The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-31
NEWSPAPER PRINTED IN ROME
FIRST JOURNAL OF ITS KIND
SINCE DAYS OF CAESAR.
The Modern Successor of a Periodical
Established By That Autocratic
Ruler In SO B. G.

IL mas Deen frequently Sdlu that
Latin is a dead language. Such evil
IDENTIFY is not the opinion of the pro
moters of a new journal, written in
that language-Vox Urbis-The Voice
Of the City-which has just been estab-
lished at Rome. They are acting upon
the conviction that there are many
persons, both in the city and beyond
it's boundaries, who are acquainted
with the language of Cicero.
The majority of men who nave
learned Latin in their schoolboy days
rarely keep up a speaking acquain-
lance with it, or even a reading ia
m~iliarity in after years. Practically
to them it becomes, after they center
on the business of the world, a very
dead language, indeed.
In Rome it is different. Those who
have followed a. course of study in the
colleges of the Eternal City get such a
grounding in Latin hat they never lose
their faculty for understanding it.
Some years ago the education reports
of the Italian kingdom recorded the
decay of Latin in many of the colleges
and universities Of the country, save
in Rome and its province, where the
older tradition was still preserved.
The streets of Rome serve as so many
books. where, in imperishabIe marble,
Latin records may be read. On
churches and buildings, and among the
ruins of ancient Rome, and in the sun
less depths of the Catacombs, and on
the tombs that lie along the high roads
leading out from the city, especially on
the old Appian Way, the student of
Latin may read innumerable inscrip-
lions, of varying dates and on divers
subjects, all written in
THE TONGUE OF ANCIENT ROME.
Even here, however, the takers of
Latin today have declined somewhat
from that golden period described by
Palgrave, when professor of poetry in
the University of Oxford. I'VE know"
he writes, that the Aeneid was a
textbook in the popular schools; we
see Virgirs verse yet scrawled on the
,roofiess walls of Pompeii and within
the gloom of the Catacombs."
1t is not, in all probability, Virgil
that the writer's in his very modern
VoX Urbis take as their exempIar in
Latin, but Cicero, who is also the
model of the beautiful Latin which
Leo XIII writes n speaks. The late
Cardinal Newman gives hat great.
orator his due in the literature of the
ancient city. Neither Livy, nor Taci-
tus, nor Terence, nor Seneca, nor PHI
ny, nor Quintilian is an adequate
spokesman for the imperial city. They
write Latin; Cicero writes Roman"
The Vox Urbis appears n a fort
night, IBIS in mense prodit," and it's
writers are selected from skilled Latin
lists.
Its first number contained an article,
*De Voce Urbis," by Cardinal Paroc-
chi, vicar of his holiness, Leo XIII,
and a rather clever poem on the bicy-
Gle, "Birota Velocissima," by Ricci.
The second number, just published,
is embellished with two illustrations-a
picture of the Madonna and Saints, by
Bonvisi, and a view of the atrium of
the Vestal Virgins, "Domus Virginum
Vestalium," illustrating an able arch
geological study, "Archaeologicae Res
by Professor Orazio Marruchi, the
well-known Archaeological of Rome.
The story, too, has it's place in this
Latin journal. "Anthea," taken from
the work Of the Polish author, H.
Sienkiewicz, is translated into the
notwithstanding language of ancient
Rome by PetruS Angelini, and the an
nouncement, "to be continued" is con-
veyed by the phrase, "Ad proximum
numerum."
THE LEADING ARTICLE
treats of Greek and Latin literature in
secondary schools, de litteris Graecis
Ldlll1Io III 0CiiOliS O1ulIll6 SSCuuQl.
Another important article treats of art
and morality. Poetry has it's place in
this paper, which is more literary than
political.
The Vox Urbis is. in its way, and at
a long interval of time, the continual
ton of the ancient Rome journal. This.
according to the learned Bossier, was
born by chance, and was the outcome
OF a1reform which was undertaken in
quite another intention.
In the year SO 3. c., Caesar was
named consul. He came to power with
the firm intention of hurting the aris-
tocratic party as much as he could,
and, under the pretext of serving the
democracy, of preparing the empire.
Having entered upon his Office" says
he introduced a new regu-
lation that the daily acts both of the
senate and the people should be com
to writing and published"
The proceedings of the senate were
reported in short notes by one of their
own order, strangers not being admit
ted.
The proceedings of the assemblies of
the people held in the Forum were
published in journals-diurna-which
contained also accounts of trials at
with miscellaneous intelligence of
births, deaths, marriages and divorces.
The previous mode of announcing