The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1915-12-31
OLD ROME AGAIN
CITY OF SOLDlERY
AS IN CAESARS DAY
Modern Troops Contra st
Strangely With Ancient
Monument and Ruins.

Rome. Dec. 1-There are strange
Eternal City during these war days,
with the soldiers of today marching
and camping among the monuments
and ruins of the soldiers of the past.
Today a regiment of Italian infantry
came from the Appian ay, passed the
Palainte hill with the gaunt and cav
ernous ruins of the palaces of the
Caesars, then swung in a long circle
around the Arch of Constantine, pass
ed the Coliseum and the Forum, and
then moved on along the Tiber to the
crunnbling ruin of that bridge where
Horatius held back the Tarquin ar
my.
These modern soldiers marched
srnartly, and paid no attention to the
venerable monuments of military
glory all around them 1t was mere
~ one of many detachmentS moving
from the suburbs to the barracks
near Janiculum- They were sturdy
young peasant soldiers, with dark
faces and eyes. Their uniforms were
blush gray, loose and iu-fitting, with.
carried their guns rregularly at
shou1der-arms-
Around these old monuments of
Rome soldiers may be seen marching
all hours of the day, and the sculp-
lures and inscriptions seem to show
with the events of today. Around
the Coliseum, for instance, soldiers
have been marching for the last two
thousand years The Arch of Con-
stantine commentaries Constantne's
great victory over Maxentius, and the
founding of Constantinople, to which
Constantine gave his naIne-Constan-
tinople which was a center of war
fare nearly two thousand years ago
as At IS today. Nearby the Arch of
Titus marks the capture of Jerusalem
One of the reliefs on the Titus Arch
shows tremendous battle with the
Dacians- The soldiers who keep pass
ing today seldom glance at these bat
ties Of the past; and, singu1arly, the
tourists seldom glance at the soldiers
of today, but are absorbed in the
monuments OF past military achieve
ments-
A favorite place OF resort for the
officers and soldiers when off duty
is the piazza Veneda in the heart of
Rome, with a view of the nearby COLI
urnn of Trajan The column looks
as solid today as when erected eigh-
Emperor Trajan- If the soldiers took
the trouble to examine the sculptured
reliefs, winding from top to bottom,
they would find almost a counterpart
of the battles going on today In the
Balkans, as these reliefs represent the
Bulgarians have just been fighting.
I One relief represents a thirsty army
/ getting relief from a providentia1
rainstorn-
The chief encampment Of Italian
troops is in the suburb west OF Rome
on the broad plain of Mont Mario,
NAMED after the great soldier Marius.
There arr A. a0 to 5000 soldiers In
this eneampment, and they are
tram ing over the same ground that
Marius and his legionssS marched It
" as through Mont Mario, also, that
all the great invasious of Rome oc-
Cured, with the final capture and
sackfng Of the city and the fall of the
Roman Empire And these soldiers
/ of today. are manoeuvring over the
same ground that witnessed these de-
| cisive events Of the worlds history
Crossing the Tber one sees soldiers
ton guard along the upper walls of
the great castle of. St Angelo The
so-ca1led castle is in fact the tomb
| of the soldier Emperor Hadrian, and
| commentaries his achievements. 1t
was used as q military barracks at
one time, but now new barracks have
been built and only a few soldiers
are left as a guard of homer for this
monument of past military glory
There is the same military move
| ment going on around all these fa-
lrnoI1sl monuments of the past And
the Inscriptions show that about the
same thing has been going on for two
thousand yearsFsoIdiers marching,
armies fighting along the Danube, the
Rhine and the Alps, and other armies
Theaded toward Constantino ple-his-
tory repeating itself
I a