What strange sights those roads must have seen when the long camel trains came plodding through from Persia with their escort of black-bearded, ringletted merchants, raising whirlwinds of dust and eliciting strings of curses from the fair-haired drivers of ox-teams from Gaul, drawing huge loads of fruit and wine to Roman markets! There the vendors of jewels, keen-eyed Jews and Syrians, armed to the teeth, had to draw aside angrily for the passage of bulky wares which one gem from the tiny silk-wrapped packet in their bosoms would have paid for ten times over; here comes a richly draped litter with armed horsemen in attendance—a great noble’s wife? No, only a beautiful woman being carried to the slave market where she will fetch the highest price. Suddenly a solitary horseman dashes through the throng at break-neck pace, heedless of the death his steed’s hoofs may deal. Shall the Cæsar’s despatches wait for the safety of the common herd? With perhaps eight or nine hundred miles of road to cover in a given time, the Imperial messenger sees nothing, knows nothing, but his goal and the shortest way to it. How they rode—those express messengers! There are many wild rides on record, but for swiftness and perseverance I think that of the benevolent Roman official Cæsarius, hastening from Antioch to Constantinople to intercede for the guilty Antiocheans, is the most wonderful. I believe it is Theodoret who attests to the fact that he covered the distance of nearly eight hundred miles through two ranges of mountains and over much broken country, in six days! Many a century had to pass before all roads could lead to Rome, but, while the city was still a mere fortified hamlet, one spot took on the character which it has kept through the ages and will keep till the last day. Looking over to the further bank of the river, the builders on the Palatine could see, as we see to-day, when the sun has sunk in the west, a long dark ridge rising like a wall to shut out the lower crimson of the sky. It was wooded then, with oak and pine, though now there is but one tree left, the “Doria pine,” to mark where the forest grew. The ridge sunk at its northern extremity, in irregular undulations, heavily wooded and mysteriously dark, and these connected it with a chain of low hills which stretched away along the river’s bank till they were lost in the mist of the Campagna.