Meanwhile the three dead Colonnas had been carried into Rome to the chapel of their house in the Ara Cœli. "The Contesse (the relations, wives and sisters) came, attended by many women tearing their hair, to wail (ululare) over the dead," but Cola had them driven away and forbade any funeral honours. "If they trouble me any more about these accursed corpses," he said, "I will have them thrown into a ditch. They were perjurers—they were not worthy to be buried." The three dead knights were carried secretly by night to the Church of San Silvestro, and buried by the monks senza ululato, without any lament made over them. Thus ended the noble Colonna, the hopes of the house—and with them, though he knew it not, the extravagant hopes and miraculous good fortune of Cola di Rienzi, which began to fall from that day.
We have dwelt upon the details of this history, because there is scarcely any other which gives so clear a vision of the streets and palaces, the rushing of the Popolo, the uncertain counsels of the nobles, the mingled temerity and panic which prevailed among all on both sides. The confusion is extraordinary; the ignorant crowd with its enthusiast leader scarcely less ignorant of men and the just course of human affairs, who defied with a light heart the greatest powers in Christendom, and retreated before the terrific vision of one young warrior in the gate: the nobles with their army, which sought only how to get away again without disgrace when they found themselves in front of a defended gate, and fled before a rabble sortie, of men as much frightened as themselves, and brave only when pursuing another demoralised troop. Whether we look to one side or the other, the effect is equally vivid. The revelation, at first so romantic and splendid, if always fantastic and theatrical, falls now into a squalid horror and mad brag, and cowardice, and fury, in which the spectacle of the Tribune, wiping the sword guiltless of blood upon his mantle, reaches perhaps the highest point of tragic ridicule: while all the chivalry of Rome galloping along the muddy roads to their strongholds, flying before a civic mob, is its lowest point of humiliating misery. It seems almost impossible to believe that the best blood and highest names of Italy, as well as on the other side its most visionary aspirations, should come to such degrading confusion and downfall.
PORTA DEL POPOLO (FLAMINIAN GATE).
THEATRE OF MARCELLUS.