the opposite side of the river, reached by the road to Tivoli, turning off to the right beyond Ponte Mammolo. Returning to the Via Collatina, a tolerable road leads us over an uninhabited part of the Campagna for about five miles further. Then it descends into the valley of the Anio, which is here bordered with willows. The great castle or rather fortified farm of Lunghezza is seen on the opposite slope, backed by the purple peaks of the Sabina. This was an ancient possession of the Strozzi family, but has lately been sold to the Duke of Grazioli, one of the richest of the modern Roman nobles.

"C'est le bon plaisir des souverains pontifes qui a fait entrer quelques riches parvenus dans l'aristocratie romaine.

"Un boulanger du nom de Grazioli fait une grande fortune, et le pape ordonne qu'il soit inscrit sur la liste du patriciat romain. Il achète une baronnie et le pape le fait baron. Il achète un duché et le voilà duc Grazioli. Son fils épouse une Lante de la Rovere."-About.

There is little remarkable about Lunghezza, except its situation, but some hours may be pleasantly spent in sketching on the river-bank lower down the valley.

A pleasant walk of about two miles up the stream of the Osa (turning to the left in descending from the Castle) leads along fields and through a wood, filled in spring with the snow-drops which are sold in Rome in such abundance, to the ruined castle called Castellaccio or Castello dell' Osa, which occupies a declivity of lava on the left of the stream.

It is disputed whether Castel dell' Osa or Lunghezza is the site of the famous Collatia. Beneath the ruined castle near the Osa some fragments of ancient wall, in regular blocks, may be observed, but this is the only fact in favour of its being the site of the home of Lucretia, while Sir W. Gell,

in favour of Lunghezza, draws attention to the existence of the Via Collatina (apparently leading direct to Lunghezza),

Castello dell' Osa.

which would have been unnecessary had Collatia occupied a site such as Castel dell' Osa, which is only two miles from Gabii, as a slight turning from the Via Gabina would have led to it. Lunghezza accords much better than Castel dell' Osa with the description of Virgil:

"Collatinas imponent montibus arces.'

Æn. vi. 774.

Virgil and Dionysius notice Collatia as a colony of AlbaLonga. It was reduced into subjection to Rome in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, who established a garrison there, and appointed his nephew Egerius as its governor, who forthwith took, and transmitted to his descendants, the name of Collatinus. His daughter-in-law, Lucretia, was residing here during the siege of Ardea, and thus Collatia became the scene of the events which led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy.

"As the king's sons and their cousin L. Tarquinius were sitting over their cups at Ardea, a dispute arose about the virtue of their wives. This cousin, surnamed Collatinus, from Collatia, where he dwelt as an

independent prince, was the grandson of Aruns, the elder brother of the first Tarquinius, after whose death Lucumo removed to Rome. Nothing was doing in the field: so they straightway mounted their horses to visit their homes by surprise. At Rome, the princesses were revelling at a banquet, surrounded by flowers and wine. From thence the youths hastened to Collatia, where at the late hour of the night Lucretia the wife of Collatinus was spinning amid the circle of her handmaids.

"... The next day Sextus, the eldest of the king's sons, returned to Collatia, and, according to the rights of gentle hospitality, was lodged in his kinsman's house. At the dead of night he entered sword-in-hand into the matron's chamber, and by threatening that he would lay a slave with his throat cut beside her body, would pretend to have avenged her husband's honour, and would make her memory for ever loathsome to the object of her love, wrung from her what the fear of death could not obtain.

"Who, after Livy, can tell of Lucretia's despair? She besought her father and her husband to come to her, for that horrible things had taken place. Lucretius came, accompanied by P. Valerius, who afterwards gained the name of Publicola ; Collatinus with the outcast Brutus. They found the disconsolate wife in the garb of mourning, sitting in a trance of sorrow. They heard the tale of the crime, and swore to avenge her. (Saying, 'I am not guilty, yet must I too share the punishment, lest any should think that they may be false to their husbands and live,' Lucretia drew a knife from her bosom, and stabbed herself to the heart.) Over the body of Lucretia, as over a victim, the vows of vengeance were renewed. Her avengers carried the corpse into the market-place of Collatia. The citizens renounced Tarquinius, and promised obedience to the deliverers. Their young men attended the funeral procession to Rome. Here with one voice the decree of the citizens deposed the last king from his throne, and pronounced sentence of banishment against him and his family."-Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome.

