In the once
magnificent villa there lurked but a few slaves, who knew not
whether their owner lived.
CHAPTER X
THE ANICIANS
Not many days after, in a still noontide of mellow autumn, Basil and
Marcian drew towards Rome. They rode along the Via Appia, between
the tombs of ancient men; all about them, undulant to the far
horizon, a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, of
farms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery that
told of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, a
speck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast
and awful silence, but rarely was a human figure visible. As they
approached the city, marshy ground and stagnant pools lay on either
hand, causing them to glance sadly at those great aqueducts, which
for ages had brought water into Rome from the hills and now stood
idle, cleft by the Goths during the siege four years ago.
They rode in silence, tired with their journey, occupied with heavy
or anxious thoughts. Basil, impatient to arrive, was generally a
little ahead.
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