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I remember one little village, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Clitumnus, which we entered by one gateway, and, in the course of two minutes at the utmost, left by the opposite one, so diminutive was this walled town. Everything hereabouts bears traces of times when war was the prevalent condition, and peace only a rare gleam of sunshine.
A little farther down than the base of the edifice we saw the Clitumnus, so recently from its source in the marble rock, that it was still as pure as a child's heart, and as transparent as truth itself. It looked airier than nothing, because it had not substance enough to brighten, and it was clearer than the atmosphere.
This supposition is in no degree inconsistent with the authority of Ovid, where he mentions him as a young man; for the Romans extended the period of youth to the fiftieth year. PROPERTIUS was born at Mevania, a town of Umbria, seated at the confluence of the Tina and Clitumnus.
His troops, animated by the hopes of spoil, followed the course of the Flaminian way, occupied the unguarded passes of the Apennine, descended into the rich plains of Umbria; and, as they lay encamped on the banks of the Clitumnus, might wantonly slaughter and devour the milk-white oxen, which had been so long reserved for the use of Roman triumphs.
And where thy sacred streams, Clitumnus! flow, White herds, and stateliest bulls that oft have led Triumphant Rome, and on her altars bled. Sotheby. His father is said by some to have been a Roman knight, and they add, that he was one of those who, when L. Antony was starved out of Perasia, were, by the order of Octavius, led to the altar of Julius Caesar, and there slain.
For this reason it has pleased the Creator to lend colour only to the inanimate world, as to senseless vegetables and plants, and to the lower kinds of living creatures, as birds, fishes, and reptiles; whereas nobler creatures, as lions, tigers, horses, cattle, stags, and unicorns, are robed in white or dull skins, the noblest breeds, indeed, both of horses, as those of the Soldans of Egypt and Numidia, and of oxen, as those of the valleys of the Clitumnus and Chiana, being white; whence, indeed, the poet Virgil has said that such latter are fittest for sacrifice to the immortal gods; 'hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, and what follows.
A glorious range of mountains bordered it on the north, looking like Alps in their winter garments. A rosy flush stole over the snow, which kindled with the growing morn, till they shone like clouds that float in the sunrise. The Clitumnus, beside us, was the purest of streams. The heavy rains which had fallen, had not soiled in the least its limpid crystal.
He views the Clitumnus with the eye of an accomplished landscape-gardener; he notes the cypresses on the hill, the ash and poplar groves by the water's edge; he counts the shining pebbles under the clear ice-cold water, and watches the green reflections of the overhanging trees; and finally, as Thomson or Cowper might have done, mentions the abundance of comfortable villas as the last charm of the landscape.
It was like an ode of Shelley translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate appeal to primitive emotion than any words could be. The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds.
I remember nothing else of the valley of Clitumnus, except that the beggars in this region of proverbial fertility are wellnigh profane in the urgency of their petitions; they absolutely fall down on their knees as you approach, in the same attitude as if they were praying to their Maker, and beseech you for alms with a fervency which I am afraid they seldom use before an altar or shrine.
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