The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 10, 1907, Page 16

MIGHTY \ CUTSIDR By H. C. Ostrander *“While stands the Colosseum, Rome shell stand; When falls the Colosseum, Rome sl And when Rome falls—the world con- t who rope and of Northern Africa and er s w th ¢ [ ' &r er city of the wogld; but the far-rea & Rome of the Caesars was such va omain that there are few w definite conception of the wo t the immortal name of Rome, now s ng merely for the t of ce meant the world— W own world! s merely a city y others excel it and importance. Caesars, whose glory shadowy memory empire or ROMAN AMPITHEATRE AT NMES FRANCE ¥V A DILL BING 44 such fice nd s st extent as the world never seen and may In the geMen age of ‘Augustus Caesaw, pever s gair it is said, five million people dwelt. The lltaps, the desolate des- Under the Popes the _city resumed ert minds fastnesses of Much of its former, impeftance, and, three twenty na- With the foundation of the:present imper- isheb glory sars. To those who have followed the fortunes of the ¥ the pages of Caesar's immortal “Com- fine v, Saflust andg tressingly modern; with electric lighted golden age, the Streets, strung with the usual network telegraph and telephone . wires, % American trolley cars, big department Jf history must SLOres, advertising signs, billboards and other of ce of imperial but eve grace the lovely valleys of P and S France and the hilltop of far-off Syria, while imposing relics of greatest empire are scat- Serol o ' fferent lands in Eu- rope, Asia \frie Arbiter of Destiny For r : thousand years Roies Hile Jestinies of .the world. ¥rom R Q ala o the Augustan age, as ) public, she sent i egions ~north, east, south and west, until imperial' Rome, under Augustus Caesar, became the mistress of the wopld tantine the way was t most part downward, ale wise reigns of Mar- Antoninus Pilus the decade resumed much of its p grande the vices and { the age wrought work of ruin, and the Seny City, after transter of Pl is mew capital 3 es of the Golden Horn im ¢ 5 A D. fell into a most : ndition of lawlessmess and ena gdle ages Rome was 1 d1¥ by hordes of bar- from the north of Europe— Visigoths; savage Sarscens a; Vandals from Africa. ' Its templeé were overthrown, s palaces siate; its population scattered to the sword, and its streets, had once resounded with the of the charfot wheelis of vie- , and glittered with the geous pageants, were left-te be overgrown with grass, while the efaperors held thelr court tinople and the petty lords other At one time in the touux: century it is estimated that fewer 0900 peopie irhabited the olty where, an‘eagles through about bear splendia Italian kipgdom in 1871, the city of the Caesars became once more the capital Rome of the Cae- ©f.Italy. The ‘present population of Rome is 500,000, and, although'it is a it is, in'most aspects, dis- famillar evidences . of a ‘“pro- gressive” age, helping to destroy what put little of the picturcsque side of Rome the desolatinig hands of Alaric the Goth, Geneseric the Vandal and other spoilers of more recent times have left. tome mgde War upon one an- the existing remains of ‘anclent”Rome e et OF; SHATTERED. ROMAN : TEMPL Hall or Postoffice ‘in the- ey e his- I birth;“but the -most famfllar of. al’ * these monuments—probably- the. bast . ! kmown anciént: structure ' in all’’ the world—is the . Colosseum. . Bullt by the forced” Yabor ' of . 60,000, captive, Jews; dedicated by Titus with the un- paralleled slaughtér of . 6000 wild beasts capable of holding an sudience of* \mo,ooo spectators,” the 'Colosseum ™ Wwas, in its day, alike the ‘scene of , Pageants of splendor and. of. gladia- torial combats of .unspeakable ' fe-® rocity. 4 . "A Roman Hpoliday” One of the most vivid pictures' of ancient Rome is that of the long line of doomed gladiators emerging from the dark ‘archway st the:end ‘of the - amphitheater, . ng’ in’ <sing < around the sanded ‘arena: until the im- " 'with ‘raisea swords, shouting: ‘Hill—all quite as familiar 'to’ 10,000 Derial " box was reached, and” them,. “Hail, Caesar!’ Those sbout to- dle saluteitheet”! . . <t ; Nero, Commodus and Caracalla them- selves fought in 'the arésa, though it may be-surmised that, the combats in_which “they engéged {were always onc-ndeq{ affairs.’ Commodus boastel that he had ‘kile S O THES " amphitheaters, file AT BAALBEC' | - TAINS OF ' LEBANCN DACKGROIND * * of ‘a hundred l-nhz«mhhhelm built upen_ the same general plan and designed for the same sanguihary pur-' poses, located ‘throughout the length erelgnty of the Caesars. Spain, Africe, Greece, “England, France, Sicily, ltaly and- Asia Minor ‘all had thelr amphi- theaters ad thefr gladiatorfal com- bata as; bloody and terrible as those ©of the imperial city. - Although. greatly surpassing in size any 6f the other ‘the Cdlosseum 1s’ “tar fnferior in point of preservation to at least three other structures of/its kind which ‘stil]l. exist—at Nimes and Arles in Southefn France, and ‘at Verona 'in baly b % R The ‘amphitheater: at. Nimes, France, is among the most perfectly preserved: of all’the’structurés—the crypts, the dens for-wild beasts, the subterranean dungeons, - the.: massive . archés -and superstructures and’ the’ great circular tlers .of stone scdts, . are. 80 perfectly preserved that the French population of the presént day gathers here every Sunday: sfterndon” during, the ‘séason to ‘gloat 'oyer the bloody