THE ISLAND OF CICERO. 195 small and old-fashioned, like the one at Cures on my Sabine estate, I was born. So that deep down in my heart I cherish a singular feeling and affection for the place: just as we read of that most cunning hero, who to see his Ithaca renounced immortality." Contadina, Sora. Afterwards the island became the property of Silius Italicus. "Silius hæc magni celebrat monumenta Maronis, Jugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet. Martial, Ep. xi. 49. As we enter the plot of garden ground behind the convent, we cannot wonder at the affection which the great orator entertained for the place. On all sides it is sur rounded by clear glancing water. The Fibrenus is lovely, with wooded banks, and abounding in trout. Through the trees we have exquisite mountain views. In spring the banks are one sheet of violets, and primroses-which are very rare in Italy. Amid the rich vegetation lie fragments and capitals of columns; a tall pillar with some Roman masonry grouped around it, stands at the west end of the church, and the crypt is supported by low massive pillars of granite and marble, evidently taken from the ruins of the villa. "It was here that Cicero, Quintus, and Atticus held those conversations which we possess as the three books 'de Legibus.' They wander on foot from Arpinum to the river Fibrenus, they arrive at the 'insula quæ est in Fibreno,' here they will sit and philosophise further. Atticus wonders at the beauty of the place, and Cicero, who remarks that he is fond of meditating, reading, or writing here, says that the place has a peculiar additional charm for him from having been his own cradle : THE ISLAND OF CICERO. 197 'quia hæc est mea el hujus fratris mei germana patria; hinc enim orti stirpe antiquissima, hic sacra, hic gens, hic majorum multa vestigia.' He relates that his grandfather possessed this villa; that his sickly father, who enlarged it, there became old in his studies. At the sight of his birthplace Cicero confesses that the same feeling came over him which Ulysses experienced, when he preferred the sight of Ithaca to immortality. He avows that Arpinum is his home, as 'civitas,' but that he properly belonged to the country round Arpinum; and Atticus now paints the lovely position of the island in the arms of the Fibrenus, which refreshes the waters of the Liris, and is so cold that he scarcely dared to bathe his feet in it. They sit down to converse further about the laws, and we prefer the sight of these three men of Roman urbanity, and of the highest education of their day, to that of the company of monks in cowls, where Gregory VII. sits by some holy man with a tangled beard, in the eleventh century, the epoch at which Rome was lost in the deepest barbarism both of manners and civilization. How Cicero, Atticus, and Quintus would have stared at the Romans of the eleventh century. "So the chattering poplars of the Fibrenus surrounded the cradle of Cicero and one still listens with pleasure to the ceaseless whispers of these quivering branches, whose leaves are as busy and talkative as the tongues of women. Yes! Cicero certainly had an enviable birthplace, but what good is there in talking of it to those who can never give one glance at this land of nymphs, of unfading flowers, and an eternal spring? Around it, what a panorama of hills, brown, or hyacinthineblue in the still majesty of aerial distance! Cicero was a child of the plain, not of the hills, and his great intellect accumulated to itself all the learning of his time, as a mighty stream receives the brooks: but Marius was a child of the mountain, born above in Arpinum within the walls of the Cyclops, and hither we will now turn our steps."Gregorovius. If we cross the river Liris, in front of the convent, by the ferry-boat-which is in itself a picture, when filled with women in their bright costumes, accompanied by their donkeys with panniers full of vegetables-we may visit, below the gardens, the ruin of a Roman bridge, called Ponte di Cicerone. Only a single arch remains. The most famous of the monks of S. Domenico was Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. "This wonderful man may often have sat under the poplars on this charming island of Cicero in dreamy meditation, but he would never have dreamt that an emperor should one day stand before his door in the dress of a penitent, and that it was reserved for him to play a greater part in Rome, indeed in the history of the world, than either Marius or Cicero."-Gregorovius. Below S. Domenico we reach the Cartiera, the papermanufactory, of M. Lefebvre, in whose gardens are some charming little cascades-cascatelle-of the Fibreno. Here, turning to the left, we ascend the olive-clad hills, by a beautiful terraced road of about three miles, to Arpino. The country is rich and smiling, and the people prosperous and well cared for. Men and women alike wear sandals, pointed at the toe. Arpino stands finely on twin hills, one summit occupied by the Cyclopean, the other by the Roman city. "There is a great charm in seeing for the first time, in the mysterious distance, a place to which belong two celebrated names, which mark epochs in the world's history, and have been known to us from childhood. Memories of youth return to strengthen the impression-school scenes when Cicero was explained, even the look of the well-worn school-book in grey paper, Cicero's Orations, above all the declaiming of the never-to-be-forgotten 'Quousque tandem Catilina.' And there before us is Cicero's birthplace."-Gregorovius. The Roman city of Arpino is entered by a gateway with Roman masonry. Near it is a tomb, which the local antiquary Clavelli describes as that of King Saturnus, the legendary founder of the city. Arpinum was an ancient city of the Volscians, from whom it was taken by the Samnites, and from them, B. C. 305, by the Romans, under whom, in B. C. 188, it obtained the Roman franchise, and was enrolled in the Cornelian tribe. C. Marius was born here, being of ignoble birth. ARPINO. "Arpinas alius Volscorum in monte solebat Hic tamen et Cimbros, et summa pericula rerum Juvenal, Sat. viii. 245. And M. Tullius Cicero, whose father was of equestrian rank. "Hic novus Arpinas, ignobilis, et modo Roma Juvenal, Sat. viii. 237. Cicero constantly speaks, in his works, of his native Arpinum. He describes its inhabitants as rustic and simple, as was appropriate to the rugged district in which they lived, but with all the virtues of mountaineers, and he applies to Arpinum the lines in the Odyssey about Ithaca : Τρηχεῖ, ἀλλ' ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος· οὔτι ἔγωγε Odyss. ix. 27. When Arpino rebelled against Pius II. and was taken by his general, the Pope desired that it might he spared "for the sake of Marius and Marcus Tullius." Arpino itself has always been very proud of its distinguished citizens, whose busts adorn its little Casa Communale. The sites of houses are pointed out which are reputed to have belonged to them, though there is no reason to suppose that Cicero lived nearer |