When we came
to the village that was a _municipium_ under Augustus and a _colonia_
under Hadrian, we found it indeed scanty and poor, but very neat and
self-respectful-looking, and not unworthy to have been founded by Scipio
Africanus two hundred years before Christ. Such cottage interiors as we
glimpsed seemed cleaner and cozier than some in Wales; men in wide
flat-brimmed hats sat like statues at the doors, absolutely motionless,
but there were women bustling in and out in their work, and at one place
a little girl of ten had been left to do the family wash, and was doing
it joyously and spreading the clothes in the dooryard to dry. We did not
meet with universal favor as we drove by; some groups of girls mocked
our driver; when we said one of them was pretty he answered that he had
seen prettier.
At the entrance to the ruins of the amphitheater which forms the
tourist's chief excuse for visiting Italica the popular manners softened
toward us; the village children offered to sell us wild narcissus
flowers and were even willing to take money in charity. They followed us
into the ruins, much forbidden by the fine, toothless old custodian who
took possession of us as his proper prey and led us through the
moldering caverns and crumbling tiers of seats which form the
amphitheater.
Pages:
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343