ian Way, made by Appius Claudius three centuries before the Christian
era, there are many poor, and poor of a sullen mind, differing much from
the laughter-loving _lazzaroni_ of Naples. I saw many of them: they
belonged still to a conquered Samnium. Or so it seemed to me.

The train now runs from Rome to Velletri, and on to Terracina. The
Sabine and Alban Mountains are upon the left soon after leaving the
city. Further south are the Volscian Hills. Velletri is an old city of
the Volscians subdued by Rome even before Samnium. The Appian Way and
the rail soon run across the Pontine marshes, scourged by malaria at all
seasons of the year but winter. Down past Piperno the Monte Circello is
visible. This was the fabled seat and grove and palace of Circe the
enchantress. One might imagine that her influence has not departed with
her ruined shrine. Fear and desolation and degradation exist in scenes
of exquisite and silent beauty. From Circello's height one sees Mount
Vesuvius, the dome of St Peter's, the islands in the bay of Naples.
Below, to the south-east, lies Terracina; on its high rock the arched
ruins of the palace of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, who conquered
Odoacer and won Italy, ruling it with justice after he had slain Odoacer
at Ravenna with his own hand.

I got to Terracina late at night one January, and though I own that
things past touch me with no such sense of sympathy as things yet to be,
my heart beat a little faster as I drove in the darkness through this
ancient Anxur, once a stronghold of the Volscians. Here too I left the
railway and the southern road was before me. Terracina was touched with
literary memories; Washington Irving had written about that very same
old inn at Terracina to which I was going, that inn which poor deceived
Baedeker called Grand Hotel Royal in small capitals. I was among the
Volscians, in the Appian Way, in the country of brigands, with the
spirit of Irving. And suddenly I drove across rough paving stones in the
heavy shadows of vast corridors, and was greeted by a feeble and
broken-down old landlord, who wished the noblest signor of them all, my
undistinguished self, all good things. Poor Francia was the very spirit
of a deserted landlord. I imagined that he might have remembered
prosperous days before the railway through Monte Cassino and Sparanise
robbed Terracina of her robber's dues from south-bound travellers. His
vast hotel, entered meanly by a little hall, was dim