7 Boissier (Gaston). Rome and Pompeii. Archaeological Rambles. Trans, by D. H. Fisher. 2nd imp. With maps and plans. Cr. 8vo. CI. gt. 1905 7/6 -.BOISSIE THE GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY Halsted VanderPoel Campanian Collection ROME AND POMPEII UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. THE RIVIERA: Ancient and Modern. By Charles Lentheric. Translated by Charles West, M.D. With Maps and Plans. ROME AND POMPEII Hrcba^olOGical IRamblee BY GASTON BOISSIER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY TRANSLATED BY D. HAVELOCK FISHER WITH MAPS AND PLANS LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1896 \^An rights reserved.^ CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. PAGES The Forum 1-50 I. Importance of the Forum dov, a to ihe end of tlie Empire — Its condition at the beginning of the present century — Signer Pietro Rosa'i^; excavations — M. Dutert's restoration essay — Signer Fiorelli's administration, 8il4 II. The Via Sacra between the Arch of Titus and the Forum — The Temple of Vesta — The dwelling of the Vestals (A trium Vestce)— The Vestals and the Christian nuns — View of the Palatine, . . . 15-40 III. The Forum of the Empire — How we have been enabled to recognise and designate its chief monuments — Statins and the statue of Domitian — The Temple of Caisar — The Basilica Julia — Temples of Saturn and Castor — Those of Vespasian and Concord — East side of the Forum — Centre of the Fovnm — The Clivus capitolinus .... 41-63 h vi CONTENTS. IV. Impression first produced by the Forum — Absence of symmetry — Its small extent — The very different uses it served — Political assemblies — How orators made themselves heard in it — How it held all the people who came together there, . , . 53-66 CHAPTER II. The Palatine 67-137 I. How the excavations on the Palatine came to be undertaken — Roma quadrata and the walls of Romulus — The Temple of Jupiter Stator — Remains of the epoch of the Kings — Antiquity of writing among the Romans, and the consequences to be drawn from it — The Palatine under the Republic — Why excavations are always so prolific in Rome, . 71-86 II. The house of Augustus on the Palatine — How, little by little, it became a palace — What remains of it— Employment of marble in the Imperial epoch — New processes in the art of building — The Palace of Tiberius — That of Caligula — The cryptoporticus where Caligula perished — The house of Livia and its paintings — The Palace of Nero, 87-111 III. The Flavii and their policy — Description of Domitian's palace — The palace of Severus — The Imperial box at the Great Circus — Lodgings of the soldiers and servants, .... 111-129 IV. Aspect of the hill in the third century — It contains the edifices of all times — Monuments of the Imperial epoch — Difi"erences between the palaces of then and now — Beauty of the whole, . , 129-137 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTEE III. The Catacombs 139-213 I. The importance which Christians attached to sepulture — The Catacombs their work, and not old abandoned quarries — How they were induced to hollow them out — Hypogea of diflPerent religions in the Roman Campagna — Rules adopted by the Church for burial, 142-152 II. First impression produced by a visit to the Catacombs — The immensity of these cities of the dead, and consequences to be drawn from it — Rapid diffusion of Christianity — Religion separates itself from the family and the country— The Catacombs the most ancient monument of Christianity at Rome — Mementoes of the times of persecution contained in them — Mementoes of the days of triumph, 152-161 III. The inscriptions and paintings in the Catacombs — Character of the most ancient inscrip- tions—The birth of Christian art —The first sub- jects treated by the artists of the Catacombs — Imitation of antique types — Reproduction of Christian subjects — Symbolism— Origin of historical painting — To what extent the Christian artists adhered to antique art, 162-177 IV. The cemetery of Calixtus — Signor Rossi succeeds in finding it — The indications which enable him to discover the tombs of the martyrs — Works carried out after the time of Constantiue in the celebrated cry-pts— Graffiti of pilgrims — Why the cemetery took the name of Calixtus — History of this Pope, according to the PMlosophumena — Why the Popes of the third century were buried in the cemetery of Calixtus, and how it became the pro- perty of the Church— Discovery of the papal crypt, 177-192 Vni CONTENTS. PACKS V. Chief results of Signer Rossi's discoveries — His new opinions on the origin and history of the Christian cemeteries — They begin by being private property — As snch they are under the protection of the law — How they extended — How they became the property of the Church — First relations of the Church with the civil authority — Character of these relations — The primitive Church and ihe great families — How advantage may be drawn from the acts of the martyrs, 192-213 CHAPTRE lY. Hadkian's Villa 215-292 I. The Emperor Hadrian — The different judg- ments passed on him — 7'he prince and the man — The reasons why he was not loved — His liking for the Greeks — Travelling in ancient times — Hadrian's journeyings, 221-240 ir. The site of Hadrian's villa — Magnificence of construction— The Empecoi's purpose in building it — Parts which can be recognistd — The Vale of Tempe — The Poecile — Canopus The private dwelling — The Natatorium — The reception apart- ments—The Piazza d'oro — The Basilica — The theatres — The libraries — The public lecture-halls — Hell 241-268 III. Did the Romans understand and love Nature 1 — The reasons the> had for leaving the town — Horace at Tibur — Liking of everybody Ibr the country — How Pliny the Younger lived there — His villas — His gardens — Sites preferred by the ancients — The view from the Pojcile, . . 268-292 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTEE V. PAGES OSTIA. . 293-334 I. Modern Ostia— Aspect of tlie plaiu by which ancient Ostia is covered— How the town came to be abandoned — The first excavations made there— Signor Visconti's labours— Discovery of the Street of Tombs— The house known as the Imperial Palace— The great temple and the street leading towards the Tiber— The shops situated along the river, 295-306 II. Why the port of Ostia was founded — The free distribution of corn in Rome— The difficulty of provisioning Rome— Creation of the port of Claudius — The port of Trajan — The Imperial Palace— The town of Partus— lUhe magnificence of Ostia and Partus, 306-325 III. The religious monuments at Ostia — Intro- duction and swift progress of Christianity— The Xenodochium of Pammachius — Prelude to the Odavius of Minutius Felix— Death of St Monica, 325-334 CHAPTER VI. Pompeii 335-485 I. The excavations at Pompeii under Signor Fiorelli- Mementoes of its ancient history that have been found— What remains to be cleared— Ought the works that have been begun to be continued ? —Recent discoveries— The fresco of Orpheus — Account-books of the Banker Jucundus— The new Fullonica, 335-354 CONTENTS. II. Pompeii's chief lesson to us — Country life in the Roman Empire— The difficulty of acquainting ourselves with it— How Pompeii puts it before our eyes— The whole Empire repeats the customs of Rome — The aristocracy of Pompeii— Character- istics of Pompeian houses, .... 364-369 III. The paintings of Pompeii, according to Doctor Helbig's works— The large number of mythological pictures— Character of these pictures —The paintings of Pompeii not original— Why critics of the first century treat the paintings of their time so severely— From what schools did Pompeian artists borrow the subjects of their pictures ?— Alexandrian or Hellenistic painting- Room pictures— General character of Hellenistic painting— How far did Pompeian artists faithfully reproduce their models?— What is the particular merit of the paintings at Pompeii ? . . . 370-398 IV. Whence the resemblances come that are remarked between the paintings at Pompeii and the poetry of the Augustan age— The painters and the poets inspired by the same subjects— Latin literature imitates the poetic school of ^^.lexandria- Catullus — Virgil — Propertius— Ovid— Differences between the painters of Pompeii and the Roman poets— Painting never became Roman— Repugnance of the Pompeian artists to handle subjects drawn from the history or the legends of Rome — Is Pompeii really a Greek town ?