Ruin of the city

With the overthrow of the Gothic kingdom begins the ruin of the Italy and Rome of antiquity. The laws, the monuments, even the historic recollections of the past gradually fade from memory. The temples fall to ruin. The Capitol, standing on its solitary hill, still, it is true, displays the sumptuous monuments of the greatest Empire ever known to history. But the Imperial Palace, although enduring in its main outlines, a colossal labyrinth of halls and courts, of temples and a thousand artistic chambers resplendent with precious marbles, and still here and there covered with gold-embroidered hangings, is but a haunted and deserted fortress from which all semblance of life has passed away. One little corner alone remains inhabited by the Byzantine Dux, a eunuch from the court of the Greek Emperor, or a half-Asiatic general, with his secretaries, servants and guards. Silent and deserted, the sumptuous Forums of the Caesars and of the Roman people have already fallen into the obscurity of legend. The theatres and the huge Circus Maximus, where the chariot-races, the cherished and last remaining amusement of the Romans, are no longer celebrated, grass-grown and filled with rubbish, moulder to decay. The Amphitheatre of Titus stands undestroyed, though robbed of its ornament.