CHAPTER II.

Not far from the Appian Way is seen the Columbarium, where slaves are buried with their lords; where the same tomb contains all who dwelt beneath the protection of one master or mistress. The women devoted to the care of Livia's beauty, who contended with time for the preservation of her charms, are placed in small urns beside her. The noble and ignoble there repose in equal silence. At a little distance is the field wherein vestals, unfaithful to their vows were interred alive; a singular example of fanaticism in a religion naturally so tolerant.

"I shall not take you to the catacombs," said Corinne, "though, by a strange chance, they lie beneath the Appian Way, tombs upon tombs! But that asylum of persecuted Christians is so gloomy and terrible, that I cannot resolve to revisit it. It has not the touching melancholy which one breathes in open wilds; it is a dungeon near a sepulchre--the tortures of existence beside the horrors of death. Doubtless one must admire men who, by the mere force of enthusiasm, could support that subterranean life--forever banished from the sun; but the soul is too ill at ease in such a scene to be benefited by it. Man is a part of creation, and finds his own moral harmony in that of the universe; in the habitual order of fate, violent exceptions may astonish, but they create too much terror to be of service. Let us rather seek the pyramid of Cestius, around which all Protestants who die here find charitable graves."--"Yes," returned Oswald, "many a countryman of mine is amongst them. Let us go there; in one sense at least, perhaps, I shall never leave you." Corinne's hand trembled on his arm. He continued, "Yet I am much better since I have known you." Her countenance resumed its wonted air of tender joy.

Cestius presided over the Roman sports. His name is not found in history, but rendered famous by his tomb. The massive pyramid that inclosed him defends his death from the oblivion which has utterly effaced his life. Aurelian, fearing that this pyramid would be used but as a fortress from whence to attack the city, had it surrounded by walls which still exist, not as useless ruins, but as the actual boundaries of modern Rome. It is said that pyramids were formed in imitation of the flames that rose from funeral pyres. Certainly their mysterious shape attracts the eye, and gives a picturesque character to all the views of which they constitute a part.

In front of this pyramid is Mount Testacio, beneath which are several cool grottoes, where fêtes are held in the summer. If, at a distance, the revellers see pines and cypresses shading their smiling land and recalling a solemn consciousness of death, this contrast produces the same effect with the lines which Horace has written in the midst of verses teeming with earthly enjoyment:--

------"Moriture Delli,

* * * *

Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor."

'Dellius, remember thou must die--leaving the world, thy home, and gentle wife,' The ancients acknowledged this in their very voluptuousness; even love and festivity reminded them of it, and joy seemed heightened by a sense of its brevity.

Oswald and Corinne returned by the side of the Tiber; formerly covered with vessels, and banked by palaces. Of yore, even its inundations were regarded as omens. It was then the prophetic, the tutelar divinity of Rome.[1] It may now be said to flow among phantoms, so livid is its hue--so deep its loneliness. The finest statues and other works of art were thrown into the Tiber, and are hidden beneath its tides. Who knows but that, in search of them, the river may at last be driven from its bed? But, while we muse on efforts of human genius that lie, perhaps, beneath us, and that some eye, more piercing than our own, may yet see through these waves, we feel that awe which, in Rome, is constantly reviving in various forms, and giving the mind companions in those physical objects which are elsewhere dumb.

[1] Plin. Hist. Nat., 1, 3. Tiberis, quam libet magnorum navium ex Italo mari capax, rerum in toto orbe nascentium mercator placidissimus, pluribus probè solus quam cæteri in omnibus terris amnes, accolitur, aspiciturque villis. Nullique fluviorum minus licet, inclusis utrinque lateribus: nec tamen ipse pugnat, quanquam creber ac subitis incrementis, et nusquam magis aquis quam in ipsa urbe stagnantibus. Quin imo vates intelligitur potius ac monitur, auctu semper religiosus verius quam sævus.