DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1031#0075
52 HOME AND ATHENS. [cHAP. VII.
This being the actual state of the place, how-
ever melancholy may be the aspect of objects about
us, it cannot but be felt that this very desolation itself
has its value. It simplifies the picture. It makes
an abstraction of all other features, and leaves the
spectator alone with Antiquity. In this consists,
particularly at the present period, the superiority of
Athens over Rome, as a reflection of the ancient
world. At Athens the ancient world is everything;
at Rome it is only a part, and a very small one, of
a very great and varied whole. 'Romam sub Roma
quserito,'' said Aringhi of the vast remains of the
Imperial City which were to be found in the cata-
combs beneath it; the same expression may be re-
peated of ancient Rome generally; for ancient Rome
is to be sought beneath the Rome of the middle
ages, and still further beneath the Rome of the pre-
sent day. How rarely therefore is it found! On
the Quirinal hill who would venture to think of Qui-
rinus, while the Palazzo Quirinale dazzles him with
its splendour? If we may use the illustration, the
ancient characters impressed on the Roman soil, are
only descried with great labour through the modern
surface of the illuminated missal of papal splendour,
which has been superscribed over the classical MS.
Athens on the other hand, though a very tattered
manuscript, is not yet, like Rome, a Palimpsest.
Since our first arrival here on the thirteenth of
October, we have been engaged in an excursion to
jEgina, Nauplia, and some of the Islands of the
This being the actual state of the place, how-
ever melancholy may be the aspect of objects about
us, it cannot but be felt that this very desolation itself
has its value. It simplifies the picture. It makes
an abstraction of all other features, and leaves the
spectator alone with Antiquity. In this consists,
particularly at the present period, the superiority of
Athens over Rome, as a reflection of the ancient
world. At Athens the ancient world is everything;
at Rome it is only a part, and a very small one, of
a very great and varied whole. 'Romam sub Roma
quserito,'' said Aringhi of the vast remains of the
Imperial City which were to be found in the cata-
combs beneath it; the same expression may be re-
peated of ancient Rome generally; for ancient Rome
is to be sought beneath the Rome of the middle
ages, and still further beneath the Rome of the pre-
sent day. How rarely therefore is it found! On
the Quirinal hill who would venture to think of Qui-
rinus, while the Palazzo Quirinale dazzles him with
its splendour? If we may use the illustration, the
ancient characters impressed on the Roman soil, are
only descried with great labour through the modern
surface of the illuminated missal of papal splendour,
which has been superscribed over the classical MS.
Athens on the other hand, though a very tattered
manuscript, is not yet, like Rome, a Palimpsest.
Since our first arrival here on the thirteenth of
October, we have been engaged in an excursion to
jEgina, Nauplia, and some of the Islands of the