CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE INEXHAUSTIBLENESS OF ROME.

Rome is easily the most interesting city in the world. The subject is simply inexhaustible. Ampere said that by diligence one could obtain a superficial knowledge of it in ten years. Just what terms should be used to characterize the seventy pages or so that I have written, from the basis of the desultory reading and observation of only a few months, I must leave to the decision of the reader. "Presumptuous sciolism," perhaps. And, yet, though I have filled these seventy pages with what I regarded as pertinent descriptions, salient facts and suggestive quotations from the best authorities, all subjected to as much compression as was consistent with a fair statement of the particular points which I wished to make, I have restricted myself almost exclusively to one phase of the subject, viz., Ecclesiastical Rome, and have had almost nothing to say of Classical Rome and Artistic Rome.

Even when confining myself to this one line, I have found no opportunity to give you any description of the Appian Way, over the paving-stones of which the Apostle Paul entered Rome in 56 A. D. (Acts