spectacle of ago, gladiators R » museum for:'antiquit! The San Francisco Sunday Call TS S to have improved pereeptibly during the centuries which have ensued since thgse days of pagan Rome. At Nimes is also the most perfectly preserved Roman temple in existence. Tt'is a lovely little Corinthlan edifice now known as the Malson.Carree and dates ‘from the \year 4. A. D. This Yeansiful little temple, which is now Bel . some extent as a model for the great church of the Madeleine in Paris. Among other interesting . Roman ruins in Nimes are the Gateway of Augustus Caesar, the beaut!ful' Teniple of Diana and the Baths of Diana, which have been excavated, after having been buried for over 1500 years. The Roman name of Nimes was Nemausus, and the Emporor + Hadrian, who did much to béautify the: city,/at one time contem- plated making it his capital. The Pont du Gard -.'About fifteen miles from Nimes. near the picturesque | little Provencal vil- lage of Remoulins, may be seen one of” the most impressive of all . the Roman structures. It is the wonderful aqueduet scross the river Gard, con- structed In the yeat 27 B. C. by Marcus Agrippa, the great geweral and son- in-law’ of Augustas Cacsar, and known as the Pont du Gard. ‘ There is perhaps no ancient struc- ture in all"Rome that. brings us so closely ‘in " toyeh '-with “the ~engineers ‘ot that aze of fhe empire as does this “spfendid old bridge which still towers aptpss the vailey of the Gard, among “the’ lonely hills of* Southern ‘France. It ‘spans two hilltops neariy 1000 feet “apart ‘and “carrfes an aquedict upom thres “superimposed tiers of massive stene arches at a height of 180 feet “‘aboye the river. This_marvelohs ' structure combines -gigantic strength with perfect beauty and’ words are powerless to “describe the overwhelming impression produced "by. ‘thdse vast arches, row above row, cutting the deep blue sky. The . bridge. is-in such. perfect con- .dition ‘that the lower tier of areheés is still_used as a bridge for the modern wagon road which crosses the river at this point; bit the water chanhel above the topmest.-tier of arches is now Jempty and ls sufficiently large for one to enter it and walk from end to end. The purpose for which this aqueduct was constructed was to carry . the water of the Fontaine d'Eure across the valley and the river Gard and then ‘through a tunnel cut in the mountain ‘and on down the mountain <o Nimes, where it supplied the splen- did public baths-of a; and It is /safe to 'say that.there is not a better constructed bridge than this 1900-year- all Fran GIE PONT DU GARD N SOUTYERN FRANCE! DULT BY MARCUS AGRIPPA 7 BC GHE WALL OF HADRIAN | NOFTHUMBERLAND, INGLAYD 13 Colosseum and many other great works were cor ucted England. is full of remains Roman period; as witness the baths, - which give the city of its name; the rui of at least two n- cester, and the great wall seventy miles built Romans along the rthe their prevince of Nerth tween Ty nd Solway, for t pose of keepf the P Scots. The very' name of Chester, England’s most Interesting city rived from the Roman “castra, camp. Jullus Caesar stationed the fa- mous Twentleth Legion there, and for 400 years the town was held by the Romans. The walls, which still sur- round the city, are bt foundations of the original Roman walls dat year 61 A. D and the posit four old Roman gates Is per n the very gates by whicli ‘the ci is entered to this ritain, be- day. Paris also has m man réih ifef a e baths within the turesque oid monast a museum of antig «Cluny, and in Germany there are Tuined , temples _and Cologne bears the imp man- oceupation. for first century of, the Ch the camp of Germanicus, was born Co- lonia Agrippina, the moth of Nero. In latter years she returned to the place of her birth, and, in commemora- tion of the event, bestowed upon the city jer name, which, in its abbreviated form, it has ever since retained. Greece possessed many monuments dating from the oecupation of the R mans, among which the most interes ing age the amphithe at Corintl and the one in Sparta, e theater of Herod Atticus, the great pedestal of Marcus Agrippa and the arch of Ha- drian in Athens. Among the Romdn struct maining i Spain, the lllyria, which gave two emperors to Rome, the most magnificent is the great aqueduct. of Segovia; while Northern Africa Is full of ruined tem- ples, aqueducts and amphitheaters, which remain to amaze the builders of this present age. The amphitheater at Thysdrus., in Tunisia, is one of the largest In the weorld—exceeding in size even the ma at Nimes Sieily, Asia Minor, s and Pales- tine all are rich In Rx‘n ruins; chlef among which must be counted that group . of shattered temples whic crowns the Acropoliy of Baalbec. A the ruins of Rome itself do not equ them in extent. and here, befores t marvelous ‘temples of ‘Jupiter and the Sun, the.trayeler pauses In astonish- ment, fully convinced that at Baalbec Rome reached the zenith of her archi- tectural achievements. Only the tem- an era, in " still re- _ples at Karnak rival these cyclopean structures in size and grandeur. Baalbec is perhaps the strongest N dence of the vitality of the Roman pire at the zenith of her power. When ‘we consider that Syria was but a minor Roman province, and that these tem- ples were situated mountains at least forty miles from the sea, we ap- preciate the might of a nation which could build such swe-inspiring tem- with i