which its walls doth wear_.--[MS. M.
erased.]

[512] Suetonius [Lib. i. cap. xlv.] informs us that Julius Caesar was
particularly gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to
wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious not to show
that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. A
stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed at the motive, nor should we
without the help of the historian.

[pb] _The Hero race who trod--the imperial dust ye tread_.--[MS. M.
erased.]

[513] This is quoted in the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, as a
proof that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon
pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth,
century. A notice on the Coliseum may be seen in the _Historical
Illustrations_, p. 263.

["'Quamdiu stabit Colyseus, stabit et Roma; quando cadet Colyseus, cadet
Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus.' (Beda in 'Excerptis seu
Collectaneis,' apud Ducange, _Glossarium ad Scriptores Med., et Infimae
Latinitatis_, tom. ii. p. 407, edit. Basil.) This saying must be
ascribed to the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims who visited Rome before the year
735, the aera of Bede's death; for I do not believe that our venerable
monk ever passed the sea."--Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, 1855, viii. 281, note.]

[514] {435} "Though plundered of all its brass, except the ring which
was necessary to preserve the aperture above; though exposed to repeated
fires; though sometimes flooded by the river, and always open to the
rain, no monument of equal antiquity is so well preserved as this
rotundo. It passed with little alteration from the Pagan into the
present worship; and so convenient were its niches for the Christian
altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of ancient beauty, introduced
their design as a model in the Catholic church."--Forsyth's _Italy_,
1816, p. 137.

[The Pantheon consists of two parts, a porch or _pronaos_ supported by
sixteen Corinthian columns, and behind it, but "obviously disjointed
from it," a rotunda or round temple, 143 feet high, and 142 feet in
diameter. The inscription on the portico (M. AGRIPPA, L. F. Cos.
tertium. Fecit.) affirms that the temple was built by Agrippa (M.
Vipsanius), B.C. 27.

It has long been suspected that with regard to the existing building the
inscription was "historically and artistically misleading;" but it is
only since 1892 that it has been known for cert