according to a regulation of Agrippa, was watered throughout the summer, and hence always presented a green lawn. The summer is at Rome much more terrible than winter, for the grass is scorched to its very roots; in September it is green, but in July and the dreadful month of August, all the foliage is scorched and covered with dust, so that it presents the most melancholy appearance, and the grounds, like the fields, are, nearly as in Egypt, a picture of death.—In the time of Trajan the Romans built in the same way as is now done in London, where people do not only enlarge the town, but spare no expenses in embellishing it. Enormous works were undertaken in the interior, merely to gain ground. To make room for the Forum of Trajan, a part of the Quirinal was taken down, and many houses were demolished to gain the magnificent space, so that it cost many millions before the foundations could be laid. Antonine erected in the Campus Martius his basilica, his column, and other edifices. Rome was, in fact, ever increasing down to the third century. Even in the time of Alexander Severus, although there existed men of great intelligence, very few seem to have suspected that the nation was in a state of decay, and that a destructive storm was approaching. Dangers in which the empire might have perished did not become visible until the reign of Decius, when the German tribes, the Goths, Alemanni, and Longobards (Juthungi) crossed the boundaries of the empire. They penetrated as far as the river Po, and as Marius had conquered the Cimbri, so Aurelian defeated those tribes in the north of the Po, and saved Italy. Aurelian now found it necessary to surround the city with a new wall, which was essentially the same as the present one. He did not comprise all the suburbs within its circumference, but was guided by the course of the hills; the whole of the _Collis hortulorum_, however, and the mighty ravine in the neighbourhood were drawn into it and fortified. This wall was exceedingly strong: in the east he was obliged, as Servius had done before, to raise it to a great height.