The view in this part of the Forum, looking down from the Antonine Temple, is most striking and suggestive.  It reveals some of the grandest objects of ancient Rome.  Immediately beyond is the hoary old church of SS.  Cosma e Damiano, with mosaics of the sixth century on its tribune, built out of three ancient temples, as Dr. Parker has clearly proved—­the round Temple of Romulus Maxentius, the Temple of Venus, and the Temple of Rome.  The south wall of this last-mentioned temple, built of huge square blocks of tufa, to which the marble plan of Rome was fastened by metal hooks, may still be seen in the church; and it is interesting as being the last pagan temple which remained in use in Rome.  Here was the last struggle of paganism with the unbelief which itself inspired.  The gods of the Pantheon had lost all significance.  The worship of abstract qualities, such as Concord and Victory, or of the personification of a local providence in the city of Rome itself, could not satisfy the longing of the human soul.  As religion decayed the worship of the gods was superseded by the worship of the emperor.  Their statues were decapitated and the head of the emperor was placed upon them.  On the statue of Olympic Jove appeared the bust of the contemptible Caligula; and this incongruous adaptation represented the change of the popular faith from its former heavenly idealisations to the most grovelling fetish worship of the time.  This deification of the emperors avenged its terrible blasphemy by the sublime wickedness of those who were so raised above humanity.  Here, in this last pagan temple of Rome, converted into one of the earliest Christian churches, we see the darkness and despair of the heathen world preparing for that joyful morning light of Christianity which has transferred the faith of mankind to foundations which can never more be shaken.  Immediately beyond in the background are the huge gloomy arches of the Basilica of Constantine, fretted with coffers, suspended in mid-air for upwards of sixteen centuries, in defiance of the laws of gravity and the ravages of time and of human destroyers, taken as a model for churches by Roman architects, though built originally for a law court.  In front is the Arch of Titus, with its well-known sculptures of the spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem, spanning the highest point of the Via Sacra.  And closing up the view is the grandest ruin in the world, the stupendous broken circle of the Colosseum, rising tier above tier into the blue sky, burnt deep brown by the suns of ages, holding the spectator breathless with wonder, and thrilling the mind with the awful associations connected with it.