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Antium was formerly famous for the temple of Fortune that stood in it. All agree there were two Fortunes worshipped here, which Suetonius calls the Fortunæ Antiates, and Martial, the Sorores Antii. Some are of opinion, that by these two goddesses were meant the two Nemeses, one of which rewarded good men, as the other punished the wicked. Fabretti and others are apt to believe, that by the two Fortunes were only meant in general the goddess who sent prosperity, or she who sent afflictions to mankind, and produce in their behalf an ancient monument found in this very place, and superscribed Fortuna Felici, which, indeed, may favour one opinion as well as the other, and shows, at least, they are not mistaken in the general sense of their division. I do not know whether anybody has taken notice, that this double function of the goddess gives a considerable light and beauty to the ode which Horace has addressed to her. The whole poem is a prayer to Fortune, that she would prosper Cæsar's arms, and confound his enemies, so that each of the goddesses has her task assigned in the poet's prayer; and we may observe the invocation is divided between the two deities, the first line relating indifferently to either. That which I have marked speaks to the goddess of Prosperity, or, if you please, to the Nemesis of the good, and the other to the goddess of Adversity, or to the Nemesis of the wicked. O Diva gratum quæ regis Antium, Præsens vel imo tollere de gradu Mortale corpus, vel superbos

Vertere funeribus triumphos! &c.

Great goddess, Antium's guardian power,
Whose force is strong, and quick to raise
The lowest to the highest place;

Or with a wondrous fall

To bring the haughty lower,

And turn proud triumphs to a funeral, &c.

CREECH.

If we take the first interpretation of the two Fortunes for the double Nemesis, the compliment to Cæsar is the greater, and the fifth stanza clearer than the commentators usually make it, for the clavi trabales, cunei, uncus, liquidumque plumbum, were actually used in the punishment of criminals.

Our next stage brought us to the mouth of the Tiber, into which we entered with some danger, the sea being generally very rough in these parts, where the river rushes into it. The season of the year, the muddiness of the stream, with

the many green

trees hanging over it, put me in mind of the delightful image that Virgil has given us when Æneas took

the first view of it.

Atque hic Æneas ingentem ex æquore lucum
Prospicit: hunc inter fluvio Tiberinus amæno
Vorticibus rapidis et multâ flavus arenâ

In mare prorumpit: variæ circumque supraque
Assuetæ ripis volucres et fluminis alveo
Æthera mulcebant cantu, lucoque volabant.
Flectere iter sociis terræque advertere proras
Imperat, et lætus fluvio succedit opaco.

EN. lib. vii.

The Trojan from the main beheld a wood,
Which thick with shades and a brown horror stood:
Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,
With whirlpools dimpled, and with downward force
That drove the sand along, he took his way,
And rolled his yellow billows to the sea;
About him, and above, and round the wood,
The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,
That bathed within, or basked upon his side,
To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.
The captain gives command, the joyful train

Glide through the gloomy shade, and leave the main. DRYDEN. It is impossible to learn from the ruins of the port of Ostia, what its figure was when it stood whole and entire. I shall, therefore, set down the medal that I have before mentioned, which represents it as it was formerly.

It is worth while to compare Juvenal's description of this port with the figure it makes on the coin.

Tandem intrat positas inclusa per æquora moles,.
Tyrrhenamque Pharon, porrectaque brachia, rursus
Quæ pelago occurrunt medio longèque relinquunt
Italiam non sic igitur mirabere portus
Quos natura dedit-

At last within the mighty mole she gets,
Our Tyrrhene Pharos, that the mid sea meets
With its embrace, and leaves the land behind;
A work so wondrous Nature ne'er designed.

Juv. Sat. 12.

DRYD. JUV.

The seas may very properly be said to be enclosed (inclusa) between the two semicircular moles that almost surround them. The Colossus, with something like a lighted torch in its hand, is probably the Pharos in the second line. The two moles that we must suppose are joined to the land behind the Pharos, are very poetically described by the

-Porrectaque brachia, rursus

Quæ pelago occurrunt medio, longèque relinquunt
Italiam-

as they retire from one another in the compass they make, till their two ends almost meet a second time in the midst of the waters, where the figure of Neptune sits. The poet's reflection on the haven is very just, since there are few natural ports better land-locked, and closed on all sides, than this seems to have been. The figure of Neptune has a rudder by him, to mark the convenience of the harbour for navigation, as he is represented himself at the entrance of it, to show it stood in the sea. The dolphin distinguishes him from a river god, and figures out his dominion over the seas. He holds the same fish in his hand on other medals. What it means we may learn from the Greek epigram on the figure of a Cupid, that had a dolphin in one hand, and a flower in the other.

