An Etcher *s Voyage of Discovery. 281 



lofty hill, blue in the haze of the bright afternoon, with 

 massive walls and many towers. It is old Augusto- 

 dunum, once the sister of Rome and her rival, since 

 then strong in the middle ages with all the picturesque 

 strength of turret and battlement, now narrowed till 

 within the vast enclosure of the Roman fortifications the 

 market-gardener grows his vegetables, and the farmer 

 ploughs his fields. Still by the quiet river the Roman 

 wall stands rugged, rich branches hanging over it, heavy 

 and full, and striving to reach the flowing water. And 

 the Roman gate still augustly receives the traveller as 

 he crosses the bridge over the Arroux, its gray arches 

 and pilasters borne high over the mighty portals with a 

 little statue of the Virgin between them, record of the 

 faith of the middle ages, and a gas-lamp to prove that 

 the modern time has come. 



A great and wonderful Roman city, one of the noblest 

 in the Roman world, stood here on the banks of the 

 Arroux. In the circuit of her walls were more than two 

 hundred towers. She had a great amphitheatre, and 

 innumerable temples, and theatres, and baths. The soil 

 to this day is full of fragments of precious marbles from 

 the luxurious Roman dwellings. For a thousand years 

 the earth has been yielding a harvest of antiquities, still 

 inexhaustible ; columns, and statues, and bronzes, and 

 pavements of Roman mosaic. And when the glorious 

 Roman city, Soror et Aemula Romae, was utterly 

 ravaged and destroyed, there arose upon her site a 

 mediaeval city, smaller, yet not less beautiful, so that a 

 king of France called it his ' City of Beautiful Towers.' 



