sciebant.' The same author elsewhere relates, that when the Romans wanted a spy upon the Fidenates, they were obliged to employ a person who had been educated at Cære, and had learned the language and writing of Etruria: and in another place (lib. i. 15) he expressly says, 'Fidenates quoque Etrusci fuerunt.' The Fidenates were the constant allies of the Veientes, with whom they were probably connected by race. "The city,' says Dionysius, 'was in its glory in the time of Romulus, by whom it was taken and colonized; the Fidenates having seized certain boats laden with corn by the Crustumerini for the use of the Romans, as they passed down the Tiber under the walls of Fidena.' Livy (lib. iv. 22) calls Fidena 'urbs alta et munita;' and says, 'neque scalis capi poterat, neque in obsidione vis ulla erat.'""-Gell.

"Making the circuit of Castel Giubeleo, you are led round till you meet the road, where it issues from the hollow at the northern angle of the city. Besides the tombs which are found on both sides of the southern promontory of the city, there is a cave, running far into the rock, and branching off into several chambers and passages. Fidenæ, like Veii, is said to have been taken by a mine; and this cave might be supposed to indicate the spot, being subsequently enlarged into its present form, had not Livy stated that the cuniculus was on the opposite side of Fidena, where the cliffs were loftiest, and that it was carried into the Arx.

"The ruin of Fidenæ is as complete as that of Antemnæ. The hills on which it stood are now bare and desolate: the shepherd tends his Яock on its slopes, or the plough furrows its bosom. Its walls have utterly disappeared; not one stone remains on another, and the broken pottery and the tombs around are the sole evidences of its existence. Yet, as Nibby observes, 'few ancient cities, of which few or no vestiges remain, have had the good fortune to have their sites so well determined as Fidena.' Its distance of forty stadia, or five miles, from Rome, mentioned by Dionysius, and its position relative to Veii, to the Tiber, and to the confluence of the Anio with that stream, as set forth by Livy, leave not a doubt of its true site."-Dennis.

"When we climb the promontory of Castel Giubeleo, and look around, standing in the shelter of the old house, what a strange prospect opens before us! Once how full of life and conflict !-now, how entirely a prey to decay and solitude! At our feet the lordly Tiber winds, with many a sweeping curve, away to Rome, which bristles in the horizon with its domes and towers. It is hardly possible

to imagine that two hundred thousand human beings are living and moving two leagues off. As we turn the eye northwards not a creature

is seen, not a single habitation of man. Still, how memory peoples the waste! That stream, which, marking its devious valley with a line of bare wintry trees, enters the Tiber opposite to the marshy meadow under our feet, is the Crimera-name of fatal omen, and yet eloquent of heroic daring. On that stream the race of the Fabii, who had undertaken on their own account the war with the people of Veii, perished, all, to the number of 306, being cut off by an ambush of the enemy. "Further to the right, another stream, more faintly marked, comes into the Tiber on the other side. That is the Allia, a name of even more fatal sound; for on its banks took place that great defeat by the Gauls which issued in the taking of Rome.

"This scene surveyed, we descend again into the valley, and climb the lower opposite hill, which was evidently the site of Fidena. Here, as in several other places in the Campagna, we find mysterious ranges of rock-caverns communicating with one another, and opening into vast halls, now the stalls of cattle. It would seem that this was Fidena. Yet, how should these holes represent a city? Whence issued the legions that met the legions of Rome? Where are the walls-where the materials of the houses? One ruin only appears containing anything like masonry, and that apparently of the Middle Ages. Were these caves, hewn in the tufa, the ancient city? Then were the inhabitants little more than savages; then were the narratives of the historians impossible and self-contradicting. The whole matter is wrapped in impenetrable darkness."-Dean Alford.

