The townsmen of Orange, however, deserve credit for the substantial style in which they have repaired one end of it, to prevent farther dilapidation, and for the manner in which the road is diverted from it on both sides in a handsome sweep, leaving a green space in the middle, in which the arch stands. We returned to it immediately after breakfast, and our second impressions were fully equal to the first. As[25] a work of art, it is certainly worthy of one of the proudest places in the Campo Vaccino, though of course its effect is more striking in the neighbourhood[26] of the victory which it commemorates. The bas relief on the side facing Orange, would not be unworthy of a place between the well-known statues of Dacian captives, which ornament the arch of Constantine. Different as were their respective æras, the stern thoughtful dignity of the barbarian chiefs, and the spirit which animates
"The fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe,"
as represented in the battle of Marius, appear to have been conceived by the same powerful mind, and embodied by the same master hand. The same chastened energy and unaffected greatness of design which characterizes the poetry of Milton, the painting of Michael Angelo, and the music of Handel, is conspicuous in both. The bas relief which I have mentioned forms the principal ornament of the arch; but the trophies, the rostra, &c. which appear in other parts, are in a style of simple and soldier-like grandeur corresponding with its character and the achievement which it commemorates. I do not pretend to consider this monument as comparable on the whole to the arch of Constantine; but still it is of a very different school of art from that which produced the arch of Severus. On the bas relief representing Marius's victory, one might fancy the most high born and athletic of Achilles's Myrmidons in the full "tug of war;" whereas the swarms of crawling pigmies which burlesque the triumph of Severus might be supposed the original Myrmidon rabble, just hatched, as the fable reports, from their native ant-hills, and basking in the sun like so many tadpoles.
[Footnote 26: Marius's victory is said to have been gained near Aix (Aquæ Seætiæ).]