Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1819-06-21

magnlncent: Ir0m WtlnDut the WdiiSs the
spires and column Of front of churches, and
the insurmountable walls, the bitches, the
bastions. and the "whole pomp and cir
cu,nstance of war" would lead you to ina.
CINE you would find within, the gorgeous
palaces and splendid temples that graced
the magnificent conquest of Marcellrs--
but on entering, you find narrow streets
reeking with every variety OF flth-men,
women and children, ragged, dirty and
servile, without even anatural sense of de-
cency; for there is hardly street in the
place which you can pass without seeing
one or the other Of them performing those
| offices that many OF the beasts Of the Geld
seek privacy in doing-the houses old, foul
and in decay; poverty covers every thing
as with pail, except the churches and tenn
Piles, which are here, and in all Catholic
countries which | have visited, as worthy
| of Him, (which is, and which was. and
which is to come" as the labor of man can
erect. The most splendid occupies the
site Of temple of Minerva, and the two
side walls are composed of the stupendous
pillars Of granite that formed he enormous
colonade of the ancient temple; the mo
dern architect has only filled the interco.
lumned spaces with stone and mortar,
leaving within and without a segment of
the column sufficient to enable one to judge
of the diameter of the shaft-the proud Ca
pitfalls are gone, and their bases sunk into,
or covered by the earth.
"The fountain of Arethusa where the
poets have surg her disporting with her
lovely and attendant nymphs. still bursts
from the ground. and may vel! be imagin-
ed the Alpheus even now that river you
know was tabled to have descended into
the earth at Greece and to have emerged
in the fountain at Syrscuse-the water is
clear land so pure and soft that all the wash
ing of the town is done in it 1t is con-
siderable stream, flows with rapidly, aud
comes right out from under the foundations
Of Syracuse. Instead of the modest, reti-
ring and beautiful Arethusa and her atten-
dants, it is now constantly crowded with
washer-women of the place, and the wives
of the soldiers from twelve to sixty years of
age, with their petiicoats so closely tucked
up as to leave little for the Imagination to
supply
About two miles from the gates is the bu-
rial ground of the ancients; some of the
graves were opened whilst We were there;
they We're al, al Spti Q lie soid rock in pa
two feet deep, with ledge Ct about two
inches surface AMI four inches fall, upon
which they placed, and very nicely fitted,
a single stone of that thickness which clio.
sed upon the dead FOR ages. and would have
continued until the great globe itself shall
dissolve, hut for the relentless zeal of anti
quarian curiosity. In the neighborhood the
Syracusians show you what they believe to
he the tomb of Archemdes it is square
space of about six feet every way, cut into
the SHE OF the rock and ornamented in front
with two small Ionic piasters, and pedi-
ment upon which they say the sphere and
cylinder were cut, but have been effaced
by time. The only reason thought they
had to vest Improperly of it in Archime-
DIES, was that it was the most respectable
tomb among the thousands that remain, and
all they know about Archimedes is, that he
was one of the most distinguished me- that
ever lived, and wa, Syracusan. They
seem to be as ignorant in regard to his
| tomb at this day, as their ancestors were
| during the questorship of Cicero: they, you
may remember, discovered the tomb of this
great philosopher by the small pillar with |
the sphere and cylinder which had been e.
rected at his own request, wishing to inn
mortalize himself, for what seems to me to
be among the least of his discoveries, the
elative capacity Of the things containing
and contained.
About one mile further you meet with
that quiz upon the antiquarians, the ear Of
DionYsius the idle story of its increasing
powers OF sound. and OF its beirg intended
as prison, and of the tyrant's using it as an
instrument of discovery, are all refuted.-
On entering it, | think We mag safely assert
what it was not, in these particulars, but
some one of greater reach of mind than |
am able to undertake, 10 ascertain what it
was. 1t lis An incision evidently the work