San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-12-17
IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
A Disappointed Tourist In Rome-The Ro-
man and the Greek.


II was not unlike q shock Of pain or disap-
pointment when for the first time threaded
my way through the Roman streets, passed
out into the Forum and wandered around the
Coliseum. So dingy and denuded did the
relics Of old Rome appear to me that they
were more like the few brown bones which
the spade of the sexton has just thrown up
by the side Of reopened grave. ! have never
seen place where the remains were % few
and the suggestions of what was lost were so
many. Rome looked like place which first
had been q cradle and afterwards had been
turned into grave
It seemed as If everything had been born
there, everything had grown old there, every
thing had died there, and everything had
been buried there. Rome Is the city Of the
Holy SepulchYe. At Jerusalem pilgrims
visit the spot where Christ was once laid At
Rome We seem to visit the shrine where old
Time himself had been buried. Under this
head may briefly note down few first TIM
presions ,zr.r~-
It was said that Augustus found Rome of
brick and left 1t Of marble. It might be
added that tho Cloths. the popes and the
mobiles found Rome Of marble and left IT Of
brick, 30 completely have these despuiling
powers peeled of the beautiful white aesh
and left Rome like q body, brown, shapeaoss
and Invested Of every trace Of her former
loneliness But the Romans themselves pre-
pared the way for this desolation. Their par
simony brought its own punishment For
parsimony, We must remember, Is sin fol-
lowed up by its special retribution, quite a.
much as prodigality. The men Of Rome
hard, practical and utilitnrian-were as Pc
nurious In all works Of art as they were
shamefully extravaganza in all pursuits
Of physical enjoyment Even in the use
of the cheap travertine stone they were
ridiculously st1ngy. But when it came
to marble they were by necessity as
well as by nature most economical in the use
Of It. Athens bad q whole mount OF marble
at her back door, and could hew out Of
Pentelius all the shrines and statues she
wanted Rome had almost the same advan-
tagesi for It can hardly be urged as an apol-
ogy for the city on the Tiber, that she was ct
a distance from the mountains. of Luna and
the great quarries of Carrara, when We re-
member that an easy waterway was ever
open between the shores of Mguria and the
foot of the Palestine; and when we remember,
moreover, how no obstacles were allowed TO
remain between the Roman and the object
Of his ambition or his appetite-both Of
which he was ready 10 crafty at an I'M
bounded price.
But when it comes to works of taste the
Roman betrayed his true nature With him
nothing was too much when lavished on bod
lily qualification, nothing was too little when
spent on art, The Athenian built Ids temples
worthily Of the gods in solid blocks Of mar
bic, In unmeasured spiendor, giving to thu
deities what cost him something. The Roman,
when he came to raise his temples, was con.
tent to make them of brick or stuooo or cheap
stone. and then to sheathe these in a thin cas-
ing OF marble. When, therefore, the destroy
ing hands Of Goth or the Gothic hands of later
Roman mobiles, such as the Colonnas, the
Farnese and the Borghese families, were laid
upon the ancient edifces, IT was an easy task,
as well as a great temptation, to rsmove
these light coats of marble and to invest
their rising palaces with such apparel Of
many colors as the marbles of old Rome pre-
sented, ready made, to their rapacious hands
Had the men Of Rome followed the example
Of the men Of Athens, and dedicated to their
divinities few sanctuaries of solid marble,
they would have left behind them such mon
uments as would have defied the assaults Of
later generations, and would have COM
manded at this day the wonder of the world
H. Bernard Carpenter in Boston Globe.