Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-03-27
ROME
By DR.. Frank Crane

tn HE most interesting spot to the ma
jority of educated people in our west
ern civilization is Rome To so to
Rome is to go home. We visit other cities
to see what they are like, we journey to
Rome to revisit our dreams. Montaigne
says: Il was acquainted with the history Of
Rome before that of my own country. |
knew the capitol and its plan before l knew
the Louvre, and the Tber before the Seine"
Rome is the home city of the laws govern
ments, customs civilization, and religion Of
the western world
Rome is rich with every element of HUI
man interests. She has gathered unto her
self every greatness and every weakness of
mankind. In Rome you your own
soul writ large. There projected upon the
vast screen of history, you may view your
own hidden lust and holy longing see your
every shameful dream of luxury outdone
your most wildly absurd ambition realized
She is the superman among cities. Other
nations have had their victories and defeats,
but no victories splendid defeats so
appalling. Other races boast their great men
in one or another great field or human en-
deaYor, but the streets of city have been
trodden by so many great men of so many
types On the school desks of millions of
children today lie the poems of Virgil and
Horace, the OratiOns of Cicero, the history
Of Livy/ and the note book of julius Caesar
1000 years after these authors are dead.
What other country, excepting Greece has
so laid its hands upon the education of the
world? AS for artists none greater have
risen than Michael Angelo and Raphael
| SanZo and Rome was the scene of their
greatest activities. Regulus and Cincinnatus
are still models of patriotism. No monsters
or wee nave been more mOnStrOuS than Nero
and Caligula. No extravaganza has out
stripped the villa of Hadrian at TrivoH No
theater so huge as the Colosseum was ever
built, and its ruins are to this day the most
impressive of all the ruins of mems work
NO temple has ever been, none will ever be,
more imposing than st. Peters. No city
square upon the globe has been so splendid.
has witnessed such mighty trumphs, has
suffered so sweeping desolation, and is
now so pitiful yet grand and stirring to
mans soul, as the Forum that marble will
derness' Of a shattered freze and column,
that valley of the shadow of DEATH" sem
tlnelled by the broken palaces Of the Caesars
upon the adjoining Palatine
There have been other cOnquerors as
Alexander and Napoleon and Tamerlane
who have imposed themselves upon the ha b.
liable world, but no other world-fgure ever
combined so many elements of genius or ex-
tended the rule of his ideas so far into the
future as Julius Caesar, who in his time.
'DeStrode the earth like Colossus" whose
name as kaiser, car, or emperor Che was
the first imperator) still stands for the sum-
NIT OF worldly hOnors, whose ideas of gov
eminent still dominate the nations of Eu-
rope.
Goethe, Neihbuhr, Balzac Hawthorne and
Dickens have paid tribute to the peculiar
/ fascination Of the Eternal City Byron wrote
80 Rome, my country! City Of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee.
Lone mother of dead empires."
Copyright, 1924