I Saw A Bust Of Nero In The Gallery At Florence,
The Hair Represented In Rows Of Buckles, Like That Of A French
Petit-Maitre, Conformable To The Picture Drawn Of Him By
Suetonius.
Circa cultum adeo pudendum, ut coman semper in gradus
formatam peregrinatione achaica, etiam pene verticem sumpserit,
So very finical in his dress, that he wore his hair in the Greek
fashion, curled in rows almost to the crown of his head.
I was
very sorry however to find that this foppery came from Greece. As
for Otho, he wore a galericulum, or tour, on account of thin
hair, propter raritatem capillorum. He had no right to imitate
the example of Julius Caesar, who concealed his bald head with a
wreath of laurel. But there is a bust in the Capitol of Julia
Pia, the second wife of Septimius Severus, with a moveable
peruke, dressed exactly in the fashionable mode, with this
difference, that there is no part of it frizzled; nor is there
any appearance of pomatum and powder. These improvements the
beau-monde have borrowed from the natives of the Cape of Good
Hope.
Modern Rome does not cover more than one-third of the space
within the walls; and those parts that were most frequented of
old are now intirely abandoned. From the Capitol to the Coliseo,
including the Forum Romanum and Boarium, there is nothing intire
but one or two churches, built with the fragments of ancient
edifices. You descend from the Capitol between the remaining
pillars of two temples, the pedestals and part of the shafts sunk
in the rubbish: then passing through the triumphal arch of
Septimius Severus, you proceed along the foot of Mons Palatinus,
which stands on your right hand, quite covered with the ruins of
the antient palace belonging to the Roman emperors, and at the
foot of it, there are some beautiful detached pillars still
standing. On the left you see the remains of the Templum Pacis,
which seems to have been the largest and most magnificent of all
the temples in Rome. It was built and dedicated by the emperor
Vespasian, who brought into it all the treasure and precious
vessels which he found in the temple of Jerusalem. The columns of
the portico he removed from Nero's golden house, which he
levelled with the ground. This temple was likewise famous for its
library, mentioned by Aulus Gellius, Further on, is the arch of
Constantine on the right, a most noble piece of architecture,
almost entire; with the remains of the Meta Sudans before it; and
fronting you, the noble ruins of that vast amphitheatre, called
the Colossaeum, now Coliseo, which has been dismantled and
dilapidated by the Gothic popes and princes of modern Rome, to
build and adorn their paultry palaces. Behind the amphitheatre
were the thermae of the same emperor Titus Vespasian. In the same
quarter was the Circus Maximus; and the whole space from hence on
both sides, to the walls of Rome, comprehending above twice as
much ground as the modern city, is almost covered with the
monuments of antiquity.
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