Horace speaks of Fidenæ as if it was almost deserted in his time:

"Scis Lebedus quam sit Gabiis desertior atque
Fidenis vicus—”

1 Epist. ii. 7.

but in the reign of Tiberius it appears to have been a municipal town :—

"Hujus qui trahitur prætextam sumere mavis,

An Fidenarum, Gabiorumque esse potestas."

Juvenal, Sat. x. 99.

and that its population was considerable is attested by the greatness of a public calamity which took place there.

"The retirement of Tiberius was followed by a succession of public

calamities.

...

A private speculator had undertaken, as a matter of profit, one of the magnificent public works, which in better times it was the privilege of the chief magistrates or candidates for the highest offices to construct for the sake of glory or influence. In erecting a vast wooden amphitheatre in the suburban city of Fidenæ, he had omitted the necessary precaution of securing a solid foundation; and when the populace of Rome, unaccustomed, from the parsimony of Tiberius, to their favourite spectacles at home, were invited to the diversions of the opening day, which they attended in immense numbers, the mighty mass gave way under the pressure, and covered them in its ruins. Fifty thousand persons, or, according to a lower computation, not less than twenty thousand, men and women of all ranks, were killed or injured by this catastrophe."-Merivale's Hist. of the Romans, ch. xiv.

CHAPTER XI.

MENTANA AND MONTE ROTONDO.

(This is a delightful day's excursion from Rome, and comprises much of interest. It may be easily made in a carriage with two horses. Monte Rotondo may be visited between two trains on the Ancona line of railway.)

THE

HE ancient road which led from Rome to Nomentum was called the Via Nomentana. It issued from the city by the now closed gate of the Porta Collina, and separating from the Via Salaria, proceeded almost in a direct line to its destination. The modern road nearly follows the Roman Way. It was on this side that the Italian troops approached Rome, on the day which so many patriotic spirits regarded as the dawn of freedom for Rome.

VOL. I.

"The blind, and the people in prison,

Souls without hope, without home,
How glad were they all that heard!
When the winged white flame of the word
Passed over men's dust, and stirred

Death; for Italia was risen,

And risen her light upon Rome.

The light of her sword in the gateway

Shone, an unquenchable flame,

Bloodless, a sword to release,

A light from the eyes of peace,

To bid grief utterly cease,

And the wrong of the old world straightway

Pass from the face of her fame :

12

Hers, whom we turn to and cry on,
Italy, mother of men :

From the sight of the face of her glory,
At the sound of the storm of her story,
That the sanguine shadows and hoary
Should flee from the foot of the lion,
Lion-like, forth of his den."

Swinburne, "The Halt before Rome."

Below the basilica of S. Agnese (see Walks in Rome, ii. 26) we cross the Anio by the picturesque Ponte Nomentana or Lomentana, occupying the site of the ancient bridge, but in itself medieval, with forked battlements. The green slopes beyond the bridge are those of the Mons Sacer, where the famous secession and encampment of the plebs, in B.C. 549, extorted from the patricians the concessions of tribunes who were to represent the interests of the people.

"The spot on which this great deliverance had been achieved became to the Romans what Runnymede is to Englishmen : the top of the hill was left for ever unenclosed and consecrated, and an altar was built on it, and sacrifices offered to Jupiter, who strikes men with terror and again delivers them from their fear; because the commons had fled thither in fear, and were now returning in safety. So the hill was known for ever by the name of the Sacred Hill."—Arnold's Hist. of Rome, i.

149.

Passing the Casale dei Pazzi, and the tomb known as Torre Nomentana, we reach, on the right, the disinterred Basilica of S. Alessandro (see Walks in Rome, ii. 32). A little beyond this, after passing the farm called Cesarini, the road divides. The turn to the right passes under the Montes Corniculani, of which the nearest height is occupied by S. Angelo in Cappoccia, considered by Nibby (quoted by Murray), without any authority, to occupy the site of the Latin city Medullia. It finally leads to Palombara, a town of the Sabina, once a fortress of the Savelli, but now belonging to