"'Midst Tivoli's luxuriant glades,
Bright foaming falls, and olive shades,
Where dwelt in days departed long
The sons of battle and of song,
No tree, no shrub, its foliage rears
But o'er the wrecks of other years,
Temples and domes, which long have been
The soil of that enchanted scene.
There the wild fig tree and the vine
O'er Hadrian's mouldering Villa twine;
The cypress in funeral grace
Usurps the vanished column's place;
O'er fallen shrine and ruined frieze
The wall-flower rustles in the breeze;
Acanthus leaves the marble hide
They once adorned in sculptured pride;
And Nature hath resumed her throne
O'er the vast works of ages flown."
One morning we took the steam tramcar to Tivoli. I think there was one first and one second-class carriage attached to the locomotive. We travelled at the rate of about nine miles an hour, Tivoli, some twenty miles off, situated right up among the beautiful distant hills, being reached in about an hour and a half. Here the wealthy Romans used to go to enjoy the beauty of Nature, and to rest after the cares of State.
We first came to the great sulphur baths about half-way. The white sulphurous stream was employed to turn a wheel for cutting slate or marble, and thence flowed into large and handsome buildings to supply the baths. A few ladies got out here to enjoy the luxury, and await the return of the train to Rome. Then away we went again till we reached the next station, Villa Adriana, once a splendid palace of the Emperor Hadrian's, now an extensive circle of overgrown ruins. It embraced everything beautiful in art and nature which its founder had seen and collected in the course of his expeditions, and was altogether three miles long and one wide: it comprised a great Lyceum, an Academy, an Egyptian Serapeon, a Vale of Tempe, several theatres, baths, barracks, hippodrome, etc., the sites of which can be pretty easily traced. The statuary and marbles found here are now dispersed among different museums. Two English ladies got out to sketch, sending their servants on to Tivoli to prepare their lodgings. We proceeded upwards, winding through groves of beautiful sombre olives, the light shining on their silvery-tinted leaves; and as we wound round the sharp curves we caught the full beauty of the great plains below, discovering every moment some new and lovely prospect over the Campagna; Rome lying far away in the distance, and the mountains towering above our heads. The Romans were right in seeking this beautiful retreat as their summer abode. Yes, this is Tivoli—the ancient Tibur, the favourite resort of Scipio, Æmilianus, Marius, Mæcenas, and other great and eminent men. Augustus and Horace came here to visit Mæcenas; and here, too, Queen Zenobia spent a pleasant banishment.
At length we came to the end of our journey, and entered the Tivoli station, where there were plenty of carriages and guides awaiting us. We lingered at one gap in the mountains, through which there was a most magnificent view of the country around. Just below we saw some old ruins which had evidently been turned into a factory of some kind—the property, I believe, of the Napoleon family. Then we went to an hotel, high up on the brow of the cliff, on the ruined site of the ancient Sibyl's Temple. There are still some fine columns standing, under which we sat for a time to admire the lovely and romantic scenery, the beautiful grottoes in the abysses and glens below, in the valley of the Anio. Only ten of the eighteen Corinthian pillars of this temple now remain. Soane has imitated this architectural relic at the Moorgate Street corner of the Bank of England. Lord Bristol would have brought the original to London had he been allowed to remove it.
Around on the heights, one is told, "There was Mæcenas' villa, there Sallust's, and there Horace's," but I believe the truth is doubtful, though the positions are such as might have been chosen for their commanding beauty.
Nearly opposite the Temple of the Sibyl, and across this romantic chasm, the river Anio tumbles over the cliffs in a magnificent volume of water, throwing out beautiful rainbows across the glen by its radiated vapour:
"The green steep whence Anio leaps
In floods of snow-white foam."
Lower down there is another smaller stream, and the two form tumultuous rapids among the rocks below, ultimately finding their way through a vast cavern-like opening to the plains of the Campagna, and probably at last find the Tiber. There is a zigzag pathway leading down to the deep valley, and we stood so close to the basin into which the water fell that we were covered with the spray and almost deafened by the roar. All around the sides of this glen, inside the numerous caves, and among the jutting rocks were most beautiful maidenhair ferns; and on the mossy terraces and banks, violets and lilies grew in luxuriant profusion. The violets were exceedingly large and full of perfume, and we found, on pulling some of them up, that they had immense bulbs; we took some of the delicate little ferns and violet bulbs away as mementoes of this lovely spot—[F]
"Where little caves were wreathed
[141] So thick with leaves and mosses, that they seem'd
Large honeycombs of green, and freshly teemed
With airs delicious."
We thought perhaps these violets and lilies were planted originally by the hands of some fair Roman maiden or matron centuries ago.