size, which is
so conspicuously absent from all that the Greeks have left us. Agrippa
builds a threefold temple and Hadrian rears the Pantheon upon its
charred ruins; Constantine builds his Basilica; Michelangelo says, 'I
will set the Pantheon upon the Basilica of Constantine.' He does it, and
the result is Saint Peter's, which covers more ground than that other
piece of giantism, the Colosseum; in Rome's last and modern revival, the
Palazzo delle Finanze is built, the Treasury of the poorest of the
Powers, which, incredible as it may seem, fills a far greater area than
either the Colosseum or the Church of Saint Peter's. What else is such
constructive enormity but 'giantism'? For the great Cathedral of
Christendom, it may be said, at least, that it has more than once in
history been nearly filled by devout multitudes, numbering fifty or
sixty thousand people; in the days of public baths, nearly sixty-three
thousand Romans could bathe daily with every luxury of service; when
bread and games were free, a hundred thousand men and women often sat
down in the Flavian Amphitheatre to see men tear each other to pieces;
of the modern Ministry of Finance there is nothing to be said. The Roman
curses it for the millions it cost; but the stranger looks, smiles and
passes by a blank and hideous building three hundred yards long. There
is no reason why a nation should not wish to be great, but there is
every reason why a small nation should not try to look big; and the
enormous follies of modern Italy must be charitably attributed to a
defect of judgment which has existed in the Latin peoples from the
beginning, and has by no means disappeared today. The younger Gordian
began a portico which was to cover forty-four thousand square yards, and
intended to raise a statue of himself two hundred and nineteen feet
high. The modern Treasury building covers about thirty thousand square
yards, and goes far to rival the foolish Emperor's insane scheme.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF SATURN]

Great contrasts lie in the past, between his age and ours. One must
guess at them at least, if one have but little knowledge, in order to
understand at all the city of the Middle Age and the Rome we see today.
Imagine it at its greatest, a capital inhabited by more than two
millions of souls, filling all that is left to be seen within and
without the walls, and half the Campagna besides, spreading out in a
vast disc of seething life from the cen