d built upon many
stories high. But I am now able to assure him that in the whole region
between the Roman Forum and the Forum of Trajan, which were formerly
opened into each other by the removal of a hill as tall as the top of
Trajan's Column, you pass over other forums hidden beneath your feet or
wheels. You cannot be stayed there, however, by the wonders which
archaeology will yet reveal in them (for archaeology has its relentless
eye upon every inch of the ground above them), but you will certainly
pause at the Forum of Trajan, where archaeology, as it is in
Commendatore Boni, has had its way already. In fact, until his work in
the Roman Forum is finished, the Forum of Trajan must remain his
greatest achievement, and the sculptured column of the great emperor
must serve equally as the archaeologist's monument. I do not remember
why in the old time I should have kept coming to look at that column and
study the sculptured history of Trajan's campaigns, toiling around it to
its top. I think one could then get close to its base, as now one
cannot, what with the deepening of the Forum to its antique level and
the enclosure of the whole space with an iron rail. The area below is
free only to a large company of those cats which seem to have their
dwelling among all the ruins and restorations of ancient Rome. People
come to feed the Trajan cats with the fish sold near by for the purpose,
and one morning, in pausing to view his column from the respectful
distance I had to keep, I counted no less than thirteen of his cats in
his forum. They were of every age and color, but much more respectable
in appearance than the cats of the Pantheon, which have no such sunny
expanse as that forum for their quarters, but only a very damp corner
beside the temple, and seem to have suffered in their looks and health
from the situation. It was afterward with dismay that I realized the
fatal number of the Trajan cats coming to their breakfast that morning
so unconscious of evil omen in the figure; but as there are probably no
statistics of mortality among the cats of Rome, I shall never know
whether any of the thirteen has rendered up one of their hundred and
seventeen lives.

However, if I allowed myself to go on about the cats of Rome, either
ancient or modern, there would be no end. For instance, in a statuary's
shop in the Via Sistina there is a large yellow cat, which I one day saw
dressing the hair of the statuary's boy. It performed th