the locality of the scene unestablished. In the fourteenth century the mystery was still unsolved, for Benvenuto da Imola in his Commentary on Dante was evidently in doubt over this vexed point and records as follows: “Three churches are named after San Zeno at Verona, one on the hill, another by the Adige, but this is only a small oratory or chapel, and I think it is this San Zeno of which St Gregory writes in the Dialogues, that on one occasion the Adige had inundated Verona, but did not enter the windows of the church of San Zeno. The third church is about a javelin cast from the river, and there is no fairer church that I have seen in all Verona.”[4] The Adige, though famed chiefly for the violence of its ways and habits, has however another side to its character. Its services from a commercial point of view are great. It acts also as a highway whereby to convey heavy bales of goods, and many a raft laden with timber comes floating down its waters, which season the wood at the same time that they carry it to its destination. [Illustration: A VENDOR OF FRESH WATER] [Illustration: THE ARENA] CHAPTER II _The Arena_ Before leaving too far behind us the days when Roman art and influence held sway in Verona it may be well to pause and study the monument of that past epoch which exists to this day in the shape of the Amphitheatre, and consider carefully its history in all its detail. Great uncertainty exists as to when the Arena was built. Its chroniclers, jealous to claim for it an antiquity beyond the bounds of probability, wish to ascribe it to the Etruscans; but it is Roman as to its architecture, the lettering over the arches is Roman, as is also the manner of numbering the seats of the spectators. Its age must for ever remain a mystery; the only certainty on that point being that it is very great. Some writers declare that it dates from the time of Diocletian only, and ask how is it likely that a mere Roman colony should boast a stone amphitheatre when the capital itself was lacking in such a possession? It may be answered that other towns of less importance than Verona, colonies too of Rome, were provided with arenas, some indeed grander and more elaborate than the Veronese one. It will suffice to mention those of Capua, Lucca, Pozzuoli, and Pola, to show how many existed even before the days of Augustus Cæsar, and that there was nothing strange in Verona also having such a building long before the Colisseum came into being. It probably was erected shortly before Rome became an Empire; and it is interesting to trace the uses to which it was put as the ages rolled on their way, and brought in their train different habits and customs.