might be profited by a study of this figure of Health.  Trajan’s Forum is an interesting little place, but it is a small show compared with the Roman Forum, which is much more extensive, and whose ruins are more varied.  The latter contains the temples of Vespasian, of Concordia, of Castor and Pollux, and others.  It also contains the famous Arch of Titus, the Basilica of Constantine, the remains of great palaces, and other ruins.  “Originally the Forum was a low valley among the hills, a convenient place for the people to meet and barter.”  The Palatine Hill was fortified by the first Romans, and the Sabines lived on other hills.  These two races finally united, and the valley between the hills became the site of numerous temples and government buildings.  Kings erected their palaces in the Forum, and it became the center of Roman life.  But when Constantine built his capital at Constantinople, the greatness of the city declined, and it was sacked and plundered by enemies from the north.  The Forum became a dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish until it was almost hidden from view, and it was called by a name signifying cow pasture.  It has been partly excavated within the last century, and the ruined temples and palaces have been brought to light, making it once more a place of absorbing interest.  I wandered around and over and under and through these ruins for a considerable length of time, and wrote in my note book:  “There is more here than I can comprehend.”

I was in a garden on top of one part of the ruins where flowers and trees were growing, and then I went down through the mass of ruins by a flight of seventy-five stairs, which, the attendant said, was built by Caligula.  I was then probably not more than half way to the bottom of this hill of ruins, which is honeycombed with corridors, stairways, and rooms of various sizes.  The following scrap of history concerning Caligula will probably be interesting:  “At first he was lavishly generous and merciful, but he soon became mad, and his cruelty knew no bounds.  He banished or murdered his relatives and many of his subjects.  Victims were tortured and slain in his presence while dining, and he uttered the wish that all the Roman people had but one neck, that he might strike it off at one blow.  He built a bridge across the Bay of Baiae, and planted trees upon it and built houses upon it that he might say he had crossed the sea on dry land.  In the middle of the bridge he gave a banquet, and at the close had a great number of the guests thrown into the sea.  He made his favorite horse a priest, then a consul, and also declared himself a god, and had temples built in his honor.”  It is said that Tiberius left the equivalent of one hundred and eighteen millions of dollars, and that Caligula spent it in less than a year.  The attendant pointed out the corridor in which he said this wicked man was assassinated.

Near one of the entrances to the Forum stands the Arch of Titus, erected to commemorate the victory of the Romans over the Jews at Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  It is built of Parian marble and still contains a well-preserved figure of the golden candlestick of the Tabernacle carved on one of its walls.  There is a representation of the table of showbread near by, and some other carvings yet remain, indicating something of the manner in which the monument was originally ornamented.