alog. de
Oratoribus, c. 9, 11, and Plin. Epistol. vii. 17.)]

[Footnote 64: See the dialogue of Lucian, entitled the Saltatione, tom.
ii. p. 265-317, edit. Reitz. The pantomimes obtained the honorable name;
and it was required, that they should be conversant with almost
every art and science. Burette (in the Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 127, &c.) has given a short history of the art
of pantomimes.]

[Footnote 65: Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 6. He complains, with decent
indignation that the streets of Rome were filled with crowds of females,
who might have given children to the state, but whose only occupation
was to curl and dress their hair, and jactari volubilibus gyris, dum
experimunt innumera simulacra, quae finxere fabulae theatrales.]

It is said, that the foolish curiosity of Elagabalus attempted to
discover, from the quantity of spiders' webs, the number of the
inhabitants of Rome. A more rational method of inquiry might not have
been undeserving of the attention of the wisest princes, who could
easily have resolved a question so important for the Roman government,
and so interesting to succeeding ages. The births and deaths of the
citizens were duly registered; and if any writer of antiquity had
condescended to mention the annual amount, or the common average, we
might now produce some satisfactory calculation, which would destroy the
extravagant assertions of critics, and perhaps confirm the modest and
probable conjectures of philosophers. [66] The most diligent researches
have collected only the following circumstances; which, slight and
imperfect as they are, may tend, in some degree, to illustrate the
question of the populousness of ancient Rome. I. When the capital of
the empire was besieged by the Goths, the circuit of the walls was
accurately measured, by Ammonius, the mathematician, who found it equal
to twenty-one miles. [67] It should not be forgotten that the form of
the city was almost that of a circle; the geometrical figure which is
known to contain the largest space within any given circumference. II.
The architect Vitruvius, who flourished in the Augustan age, and whose
evidence, on this occasion, has peculiar weight and authority, observes,
that the innumerable habitations of the Roman people would have spread
themselves far beyond the narrow limits of the city; and that the want
of ground, which was probably contracted on every side by gardens and
villas, suggested the commo