eshness of water
affords such pleasure in hot countries that delight is taken in
assembling together all the pomp of luxury, and every enjoyment of the
imagination, in the places appropriated for bathing. It was there that
the Romans exposed their masterpieces of painting and of sculpture. They
were seen by the light of lamps, for it appears by the construction of
these buildings, that daylight never entered them: they wished thus to
preserve themselves from the rays of the sun, so burning in the south:
the sensation they produce must certainly have been the cause of the
ancients calling them the darts of Apollo. It is reasonable to suppose,
from observing the extreme precaution of the ancients to guard against
heat, that the climate was then more burning than it is in our days. It
is in the Thermae of Caracalla, that were placed the Hercules Farnese,
the Flora, and the group of Dirce. In the baths of Nero near Ostia was
found the Apollo Belvedere. Is it possible to conceive that in
contemplating this noble figure Nero did not feel some generous
emotions?

The Thermae and the Circuses are the only kind of buildings appropriated
to public amusements of which there remain any relics at Rome. There is
no theatre except that of Marcellus whose ruins still exist. Pliny
relates that there were three hundred and sixty pillars of marble, and
three thousand statues employed in a theatre, which was only to last a
few days. Sometimes the Romans raised fabrics so strong that they
resisted the shock of earthquakes; at others they took pleasure in
devoting immense labour to buildings which they themselves destroyed as
soon as their feasts were over; thus they sported with time in every
shape. Besides, the Romans were not like the Greeks--influenced by a
passion for dramatic representations. It was by Grecian work, and
Grecian artists, that the fine arts flourished at Rome, and Roman
greatness expressed itself rather by the colossal magnificence of
architecture than by the masterpieces of the imagination. This gigantic
luxury, these wonders of riches, possess great and characteristic
dignity, which, though not the dignity of liberty, is that of power. The
monuments appropriated for public baths, were called provinces; in them
were united all the divers productions and divers establishments which a
whole country can produce. The circus (called _Circus Maximus_) of which
the remains are still to be seen, was so near the palace of the Ca