isited in less than three. The extent of
the city is surprising to those who have been in the habit of thinking
that all the ancient towns in the neighbourhood of Rome were mere
villages. Dionysius says that it was equal in size to Athens. Veii was
indeed fully larger, and was about the dimensions of the city of Rome,
included within the walls of Servius Tullius. It occupied the whole
extent of the platform on which it was situated; and as the area was
bounded on every side by deep ravines, its size was thus absolutely
circumscribed. Built for security and not for the comfort and progress
of its inhabitants, its confined and inaccessible situation would have
unfitted it to become the capital of a great nation, as was at one
time proposed. Passing down a richly-wooded glen by a path overhanging
a stream, we came to a molino or polenta mill, most romantically
situated. Here a fine cascade, about eighty feet high, plunges over
the volcanic rock into a deep gulley overshadowed by bushy ilexes. The
scenery is very picturesque, and differs widely from that of the rest
of the Campagna. In its profusion of broom and hawthorn bushes, whose
golden and snowy blossoms contrasted beautifully with the dark hues of
the evergreen oaks, and in the snowy gleam of its falling waters, and
the hoary gray of its lichen-clad cliffs, it presented features of
resemblance to Scottish scenery. It had indeed a peculiar home look
about it which produced a very pleasing impression upon our minds.
Crossing the stream above the cascade by stepping-stones, between
which the water rushed with a strong current, we entered the wide
down upon which Veii stood. No one would have supposed that this was
the site of one of the most important ancient cities, which held at
bay for ten long years the Roman army, and yielded at last to
stratagem and not to force. Not a vestige of a ruin could be seen. In
the heart of the city the grass was growing in all the soft green
transparency of spring, and a few fields of corn were marked out and
showed the tender braird above the soil. The relics of the walls that
crowned the cliffs have almost entirely disappeared. No Etruscan site
has so few remains; and yet its interest is intensified by the extreme
desolation. It is more suggestive to the imagination because of the
paucity of its objects to appeal to the eye. Legend and history haunt
the spot with nothing to distract the mind or dispel its musing
melancholy. All trace o