— National character of the poetry of the Augustan age, . . , 399-419 CONTENTS. xi V. The burghers of Pompeii —The poor — Where did they live ? — Inns and taverns — Occupations and pleasures common to the poor and the rich — The municipal elections — The shows — How may we become acquainted with the inner life of the Pompeians? — The inscriptions and graffiti — The services they render us, 419-435 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES CHAPTEE I. THE FOEUM. I HAVE often heard it said that it is dangerous to return after long absence to persons and places one has much loved. We seldom find them again as we remember to have seen them. The charm flies with years, tastes and ideas change, the faculty of admiring wanes ; there is a danger of our remaining unmoved before what trans- ported us in our youth, and, it may be, that instead of the pleasure we sought, only a disappointment awaits us. This disenchantment is the more fatal in that it usually spreads from the present to the past. Do what we will, it ends by imparting itself to our old impres- sions, and taints those stores of memories which should be faithfully treasured in our hearts for life's decline. And this is the peril to which a traveller exposes ^himself who, not having seen Eome for many years, 'determines to go back there. How many things have happened in these few years ! Eome has changed masters; the old town of the Popes has become the 2 AECH.EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. capital of the kingdom of Italy. How has she lent her- self to the change ? What effect has this new order of things, so different from the old, produced upon her ? Has she lost anything by it, and shall we find her again as we left her ? This is the first question we ask our- selves on returning to Rome. It is difficult not to feel engrossed by it ; and directly the railway lands us upon the immense piazza of the Baths of Diocletian — once so calm, now so bustling and noisy — we cannot help looking round on all sides with uneasy curiosity. The first impression is not favourable, it must be owned. On leaving the terminus, we traverse a new quarter, which offends by its likeness to every other new quarter in the world. Is Eome, then, in peril of becoming a commonplace town ? We see vulgarly ele- gant houses, like those we have seen in other cities ; we pass an immense building — a species of barracks, with- out character or style, destined to become a public office, and which produces a pitiful effect beside the grand palaces of the sixteenth century ; and, as we go through broad streets and narrow lanes flooded with a burning sun, we remember that, even in the time of Nero, who rebuilt the old town on a vaster plan, boobies much admired the splendour of the new building, but sensible people could not help regretting the old narrow, crooked streets, where they always found so much shade and freshness.^ This is hardly an encouraging beginning, and what remains seems at first in keeping with it. On descending from the Quirinal to the Gorso, we still find many striking changes. The Gorso, with the streets that 1 Tacitus, Ann., XV. 43: Eranttamen qui crederent veterem illam formam salubritati magis conduxisse. THE FOKUM. 3 cross it, from the piazza cli Venezia to i\\Q piazza del Popolo, was always the most animated place in the town. It appears to me to have become still more animated, and that its population is no longer quite the same. Priests, and especially monks, are more rare, and the glance of those who remain does not seem to me so assured, nor their countenances so proud ; they evidently no longer feel themselves the masters. Among the people who have replaced them, one is surprised to see many who walk fast, and appear to have something to do, which used to be seldom the case. Nor do they belong to the old inhabitants of Home. They are generally employes of the ministries, or public office clerks ; all come from outside, bringing with them new customs. At the very hour when, according to the old saying, only dogs and Englishmen were seen in the streets, we meet these offi- cials, active, busy, elbowing those who are in their way, to the intense amazement of the old Romans, who cannot understand people going out at the hour of the siesta, or hurrying when it is hot. As evening approaches, the bustle increases. There is a moment, towards six o'clock, when the street belongs to the news-vendors. They deafen you with their cries ; they address you, they pursue you. Newspapers abound in Eome. There are journals of every size and shade of opinion — more violent than moderate, as usual — which bid for clients by the smallness of their price and the vivacity of their polemics. How far are we from the time when only that good, carefully expurgated Giornale cli Boma was read — that friend of legitimate governments, which never knew of revolutions until several weeks after^ they had taken place ! Must we believe that 4 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. this race of sceptics and scoffers, accustomed and indifferent to everything, astonished and indignant at nothing, which used to answer the reformers of all parties with a che volete ? or a cJii lo sa ? has suddenly gone raving mad over politics ? It is a change one has great difficulty in understanding. And it is impossible to master one's surprise when the very signboards are seen to contain professions of faith — the barbers pomp- ously styling themselves parruchiere nazionale — and when one reads the electoral appeals and the demo- cratic bombast with which the walls are covered. There are certainly many innovations which run great risk of not being to the taste of everybody. We cannot help asking ourselves what will be thought and said by those zealous admirers, whom Eome has possessed in all ages, who would have her remain stationary ; who say she is being spoilt when the least thing is changed ; and who already began to cry out that all was lost when a too zealous magistrate took it into his head to have the streets a little better swept, and to light them dimly with a few lamps. But let us hasten to reassure them. All is not so much overturned as they may think, and the change is more upon the surface than in the depths. The quarters of the people have nearly everywhere kept their old aspect. If, for example, after descending the Gorso, you continue your walk beyond the piazza di Venezia, through the steep streets leading to the Forum, you find old Eome intact. These, indeed, are the same houses we used to see— as old and as dirty. The Madonnas have re- mained in their places above the doors, and in the evening a lantern is still piously lit before them. If THE FORUM. 5 you happen to raise your eyes higher, towards the wide, curtainless windows, you are sure to find enough rags spread out to content the most exigent friends of the picturesque and of local colour. In the cellar-like taverns, with their great open doors, players are still leaning carelessly with their elbows on the tables, beside flasks of Orvieto, with greasy cards in their hands. As for the osterie which skirt the street, I do not think they can have much changed in appearance since the Eoman Empire ; and I muse, as I behold them, on those unctcB popince whose rejoicing smell so gladdened the slave of Horace. So, with a little good-will, here we are in the very midsfc of antiquity. If we wish the illusion still more complete, if we desire to enjoy for a mo- ment what might be called the genuine sensation of Eome — that which our fathers felt in visitiujr it, and which was described by Chateaubriand and Goethe — let us go a little further, beyond the houses and the boundary: for, in order to insure a better understanding of it, it is as well to leave them behind us. If you like, we will pass through the Porta Pia, and follow the ancient Via Nomcntata. Saluting, as we go by, the basilica of St Agnes and the round temple that served for the sepulture of Constantino's daughter, we get to the Teverone, and cross it by a very curious bridge, still bearing traces of work dating from the Middle Ages. A few steps further on, to the right, rises a hill of small extent and height. It must be climbed with respect, since it bears a great name in history: it is the Holy Mountain, Here it was that, more than two thousand years 6 AliCII^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. gone by, Democrncy gained one of its first victories using, in order to obtain it, a means it is still very fond of employing — the strike. One fine day, the Eoman army — that is to say, all the sound-bodied population — leaving the camps to which the Consuls insisted on confining it, came and settled on this mountain, determined to remain there so long as its conditions should be refused. In order to win, it only had to wait. The Aristocracy, alarmed at its solitude, became weary of resistance, and allowed the people to institute the tribunesliip. How many memories present themselves to the mind from the summit of this hill ! It was in this immense un- dulating plain wliich now strikes the eye that, according to the expression of an historian, the Romans served their apprenticeship for the conquest of the world. Every year they had to fight the energetic little tribes peopling it, and furious battles took place there for the possession of a hovel or the sacking of a cornfield. There it was that, during a struggle of many centuries, they acquired experience of war, the habit of obedience, and ability to command. When they crossed those mountains which frame in the horizon on all sides, in order to spread themselves over the rest of Italy, their education was completed, and they possessed the virtues which enabled them to con- quer all. Since then, how many glorious events ! Since then, how many times have those great roads, whose direction is still followed by the line of tombs that border them, witnessed the return of the triumph- ant legions ! How many illustrious names are recalled to the memory by those fragments of aqueducts, and THE FORUM. 