Waterbury Democrat., 1902-03-24
NEWSPAPERS OF OLD ROME.
Discovery of Tablets Showing How the ..Acta Diurna Urbiss' Gave the
 News of Caesars Time.


 der the sun. London of to-day and 1 apart: yet man and manners have changed but little. if we are to be- lieve a newspaper published when Julius Caesar ruled the world To pick up a copy of the Acta Diurna i Urbis, which was Rome's leading daily paper. with Pliny as it's star reporter, one might be reading re- sume of a twentieth century days news, twisted into quaint language.
 The Acta was court journal as well as general newspaper. It printed the laws of the emperor, en- actments by the senate, the names of incoming magistrates, list of politicians who had an audience with the emperor or an invitation to his banquets, the sacrifices to the gods, the games at the circus, births, mar riages, diyorces and deaths of nota- ble people, and general gossip of the day, says the London Express. Tablets giving new insight into this early-day journalism have just been discovered in Rome. They show that the Acta must have circulated ex- tensively in every part of Rome, as well as in the provinces. It was post ed every morning in the Forum and l copied and sold in the Argiletum- the Fleet street of ancient Rome. .'Fine writing" was not the forte of those ancient chroniclers. Dry statements were good enough for them. Imagination and facts seem to have been impartially mixed. Side by side with the statement of 8 stabbing affray can be found brief story of wonderful phoenix being discovered near Rome and exhibited in the Comitia.
 Pliny wrote for the Acta. Pliny possessed, among other qualifications for that position, vivid imagination. Had he lived in the twentieth cen trry he would have written lurid and highly circumstantia1 accounts of va rious modern events. His was the story of the phoenix-which story, by the way, seems to be the direct ancestor of that familiar fable of latter days-the sea serpent.
 Pliny contributed to one number of the Acta an account of an inter- esting phenomenon. He says that der of Clodius a shower of baked bricks fell in several parts of the city. He neglects to state, however, whether the streets were paved there by, or whether the bricks piled them selves into walls.
 Pliny made the mistake of living 2,0O0 years too soon. The Leyds Press Bureau could have used him in Berlin.
 The Acta was frequently consulted by literary men of tine day. Back numbers were deposited in a library accessible to students and poets. Sue tonius consulted these files when he wrote the lives of the 12 Caesars, and found the birthday of Tiberius, the birthplace of Caligula, the three letters added by Claudius to the Ro- man alphabet, and the deification Of Domitian.
 Tacitus admits having copied from the Acta his description of the fu- neral of Germanicus and of the apotheosis of Claudius. Other note worthy excerpts made by the same writer were the debates in the senate when a temple was to be erected to Nero, and when the Senator Thra- seus indignantly protested against the cowardice of his colleagues who applauded Nero's matricide.
 Dion heard from the same source the victories of Commodias in the ann phitheater, and other more disreputa- ble exploits of that individual.
 A glance at the news summary in one copy of the Acta, which is un- dated, and possibly apocryphal, is. nevertheless, interesting. It shows that the world has really changed very little, after all:
 ''The Consul Savinius will to-day as- sume the duties of his office.
 "A violent thunderstorm burst yes terday over the city. A thunderbolt fell in the afternoon on an oak treA in the vicinity of the Velia.
 "A fatal affray took place at the Bear Wineshop, near the shrine of Janus. The landlord was dangerous ly wounded.
 1.-The Aedile Titianus passed sentence upon those butchers who notorious ly sold to the people meat not pre- viously submitted to inspection. The fines collected will be devoted to the erection of a shrine.
 "Ansidius, the money changer, who carried on business under the sign of the Shield of the Climber, has fled with considerable sum of money. He was pursued at once and captured, and the money was found on his per son. The Tractor Fontenius ordered the money to be restored to those citizens who had deposited theirfunds with him.
 "Denniphon, the robber, who was lately captured was crucified this morning."
 Not so different from the daily run of news in the twentieth century. We have defaulting bankers, whose loot is sometimes divided for the benefit of their creditors; butchers who vio- late the laws governing the sale of meat; fatal brawls in wine shops," and robbers who suffer for their sins.
 Likewise an occasional tale of the phoenix-sea-serpen variety.
 Effect of Height on tke Blood.
 Recent observations on the gases of the blood during balloon ascension show: First, that the faculty of fix g. IL