United States or Romania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Haec sedet in lacu maris, quemadmodum, et Venetiae: et habentur in ea plures quam mille ducenti pontes, et in quolibet turres mirae magnitudinis, ac fortitudinis, munitae peruigili custodia, et pro vrbe tuenda contra Imperatorem Grand Can.

Mox vehiculum et vestes, et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit; arcanus hinc terror sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit illud, quod tantum perituri vident. XLI. Et haec quidem pars Suevorum in secretiora Germaniae porrigitur.

Suetonius in the reign of Domitian, speaking of these naumachia, says, "Edidit navales pugnas, pene justarum classium, effosso, et circumducto juxta Tyberim lacu, atque inter maximas imbres prospectavit," "He exhibited naval engagements of almost intire fleets, in an artificial Lake formed for the purpose hard by the Tyber, and viewed them in the midst of excessive Rains."

The name Velabrum from an Etruscan root, signifying water, occurring in some other Italian names such as Velletri, Velino still given to this locality, where a church stood in the middle ages called S. Silvestro in Lacu, commemorates the existence of the primeval lake; while the legend of the casting ashore of Romulus and Remus on the slope of the Palatine points to the gradual desiccation of the spot.