Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Rome (Yesterday's Classics) by James Baikie

enough this first night in a Roman house.
    A lovely morning sees us all early afoot, and after a good meal we start in the four-wheeled chariot, drawn by sturdy mules. We are well armed, and Publius has already sent word for several of his slaves from Rome to meet us half-way at Anxur, and escort us into the city, for the low-lying part of the road through the Pomptine Marshes has an evil name for highwaymen and rascals of all kinds. To-day we have to journey by cross-roads, first along the bay to Neapolis, and then, turning inland up country, to Capua. At that once famous city we shall strike the Appian Way, and have good solid pavement beneath us all the way to Rome.
    The new day finds us rolling through the gate of Capua on the broad pavement of the great road. The white stone ribbon runs on for mile after mile in front of us, mostly downhill, for we are making for the sea once more. Twenty-one miles of easy driving and we are at Sinuessa, where we shall take our midday meal, with the blue waters of the Tyrrhene Sea rolling almost to our feet. The inevitable siesta takes up the hot hours of early afternoon, and we start again for our next stage to Formiæ. We can see the famous watering-place at the head of the beautiful bay from a long distance off—the long white street by the shore, and the villas embowered in green on the slopes behind. Publius points out to us the one which used to belong to Cicero, and we pass not far from the very spot where Mark Antony's bravoes overtook and slew the great orator. The shadows of evening are beginning to fall as we drive through the streets of the busy little town to our inn.
    Our next day is the most anxious one of the journey. From Formiæ we follow the winding road as it strikes inland through the Cæcuban hills where the vines, laden with their purpling clusters, cling to endless rows of elm-trees. Beyond the hills, we turn seaward once more, and, as we near Anxur, the road shows us a fine piece of Roman skill and determination in the overcoming of difficulties. At this point the best track for the road used to be blocked by the great cliff of St. Angelo, so that wayfarers had to take a stiff climb and descent to avoid the obstacle; but of late years the emperors have cut back the whole cliff for 120 feet, and a beautiful smooth roadway sweeps round the face of the great rock above the echoing waters.
    At Anxur, four of Publius's slaves, armed and mounted, are waiting for us, and a mile or two farther on begins the danger zone. Before us, for nearly twenty miles, stretch the dreary Pomptine Marshes. Side by side with the road, which cannot be kept up here so well as on the more solid ground, runs a canal, and many passengers prefer to travel this stage by canal-boat rather than risk the road. For not only is the surface poor, but the whole district is haunted by daring robbers who stick at nothing, from cutting the wayfarer's throat to kidnapping him bodily and selling him as a slave. The canal-boats are perhaps safer, but even they have been held up often enough. We have our own guard, however; the road is very busy with the crowds who are thronging Romewards for the Triumph, and special military patrols have been put on the dangerous parts of the way; so we stick to our family coach, and, without any attack, reach the end of the marshes at Appii Forum, where we pass the night. To-morrow we shall see Rome.
    The last stage is over ground sacred to every true Roman. Shortly after we leave Appii Forum a range of blue hills lifts its crests far ahead, and these, Publius tells us, are the Alban Hills, on whose slopes rose the first settlement of the Latins, Alba Longa, the mother of Rome. Now the road begins to rise to the long steep slope of Aricia, beyond which we shall see the Alban Lake on our right, and get our first glimpse of the distant walls and temples of the great city. But we have first to run the gauntlet of the pest of Aricia. The professional beggars of Rome, a