After our bath we returned to the hotel, very hungry. Our lunch included a dish called Risotto, which, I am told, can only be made to perfection in this part of the world; it is very good. Owing to the bathing and the lunch, the latter being much prolonged by the voracious appetites of the "Seal" and the "Fat Boy," we had no time to see the town thoroughly, but we managed to make a hurried inspection of the church before our steamer left. It is a fine old building, with two rows of marble columns in the interior, the capitals of which are all different, and remind one of those in the church of St. Mark at Venice. The Byzantine pulpit, a very old episcopal seat behind the altar, and some sarcophagi with inscriptions and carvings in a little courtyard near the church, are also interesting.
Our return journey to Aquileia was not exciting. We were all sleepy, and hot, and rather irritable. On reaching it we proceeded to the hotel, and refreshed ourselves with sundry cooling drinks, and then set out to view the town.
Aquileia was founded B.C. 183 or 181, after the second war against Hannibal. It was one of the twelve fortified towns built to repel the attacks of the Barbarians, and at the same time such towers as Duino, Monfalcone, and Sagrado were erected as watch-towers. Aquileia was a very extensive and important place under the Romans, and possessed a population of half a million. With the decline of the Roman power the glory of Aquileia departed. The town withstood many attacks from the Barbarians, but after a siege of some months it was finally burnt down and quite destroyed by the Huns under Attila. Some of the inhabitants escaped to Grado, and others sought refuge among the neighbouring lagoons.
There is a museum of Roman remains containing a collection of statues, pottery, glass, etc. The old glass is very beautiful, its colouring wonderful, and two of the many statues are particularly fine, one of a Venus or a nymph, very much mutilated, and an almost perfect one of the family of Tiberius. The rest of the statues and carvings, though interesting, did not seem to be of great artistic value, still I was struck by a fine mosaic pavement representing the rape of Europa.