There are twelve obelisks at Rome still standing erect, the oldest of which is that brought by Augustus, which is eighty feet in height, decorating the fine square called Piazza del Popolo. Roman conquerors had successively enriched the capital of the world with the monuments of subdued nations, and with the spirit of art from Sicily, Greece, and Egypt. Among these, the emperor Augustus ordered two Egyptian obelisks to be carried to Rome. To this end, an immense vessel of a peculiar structure was built, and when, after a tedious and difficult voyage, it reached the Tiber with its freight, one of the columns was placed in the Grand Circus, and the other in the Campus Martius. Caligula adorned Rome with a third Egyptian obelisk, obtained in the like manner. A fourth was added afterwards. The emperor Constantine, equally ambitious of these costly foreign ornaments, resolved to decorate his newly-founded capital of Constantinople with the largest of all the obelisks that stood on the ruins of Thebes. He succeeded in having it conveyed as far as Alexandria, but, dying at the time, its destination was changed, and an enormous raft, managed by three hundred rowers, transported the granite obelisk from Alexandria to Rome. The Circi were places set apart for the celebration of several sorts of games. They were generally oblong, or almost in the shape of a bow, having a wall quite round, with ranges of seats for the convenience of the spectators. At the entrance of the circus stood the Carceres, or lists, whence they started, and just by them one of the Metæ, or marks, the other standing at the further end to conclude the race. “There were several of these Circi at Rome, as those of Flaminius, Nero, Caracalla, and Severus; but the most remarkable, as the very name imports, was Circus Maximus, first built by Tarquinius Priscus. The length of it was four furlongs, the breadth the like number of acres, with a trench of ten feet deep, and as many broad, to receive the water; and seats enough for one hundred and fifty thousand men. It was beautified and adorned by succeeding princes, particularly by Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Caligula, Domitian, Trajan, and Heliogabalus; and enlarged to such a prodigious extent as to be able to contain, in their proper seats, two hundred and sixty thousand spectators. In the time of Constantine it would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand persons to view the combats, chariot races, &c.[170]” The Circus Maximus stands on the spot where the games were celebrated when the Romans seized the Sabine women; and it was here also that the interesting scene took place between Androcles and the lion.