United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was a time when each one of that masterful race that lived upon the Tiber's banks in the days of the Eternal City's greatest glory believed that "to be a Roman was greater than to be a king." And the ideals of civic duty were more nearly realized in that golden hour of human history than they had ever been before or than they have ever been since until now. Very well, young man.
In the changing vicissitudes of the city, the Torre di Nona made way for the once famous Apollo Theatre, built upon the lower dungeons and foundations, and Faust's demon companion rose to the stage out of the depths that had heard the groans of tortured criminals; the theatre itself disappeared a few years ago in the works for improving the Tiber's banks, and a name is all that remains of a fact that made men tremble.
It has puzzled archaeologists, hydraulic engineers and architects for generations, its presence has never been satisfactorily explained, there seems not to be any plan of the city which shows its whereabouts, and the modern improvements of the Tiber's banks do not appear to have affected its occult courses.
Its petals torn By wind and rain of twice five hundred years; Its mossy sheath half rent away, and sold To ornament our palaces and churches, Or to be trodden under feet of man Upon the Tiber's bank; yet what remains Still opening its fair bosom to the sun, And to the constellations that at night Hang poised above it like a swarm of bees.
Thus that marvellous occurrence by Tiber's banks left its mark on all the actors, as prodigies are said to do. The assassin, softened by saving the life he was paid to take, turned from the stiletto to the porter's knot. The princess went barefoot to Loretto, weeping her crime and washing the feet of base-born men.
Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was contending with Aetius; in Spain the Sueves were extending their ravages; Attila menaced the eastern provinces; the Emperor Valentinian was forced to hide in the marshes of Ravenna, and see the second sack of the imperial capital, now a prostrate power a corpse in a winding-sheet. The Vandals landed on the Italian coast. They advanced to the Tiber's banks.
With annual joy to mark the glorious day, When in applausive shouts thy name Spread from the theatre around, Floating on thy own Tiber's stream, And Echo, playful nymph, return'd the sound.
She came very near resting her head on Father Tiber's breast in those days. She would sit in the great galleries for hours, staring at the wonder-works. Then, one day, again in the Sistine Chapel, a fussy little American woman had approached her, her eyes snapping. Mary was sketching, or trying to. "Do you speak English?" "I am English," said Mary.
Word Of The Day