Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1906-12-11
A DAY In ROME.
Described by Prof. J. B. Horner
of OAC.


whose ability as writer is too well
known throughout the state to need COM
ment here and now. These articles will
ap ear in the next few issues of the Gaz-
ette and will, we feel certain, meet with
popul Al. javor. The entire series forms a
ecture just prepared by Prof. Horner,
and printed in pamphlet form. The
writer tells of is trip to the Orient as
follows:
Upon visiting the Louvre my enjoy
ment of the masterpieces was somewhat
short of satisfactory. Many of the most
meritorious paintings failed to appeal to
me. This is a serious admission. But
realizing my want of preparation to un-
derstand the talent in evidence, my
spiritual nature began to chide my judg-
ment for permitting my intellectually to
presume upon so difficult task as the
subtle analysis of emotion masterfully
wroughy upon canvas. Twas but child
in the presence of masters.
So turn my back upon the Louvre
with the determination of first making a
more careful study of the pyramids, the
sphinx, massive walls and temples and
other grosser works. and, at the end of
one year, return again with better prepa-
ration for the study of the finer arts.
Thus my spiritual nature was pushing up
my intellectually ali the while, some-
what like dragoman with open hands
pushes the traveller over the marble
blocks up pyramid. 1t may not be
very elegant, but the traveller gets there
just the same.
So we went to Egypt to see the Oldest
and roughest ruins along the Mediter-
ranean. There was the Sphinx with
fifty or sixty pyramids as many centuries
old and all had to be seen in one hot
day. A pyramid with one thousand
miles OF desert on one side and two
thousand miles OF burning sands on the
other is a lonely spectacle. Abraham
used to come down here to admire these
old pyramids, aud about live thousand
Americans come for the same purpose
every year. Reckoning the long space
of time between these two dates which
the silent pyramids have Witnessed, one
is led to remare there is nothing old in
Oregon.
At the acropolis, where ruin marks the
location of the finest art studies in the
world, our camera takes a view.
Then to Olympia, where the greatest
games of the earth took place; but only
ruins now remain.
Tnen to Pompeii, city so large that
one can now lose himself in the ruins.
Here are l 400 Italians in the employ of
the government excavating the old city.
Pompeii resembles San Franciso as is
last spring after the earthquake
and fire.
OLD ROME.
Then to old Rome. The Palatine was
the Roman acropolis; for the Romans
Quadrata or first Rome was the Corona
of this hill. When the city of Rome
grew to be more than walls of defense
with barracks and homes, it followed the
example of Athens in pushing off the
acropolis down on 5:,e plain below. But
this plaln located between the Palatins
and .Capitoline Hill was very marshy.
Consequently, the elder Tarquin found
it necessary to drain the valley. ACCORD
ingly he cons sructed a drain to convey
the water into the Tlber near by. Be-
cause the purpose of the train ~as to
purify the vicinity it was called Cloaca
because the drain was so large that
cart drawn by males might be driven
through the whole length Of the sewer,
it was called Maxima Cloaca. OIe OF
the worst punishments ever inflicted up
on mau, was visited upon, a certain class
of criminals who were thrown into the
Maxima Cloaca and permitted to float
with the filth of the great sewer into the
historic THOR.
The Maxima Cleaca is 600 years older
than Christianity and it is in such per-
feet preserva'io that one upon viewing
it can hardly realize it was built more
is the biggest and the best old sewer in
the world.
The FORUM.
As Rome grew, she gradually spread
oyer the seven hills. Eventually she had
a half dozen or more business places or
forums, but the greatest of them all was
the Rome Forum, which occupied a
small spacein the little valley between
the Palatine and the Capitoline.
The campus, including the Forum, the
sacred way and the coliseum. does not
extend more than half mile in length
nor is it more than one fourth that dis
tance in width; vet ruin has replaced
ruin, and stone has been built upon stone
80 that every inch of the Forum is histor-
ic,