outhwards, it forms the western boundary of
Trevi as far as the Palazzo di Venezia, and the Ripresa de' Barberi--the
'Catching of the Racers.' West of the Corso, the Region takes in the
Monte Citorio and the Piazza of the Pantheon, but not the Pantheon
itself, and eastwards it embraces the new quarter which was formerly the
Villa Ludovisi, and follows the Aurelian wall, from Porta Salaria to
Porta Pinciana. Corso means a 'course,' and the Venetian Paul the
Second, who found Rome dull compared with Venice, gave it the name when
he made it a race-course for the Carnival, towards the close of the
fifteenth century. Before that it was Via Lata,--'Broad Street,'--and
was a straight continuation of the Via Flaminia, the main northern
highway from the city. For centuries it has been the chief playground of
the Roman Carnival, a festival of which, perhaps, nothing but the memory
will remain in a few years, when the world will wonder how it could be
possible that the population of the grave old city should have gone mad
each year for ten days and behaved itself by day and night like a crowd
of schoolboys let loose.

'Carnival' is supposed to be derived from 'Carnelevamen,' a 'solace for
the flesh.' Byron alone is responsible for the barbarous derivation
'Carne Vale,' farewell meat--a philological impossibility. In the minds
of the people it is probably most often translated as 'Meat Time,' a
name which had full meaning in times when occasional strict fasting and
frequent abstinence were imposed on Romans almost by law. Its beginnings
are lost in the dawnless night of time--of Time, who was Kronos, of
Kronos who was Saturn, of Saturn who gave his mysterious name to the
Saturnalia in which Carnival had its origin. His temple stood at the
foot of the Capitol hill, facing the corner of the Forum, and there are
remains of it today, tall columns in a row, with architrave and frieze
and cornice; from the golden milestone close at hand, as from the
beginning of time, were measured the ways of the world to the ends of
the earth; and the rites performed within it were older than any others,
and different, for here the pious Roman worshipped with uncovered head,
whereas in all other temples he drew up his robes as a veil lest any
sight of evil omen should meet his eyes, and here waxen tapers were
first burned in Rome in honour of a god. And those same tapers played a
part, to the end, on the last night of Carnival. But in the coincidence
o