CHAPTER II.

Ir takes some time for one to become accustomed to the thought that he is in Rome. To be actually living within its walls—to be treading on the same spot where the old consuls walked-where the Scipios and Cæsars played that mighty game which bequeathed their names to all posterity--this is the fulfilment of our early dreams which it is for a long while difficult to realize. We find ourselves insensibly exclaiming, "this is Rome !" as if these little words contained a meaning we were unable fully to grasp, and which we were endeavoring therefore to impress upon our minds. And these feelings are natural. Servius Sulpicius, "the Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind," could be won from a remem. brance of his own griefs, by a sight of the time-worn ruins of ancient days. As he gazed upon Megara and Ægina, Cornith and the Piræus, he forgot his private sorrows, merging all other feelings in his sympathy for fallen greatness.* May not we then, wanderers from a distant continent, of whose very existence the old Roman was ignorant, when we stand for the first time in the home of his ancient glory, feel as if haunted by a memory of the mighty deeds which have been there achieved?

Our first object was to gain a clear knowledge of the situation of Rome and the localities of the surrounding country. This morning, therefore, we took our way through the

Corso, (or Via Lata,) passing the beautiful columns of Trajan and Antoninus, with the spiral line of sculpture winding from the base to the capital of each. They are perfect, except that the statues of the emperors have been removed, and those of St. Peter and St. Paul substituted in their place. At the distance of a hundred aad twenty feet from the ground it is of course impossible to distinguish an apostle from an emperor, although the former seems very much out of place above these sculptured representations of eastern wars and heathen sacrifices. We ascended to the Capitol, and, from the lofty tower of the Palace of the Senator, beheld the country spread out around us like a panorama. It was a clear and beautiful day, so that in the transparency of an Italian atmosphere, the most distant points were easily visible. But where on the wide earth can a single spot be selected, which will command a view of so much historical interest! The Capitoline hill stands between the ruins which remain of old Rome and the new city which has sprung into being on the other side-between the ancient Capitol of the Republic and the Empire, and the modern city of the Popes, which has grown up in the last few centuries. It seems therefore to look down, as it were, upon the living and the dead. On the one hand stand lonely and grand those majestic ruins—the Forum, with the lofty pillars of its temples-the Coliseumthe triumphal arches of the Emperors-all, indeed, which eighteen centuries of war and rapine have left us. Their venerable forms bear not alone the furrows of age, but are marked also by the traces of destruction and Gothic violence. We turn from them, and on the other hand are the narrow crowded streets, and faintly there ascend to us the tumult and noise of busy life among the thousands who have inherited the name of Roman, without being heirs to any of the stern virtues which distinguished their ancestors.

Let us then place ourselves for an hour on this hill, and "begetting the time again" out of the recollections of histo

ry, summon back the two thousand years which have gone. On this spot stood the humble cottage of Romulus, long preserved with pious care as a relic of their rude forefathers. Here and on the neighboring Palatine Mount were gathered his little band of colonists, while the surrounding hills were yet tangled wildernesses of trees, and the low grounds were marshes formed by the overflow of the Tiber. About their habitations they had erected a wall, which, if we credit the traditionary stories of Livy, could have offered but little resistance to the many enemies who lived almost at their gates. Years went by, and one hostile nation after another was conquered, and sometimes, as in the case of Alba, the population removed and incorporated among the victors. Thus the city grew, and extended over "the Seven Hills," whose outline we can yet easily trace, though the accumulation of soil in the valleys has much diminished their height. It was not however till the days of Aurelian that it attained its extent, and by him the walls were erected the same in circumference that they are at this day. Then too the ancient Campus Martius was taken in, which from the time of Servius Tullius had been without the city. Where the Roman youth had been for ages accustomed to practice their martial exercises, Augustus commenced the erection of magnificent buildings. The population has since travelled northward, and gradually encroached upon it, until now it is the most thickly settled district.

Thus it is that the old landmarks connect the past with the present, and ancient Rome was the same in the circuit of its vast and antique walls that the city is now. Yet within them how different does every thing appear! The population has gradually diminished, until it has become thinly scattered over this wide space. Look over it, and you behold wild fields mingled with its habitations, and here and there grassy lanes winding among ruins, or some hill-top rising up lonely and bare, apparently deserted by the foot of man.

The "yellow Tiber" sweeps onward, among hoary monuments which bend over its waters. Heathen temples and the domes of Christian churches-the stately palaces of her ancient nobility, with around them garden terraces rising one above the other, glittering with pillars and statues, on whose snowy whiteness the climate produces no change-smiling orange groves, their rich green and gold gleaming in the sunshine the tall cypresses, with their dark foliage—the stone pines with their broad flat tops, so oriental in appearance— and, diffused over all, the many tinted, colored atmosphere of this delicious clime-such is Rome as we gaze upon it to-day.

We said in the last chapter that the Campagna encircled the city, and from the elevated place on which we stood, we saw its flat unbroken surface stretching out, until it was bounded, like the frame of some mighty picture, by the Sabine hills about sixteen miles distant. It is a waste of fern, with here and there a withered pine tree breaking the dull uniformity; yet generally treeless, and often shrubless. The roads of ancient Rome-such, for example, as the Appian way-pass over it, lined with the remains of tombs, which, though now in ruins, are so beautifully picturesque, that they are the admiration of the painter, and form always the finest feature in his landscape. At a distance, too, may be seen the long line of arches of the Claudian aqueduct, the most massive ruin without the walls. But from the surface of the ground, the noxious malaria is constantly rising, and malignant sickness cuts down the shepherds who have made their home in the old ruined tombs.

And yet it is evident that this dreary waste must once have been covered with cities, and inhabited by a busy population. Among the fifty nations enumerated by Pliny as belonging to Latium in an early day, and which had entirely disappeared, he places no less than thirty-three towns within the compass of what are now the Pontine marshes.* The

Hist. Nat. iii. 5.