7 those ruined monuments which cover the plain ! And we have here the advantage that, these great memories once revived, there is nothing to divert us from them. In fertile, well-peopled countries, full of bustle and move- ment, the present unceasingly snatches us away from the past. How can we muse and ponder, when the spectacle of human activity craves our attention at every moment, and from all sides the noises of life reach our ears ? Here, on the contrary, all is silence and contemplation. As far as the eye can range, nothing is seen but a naked plain, sparsely covered with thin grass, without trees, except some scattered parasol pines, and, beyond a few taverns for sportsmen, devoid of houses. The landscape only strikes as a whole. It is a general monotony, or rather harmony, where everything melts and blends. Nothing draws the attention ; no detail stands out with undue prominence, nor jars. I know no spot on earth where one can allow one's thoughts to carry one away more completely, and absolutely give Time the slip ; as Titus Livius so aptly expresses it : " Where it is easier for the soul to become antique and contempor- aneous with the monuments it gazes upon." The Eoman Campagna has kept this advantage in perfection, nor is it easy to foresee when it will lose it. Many projects are made to render it healthy and people it, but Death has entered so deeply into this exhausted soil, that he will probably not be dispossessed without trouble. In the meantime, let us enjoy the privilege which this country preserves of putting us, better than any other, in communication with the past. Whatever effort Eome may make to adorn and embellish herself, and be on a level with the fashion of the day, it is 8 AKCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. Antiquity one goes there to seek above all things, and, thank God ! it is still to be found. With those great ruins with which she is strewn, and the vast deserted plains that surround her, she has not, nor will she, for a long time to come, be able to give herself as modern an air as she would desire. That she should have succeeded so little is happy for her and for us ; for we may apply to her what a poet of the Eenaissance said of Michael Angelo's " Night " — " 'Tis because she is dead she lives " (j)e7xhe ha vita /). I. IMPORTANCE OF THE FORUM DOWN TO THE END OF THE EMPIRE — ITS CONDITION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PRESENT CENTURY — SIGNOR PIETRO ROSA'S EXCAVA- TIONS — M. DUTERT'S RESTORATION ESSAY. Everything, in fact, invites people who visit Eome to busy themselves chiefly with Antiquity ; for up to the present moment it is Antiquity which seems to have profited most by the events of 1870. The new government owed much to ancient memories ; since a favourite expedient for emphasizing the right of Eome to be free and dispose of herself, and of Italy to claim the city as a capital, had been to appeal to the history of the Eepublic and the Empire, and to talk unceasingly of the Senate, the Eorum, a ad the Capitol, the new pretensions gaining considerably by the protection of these great names. The Italian Government had thus contracted a debt with the past, which it set about paying as soon as it was installed in Eome. As early as the 8th November 1870, a decree of the king's locum THE FORUM. 9 tenens instituted a superintendence of excavations, and charged therewith the skilful explorer of the Palatine, Signor Pietro Eosa. A week later the works in the Forum began. It is natural that attention should have first been turned in this direction. The Forum enjoyed the rare good fortune of remaining in all times the centre and heart of Eome. In nearly all our modern capitals the focus of activity and life changes with the centuries. In Paris it has passed successively from the left bank of the Seine to the right, and from one end of the town to the other. Eome proved more faithful to her ancient traditions. From the day when, according to Denys of Halicarnassus, Eomulus and Tatius, established the one on the Palatine and the Coelian, the other on the Capitoline and the Quirinal, decided to meet, for the discussion of common affairs, in the damp unwholesome plain stretching from the Capitoline to the Palatine,^ it never ceased to be the city's place of meeting and council. During the first years there was no other public place, and it served for every use. In the early morning all kinds of goods were sold there, throughout the day it was a court of justice, and, in the evening, people took their walks there. As time went on, public places multiplied, and there were special markets for cattle, for vegetables, and for fish (forum hoarium, olitorium, piscatorium) ; but the old Forum of Eomulus always retained its pre-eminence over all the others. Even the Empire, while changing so many things, did not deprive it of this privilege. Public places were 1 Denys, II. 50. 10 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. built round about it, more vast, more regular, more sumptuous, but which were never otherwise looked upon than as the annexes and dependencies of what people persisted in calling the real Eoman Forum. It held out against the first disasters of the invasions, and survived the taking of Eome by the Visigoths and the Vandals. After each storm, the Eomans set about repairing it as best they could, and even the barbarians themselves, as in the case of Theodoric, sometimes took the trouble to restore the buildings they had ruined. The old place and its buildings still existed at the beginning of the seventh century, when it unhappily occurred to the Senate to consecrate to the abominable tyrant Phocas that column of which Gregorovius tells us, "the Nemesis of history has preserved it as a last monument of the baseness of the Eomans." From that moment ruins accumulate. Each war, each invasion, throws down some ancient monuments, and no trouble is taken to repair them. Temples, triumphal arches, that have been flanked with towers and crowned with battlements, like fortresses, attacked every day in the struggle of parties which divide Eome, and shattered by assaults, end by falling, and cover the soil with their ruins. Every century adds to this accumulation. When, in 1536, Charles the Fifth went through Eome on his way back from his expedition to Tunis, the Pope wished to make the avenger of Christianity pass beneath the Arches of Constantine, of Titus, and of Severus, and nothing was spared in order to provide him a finer road. "They demolished and pulled down more than two hundred houses and razed three or four churches, level with the ground," says Eabelais, who witnessed it. It is THE FORUM, 11 said that a few years later, Sixtus V. had the debris of the building materials, which he was using else- where, transported to this desert spot. All antiquity found itself covered over and lost beneath more than 6 metres of rubbish. From that moment the Forum, now the Campo VaccJdno, or cattle field, assumed the aspect which it kept until the beginning of this century. It was now only a dusty, open space, surrounded by mediocre churches, about which a few columns rose, half protected by the soil, a melancholy and forlorn spot, quite suited for reveries on the frailty of human grandeur and the vicissitudes of events. This is how Poussin represents it in his little picture in the Doria Gallery, and Claude Lorrain does the same in the landscape at the Louvre, One would think that these half-buried columns would have provoked the curiosity of the learned. How happens it, that since the Eenaissance not one of them has undertaken to excavate to their bases, in order to discover the soil they rest on ? This soil was that of the Forum ; it was known beyond a doubt that it would be found strewn with historical ruins ; and yet no thought w^as ever seriously entertained of under- taking works which might lead to the finest discoveries. It was only in the first years of this century that learned researches began ; but they were too often interrupted, and gave rise to more problems than they solved. The information they elicited was so incomplete, that fierce contests arose