superstition of their ancestors.

[Footnote 81: Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet, l. iii.) was ignorant
of this clear and conspicuous passage of Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 21.)
The engine was named the wild ass, a calcitrando, (Hen. Steph. Thesaur.
Linguae Graec. tom. ii. p. 1340, 1341, tom. iii. p. 877.) I have seen
an ingenious model, contrived and executed by General Melville, which
imitates or surpasses the art of antiquity.]

[Footnote 82: The description of this mausoleum, or mole, in Procopius,
(l. i. c. 25.) is the first and best. The height above the walls. On
Nolli's great plan, the sides measure 260 English feet. * Note: Donatus
and Nardini suppose that Hadrian's tomb was fortified by Honorius;
it was united to the wall by men of old, (Procop in loc.) Gibbon has
mistaken the breadth for the height above the walls Hobhouse, Illust. of
Childe Harold, p. 302.--M.]

[Footnote 83: Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens was h