There is so much beauty for which art lovers and people like you and me turn to Italy for the models, that we sometimes loose sight of the universality of Italian artistic production. There is scarcely a department of art work in which Italy did not excel the world in history.
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Rome
In the year 134 A.D. the great Emperor Hadrian was turning his steps back to Rome after three long journeys of inspection over his enormous dominions. Never before had that Empire seemed so prosperous. No serious war was upon the horizon. The Parthian king and the Germanic chiefs were only too happy to keep beyond the Euphrates or the Rhine and the Danube, highly respectful before the disciplined power of the guardian legions. Increasing Glory of the Imperial City, All this prosperity had inevitably reacted upon the city of Rome itself. In a most literal sense of the word " all roads led to Rome," not merely the vast network of government highways and the paths of maritime commerce, but those of intellectual, artistic, and moral influence. Rome was incomparably the best market for the merchant, it provided the largest audiences for the philosopher or rhetorician, the wealthiest patrons for the sculptor. It had, in fact, become the common center and crucible for everything good and bad in the huge, teeming Mediterranean World.
The Romans first appear in true history as one of several tribes settled in the middle of the Italian peninsula. We do not know where they came from in the first instance; but they took up their abode just where the Apennine mountains sweep nearest to the east coast, leaving a fairly wide plain on their western side. Through this plain flows the Tiber in an almost north-south direction ; it is the only river of any real importance south of the Apennines.
At the beginning of the Republic, Rome was only one of the cities of Latium, and, though the most outstanding of them, she was not very much more powerful than the rest. This can be seen from the treaties that were made between the various Latin cities, by which each had the right of trade and intermarriage with the people of all the other cities in the league, including Rome. Now it always happens sooner or later in every group of individuals, or of cities, or of nations, that one becomes more powerful than the rest. Very soon it was clear that Rome would be the chief city in the Latin league. When the others saw this they were jealous, and actually gave no help when Rome was nearly overwhelmed by the Gauls from Northern Italy in 390 B.C.
In the Forum we can realize that we are in the heart of the chief city in the world. All around us rise famous structures with the very history of Rome built into their walls. There, on the north-west side, is the Temple of Concord, begun in 367 B.C. to mark the end of the struggle between Patricians and Plebeians. Above it is the Tabularium, where all the public records are kept; and on the south side the Temple. The lower parts of this building still exist.
In order to get some idea of the City of Rome, let us go back in imagination to Caesar's day and walk through the ancient streets filled with the crowds and noisy with the bustle of the metropolis of the world. At that time the population was about half a million many times greater than that of the earliest days.