The Country of Horace And Virgil

House?Extent Of Horace's Domain?Pleasantness Of The Site. We now know how Horace became possessed of his country house; it remains for us to become acquainted with its neighbourhood, and to ascertain whether it deserves what the poet has said about it, and why it pleased him. It was, as we have seen, near Tivoli. The road thither is the ancient Via Valeria, one of the most important Roman routes to Italy, leading into the territory of the Marsians. It follows the Anio and traverses a fertile country surrounded by high mountains, on whose summits stand some villages, true eagles' nests, that from afar seem unapproachable. Now and again one meets with ancient monuments, and one treads beneath one's feet fragments of that Roman pavement, o'er which so many nations have passed without being able to destroy it. In three or four hours we reach Vicovaro, which, as I have already said, was formerly Varia, the important town of the neighbourhood. There we must leave the main road, Horaces Country House.and take to the left one which follows the banks of the Licenza.1 On the other side of the torrent, a little higher than Vicovaro, we see Bardela, a large village, with a castle that from a distance looks very well . It was a village where Horace tells us one shivered with cold: rugosus frigore pagus? Abbe Capmartin de Chaupy remarked that the place really is sometimes invaded by cold fogs descending from the adjacent mountains. He tells us that one day when drawing, "... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.