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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. Bovilla 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 Boville 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. 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.

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"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 condition, 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 caffe 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.

TOMB OF ARUNS.

59

The Milky Way streams like a torn veil over the heavens. The villa fronts whiten in the moonlight among the grey smoke-like olives that crowd the slopes. Vines wave from the old towers and walls, and from their shadow comes a song to the accompaniment of a guitar-it is a tenor voice, singing 'Non ti scordar, non ti scordar di me.'

"Nothing can be more exquisite than these summer nights in Italy. The sky itself, so vast, tender, and delicate, is like no other sky. As you stand on one of the old balconies or walls along the terraces of the Frescati villas, looking down over the mysterious Campagna, and listening to the continuous splash of fountains and the song of nightingales, you feel Italy-the Italy of Romeo and Juliet. Everything seems enchanted in the tender splendour. The stars themselves burn with a softer, more throbbing and impulsive light. The waves of the cool, delicate air, passing over orange and myrtle groves, and breathing delicately against the brow and cheeks, seem to blow open the inmost leaves of the book on which youth painted its visionary pictures with the colours of dreams. In a word, we say this is Italy-the Italy we dreamed of-not the Italy of fleas, couriers, mendicants, and postilions, but of romance, poetry, and passion."-Story's Roba di Roma, i. 298.

As soon as the visitor is settled in his hotel he will probably wander up to the end of the street, where he will at once find himself amid the greatest attractions of the place. Just below the road, upon the right, is the tomb of Aruns, son of Porsenna. It is a huge square base with four cones rising from it, and a central chamber, in which an urn with ashes was discovered some years ago. Aruns was killed by Aristodemus of Cuma before Ariccia, which his father had sent him to besiege: his tomb is identified by the description which Pliny gives of that of Porsenna, but it was long supposed to be the monument of the Horatii and Curiatii.

Below the tomb of Aruns, the old road to Ariccia winds through the hollow, amid rocks and trees, which, alas, have lately been pollarded. Still the glen must always be full of beauty, and is the constant summer resort of landscapepainters.

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