n the form of a quadrangle, into which four triumphal
arches opened a noble and spacious entrance: in the centre arose a
column of marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the
elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which still
subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the
Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated the
story of his own campaigns, and by an easy illusion of national vanity,
the peaceful citizen associated himself to the honors of the triumph.
All the other quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of
the empire, were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public
magnificence, and were filled with amphi theatres, theatres, temples,
porticoes, triumphal arches, baths and aqueducts, all variously
conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest
citizen. The last mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar
attention. The boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the
execution, and the uses to which they were subservient, rank the
aqueducts among the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The
aqueducts of the capital claim a just preeminence; but the curious
traveller, who, without the light of history, should examine those of
Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude that
those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent
monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with
flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence, was
derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh
water. [73]

[Footnote 71: It is particularly remarked of Athens by Dicaearchus, de
Statu Graeciae, p. 8, inter Geographos Minores, edit. Hudson.]

[Footnote 72: Donatus de Roma Vetere, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6. Nardini Roma
Antica, l. iii. 11, 12, 13, and a Ms. description of ancient Rome, by
Bernardus Oricellarius, or Rucellai, of which I obtained a copy from
the library of the Canon Ricardi at Florence. Two celebrated pictures of
Timanthes and of Protogenes are mentioned by Pliny, as in the Temple of
Peace; and the Laocoon was found in the baths of Titus.]

[Footnote 721: The Emperor Vespasian, who had caused the Temple of Peace
to be built, transported to it the greatest part of the pictures,
statues, and other works of art which had escaped the civil tumults. It
was there that every day the artists and the learned of Rome