The climate of Rome is very variable. If the _sirocco_ blows, it is mild and very relaxing; but the winters are more apt to be subject to the severe cold of the _tramontana_, which requires even greater precaution and care than that of an English winter. Nothing can be more mistaken than the impression that those who go to Italy are sure to find there a mild and congenial temperature. The climate of Rome has been subject to severity, even from the earliest times of its history. Dionysius speaks of one year in the time of the republic when the snow at Rome lay seven feet deep, and many men and cattle died of the cold.[1] Another year, the snow lay for forty days, trees perished, and cattle died of hunger.[2] Present times are a great improvement on these: snow seldom lies upon the ground for many hours together, and the beautiful fountains of the city are only hung with icicles long enough to allow the photographers to represent them thus; but still the climate is not to be trifled with, and violent transitions from the hot sunshine to the cold shade of the streets often prove fatal. "No one but dogs and Englishmen," say the Romans, "ever walk in the sun." The _malaria_, which is so much dreaded by the natives, lies dormant during the winter months, and seldom affects strangers, unless they are inordinately imprudent in sitting out in the sunset. With the heats of the late summer this insidious ague-fever is apt to follow on the slightest exertion, and particularly to overwhelm those who are employed in field labour. From June to November the Villa Borghese and the Villa Doria are uninhabitable, and the more deserted hills--the Cœlian, the Aventine, and the greater part of the Esquiline,--are a constant prey to fever. The malaria, however, flies before a crowd of human life, and the Ghetto, which teems with inhabitants, is perfectly free from it. In the Campagna,--with the exception of Porto d'Anzio, which has always been healthy,--no town or village is safe after the month of August, and to this cause the utter desolation of so many formerly populous sites (especially those of Veii and Galera) may be attributed:-- "Roma, vorax hominum, domat ardua colla virorum; Roma, ferax febrium, necis est uberrima frugum: Romanæ febres stabili sunt jure fideles." Thus wrote Peter Damian in the 10th century, and those who refuse to be on their guard will find it so still.