Explore "The "Merry Rome" Column" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A weekly feature of the _Carthaginian Messenger_, quoted from its issue of March 15, 220 B. C.
It is quite a pleasure to be in dear old Rome again after a week spent upon an important mission which your readers are already acquainted with, in the Tuscan country. All that drive through Etruria was very delightful and the investigation will undoubtedly prove of the greatest use. But what a difference it is to be back in the sparkle and gaiety of the Via Sacra. Every day one feels more and more how _real_ the entente is. Probably no nations have become faster friends than those who have learnt to respect each other in war, and though the Romans were compelled to accept our terms, and to undertake the difficult administration of Sicily with money furnished by the Carthaginian Government, all that was more than twenty years ago and the memory of it does not rankle now. Indeed, I think I may say that the Roman character is a peculiarly generous one in this regard.