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THE ROMAN EMPERORS IN MARBLE. I 1
his respective ear, until the shears met at the crown.
During this time he read in some book, and when the
wearisome business was over, did not even give a glance
at the mirror to see if the divided work of the shears had
produced a coherent whole.
Rome has many antique marble statues of Augustus,
representing him at various ages. We have now seen
him as a youth. The best portrait of him as a mature
man, as the emperor in all his splendor and honor, was dug
out in the year 1863, from the ground of the Campagna,
and now stands in the Braccio Nuovo, in the Vatican.
A walk to the place of its discovery repays the trouble.
You go out through the Porta del Popolo and follow the
old Flaminian Way over a tract of the Campagna, the
historic memories of which fill the wanderer’s soul, while
landscapes of grandiose beauty appeal to his eye. Here
lies outspread that battle-field which decided the struggle
between heathendom and Christianity. Here at the
Milvian bridge, where now St. Nepomuc, big with affected
spirituality and absurd pompousness, mirrors himself in
the river, Emperor Maxentius was drowned in the mire
of the Tiber, and with him the cause of heathendom.
The strife began near the reddish yellow rocks at the
goal of our journey, (" saxa rubral) and gradually
neared the city. Rome does not know the result yet ;
and the senators trembling, wonder for which of them
they shall raise the triumphal arch—which of them
—
Constantine or Maxentius—they shall celebrate as " re-
storer of freedom," or brand as " tyrant ;" for that ques-
tion is to be settled by the fortune of arms. At last
they see from the heights of Pincius the ancient hon-
orable banner with S. P. O- R. sink in the dust, and
the forces of Constantine, drunk with victory, rush on
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