desirable, if time be of importance, moreover, it delivers one from the swarm of would-be ciceroni who pounce upon the stranger. The inn (Unione) at Cori is no bad resting-place, and is equal to considerable emergencies.

Virgil and Diodorus speak of Cori as a colony from Alba Longa. Pliny asserts that it was founded by the Trojan Dardanos. It was certainly one of the thirty cities of the Latin League in B.C. 493, and Livy speaks of it as in the enjoyment of municipal rights during the second Punic war. During this war it is mentioned as one of the rebellious cities which refused to contribute the necessary supplies, for which it was condemned to a double tribute of men to the Roman army. It was taken and sacked in the wars of Marius and Sulla, but became a municipal town under Augustus. The restorations seen there in opus incertum' are probably those of Sulla. Propertius and Lucan describe it as totally ruined. In the thirteenth century the Conti gave it a castle.

There are few places in the neighbourhood of Rome which have so many or such fine remains of antiquity as Cori. In mounting to the upper town (Cori a monte)-for an olive-grove divides it-three distinct girdles of its ancient walls may be traced. The first, in the lower town, built of polygonal blocks, has the interstices filled up with smaller stones from the stream-beds; the second, which rises near S. Oliva, and flanks the road leading to the Arx, has polygonal blocks alone, carefully fitted; and the third, at the top of the hill (enclosing the Arx) is still polygonal, but of ruder construction. Behind some wretched houses (Piazza del Salvatore) are two columns still standing, with beautiful Corinthian capitals, a fragment of the portico of the prostyle Temple of Castor and Pollux, as is proved by still legible inscriptions. A capital of the same temple is before a house-door a little further up the ascent. The adjoining house to this temple is called the Palace of Pilate, or the Curia. On the top of the hill (Capitolium) stands the modern church of S. Pietro, where the font (in the first chapel on the right) is sustained by a beautifully sculptured marble altar, adorned with rams' heads, called locally the Altar of the Sun. Behind the church is a small garden, where we find entire the Doric tetrastyle portico of the Temple of Minerva, generally known as the Temple of Hercules. The columns are of travertine, originally stuccoed and painted. On the door of the Cella, in opus quadratum, occurs the dedicatory inscription with the names of the Duumviri, L. Turpilius and Marcus Manlius. Here was found the figure of Minerva which now stands under the Senators' palace on the Roman Capitol. The ruin is picturesque, and is grandly situated on a terrace facing Circeo

"Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook

The never-ending fen.'

Raffaelle made a sketch of it, which is still extant.

As we sat

to draw here, the children, who were vainly locked out by the Sacristan, and climbed after us over the wall, got pieces of stone for blocks, and sticks for pencils, and imitated every line we made.

Half way up the hill is the beautiful old convent of S. Oliva, whose shrine is in the crypt of Anagni. She was a holy maiden of Cori, to whom the Virgin appeared in 1521. Her cloister, with two-storeys of Renaissance arches, very picturesque and containing an old well, is now a museum. The body of the church has a ceiling representing scenes of Old and New Testament story. In the apse is the Coronation of the Virgin, perhaps by a pupil of Pinturicchio. The aisle of the church, a labyrinth of columns of different sizes and designs, is shown as the Temple of Jupiter. From above this convent can be surveyed the second line of walls flanking the street which leads up to the arx. The third line dominates the road. The temples of Cori are all attributed to Sulla. Outside the other lower gate of the town, Porta Ninfesina, on the Norba side, is the fine Roman bridge, Ponte alla Catena, built of squared blocks of tufo, spanning the deep and bosky Fosso dei Picchionni, overhung by quaint old houses, and commanding a splendid view of the walls.

Norba (1450 ft.) and Norma (Locanda della Fortuna) are six miles from Cori, and can be reached only on foot or on muleback without making an immense detour. A steep and stony way leads up the hill-side from near the Ponte alla Catena. The olive-gardens beside it are fringed with blue iris-gigli Italians call them. The path emerges on the steep of the mountain, and clambers along with precipices above and below, amid the wildest scenery. All around are grey rocks, with grass shooting between, on which the flocks of goats pasture, whose shepherds, clad in goatskins, are the only human beings we meet here. Hawks circle overhead. It is a vast view over what looks like a boundless plain, for all the undulations and sinuosities of the country are lost to us at this great height. The village which glitters between us and the sea is Cisterna (Albergo della Posta), often said to be 'the Three Taverns' of S. Paul, though this is more correctly placed at the Civitona (S. Gennaro). Here is one of the chief residences of the Caetani, Dukes of Sermoneta. At length Sermoneta comes in sight on the top of a precipice, and then Norma. Then the ancient Norba, now often called Civita la Penna d'Oro, one of the earliest of the Roman colonies, rises on the right. It has been a ruin ever since the time of Sulla, when it was betrayed into the hands of his general, Lepidus, and the garrison put themselves and the inhabitants to the sword. It was not restored. A Roman colony was then planted there. It must have been a powerful fortress, for the polygonal walls are seven thousand feet in circuit, forming an irregular octagon, and the blocks of which they are built, and on which time has failed to make any impression, are often ten feet in length. The gates may be traced, and an inner series of walls surrounding the citadel. The Porta Grande, on the S.E. side, is 6 m. wide and 8 m. high, and is defended by a round tower. From this gate we may walk on to the Loggia or square tower forty feet high, and thence we continue to the Testa di Bove, or North Gate, and make round to the Porta Romana,