d left behind it. Peace to the past, and to its ashes of romance
and beauty.

[Illustration]

REGION II TREVI

In Imperial times, the street now called the Tritone, from the Triton on
the fountain in Piazza Barberini, led up from the Portico of Vipsanius
Agrippa's sister in the modern Corso to the temple of Flora at the
beginning of the Quattro Fontane. It was met at right angles by a long
street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan, and which struck it
close to the Arch of Claudius. Then, as now, this point was the meeting
of two principal thoroughfares, and it was called Trivium, or the
'crossroads.' Trivium turned itself into the Italian 'Trevi,' called in
some chronicles 'the Cross of Trevi.' The Arch of Claudius carried the
Aqua Virgo, still officially called the Acqua Vergine, across the
highway; the water, itself, came to be called the water 'of the
crossroads' or 'of Trevi,' and 'Trevi' gave its name at last to the
Region, long before the splendid fountain was built in the early part of
the last century. The device of the Region seems to have nothing to do
with the water, except, perhaps, that the idea of a triplicity is
preserved in the three horizontally disposed rapiers.

The legend that tells how the water was discovered gave it the first
name it bore. A detachment of Roman soldiers, marching down from
Praeneste, or Palestrina, in the summer heat, were overcome by thirst,
and could find neither stream nor well. A little girl, passing that way,
led them aside from the high-road and brought them to a welling spring,
clear and icy cold, known only to shepherds and peasants. They drank
their fill and called it Aqua Virgo, the Maiden Water. And so it has
remained for all ages. But it is commonly called 'Trevi' in Rome, by the
people and by strangers, and the name has a ring of poetry, by its
associations. For they say that whoever will go to the great fountain,
when the high moon rays dance upon the rippling water, and drink, and
toss a coin far out into the middle, in offering to the genius of the
place, shall surely come back to Rome again, old or young, sooner or
later. Many have performed the rite, some secretly, sadly, heartbroken,
for love of Rome and what it holds, and others gayly, many together,
laughing, while they half believe, and sometimes believing altogether
while they laugh. And some who loved, and could meet only in Rome, have
gone there together, and women's tears have sometimes