Trajan's Gate, near the Coliseum, is a beautiful piece of architecture. No Jew can ever be prevailed upon to pass beneath it--at which we can hardly wonder, for it is like forcing them again to walk under the "Caudine forks," reminding them all too forcibly of their conquerors, the destruction of their beloved city, and the bitter humiliation they have ever since suffered.
After passing the Arch of Trajan, we soon reach the great high-road, paved with diamond-shaped blocks of lava stone, extending a vast distance, even beyond Naples. This is the celebrated Via Appia. It takes its name from Appius Claudius the Censor. How the mind travels back into centuries long past! How the imagination recalls the glory of ancient times! Like Milton, we seem to see--
"The conflux issuing forth, or entering in: Proctors, proconsuls, to their provinces
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state; Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power; Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings; Or embassies from regions far remote, In various habits, on the Appian road."
The road, apart from itself, has many interests from the numerous relics and monuments of distant ages all along its way. First, we pass the tomb of the Scipios, just inside the Gate of St. Sebastian, and the Arch of Drusus; then the tombs of Augustus and Livia, and many others, mentioned by St. Paul as belonging to Cæsar's household; then, crossing the Aqua-taccio, is the old church Domine quo Vadis, or "Whither goest thou?" where, according to tradition, St. Peter, flying from persecution, met the Saviour, who caused him to return by asking this question. Then we come to the tomb of Cæcilia Metella:
"Standing with half its battlements alone, And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity."
The "stern round tower" looks little like a woman's grave. Many other tombs, all possessing more or less interest, we passed, and I must not forget the English cemetery, where--
"Like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread."
Here lie the remains of our two young poets, taken from us in the flower of their manhood, ere genius had fairly ripened, and ere, alas! we had learned to appreciate them at their true value.