he answer of the elderly officer
who accompanied the Princess and her ladies is historical. 'That
column,' he answered, 'is the Column of Piazza Colonna'--'the Column of
Column Square,' as we might say--and that was all he could tell
concerning it, for his business was not archaeology, but soldiering. The
column was erected by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose equestrian
statue stands on the Capitol, to commemorate his victory over the
Marcomanni.

[Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS]

It is remarkable that so many of the monuments still preserved
comparatively intact should have been set up by the adoptive line of the
so-called Antonines, from Trajan to Marcus Aurelius, and that the two
monster columns, the one in Piazza Colonna and the one in Trajan's
Forum, should be the work of the last and the first of those emperors,
respectively. Among other memorials of them are the Colosseum, the Arch
of Titus and the statue mentioned above. The lofty Septizonium is
levelled to the ground, the Palaces of the Caesars are a mountain of
ruins, the triumphal arches of Marcus Aurelius and of Domitian have
disappeared with those of Gratian, of Valens, of Arcadius and of many
others; but the two gigantic columns still stand erect with their
sculptured tales of victory and triumph almost unbroken, surmounted by
the statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, whose memory was sacred to
all Christians long before the monuments were erected, and to whom,
respectively, they have been dedicated by a later age.

There may have been a connection, too, in the minds of the people,
between the 'Column of Piazza Colonna' and the Column of the Colonna
family, since a great part of this Region had fallen under the
domination of the noble house, and was held by them with a chain of
towers and fortifications; but the pillar which is the device of the
Region terminates in the statue of the Apostle Peter, whereas the one
which figures in the shield of Colonna is crowned with a royal crown, in
memory of the coronation of Lewis the Bavarian by Sciarra, who himself
generally lived in a palace facing the small square which bears his
name, and which is only a widening of the Corso just north of San
Marcello, the scene of Jacopo Colonna's brave protest against his
kinsman's mistaken imperialism.

The straight Corso itself, or what is the most important part of it to
Romans, runs through the Region from San Lorenzo in Lucina to Piazza di
Sciarra, and beyond that, s