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Gray, Elizabeth Caroline
Tour to the sepulchres of Etruria in 1839 — London, 1840

DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.847#0182
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170 TABQUINIA.

been once the city of the living, and thought the en-
during reality of the one, and the evanescence of
the other, a fitting type of mortal existence. How
fleeting is the continuance in their appointed places
of men, and of states ; and how sure and abiding are
the consequences which they have entailed upon them-
selves in even that small portion of eternity which
intervenes betwixt death and judgment! The site of
one of the mightiest cities of ancient Europe can
scarcely be discovered; her works of piety and orna-
ment, her solemn temples, her solid aqueducts, her
magnificent theatres and forum, the trophies of her
glory, her triumphal arches, and stately colonnades,
all crumbled in the dust, and not even appearing
above the rocks which supported them :* the form
of her government and the vicissitudes of her
history being a curious question of antiquarian doubt
and speculation, and the story of her downfall
• wrapped in mystery.

All that now remains to tell of her greatness is
the receptacle in which she deposited her dead.
Generations vanish from the earth, the name and
memory even of the mightiest people perish. We
know not who they were, or what they were, while,
men like ourselves, they lived and moved in this
world. We only know that they were once here for
a little season, and that they still exist, their bodies a
handful of dust in the corner of their tombs, and
their souls in that abode in which their deeds,
whether good or evil, have prepared them a place.

* All these buildings had a real existence in Tarquinia, as we learn
from Vitruvius.
 
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