f human passion has disappeared, and only the
eternal calm of nature broods over the spot; the calm that was before
man came upon the scene, and that shall be after all his labour is
over.

On a part of these downs overgrown with briars was situated the Roman
Municipium, a colony founded after the subjugation of Veii. It did not
cover more than a third of the area of the ancient city. Several
excavations were made here, which resulted in the discovery, among
other interesting relics of the imperial period, of the colossal heads
of Augustus and Tiberius and the mutilated statue of Germanicus now in
the Vatican Gallery. On this spot were also found the twelve Ionic
columns of white marble which now form the portico of the post-office
in the Piazza Colonna at Rome, and also a few of the pillars which
adorn the magnificent Basilica of St. Paul's on the Ostian Road. No
one looking at these grand columns, so stainless in hue and so perfect
in form, would have supposed that they had formed part of the Roman
Forum of Veii more than two thousand years ago. Those in front of the
post-office look newer than the rest of the building, which is not
more than sixty years old. They owed their perfect preservation
doubtless to the fact that they were buried deep under the dry
volcanic soil for most of the intervening period. It seems strange to
think of these ancient columns, that looked down upon the legal
transactions of Roman Veii, now standing in one of the busiest squares
of modern Rome, associated with one of the most characteristic and
important of our modern institutions, of which ancient Rome had not
even the germ.

Passing through a beautiful copse wood, where cyclamens grew in lavish
profusion, forming little rosy clusters about the oak-stools and
diffusing a faint spicy smell through the warm air, we came out at one
of the gates of the city into open ground. This gate is simply a gap
in a shapeless mound, with traces of an ancient roadway passing
through it and fragments of walls on either side. Where the stones can
be seen projecting through the turf embankment they are smaller than
usual in Etruscan cities. Sir William Gell found hereabouts a portion
of the wall composed of enormous blocks of tufa--three or four yards
long and more than five feet in height--based upon three courses of
thin bricks three feet in length, that rested upon the naked rock.
Such a mode of wall construction has no resemblance to anything
remain