On the summit of this stupendous barrier and at a height of 1,574 feet is La Turbie. Gazing up from the streets of Monte Carlo the place can be located, although neither its walls, nor its houses nor any part of it are visible; but it is indicated by two remarkable objects which stand out clear on the sky line. They are strange and ill-assorted. One of the objects is a vast pillar or tower of stone, of the colour of a wheat stalk. From the Casino garden, half a mile below, it looks like a gigantic brick standing on end and turned edgeways. This is the Roman monument of Augustus erected over 1,900 years ago. The other object, placed by its side, is a coral pink hotel that may have sprung up in the night. Its outline is intentionally fantastic for it is built in “the Oriental style” in the belief that the simple might mistake it for a mosque or a palace of the caliphs. In spite of its appearance it is popular and well esteemed. It is a theatrical creation as gaudy as if it were flooded by a rose-tinted limelight and as out of place on the top of the stately cliff as a cheap Paris bonnet on the head of the Venus de Milo.
LA TURBIE: THE ROMAN MONUMENT.
There are many ways of reaching La Turbie from the lower ground. For carriages there is the Cemetery road. It is so called, not because it is dangerous to motorists, but because it passes a cemetery. It winds in and out among the prehistoric fortifications of Mont des Mules and Mont Justicier, but is so irresolute, so capricious, so inclined to go any way rather than up hill to La Turbie that the route is exasperating. The track of the road is like the track of a drunken man who has become obstinate and deaf to all persuasions to go straight home.
There are two mule-paths up to the town, one on either side of the Vallon des Gaumates, the Moneghetti path on the west and the Bordina on the east. These paths are at least direct and know where they are going. They are paved with cobble stones, are arranged in long steps, are as monotonous as a treadmill and probably as tiring. They are paths that might have climbed up the penitential heights in Dante’s “Purgatorio.” Still they pass by pleasant ways among the shadows of the olives and the slips of garden piled one above the other on green ledges. Moreover they are the old primitive roads of the country, the roads trod by the medi?val pedlar, by the wandering monk and by the errant knight. Of all works of man throughout the ages they are among the oldest and the least disturbed by change.
It is possible also to reach La Turbie from Monte Carlo by the rack-and-pinion railway. The traveller sits in a carriage that slopes like a roof and is pushed up hill from behind by an engine that puffs like an asthmatic person overpowered by rage. There are three stations to be passed on the way. Nothing happens at two of these stations except that the train stops. It is merely a ceremonial act. There would be anxiety and inquiries of the guard if anyone got in or got out. One station is in a drear rocky waste, far removed from the haunts of men. The only passenger that could be expected to alight here would be a scapegoat laden with the sins of Monte Carlo and eager to get away from the unquiet world and be lost in the wilderness.
La Turbie, or Turbia, was a Roman town. It stood on the famous road that led from Rome into Gaul. It was a busy and prosperous place that probably attained to its greatest importance about two thousand years ago, for the town goes back to a period before the time of Christ. When La Turbie was at the height of its vigour Monaco was a barren rock. Indeed when the first building appeared upon Monaco La Turbie was already more than twelve centuries old.
The ancient Roman road—the Aurelian Way as it was called—ran from the Forum at Rome to Arles on the banks of the Rhone. Its total length, according to Dr. George Müller, was 797 miles. It was commenced in the year B.C. 241 and its construction occupied many decades.
Starting from the Forum it followed the coast northwards. It passed through Pisa, Spezia and Genoa. Then turning westwards it came to Ventimiglia, where it followed the line of the present main street. It passed through Bordighera, along the Strada Romana of that town, and creeping under the foot of the Rochers Rouges it entered Mentone. It crossed the little torrent of St. Louis close to the beach and then began to mount upwards. Its course through Mentone is indicated by the Rue Longue. Thence it ascended to the Mont Justicier and so reached the crest of the hill at La Turbie. Between Mentone and La Turbie there are still to be found traces of this ancient highway which have been left undisturbed among the olive woods.
The road entered La Turbie by that gate which is still called the Portail Romain, made its way through the town with no little pomp and passed out by the Portail de Nice on the west. It now crossed the present Grand Corniche road, which it followed for a while, and then dipped pleasantly into the valley of Laghet. Leaving the convent on its right it turned to La Trinité-Victor and so moved onwards until it reached the great and important Roman city of Cimiez, then known as Cemenelum. Here we may take leave of it.
