THE CITY OF ROME.--Ancient Rome was mostly built on the left bank of the Tiber. It spread from the Palatine, the seat of the original settlement, over six other hills; so that it became the "city of seven hills." All of them appeared higher than they do now. Of these hills the Capitoline was the citadel and the seat of the gods. In earlier days, from a part of the summit, the Tarpeian Rock, criminals were hurled. In time the hill became covered with public edifices, of which the grandest was the Temple of "Capitoline Jupiter." On the Palatine were eventually constructed the vast palaces of the emperors, the ruins of which have been uncovered in recent times. The walls of _Servius Tullius_ encompassed the seven hills. The walls constructed by _Aurelian_ (270-275 A.D.), _Probus_, and _Honorius_ (402 A.D.), inclosed an area twelve miles in circumference. The streets were most of them narrow; and, to economize space, the houses were built very high. One of the finest, as well as most ancient, thoroughfares was the _Via Sacra_, which ran past the Coliseum, or the Flavian amphitheater, and under the Triumphal Arch of _Titus_, erected after the capture of Jerusalem, along the east of the Forum to the Capitol. There was a particular street in Rome where shoemakers and booksellers were congregated. The central part of the city was thronged, and noisy with cries of teamsters and of venders of all sorts of wares. The _fora_--one of which, the "Roman Forum," between the Capitoline and the Palatine, was the great center of Roman life--were open places paved, and surrounded with noble buildings,--temples, and _basilicas_, or halls of justice. The _fora_ were either places for the transaction of public business, or they served the purpose of modern market-places. Among the public buildings of note were the vast colonnades, places of resort both for business and for recreation. The sewers, and especially the aqueducts, were structures of a stupendous character. Among the most imposing edifices in ancient Rome were the baths. Those built by _Diocletian_ had room for three thousand bathers at once. In these establishments the beauty of the gardens and fountains without was on a level with the elegance of the interior furnishings, and with the attraction of the libraries, paintings, and sculptures, which added intellectual pleasure to the physical comfort for which, mainly, these gigantic buildings were constructed. Besides the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, there were many other temples, some of which were but little inferior to that majestic edifice.