Pliny, However, Is Mistaken In Placing This Inscription On A
Trophy Near The Augusta Praetoria, Now Called Aosta, In Piedmont:
Where, indeed, there is a triumphal arch, but no inscription.
This noble monument of antiquity was first of all destroyed by
fire; and afterwards, in Gothic times, converted into a kind of
fortification. The marbles belonging to it were either employed
in adorning the church of the adjoining village, which is still
called Turbia, a corruption of Trophaea; [This was formerly a
considerable town called Villa Martis, and pretends to the honour
of having given birth to Aulus Helvius, who succeeded Commodus as
emperor of Rome, by the name of Pertinax which he acquired from
his obstinate refusal of that dignity, when it was forced upon
him by the senate. You know this man, though of very low birth,
possessed many excellent qualities, and was basely murdered by
the praetorian guards, at the instigation of Didius Tulianus. For
my part, I could never read without emotion, that celebrated
eulogium of the senate who exclaimed after his death, Pertinace,
imperante, securi viximus neminem timuimus, patre pio, patre
senatus, patre omnium, honorum, We lived secure and were afraid
of nothing under the Government of Pertinax, our affectionate
Father, Father of the Senate, Father to all the children of
Virtue.] or converted into tomb-stones, or carried off to be
preserved in one or two churches of Nice. At present, the work
has the appearance of a ruinous watch-tower, with Gothic
battlements; and as such stands undistinguished by those who
travel by sea from hence to Genoa, and other ports of Italy. I
think I have now described all the antiquities in the
neighbourhood of Nice, except some catacombs or caverns, dug in a
rock at St. Hospice, which Busching, in his geography, has
described as a strong town and seaport, though in fact, there is
not the least vestige either of town or village. It is a point of
land almost opposite to the tower of Turbia, with the mountains
of which it forms a bay, where there is a great and curious
fishery of the tunny fish, farmed of the king of Sardinia. Upon
this point there is a watch-tower still kept in repair, to give
notice to the people in the neighbourhood, in case any Barbary
corsairs should appear on the coast. The catacombs were in all
probability dug, in former times, as places of retreat for the
inhabitants upon sudden descents of the Saracens, who greatly
infested these seas for several successive centuries. Many
curious persons have entered them and proceeded a considerable
way by torch-light, without arriving at the further extremity;
and the tradition of the country is, that they reach as far as
the ancient city of Cemenelion; but this is an idle supposition,
almost as ridiculous as that which ascribes them to the labour
and ingenuity of the fairies: they consist of narrow subterranean
passages, vaulted with stone and lined with cement. Here and
there one finds detached apartments like small chambers, where I
suppose the people remained concealed till the danger was over.
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