E-text prepared by Ron Swanson
ROADS FROM ROME
BY
ANNE C. E. ALLINSON
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
Three of the papers in this volume have already appeared in TheAtlantic Monthly: "A Poet's Toll," "The Phrase-Maker," and "A RomanCitizen." The author is indebted to the Editors for permission torepublish them. The illustration on the title page is reproduced fromthe poster of the Roman Exposition of 1911, drawn by DuilioCambeliotti, printed by Dr. E. Chappuis.
PATRI MEO
LUCILIO A. EMERY
JUSTITIAE DISCIPULO, LEGIS MAGISTRO,
LITTERARUM HUMANARUM AMICO
PREFACE
The main purpose of these Roman sketches is to show that the men andwomen of ancient Rome were like ourselves.
"Born into life!—'tis we,
And not the world, are new;
Our cry for bliss, our plea,
Others have urged it too—
Our wants have all been felt, our errors made before."
It is only when we perceive in "classical antiquity" a human naturesimilar to our own in its mingling of weakness and strength, viceand virtue, sorrow and joy, defeats and victories that we shall findin its noblest literature an intimate rather than a formalinspiration, and in its history either comfort or warning.
A secondary purpose is to suggest Roman conditions as they may haveaffected or appeared to men of letters in successive epochs, fromthe last years of the Republic to the Antonine period. Three of thesix sketches are concerned with the long and brilliant "Age ofAugustus." One is laid in the years immediately preceding the deathof Julius Caesar, and one in the time of Trajan and Pliny. The lastsketch deals with the period when Hadrian attempted a renaissanceof Greek art in Athens and creative Roman literature had come to anend. Its renaissance was to be Italian in a new world.
In all the sketches the essential facts are drawn directly from thewritings of the men who appear in them. These facts have been merelycast into an imaginative form which, it is hoped, may help ratherto reveal than cloak their significance for those who believe thatthe roads from Rome lead into the highway of human life.
In choosing between ancient and modern proper names I have thoughtit best in each case to decide which would give the keener impressi