Returning, by the road, at sunset; and looking, from the distance, on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost felt as if the sun would never rise again, but look its last, that night, upon a ruined world.”Dickens.

Le Frattocchie itself was the scene of the fatal meeting (Jan. 20th, B.C. 52) between Clodius and Milo.

"Clodius était allé à Aricia pour une affaire. Le lendemain, il s'était arrêté dans sa villa, voisine du mont Albain, où il devait coucher. La nouvelle de la mort de son architecte le fit partir assez tard. A peine avait-il commencé à suivre la voie Appienne, qu'il se croisa près de Boville avec Milon; Milon se rendait à Lanuvium, d'où il était originaire, pour y installer dans sa charge un prêtre de la déesse du lieu, Junon Sospita.

"Je crois que les deux ennemis ne s'attendaient pas à se rencontrer. Milon était en voiture avec sa femme; escorté par ses esclaves, parmi lesquels se trouvaient deux gladiateurs renommés. Dans la situation où il se trouvait vis-à-vis de Clodius, cette escorte n'avait rien d'extraordinaire.

"Clodius était à cheval, suivi de trois amis, et d'une trentaine d'esclaves. Les deux ennemis s'étaient dépassés sans se rien dire. Une querelle s'engagea entre ceux qui formaient leur suite.

"Selon Cicéron, un grand nombre des gens de Clodius attaquèrent Milon d'un lieu qui dominait la route. Son cocher fut tué. Milon sauta à terre pour se défendre; les gens de Clodius coururent vers la voiture pour attaquer Milon, et commencèrent à frapper ses esclaves à coups d'épée. Ce fut alors que le gladiateur Birra, attaquant Clodius par derrière, lui perça l'épaule.

"Les serviteurs de Clodius, beaucoup moins nombreux, s'enfuirent et emportèrent leur maître dans une hôtellerie; l'hôtellerie fut assiégée par les hommes de Milon, l'hôte tué. Clodius, arraché de cet asile, fut ramené sur la route, et là percé de coups. Milon ne fit rien pour l'empêcher. On dit plus tard qu'après le meurtre il était allé dans la villa de son ennemi, qui était tout proche, pour chercher son enfant et l'égorger; que, ne le trouvant pas, il avait torturé ses esclaves; mais ces accusations n'ont aucune vraisemblance.

"La suite de Clodius s'était dispersée. Un sénateur qui passait par là trouva son corps gisant sur la route et le fit reporter dans sa maison du Palatin."-Ampère, Hist. Rom., iv. 577.

Some ruins at a short distance to the left are supposed to

mark the site of the city of Appiola, destroyed by Tarquin, who used its spoil to erect the Circus Maximus.

A little to the right are the ruins of Bovilla, whose foundation is attributed to Latinus Silvius of Alba. The remains consist of insignificant fragments of the circus and theatre. Boville was the first station on the Appian Way :"Et cum currere debeas Bovillas, Interjungere quæris ad Camœnas."

Martial. ii., Ep. 6.

The title of Suburbanæ distinguished it from another town of the same name :

"Orta suburbanis quædam fuit Anna Bovillis,
Pauper, sed multæ sedulitatis, anus.'

Ovid. Fast. iii. 667.

“Quidve suburbanæ parva minus urbe Bovillæ."

Propertius, iv., Eleg. i.

Florus speaks of Bovillæ as one of the first towns subdued by the Romans: Plutarch tells how it was taken and plundered by Marcus Coriolanus. In the time of Cicero, who speaks of it as a "municipium," it was already almost deserted.* The Julian Gens had a chapel here, where their images were preserved, and games were performed in their honour. Here the body of the Emperor Augustus rested for a month as it was being brought from Nola, and here the knights assembled to conduct it to the city. The position of Bovillæ receives an additional identification from the description which Cicero gives of the circumstances which led to the murder of Clodius, when he speaks of it as "Pugna Bovillana."+

Beyond Le Frattocchie the Via Appia ascends continuously.

"Now the Campagna is left behind, and Albano stands straight before you, on the summit of a steep and weary hill. Low lines of white-washed wall border the road on either side, enclosing fields of fascine, orchards, olive-yards, and gloomy plantations of cypresses and pines. Next come a range of sand-banks, with cavernous hollows and deep under-shadows; next, an old cinque-cento gateway, crumbling away by the road-side; then a little wooden cross on an overhanging crag; then the sepulchre of Pompey; and then the gates of Albano, through which you rattle into the town, and up to the entrance of the Hotel de Russie."-Miss Edwards, Barbara's History.

Immediately before entering the town, we pass, on the left, a lofty tomb, always known as the Tomb of Pompey. Plutarch mentions his sepulchre as being near his villa at Albanum, though according to the epigram of Varro Atacinus, quoted by the scholiast on Persius ii. 36, Pompey had no tomb :

"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet; at Cato parvo;

Pompeius nullo; quis putet esse Deus."

