Evening star., 1900-09-29
Trend Toward RepubIicantsm.
ROME'S PANTHEON,
King Humbert's IllustriOus COmpan.
ions and Their Splendid Sepulchre.

King Humbert's IIlustriOus COmpan-
ions and Their Splendid Sepulchre.
From the London Telegraph.
1t has been decided that the mortal re-
mains of the murdered King Of Italy shall
be deposited in the Pantheon at Rome Be-
yond doubt the resolution is noble and a
worthy one The illustrious victim deserves
no meaner resting place, and the ancient
building, where Italy will give him splendid
sepulture, may be said to embody and to
perpetuate the entire history of Rome, from
the Caesars to the Amadei. Agrippa reared,
twenty-seven years before Christ the Won
derful edifice where King Umberto's relics
are to repose. yet it stands. almost un-
changed. older than the Christian era. and
by turns a vast calidarium of the great
Agrippaean baths, a temple of Mars and of
Venus, meeting place for the Fratres Ar
wales, about whom HenZen writes so learn
edly-and, in after years, a Christian
church, given as such by Phocas to Boni-
face w. 1t seems to have been always
called the Pantheon-a temple of all the
gods. The wealthy and artistic Rome of
Augustus lavfshed upon the structure all
that art could bring. or gold and silver pay
for. The Athenian sculptor Diogenes adorn-
ed it with his finest labors. The capitals of
it's pillars, its dome covering, and the CELL
ing OF its portico. were all Of Syracusan
bronze. borne up by massive tubular grid
way, were melted down by Pope Urban
VIII to make cannon for St. Angeles en-
brasures and the bronze baldacchino in st.
Peters.
The bronze tiles of the dome were strip
ped away and plundered to bedeck Con-
stantinople, but the Saracens waylaid the
noble loot, which now roofs some mOlder-
Ing palace of the east. The columns were
OF white and coiored marbles: its tympa-
mum glowed with the battles of the gods
and giants. done in ruddy bronze: its in
terror was lined with mighty slabs of por-
phyry and syenite and alabaster and agate,
which, like its metal work. were all ruth
fessly pillaged age after age. But Agrip-
pas work was like a mountain for solidity
and endurance. With walls twenty feet
thick Of tufa concrete. faced with brick
and roof which was wonder of the
worlds masonry, being constructed In one
mass of pumice stone and pozzolana, the
plunderers could not destroy-could, indeed
hardly injure or alter, the stupendous and
eternal fabric. 1t comes down to modern
times very much as Hadrian and Seyerus
witnessed 1t. IL not as it's magnificent de-
signer first created the grand temple of all
the gods; and no sight Is stranger or finer,
even In Rome, than when for the first time
the pilgrim turns aside from the Corso to
the Piazza di Rotonda and behoids with
what nobleness Of purpose and material
the old Romans housed their deities and
glorified their city with edifices which twen-
ty centuries have failed to ruin. Nay, the
very gateway through which all. that was
mortal Of the good and loyal King Um-
berto will soon be carried is actually the
same as that originally put up by Agrippa
The Pantheon still possesses its original
doors between two fiuted pilasters and
over these an open screenwork. all of
bronze Rome has certainly good reason
to boast herself the immortal city. when
Italy can prepare to lay her latest ruler in
the glorious fame built before Christendom
began. with fair hope that the structure
will stand for q thousand years to come, as
Alban hills
The family uaausoieum OF the royal house
OF Savoy and Sardinia-now Of Italy-ss, we
believe In Piedmont, at the SuDerga. But
King Victor Emmanuel, the father Of the
murdered sovereign, and first constitutional
monarch Of the new Kingdom, Was en-