ARCHITECTURE.) In the midst of the forum of Antoni us Pius, a little tb the north of that of Trajan, stands the triumphal column of Marcus Aurelius, covered with the sculptures of his victories, and not much inferior to that of Trajan. The only other remains of the forum are the eleven beautiful Corinthian columns of Grecian marble, now built into the modern wall of the custom house.
In the forum Boarium or market of Rome, stands the picturesque and magnificent ruin of Janus Quadri frontis. It haS four similar fronts, in each of which there is an arch of entrance, and it is built of immense blocks of Grecian marble. The brick walls on its sum mits are part of a fortress into which it was converted during the dark ages. At the side of the old church of St. Georgio in Velatri, is a little insignificant mar ble arch, erected by the trades people to the emperor Severus, who is sculptured upon it along with his wife Julia and his son Caracalla, that of Geta having been erased.
Close to this forum stands the Cloaca Maxima, the most ancient of all the ruins of Rome, and considered the work of Tarquinius Superbus. The tunnel was once so large that a waggon of hay could pass through it. All that is now seen of it is the upper part of a grey massy arch of Peperin stone, as solid as it was on the day it was built. It is now choaked up nearly to its top by the artificial elevation of the surface of mo dern Rome; but it still serves as the common sewers of the city. Close to the Cloaca Maxima, is shown the celebrated fountain of Juturna.
One of the largest and most beautiful temples of an tiquity is the Pantheon or Rotunda, built by Agrippa. In our article on CIV11. Ali C111TECTURE, we have given a full and detailed account of this interesting ruin, with the dimensions of all its parts, and we have like wise given a ground plan and accurate section of it in Plate CLXII.
The temple of Vesta is a beautiful little building, near the Tiber, of Parian marble, and having a portico consisting of a circular colonnade of twenty fluted Cor inthian columns. The French removed the modern wall that filled up the intercolumniation; but its coarse tiled conical roof resting immediately on the capitals, destroys the general effect. The circular altar built
of marble, is converted into a chapel dedicated to La Mondonna dell' Sole.
Opposite to this building is the church of Santa Ma ria in Cosmedin, built on the ruins of what is called the temple of Pudicitia Patrizia. The ruins within the church are the remains of a magnificent peripteral tem ple, with eight complete columns in front like the Par thenon. Six of the front columns may now be traced, and some of the lateral ones. The temples of Fortuna Virilis, of Peace, of Antoninus and Faustina, and of Faunas have been all described in our article on Civil. ARCHITECTURE, and most of them delineated in Plates CLIII. and CLXIV.
The church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano is partly formed out of what is considered to have been the double temple of Romulus and Remus; the first having been circular, and the second square. Here was found the marble plan of Rome which had formed the pave ment of the temple, and the broken fragments of which are fixed in the staircase wall of the Museum of the capitol.
The remains of the double temple near the Coliseum are supposed to be those of Hadrian's magnificent tem ple of Venus and Peace. The peristyles of this double peripteral temple had 12 columns in front, and 22 in depth of Parian marble, some broken remains of which are still seen. The whole was surrounded by a double colonnade, 500 feet long and 300 broad, of columns of oriental granite, with rows of capitols of Parian mar ble, the gigantic shafts of which are strewed around near Titus's arch. The platform of the colonnade, and the situation, and even steps of the temple, may yet be traced. The picturesque ruin called the temple of Alinerva Medica stands in a solitary vineyard on the Esquiline hill. It is decagonal within. It is built of brick, and stripped of all its ornaments. The remains of the temple of Venus Erycina, consisting of the octa gonal brick cella, stand in the circus and gardens of Sallust.