3-028-613 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Fountain of Egeria, at Rome, 1870. 'An excursion of the British Archaeological Society of Rome to the so-called Fountain of Egeria has given our Artist an opportunity of sending us a sketch of that interesting object...The supposed Fountain was a nymphaeum on the grounds of Herodes. It has a northern exposure, and would be cool in summer. There is the fragment of a marble statue at the end, and three marble spouts by which a spring supplies water. The building is furnished with pipes through the walls and a conduit all round its sides. All this water would make the place delightful in the heat of summer. Since the arched roof has fallen in, the ivy hangs down inside, giving the place a charm equal to that which it has lost in its beautiful marbles, and in the statues which are supposed to have filled the niches. Here Herodes...practised that eloquence and power of speaking in which he indulged, and which, to his cost, procured him as many foes as friends...The beautiful stanzas of Byron's "Childe Harold" which describe the scene that is shown in our Artist's sketch may well be quoted here: "The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops...".' From "Illustrated London News", 1870.