the
view it commanded, embracing nearly the whole of Rome, which from its
commanding height, inferior only to the capitol, and the Quirinal hill, it
was enabled to overlook.

Before him, in the hollow at his feet, on which the morning rays dwelt
lovingly, streaming in through the deep valley to the right over the city
walls, lay the long street of the Carinae, the noblest and most sumptuous
of Rome, adorned with many residences of the patrician order, and among
others, those of Pompey, Caesar, and the great Latin orator. This broad and
noble thoroughfare, from its great width, and the long rows of marble
columns, which decked its palaces, all glittering in the misty sunbeams,
shewed like a waving line of light among the crowded buildings of the
narrower ways, that ran parallel to it along the valley and up the easy
slope of the Caelian mount, with the Minervium, in which Arvina stood,
leading directly downward to its centre. Beyond this sparkling line, rose
the twin summits Oppius and Cispius, of the Esquiline hill, still decked
with the dark foliage of the ancestral groves of oak and sweet-chesnut,
said to derive their origin from Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome,
and green with the long grass and towering cypresses of the plebeian
cemetery, across which the young man had come home, from the villa of his
lady-love, but a few hours before.

Beyond the double hill-tops, a heavy purple shadow indicated the deep
basin through which ran the ill-famed Suburra, and the "Wicked-Street", so
named from the tradition, that therein Tullia compelled her trembling
charioteer to lash his reluctant steeds over the yet warm body of her
murdered father. And beyond this again the lofty ridge of the Quirinal
mount stood out in fair relief with all its gorgeous load of palaces and
columns; and the great temple of the city's founder, the god Romulus
Quirinus; and the stupendous range of walls and turrets, along its
northern verge, flashing out splendidly to the new-risen sun.

So lofty was the post from which Paullus gazed, as he overlooked the
mighty town, that his eye reached even beyond the city-walls on the
Quirinal, and passing over the broad valley at its northern base, all
glimmering with uncertain lights and misty shadows, rested upon the Collis
Hortulorum, or mount of gardens, now called Monte Pincio, which was at
that time covered, as its name indicates, with rich and fertile
shrubberies. The glowing hues of these could b