between the archaeologists. Each gave a different name to the buildings that were brought to light, and each made for himself a special plan of the Forum. Neither its exact 12 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. limits nor even its precise position were known. Some supposed it must extend from the Arch of Severus to that of Titus — that is to say, from north to south ^ — while others placed it in quite the contrary direction, viz. from St Adrian to St Theodore ; all believed they found in the ancient writers texts clearly confirmatory of their opinions. In order that this confusion might be dissipated, fresh excavations were indispensable. They were undertaken with the idea of this time carrying out a work which should be definite. It no longer sufficed to try a few soundings to touch the ancient soil here and there ; it was resolved to free it entirely from the rubbish that covered it, and lay it bare in every part. This was the means adopted finally to ascertain the truth respecting the enigmas of the Forum. Signer Eosa first resumed the excavation of the Julian basilica, which had been partially cleared under the late Government. This work ended, the whole of one side of the Forum was known and acquired, namely, that extending to the west from the slope of the Capitoline to the first spurs of the Palatine. The workmen were urged forward towards the east, and no stop was made until the churches of Santa Martina and St Adrian were reached. The municipal Council of Eome would not permit a farther advance, being 1 Although these designations are not quite exact, I call north side of the Forum that situated at the foot of the Capitoline, and south side, that which extends from St Lorenzo in Miranda (Temple of Antoninus) to St Maria Liberatrice. The east side is that bordering the churches of Sta Martina and St Adrian ; the west side, that stretching from the Via della Consolazione to the Palatine. THE FORUM. 13 unwilling to allow the destruction of the streets joining the different quarters of the modern town. However vexing this check, one had to be content with what it had been possible to do. In justice to Signer Eosa it must be owned that the works directed by him were vigorously prosecuted. It was necessary to remove more than 120,000 cubic metres of earth, but, under it, many ancient monuments were found which were only known by name, and at several points the topography of the Forum has been fixed. It is to be regretted that the Eoman administration did not deem it necessary to publishadetailed journal of these interesting excavations; but this gap has happily been filled in part by the work which a young member of the French school at Eome, M. Ferdinand Dutert, has published on the Forum, and of which I am about to make liberal use. ^ M. Dutert assisted at Signer Eosa's labours and followed their progress day by day, walking behind the workmen, gathering and copying the least remains of ornaments and smallest fragments of sculpture as they met with them on their way. His work not only shows the present state of the Forum to those who have not seen it, and recalls it to those who have, but he has tried to teach us what it was in ancient times. He restores the ruined temples he raises again the fallen columns, he replaces the statues upoD their bases, and puts once more before our eyes those splendours of which but a few fragments are left. I know there is always much conjecture in works of this kind ; but ^ Le Forum remain par M, Ferd. Dutert, architece, ancien pensionnaire de France a Rome, Paris, chez A. Levy. 14 AllOH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. M. Dutert's restoration, usually based on exact in- dications, is in general very probable. Only a few- deficiencies and errors have been noted in it, which, in the present state of our knowledge, it was very difficult to avoid. To ensure more activity, and, at the same time, more unity in these explorations, the Italian Government instituted a Direction-General of Antiquities and Fine Arts at Eome, and placed it under the charge of Signor Fiorelli, who had made a great name for himself by the able manner in which he had conducted the explorations at Pompeii. Signor Fiorelli from the very first made up his mind not to waste his energies and his resources on isolated excavations, but determined to concentrate his efforts on the Forum and its environs. The work had been well begun, and had produced the happiest results ; the best thing to do was to follow it up. The large square lying between the Basilica of Constantine and the Palace of the Csesars was yet to be explored. This vast space did not form part of the Forum proper, but it was the natural entrance to it, and was connected with it by the monuments with which it was crowded ; so that it could not be set on one side. These explora- tions have taken ten years to accomplish ; they are now complete. The ground from the Arch of Titus to the 'Capitol, a length of nearly 500 metres, has been laid bare. Let us profit by this to explore it in its entirety, to study the buildings on it, and to awaken the memories of the past as we come across them on our way.i All the objects of our research may be studied on the Plan of the Forum, where they have been placed in their actual positions. I ArchaeologicELl Ram'bles PLAN OF THE FORUM Hadietfe ef €^5- Paris TABLE 1 SxhedrcL- 2 JleTTUuns of a, bmiZdirLq (MidcUtt Ages) 3 ThssLble stte of -the- 4- TjribvLnaX of che^ TrcueLor 5 SrvbimttZ o£ iJte Temple of CcLAsar (Hostra, epcLLs diuL Jii2xJ) S Street 0:f th^ . TVLSCCLTLS 7 Seises of thy& stoutuje 8 Tkd&staZs ivithy bcLS'T-eiiers 9 ColturtrC' of fJxoccu: 10 CrrsecostcLctuJJTL^ l£ Site of^/ve Goldeji. MJlestoTvey :rrvonju-rn.ercts \i^Svbi o£ -the' Arch- of Tib&TLVLS \hPorbico of DLL CoTLServ- Back of Foldout Not Imaged THE FOKUM. 15 II. THE VIA SACJtA BETWEEN THE AECH OF TITUS AND THE FOEUM — THE TEMPLE OF VESTA — THE DWELLING OF THE VESTALS (ATRIUM VEST^) — THE VESTALS AND THE CHRISTIAN NUNS — VIEW OF THE PALATINE, Visitors, as a rule, enter the Forum by the Temple of Castor, opposite the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice. Thus they find themselves at once in the very centre of the place. But for the better understanding of the arrangement of the Forum, I prefer to begin at the beginning and follow the road that used to be taken by the multitude. We will commence at the farthest extremity. I am supposing that we have just left the Colosseum, and that we are walking along the Palatine. We see stretched before us a wide ancient road, over the old flagstones of which the traffic of the modern town still rolls. This road rises straight before us over a fairly steep slope and under the Arch of Titus. We are on the Via Sacra. The position of the Via Sacra has been the subject of many disputes among archaeologists. We must not be surprised to find this question a difficult one to answer, for the ancients themselves do not seem to have been very clear upon this point. The example of Pompeii shows us that streets were not then inscribed with their names, and, as the knowledge of these appellations only became very gradually known, there was often much uncertainty concerning them. It was on this account 16 ARCHAEOLOGICAL RAMBLES. that Varro and Festus tell us that "the multitude were not very sure which road they ought to call the Via Sacra." They add, however, that everyone agreed to give that name to the road which led from the Temple of the Lares (near the Arch of Titus) to the Temple of Vesta. At the present day we know this road perfectly well ; we are able to traverse it in its whole length, thanks to the efforts of the excavators. On leaving the Arch of Titus, the road makes a sharp turn to the right, and follows the course of a large terrace, which is raised several steps above it. It was on this terrace that the Emperor Hadrian had built his Temple of Venus and his Temple of Eome, of which some very fine ruins still remain.^ After passing the Church of Santa Francesca Eomana, with its elegant clock tower, it turns to the left, close to the Basilica of Constantine, from which it is separated by some modern buildings; then it passes in front of the Temple of Eomulus (Church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano). This edifice, built by Maxentius in memory of his son who died young, was half buried in ruins. These have all been cleared away, and the door has been restored to its place ; of the four Cipolino marble columns which ornamented the sides of the facade, two have been set on their bases ; in fact, the little temple has been restored to its primitive elegance. The monuments on the other side of the road are neither so important nor so well preserved. On a level with the ground several bases of statues have been found. The right of placing ^ M. Laloux has published a restoration of this building in the Melanges d' Archceologie et d'histoirc of the school at Rome. THE FORUM. 