The Roman Forum.

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victorious brother laden, among other spoils, with her warrior's scarf which she had wrought for him. with her own fair hands, and for invoking with frantic grief her affianced lord; for that very grief and invocation, was hurled to the shades of death by an indignant brother, while he exclaimed:

Hence, to thy betrothed, with thy unripened love; alike forgetful, as thou art, of thy country, of thy brothers slain, thy brother living; and thus may every Roman damsel die who mourns a Roman foe."*

While thus floating in reveries of female feelings and fortitude, I reverted to that other never to be forgotten act of filial piety; to that Roman daughter who nourished from her bosom her condemned parent; and in honour of which daughter, and of the deed, Rome consecrated a temple to Filial Piety.t

Such were the recollections of Roman charac

* Abi hinc cum immaturo amore ad sponsum, oblita fratrum mortuorum, vivique, oblita patriæ. Sic eat quæcunque Romana lugebit hostem. (Livy, book i. sec. 23, et seq.)

+ I am aware that there is much disputation as to whether it were a Father, or a Mother: also as to the present existence of any fragment of such a temple, though the church of St. Nicolas in Carcere is commonly reputed to occupy the scite of this temple, built in the Forum Olitorium, over the prisons of the Decemviri where the incident occurred. But I quote and speak of the act for the feelings it excites: for the dry, and inconclusive antiquarian discussions about the exact scite of the building I care not.

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The Roman Forum.

teristics that flashed across the brain while taking a farewell gaze of the ruin stricken Forum.

To describe the various temples all around, whose site, and appropriation are so endlessly contested, and in whose place shattered walls, and broken bricks alone remain; to particularise every mortal, and immortal object of adoration; all this I waive.

For former grandeur and sumptuosity, there is ruin and filth; for former Pagan adoration there is Christian contempt, and rejection; and shame too will even now mantle the cheek when we remember that Rome had consecrated a temple to Fraus, or the Goddess of Fraud; as well as tô Volupia, or the Goddess of Sensual Indulgence, whose effigy represented her as trampling Virtue under her feet: and when we look upon the remains of that once most splendid double temple on the Via Sacra consecrated to Venus, and to Rome, the mighty work of the Emperor Adrian, the ruins of which still bestrew the vicinity of Titus's Arch; but which remind us that the haughty monarch put to death the renowned Apollodorus merely because he presumed to criticise the architecture of the imperial pile.

Yet while these melancholy recollections o'ershadowed the mind, a bright conviction arose to diffuse its genial influence; for, as a Briton, I stood free on that very spot where erst my coun

trymen had been vilely sold for captive slaves by Romans, now when Rome, and all her pride was humbled to the dust; when, for contrast, the very name of a Briton was respected as was the former declaration "I am a Roman ;" and when to British valour and conduct, the sovereigns of Italy owe their restoration, and their throne!*

Amid these wrecks, and desolations, where man and time exhibit so plainly the fearful results of their ravages; where so little remains; and yet where around that little so many great, and good, and learned, congregate from the most distant parts of the earth, like pilgrims, to meditate, and to perpetuate the remembrance of Old Rome: one only feature remains still, and ever, as it was in Rome's earliest days, whereon man cannot impress his marks, or show his dominion: the Tiber: which still flows on mournfully, and slowly, through the same plains, in the same channels, and watering the same verdant banks. Her "yellow" waves while we watch their restless, ceaseless course inspire, with their expressive murmurings, a train of pensive thoughts; whilst deep sunk within her oozy beds, and shielded from all profane contact, doubtless she still preserves, with jealous caution, many a precious relic of her former Imperial Mistress!

*There was a market for slaves near to the Forum, and it is Strabo, I believe, who speaks of Cæsar taking as booty the produce of the Britons captured in his conquests.

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Departure from Rome.

CHAPTER XXXV.

DEPARTURE FROM ROME-HETRURIA-CAMILLUS-VEII-FALERII-THE CREMERA, AND THE FABII-CIVITA CASTELLANA SORACTE-OTRICULINARNI AND UMBRIA-CASCADE OF TERNI-THE FURY ALECTO-SPOLETO—AQUEDUCT AND ANCIENT CHURCH-GATE OF ANNIBAL-LAKE OF THRASYMENE AND BATTLE-BEVAGNA THE CLITUMNUS, AND MILK-WHITE BULLS TEMPLE-FOLIGNO THE APEN

NINES COL FIORITO-VALCIMARA-MACERATA.

WHO can leave Rome without regret? Who can quit the ancient Mistress of the Globe, whose proud monuments still tower to the skies, and proclaim aloud how great once was Rome; who can quit such, the Eternal City, famed even now as then, without reluctance? But, though time, and havoc have destroyed the material, the massive, and the solid, yet, do the immaterial, the recollection, the spirit remain; and the shades of the Fabii, of Cæsar, of the Scipios, of Pompey, of Trajan, may smile in the skies, now attained, which they sought when on earth, and know that though their monuments, and their effigies be destroyed, yet that their deeds shine bright still as when hailed, centuries since, by a grateful country!

It was early in the morning of a bright day that we took our farewell glance of the Eternal City; and, as Rome, with all her glories, receded gradually from our lingering looks, and as, propor

Camillus and Veii.

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tionately, past impressions yielded to present, we began to remember that we were again traversing the ancient Via Flaminia, and that we were now in the country of Hetruria, whose many nations warred so long with Rome; yet all of whom were fated, ultimately, to sink beneath her power, and to acknowledge her supremacy of sway.

How forcibly did this neighbourhood recall to mind the prowess, and the valour of that distinguished son of Rome, of Camillus, who, at length, after a siege long as that of Troy, humbled the proud city of Veii; and who again when he might by treachery have possessed himself of Falerii, the ́capital of the Falisci, yet spurned the traitor, and the offer, and by this very nobleness of soul induced the city voluntarily to surrender.*

But of all these once famed cities of Hetruria no vestiges now remain to point their former place; though I must add of Veii whose splendour at the time of its siege surpassed the then Rome, and whose eligible situation, superadded, prompted the Romans to propose abandoning their capital for

* While the town was besieging, a schoolmaster of the place brought his pupils to Camillus, offering them as prisoners, or hostages, naturally inferring that for their sakes, their parents might decide upon surrender. But the Roman General ordered the perfidious pedagogue to be stripped, to have his hands tied behind him, and to be thus publicly whipped back by these pupils to the town. (Livy, book v, sec. 27. Plutarch's life of Camillus.)