The ancient walls, which made the whole of the Mount Palatine a fortress, still hold together its earth and its ruins. It is a broad tabular eminence, worn into footpaths which wind at every moment around broken shafts of marble, fragments of statuary, or broken and ivy-covered fountains. Part of it is cultivated as a vineyard, by the degenerate modern Romans, and the baths, into which the water still pours from aqueducts encrusted with aged stalactites are public washing-places for the contadini, eight or ten of whom were splashing away in their red jackets, with gold bodkins in their hair, while we were moralizing on their worthier progenitors of eighteen centuries ago. It is a beautiful spot of itself, and with the delicious soft sunshine of an Italian spring, the tall green grass beneath our feet, and an air as soft as June just stirring the myrtles and jasmines, growing wild wherever the ruins gave them place, our enjoyment of the overpowering associations of the spot was ample and untroubled. I could wish every refined spirit in the world had shared our pleasant hour upon the Palatine.
[7] So called in the catalogue. The custode, however, told us it was a portrait of the wife of Vandyck, painted as an old woman to mortify her excessive vanity, when she was but twenty-three. He kept the picture until she was older, and, at the time of his death, it had become a flattering likeness, and was carefully treasured by the widow.
[8] The following description is given of this splendid palace, by Suetonius. "To give an idea of the extent and beauty of this edifice, it is sufficient to mention, that in its vestibule was placed his colossal statue, one hundred and twenty feet in height. It had a triple portico, supported by a thousand columns, with a lake like a little sea, surrounded by buildings which resembled cities. It contained pasture-grounds and groves in which were all descriptions of animals, wild and tame. Its interior shone with gold, gems, and mother-of-pearl. In the vaulted roofs of the eating-rooms were machines of ivory, which turned round and scattered perfumes upon the guests. The principal banqueting room was a rotunda, so constructed that it turned round night and day, in imitation of the motion of the earth." When Nero took possession of this fairy palace, his only observation was--"Now I shall begin to live like a man."