Roman Mosaics; Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood
John Stuart Mill · en
Let us go over in brief detail the various objects of interest that
may now be seen in the centre of Roman greatness. Numerous sources of
information exist which enable us to identify these monuments, and to
form some idea of what they were in their prime. Among these may be
mentioned coins and medals of the emperors, with representations upon
them of buildings and sculptures in the Forum; a marble stone found at
Ancyra, now Angouri in Phrygia, on which is a long inscription
regarding the acts and achievements of Augustus, which is of the
greatest value in determining the topography of the city; the
bas-reliefs on the Arch of Constantine, and on the marble screens of
Trajan, recently excavated in the Forum itself, giving a view of its
north-western and south-eastern ends; and the remains of the antique
marble plan of Rome, now preserved in the Capitoline Museum,
originally affixed to the wall of the superb Temple of Rome, and
discovered in fragments in 1867 in the garden of the monastery of SS.
Cosma e Damiano. We also get most valuable help in the work of
identification from the Itineraries of the middle ages--especially
from that of the celebrated pilgrim from Einsiedlen, Zwingli's town in
Switzerland--who visited Rome in the eighth century, and left his
manuscript to his own abbey, where it may still be seen. A vast
apparatus of learning has been accumulated from the works of ancient
classic authors by the great scholars who have written on the
historical localities and buildings of the Forum, from Donati to
Becker. Nibby, Canina, Ampere, Bunsen, Plattner, and Uhrlich, in their
magnificent works have supplied a mine of wealth from which most
subsequent writers on the Forum have enriched their descriptions.