St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-01-09


OF the first of these huge monoliths sent
to the western world.
From the Lateran we go a few steps
to the chapel of the Scala Sancta, a
flight of twenty eight marble steps, said
to have been brought from the palace
OF Plate at Jerusalem and to have been
rendered thus sacred by our Savior's
having once assembled them. No one is
allowed to ascend them except on the
knees. At the top is private chapel
OF the Popes through the windows of
which one can see richly furnished
interior, but entrance is not permitted.
In the afternoon of this day we visit
ed the ruins of the immense and mag
nlficent baths of Caracalla which cover
ed thirty acres of ground and accom-
modated 1900 bathers at once, entered
the catacOmbs of st. Sebastian and
threaded our tertuOus way among the
tufa rOck-hewn sepulchres now despoil-
ed of most of their bones and inscrip-
tions, trod Oh the ground of the old
Circus of Maxentius,-the best pre-
served of the Roman ce-cOurses,-and
drove long way out on the Appian
Way, amidst the tOmbs of the nobler
elder Romans. This road for many
miles was flanked 10y tombs and mounds,
but the modern thirst for relics has
caused the most of them to be levelled,
and it is only here and there that
enough is left to show how cremation
was practiced in those times, and the
ashes entrusted to urns of decorated
clay. One wonders what this way was
when the apostle Paul first passed over
it to meet his accusers in the audience
room of the Caesars, and how Rome
must have then seemed to the stranger
Jew. Of some of these places hope at
some future time, with the help of means
of illustration, to give to our students
and perhaps others, a better knowledge.
They cannot be adequately described
by the pen. But Oh our drive out to
the Appian gate, we called at one place
who have read, or are reading, Sallust,
is worthy of more minute description.
1t is called the Mamertine prison and is
one of the oldest structures in Rome.
From the interior of small church,
situated close by the Forum, we de-
scend by staircase into a chamber
whose walls are of massive stones in
dicating but too well their purpose.
Adjoining were formerly other similar
rooms used, as was this, for the incar-
ceration of criminals in the ordinary
way. But directly under this first room
and in olden time only accessible from
it by a hole of two feet in diameter in
the stone floor, is a dungeon, now
t1OOred over at half its depth, but which
really is-were this platform removed
fourteen feet deep. 1t is unlighted
and without ventilation. A spring flows
into it, covering the bottom with water
to the depth of two or three feet. An
outlet into the Cloaca Maxima prevent
ed deeper accumulation. This dun
geOn, walled and arched with solid
rock, is called by Sallust, the Tullianum,
and there is no reason to suppose that
it has been changed since he described
it as "Incultu, tenebris, odore, foeda
atque terribilis ejus facies est"
Into this place were cast Jugurtha,
Vercingetorix, some of the confederates
of Cataline, and we know not how
many others, and left to perish. They
stood in the water till utterly exhausted,
then fell and were drowned. No tor
ture of the inquistion could have been
more terrible than such death. Such
was ROme's treatment of traitors, and,
to her shame too, of some who, like
VercingetOrix, had waged against her
only honorable battle in defense of
country and home, There is tradi-
tiOn that the Apostle Paul was impris-
Oned in the Mamertine, but he could
not have been in the Tullianum, since
that was used only for execution.
AS for the rest of our stay in Rome,
we did about what all travellers do
here, visited st. Peters two or three
times, and once ascended the dome.
We gazed from the upper inner railing
upon the pigmy men that stroll below,
and found the quill pen of st. Luke
that from underneath seemed but an
ordinary goose-feather, transformed in
to formidable lance six feet long. We
looked from without on the Pope's
garden, the Campagna, northward, the
bill Janiculum, the castle of San Auge-
10, and the minareted city beyond. The
Listine chapel with its world-renOwned
frescOes by Michael Angelo, the frescoes
of Raphael in other rooms and pOrticoes
of the Vatican, the picture gallery of
the same palace,-the finest though by
no means the largest collection in the
city,-were each twice seen. We en-
tered few of the nearly four hundred
churches of Rome, and were quite con-
tent to leave some unvisited. We
climbed the steps of the Capitolne Hill,
saw the wolves that are Gagged and kept
there in perpetual token of what the
city owes to the foster mother Of Rom
ulus and Remus, and stood on the brow
of the Tarpeian Rock where the geese
warned the Romans of the approach OF
the Gauls.