nged figures of victory, bearing crowns in
their hands, which, when let down, they placed on the victor's head,
when he passed in triumph.

The _Arch of Constantine_, the most noble of all of these structures,
subsists almost entire. It was erected by the senate and Roman people,
in honour of Constantine, after his victory over Maxentius, and
crosses the Appian Way, at the junction of the Coelian and Palatine
Hills. Here it stands as the last monument of Roman triumph, or like
the December sun of "the world's sole monument."

This building consists of three arches, of which the centre is the
largest; and has two fronts, each adorned with four columns of giallo
antico marble, of the Corinthian order, and fluted, supporting a
cornice, on which stand eight Dacian captives of Pavonazzetta, or
violet-coloured marble.

The inscription on both sides of the architrave imports, that it was
dedicated "to the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine Augustus, the
greatest, pious, and the happy; because by a divine impulse, the
greatness of his courage, and the aid of his army, he avenged the
republic by his just arms, and, at the same time, rescued it from the
tyrant and his whole faction." On one side of the arch are the words,
"Liberatori urbis," to the deliverer of the city; and on the other,
"Fundatori quietis," to the founder of public tranquillity.

Although erected to the honour of Constantine, this arch commemorates
the victories of Trajan, some of the basso-relievos, &c. having
been pilfered from one of the arches of Trajan. This accounts for
the Dacian captives, whose heads Lorenzo de Medicis broke off and
conveyed to Florence, but the theft might not have been so notorious
to posterity, had not the artists of Constantine's time added some
figures of inferior merit. Forsyth says, "Constantine's reign was
notorious for architectural robbery;" and the styles of the two
emperors, in the present arch, mar the harmony by their unsightly
contrasts.

Although the decree for erecting this arch was, without doubt, passed
immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, it appears from the
monument itself, that the building was not finished and dedicated till
the tenth year of Constantine's reign, or the year of Christ 315 or
316.

The newly-erected arch opposite the entrance to Hyde Park is from the
Roman arch, though, we believe, not from any particular model. In the
View of the New Palace, St. James's Park, (in our No. 278,) the ar