Excerpt from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3 of 4<br><br>Fame, the person, and courteous demeanour, of the Gothic king, excited the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated with equal curi osity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his lofty column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a. Huge mountain artificially hollowed and polished, and adorned by human industry; and he vaguely com puted, that a river of gold must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of Titus.(1) From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and copious stream was diffused into. Every part of the city among these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of thirty eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it descended on the sum mit of the Aventine-hill. The long and spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their pristine strength; and the subterraneous channels have been preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome.(2) The Gothic kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had subdued.(3) The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses, the neglect, or the depredations, of the citizens themselves and a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the statues of metal or marble, of men or animals. The spirit of the horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was applauded by the barbarians;(4) the brazen elephants of the Via sacra were diligently restored the famous heifer of Myron deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of peace,(6) and an officer was created to protect these works of art, which T heo doric considered as the noblest ornament of his kingdom.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.