17 one's statue by the side of a road so much frequented by the public was doubless a great honour and one mu(ch sought after ; it was a sure means of keeping oneself always before the populace, and ensured a greater chance of being remembered. By the side of these honorary pedestals the remains of an exhedron have been found ; that is to say, one of those semi- circular benches such as have been found at Pompeii, on which loungers might sit and chat, or watch the passers-by. 1 A little above and behind this first row, of which so little remains, the excavators have brought to light the whole of an ancient district composed of houses closely crowded together. This quarter must have become very dilapidated even in those early days ; under the basements of the most recently-built houses the foundations of older ones, running in a contrary direction, have been discovered. The incendiary fires, which were of such frequent occurrence at Eome, especially in the low-lying Torum, often totally changed its aspect. M. Jordan thinks that it must have been entirely reconstructed in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, when he built his Temples of Eome and Venus, and. naturally wished them to be placed amid suitable surroundiugs, the better to set off his skill as an architect. Instead of following this road as far as the point where it joins the Forum, let us turn to the left for a moment. We will cross this block of houses whose foundations have been brought to light, and proceed ^ See No. 1 ou pian. B 18 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. towards the Palatine and the Church of Santa Maria Liberatrice. This place has played an important part in the history of ancient Rome. It was here that the first kings established the religious centre of Eome before Tarquin transferred it to the summit of the Capitol. The building of the Temple of J upiter marks a new epoch in the religious life of the Eomans. The period which had preceded it, and which is sometimes called the period of Numa, bore a very different stamp ; then religious rites were simpler, and the sacred build- ings less sumptuous ; no statues had as yet been raised to the deities, and cakes made of salted flour were the only sacrifices. There still remained, in the days of the Empire, three monuments of this primitive age which time had respected, and which were situated close together. These were the Temple of Vesta, where burnt the eternal fire ; the Regia, or the dwelling of the king, who, being both the spiritual head and the chief magistrate of the city, had to live in a central position ; and, lastly, the Atrium Vestce, where the vestals resided who assisted the king in his capacity of high priest, in the same way that, among private people, the daughters helped the father of the family in the service of the household gods. These are the three monuments which were being sought.^ ^ For an account of the discoveries which have been made on this side, the reader is referred to the work of Signor Lanciani, entitled the Atrio di Vesta, published in the Notizie dcgli scavi of 1883, and to that of M. Jordan in the Bulletino delV instituto di correspondenza archceologica, of May 1884. THE FOEUM. 19 The first discovery, that of the Temple of Vesta, was made; several years ago. After the Basilica Julia had been cleared, the workmen, while digging at a short distance on the further side of the Temple of Castor, came upon a small round basement completely in ruins. Although so humble in appearance, there were archreo- logists who did not hesitate to assert that these founda- tions must have supported the famous temple whose origin has been ascribed to Numa. At the time, this statement led to much discussion ; but no one has darecl to dispute it since the dwelling of the vestals has been found quite close to it. Time is not altogether to blame for the fact that the only remains of this old temple should be a heap of earth and a few scattered stoneis. Time is less skilful than man in bringing about the ruin of ancient monuments ; and, among men, the most highly civilised are often those to be most feared. " The excavators of the sixteenth century," says Signor Lanc.iani, " have done more harm to the antiquities than all the barbarians of the Middle Ages." In 1549, some archaeologists, seeking for statues and other precious objec;ts, discovered the Temple of Vesta, the ruins of whicli had been fairly well preserved under heaps of rubbish, but they lost no time in bringing about its entir-e destruction. They carried away, for edifices which they were building, marble facings, friezes, columns, and even blocks of volcanic stone which were used for foundations ; they made lime of the stones whicli they did not care to take away ; then, their devastations completed, they covered up all that was left with earth. Happily, a scientist of that time, Pavinio, 20 ARCII^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. had made a sketch of the ruins. This sketch, with the help of one or two bas-reliefs, and a few coins on which the temple is depicted, gives us a slight idea of what it must have been. It is ridiculous to say that the monu- ment of which the ruins were found in the sixteenth century was not the one built by Numa ; it might have been rebuilt more than once in ten or eleven centuries ; but Ovid says that, in rebuilding it, it was altered as little as possible, and great care was taken that its ancient appearance should be preserved.^ It was a round building, surmounted by a small cupola covered with sheets of metal. The savants invented very learned reasons to account for the round shape which they in- sisted in giving it. " It is round," they said, " like the world, and the world must be represented in the shape of a globe, in the centre of which burns the fire which nourishes everything." " Vesta eadem est quce terra; suhest vigil ignis utrique." These subtle explanations of the ancient philosophers have now been abandoned, and we do not ascribe any such refined ideas to the rude peasants who, six or seven centuries before our era, built the first Temple of Vesta. It is supposed that they constructed it on the plan of the houses in which they themselves lived. Probably they knew of no other way of building. This is why the monuments which date back to the founda- tion of Eome all bear so much resemblance to one another ; for example, the little hut of Eomulus on the 1 Ovid. Fast, YI. 267. THE FOKUM. 21 Palatine, whieli has been preserved with such respect ; the Temple of the Penates on the heights of Velia ; that of Hercules Victor in the Forum loarium, all reproduce the shape of the round cabins which were the first dweHlings of the Italian people.^ These ancient build- ings were afterwards very often repaired, and every time they were repaired they were enriched. Ovid says that marble had taken the place of the inter- wovten rushes which had formed the walls, and that the thatched roof had become a dome of brass ; ^ but, as I have just said, a sort of instinct of preservation, which is peculiar to this people, caused them to retain the original dimensions, the same external shape and general aspect, so that in the midst of the splendours of the Empire they seem to have preserved some souvenir and some image of remote antiquity. Tlhe dwelling of the vestals is situated, as might be expected, quite close to the temple in which they minis- tered. If, in 1876, the excavations had been prosecuted a litttle further, it would soon have been discovered ; but they were directed towards another spot, and it was only after having excavated the whole length of the Via Sacra, from the Basilica of Coustantine to the Arch of Titus, that the restorers returned to the Temple of Vesita. A very few blows of the pick were enough to disclose the walls of the house of the vestals : thanks to tliie activity with which the works have been carried on, it has now been entirely laid bare. This was, witli- 1 See Helbig, Bull, dell' instil., 1878-9. - Ovid, Fast., VI. 261. 22 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. out doubt, the greatest discovery that had been made for many years ; and, if we accept the Basilica Julia, it was the most important monument as yet found on the Eorum. The entrance is by a small side-door of unimposing appearance, but, after having crossed several steps, a rectangular court 68 metres long by 20 wide is reached. This court corresponds to the peristyle in ordinary houses, but is of an obsolete style. It was surrounded by vast porticoes, decorated with statues of the vestales maxima) (the presidents of the College). These statues were placed on pedestals bearing pompous inscriptions. Signer Lanciani supposes that, at the time when the edifice was intact, it must have contained a hundred of these statues, but time has marvellously diminished the number. Now we have the fragments of but eighteen, all more or less mutilated. The pedestals are a little better preserved. Some had already been obtained from the excavations of the sixteenth century ; ^ the later explorations had produced about twenty more, of which some are in a perfect state of preservation. They bear inscriptions which teach us much. They show us what consideration the vestals enjoyed, and how much they were mixed up in public affairs. It was considered such an honour to belong to their college that Tiberius, to console the daughter of Fonteius Agrippa, who had not been elected, is believed to have given her a million sesterces.