It was the Hill of Venus.
There was no temple, nor no sacrifice, nor no ritual for the Divinity,
save this solemn attitude of perennial silence; but under the
influence which still remained and gave the place its savour, it was
impossible to believe that the gods were dead. There were no men in
that hollow; nor was there any memory of men, save of men dead these
thousands of years. There was no life of visible things. The mind
released itself and was in touch with whatever survives of conquered
but immortal Spirits.
Thus ready for worship, and in a mood of adoration; filled also with
the genius which inhabits its native place and is too subtle or too
pure to suffer the effect of time, I passed down the ridge-way of the
mountain rim, and came to the edge overlooking that arena whereon was
first fought out and decided the chief destiny of the world.
For all below was the Campagna. Names that are at the origin of things
attached to every cleft and distant rock beyond the spreading level,
or sanctified the gleams of rivers. There below me was Veii; beyond,
in the Wall of the Apennines, only just escaped from clouds, was Tibur
that dignified the ravine at the edge of their rising; that crest to
the right was Tusculum, and far to the south, but clear, on a mountain
answering my own, was the mother of the City, Alba Longa. The Tiber, a
dense, brown fog rolling over and concealing it, was the god of the
wide plain.
There and at that moment I should have seen the City. I stood up on
the bank and shaded my eyes, straining to catch the dome at least in
the sunlight; but I could not, for Rome was hidden by the low Sabinian
hills.
Soracte I saw there - Soracte, of which I had read as a boy. It stood
up like an acropolis, but it was a citadel for no city. It stood
alone, like that soul which once haunted its recesses and prophesied
the conquering advent of the northern kings. I saw the fields where
the tribes had lived that were the first enemies of the imperfect
state, before it gave its name to the fortunes of the Latin race.
Dark Etruria lay behind me, forgotten in the backward of my march: a
furnace and a riddle out of which religion came to the Romans - a place
that has left no language. But below me, sunlit and easy (as it seemed
in the cooler air of that summit), was the arena upon which were first
fought out the chief destinies of the world.
And I still looked down upon it, wondering.
Was it in so small a space that all the legends of one's childhood
were acted? Was the defence of the bridge against so neighbouring and
petty an alliance? Were they peasants of a group of huts that handed
down the great inheritance of discipline, and made an iron channel
whereby, even to us, the antique virtues could descend as a living
memory? It must be so; for the villages and ruins in one landscape
comprised all the first generations of the history of Rome. The stones
we admire, the large spirit of the last expression came from that
rough village and sprang from the broils of that one plain; Rome was
most vigorous before it could speak. So a man's verse, and all he has,
are but the last outward appearance, late and already rigid, of an
earlier, more plastic, and diviner fire.
'Upon this arena,' I still said to myself, 'were first fought out the
chief destinies of the world'; and so, played upon by an unending
theme, I ate and drank in a reverie, still wondering, and then lay
down beneath the shade of a little tree that stood alone upon that
edge of a new world. And wondering, I fell asleep under the morning
sun.
But this sleep was not like the earlier oblivions that had refreshed
my ceaseless journey, for I still dreamt as I slept of what I was to
see, and visions of action without thought - pageants and
mysteries - surrounded my spirit; and across the darkness of a mind
remote from the senses there passed whatever is wrapped up in the
great name of Rome.
When I woke the evening had come. A haze had gathered upon the plain.
The road fell into Ronciglione, and dreams surrounded it upon every
side. For the energy of the body those hours of rest had made a fresh
and enduring vigour; for the soul no rest was needed. It had attained,
at least for the next hour, a vigour that demanded only the physical
capacity of endurance; an eagerness worthy of such great occasions
found a marching vigour for its servant.
In Ronciglione I saw the things that Turner drew; I mean the rocks
from which a river springs, and houses all massed together, giving the
steep a kind of crown. This also accompanied that picture, the soft
light which mourns the sun and lends half-colours to the world. It was
cool, and the opportunity beckoned. I ate and drank, asking every one
questions of Rome, and I passed under their great gate and pursued the
road to the plain. In the mist, as it rose, there rose also a passion
to achieve.
All the night long, mile after mile, I hurried along the Cassian Way.
For five days I had slept through the heat, and the southern night had
become my daytime; and though the mist was dense, and though the moon,
now past her quarter, only made a vague place in heaven, yet
expectation and fancy took more than the place of sight.
