otence in the estimation of the Romans and the subject
nations. They looked alone to Caesar for all their good, and from him
they feared their chiefest evil. He had become to them their
providence or their fate. The adoration offered to him was not a mere
act of homage or sign of fealty, but was most truly and in the highest
sense a worship as to a divine being.

The view in this part of the Forum, looking down from the Antonine
Temple, is most striking and suggestive. It reveals some of the
grandest objects of ancient Rome. Immediately beyond is the hoary old
church of SS. Cosma e Damiano, with mosaics of the sixth century on
its tribune, built out of three ancient temples, as Dr. Parker has
clearly proved--the round Temple of Romulus Maxentius, the Temple of
Venus, and the Temple of Rome. The south wall of this last-mentioned
temple, built of huge square blocks of tufa, to which the marble plan
of Rome was fastened by metal hooks, may still be seen in the church;
and it is interesting as being the last pagan temple which remained in
use in Rome. Here was the last struggle of paganism with the unbelief
which itself inspired. The gods of the Pantheon had lost all
significance. The worship of abstract qualities, such as Concord and
Victory, or of the personification of a local providence in the city
of Rome itself, could not satisfy the longing of the human soul. As
religion decayed the worship of the gods was superseded by the worship
of the emperor. Their statues were decapitated and the head of the
emperor was placed upon them. On the statue of Olympic Jove appeared
the bust of the contemptible Caligula; and this incongruous adaptation
represented the change of the popular faith from its former heavenly
idealisations to the most grovelling fetish worship of the time. This
deification of the emperors avenged its terrible blasphemy by the
sublime wickedness of those who were so raised above humanity. Here,
in this last pagan temple of Rome, converted into one of the earliest
Christian churches, we see the darkness and despair of the heathen
world preparing for that joyful morning light of Christianity which
has transferred the faith of mankind to foundations which can never
more be shaken. Immediately beyond in the background are the huge
gloomy arches of the Basilica of Constantine, fretted with coffers,
suspended in mid-air for upwards of sixteen centuries, in defiance of
the laws of gravity and the ravages of time an