CELL'S TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND ITS VICINITY.
THESE elegant volumes are indispensable to the complete scholar and the classical traveller. No one can thoroughly study the his- tory of the earlier ages of Rome, or understand the more familiar allusions of her writers, without possessing this work. The Lappier classic who is able to follow out his studies upon the spot, cannot prudently or even cheaply do without it : it will serve at once as a guide and an instructor, telling him whither and by what direction to pursue his researches, and indirectly teaching him the means by which he may engraft the antiquary upon the scholar, and con- firm, correct, or get beyond his teacher.
Taking Rome as his central point, Sir WILLIAM GELL has ex- tended his surveys in all directions, noticing every celebrated spot, whether primitive, classical, modern, or compounds of each and all, and taking them in alphabetical order. The work is not, and indeed from its nature could not have been, a hasty production. Years of labours of love have been devoted to the unconscious ac- cumulation of materials ; the previous publications of the author had rendered him skilful in the immediate practice of classical , antiquarianism; the study of a whole life had imbued him with
the ',requisite knowledge and feeling for the task. When the composition was finally determined on, he made, in addition to personal examinations, a trigonometrical survey of the district, ap. plying modern science to bear upon ancient remains. The result of this particular labour accompanies the volume in the shape of the conipletest map of " Rome and its Environs" we ever saw, or which indeed can ever have been published. We have spoken of the work as addressed to the scholar ; and so of course it is; but there is nothing dry in its execution to frighten the general reader, nor is its interest altogether limited to one class. The thorough knowledge of the author renders his ideas distinct, whether they be true or whether they be doubtful, his acquaintance with the present aspect of things enables hint to throw the life of existing nature into his descriptions. His style is easy, clear, and academic; and his mode of treating the sub- jects is learnedly gossip-like. Various associations are also called up in turning over its leaves. Many ages seem dimly to pass in review before us. We catch some obsure glimpses of the lost nations which flourished before the period of authentic history. We see Rome in her early struggles, and are taken over the very fields on which (pinning our faith to Sir Wisetam) they took place. She is again presented to us in her high and palmy state; melancholy memorials of her decline constantly come up before us ; monuments of the insecurity, anarchy, and romance of the middle ages, are frequently seen ; but her present degradation and decay is the constant and all-pervading feeling. The Topography, it may be supposed, is not well adapted for quotation ; not will isolated passages convey any other notion of the work than its form. For this object, however we will take an extract, not of the best, but of the shortest.
OSTIA; ilrna • Orris.
Ostia, says Pliny, was sixteen miles from Rome; Strati° gives one hundred and ninety stadia as the distance, following the winding of the river. Many authors reckon it at thirteen miles. According to Strabo and others, it was built by Ancus Martius ; but in the age of that geographer, was without a port, on account of the depositions of the river. Dionysius speaks of it as an entrance for vessels ; and Rutilius informs us that the left branch of the Tyber was rens dared impassable by sand, but that small boats might always enter. In the time of Alinutius Felix, it was a most agreeable place ; and Clover cites an author, who calls the Insula Sacra, at the mouth of the Tyber, the " Libantis Alma Veneris"—never failing in pasture in the summer, and in the winter covered with roses and other flowers ; but in the time of Procopius the city was without walls, and neatly deserted.
Ancus Marcius established not only a town and colony at Ostia, but the silt- works also of the Laeus Ostite, probably in the very spot where they exist at present. The port of a city like Rome could not fail to become opulent, and It seems to a have flourished greatly ; but in the time of Aurelian, that emperor erecting a Proetorium and Forum Aureliani " in Ostiensi ad mare," shows tint the ancient city had al, eady declined ; probably because the port was difficult of access, and had been superseded by that of Trojan.
The site of the ancient Ostia was a little elevated above the surrounding sand and marshes. It is now distinguished by heaps of ruined buildings, which cover a considerable space, but have little to recommend them as remains of architecture,—c,nsisting only of masses of small stones held together by cement. Excavations have been made with great success, and some statues and inscrip- tions have been found, which prove that the town was not deserted at an early period. Its temple, the court of which was surrounded by a peribolus, or por- tico, must have been a very ornamental building. The front, raised on a flight of steps, seems to have been hexastyle, and of the Corinthian order ; the flanks in front of the cella were of white marble ; but the colonnade round the court was of less magnitude and beauty. According to a rough measurement of the whole area of the building, it does not exceed two hundred and seventy Roman palms in length, by one hundred and twenty in breadth. Near this are the remains of a theatre with a modern church of St. Sebastian; at the landing place are other vestiges of antiquity ; and toward the 5,5 the traces of a gate are viaible. Torre Bovaccino (a tower built in modern tines to repel the Barbaresque pirates) is also within the circuit of ancient Ostia. (Vide Bovaccino.)
The modern fort or castle of Ostia consists of three or more lofty and ruin- ous brick towers, united by a curtain and surrounded by a ditch. Anciently the bed of the river, as appearances evidently indicate, was nearer the site of this model n castle than at present, so that the ancient town must have beeu situated upon a narrow peninsula. There are few inhabitants at Ostia, on account of its unwholesome air; and of all the wretched places on the coast in the vicinity of Rome, Oatia, in its present state, is one of the most melancholy.
The Popes, on their election, if not already in orders, are consecrated by the Bishop of Ostia—Ostia being the most ancient see. This bishopric, on account of the poverty and desertion of the place, is now united to that of Velletri. There is an appendix on the History and Language of Ancient Italy. One object of the paper on Language is to show, that the Umbrian or Etruscan tongue—the root of the Latin—was in its orioin a mixture of ,thiulish and of the ancient barbarous Greek spoken by the Italian Pelasgi ; some of the words being Gaul ish or Celtic, others, with the structure and characters of the language, being old Greek. Another and a more useful object, is to prove the barbarous state in which the Latin language continued until a late period of the republic ; when a constant communication with Greece took place, after which the Roman tongue rapidly advanced to its perfect condition. The philologist may not, perhaps, yield implicit confidence to all that Sir WILLIAM ad- vances; but he will find the paper learned, curious, and valuable. The essay on the History of Ancient Italy is intended to prove the truth of the Pelasgian migrations into that country. The subject matter, it may be said, consists of darkness visible ; and it would be difficult to prove satisfactorily the various premises which the learned author uses so freely, and with such mastery, to establish his case. Upon this paper, and upon several articles in the Topography itself, the general reader and the less euthu- siastic scholar will be driven to wonder, that circumstances and persons whose existence he has always dreamed were fabulous, doubtful, or at best obscure, should be quoted and used in argu-
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