burnt by Ancus Martius; and Dionysius gives the same account with more details. And Pliny speaks of Politorium as one of the Latian cities, of which not a trace remains.[1] For several other cities, between Eome and Alba, shared the same fate. And in this state of complete desolation they have remained, unspoken of, and perhaps unseen, except by the unheeding herdsman, for centuries. Of their sisters not a trace has been found by the discoverer of these two. Hence, perhaps, our little army of adventurous archaeologists was the largest that had passed the gates of these primæval Latian cities since the days of Rome's legendary monarchs.
The question very naturally presents itself to our minds—What becomes of demolished cities? Here and for miles round, there were no villages, no farm-buildings, not any ruins of villas, formed possibly of materials drawn from their remains; not even mounds of grass-grown earth, that resembled the grave of a departed town. Yet Livy tells us that the Roman king gave splendid games to his subjects, with the rich spoils which he carried home from one of these cities. Does time grind down solid stone, and scatter it, as dust, over the face of the earth; or does this parent of the original materials of construction gradually reabsorb them into its maternal bosom, when deprived of shape and place? Certain it is, that here and elsewhere the work of destruction may be so complete, that Nature reasserts her laws
- ↑ Livy, i. 25, 33. See Nibby, 'Analisi della Carta dei Contorni di Roma.' Rome, 1837. Vol. i. p. 215; ii. p. 572.
