take some of their titles from these sees), but with the Pope as one of this co-equal college, rather than the dominant, certainly not the despotic, head. "Of all these suburban districts at this time Portus was the most considerable, and most likely to be occupied by a distinguished prelate. Portus, from the reign of Trajan, had superseded Ostia as the haven of Rome. It was a commercial town of growing extent and opulence, at which most of the strangers from the East who came by sea landed or set sail. Through Portus, no doubt, most of the foreign Christians found their way to Rome. Of this city, Hippolytus was the bishop, Hippolytus who afterwards rose to the dignity of saint and martyr, and whose statue, discovered in the Laurentian cemetery, now stands in the Lateran. Conclusive internal evidence indicates Hippolytus as the author of the Refutation of all Heresies. If any one might dare to confront the Bishop of Rome, it was the Bishop of Portus.'Milman's Hist. of Latin Christianity.' Here Dante makes the rendezvous of the happy souls, whom the celestial pilot is presently to transport to Purgatory. sempre quivi si ricoglie, Qual verso d' Acheronte non si cala.' Purg. ii. 104. The mouth of the Tiber is very different now to that which Virgil describes : 'Atque hic Aeneas ingentem ex aequore lucum In mare prorumpit. Variae circumque supraque Aen. vii. 29. 'Les tourbillons du fleuvre, le sable qui le jaunit caractérisent aujourd'hui l'aspect du Tibre comme au siècle de Virgile; mais on ne peut plus parler de son cours gracieux, le bois a disparu et les oiseaux se sont envolés; on ne voit aux embouchures du Tibre qu'une plaine sans arbres, comme sans habitants, où des buffles paisent parmi les marécages. Aux buffles près, qui sont modernes, ce lieu devait être ainsi avant que le voisinage d'Ostie y eût fait naître une végétation qui s'en est allée avec Ostie. Aujourd'hui c'est une plage stérile plus semblable qu'au temps de Virgile à ce qu'elle était au temps d'Enée.'Ampère, Hist. Rom,' i. 193. From Porto, two miles of road, or river, lead to Fiumicino, which derives its name from its situation on the smaller branch of the Tiber, and which stands at the present mouth of the river. A row of modern houses was erected by the late Government, but have little view of the sea, owing to the sand-banks. The handsome castellated tower, with a lighthouse on the top, was built by Clement XIV. in 1773. FIUMICINO. On the shore, half way between Fiumicino and Palo, the site of the ancient Fregellae is marked by the tower and farm of Maccarese, at the mouth of the river Arrone. The marsh called 'Stagno di Maccarese' answers to the description of Silius Italicus. 'Obsessae campo squalente Fregellae.' viii. 477. It was hence that Tarquinius Priscus summoned Turrianus, a native artist, to make a terra-cotta statue of Jupiter for his temple on the Capitol.1 Pliny, xxxv. 45. 305 CHAPTER XXXVI. CERVETRI. (The best way of reaching this wonderful place is to go to Palo, on the Civita Vecchia line, by rail, and walk from thence. Sometimes it is possible to obtain a hired gig at Palo, especially if one can write beforehand to order it from Cervetri. Seven francs is the proper price, to which the vetturini agree for going and returning, but the bargain must be made before leaving Palo. The sights of Cervetri must be visited in time to return to Rome by the evening train, for the only inn at Cervetri is so utterly wretched, it would be scarcely possible to pass the night there.) PALO consists now of a tiny hamlet, with a seventeenth century fortress on the sea-coast, marking the site of Alsium, where Pompey had a villa, to which he retired in disgust when refused the dictatorship. Julius Caesar possessed a villa here, where he landed on his return from Africa, and to which all the nobles of Rome hastened to greet him. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius also had a villa here, to which several of the epistles of Fronto are addressed, who speaks of the place as 'maritimus et voluptarius locus.' Nothing now remains of the ancient town but some foundations of the villas near the sea-shore. The origin of Alsium is ascribed by Silius Italicus to Halaesus :— 'Necnon Argolico dilectum litus Halaeso Alsium.' VOL. II. viii. 476. X The Via Aurelia passed through Alsium. Even from the station, the white walls of Cervetri may be discovered under the low-lying grey hills upon the right. The distance by the fields is about four miles, but by the high road it is nearly six. The former path turns off to the right, just after the road has crossed the Vaccina rivulet, and is not difficult to find, but it is impervious in times of flood, as near Cervetri another brook has to be crossed upon stepping-stones. This is the 'Caeretanus Amnis' of Pliny 1 which is mentioned by Virgil : 'Est ingens gelidum lucus prope Caeritis amnem, Aen. viii. 597. 1 'It is the Caeritis Amnis on whose banks Tarcho and his Etruscans pitched their camps, and Aeneas received from his divine mother his god-wrought arms, and the prophetic shield eloquent of the future glories of Rome, "clypei non enarrabile textum. Illic res Italas, Romanorumque triumphos, The eye wanders up the shrub-fringed stream, over bare undulating downs, the arva lata of ancient song, to the hills swelling into peaks and girt with a broad belt of olive and ilex. There frowned the dark grove of Silvanus, of dread antiquity, and there, on yon red cliffs- the "ancient heights" of Virgil-sat the once opulent and powerful city of Agylla, the Caere of the Etruscans, now represented, in name and site alone, by the miserable village of Cervetri. All this is hallowed ground - religione patrum late sacer-hallowed, not by the traditions of evanescent creeds, nor even by the hoary antiquity of the site, so much as by the homage the heart ever pays to the undying creations of the fathers of song. The hillocks, which rise here and there on the wide downs, are so many sepulchres of princes and heroes of old, coëval, it may be, with those on the plains of Troy; and if not, like them, the standing records of raditional events, at least the mysterious memorials iii. 15. Sword of a prior age, which led the poet to select this spot as a fit scene for his verse. The large mound which rises close to the bridge may be the celsus collis whence Aeneas gazed on the Etruscan camp. No warlike sights or sounds now disturb the rural quiet of the scene. and spear are exchanged for crook and ploughshare; and the only sound likely to catch the ear is the lowing of cattle, the baying of sheep-dogs, or the cry of the pecorajo as he marches at the head of his flock, and calls them to follow him to their fold or to fresh pastures. Silvanus, "the god of fields and cattle," has still dominion in the land.'-Dennis'' Cities of Etruria.' The most conspicuous feature in distant views of the town is the ugly castle of Prince Ruspoli, who is Prince of Cervetri, and to whom most of the land in this neighbourhood belongs. The people all work in gangs, long lines of men and women in their bright costumes digging the land together. Most travellers who come upon them thus, will be struck with the rude songs with which they accompany their work, one often leading, and the rest taking up the chorus in melancholy cadences. Cervetri was called Agylla by the Pelasgi, and Caere by the Etruscans. Tradition says that the latter name was' given to it because when the Etruscan colonists were about to besiege it, they hailed it, demanding its name, and a soldier on the walls answered Xaîpe-'hail!' which they afterwards chose, upon its capture, for the name of the city. The earliest mention of Agylla is to be found in Herodotus. Its Tyrrhenian inhabitants, having conquered the Phocaeans in battle, cruelly stoned to death the prisoners they brought back with them. Afterwards every living creature who approached the spot where this tragedy had been enacted was seized with convulsions or paralysis. The oracle of Delphi was consulted how the wrath of the gods 1i. 166. |