Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1882 — A Glimpse of the Splendid Past. [ARTICLE]

A Glimpse of the Splendid Past.

Five hundred ypars before the birth pfUhrist There pa a .pity in, Italy called Sybaris. Tt was a‘magnificent place, and the wealth . and luxury of its inhabitants'was .that the name Sybarite exists to tnis 1 day as.a pseudonym of a devotee!of sensual pleasure. It was at oqe time so populous, that it could send 300,000 men into the field; yet iter annals are lost and its great unknown. All the information we learn is the fact of its greatness, alnd that its ruins are today under the bed pf a rive?' in southern Italy. Jt seems there was a quarrel ahiongst Hie rulers of this mighty city, au(|, ihe discontented joined witjh their enemies,, the protoujates, Who succeeded in captdVing Sybaris, its, inhabitant, .and* to make its ruin complete, changed thekiOHrse of Ari Vets eo-that ft- swept over of the once .nhsdhy municipality. To-day the ruins are CoveiVirfhy a bed of slime and earth from sixteen to twenty feet,deep, and soon the work of bringing the remains to light Will be undetoken. Jt'is believed that the memorials of a very distant past will be brought to light equal to, ifnot exceed ing-.ln interest'those of «d, and gathered wealth to tho*\marvelbus applications of setehce to our daily life, it is weU { tQ; i;emembbr the might of the past, in order that we.should not become too > I*sao! - the splendor of the age we live iff—[From Demorest’s Monthly for March-