Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions of the wall, huge smooth
blocks of travertine stone, are the work of the vanished Etruscans,
and fragments of several gateways, with Roman alterations. One
is perfect, imbedded in the outer wall of the castle: it has a
round-headed arch, with six pilasters, in the intervals of which are
three half-length human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern
slope of the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan
tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years ago. The
outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the rubbish of two
millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii has been restored
externally after ancient Etruscan models, but within it has been left
untouched. Descending a long flight of stone steps, which led into the
heart of the hill, we passed through a low door formerly closed by a
single slab of travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first
we could distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain
flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about incessantly, we
saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in imitation of beams and
rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall
on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this
apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there
were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite
forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from
the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of
sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like
compartments which surround the central cavern: the white shapes
turned out to be cinerary urns, enclosing the ashes of the three
thousand years dead Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they
are not, but large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids
recline male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the faces
differ so much in feature and expression that one can hardly doubt