II.—Architectural Features of the City of Ardea

Extract

The original City or fortress of Ardea was built upon a rock on the coast of the Mediterranean, although the sea has receded so much in that part that it is now three miles off. This is equally the case at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which is not many miles from Ardea. It is extremely probable that this was among the earliest settlements of the Greeks in that part of Italy, which afterwards came to be called Magna Graecia, although many modern critics will not allow this. According to my ideas, in all these cases of early settlements the walls themselves afford better evidence than anything that has been written about them, because these settlements were made and the walls were built centuries before the use of writing. The comparison of a score of examples of existing remains therefore tells more of true history than any verbal criticism can do.