be able to see, as in a picture, the form and
material and position of the house he inhabits, and even the very aspect
and furniture of the room in which he is accustomed to pass the most of
his time. This to me is a satisfaction greater than you can well
conceive, when, in my ruminating hours, which are many, I return to
Palmyra, and place myself in the circle with Gracchus, Calpurnius, and
yourself. Your palace having now been restored to its former condition,
I know where to find you at the morning, noon, and evening hour; the
only change you have made in the former arrangements being this: that
whereas when I was your guest, your private apartments occupied the
eastern wing of the palace, they are now in the western, once mine,
which I used then to maintain were the most agreeable and noble of all.
The prospects which its windows afford of the temple, and the distant
palace of the queen, and of the evening glories of the setting sun, are
more than enough to establish its claims to an undoubted superiority;
and if to these be added the circumstance, that for so long a time the
Roman Piso was their occupant, the case is made out beyond all
peradventure.

But I am describing your palace rather than my own. You must remember my
paternal seat on the southern declivity of the hill, overlooking the
course of the Tiber as it winds away to the sea. Mine is not far from
it, but on the northern side of the hill, and thereby possessing a
situation more favorable to comfort, during the heats of summer--I
loving the city, as you well know, better if anything during the summer
than the winter months. Standing upon almost the highest point of the
hill, it commands a wide and beautiful prospect, especially toward the
north and east, the eye shooting over the whole expanse of city and
suburbs, and then resting upon the purple outline of the distant
mountains. Directly before me are the magnificent structures which crown
the Esquiline, conspicuous among which, and indeed eminent over all, are
the Baths of Titus. Then, as you will conjecture, the eye takes in the
Palatine and Capitol hills, catching, just beyond the last, the swelling
dome of the Pantheon, which seems rather to rise out of, and crown, the
Flavian Amphitheatre, than its own massy walls. Then, far in the
horizon, we just discern the distant summits of the Appenines, broken by
Soracte and the nearer hills.

The principal apartments are on the northern side of the palace,