that in later times a great part of this quarter was a
wilderness, the fact would seem strange. As for the 'Coromania' it seems
to have disappeared after the devastation of Monti by Robert Guiscard in
1084, and the general destruction of the city from the Lateran to the
Capitol is attributed to the Saracens who were with him. But a more
logical cause of depopulation is found in the disappearance of water
from the upper Region by the breaking of the aqueducts, from which alone
it was derived. The consequence of this, in the Middle Age, was that the
only obtainable water came from the river, and was naturally taken from
it up-stream, towards the Piazza del Popolo, in the neighbourhood of
which it was collected in tanks and kept until the mud sank to the
bottom and it was approximately fit to drink.

In Imperial times the greater number of the public baths were situated
in the Monti. The great Piazza di Termini, now re-named Piazza delle
Terme, before the railway station, took its name from the Baths of
Diocletian--'Thermae,' 'Terme,' 'Termini.' The Baths of Titus, the Baths
of Constantine, of Philippus, Novatus and others were all in Monti,
supplied by the aqueduct of Claudius, the Anio Novus, the Aqua Marcia,
Tepula, Julia, Marcia Nova and Anio Vetus. No people in the world were
such bathers as the old Romans; yet few cities have ever suffered so
much or so long from lack of good water as Rome in the Middle Age. The
supply cut off, the whole use of the vast institutions was instantly
gone, and the huge halls and porticos and playgrounds fell to ruin and
base uses. Owing to their peculiar construction and being purposely made
easy of access on all sides, like the temples, the buildings could not
even be turned to account by the Barons for purposes of fortification,
except as quarries for material with which to build their towers and
bastions. The inner chambers became hiding-places for thieves, herdsmen
in winter penned their flocks in the shelter of the great halls, grooms
used the old playground as a track for breaking horses, and round and
about the ruins, on feast days, the men of Monti and Trastevere chased
one another in their murderous tournaments of stone throwing. A fanatic
Sicilian priest saved the great hall of Diocletian's Baths from
destruction in Michelangelo's time.

[Illustration: PORTA MAGGIORE, SUPPORTING THE CHANNELS OF THE AQUEDUCT
OF CLAUDIUS AND THE ANIO NOVUS]

The story is worth telling, for it