=228. Use of Color on Sculptures and Architecture.=--Needless to say, in Rome as in Athens very many of these buildings are brilliantly painted.[139] The great columns of colored or of snow-white Carrara or Græcian marbles are usually left in their natural aspect, but nearly all the backgrounds, architectural members, and details are colored in brilliant greens, reds, and blues. The nude statues are nearly all tinted in flesh color, and the hair darkened, and there is perhaps an overplus of gilding. Under a bright Italian sky these color combinations make the vast succession of enormous buildings stand out with indescribable grandeur; and to this spectacle must be added the huge crowds incessantly moving about the fora, great masses of soft white togas giving to the wide areas all the exuberance of teeming life. There can be many other great plazas in the future capitals of the world; there will never be any more clearly marked out as the veritable center of an enormous Empire than the succession of fora in Rome. We are not concerned with archæological descriptions. The arrangement of the fora in this reign of Hadrian must be sketched over lightly or explained completely, otherwise the result is not knowledge but confusion; here a very brief survey will suffice. If we are following Publius Calvus’s litter as it traces the Esquiline on routine business of a senator, a series of convenient side streets probably will bring it past the great baths of Trajan and then down the slope to the spot where the vast bulk of the Flavian Amphitheater rears itself arrogantly. The baths and the Amphitheater both will be visited later (see p. 361 and p. 394), and we can, therefore, ignore them. Then the litter bearers swing west and slightly north--and before us lies the veritable Heart of Rome. =229. Entering the Series of Fora: the Temple of Venus and Rome.=--To avoid being overwhelmed by details only the most conspicuous objects and buildings will be mentioned. Some structures are obvious at the very first. To the left, lifting vauntingly above the visitors’ heads, rise tier upon tier the domes, balconies, and pinnacles of the Imperial Palace upon the Palatine, sustained at their base by an enormous mass of arches and buttresses of masonry and concrete. The lords of the palace at any moment can look down from a gilded balcony upon the Old Forum and its bustling life, and they need only descend an inclined plane in order to mingle with the mob, or cross the Plaza to visit the Senate House. Directly ahead--at the end of the vista, rises the Capitol, crowned by the rebuilt Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest (_Jupiter Optimus Maximus_), its roof flashing with the gold tiles; its enormous pillars proclaiming it the most splendid fane in Rome. [Illustration: MAP OF THE HEART OF ROME The Fora, the Palatine, the Capitoline etc. as in Period of Hadrian: about 135 A.D.]