Rome had become depopulated; men ceased to repair the ruins left by fire and sword; the edifices which by their very immensity had become useless were utterly neglected, allowed to crumble and fall.

And then, too, the new religion everywhere hunted down the old one, stole its temples, overturned its gods.

Earthly deposits probably completed the disaster--there were, it is said, both earthquakes and inundations--and the soil was ever rising, the alluvia of the young Christian world buried the ancient pagan society.
And after the pillaging of the temples, the theft of the bronze roofs and marble columns, the climax came with the filching of the stones torn from the Colosseum and the Theatre of Marcellus, with the pounding of the statuary and sculpture-work, thrown into kilns to procure the lime needed for the new monuments of Catholic Rome.
It was nearly one o'clock, and Pierre awoke as from a dream.

The sun-rays were streaming in a golden rain between the shiny leaves of the ever-green oaks above him, and down below Rome lay dozing, overcome by the great heat.

Then he made up his mind to leave the garden, and went stumbling over the rough pavement of the Clivus Victoriae, his mind still haunted by blinding visions.