e set to work to destroy the
dwellings of the faithful nobles, and laid siege to the wonderful
Septizonium of Severus, in which the true Pope's nephew had fortified
himself, and began to batter it down with catapults and battering-rams.
Presently came the message of vengeance, brought by one man outriding a
host, while the rabble were still building a great wall to encircle
Sant' Angelo and starve Hildebrand to death or submission, working day
and night like madmen, tearing down everything at hand to pile the great
stones one upon another. Swiftly came the terrible Norman from the
south, with his six thousand horse, Normans and Saracens, and thirty
thousand foot, forcing his march and hungry for the Emperor. But Henry
fled, making pretext of great affairs in Lombardy, promising great and
wonderful gifts to the Roman rabble, and entrusting to their care his
imperial city.

Like a destroying whirlwind of fire and steel Robert swept on to the
gates and into Rome, burning and slaying as he rode, and sparing neither
man, nor woman, nor child, till the red blood ran in rivers between
walls of yellow flame. And he took Hildebrand from Sant' Angelo, and
brought him back to the Lateran through the reeking ruins of the city in
grim and fearful triumph of carnage and destruction.

That was the end of the Roman Forum, and afterwards, when the
blood-soaked ashes and heaps of red-hot rubbish had sunk down and
hardened to a level surface, the place where the shepherd fathers of
Alba Longa had pastured their flocks was called the Campo Vaccino, the
Cattle Field, because it was turned into the market for beeves, and rows
of trees were planted, and on one side there was a walk where ropes were
made, even to our own time.

It became also the fighting ground of the Regions. Among the strangest
scenes in the story of the city are those regular encounters between the
Regions of Monti and Trastevere which for centuries took place on feast
days, by appointment, on the site of the Forum, or occasionally on the
wide ground before the Baths of Diocletian. They were battles fought
with stones, and far from bloodless. Monti was traditionally of the
Imperial or Ghibelline party; Trastevere was Guelph and for the Popes.
The enmity was natural and lasting, on a small scale, as it was
throughout Italy. The challenge to the fray was regularly sent out by
young boys as messengers, and the place and hour were named and the word
passed in secret from mo