AVENTICUM.

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the people as yielding to his persuasive power, and determining to emigrate in search ofa richer soil. But he was detected in ambitious designs hostile to the general weal, andhe perished by his own hand to escape the consequences which were impending.

Though the design continued of settling in Gaul, Cscsar diminished the number of thowanderers, and drove them back to their forsaken pastures with the bitter remembrancethat they were tributaries of Rome . On the subjugation of Gaul, the conquerors sentcolonies into Helvetia, and, for a time, there was peace between the people and theirrulers. It was not, however, of long duration ; war broke out, but it was only for theunskilled bands of the Ilelvetii to fall wounded and dying beneath the highly disciplinedtroops of Rome . The bonds of vassalage were now rivetted afresh on the survivors, and“ the iron entered their souls,” as the penalty of their ill-advised insurrection.

Aventicum was the ancient capital of Helvetia; and from hence the Roman mile-stones found in Switzerland show that distances were calculated. A vast circumferenceof walls seems to mark its extent, but they are, most probably, comparatively of moderndate, and were constructed with tho materials of the old ones round a smaller area. Forcenturies this area was the quarry from which building materials were procured, and someyears ago, the proprietor of a single acre sold stones from it to the amount of one hundredpounds sterling. Among them was one block of marble which it took thirty horses toremove. After a drought, the foundations of buildings ranged in streets are still dis-tinguishable on the surface of the ground, by the burnt appearance of the grass overJlieni. Mosaic pavements have been found belonging to baths, and aqueducts, by whichthey were supplied, traverse the plain underground in various directions.

Byron has pointed out the most striking object:—

“ 13y a lone wall, a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days ;

’Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,

And looks on with the wild bewildered gazeOf one to stone converted by amaze,

Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands,

Making a marvel that it not decays,

When the coeval pride of human hands,

Lcvell’d Aventicum, hath strew’d her subject bands.”

And with this allusion, the poet has not failed to recite the story given by Tacitus ofJulia Alpinula, “a priestess of the goddess Aventia,” who pleaded in vain with thelegate and general Coecina for the life of her father, when, with the people of Aventicum ,he humbly submitted to the favour of the conquerors.

—“ Oh! sweet and sacred be the name!—■

Julia—the daughter, the devoted—gave

Her youth to Heaven ; her heart, beneath a claim

Nearest to Heaven’s, broke o’er a father’s grave.

Justice is sworn ’gainst tears, and hers would craveThe life she lived in ; but tho judge was just,

And then she died on him she could not save.

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,

And held within one urn, one mind, one heart, one dust.”

Fifteen hundred years after the occurrence of this event, a stone found among theruins told by its inscription the affecting tale, and that Julia Alpinula “ lived to the ageof twenty-three.” “I know of no human composition,” says Byron, “so affecting asthis, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought