no value."

Preciozi laughed at these jokes, as if they were a child's bright
sayings; but at times Caesar appeared to him to be an innocent soul, and
at other times a Machiavellian who dissembled his insidious purposes
under an extravagant demeanour.

When Preciozi was involved in some historic dissertation, Caesar used to
ask him ingenuously:

"But listen, abbe; does this really interest you?"

Preciozi would admit that the past didn't matter much to him, and then
with one accord, they would burst out laughing.

Caesar said that Preciozi and he were the most anti-historic men going
about in Rome.

One morning they went to the Piazza del Campidoglio. It was drizzling;
the wet roofs shone; the sky was grey.

"This intrusion of the country into Rome," said Caesar, "is what gives
the city its romantic aspect. These hills with trees on them are very
pretty."

"Only pretty, Don Caesar? They are sublime," retorted Preciozi.

"What amazement I shall produce in you, my dear abbe, when I tell you
that all my knowledge in respect to the Capitol reduces itself to the
fact that some orator, I don't know who, said that near the Capitol is
the Tarpeian Rock."

"You know nothing more about it?"

"Nothing more. I don't know if Cicero said that, or Castelar, or Sir
Robert Peel."

Preciozi burst into merry laughter.

"What statue is that?" asked Caesar, indicating the one in the middle of
the square.

"That is Marcus Aurelius."

"An Emperor?"

"Yes, an Emperor and a philosopher."

"And why have they made him riding such a little, potbellied horse?"

"I don't know, man."

"He looks like a man taking a horse to water at a trough. Why does he
ride bare-back? Hadn't they invented stirrups at that period?"

Preciozi was a bit perplexed; before making a reply he gazed at the
statue, and then said, confusedly:

"I think so."

They crossed the Piazza Campidoglio and went out by the left side of the
Palazzo del Senatore. Down the Via dell' Arco di Severo, a street that
runs down steps to the Forum, they saw a large arch that seemed sunk in
the ground, and beyond, further away, another smaller arch with only one
archway, which arose in the distance as if on top of the big arch. A
square yellow tower, burned by the sun, lifted itself among the ruins;
some hills showed rows of romantic cypresses, and in the background the
blue Alban Mountains stood out against a grey sky.

"Would you like to go down to the Forum?" sa