The first Republican well I explored contained Pieces of reticulate wall-facing and of vases, dolia and amphora; a beautiful little marble head, Greek, and in date about 475 B.C.; one-handled jugs, a wooden flute lined with bone, cylices, and an Etruscan patera with an inscription scratched on it; a hammer and a hatchet, in whose rusty incrustations were embedded the leaves and seeds of trees, which on examination proved to be those of a laurel and willow; a tortoise shell, snail shells, and skeletons of weasels, which were the common Roman domestic animal before the introduction of the cat from Egypt. At the bottom were, seemingly, the contents of a butcher's shop: knives with broad blade and wooden handle, a taxidermist's knife made of a rib bone, a piece of chestnut wood, which may be either a table for cutting upon or part of a round cover, a well-worn whetstone, and a beautiful series of stone weights.

All these things together form a record of the life of the house and neighbourhood to which the well belonged. They prove the importation into Rome of pre-Pheidian statuary. They show what kinds of trees grew near at hand, and perhaps the stock-in-trade of a Roman butcher. The contents of any well are not of course subject to an exact chronological order, but there is a sense in which they may be considered an integral part of stratigraphic exploration. A careful study of all that is found in the series throws light which we cannot afford to neglect on the remains contained în archæological strata. This adds greatly to our knowledge of the chronology of those strata, and of the gradual raising of the ground to which they bear witness. The wells may be said to illustrate the life of the people from day to day, and the strata the progress and cumulative result of that life.

Stratigraphic examination, then, illustrates the character and manner of living of those whose successive generations left their traces on the ground they trod, and in the drains and wells they used. In the second place it forms a ladder, so to speak, by which we can ascertain the age of monuments found upon or under a certain stratum. Thirdly, when repeated in many typical instances, it furnishes statistics, which allow of the discovery of unchanging laws, thus making of archæology an exact deductive science. Further analysis shows what natural material the primitive inhabitants of a place had at their disposal, and so forms a basis for distinguishing between subsequent improvements in its use, and its continued employment in a primitive condition as sanctified by tradition.

Thus in the earlier strata of the Forum, lower than the foundations of its most ancient buildings, we find continually, and exclusively, fragments of primitive vases (aula) shaped out of clay, which is full of augitic crystals, and of other detrita of tufa washed

At higher, later, levels we

down from the Palatine or Capitol. still find fragments made of the same clay, although with them are pieces of Etruscan bucchero, or of proto-Corinthian or Chalcidic vases and others brought from Samos or Rhodes, and of local pottery made of clay which has been refined and improved. The name of impasto has been given to the coarser pottery, but is in this case a misnomer. Let us rather call it 'Vasa Numæ,' a name given by the Romans themselves to some of their sacrificial pottery, and assuredly rather to its more primitive than to its more modernised forms. The Latin poets of the first century of the Empire describe vases antiquated both in material and in shape as used in many rites. The vessels of the Vestal Virgins were made by special fictores. The Arval Brethren attached so much sanctity to the pottery used in their ceremonial that they threw it away down the hill on which they met, after each occasion, to preserve it from the desecration of subsequent use. No archæological theory can be stated as a proven fact until established by the constant and uncontradicted repetition of phenomena, but the name Vasa Numæ, taken in conjunction with these traditions, does suggest a useful working hypothesis, which is, that vases of unrefined clay found in a stratum which also contains pottery of a later stage of industrial development are vases made for ritual use; the coarse impure clay of which they are formed being chosen in accordance with religious tradition, uninfluenced by the improvements already introduced in preparing it. Such an hypothesis may be the first step towards the establishment of an enduring and useful theory.

It remains to be seen whether it will be verified by technical examination and analysis of the Vasa Numa. They are all made of clay in its naturally impure state. But, if we classify them logically, we shall find that we can divide them according as they have been formed on a wheel or by hand, or baked at an open fire, or in an oven; that, moreover, some may be distinguished by their rough or their delicate surface, or by being lined with an applied coating of clay. Again, they may have individual characteristics, such as the pentagonal mark, or the letter A (perhaps Antiquo'), scratched on the bottom of a pot. In classifying the Vasa Numæ we may make use of the most elementary logic, the 'ars artium,' which leads from the known to the unknown-not indeed in order to prove anything, but to control the proof of the hypothesis with which we set out. But do not let us be afraid to leave hypotheses as such. If rationally conceived they are a just substitute for theories which it may be beyond our power, in the present state of our knowledge, to establish.

Logical classification helps us to eliminate irrelevant details. It also leads to the recognition of what Sir John Herschel called 'residual phenomena.' These no science can afford to overlook; we owe

to them some of the greatest of discoveries, especially in astronomy. In exploring the Lapis Niger I discarded several provisional hypotheses, but the study of one residual phenomenon proved to be of great importance. I made thirty excavations under the monuments which are covered by the Stone, and, while doing so, I was struck by the incompatibility of their hydrostatic level with that of the so-called Cloaca Maxima, 'the work of the Tarquins,' and was thus forced to regard as more than doubtful one of the facts of Roman topography hitherto supposed to be most firmly established. When I examined the inside of the Cloaca my doubts increased. They became certainty when I laid the outside bare, just at its curve at the foot of the Argiletum, for it was found to be constructed of blocks taken from Republican buildings. In this case the relative levels of the monuments and the Cloaca were but a residual phenomenon. It would have been easy, and perhaps convenient, to disregard it, for the inevitable solution of the problem was sure to meet with general disfavour. Yet, after all, the Cloaca Maxima will not cease to prove the Romans the pioneers of the ancient world in sanitary engineering, because part of a drain, which had been mistaken for it, turns out to be the work not of the Tarquins, but of the age of Augustus.

