The Mentor: Among the Ruins of Rome, Vol. 1, Num. 46, Serial No. 46 — Context and Discussion

The Mentor, No. 46, Among the Ruins of Rome

AMONG THE RUINS OF ROME

By GEORGE WILLIS BOTSFORD

_Professor of History, Columbia University. Author of “The Story of Rome,” “A History of Rome.”_

SERIAL NO. 46 DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL

THE CAMPAGNA · THE FORUM TOWARD THE CAPITOL · THE FORUM FROM THE CAPITOL · THE COLOSSEUM · THE ARCH OF TITUS · THE TOMB OF HADRIAN

Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1913, by The Mentor Association, Inc., New York.

Shortly after sunset the express train, speeding north from Naples, emerges from the mountains and begins winding its way down grade. The expectant visitor to the Eternal City sees below him through the car window a broad expanse of plain, sloping imperceptibly on the left to the sea, in front to the Tiber River. It is an ocean of green, here quietly level, there billowed in ridges or headed up in round hillocks.

This is the Campagna, the broad flat belt which borders the Tiber on the left. At first sight it reveals to us its solitude. In early Roman times it had swarmed with peasants who owned the lands they tilled. As the city grew wealthy the district fell into the hands of lords, who covered it with their luxurious villas, peopled by multitudes of slaves. Still later, when Rome was declining, these villas fell to ruins, the slaves disappeared, and Malaria stalked lonely and terrible over the beautiful country she had made her own. Even now she rules it, scarcely weakened by modern progress. The dwellings of her few wretched tenants are miles apart. Herds of sheep and of fierce long-horned cattle pasture on the abundant grass, and along the well-made roads that span the plain an occasional ox-team wearily drags an awkward cart.

But the Campagna has its attractions. It fascinates imaginative tourists and draws them to its heart. Three or four together, their knapsacks filled with food and drink, often take long trips through this wild region, whose eternal quiet speaks peace to the weary mind, whose delicate, ever-changing tints of sky and field appeal to the taste for natural beauty, whose ruined villas and towns awaken historical memories of the rise of Rome from a little settlement on the Tiber to a worldwide power and a fame that cannot die.

The most impressive features of the Campagna as we view it from the car window or in a stroll along either the old Appian Way or the modern Appian Way, are the ruins of aqueducts. The one here illustrated is the Claudia, named after Emperor Claudius, who completed it. Its sources were more than forty miles distant; while crossing the Campagna the water flowed in a channel supported by a series of gigantic arches. It provided Rome not only with her best water, but her most abundant supply, amounting to more than 400,000 cubic meters daily. All the aqueducts together poured into the city each day more fresh water than the Tiber now empties into the sea.

As we view this work of great utility, we naturally wonder what sort of man was the builder. At the time of his accession he was fifty years old, and had devoted his earlier life zealously to study and writing. Grotesque in manner and eccentric in his habits, he was generally considered a learned fool; and yet he made an admirable ruler. When acting as judge he often slept during the pleas of the lawyers, waking at the close of the trial to give his decision in an equitable and humane spirit. It was unfortunate for the case, however, if he chanced to smell anything good cooking in a neighboring restaurant; for he would adjourn court to refresh himself. He was far more liberal than his predecessors in bestowing Roman citizenship on subject peoples.

To keep the city population supplied with cheap food, he subsidized and insured grain ships at the cost of the government; and his activity in erecting public works is illustrated by the completion of this magnificent aqueduct. It is a fact of great importance that the early emperors, whatever their private characters, almost uniformly devoted themselves to the public good. Personal service to the empire was their chief title to office and the basis on which successive rulers built up their power.