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Page 13
There was an admirable little guide-book published in the twelfth
century called "Mirabilia Urbis Rom�." One can imagine the old-time
tourist with this medi�val Baedeker in hand, issuing forth, resolved
to see Rome in three days. At the end of the first day his courage
would ooze away as he realized the extent of his ignorance. With a
hurried look at the guide-book and a glance at the varied assortment
of ruins, he would try to get his bearings. All the worthies of sacred
and profane history would be passing by in swift procession.
"After the sons of Noah built the tower of confusion, Noah with all
his sons came to Italy. And not far from the place where Rome now is
they founded a city in his name, where he brought his travail and life
to an end." To come to the city of Noah was worth a long journey. Just
think of actually standing on the spot where Shem, Ham, and Japhet
soothed the declining years of their father! It was hard to realize
it all. And it appears that Japhet, always an enterprising person,
built a city of his own on the Palatine Hill. There is the Palatine,
somewhat cluttered up with modern buildings of the C�sars, but
essentially, in its outlines, as Japhet saw it.
But there were other pioneers to be remembered. "Saturn, being
shamefully entreated by his son Jupiter," founded a city on the
Capitoline Hill. One wonders what Shem, Ham, and Japhet thought of
this, and whether their sympathies were with Jupiter who was seeking
to get a place in the sun.
It is hard to understand the complicated politics of the day. At any
rate, a short time after, Hercules came with a band of Argives and
established a rival civic centre. In the meantime, Janus had become
mixed up with Roman history and was working manfully for the New
Italy. On very much the same spot "Tibris, King of the Aborigines"
built a city, which must be carefully distinguished from those before
mentioned.
All this happened before Romulus appeared upon the scene. One with a
clear and comprehensive understanding of this early history might
enjoy his first morning's walk in Rome. But to the middle-aged pilgrim
from the West Riding of Yorkshire, who had come to Rome merely to see
the tomb of St. Peter, it was exhausting.
But perhaps medi�val tradition did not form a more confusing
atmosphere than the sentimental admiration of a later day. In the
early part of the nineteenth century a writer begins a book on Rome in
this fashion: "I have ventured to hope that this work may be a guide
to those who visit this wonderful city, which boasts at once the
noblest remains of antiquity, and the most faultless works of art;
which possesses more claims to interest than any other city; which has
in every age stood foremost in the world; which has been the light of
the earth in ages past, the guiding star through the long night of
ignorance, the fountain of civilization to the whole Western world,
and which every nation reverences as the common nurse, preceptor, and
parent."
This notion of Rome as the venerable parent of civilization, to be
approached with tenderly reverential feelings, was easier to hold a
hundred years ago than it is to-day. There was nothing to contradict
it. One might muse on "the grandeur that was Rome," among picturesque
ruins covered with flowering weeds. But now a Rome that is obtrusively
modern claims attention. And it is not merely that the modern world is
here, but that our view of antiquity is modernized. We see it, not
through the mists of time, but as a contemporary might.
When Ferrero published his history we were startled by his realistic
treatment. It was as if we were reading a newspaper and following the
course of current events. C�sar and Pompey and Cicero were treated as
if they were New York politicians. Where we had expected to see
stately figures in togas we were made to see hustling real-estate
speculators, and millionaires, and labor leaders, and ward
politicians, who were working for the prosperity of the city and,
incidentally, for themselves. It was all very different from our
notions of classic times which we had imbibed from our Latin lessons
in school. But it is the impression which Rome itself makes upon the
mind.
One afternoon, among the vast ruins of Hadrian's Villa, I tried to
picture the villa as it was when its first owner walked among the
buildings which his whim had created. The moment Hadrian himself
appeared upon the scene, antiquity seemed an illusion. How
ultra-modern he was, this man whom his contemporaries called "a
searcher out of strange things"! These ruins could not by the mere
process of time become venerable, for they were in their very nature
novelties. They were the playthings of a very rich man. There they lie
upon the ground like so many broken toys. They are just such things as
an enormously rich man would make to-day if he had originality enough
to think of them. Why should not Hadrian have a Vale of Tempe and a
Greek theatre and a Valley of Canopus, and ever so many other things
which he had seen in his travels, reproduced on his estate near
Tivoli?
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