Almost simultaneously came the discovery of a more ancient drain on a lower level, passing under the Basilica Æmilia. Its floor and sides are built of mighty oblong blocks of travertine, the largest used in any work of the Romans which has come down to us. It is in the form of an open channel such as Plautus speaks of, and, as far as it has been excavated, it seems to have been roofed only where and when it was desired to build over it. It carries one's mind back to the days when a drain was but the confining and defining of the stream which served the purpose. In an account drawn up in the time of Cato of the engineering works then going on, this one is not mentioned, so that we may believe it to have been earlier than his day, since it was plainly constructed before the Basilica. It was perhaps the work of that generation, mighty in deeds and simple in life, which surrounded Cato's youth, and with which in his age he so bitterly contrasted his degenerate contemporaries. It worthily typifies Roman force of character while yet unspoiled by contact with the luxury of the East or the effeminacy of decadent Greece. The Roman conquerors of the Mediterranean may well have built a drain as though they built the foundations of a fortress or a temple, working regardless of cost in life and labour, building, as they fought, for countless generations to come. It was the patriotism which lavished

work like this on the centre of the State at home which made them almost invincible abroad. Small wonder, too, that such drains had their tutelary goddess, Venus Cloacina, whose shrine, according to Livy, must have stood close by; traces of this shrine are already coming to light, and ere long it may be satisfactorily identified.

V

The Roman historians chose out of the Chronicles such facts as seemed to themselves most striking or important, and even the Chronicles were not written by eye-witnesses. Thus, from the fourth to the second century BC, when Polybius so much admired the constitution of the great Republic and the simple, virtuous life of its rulers and generals, our knowledge of the history of Rome is confined to great political facts. It is like a view of isolated mountain tops, the slopes and valleys out of which they rise hidden in the mist. There is very little to enable us to picture to ourselves the whole landscape, to understand what the Romans cared for beside foreign conquest, what thoughts they thought and what lives they lived, what manner of men, morally and mentally, they were; still less to discover how far in all this they shared a common inheritance with nations allied to them in blood, or how far they borrowed or learned from friends or enemies. Texts, tradition, and etymology have been searched to tell us these things, but more can be learned from the remains left by the people themselves. The way in which the arts of life are developed is an unerring interpretation of national character. The greatest of them, architecture, is always the truest index to the tendencies of a people, and even a small fragment of it may be full of significance. Yet, although a little piece of a wall may teach us much, we must turn for completer comprehension to the whole series of remains of some epoch. Such exploration of these as has been suggested needs no great expenditure nor extraordinary talent, but it does require, above all, an open mind. Everything found, for instance, must be preserved, even if its value be not for the moment apparent. Nothing must be judged by the personal predilections or interests of the investigator; these are always apt to lead to the passing over of facts which either do not bear on them or do not bear them out.

The intuition which pierces the clouds that obscure the past is no magic gift. It is the result of close and long-continued observation, which becomes so much a matter of habit as to be sometimes even unconscious. Such intuition is only to be attained by those who dedicate their lives to a study, devoting their whole time and thoughts to it, and sharing often in the practical work it involves. If we are content at first to grope blindly, feeling our way dimly towards the truth, not by the light of our own wishes or of anterior knowledge of its probable nature, but guided solely by the observation of the facts, we shall at times come upon solutions of problems when we least expect them, or upon a clear indication of the direction in which they are to be found.

GIACOMO BONI.

SOME AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS OF

EUROPE

I

THE number of Americans visiting Europe every year is steadily increasing, as the wealth of the citizens of the United States grows in amount; there are comparatively few persons in that country, whose means permit, who have not, at one time in their lives, made a tour of at least a part of the Old World, though a single summer may have covered the whole of their absence abroad. With this increase in the number of Americans coming to Europe each year, there are many signs of a more appreciative and enlightened spirit among the American people toward all the European nations; many prejudices have been worn away, and much ignorance has been dispelled, by these foreign travels. The United States to-day, chiefly in consequence of the knowledge which her most influential citizens have derived from their personal observation of all the leading peoples of Europe, is in much closer touch with the world at large than she has been at any time in her history; whatever may be the future national policy, whether favourable or hostile to territorial expansion beyond the Western hemisphere, the United States will never resume the position of entire isolation which she held during the first 125 years of her existence.

The American Republic has now reached a stage in its progress when its citizens no longer feel that their country is really inferior to any other country on the globe. If, in some pursuits and departments of life, the people of the United States are unequal as yet to the peoples of the Old World, in others they are very much superior; so that, when a general balance comes to be struck, the American is sure that he has no reason to think that any inequality exists at all. If Europe can teach the United States very much on the aesthetic side of life, the United States can teach Europe even more on the practical; it is the consciousness of this fact that makes the American, visiting the European countries for the first time, approach the study of the varied conditions of life falling under his eye, in a sympathetic and discriminating spirit, which is more eager to learn and praise than to criticise and condemn.