Two French soldiers, striding across a bench, are playing at picquet with a pack of greasy cards.

A pack-horse or two nibble the blades of grass between the stones, while their owners haggle with the solitary guard about the "octroi" duties.

A sentinel on duty stares listlessly at you as you pass,--and you have entered Rome.
You are coming, I will suppose, from Ostia, and enter therefore by the "Porta San Paolo;" the gate where legends tell that Belisarius sat and begged.

I have chosen this out of the dozen entrances as recalling fewest of past memories and leading most directly to the heart of the living, working city.

You stand then within Rome, and look round in vain for the signs of a city.