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]