. The cities of Romagna and the Marches. ed, it played a greatpart and was nearly always the headquarters of a con-siderable Roman army. In the final GalHc war that fol-lowed the retreat of Hannibal, as in the Civil Wars of Mariusand Sulla, it played much the same part, and it was, as wehave seen, the first business of Caesar to seize it when hecrossed the Rubicon. Nor is it less conspicuous in the warsof Octavian and Antony, of Vitelhus and Vespasian, norhundreds of years later in the long contests betweenBehsarius and the Goths. It was a very important place,and when Augustus established Rav
. The cities of Romagna and the Marches. ed, it played a greatpart and was nearly always the headquarters of a con-siderable Roman army. In the final GalHc war that fol-lowed the retreat of Hannibal, as in the Civil Wars of Mariusand Sulla, it played much the same part, and it was, as wehave seen, the first business of Caesar to seize it when hecrossed the Rubicon. Nor is it less conspicuous in the warsof Octavian and Antony, of Vitelhus and Vespasian, norhundreds of years later in the long contests betweenBehsarius and the Goths. It was a very important place,and when Augustus established Ravenna as his great navalport upon the Adriatic he did not neglect Rimini, butadorned her with many splendid public works, some ofwhich we may still see, for he realized that in the era ofpeace which he had inaugurated its importance wouldnot be diminished, but changed, and that its positionso valuable for an army would be equally valuablefor merchants, as indeed proved to be the case, forthrough all the years of the Empire Rimini appears. ?^KlISMOMX^ MAIAIES1\. B\ lIKKt) DKLLA f-KANLLSCATetnpio Malat€\ttano Rn/iiui RIMINI 107 as one of the richest and most flourishing cities ofItaly. But few travellers, I suppose, are drawn to consider suchfacts as these when they visit Rimini to-day, for a laterinterest, and above all a great personality, stand betweenus and them and absorb all, or almost all, our thoughtsthere. As we pass to and fro in those curiously mean andrestless streets to-day, between us and antiquity there risesthe appalling and yet compelling figure of SigismondoMalatesta, the tyrant and humanist. It is his face thatstares at us from the walls of the great church of the place; itis his love that lies buried in that unrivalled mausoleum; it ishis courage and achievement and cruelty that fills the placewith a lean and virile beauty, that haunts the ruins of thedegraded Rocca and seems to interpret for us the violenceof that shrunken smiling river, hurling itself into
Size: 1387px × 1802px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcitiesofroma, bookyear1913
