A View of Society and Manners in Italy, Volume 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes Relating to some Eminent CharactersMoore, John
History
A View of Society and Manners in Italy, Volume 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes Relating to some Eminent Characters
Moore, John
Italy -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Italy -- Social life and customs -- Early works to 1800
As the rain still continued, my curiosity to see this fine ruin procured
me a severe drenching: this I received with due resignation, as a
punishment for having been intimidated by rain, from visiting the fine
cascade at Terni. It was with great difficulty I got up the hill, by a
path which I thought was shorter and easier than the high road; this
unfortunately led to no gate. At last, however, I observed a broken part
of the wall, over which I immediately clambered into the town. Martial
takes notice of the difficulty of access to this town.
Narnia, sulphureo quam gurgite candidus amnis
Circuit, ancipiti vix adeunda Jugo.
The town itself is very poor, and thinly inhabited. It boasts, however,
of being the native city of the Emperor Nerva, and some other celebrated
men.
The road from Narni to the post-house at Otricoli, is exceeding rough and
mountainous. This is a very poor village, but advantageously situated
on a rising ground. Between this and the Tiber, at some little distance
from the road, there is a considerable tract of ground, covered with many
loose antique fragments and vaults: these are generally considered as the
ruins of the ancient Ocriculum. We passed along this road early in the
morning, and were entertained, great part of the way, with vocal music
from the pilgrims, several hordes of whom we met near this place, on
their return from Rome, where they had been on account of the jubilee.
The only place of note between Otricoli and Rome, is Civita Castellana.
Terni is the last town of the province of Umbria, and Castellana the
first of ancient Latium, coming to Rome by the Flaminian way. Castellana
is considered, by many antiquarians, as the Fescennium of the ancients;
a schoolmaster of which, as we are informed by Livy, by an unexampled
instance of wickedness, betrayed a number of the sons of the principal
citizens into the power of the Dictator Camillus, at that time besieging
the place. The generous Roman, equally abhorring the treachery and the
traitor, ordered this base man to be stripped, to have his hands tied
behind, and to be delivered over to the boys, who, armed with rods, beat
him back to Fescennium, and delivered him up to their parents, to be used
as they should think he deserved.
Civita Castellana stands upon a high rock, and must formerly have been
a place of great strength, but is now in no very flourishing condition.
Many of the towns I have mentioned, lying on the road to Rome, by the
Flaminian way, have suffered, at different periods, more than those of
any other part of Italy; by the inroads of Visigoths and Huns, as well as
by some incursions of a later date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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