in

Gloucestershire to Gravesend. The long continuance, also, of the inundation described by Gibbon is inconsistent with the shortness of course which he attributes to the Tiber; for mountain torrents, like the Trebbia and Reno, subside as rapidly as they rise.

Neither is the Tiber a shallow stream, or nearly dried up in summer, as the reader might infer from the language of Gibbon. It is nowhere fordable in the neighbourhood of Rome, and it is only for a short time during the droughts of summer that the navigation by small steamers from Rome to Scorano is suspended. Formerly they ascended as high as Ponte Felice, which is distant about fifty miles from the city.

Yet the words of the historian would convey the impression that the appearance of the Tiber in the summer months resembles that of the torrents which descend from the Northern declivity of the Apennines to join the Po. The traveller from Bologna to Turin crosses half-a-dozen, or more, wide beds of mountain torrents, spanned by bridges of eight, ten, or twelve arches, These beds of torrents present nothing to the view but a wide waste of sand and shingle, the whole of the scanty stream, which flows in them during the summer season, being diverted for the purpose of irrigation. Among these

are the Reno, near Bologna, and the Secchia, the Tara, and the Trebbia, famous for the defeat of the Romans by Hannibal, but robbed, like the rest, of its water for the use of the agriculturist. I have also seen the Arno, when the rivulet, which threads its way through mud and sand in the month of August, had been turned through the dairy farm of the late Duke of Tuscany, so dry, below the town of Florence, that a person might have picked his way across it, without wetting anything but the soles of his shoes.

Far different is the appearance of the Tiber in the summer months. At a point, where I ascertained it by measurement to be five hundred feet wide in the month of July, it was not only deep enough to float a large row-boat, but flowed with a swift current, so that it must have discharged a great body of water. Where the Thames, above the influence of the tide

is widest and no where is it wider than four hundred feetthe current in dry weather is scarcely perceptible.

From my observation of the river at the point indicated, coupled with the strength of the current, I feel not the slightest doubt that the volume of water in the Tiber, during the summer, is equal to that of the Thames and Severn put together, while in the winter the disproportion is greater still.

NAVIGATION OF THE TIBER.

When the Romans, after the burning of their city by the Gauls, were deliberating about migrating to Veii, whose buildings, far exceeding in splendour those of Rome, remained intact, Livy puts into the mouth of Camillus a speech in which he tries to dissuade them from their design. After enlarging upon various considerations, which should induce them to remain, such as their religious rites, which could be fitly performed only in their ancestral city, and the recollections connected with their native land, which furnished a neverfailing stimulus to deeds of heroism, he goes on to notice the advantage which Rome enjoyed over Veii, in the possession of a navigable river, by means of which corn could be floated down from the interior, and the produce of other regions received from the side of the sea.* The arguments of Camillus prevailed, and the Romans remained, to turn to account the natural advantages of their city, and to render Rome the mistress of the world.

The river appears to have been utilised to a far greater extent in ancient than in modern times. Pliny, the elder, tells us that the water of the Tiber above Perugia, as well as that of the Tineas (Chiascia), and of the Clanis (Chiana),

* Non sine causa Dii hominesque hunc urbi condendae locum elegerunt, saluberrimos colles, flumen opportunum quo ex mediterraneis locis fruges devehantur, quo maritimi commeatus accipiantur. Livy, V. 54.

See, also, Cicero de republica, II. V. 10, where, while using nearly the same language as Livy with regard to the Tiber, he styles the river "perennis," which is true; for, unlike the Arno, it flows with a full and strong current, even in the heats of summer. But, at the same time, he strangely describes it as 66 equabilis," ," which is the reverse of truth; for few rivers vary so much in height, thirty-five to forty feet being the difference between the two extremes.

was dammed up, and if no rain fell within nine days, it was let out, to render these rivers navigable, or to increase the volume of water in the Tiber. The "muro grosso,' or great dike on the Roman Chiana, below the town of Canagiola, which tradition assigns to Nero, is thought to be part of a larger work, constructed by the Romans, for the purpose of retaining the water of that river. Strabo informs us that not only was the Nar navigable for large boats, but that smaller ones descended the Tineas, and conveyed to the Tiber the produce of the country on its banks; and Piso, the reputed poisoner of Germanicus, is said, by Tacitus, to have embarked at Narni on the Nar, and descended that river and the Tiber to Rome.

According to the historian,† his object in taking this route was to avoid the suspicion of tampering with the legions, whose favourite he was, on account of the licence in which he allowed them to indulge. Perhaps, also, he was fearful of attracting the notice of the people to whom he knew himself to be odious, before he arrived at Rome, and was surrounded and protected by his clients and retainers.

Such was the hatred with which he was regarded as the suspected murderer of the darling of the people, that an evil interpretation was put upon his most harmless actions. It was made a charge against him, that he had landed close to the Mausoleum of Augustus, as if his object were to insult that family, the noblest scion of which had just fallen a victim to his infernal arts.‡

But, whatever might have been the motives of Piso, there were doubtless many others who preferred the river to the high road, paved, as the latter was, with lava blocks, over which they were jolted in their springless cars.

It appears, also, from the account of Strabo, that the Anio, then, as now, was navigable from Tivoli to its junction with

* Strabo, v. c. 253.

+ Tac. Ann. III. 9.

Tac. Ann. III. 9. See the romantic story of Germanicus and Piso in Tac. Ann. II. 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, and III. I.

the Tiber; and he describes it as traversing a very fruitful plain in the neighbourhood of the quarries of Tiburtine and Gabian stone (Travertino and Peperino),* and notices the great facilities which it afforded for the transport of those stones, of which the greater part of the public buildings of Rome were constructed. We read in Livy, IV. 52, that, during a famine, commissioners were sent to the people who inhabited the shores of the Etruscan sea and the banks of the Tiber, to purchase corn for the people, and that abundant supplies were conveyed down the river, "great earnestness being displayed by the Etrurians to furnish them." "Maximos commeatus summo Etruriae studio Tiberis devexit." This corn probably came from the plains about Perugia, where it would be likely to be grown in larger quantities than elsewhere. According to Pliny, the younger, boats descended the Tiber from Tifernum, near which his villa was situated, to Rome, conveying to that city the produce of the upper country; "but only," he says, "in winter and in spring. In summer the river sinks, and presents nothing but a dry channel, where once was an immense river."+ Tifernum, according to Cluverius, was Borgo San Sepulcro; according to others, Citta di Castello. Both towns are situated in the upper valley of the Tiber, where the river is nothing but a large mountain torrent.

Below the junction of the Nera, however, the Tiber was navigable for boats, like our barges, at every season of the year. The river above and below Rome, as well as in the city, must, in the time of the Empire, have presented a scene of life and animation strongly contrasting with its desolation in the present day. Propertius describes his friend Gallus as "flinging himself luxuriously beside the Tiber's waves, and while he quaffs Lesbian wine from vessels wrought by the hands of Mentor, admiring, at one time, the swiftness with

* "Travertino," a yellowish limestone deposited from springs; "Peperino," a consolidated volcanic dust, or volcanic conglomerate, of a greyish colour, whence the name from "Pepe," "pepper."

† Plin. Ep. v. 6th section,