cities.

How far the suburbs stretched, or precisely how far Rome proper
extended, in the days of Nero, is no easy matter to decide. We shall
in all probability be near the mark if we accept the line of the later
wall of Aurelian as practically the limit of what might be included in
the "Metropolitan Area." The total circumference of the whole city
would be about twelve English miles, a circuit which fell somewhat
short of that of Alexandria and probably of Antioch, although in
actual importance these cities took but the second and third rank
respectively.

Some parts within this line were thickly inhabited, in some the houses
must have been but sparse. Particularly along the upper slopes of the
hills--of the Pincian, Quirinal, Esquiline, Caelian, and
Aventine--were the spacious houses and gardens of the wealthy. The
Palatine was almost, though not completely, monopolised by the
emperors' palaces and sundry temples. The Campus Martius was mostly a
region of public buildings and grounds for promenade and exercise,
although some of the finest shops stood very close to where they stand
to-day, in that Flaminian Way which is now called the Corso of
Humbert. On one side below the Palatine Hill, space was taken up by
the vast Circus or racing-ground; on the other lay the public places
known as the Fora. It was left for the poorer inhabitants to crowd
themselves into the valleys of the town, either between the Forum and
the spurs of the several hills which trend towards the centre--up
under Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, or Caelian--to the left behind the
buildings as you now go from the bottom of the Forum to the Colosseum;
or between the Forum and the Tiber in the low-lying ground called the
Velabrum and there-abouts; or else across the river in that