VII
ANTIQUITIES AND ORANGE-BLOSSOMS
Via Sistina, Rome, March 23d.
It is so delightful to have some one with us who knows and loves Rome as Ludovico does. He shows us about con amore and with the greatest enthusiasm, not in the perfunctory guide-book fashion. He and Angela are already good friends, and chatter away like two magpies about everything upon the earth and beneath it as well, which is quite natural, as many of our proposed excursions are subterranean, and we never know what wonder of the world may be sprung upon us at the next corner.
Ludovico was much pleased to learn that we had not yet found our way to the Capitol, as he wished to personally conduct us thither, advising us to drive to the Piazza del Campidoglio in order to save the climb up the long flight of steps leading to it from the street. We thus missed the first view from below of the noble statue of Marcus Aurelius, which was once gilded over, like some of our modern statues, and stood near the Lateran. Those old sculptors knew how a ruler should look! You must see this statue of your grand old heathen emperor some day; there is majesty and dominance in every line.
In the museum we passed beautiful bas-reliefs representing classic scenes, the colossal statue of the Emperor Hadrian in armor, and sarcophagi strangely decorated with bacchanalian representations, until we suddenly found ourselves in the Room of the Dying Gladiator, with that wonderful marble figure before us of which Byron wrote:
"He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,