The Republican journal., 1913-10-30
OVER SEAS.

All roads, they say, lead to Rome.
Mine this time was from Brindisi, a
steam road, half way beside the sea,
nearly all the way past miles and miles
of olive and fig orchards and grape vine
wards, some of them looking century
or two old. Few people appeared in
them at work through the middle of the
day, though they showed evidence of
high cultivation, the ground between the
trees and vines being plowed and har-
rowed, and earth and fertilizer being
heaped round the roots, and pruning be-
ing in evidence. Some grape vines were
so pruned that the great clusters of
grapes were drying into raisins before
picked.
Rome has been styled the eternal city.
Its history from antiquity to this day
has made it in several respects the first
city in the world, though its population is
only about that of our Boston. Old Rome,
grim in its cruel, heather antiquities is
near the muddy, yellow Tiber, in the
very arms of the modern and beautiful
city. to which so many and varied pill
grimages are made. The Colosseum, with
towering wall, ampitheatre and dun
geons in ruin, where wild beasts, gladia-
tors and innocent Christians used to be
confined till it pleased their Imperial
maiesties to be entertained by having
them turned loose in the arena for the
hideous onset, stands conspicuous as
monument of mans inhumanity to man,
never again to be tolerated. Just west
of it, through the great, beautiful arch
of Constantine, the first Christian En-
peror. and at the junction of the Via
Sacra with the Appian Way, IS the vast
ruin of the Gardens. Palace and Dun
qeons of the Caesars, the dungeons being
the only part now worth giving through,
and requiring a guide. The cutters in
the central floor for draining Oft the hood
Of political victims are all there. Such
= barbaric death-trap the world has IN
the main seemingly outgrown. East OF
it. AID north of the Colosseum, are the
ruins of the Forum, the Arch OF Titus,
the Temple of Venus, the Temple OF Cas-
tor and Polux and the Temple OF Jupl-
ter Stator. while west Of it are the ruins
Of the Temple Of Jupiter Toneus (thun-
deringl. and near there they point out
the late uncovered foundation of the
home of Remus and Romulus, the wolf
nursed founders of this Eternal City
Such is legend. Well over toward the
Tiber is ne little Temple of Vesta, that
the ancient Vestal Virgins used to keep
lighted. under sentence to be buried
alive if hey suffered their chastity to be
violated. This little temple has stood
some ?, 500 years, and shows today the
best state of preservation of any of the
Roman antiquities.
Of Christian antiquities in Rome none
interests me n ore than the old Manner
tine Prison in which St. Paul was con-
fined last prior to his execution. The
stone block is there on which he sat with
his feet in the stocks. The staple is in
the wall to which he was chained, when
he said, Il am now ready to depart and
the time is nigh" A spring bubbles up
under the floor. curbed now with marble.
There is a legend that st. Peter mirac-
ulousIy produced the spring for St.Paul's
sake. Excuse my lncreduity. l don't
believe it; but l am glad that the al
mighty had previously put it there, and
that its little bubbling coincidence with
St. Paul's last human restraint brought
its need Of cheer. Some two miles to
the west on the Appian way is a small
pyramid, miniature compared with the
mighty ones of Egypt. Southwest of
that nineteen hundred years ago was
field with a hillside. They took Paul
from the Mame9tine Prison 10 that field,
and, in lie Wit the habit those heather
civilians 40 Of sruffing out the lives of
those trying 10 DO some real good to
markinG, they cut off his head There
is a leGe! d-ekcuse ne, don't believe
it-that three springs of pure water
broke cut Of three spots St. Paul's head
touched as it rolled down the hill, but l
am glad Of the springs. like all pure
springs. Near, if not over the spot
where they buried the remains of Paul,
in later time was built the church called
St. Paul, without the wal. The grim
walls Of olG Rene are still showing to
the east. In 1923 the church was de-
stroyed by fire, but it has been rebuilt
and adorned in part on lines Of neat
simplicity and surprising beauty.
One Of the hundreds of churches in
Rome, the old Cappucine church, stores
in its vaults beneath the auditorium the
bones OF no less than 5000 monks, gath
cred there in the three centuries last
past. AS rule they are stacked in as
sortments, skulls with skulls, hips with
hips. etc, with here and there a skele-
ton in back clothes, guarding a pile.
By king, 'talnt worth it: but then, what
is an old skeleton IS time "worth' any
way?
Of all cathedrals in Europe St. Peters
in Rome, not the most imposing in ex-