The city was spacious even within the circumference given to it by Servius, but it ever increased, and suburbs sprang up around it. The first trace of such a suburb occurs in the second Punic war. If we possessed the second decad of Livy, we should perhaps find that it existed even at an earlier period. The account of a great conflagration, which occurred during the Hannibalian war, shows that a large and beautiful suburb existed in the district between the Capitoline, Aventine, the Circus Maximus, and the river, that is, in the region of the _Forum olitorium, extra portam Flumentanam_. It is natural that in a city like Rome, which had already become the capital of a great empire, the empty spaces within the walls were gradually filled up, and that the ancient _luci_, especially about the Esquiline, were more and more cleared away and filled up with buildings. The extension of large cities generally takes the direction of the principal streets: when, for example, cities like Paris and London extend, the newly-built houses follow the lines of the main streets, and are continued outside the gates; the streets thus become lengthened, and are intersected by cross roads. But this system had at Rome to contend with a difficulty, which is generally overlooked. It was customary with the ancients, not only at Rome but also in the Greek cities, to build sepulchres outside the gates on both sides of the road. The ruins of Pompeii show this distinctly. It was accordingly impossible to continue the buildings there, without destroying the tombs. The sepulchral monuments at Rome were subsequently destroyed by barbarism and fanaticism; as most of them were of marble and other costly stones, they were demolished for the sake of plunder. The district of the tombs has now a frightful appearance: the via Appia looks like a corpse, and no one visits it. During summer, when one might be inclined to go there, the country is covered with corn-fields, and in winter herds of cattle graze there; and the herdsmen are generally accompanied by large dogs which attack strangers with great fury; Goethe was in danger of losing his life in that district. The herdsmen are suspected of sometimes causing strangers to be torn to pieces in order to be able to rob them, whence it is necessary to arm one’s self when visiting the district. From an eminence in the neighbourhood you can see the course of the ancient road to a considerable distance, and along it you see nothing but tombs in ruins. Some of them, as we know from Boissard’s description, were entire as late as the sixteenth century; but the Romans have demolished and carried away every thing, and not a stone of any value has been left. The whole of this road was a succession of tombs, it was a real necropolis like that of Alexandria. Hence Rome was always extended between two diverging roads, and gardens were thus formed between the open country and the fields. In ancient Rome you must well distinguish between _horti_