The distance from Terni to Narni is about seven miles; the road is uncommonly good, and the country on each side delightful. When we came near Narni, while the chaises proceeded to the town, I walked to take a view of the bridge of Augustus. This stately fabric is wholly of marble, and without cement, as many other antique buildings are. Only one of the arches remains intire, which is the first on the side of the river where I was; under it there was no water; it is one hundred and fifty feet wide. The next arch, below which the river flows, is twenty feet wider, and has a considerable slope, being higher on the side next the first arch, than on that next the third. The remaining two arches are, in every respect, smaller than the two first. What could be the reason of such ungraceful irregularity in a work, in other respects so magnificent, and upon which so much labour and expence must have been bestowed, I cannot imagine. It is doubtful, whether there were originally four arches, or only three; for that which is supposed by some to be the basis from which the two lesser arches sprung; is thought by others, to be the remains of a square pillar, raised some time after the bridge was built, to support the middle of the third arch; which, on the supposition that there were but three, must have been of a very extraordinary width.
This fabric is usually called Augustus’s Bridge, and Mr. Addison thinks that without doubt Martial alludes to it, in the ninety-second Epigram of the seventh book; but some other very judicious travellers imagine, it is the remains of an aqueduct, because those arches joined two mountains, and are infinitely higher than was necessary for a bridge over the little river which flows under them. It has also been supposed, not without great appearance of probability, that this fabric was originally intended to serve the purposes of both.
As the rain still continued, my curiosity to see this fine ruin procured me a severe drenching: this I received with due resignation, as a punishment for having been intimidated by rain, from visiting the fine cascade at Terni. It was with great difficulty I got up the hill, by a path which I thought was shorter and easier than the high road; this unfortunately led to no gate. At last, however, I observed a broken part of the wall, over which I immediately clambered into the town. Martial takes notice of the difficulty of access to this town.
Narnia, sulphureo quam gurgite candidus amnis
Circuit, ancipiti vix adeunda Jugo.
The town itself is very poor, and thinly inhabited. It boasts, however, of being the native city of the Emperor Nerva, and some other celebrated men.
The road from Narni to the post-house at Otricoli, is exceeding rough and mountainous. This is a very poor village, but advantageously situated on a rising ground. Between this and the Tiber, at some little distance from the road, there is a considerable tract of ground, covered with many loose antique fragments and vaults: these are generally considered as the ruins of the ancient Ocriculum. We passed along this road early in the morning, and were entertained, great part of the way, with vocal music from the pilgrims, several hordes of whom we met near this place, on their return from Rome, where they had been on account of the jubilee.
The only place of note between Otricoli and Rome, is Civita Castellana. Terni is the last town of the province of Umbria, and Castellana the first of ancient Latium, coming to Rome by the Flaminian way. Castellana is considered, by many antiquarians, as the Fescennium of the ancients; a schoolmaster of which, as we are informed by Livy, by an unexampled instance of wickedness, betrayed a number of the sons of the principal citizens into the power of the Dictator Camillus, at that time besieging the place. The generous Roman, equally abhorring the treachery and the traitor, ordered this base man to be stripped, to have his hands tied behind, and to be delivered over to the boys, who, armed with rods, beat him back to Fescennium, and delivered him up to their parents, to be used as they should think he deserved.