INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



103 



And from being the strongest city of 

 her district, and then of her whole coun- 

 try, Rome naturally expanded until she 

 dominated all the world of her time. 

 One of her mightiest weapons was her 

 malleability, her willingness to learn of 

 others, even though her inferiors. So 

 she progressed swiftly, irresistibly, origi- 

 nating here, improving there, experiment- 

 ing yonder, with the result that the ichor 

 flowed from her sturdy veins through- 

 out the whole world in inspiration and 

 example. 



The charming legend of the beginnings 

 of Rome is quaintly illustrated by the fa- 

 mous bronze figure known as the Capito- 

 line Wolf. For the benefit of visitors to 

 the museum, let me say that the wolf is a 

 very ancient beast, but the twins so naive- 

 ly attached to her are modern additions. 

 The archaeologists, alas, no longer permit 

 us to believe the legend, or that the town 

 took its name from one of the twins. 



Tiber has always been an unruly and 

 turbulent stream ; but the sophisticated 

 descendants of the early Romans — who 

 sought to appease his anger by sacri- 

 fices and rich gifts — have restrained him 

 within massive walls. From a height the 

 river looks a huge walled fosse, as if one- 

 half the city were protecting itself against 

 the other. The bridges that leap the 

 tawny flood in noble arches of gleaming 

 limestone and ruddy brick and dark 

 metal — throbbing by day with pedestrians 

 and vehicles and sparkling of an evening 

 with their golden lights — give a curiously 

 different effect : that of stitches binding 

 together the edges of the great gash. 



At first Roman genius concerned itself 

 only with useful works, such as sewers, 

 bridges, viaducts. The Cloaca Maxima, 

 the great sewer that still drains the 

 Forum into the Tiber, is probably the 

 oldest true arch in Europe, and testifies 

 both to the Romans' study of Etruscan 

 models and to their skill as architectural 

 engineers. And what aqueducts they 

 built — simple, grand, splendid ! Witness 

 the towering Acqua Claudia, 45 miles 

 long, that comes striding over the low, 

 flat Campagna like a giant on stilts — a 

 hundred feet high in places. Water was 

 something every Roman community en- 

 joyed by right of citizenship. 



Ancient Rome is said to have consumed 

 no less than 340,000,000 gallons of water 

 a day; and one of the most noticeable 

 features of the modern town is the prod- 

 igal effervescence of its water, gushing 

 from fountains of every conceivable size 

 and design. The Trevi is the most mag- 

 nificent in the city, its water — called 

 Acqua Vergine, Virgin Water, because of 

 its purity — the finest. The old Roman 

 baths took a lot of water. The splendid 

 Thernae built by the degenerate Emperor 

 Caracalla had accommodations for six- 

 teen hundred bathers. Beside the baths 

 proper, the establishment included within 

 its area, of about a quarter of a mile 

 square, a gymnasium, athletic field, li- 

 brary, and even a race track. Its ruins 

 tower above the plain today like some 

 mountain blasted by Nature. 



"ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME" 



The time, the skill, the money the Ro- 

 mans put into their highways — among the 

 most remarkable of all their engineering 

 works — are almost incredible. No less 

 than eleven of these great arteries radi- 

 ated from the city — "all roads lead to 

 Rome," runs the ancient proverb. The 

 most famous, the Via Appia, was built in 

 312 B. C. It was kept in constant repair 

 until the Middle Ages, and still connects 

 Rome and Brindisi, a distance of 366 

 miles (see page 306). 



Though no burials were permitted in 

 Roman cities, it comes as a surprise to find 

 the finest roads lined with the ruins of all 

 sorts of tombs ; stranger yet to find that 

 in medieval times the most magnificent of 

 the tombs were turned into strongholds 

 and crowned with battlements. The old- 

 est and handsomest of the tombs on the 

 Appian Way is the enormous circular 

 mausoleum of the Lady Caecilia Metella — 

 more than 90 feet in diameter — with a 

 frieze of flowers and skulls of oxen. 



Equally impressive, though not a 

 stronghold, is the slender, graceful, pyra- 

 midal tomb of Sir Caius Cestius, 116 feet 

 high, which stands just outside the Ostian 

 Gate, whence St. Paul emerged on his 

 way to martyrdom. We probably never 

 should have heard of Sir Caius but for 

 this pyramid ; the egotism of men some- 

 times lives after them. 