Ουδέ μάτην παλάμαις κατέχει δελφίνα καὶ ἄνθος,

Τῆ μεν γαρ γαῖαν τῆδε θάλασσαν ἔχει.

A proper emblem graces either hand,

In one he holds the sea, in one the land.

Half a day more brought us to Rome, through a road that is commonly visited by travellers.

ROME.

It is generally observed, that modern Rome stands higher than the ancient; some have computed it about fourteen or fifteen feet, taking one place with another. The reason given for it is, that the present city stands upon the ruins of the former; and indeed I have often observed, that where any considerable pile of building stood anciently, one still finds a rising ground, or a little kind of hill, which was doubtless made up out of the fragments and rubbish of the ruined edifice. But besides this particular cause, we may assign another that has very much contributed to the raising the situation of several parts of Rome: it being certain the great quantities of earth, that have been washed off from the hills by the violence of showers, have had no small share in it. This any one may be sensible of, who observes how far several buildings that stand near the roots of mountains, are sunk deeper in the earth than those that have been on the tops of hills,

or in open plains; for which reason the present face of Rome is much more even and level than it was formerly; the same cause that has raised the lower grounds having contributed to sink those that were higher.

There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the Christian and the heathen. The former, though of a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable and legend, that one receives but little satisfaction from searching into them. The other give a great deal of pleasure to such as have met with them before in ancient authors; for a man who is in Rome can scarce see an object that does not call to mind a piece of a Latin poet or historian. Among the remains of old Rome, the grandeur of the commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary or convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and bridges of the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under the emperors, is seen principally in such works as were rather for ostentation or luxury, than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths, amphitheatres, circuses, obelisks, triumphal pillars, arches, and mausoleums; for what they added to the aqueducts was rather to supply their baths and naumachias, and to embellish the city with fountains, than out of any real necessity there was for them. These several remains have been so copiously described by abundance of travellers and other writers, particularly by those concerned in the learned collection of Grævius, that it is very difficult to make any new discoveries on so beaten a subject. There is, however, so much to be observed in so spacious a field of antiquities, that it is almost impossible to survey them without taking new hints, and raising different reflections, according as a man's natural turn of thoughts, or the course of his studies, direct him.

No part of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so much as the ancient statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship is often the most exquisite of anything in its kind. A man would wonder how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest, one has the satisfaction of seeing the faces, postures, airs, and dress of those that have lived so many ages before us. There is a strange resemblance between the figures of the several heathen deities, and the descriptions that the Latin poets have given us of them; but as the first may be

looked upon as the ancienter of the two, I question not but the Roman poets were the copiers of the Greek statuaries. Though on other occasions we often find the statuaries took their subjects from the poets. The Laocoon is too known an instance among many others that are to be met with at Rome. In the villa Aldabrandina are the figures of an old and young man, engaged together at the Cæstus, who are probably the Dares and Entellus of Virgil; where by the way one may observe the make of the ancient Cæstus, that it only consisted of so many large thongs about the hand, without anything like a piece of lead at the end of them, as some writers of antiquities have falsely imagined.

I question not but many passages in the old poets hint at several parts of sculpture, that were in vogue in the author's time, though they are now never thought of, and that therefore such passages lose much of their beauty in the eye of a modern reader, who does not look upon them in the same light with the author's contemporaries. I shall only mention two or three out of Juvenal, that his commentators have not taken notice of. The first runs thus,

Multa pudicitiæ veteris vestigia forsan,

Aut aliqua extiterint, et sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato

Some thin remains of chastity appeared

Ev'n under Jove, but Jove without a beard.

Sat. 6.

DRYDEN.

I appeal to any reader, if the humour here would not appear much more natural and unforced to a people that saw every day some or other statue of this god with a thick bushy beard, as there are still many of them extant at Rome, than it can to us who have no such idea of him; especially if we consider there was in the same city a temple dedicated to the young Jupiter, called Templum Vajovis, where, in all probability, there stood the particular statue of a Jupiter Imberbis. Juvenal, in another place, makes his flatterer compare the neck of one that is but feebly built, to that of Hercules holding up Antæus from the earth.

Sat. 3.

Et longum invalidi collum cervicibus æquat
Herculis Antæum procul a tellure tenentis.
His long crane neck and narrow shoulders praise;
You'd think they were describing Hercules
Lifting Antæus-

1 Vid. Ov. de Fastis, lib. iii. Ecl. 71.

DRYDEN.

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