at the present day the nose
gives infallible proof that it carries off a very large portion of the
pollution of the modern city.

By the Cloaca Maxima, the valley between the Capitoline and Palatine
Hills was for the first time made dry land; all indeed, except a small
swamp which remained in one corner of it to a later age, and which the
great sewer was not deep enough to drain entirely. Reeds grew around
its margin, and boats were employed to cross it, as Ovid tells us. The
name Velabrum--from an Etruscan root, signifying water, occurring in
some other Italian names such as Velletri, Velino--still given to this
locality, where a church stood in the middle ages called S. Silvestro
in Lacu, commemorates the existence of the primeval lake; while the
legend of the casting ashore of Romulus and Remus on the slope of the
Palatine points to the gradual desiccation of the spot. On the level
ground, recovered in this way from the waters, was formed the Roman
Forum; the word Forum meaning simply an open space, surrounded by
buildings and porticoes, which served the purpose of a market-place, a
court of justice, or an exchange; for the Romans transacted more of
their public and private business out of doors than the severe
climate of our northern latitudes will permit us to do. On this common
ground representatives of the separate communities located on the
different hills of Rome, and comprehended and confederated within the
walls of Servius Tullius, met together for the settlement of affairs
that concerned them all. As Rome grew in importance, so did this
central representative part of it grow with it, until at last, in the
time of the Caesars, it became the heart of the mighty empire, where
its pulse beat loudest. There the fate of the world was discussed.
There Cicero spoke, and Caesar ruled, and Horace meditated. If the
Temple of Jerusalem was the shrine of religion, the Forum of Rome was
the shrine of law; and from thence has emanated that unrivalled system
of jurisprudence which has formed the model of every nation since.
Being thus the centre of the political power of the empire, the Roman
Forum became also the focus of its architectural and civic splendour.
It was crowded with marble temples, state buildings, and courts of law
to such an extent that we wonder how there was room for them all
within such a narrow area. Monuments of great men, statues of Greek
sculpture, colonnades, and porticoes, rich with the spoils of s