^ The honour ^ The inscriptions which were known before these last excavations have been collected in the Oarp. insc. lat., YI. 2127-2145. - Tacit, Ann., II. 86. THE FOEUM. 23 was reflected on the whole family, and among the statnies of which the remains have been found in the Atrium Vestce, several have been raised by relatives who were proud of having a vestal in the family. Sometimes they were set up by people who wished to evince their gratitude to one of the priestesses for a favour they had received, and the nature of the benefit shows us how far the vestals' power extended. We are surprised to see that they contributed to the nomina- tion! of the Emperor's librarian ; ^ but there are cases in which their interference astonishes us even more. How did they manage to procure for someone the rank of military tribute? and what good office could they have rendered to those centurions appointed by their conurades to arrange at Eome the affairs of their legi on ? 2 It is not astonishing that the gratitude of all these per:sons should have expressed itself in rather extrava- gant terms. We must doubtless discount a little the praises that are lavished on the vestals at the base of their statues ; but they have the merit at least of making us acquainted with the qualities that were expected of thema. They are especially praised for the zeal and skill with which they perform their sacred duties. They are said to have watched devotedly day and night at the foot of the altars of the gods beside the eternal fire., and their prayers are supposed to have contributed much to the prosperity of the republic. Many of the 1 Corp. insc. lat., VI. 2131. ^ Lanciani, No. 6. 24 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. virtues for which they are lauded, such as chastity, piety, strict observance of rules, devotion to duty, would have applied equally well to the Christian nuns, but a Christian would not have allowed the magniloquence and exaggeration of some of the compliments. She would have blushed to have it said of her that "she surpasses all women that have gone before her in devotion and goodness," or that "the goddess had reserved her for herself, and had chosen her out especially to be consecrated to her service." We can well believe that those who lavished such praises on the vestals made sure of not displeasing them, which proves that humility was not one of the virtues on which they prided themselves. We remark that one of them is said to have been renowned for her wonder- ful learning {doctrince mirabiUs). We know for a fact that the worship of Vesta was a very complicated affair, and a long initiation was necessary in order to be able to carry out the rites according to the prescribed forms. The thirty years for which a vestal bound herself were divided into three equal periods : during the first she learned her duties ; during the second she performed the service ; and during the third she taught the novices. Indeed, we see on one of the pedestals, which have been found in the Atrium Vestcc, a young priestess thanking an older one for the good lessons which she had taught her. Another of these monuments presents a very remark- able peculiarity ; the name of the vestal to whom it has been raised has been so carefully obliterated that it is quite illegible. If so much trouble has been taken to efface it, it must have been because the vestal was no THE FORUM. 25 longer considered worthy of the honour that had been done her ; and one immediately thinks that she must have broken her vow of chastity, which fault was always punished with great severity. Another, and more plausible idea, has been put forward. The pedestal bears the date of the consulship of Jovian and Varro, that is to say, almost immediately after the death of the Emperor Julian, just when the struggle between the two religions was most violent. Should the chief vestal have abjured her vows, the affair would have made a stir, and it might have been considered indis- creet to have made the matter public. So we are led to believe that her fault was one of another nature, and, as the poet Prudentius speaks of a vestal who about this very time was converted to Christianity, ^ we may reasonably suppose that it might be this one. If the conjecture is true, the rage of the followers of Vesta, and the care they took to destroy the name of the culprit, may easily be understood. The large court of the Atrium Vesice has been cleared, and it now presents a most curious aspect. All the fragments of statues which the excavations have brought to light have been arranged along the walls in the very places where the statues of the chief vestals stood when the place was intact. Thanks to these ruins, it becomes easy to repeople this desert peristyle in imagination, and to restore to these vast porticoes their ancient inhabitants. The portraits of the vestals which remain ^ Prud., Peristeph. II. 527 : j^dcmque, Laurenti, tuam Vestalis intrat Claudia. 26 AROH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. to US permit us, mutilated as they are, to get an idea of what they must have been like, as well as all the details of their severe and rich attire. We recognise the short hair, bound with the infula, from which hung short fillets, forming a sort of diadem round the head ; the cords which confined the tunic at the waist, and the round bulla which was worn on the breast in the same manner as that in which nuns wear the cross. M. Lanciani observes that this dress gave them quite a regal appearance, and we must confess that their dwell- ing was much more sumptuous than any of our modern convents. Let us not forget that the court which we are now visiting, and which must have been much frequented by them, was 68 metres long by 20 wide. When we think that the house was only occupied by six or seven vestals, these dimensions may well surprise us ; but M. Jordan accounts for them in a very ingenious way. According to him, certain indications seem to point out that a part of the peristyle was arranged like a grove, with trees, paths, and marble seats. This arrangement was not only to give pleasure to the vestals, and to make them more contented with their life, but it was really a necessity to them. " We must not forget," says M. Jordan, " that they belonged to the first families in Eome ; that the class from which they came were accustomed to pass the hot months in the country among the mountains or at the seaside ; they, on the contrary, having once entered the Atrium, found it difficult to get very far away from it again. Their duties kept them in the neighbourhood of the Temple of Vesta, and they had to say good-bye to Tibur, THE FORUM. 27 Prseneste, Tarentum, and Baiae. In early times this confinement was a little more endurable to them; between the Nova Via and the Palatine, there was a sacred wood called lucus Vestm, which is mentioned by Cicero.^ But it soon disappeared ; in this part of Eome, which became every day more and more thickly popu- lated, there was not an inch of ground that was not built upon ; air and light became ever more scarce, and the poor vestals who were forced to live among this accumu- lation of walls endeavoured to procure at home what the neighbourhood could no longer provide for them. Thus it was that a spacious dwelling came to be made, where it was possible for them to obtain fresh air ; and a little garden was laid out to delight their eyes with its fresh verdure. It was not much ; but in this respect the ancients were content with little ; and the masters of the world, established close to them upon the Pala- tine, were themselves not much better off. A grove is not worth much without a fountain ; and one has been found in the Atrium Vestm. It is a basin 4.40 metres by 4.10 metres, which even now is lined with marble. It has caused much surprise to find that, neither in the basin itself nor in the environs, has any trace of an aqueduct been found which might have brought water to the fountain when it was necessary to fill it ; but M. Jordan has accounted very reasonably for this peculiarity. Festus says that the vestals did not use any water that did not come from an absolutely pure source, and they were forbidden to avail themselves of ^ Cic. Be divin., I. 45. 