On this venerable highway La Turbie occupied a position of much interest. It marked the highest point attained by the Via Aureliana in its long journey. To the Romans it was the “Alpis summa.” It stands on the ridge or col which connects Mont Agel with the Tête de Chien and represents the summit of the pass between those heights. More than that—as a landmark visible for miles—it pointed out to the world the ancient frontier between Italy and Gaul and, in later years, the line that divided Provence from Liguria.
To the Roman traveller by the Aurelian Way La Turbie was a place of some significance. It was a goal to be attained. When once the weary man had passed through the gate of Turbia he could sit himself down on a cool bench in its shady street, wipe his brow, loosen his pack, let drop his staff and feel that the worst of the journey was over. He had crossed the frontier into Gaul and was almost within sight of the comforting city of Cemenelum of which old travellers, gossiping in the Forum, had told so much.
La Turbie was a posting town that marked a critical stage in the journey from the Eternal City. It was a place of great bustle and commotion in the spacious Roman days, for companies, large or small, were constantly arriving or leaving and whichever way they went they must halt at the col. How often children playing outside the gate would suddenly rush back to their mothers, with shrill cries, to say that they could see a party winding up the hill towards the town! How often the people would hurry out to see what kind of folk they were and to guess as to their means and their needs!
A CORNER IN LA TURBIE.
Sometimes it would be a body of Roman soldiers, marching in rigid column, under the command of a dignified centurion. At another time some great patrician, with his vast retinue, would mount up to the town. He would grumble, no doubt, at the steepness of the hill, but would be coaxed by the bowing governor to come to the edge of the cliff and look down upon Monaco Bay and upon the glorious line of coast spread out upon either side of it. The patrician lady, alighting from her litter, would thrill the little place with curiosity and excitement. The young women of La Turbie would note keenly the fashion of her dress—the last new mode of Rome—and the manner in which her hair was “done” in order to imitate both the one and the other when the grande dame had swept on to Arles. The suite at the patrician’s heels would be accosted by the gossips of La Turbie and by the young men about town eager to glean the latest news from the great city, news from the lips of men who but a month or so ago had strolled about the Forum or had viewed some amazing spectacle from the galleries of the Coliseum.
The slaves, who led the pack-horses and carried the litters, would chat with the local slaves in the stables and in the meaner wine shops and discuss the general trend of affairs in this outcast, deity-deserted country and compare the vices of their respective masters and the meanness or beauty of their respective ladies. Even the dogs in the cavalcade would excite the interest of the dogs on the hill. One may imagine the supercilious sniff with which the dog that had tramped all the way from Rome would regard the dog stranded on this bleak col and the snarl with which the La Turbie dog—more wolf than dog—would challenge the pampered intruder.
At another time a company of traders would pass through the town—strangely-garbed men speaking an unknown tongue and followed by a train of mules and donkeys laden with bales of rare stuffs and with panniers filled with mysterious and glittering things. One can see the pretty girl of La Turbie coaxing a grey-bearded merchant in a black burnous to open a pannier and let her have a peep and picture the staring eyes of the crowd that would hang over her shoulder.
On another day a troupe of Roman dancing girls would trip through the gate with a ripple of bright colour and with roguish glances, to the great disturbance of the young men of La Turbie who would be too shy to speak to them, too unready to reply to their city banter and too conscious of their own gaucherie.
On occasion, too, a party of gladiators would swagger along on their way to the arena of Cimiez, splendid men, perfect in form, firm of foot, alert in carriage they would swing down the street with a rhythmical step and would be followed by the children through the gate and far along the road, and followed, too, by the eyes of every young woman in La Turbie who could find a window or a gap on the wall that gave a view of the highway.
The main street of the town, along which the great road bustled, must have presented, on these days of coming or going, a scene of much animation. Here were the chief inns and the wine booths, the little local shops, the fruit stalls, the cobbler’s vaulted niche where sandals were repaired, the cutler’s store very bright with bronze, the houses of the dealers in corn and fodder and most assuredly some begrimed hut where an old crone sold curiosities and souvenirs of the place, native weapons and ornaments, a hillman’s head-dress, strange coins dug up outside the walls, bright pieces of ore found among the mountains, the local snake in a bottle, some wolf’s teeth and a shell or two from Monaco beach. In the lesser streets would be the stables for the pack-horses and the mules, the cellars for goods in transit, the hovels for the slaves, the moneylenders’ dens, the compounds for the soldiers and the huts of the wretched wild-eyed Ligurians who, under the lash of their masters, did the mean work of the town.
La Turbie was indeed in these times a great caravanserai, a halting place on the march of civilisation, a post by the side of the inscrutable road that led from the wonder-teeming East to the dull, unawakened land of the West, a road that carried with it the makings of a people who would dominate the world when the power and the glory of Rome had passed away.