r Signia, a Latium city of the Volscians, was, after its
colonization by the Romans, always faithful to the Republic. Strabo,
Pliny, Plautus, Martial, Juvenal, Silius, Italicus, Dionysius
Halicarnassus, and Livy, all make mention, in one way or another, of
this city. Little is known of its history, from the fact that it was
burned to the ground by the order of the Duke of Alva, viceroy of
Naples, on the 14th of August, 1557; and in the fire all records of the
city were destroyed. Its polygonal or Cyclopean walls, of Pelasgic
origin, still remain in many parts as perfect as they ever were:
consisting of gigantic blocks of hewn limestone, they are fitted one
into another with admirable precision; no mortar was used in laying
them, and there they stand, these well-named Cyclopean walls, for some
of the stones are 12 feet long by 5 feet wide, firmly as if centuries on
centuries had not sent a myriad of storms to try their strength. There
are several gates in these walls, noted among which is one called the
Saracen's Gate; it is known in architecture from its indicating by its
form one of the first attempts toward the pointed arch.

In walking through the town, you find here and there bits of middle-age
architecture, which have escaped ruin; here a door, there a window, of
graceful design, built around with the rough masonwork for which Segni
is noted in later days; but the greater number of the houses are
constructed in the rudest manner, indicating the poverty and ignorance
of the majority of the inhabitants. It is, however, a decent poverty,
for, to the credit of the town be it spoken, there was not, when Caper
was there, a professional beggar, excepting the friars, in or around it.

Taking the first street--if a rough road winding around the top of the
mountain, and but four or five feet wide, may be called so--Caper saw at
the doors of the houses, standing chatting to each other, many old
women, their white hair flying in every direction, who, as they talked,
knitted stockings; or, with distaff in hand, twirled the spindle, making
flax into thread for spinning, or wool into woof and web for weaving.
Hearing a shuttle, he looked in at an open door, and found a young girl
busily weaving a heavy blue cloth at a queer old loom; not far from her,
an elderly woman was weaving flax thread into coarse, heavy linen goods.
Passing along, he heard the whir of millstones, and, entering a house,
saw a girl working one of the handmil