chap, xli] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 337 between the Pincian and Flaminian gates, which the prejudices of the Goths and Boinans left under the effectual guard of St. Peter the apostle. 90 The battlements or bastions were shaped in sharp angles ; a ditch, broad and deep, protected the foot of the rampart ; and the archers on the rampart were assisted by military engines: the balista, a powerful cross-bow, which darted short but massy arrows ; the onagri, or wild asses, which, on the principle of a sling, threw stones and bullets of an enormous size. 91 A chain was drawn across the Tiber; the arches of the aqueducts were made impervious, and the mole or sepulchre of Hadrian 92 was converted, for the first time, to the uses of a citadel. That venerable structure, which con- tained the ashes of the Antonines, was a circular turret, rising from a quadrangular basis : it was covered with the white marble of Paros, and decorated by the statues of gods and heroes ; and the lover of the arts must read with a sigh that the works of Praxiteles or Lysippus were torn from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the heads of the besiegers. 93 To each of his lieutenants Belisarius assigned the defence of a gate with the wise and peremptory instruction that, whatever might be the alarm, they should steadily adhere to their respective posts and trust their general for the safety of Eome. The formidable host of the Goths was insufficient to embrace the ample measure of the city ; of the fourteen gates, seven only were invested from the Praenestine to the Flaminian way ; 94 and Vitiges 90 The fissure and leaning in the upper part of the wall, which Procopius ob- served (Goth. 1. i. c. 13), is visible to the present hour (Donat. Roma Vetus, 1. i. c. 17, p. 53, 54). [This bit is known as the Muro Torto.] 91 Lipsius (Opp. tom. iii. Poliorcet. 1. iii.) was ignorant of this clear and con- spicuous passage of Procopius (Goth. 1. i. c. 21). The engine was named waypos, the wild ass, a calcitrando (Hen. Steph. Thesaur. Linguae Grsec. tom. ii. p. 1340, 1341, tom. iii. p. 877). I have seen an ingenious model, contrived and executed by General Melville, which imitates or surpasses the art of antiquity. 92 The description of this mausoleum, or mole, in Procopius (1. i. c. 25) is the firsthand best. The height above the walls (tx^v is XtQov PoAyv [not the height, but the length of each of the sides]. On Nolli's great plan, the sides measure 260 English feet. 93 Praxiteles excelled in Fauns, and that of Athens was his own masterpiece. Rome now contains above thirty of the same character. When the ditch of St. Angelo was cleansed under Urban VIII. the workmen found the sleeping Faun of the Barberini palace ; but a leg, a thigh, and the right arm had been broken from that beautiful statue (Winckehnann, Hist, de l'Art, tom. ii. p. 52, 53 ; tom. iii. p. 265). [The Dancing Faun, now at Florence, was also found here.] 94 [The six camps of the Goths invested according to Procopius " five gates," from P. Flaminia to P. Preenestina, the intervening being P. Salaria, P. Nomen- tana (close to modern P. Pia) and P. Tiburtina (P. San Lorenzo). He does not vol. iv. — 22
