When Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume,
And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom.
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear;
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and fear.
His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride,
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to
side;
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door,
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore.
As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson be!
God send Rome one such other sight, and send me there to see!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .






The Prophecy of Capys

It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader that according to
the popular tradition, Romulus, after he had slain his granduncle
Amulius, and restored his grandfather Numitor, determined to quit
Alba, the hereditary domain of the Sylvian princes, and to found
a new city. The gods, it was added, vouchsafed the clearest signs
of the favor with which they regarded the enterprise, and of the
high destinies reserved for the young colony.

This event was likely to be a favorite theme of the old Latin
minstrels. They would naturally attribute the project of Romulus