make clear, except, perhaps, modern history. Say that
two thousand or more years hereafter men shall read of what our
grandfathers, our fathers and ourselves have seen done in France within
a hundred years, out of two or three old books founded mostly on
tradition; they may be confused by the sudden disappearance of kings, by
the chaos, the wild wars and the unforeseen birth of a lasting republic,
just as we are puzzled when we read of the same sequence in ancient
Rome. Men who come after us will have more documents, too. It is not
possible that all books and traces of written history should be
destroyed throughout the world, as the Gauls burned everything in Rome,
except the Capitol itself, held by the handful of men who had taken
refuge there.

So the Kingdom fell with a woman's death, and the Commonwealth was made
by her avengers. Take the story as you will, for truth or truth's
legend, it is for ever humanly true, and such deeds would rouse a nation
today as they did then and as they set Rome on fire once more nearly
sixty years later.

But all the time Rome was growing as if the very stones had life to put
out shoots and blossoms and bear fruit. Round about the city the great
Servian wall had wound like a vast finger, in and out, grasping the
seven hills, and taking in what would be a fair-sized city even in our
day. They were the last defences Rome built for herself, for nearly nine
hundred years.

Nothing can give a larger idea of Rome's greatness than that; not all
the temples, monuments, palaces, public buildings of later years can
tell half the certainty of her power expressed by that one fact--Rome
needed no walls when once she had won the world.

But it is very hard to guess at what the city was, in those grim times
of the early fight for life. We know the walls, and there were nineteen
gates in all, and there were paved roads; the wooden bridge, the Capitol
with its first temple and first fortress, the first Forum with the
Sacred Way, were all there, and the public fountain, called the
Tullianum, and a few other sites are certain. The rest must be imagined.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE SERVIAN WALL]

Rome was a brown city in those days, when there was no marble and little
stucco: a brown city teeming with men and women clothed mostly in grey
and brown and black woollen cloaks, like those the hill shepherds wear
today, caught up under one arm and thrown far over the shoulder in dark
folds. The low hou