connected with the Forum by the Velabrum and the vicus Tuscus; and
more to the right below us is the Campus Martius, with access to the
city by that Porta Carmentalis which Evander showed to Aeneas. This
spacious exercise-ground of Roman armies is already beginning to be
built upon; in fact the Circus Flaminius has been there for more than
a century and a half, and now the new theatre of Pompeius, the first
stone theatre in Rome, rises beyond it towards the Vatican hill. But
there is ample space left; for it is nearly a mile from the Capitol
to that curve of the Tiber above which the Church of St. Peter now
stands; and on this large expanse, at the present day, the greater
part of a population of nearly half a million is housed. I do not
propose to take the reader farther. We have been through the heart of the
city, as it was at the close of the Republican period, and from the
platform of the great temple we can see all else that we need to keep
in mind in these chapters.




CHAPTER II


THE LOWER POPULATION (PLEBS URBANA)

The walk we have been taking has led us only through the heart of
the city, in which were the public buildings, temples, basilicas,
porticos, etc., of which we hear so much in Latin literature. It was
on the hills which are spurs of the plain beyond, and which look down
over the Forum and the Campus Martius, the Caelian, Esquiline, and
Quirinal, with the hollows lying between them, and also on the