To those who receive their previous impressions of Albano from water-colour drawings and from the engravings of Pinelli, the sight of the place will be full of disappointment. The town consists, for the most part, of an ill-paved street a mile in length, of shabby white-washed houses, without feature, and the inhabitants have little beauty and wear no distinctive costume. All the interest of the place is to be found in the lovely scenery which surrounds it, and most lovely it is; and for costumes and primitive habits of the peasantry we must penetrate further, to the Volscian and Hernican hills. Yet, except in the building of a few better-class hotels, Albano has made no progress in late years, and is ill-provided with all the comforts of civilized life: the few there are being supplied to strangers at prices which are enormous for Italy.

LIFE AT ALBANO.

57

"Albano-a place of more than 6000 souls, the episcopal see of a Cardinal who represented his sovereign in the spiritual government of Rome has not a bookseller's shop, no sort of library for public use, no journal except sterile official papers, though a large Cathedral Chapter, seminary, and public schools, the residence of a Gonfaloniere and a governor, attest the importance-numerous hotels and rather gay caffés, announce the fashionable-reputation of this town. Under the old government, twelve convents, in Albano and its vicinity, dispensed charities, usually in the form of soup and bread, to all applicants, either daily or on stated days. Yet the town itself has always been swarming with beggars, who usually appeal to compassion with promises of so many Aves in return! The native youth of the place, seeming for the most part artizans or labourers in tolerably good condițion, spend their evenings generally, as the visitor may perceive, at the caffés playing cards."-Hemans' Catholic Italy.

But the beauty of the villas, and the variety of excursions in the neighbourhood, make Albano the most enchanting of summer residences for those who can bear the heat of Italian villeggiature. Large airy apartments may be obtained in many of the old palaces, where, in the great heat, the scarcity of furniture is scarcely a disadvantage. But those who sojourn here, will do well to conform to Italian habitsto dine early and then take a siesta, followed by the delicious Italian refection of lemonade, fruits, &c., which is known as Merenda, and sallying out in the gorgeous beauty of the evening to walk or drive in the "galleries" which overhang the lake, or in the woods towards Nemi.

"Ah, dearest, you know not yet the enchantment of a summer amid Italian hills, and you know not what it is to breathe the perfume of the orange gardens-to lie at noon in the deep shadow of an ilex grove, listening to the ripple of a legendary spring, older than history-to stroll among ruins in the purple twilight! Then up here at Albano, far from the sultry city and the unhealthy plain, we have such sunrises and sunsets as you, artist though you be, have never dreamt of-here, where the cool airs linger longest, and the very moon and stars look more golden than elsewhere."-Barbara's History.

"When the sun draws down to the horizon the people flock forth

from their houses. All the chairs and benches in front of the caffé are filled the streets are thronged with companies of promenaders-every door-step has its little group-the dead town has become alive. Marching through the long green corridors of the "gallerie" that lead for miles from Albano or Castel Gandolfo to Genzano, whole families may be seen loitering together, and pausing now and then to look through the trunks of the great trees at the purple flush that deepens every moment over the Campagna. The cicale now renew their song as the sun sets, and croak dryly in the trees their good-night. The contadini come in from the vineyards and olive-orchards, bearing ozier-baskets heaped with grapes, or great bundles of brush-wood on their heads. There is a crowd around the fountain, where women are filling their great copper vases with water, and pausing to chat before they march evenly home under its weight like stout caryatides. Broad-horned white oxen drag home their creaking wains. In the distance you hear the long monotonous wail of the peasant's song as he returns from his work, interrupted now and then with a shrill scream to his cattle. Whitehaired goats come up the lanes in flocks, cropping as they go the overhanging bushes-and mounting up the bank to pluck at the flowers and leaves, they stare at you with yellow glassy eyes, and wag their beards. The sheep are huddled into their netted folds. Down the slopes of the pavement jar along ringing files of wine-carts going towards Rome, while the little Pomeranian dog who lives under the triangular hood in front is running about on the piled wine-casks, and uttering volleys of little sharp yelps and barks as the cars rattle through the streets. If you watch the wine-carriers down into the valley you will see them pull up at the wayside fountains, draw a good flask of red wine from one of the casks, and then replace it with good fresh water.

"The grilli now begin to trill in the grass, and the hedges are alive with fire-flies. From the ilex groves and the gardens nightingales sing until the middle of July; and all summer long glow-worms show their green emerald splendour on the grey walls, and from under the road-side vines. In the distance you hear the laugh of girls, the song of wandering promenaders, and the burr of distant tambourines, where they are dancing the saltarello. The civetta hoots from the old tombs, the barbigiano answers from the crumbling ruins, and the plaintive, monotonous ciou owls call to each other across the vales. The moonlight lies in great still sheets of splendour in the piazza, and the shadows of the houses are cut sharply out in it, like blocks of black marble. The polished leaves of the laurel twinkle in its beams and rustle as the wind sifts through them. Above, the sky is soft and tender; great, near, palpitant stars flash on you their changeful splendour of emerald, topaz, and ruby.