e to suggest
itself at Rome is rather a delusion. The amazing extent of ancient
ruins at Rome unavoidably fills us with the notion that an unusual
amount of destruction has gone on there. When we cannot walk without
seeing, besides the more perfect monuments, gigantic masses of ancient
wall on every side,--when we stumble at every step on fragments of
marble columns or on richly adorned tombs,--we are apt to think that
they must have perished in some special havoc unknown in other places.
The truth is really the other way. The abundance of ruins and
fragments--again setting aside the more perfect monuments--proves that
destruction has been much less thorough in Rome than in almost any
other Roman city. Elsewhere the ancient buildings have been utterly
swept away; at Rome they survive, though mainly in a state of ruin.
But by surviving in a state of ruin they remind us of their former
existence, which in other places we are inclined to forget. Certainly
Rome is, even in proportion to its greatness above all other Roman
cities, rich in ancient remains above all other Roman cities. Compare
those cities of the West which at one time or another supplanted Rome
as the dwelling-places of her own Caesars,--Milan, Ravenna, York, Trier
itself. York may be looked upon as lucky in having kept a tower and
some pieces of wall through the havoc of the English conquest. Trier
is rich above all the rest, and she has, in her _Porta Nigra_, one
monument of Roman power which Rome herself cannot outdo. But rich as
Trier--the second Rome--is, she is certainly not richer in proportion
than Rome herself. The Roman remains at Milan hardly extend beyond a
single range of columns, and it may be thought that that alone is
something, when we remember the overthrow of the city under Frederick
Barbarossa. But compare Rome and Ravenna: no city is richer than
Ravenna in monuments of its own special class,--Christian Roman,
Gothic, Byzantine, but of works of the days of heathen Rome there is
no trace--no walls, no gates, no triumphal arch, no temple, no
amphitheatre. The city of Placidia and Theodoric is there; but of the
city which Augustus made one of the two great maritime stations of
Italy there is hardly a trace. Verona, as never being an imperial
residence, was not on our list; but rich as Verona is, Rome is--even
proportionally--far richer. Provence is probably richer in Roman
remains than Italy herself; but even the Provencal cities are hardly
s