Studies of Travel: ItalyFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Studies of Travel: Italy
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Italy -- Description and travel
Besides the modernized basilica, besides the tombs of various sizes
and designs which line the road--one of which is indeed singularly
like a model of an amphitheatre--the true Capua has little to show
besides the amphitheatre itself. It is strange to see so great a city,
one which for some ages must have been far greater, far more splendid
than Rome, so utterly gone--or rather to see the little that is left of
it translated to another site. But great as Capua undoubtedly was, we
begin to doubt its extreme antiquity. Capua, once Etruscan Vulturnum,
remained Etruscan Vulturnum till the fourth century of Rome. It was the
last remnant of the great Etruscan dominion in that region of Italy.
As such, it represents a state of things far older than Rome. But the
city itself may well be of later date than Rome. At all events, we may
be sure that it is of far later date than Cori and Alatri. The city
by the Vulturnus, down in the plain, taking its name from its guardian
river, marks an advance not only on the mountain strongholds of Segni
and Norba, but on Veii, on Rome itself. It must be far older than
Florence; but it is the fellow of Florence; it marks an equal forsaking
of the oldest type of a city. It is hard to see where the _arx_ of
Capua could have stood, if we are to understand by an _arx_ something
set upon a hill. But what a position that of Capua was, according to
later ideas, is shown by its revival after the Hannibalian war. The
Samnite settlement, parted away from their kinsfolk of the mountains,
had become Campanians, and, to seek shelter against their kinsfolk of
the mountains, they had been fain in some sort to become Romans.
"Cives Romani tunc facti sunt Campani,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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