28 AKCH^ilOLOGICAL EAMBLEfJ. that which the water-pipes brought from outside.^ We must suppose, then, that every morning the numerous slaves attached to the house brought water from some neighbouring spring and poured it into the basin. A conduit has been found which permitted it to flow into a drain which passed under the building. As was always the case in Eoman houses, all the sitting- and bed-rooms were disposed round the court. According to custom, the reception room or taUinum was placed at the end, opposite the basin. This is a very large room, which must have been richly decorated ; it is surprising that it was not placed in the centre. This peculiarity can only be explained by the repairs that have been made to the monument at various times when the arrangements must have been changed. The other rooms are in ruins, and it is difficult to say to what purpose they were applied. It seems, however, that the vestals must have used some of them for work- rooms in which, for example, they made the mola salsa ; others were reserved for their private use. These must have been the apartments arranged along the porticoes on the Palatine side. Some, a little better preserved than others, still retain their wall-facings of precious marbles with stucco friezes which have not lost their brilliant colours. While I was curiously examining them, and admiring the richness of their decoration, I could not avoid thinking of the famous quarrel between Symmachus and St Ambrose over the altar of Victory. Symmachus bitterly attacked the laws which the last 1 Festus, pp. 158-160. THE FORUM. 29 Emperors had made against the pagan priests. He pitied the vestals more than any ; he spoke with emotion of " those noble maidens who have consecrated their virginity to the welfare of the State," whose property had been taken from them, and of the treatment they had received from the public Treasury. St Ambrose, in reply, insinuated that these " noble maidens " were not altogether worthy of the admiration which Sym- machus expressed for them. He recalled with pleasure their privileges, their fortune, the consideration with which they had been surrounded, the large allowance which the State had made them ; and hinted that there were only seven of them to share all these advantages. " All that we can call to mind about the Temple of Vesta is the honour of the fillets with which the vestals cover their heads, the splendour of their purple vest- ments, the litter in which they are carried, the train of servants which follow them, the immunities granted them, their liberal allowance of money ; and, lastly, the right they have of not binding themselves for more than a certain number of years!" With these few great ladies, blessed with all the gifts of fortune and enjoying all the pleasures of life, he compares the Christian nuns, so simple, so humble, and, at the same time, so numerous, whom he calls by the beautiful phrase plehem pudoris. " They have no rich fillets, but wear an ugly veil over their faces. Instead of trying to enhance their beauty by all the tricks of dress, they affect a most simple attire. What they desire, what they seek, are not the pleasures of life ; it is fasting and poverty." He was certain that this contrast between 30 ARCH^OLOGICAL RAMBLES. the Christian monasteries of this time and the aristo- cratic convent of these vestals would be a striking one. It seems to me that a visit to their sumptuous house as we know it since the last excavations have been made, and the sight of the apartments of which such beautiful fragments remain, must form a commentary to the words of St Ambrose. Let us leave this rich and vast peristyle where we have lingered so long. A staircase of twenty-six steps brings us on a level with the road, of which we can follow the course from the Church of St Maria Liberatrice to the Arch of Titus, and which passes close by the side of the Atrium Vestce. It is thought to be the Mva Via, mentioned more than once in Eoman history, and which bordered the Palatine Gate and the Temple of J upiter Stator. It must be confessed that the seclusion of the vestals could not have been very strict on this side, and access might have been very easily gained by means of the low windows. A few more steps lead us to other rooms, of which the mosaic pavements are the only remains. Some of them must have been bath- rooms; brick pipes are still to be seen in the walls, which must have served to carry water into the marble baths. In the centre of these apartments, which appear to have been clumsily repaired in the last days of the Empire, are the fragments of another staircase, which proves that the rooms of the vestals could not have been lower than the second storey. It is from here that we get the best view of the Palatine, as it appears since the last excavations. Those who have not visited it for two or three years will have THE PORUM, 31 ;some difficulty in recognising it. Until lately the Palatine was separated from the Forum by a dusty road leading to the entrance to the Farnese Gardens. 'Then, when it had passed under the gate built by Vignolius, it ascended, terrace by terrace, to the Palace •of the Caesars. This road is now a thing of the past. 'The mass of rubbish and earth that covered up the .ancient houses has been removed, and the ruins that have been so long hidden have been brought to light. From the top to the bottom of the hill nothing is now seen but stone or brick walls of unequal height, and the framework of houses. This spectacle, I fear, will not be to the taste of everyone ; more than one artist will perhaps find fault with the archaeologists, and reproach them bitterly for having replaced the Farnese Gardens, from which such beautiful views were obtained over the Gampo Vacchino, by something which resembled the streets of Paris when it was half destroyed. Certainly, archaeology cares very little as a rule for beauty — it is content with truth ; but truth has its charm too. Perhaps, on looking at the Palatine as the new excava- tions have left it, the eye is at first bewildered by the accumulation of ruins; but imagination soon sets to work. It raises vanished houses on the shapeless ruins, it joins broken walls, it erects houses that have been destroyed, and soon shows us this quarter as it must have been towards the end of the Empire. We have more than one lesson to learn from the curious spectacle which it presents. We see once more how little the ancients cared for the wide streets and open spaces which our modern towns could not do 32 AECH/EOLOGICAL RAMBLES. without. We are here at the foot of the Imperial palace, a short distance from the Forum — that is to say, in the heart of the great city ; and yet we have before our eyes nothing but a mass of houses creeping up the hill, jostling each other to suffocation, and leav- ing no empty space between them. The two parallel roads which separate them, and which run along the side of the Palatine — the Nova Via, of which I have just spoken, and the Glivus Victorice, a little higher up — were not enough to give the light and air of which this quarter was in such need. It was impossible to keep off the invasion of the houses which bordered them. These dwellings encroached little by little upon the foot- path ; then, after having almost met down below, their top stories were united by small arches thrown across the street from one roof to another, and on these arches were built aerial rooms ; so that in time the Nova Via and Glivus Victorias became dark haunts for cut-throats. It struck me as I walked along it that it was doubtless in such a street that, in Sylla's time, Sextus Eoscius was killed by the assassins as he was returning from dinner. {Occiditur ad balneas palatinae rediens a cena}) The other observation, which the sight of this new quarter suggested to me, regards the palace of the Csesars. Formerly, when the only entrance was through the Gate of Vignolius, when these grand ruins were separated from the Forum by fields and walls, this building gave one the idea of an isolated and closely secluded dwelling. It is the general idea that one ^ Cic, Pro. Rose. Amer., VII. THE FORUM. always has of a king's palace. But this is not so ; the new excavations show us that we have made a mistake. The Louse of Caligula, who was perhaps the most super;stitious of the Caesars, almost touched the other houses on the hill. Thence a staircase, still almost intact, takes one down into the centre of the Clivus VictoricB ; then from the Clivus it continues as far as the Wova Via, which we know met the Forum ; in this way it was possible to ascend directly and in a very few minutes from the Via Sacra to the house of the prince. There is nothing here which resembles the dwellings of Eastern despots as Herodotus paints them for