mind, have
quite a different work to do here from elsewhere, where the vastest and
yet the most elegant of masses present themselves to their rays.

THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE CITY[4]

BY JOSEPH ADDISON

There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the Christian, and the
heathen. The former, tho of a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable
and legend, that one receives but little satisfaction from searching
into them. The other give a great deal of pleasure to such as have met
with them before in ancient authors; for a man who is in Rome can scarce
see an object that does not call to mind a piece of a Latin poet or
historian. Among the remains of old Rome, the grandeur of the
commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary or
convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and bridges of
the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under the emperors
is seen principally in such works as were rather for ostentation or
luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths,
amphitheaters, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and
mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply
their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains,
than out of any real necessity there was for them....

No part of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so much as the ancient
statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship
is often the most exquisite of anything in its kind. A man would wonder
how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be
discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest, one has
the satisfaction of seeing the faces, postures, airs, and dress of those
that have lived so many ages before us. There is a strange resemblance
between the figures of the several heathen deities, and the descriptions
that the Latin poets have given us of them; but as the first may be
looked upon as the ancienter of the two, I question not but the Roman
poets were the copiers of the Greek statuaries. Tho on other occasions
we often find the statuaries took their subjects from the poets. The
Laocoeon is too known an instance among many others that are to be met
with at Rome.

I could not forbear taking particular notice of the several musical
instruments that are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos, muses,
fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds, which might certainly give a
great light to the