Augustulus; with the Popes, the Roman Senate
dwindled to a mere office, held by one man, and respected by none; the
ascent to the Capitol, the path of triumphs that marked the subjugation
of the world, became in the twelfth century 'Fabatosta,' or 'Roast Beans
Lane'; and, in the vulgar tongue, 'Capitolium' was vulgarized to
'Campitelli,' and the word gave a name to a Region of the city. Within
that Region are included the Capitol, the Forum, the Colosseum and the
Palatine, with the palaces of the Caesars. It takes in, roughly, the land
covered by the earliest city; and, throughout the greater part of Roman
history, it was the centre of political and military life. It merited
something better than a diminutive for a name; yet, in the latest
revolution of things, it has fared better, and has been more respected,
than many other quarters, and still the memories of great times and
deeds cling to the stones that are left.

In the dark ages, when a ferocious faith had destroyed the remnants of
Latin learning and culture, together with the last rites of the old
religion, the people invented legend as a substitute for the folklore of
all the little gods condemned by the Church; so that the fairy tale is
in all Europe the link between Christianity and paganism, and to the
weakness of vanquished Rome her departed empire seemed only explicable
as the result of magic. The Capitol, in the imagination of such tales,
became a tower of wizards. High above all, a golden sphere reflected the
sun's rays far out across the distant sea by day, and at night a huge
lamp took its place as a beacon for the sailors of the Mediterranean,
even to Spain and Africa. In the tower, too, was preserved the mystic
mirror of the world, which instantly reflected all that passed in the
empire, even to its furthest limits. Below the towers, also, and
surmounting the golden palace, there were as many statues as Rome had
provinces, and each statue wore a bell at its neck, that rang of itself
in warning whenever there was trouble in the part of the world to which
it belonged, while the figure itself turned on its base to look in the
direction of the danger. Such tales Irving tells of the Alhambra, not
more wonderful than those believed of Rome, and far less numerous.

There were stories of hidden treasure, too, without end. For, in those
days of plundering, men laid their hands on what they saw, and hid what
they took as best they might; and later, when the men