eBooks Base 2000

Before approaching the
gateway and pyramid, I walked onward, and soon came in sight of Monte
Testaccio, the artificial hill made of potsherds. There is a gate
admitting into the grounds around the hill, and a road encircling its
base. At a distance, the hill looks greener than any other part of the
landscape, and has all the curved outlines of a natural hill, resembling
in shape a headless sphinx, or Saddleback Mountain, as I used to see it
from Lenox. It is of very considerable height,--two or three hundred
feet at least, I should say,--and well entitled, both by its elevation
and the space it covers, to be reckoned among the hills of Rome. Its
base is almost entirely surrounded with small structures, which seem to
be used as farm-buildings. On the summit is a large iron cross, the
Church having thought it expedient to redeem these shattered pipkins from
the power of paganism, as it has so many other Roman ruins. There was a
pathway up the hill, but I did not choose to ascend it under the hot sun,
so steeply did it clamber up.


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