United States or French Southern Territories ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The rest they carry away with them, after dividing the burden among themselves, by the road which leads by the Sublician bridge to the Janiculum.
And she took a sieve and walked down to the river, right by the end of the Sublician bridge, where the stairs are on the right-hand side. And the five other Vestals, and the flamens, and all the priests, and the Pontifex, and the consuls went with her.
We fancied, too, that we could discern, a little farther down the river, the ruined and almost submerged piers of the Sublician bridge, which Horatius Cocles defended. The Tiber here whirls rapidly along, and Horatius must have had a perilous swim for his life, and the enemy a fair mark at his head with their arrows.
On the approach of the enemy, they all withdrew for protection from the country into the city, and protected the city itself with military garrisons. Some parts seemed secured by the walls, others by the Tiber between. The Sublician bridge well-nigh afforded a passage to the enemy, had it not been for one man, Horatius Cocles: in him the protecting spirit of Rome on that day found a defence.
They kept their word, and the tale tells how the Tarquins were driven out to a perpetual exile, and by and by allied themselves with Porsena, and marched on Rome, and were stopped only at the Sublician bridge by brave Horatius. Chaos next.
They were brave men in their day, mostly Guelphs, and faithful friends of the Colonna, and it is told how one of them died in a great fight between Colonna and Orsini. It was in that same struggle which culminated in the execution of Lorenzo Colonna, the Protonotary, that Pope Sixtus the Fourth destroyed the last remains of the Sublician Bridge, at the foot of the Aventine.
I will speak of the oldest things first, as I was earnest to see something of Rome in its very early days, if possible; for example the Sublician Bridge, defended by Cocles when the infant republic, like their favourite Hercules in his cradle, strangled the serpent despotism: and of this bridge some portion may yet be seen when the water is very low.
I will go all the way with you. Horace hung his head, as a poor little Italian donkey does when a heavy load is piled upon his back, for he was fairly caught, and he thought of the long road before him, and he had moreover the unpleasant consciousness that the Bore was laughing at his imaginary errand, since they were walking in a direction exactly opposite from the Tiber, and would have to go all the way round the Palatine by the Triumphal Road and the Circus Maximus and then cross by the Sublician bridge, instead of turning back towards the Velabrum, the Provision Market and the Bridge of Æmilius, which we have known and crossed as the Ponte Rotto, but of which only one arch is left now, in midstream.
It is possible that the puppets made of rushes, which in the month of May the pontiffs and Vestal Virgins annually threw into the Tiber from the old Sublician bridge at Rome, had originally the same significance; that is, they may have been designed to purge the city from demoniac influence by diverting the attention of the demons from human beings to the puppets and then toppling the whole uncanny crew, neck and crop, into the river, which would soon sweep them far out to sea.
The people then chose Ancus Martins, the son of Numa's daughter, who is said to have ruled in his grandfather's spirit, though he could not avoid wars with the Latins. The first bridge over the Tiber, named the Sublician, was said to have been built by him. In his time there came to Rome a family called Tarquin.
Word Of The Day