Augustus did much for the architectural adornment of Rome, and his much-quoted remark to the effect that he found Rome a city of bricks and left it one of marble, was, to a great degree, true. In fact, Augustus manifested an æsthetic nature in many respects. Spence says, speaking of the arts, that “the flavor of Augustus, like a gentle dew, made them bud forth and blossom; and the sour reign of Tiberius, like a sudden frost, checked their growth, and killed all their beauties.” Men of genius were flattered, courted and enriched under Augustus, as they were some four hundred years’ earlier in Athens under Pericles, with the result that Vergil, Horace, Ovid and other poets of the greatest merit sprung forward. Rome became in this age the seat of universal government also, its wealth was enormous, its architectural decorations numerous and splendid, and even its common streets were decked with some of the finest statues in the world. Other great architectural epochs of Rome were those of the time of Trojan and Hadrian. But as evidence of the intermittent character of her art development, very little was realized, as very little could be expected under the reigns of such monsters as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. To Nero, however, we must accord some little credit in having built a very remarkable architectural composition, although undertaken for no public benefit, but to satisfy his own profligate vanity. His “Golden Palace,” built under the direction of the architects Celer and Severus, the most eminent of their time, was ranked as the most “stupendous” structure of its kind in all Italy. The palace was built after the conflagration during which Nero is supposed to have amused himself with a violin. Tacitus tells us that it was ornamented in every part with “pearls, gems and the most precious materials,” especially gold, which was used in reckless profusion. In the centre of a court adorned with a portico of three rows of lofty columns, each row a mile long, stood a colossal statue of that colossal sensualist and wicked monarch, which was one hundred and twenty feet in height. Vespasian tore down the whole of this piece of architectural vanity, restored the land which it had occupied and by which it was surrounded to the people from whom it had been stolen, and erected in its place the great public Coliseum and the magnificent Temple of Peace.