H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 143 
The width at the top 1s 10.50 m., and the space between the two walls is 
filled with pieces of tufa and earth. At one point there was an arched 
conduit through the embankment. 
At the upper end there is a sudden break, due no doubt to some con- 
vulsion of nature: the name of the embankment wall (Muro del Peccato, 
‘the wall of sin’) probably refers to the fact that the builder was supposed 
to have sold his soul to the devil, or to some particular iniquity which was 
punished by the destruction of the roadway. Where the causeway 
should have reached the rock, we see, at a higher level, the cutting of a 
narrower Etruscan road descending from the east, which was cut across 
when the Via Flaminia was constructed. 
The latter then turned west and ran along a ledge of rock, on the north 
side of which is a group of rock-cut tombs with arched niches for bodies, 
the largest of which has its roof supported by two pillars of natural rock. 
The road then bears north-west, and here a mediaeval castle was built on 
the brow of the cliff to guard the passage. To the north of it is a group 
of quarries, in one of which is a rock-cut dwelling in two storeys. 
Despite the fact that it is visible from the main line to Florence (if one 
knows where to look), I must confess that my knowledge of the Muro del 
Peccato was derived from Pasqui’s notes. 
After crossing the plateau to the north, the Via Flaminia descends to 
the valley of the Tiber, which is followed by the railway to Florence: and 
here we may see its parapets still preserved beside a modern road which 
has recently been constructed along its line. A few miles further on, 
below Otricoli, it crossed the Tiber, as we have already seen, and entered 
Umbria, traversing a hilly district as far as Narni, perched on a lofty cliff 
above the river. Ascending through the town, it reached the famous 
Bridge of Augustus, one of the wonders of Italy even in the sixth century 
. after Christ, as Procopius tells us. Of the four arches by which it crossed 
the stream only one is now preserved. 
Two smaller bridges a little to the north, remarkably well preserved 
but less known, may be compared with the three bridges of the Via Appia 
a little before reaching Benevento. One of them, the Ponte Cardaro, 
formed the subject of one of Richard Wilson’s pictures, once in the Orrock 
collection, now in America, 
Many other ancient bridges are preserved along the course of the road, 
but none can vie with what we have seen; and the only other important 
work of which we shall speak is the tunnel by which the passage of the 
road through the Furlo Pass is facilitated. The inscription recording its 
construction by Vespasian may still be seen above the entrance. 
But such fine bridges were not confined to main roads; to take only one 
example, the city of Asculum, the modern Ascoli Piceno, besides its town 
walls and one of its gates, preserves two remarkable and little-known 
Roman bridges, the Ponte Cecco and the Ponte Cappuccini, which served 
the needs of purely local traffic. Their preservation is extraordinarily 
good, and so is the solidity, and at the same time the grace, of their 
construction. 
The aqueducts of ancient Rome are among its most celebrated 
monuments ; but, conspicuous as are their remains within the city and 
in its immediate neighbourhood, less is known of them at a greater distance 
than might have been expected. I have myself been engaged in the 
