"This spot, where the senate had its assemblies, where the rostra were placed, where the destinies of the world were discussed, is the most celebrated and the most classical of ancient Rome. It was adorned with the most magnificent monuments, which were so crowded upon one another, that their heaped-up ruins are not sufficient for all the names which are handed down to us by history. The course of centuries has overthrown the Forum, and made it impossible to define; the level of the ancient soil is twenty-four feet below that of to-day, and however great a desire one may feel to reproduce the past, it must be acknowledged that this very difference of level is a terrible obstacle to the powers of imagination; again, the uncertainties of archæologists are discouraging to curiosity and the desire of illusion. For more than three centuries learning has been at work upon this field of ruins, without being able even to agree upon its bearings; some describing it as extending from north to south, others from east to west. The origin of the Forum goes back to the alliance of the Romans and Sabines. It was a space surrounded by marshes, which extended between the Palatine and the Capitol, occupied by the two colonies, and serving as a neutral ground where they could meet. The Curtian Lake was situated in the midst. Constantly adorned under the republic and the empire, it appears that it continued to exist until the eleventh century. Its total ruin dates from Robert Guiscard, who, when called to the assistance of Gregory VII., left it a heap of ruins. Abandoned for many centuries, it became a receptacle for rubbish, which gradually raised the level of the soil. About 1547, Paul III. began to make excavations in the Forum. Then the place became a cattle-market, and the glorious name of Forum Romanum changed into that of Campo Vaccino. "The Forum was surrounded by a portico of two stories, the lower of which was occupied by shops (tabernæ). In the beginning of the sixth century of Rome, two fires destroyed part of the edifices with which it had been embellished. This was an opportunity for isolating the Forum, and basilicas and temples were raised in succession along its sides, which in their turn were partly destroyed in the fire of Nero. Domitian rebuilt a part, and added the temple of Vespasian, and Antoninus that of Faustina."--_A. Du Pays._