Silius Italicus notices Collatia as the birth-place of the elder Brutus :

altrix casti Collatia Bruti."

viii. 363.

In the time of Strabo (v. 229) Collatia was little more than a village. It is only two miles from the ruins to Gabii, up the valley of the Osa.

CHAPTER X.

ANTEMNÆ AND FIDENÆ.

(This is a pleasant afternoon's drive. Pedestrians may vary the way by going first to the Acqua Acetosa (see Walks in Rome, ii. 420), and turning to the right across the hill of Antemnæ to the Ponte Salara.)

L

EAVING the Porta Salara, by which Alaric entered

Rome (August 24, 410), the Via Salara runs between the walls of half-deserted villas till it reaches the brow of the hill above the Anio. Here, on the left, about two miles from the city, is the green hill-side, which was once the site of the "Turrigeræ Antemnæ "* of Virgil, one of the most ancient cities of Italy.

"Antemnaque prisco

Crustumio prior."

Silius Ital. viii. 367.

"Not a tree-not a shrub on its turf-grown surface-not a house-not a ruin-not one stone upon another, to tell you the site had been inhabited. Yet here once stood Antemnæ, the city of many towers. Not a trace remains above-ground. Even the broken pottery, that infallible indicator of bygone civilization, which marks the site and determines the limits of habitation on many a now desolate spot of classic ground, is here so overgrown with herbage that the eye of an antiquary would alone detect it. It is a site strong by nature, and well adapted for a city, as cities then were; for it is scarcely larger than the Palatine Hill, which, though at first it embraced the whole of Rome, was afterwards too small for a single palace. It has a peculiar interest as the site of one of the three cities of Sabina, whose daughters, ravished

* En. vii. 630.

by the followers of Romulus, became the mothers of the Roman race." -Dennis.

"It would seem that the high point nearest the road was the citadel; and the descent of two roads, now scarcely perceptible, one toward Fidenæ and the bridge, and the other toward Rome, marks the site of a gate. On the other side of the knoll of the citadel is a cave, with signs of artificial cutting in the rock, being a sepulchre under the walls. There was evidently a gate also in the hollow which runs from the platform of the city to the junction of the Aniene and the Tiber, where there is now a little islet. Probably there was another gate toward the meadows, on the side of the Acqua Acetosa, and another opposite; and from these two gates, which the nature of the soil points out, one road must have run up a valley, tending in the direction of the original Palatium of Rome; and the other must have passed by a ferry toward Veii, up the valley near the present Torre di Quinto. It is not uninteresting to observe how a city, destroyed at a period previous to what is now called that of authentic history, should, without even one stone remaining, preserve indications of its former existence. From the height of Antemnæ, is a fine view of the field of battle between the Romans and the Fidenates, whence Tullus Hostilius despatched M. Horatius to destroy the city of Alba Longa. The isthmus, where the two roads from Palatium and Veii met, unites with the city a higher eminence, which may have been another citadel. The beauty of the situation is such, that it is impossible it should not have been selected as the site of a villa in the flourishing times of Rome. "The spot is frequently adverted to in the early periods of history. Servius, Varro, and Festus, agree that Antemna was so called, 'quasi ante amnem posita."—Gell.

Just below the site of Antemnæ the Via Salara crossed the Anio by a fine old bridge built by Narses in the sixth century upon the site of the famous Ponte Salara, where Manlius fought with the Gaul. The bridge was blown up during the panic caused by the approach of Garibaldi and the insurgents in 1867 (see Walks in Rome, ii. 19), and the ruins, which were of the greatest interest, were destroyed by the Government in 1874. Beyond the ugly modern bridge

* The other two were Cacina and Crustumium.