Huge aqueducts supplied Rome with water and irrigated the farms on the Campagna. These are the most conspicuous ruins on the Campagna today. The Gothic army at the siege of Rome in 536 destroyed nearly all the aqueducts, and later on the great country seats were demolished. Six miles from Rome on the Flaminian Road, at the spot now called the Prima Porta, Empress Livia had a country house, which has been excavated. It was well decorated and comfortable. There were found in the house a statue of Emperor Augustus and the busts of several members of the royal family. The ruins of many tombs are found on the Campagna. Roman family vaults contained a funeral banquet hall, on a level with the road, and a crypt below, where the ashes were kept in urns, or the bodies laid to rest in sarcophagi. The sites of the cities of Veii, Fidenæ, and Gabii, once the rivals and equals of Rome, are now almost deserted. In sea-coast towns of Ardea, Laurentum, Lavinium, and Ostia, at one time well populated, are practically empty. The inhabitants are haggard and fever stricken. The children are gaunt, hollow cheeked, and sallow in complexion. Men who work there in the fields fear to pass the night in the country because of the fever. They return to Rome every evening. Forsaken towers and buildings, which stand rotting everywhere about the Campagna, tell the same story of a pestilence-stricken district. Now for the most part only foxes, bears, and other wild animals tenant the ragged pastures and wild jungles of the Campagna. PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 45, SERIAL No. 46 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC. [Illustration: FORUM TOWARD THE CAPITOL, ROME] _THE RUINS OF ROME_ _The Capitoline Hill_ TWO When Rome was founded by Romulus and his handful of comrades they soon saw that if the city was to grow and prosper they would need wives. How to get them was the question. Near Rome was a nation called the Sabines. So the Romans enticed the women of this nation to the new city and kept them there. It is recorded that these early Romans were pretty fine looking men, and that the efforts of the Sabine women to escape were not very strenuous. But naturally the Sabine men were not pleased to be thus deprived of their wives. They started a war with Rome, and besieged the city. The Capitoline Hill was the most important of the seven hills on which Rome was built. So Romulus fortified it strongly, and gave it into the care of one of his bravest generals, Tarpeius. But Romulus reckoned without Tarpeia, the daughter of Tarpeius.