Horace's third book seems to express the popular rumour, and in an interesting paper Mommsen[13] has stated his opinion that the new master of the Roman world may really have thought of changing the seat of government to Byzantium, the supreme convenience and beauty of which were already beginning to be appreciated.[14]

Virgil, on the other hand, though he came from the foot of the Alps and did not love Rome as a place to dwell in, is absolutely true to the great traditions of the site. For him "rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma" (Georg. ii. 534); and in the Aeneid the destiny of Rome is so foretold and expressed as to make it impossible for a Roman reader to think of it except in connexion with the city. He who needs to be convinced of this has but to turn once more to the eighth Aeneid, and to add to the charming story of Aeneas' first visit to the seven hills, the splendid picture of the origin and growth of Roman dominion engraved on the shield which Venus gives her son. Cicero again, though he was no Roman by birth, was passionately fond of Rome, and in his treatise de Republica, praised with genuine affection her "nativa praesidia."[15] He says of Romulus, "that he chose a spot abounding in springs, healthy though in a pestilent region; for her hills are open to the breezes, yet give shade to the hollows below them." And Livy, in the passage already quoted, in language even more perfect than Cicero's, wrote of all the advantages of the site, ending by describing it as "regionum Italiae medium, ad incrementum urbis natum unice locum." It is curious that all these panegyrics were written by men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from Padua, Cicero from Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in some degree rhetorical; those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called strictly accurate. But taken together they may help us to understand that fascination of the site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such inimitable expression.

On this site, which once had been crowded only when the Roman farmers had taken refuge within the walls with their families, flocks, and herds on the threatening appearance of an enemy, by the time of Cicero an enormous population had gathered. Many causes had combined to bring this population together, which can be only glanced at here. As in Europe and America at the present day, so in all the Mediterranean lands since the age of Alexander, there had been a constantly increasing tendency to flock into the towns; and the rise of huge cities, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, Corinth, or Rhodes, with all the inevitably ensuing social problems and complications, is one of the most marked characteristics of the last three centuries B.C. In Italy in particular, apart from the love of a pleasant social life free from manual toil, with various convenient resorts and amusements, the long series of wars had served to increase the population, in spite of the constant loss by the sword or pestilence; for the veteran soldier who had been serving, perhaps for years, beyond sea, found it hard to return to the monotonous life of agriculture, or perhaps found his holding appropriated by some powerful landholder with whom it would be hopeless to contest possession. The wars too brought a steadily increasing population of slaves to the city, many of whom in course of time would be manumitted, would marry, and so increase the free population. These are only a few of the many causes at work after the Punic wars which crammed together in the site of Rome a population which, in the latter part of the last century B.C., probably reached half a million or even more.[16]

Let us now descend from the Janiculum, and try to imagine ourselves in the Rome of Cicero's time, say in the last year of the Republic, 50 B.C., as we walk through the busy haunts of this crowded population. We will not delay on the right bank of the Tiber, which had probably long been the home of tradesmen in their gilds,[17] and where farther down the rich were buying land for gardens[18] and suburban villas; but cross by the Pons Aemilius, with the Tiber island on our left, and the opening of the Cloaca maxima, which drained the water from the Forum, facing us, as it still does, a little to our right. We find ourselves close to the Forum Boarium, an open cattle-market, with shops (tabernae) all around it, as we know from Livy's record of a fire here, which burnt many of these shops and much valuable merchandise.[19] Here by the river was in fact the market in the modern sense of the word; the Forum Romanum, which we are making for, was now the centre of political and judicial business, and of social life.

We might go direct to the great Forum, up the Velabrum, or valley (once a marsh), right in front of us between the Capitol on the left and the Palatine on the right. But as we look in the latter direction, we are attracted by a long low erection almost filling the space between the Palatine and the Aventine, and turning in that direction we find ourselves at the lower end of the Circus Maximus, which as yet is the chief place of amusement of the Roman people. Two famous shrines, one at each end of it, remind us that we are on historic ground. At the end where we stand, and where are the carceres, the starting-point for the competing chariots, was the Ara maxima of Hercules, which prompted Evander to tell the tale of Cacus to his guest; at the other end was the subterranean altar of Consus the harvest-god, with which was connected another tale, that of the rape of the Sabines. All the associations of this quarter point to the agricultural character of the early Romans; both cattle and harvesting have their appropriate myth. But nothing is visible here now, except the pretty little round temple of a later date, which is believed to have been that of Portunus, the god of the landing-place from the river.[20]

The Circus, some six hundred yards long, at the time of Cicero was still mainly a wooden erection in the form of a long parallelogram, with shops or booths sheltering under its sides; we shall visit it again when dealing with the public entertainments.[21] Above it on the right is the Aventine hill, a densely populated quarter of the lower classes, crowned with the famous temple of Diana, a deity specially connected with the plebs.[22] The Clivus Patricius led up to this temple; down this slope, on the last day of his life, Gaius Gracchus had hurried, to cross the river and meet his murderers in the grove of Furrina, of which the site has lately been discovered. If we were to ascend it we should see, on the river-bank below and beyond it, the warehouses and granaries for storing the corn for the city's food-supply, which Gracchus had been the first to extend and organise.

But to ascend the Aventine would take us out of our course. Pushing on to the farther end of the Circus, where the chariots turned at the metae, we may pause a moment, for in front of us is a gate in the city wall, the Porta Capena, by which most travellers from the south, using the via Appia or the via Latina, would enter the city.[23] Outside the wall there was then a small temple of Mars, from which the procession of the Equites started each year on the Ides of Quinctilis (July) on its way to the Capitol, by the same route that we are about to take. We shall also be following the steps of Cicero on the happy day September 4, 57 B.C., when he returned from exile. "On my arrival at the Porta Capena," he writes to Atticus, "the steps of the temples were already crowded from top to bottom by the populace; they showed their congratulations by the loudest applause, and similar crowds and applause followed me right up to the Capitol, and in the Forum and on the Capitol itself there was again a wonderful throng" (ad Att. iv. 1).

We are now, as the map will show, at the south-eastern angle of the Palatine, of which, in fact, we are making the circuit;[24] a and here we turn sharp to