still remaining, and in others as many as fifteen or sixteen. The solidity of the towers is singular; they do not project internally beyond the thickness of the walls, and some of them have no more than five stones at the base, and no empty space within. The distance between them is about fifty yards. Above the parapet the towers were chambered; and being pierced by doors, permitted an uninterrupted walk on the top of the walls behind the battlements. Perhaps no place presents a more perfect specimen of ancient military architecture; its preservation in modern times may be principally ascribed to the seclusion and comparative desertion of the district."-Gells' Roman Topography.

In the turfy enclosure which the walls encircle stand only the remains of a mediæval abbey-Santa Maria di Falleri, with its beautiful church, of the twelfth century, utterly ruined since the roof fell in thirty years ago, and overgrown with rank vegetation, though retaining all the delicate sculpture of its pillars and cornices, evidently constructed of materials taken from the ancient city. The cart-track which diverges from the front of the church leads to the Porta di Giove, a fine gate admirably preserved and flanked by towers. It takes its name from the sculptured head over the key-stone of the arch, though this more probably represents Apollo than Jupiter.

To enjoy Falleri properly, one must make the circuit of

the walls, which are nearly triangular, and which, on the side which overhangs the stream, rise almost perpendicular with the tufa rocks. Here and there they are hollowed into tombs and niches, while on the other side of the narrow ravine are tall cliffs full of small caverned sepulchres. In the distance beyond the broomy heights, soars Soracte, ever one of the most beautiful of mountains. Below flows the rivulet Miccino, one of the waters which Pliny describes as having the power of imparting a white colour to cattle. In the southern wall of the city is the Porta del Bove, so called from the bull's-head upon its key-stone. Falleri was a city constructed entirely upon the Etruscan model, but was built in the year of Rome 512, after the destruction of the ancient city, when it was called Falerium Novum. Zonaras, who describes the capture of Falerium Vetus, says that "the ancient city situated on a steep and lofty height was destroyed, and another built on a site easy of access." The name of the ancient city was transferred with the inhabitants, and when the town on the earlier site rose from its ruins, in the ninth century, it was with the name of Civita Castellana. The second town was erected by the Romans, but at a time when Etruscan arts were most admired and copied, and it was probably raised on or near the site of some small Etruscan citadel, to which many of the tombs in its rock-barriers may have belonged.

"This celebrated city, unlike the other rivals of Rome, has preserved entire the circuit of her ancient walls. Not one ancient building is standing within them: they have survived all that they were erected to defend. It is very fine to see the enormous masses of travertine masonry glowing in the rays of the setting sun, and throwing their long purple shadows on the bright fresh green of the spring grass and blossoming thickets. And most of all, where the walls, skirting one of the deep glens, are built down even into its depths, presenting a face of

solid masonry not less than fifty feet in height. One longs to have a painter there, to catch the warm glow of the great wall, lichened and weather-stained, as it descends into the verdure, and then into the deep shadow of the underlying ravine; then the same is again repeated, but with all the varieties of receding colour, as, promontory after promontory, the defences run up the glen; till at length a barrier of high rocks closes in its head, over which, after a belt of wooded country, rises the graceful group of Soracte, in loveliest, tenderest blue. But no painter can give us the fragrance of the spring-flowers which fills the air, nor the gushing notes of many nightingales from the balmy thickets below." -Dean Alford.

On the first of May we drove out from Civita Castellana to spend the day upon Soracte, emerging from the town through an Etruscan cutting in the rock, which is lined with tombs. The excursion is a very easy one, though when we made it the stone bridges in the hollow had all been washed away in a flood, and a man had to be sent on to help in taking our horses out and in drawing our carriage over a temporary wooden structure.

No drive can be uninteresting with such an object as Soracte before one, ever becoming more defined. Those who look at it from Rome have no idea whatever of the majestic character of the mountain as seen from this side, where it rises abruptly in the midst of the rich green plain of the table-land. Dennis compares it to the rock of Gibraltar. Ampère says that it resembles a blue island in the Ægean Sea. At first it is a sharp blue wedge against the sky, darkened by the woods with which it is covered, then it lengthens out into several peaks of sharp cliff succeeding one another and crowned by white convents and hermitages. The lower slopes are rich and green. They melt gradually into thick olive groves, which terminate in steeps of bare grey rock, white and dazzling when the sun falls upon them.

It is a mark of a severe winter when Soracte is capped

with snow :—

"Vides, ut altâ stet nive candidum
Soracte-"

Horace, Od. i. 9.

and, thus crested, it is the most beautiful feature in the wellknown view from the terrace of the Pamfili-Doria villa at Rome. But all the snow will have melted before the charms of the fresh spring have attracted visitors to Civita Castellana, and its lower slopes will be breaking into such a loveliness of tender green as is quite indescribable. Though of no great altitude, Soracte, from its isolation, its form, and its glorious colour, is far more impressive than many mountains which are five times its height.

"Athos, Olympus, Etna, Atlas, made

These hills seem things of lesser dignity,

All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid
For our remembrance, and from out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the crest hangs pausing."

Byron, Childe Harold, c. iv.

Separated from the main mass of the mountain on the Roman side, is an attendant rock supporting the picturesque little town of Sant' Oreste, which has given its modern name to Soracte. At the foot of this smaller hill is the fountain of Felonica, marking the side of Feronia, where the peasants of the surrounding districts offered their firstfruits to the great Sabine goddess, who would seem to have been identical with Proserpine.

"The most important of all the Italian fairs was that which was held at Soracte in the grove of Feronia, a situation than which none could be found more favourable for the exchange of commodities among the

three great nations. That high isolated mountain, which appears to have been set down by Nature herself in the midst of the plain of the Tiber as a goal for the pilgrim, lay on the boundary which separated the Etruscan and Sabine lands (to the latter of which it appears mostly to have belonged), and it was likewise easily accessible from Latium and Umbria. Roman merchants regularly made their appearance there, and the wrongs of which they complained gave rise to many a quarrel with the Sabines."-Mommsen's Hist. of Rome, ch. xiii.

It was narrated by Strabo, that pilgrims to Feronia, possessed with her spirit, could walk with bare feet, uninjured, over burning coals. The goddess was honoured with such valuable offerings of gold and silver, that Hannibal thought it worth while to turn aside hither, to plunder the famous shrine.

"Annibal alla au pied du Soracte piller le sanctuaire de Féronia; les paysanes capenates, aussi dévotes à la grande déesse sabine que leurs descendants peuvent l'être à Saint Oreste, offraient à ce sanctuaire