This fifth volume in The Centers of Civilization Series is intended to serve at least three purposes: to account historically for that great flowering which occurred in the Augustan Age; to describe the city in its physical and cultural development as it reached its peak: and to make the rediscovery of ancient Rome an easier process for those who today wander among the majestic ruins which remain in the midst of a modern city.

Rome was the center of the many forms of human achievement, the total of which we call Roman civilization. Many of these came into being and were developed in the...