As Athens represents the highest expression of civic beauty which mankind has witnessed, so Rome stands for power and the magnificence thereof. Mistress of the world she styled herself; and to-day she can still lay claim to her other proud title of the “Eternal City.” It is not until we come to Roman times that we begin to obtain the combination of elements which are the chief characteristics of the modern city; namely, opportunities for the healthful life of the great body of the citizens. “Parks, gardens, commons, and public squares,” says Lanciani, “have been happily compared to the lungs of a city; and if the health and general welfare of a city depend upon the normal and sound function of its respiratory organs, ancient Rome, in this respect, must be considered as the healthiest city which has ever existed on earth.”[2] This writer enumerates, as existing at the end of the third century after Christ, eight commons, or green spaces, set apart mostly for foot-races and gymnastic exercises; eighteen public squares, and about thirty parks and gardens, at first laid out by private citizens for their personal comfort, but afterwards absorbed into the imperial domain by purchase, bequest, or confiscation. Besides these were the cemeteries, marble cities of the dead, shadowed by stately cypresses and weeping-willows; the sacred enclosures of the temples, with their colonnades and fountains; the porticoes, expressly built for the sake of allowing citizens to move about pleasantly in hot or rainy weather; and lastly, the great baths, establishments provided with every possible comfort and accommodation to insure the health of the body and the education of the mind. [Illustration: XIV. THE PONTE MOLLE, ROME. From an etching by Piranesi.] Out of the original market-place occupying the marshy ground between the Palatine and the Capitol, the Roman Forum was gradually evolved, with temples, treasure-houses, places for foreign ambassadors, the senate-house, the court-house, triumphal arches, and historic monuments. Here was indeed the civic center of Rome, the place of religion, business, and politics. Adjoining the Forum proper were other forums, gifts to the state, purchased at a cost, in the case of Cæsar’s Forum, of $44.45 a square foot, or over four million dollars. Trajan’s gift of land alone amounted to four times that sum, and the completed work was reckoned the masterpiece of Roman architecture of the golden age.