CIVITÀ CASTELLANA.

Rura mihi, et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes,
Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius.

VIRGIL.

Independent of the classical associations which throng the imagination on approaching this ancient town, the mind is impressed with the most romantic feelings as the precipitous and lonely rock on which it is built rises into view. In no part of Italy, perhaps, can the eye rest on wilder or more romantic scenery than is to be found in this neighbourhood. The hill over which the town is scattered abruptly descends, on all sides, into a deep and thickly wooded dell. Along the bottom of this solitude runs a small stream, pellucid, constantly murmuring, and forming a pleasing contrast to the wild and almost savage aspect of the surrounding scenery. The fortifications of the town and citadel are built along the very edge of the rock, and are believed to have been formed out of the ruins of a more ancient city.

Antiquaries have not been successful in their inquiries respecting the original occupation of this remarkable site. For many years the favourite opinion was, that here Veii stood, and the idea was strongly supported by the peculiarity of the situation, and the natural advantages it afforded a warlike people.

"Some masses of rubbish," says Mr. Eustace,

are

R

pointed out as the remains of a city once superior, even
to Rome, in magnificence, and capable, like Troy, of re-
sisting, for ten years, the efforts of an army of fifty thou-
sand men.
But how vain is it to explore the situation
of a place which has been a solitude for more than two
thousand years!

Nunc intra muros pastoris buccina lenti
Cantat, et in vestris ossibus arva metunt.

Within thy walls his tuneless horn

Now slowly winds the shepherd swain,
And where your bones neglected lie,

Unheeding mows the golden grain.

The flocks had fed in the streets, and the ploughshare had furrowed the sepulchres of the fallen Veientes: a melancholy observation, applicable not to Veii alone, but to all the early rivals of Rome, Fidenæ, Cœnina, Corioli, Ardea, Alba. Not the site only but almost the memory of Veii was obliterated in the time of Florus :- Who now remembers that Veii ever existed?-What remains -what vestige is to be found?'"'

So perfectly have time and the ravages of war done their work in this region, and so impossible does the traveller find it to resolve those questions which in such situations are ever pressing upon the mind! To scarcely any district in the neighbourhood of Rome do the words of the poet more aptly apply than to this:

The double night of ages and of her,

Night's daughter, Ignorance, have wrapt, and wrap
All round us: we but feel our way to err:-
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map,

And knowledge spreads them on her ample lamp;

But Rome is as the desert, where we steer,
Stumbling on recollections: now we clap
Our hands, and cry "Eureka!" it is clear,
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

The opinion respecting Veii was controverted by another, which proved that city to be much nearer Rome; and it is now more commonly supposed that Fescenium was the precursor of Cività Castellana. Whatever was the precise situation of these towns, or the former name of the spot on which we suppose ourselves standing, the eye here embraces within the circle of its vision many a scene which old heroic daring or Roman virtue has rendered sacred to the imagination. By some it has been believed that Cività Castellana is the ancient Falerium, which is known to have stood somewhere in this neighbourhood; and, if so, it is justly hallowed by the memory of as noble an action as any that grace the history of the world. The reader will, it is probable, recollect, that it was at a short distance from that town that the patriotic Camillus received the proposals of one of its citizens to put such a prize into his hands that his fellow-townsmen would at once surrender the place to recover the lost possession,-that this traitor was the schoolmaster of the town, who had decoyed his pupils, the children of the chief persons of the city, to the Roman camp,—that he there offered to leave them with the general for a reward, which he had no doubt of receiving; and that his infamous offer was received by Camillus with angry contempt, the brave Roman exclaiming, that though at war with his townsmen, the laws of nature were still sacred between them; and then ordering his

soldiers to bind the traitor's hands, and tear off his cloak, he desired the children to flog him back to the city.

About two leagues distant from this interesting spot, Soracte towers against the horizon; and at about the same distance extend the mountains and lake of Ciminus, which equal, for romantic and picturesque appearance, the historical celebrity of the rest of the neighbourhood. The account which Livy has left of the loneliness and savage wildness of this district in ancient times leads us to believe that it was formerly the most unfrequented of any in Italy, and that popular opinion had peopled it. with dangers which the bravest even of Romans were unwilling to dare. The following passage, from the ninth book of his history, affords a curious and not unamusing illustration of this general feeling respecting the forests and fastnesses of Ciminus. It refers to the period when the Romans were at war with the Tuscans, a party of whom, after a battle, had set the former at defiance, by retreating into the forest:

"The Ciminian wood," says he, was in those days more impassable and dreaded than the German thickets in later times; for never till that day had it been frequented or travelled through, so much as by merchants; nor had any one scarcely, but the general himself, the courage to advise a march into it. Whereupon the consul's brother offered himself to go out, a scout or spy, and in a short time to bring them a full account of all things necessary to be known. He had in his youth been bred up, with some friends to his family, at Cære, where he was taught the Tuscan learning, and spoke readily their language. Some authors I have met

with that tell us, the Roman children were wont to be instructed in the Tuscan letters in those days, as they are now in Greek. But it is more probable that this gentleman had some special accomplishment, or else he would not in so bold a manner have hazarded himself amongst the enemy. His only companion is said to have been his servant, that had been bred up with him, and so not ignorant of the language. In their journey, they made it their main business to get, in a summary way, the nature of the province they were going into, and the names of the chief persons therein, that when they fell into discourse they might not be taken tardy in any gross ignorance or mistake. They went in shepherds' habits, armed with the usual weapons of country boors, each of them with a falchion and two javelins; yet was it not their tongue, their garb, or their arms, that kept them from being known; so much as that presumption the enemy had, that no stranger would be so mad as to venture into the Ciminian woods. Well, forwards they went as far as to the Camertines in Umbria, where the Roman adventured to discover who they were, and being admitted into the senate they obtained promises of alliance and assistance. The consul hesitated no longer what measures to pursue: he attacked the enemy in their fastnesses, and having completely routed them returned to the camp, where by that time were arrived five commissaries and two tribunes of the commons, with peremptory orders from the senate to the consul, that he should not offer to pass through the Ciminian forest."

Such was formerly the solitary and uncultivated condition of a large portion of this romantic district, and