Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-06-08

Progress Ct the E,<eavat,ocs--I .v;ng
Bare the Interesting Place.

Dare the Interesting Place.
Boston Advertiser Rome Letter.
Inc forum excavations are ATTRACTING
great deal of attention. In a few
months there will be no mvsterious
mounds OF earth to provoke the specu
latlons or the learned tourist. The
whole space is to be uncovered from
tue basluca Julia to the Arch of Titus
Becalll. minister OF public instruction
Is pushing the work OH, not with the
quiet elaboration of an arcbRoloeist
put with the feverish impotence of q
public Official who knows that his hold
on his position and power is very frail
and wzo wishes to give to his term OF
office the stamp of great public work.
The Pantheon excavations were finish
cd and opened to the crowd on the
birthday OF Rome-the 21st of April.
i clambered up the little narrow wooden
staircase that leads from the subter-
raneans to the remains Of the rooms at
the summit in company with a true
Roman crowd that made the frail stair
way tremble-soldiers, boys, learned
looking priests. men and women of the
lower and middle classes, mothers with
young babies in their arms and string
of little ones hanging onto their petit
coats-ail gazing and peering about
curiously at the almost incomprehensi-
bic ten great counterfort walls; the Ie-
mains of rooms between these huge
walls; at the gigantic bit of marble
cornice that has been lifted up to the
height Of the ancient frieZe. There
are nine OF these cOrnice blocks that
measure united twenty meters, beauti.
fully sculptured in acanthu.leaves,
shells. tridents and dolphins. They
are all TO be lifted up to their original
places then we will be able TO form
some idea of that supposed Salone
which was forty meters long, twenty
wide, with a great niche; that niche
we see now; in it stood probably the
bronze ApOxyomenos OR Man with
Strygil, so dear to- the ancient Romans
a copy Of which in marble il at the
head of the Braccio NuOva Vatican
This grand Salone, it is conjectured
was used for gymnastic exercises and
also a gallery on rainy days for the
bathers. There are vestiges of it.
great walls in the subterraneans of thu
Ecclesiastical Academy Palace opposite
that end of the Pantheon.
In my next letter hope to tell you
something more definite about thu
fascinating Roman Forum. The dis
coveries of Febuary-April, 1882, are al
ready most interesting:
l. Fragments of the famous Forni1
Fabianue have been found, the Arcl
of Triumph that was the entrance I,
the forum from the Arch of Titus end
G. Fabius Maximus, to whom it wa
erected, conquered Savoy rs far a
Geneva.
2. The porticus MargaritaIia ha
been discovered where the shops of gem
and jewels were, the Margaritaria o
the Sacra Via.
3. The Regia has also been found
the official residence of the Rontifel
Maximus.
4. A fragment of the stone plan o.
Rome has been found. This plan wa
cut in marble In the year I'll, A. ID
The piece found gives the Typography
of the space comprised between tn
temple of G lstor and Pollux and tn,
northeast angle OF the Palatine.
5. A magnificent door has been dis
covered, with n beautiful inscription
of the Augustan epoch. The inscIip
ton says that door was made by tn
senate and the Roman people, with tn
public money.
These items give you some idea o
the value OF these excavations. l spent
many hours in that enchanting spO
watching the workmen, hoping to b
present at some great discovery; then
when l grow tired of pick-axe ant
spade and the slow digging out of tn
sluggish earth, go over to the Ba,ilic
of Peace. sit down under its vast arch
es, read in Ovid, Ping or Horace, an,
try To recreate this famous forum il
the middle of all the confusion cause,
by MEDIEVAL constructions and ruthles
destruction of past ages.