us, defended by their many enclosures and their entrenched camps. Nothing separates the houses of Augustus and Tiberius from the others ; they live in the midst of the people, and are not separated from the rest of the Romans by moats and walls. This is done so as to make the people believe that they were citizens as well as themselves, to persuade people who judge by appearances — and the great majority do so — that the Csesars must not be considered as kings, and that, under their rule, Rome was always a free city. So we possess two out of the three monuments which recall the most ancient religion of Rome — the temple where the sacred fire burnt, and the dwelling of the vestals. The third one alone remains to be discovered, the Hegia, that is to say, the residence of the high priest, where Julius Caesar dwelt. Must we believe, with Signor Lanciani, that the Regia disappeared long before the ruin of the Empire ? or must we think with c 34 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. M. Jordan that it will be found under the Church of St Maria Liberatrice ? The future alone can say. We have now arrived at the entrance to the Forum, whither the road debouching near the Temple of Antoninus, by whatever name it be called, leads us. Before entering and trying to describe it, I think it as well to detain the reader yet a moment on the threshold. There are a few important reflections to be made at the outset, if we would avoid serious disappointment. Let us not forget that the Forum we are about to visit is that of the Empire. Most of the monuments of the epoch of the kings or of the glorious times of the Eepub- lic, which we are tempted to seek before all the others, are no longer there. It has been so often reconstructed and altered, it has so many times changed its appearance that those ancient memories have left very little trace on it. They only exist for us in the texts of the old writers who tell us of them. But those texts, although obscure and rare, have been interpreted with so much sagacity by a learned criticism, that we are now able, without great trouble and with sufficient probability, to replace those poor monuments of Eome's earliest times upon the ground encumbered with buildings of another age.^ The aspect and natural configuration of the place 1 For the better understanding of what follows, I have reproduced, with a few slight modifications, the map given by M. Detlesseu at the end of his work on the Comitmm, in les Annales de I'Institut de correspondence arcMologiqtie (1860). Although only the primitive Forum is here in question, it was not possible to make the sites of the more ancient monuments intelligible without marking those of the following epoch. THE FORUM in tKe first years of the Republic After Vetlefsen THE FORUM. 35 greatly help us in this. We have seen that, according to Denys of Halicarnassus, Eomulus and Tatius used to meet in a certain part of the Forum in order to confer, and that at this spot, since called the Comitium (gathering), the citizens thenceforth held their assem- blies. But where was the site of the Comitium to be looked for ? For a long time it was customary to locate it a little everywhere — even in the lowest parts of the plain. Good sense, however, tells us that it must have been in a high place, safe from floods. The Forum, in its primitive state, was a marsh.^ Tarquin, by building the great drain discovered under the portico of the Basilica Julia, caused the stagnant waters of the Tiber to flow off, and first rendered the bottom of the place practicable. Before his time, there could have been no question of establishing a place for public meetings there. We must therefore put the Comitium a little higher, on the slope of a hill, in a dry spot. The texts of the old authors prove that it was to the north-west of the Forum, towards the part where we now find the Arch of Severus and the churches of Santa Martina and St Adrian. It formed a square, raised a few steps, surrounded by a balustrade, and sufficiently extensive for the curial Comitia to be held there. Above the Comitium was built the Curia, where the Senate met. but, in order to avoid all confusion, they have been given in thinner lines and smaller letters. Of course, in an attempt to go back to such remote times, of which scarcely anything remains, minute exactitude cannot be expected. Detlessen's map only tries to give us an approxi- mate idea of the Forum in the regal and republican epoch. ' Ovid, Fast., VI. 401; Hoc, uU nunc fora-sunt, udce temtere paludes. 36 AKCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLES. It is unanimously believed that it was situated at about the place covered by the church of St Adrian. A little higher than the Curia a somewhat extensive j)latform was occupied by different public monuments, notably by the Grsecostasis, where foreign ambassadors used to wait until the Senate should deign to receive them, and by the Temple of Concord, whose remains still exist, and serve to fix the position of all the rest.^ So we can picture to ourselves the ancient Eoman Forum, although scarcely anything now remains of it. Let us imagine, at the foot of the Capitol and of the citadel, a series of terraces rising one above the other. Lowest of all, we have a sort of swampy plain, the real Forum, where the plebeians meet ; a little higher is the Comitium, a square esplanade serving as a place of assembly for the nobles — that is to say, of the real citizens who govern Eome — while higher yet we find the Curia, where the senate holds its sittings, and of which the Comitium is, so to speak, the vestibule so that the very configuration of the place is an exact image of the political constitution of the country, and the various stages in which it is distributed represent different degrees of the social hierarchy, each class ascending higher as, in fact, it raises in power the nobles above the plebeians, and the Senate above all. This State, so severely kept, where all the classes of ^ Pliny, XXXIII. i. 6 : ^dem Concordice . . . in Grcecostasi, quce tunc supra comitium erat. 2 Titus Li yius, XLV. 24 : Comitium vestibulum curiae. THE FORUM. 37 society are so well subordinated one with the other, is not, however, a despotic State. The Aristocracy, which holds the power and desires to keep it, does not resemble that of Venice, which deliberated in the dark and forbade liberty of speech. The gravest questions are handled in the Comitium, in the light of day, and everything is carried on by word of mouth. In the place where public meetings are held, there is a tribune for the orators, and it is regarded as a sacred spot (templmn). It is a small terrace of some little height and breadth, and without any balustrade, where he who speaks is completely seen from all sides, which obliges him to drape himself becomingly and assume noble attitudes. The wall supporting it bears a singular ornament : the iron prows (rostra) of the ships found by the Eomans in the port of Antium, after the taking of the town, have been fixed there. They burnt the ships, not knowing what to do with them, and brought away the rostra as a trophy to decorate their Forum. The site of the tribune can be fixed with sufficient exactness. We are told it was close to the Curia : ^ the Senate, aware of the importance of speech, desired closely to supervise it. " It has its eye on the tribune," says Cicero, " and holds it in hand, to restrain it from rashness and keep it in bounds." ^ A passage in Pliny informs us that it must have been situated opposite the Grmcostasis, that is to say, on the ^ Asconius, Cic, Fro Mil. 5 : Erant enim tunc rostra non eo loco quo nunc sunt, sed ad comitium, prope juncta curicc. 2 Cic. , Fro Flacco, 24 : speculatur atque obsidet rostra vindex temeritatis et moderatrix officii ctcria. ARCH^OLOGICAL EAMBLTCS. other side of the church of St Adrian.^ finally, we know that it was at the extreme limits of the Comitium. Thence the orator can be heard by everyone, and his voice reaches the different degrees of the Forum.- Only during the first centuries he is obliged to turn towards the Comitium when he speaks. He must preferably address the noble assembly which really governs the town. Later on, Licinius Grassus, or, according to other authors, the Gracchi, dared to violate this ancient usage, and first turned towards the Plebs. Sovereignty had changed place. The Forum being the most frequented place in the town, commerce naturally flowed thither. It is said to have been surrounded by shops as early as the period of the kings. The western side, opposite to the Comitium, offered more free space, and was thus the first to be built upon. There arose what were called the " old shops " {taherncc vetc7xs). When ground failed on this side, they crossed over to the other, and on the space left vacant by the Comitium and the Curia erected the " new shops " (taherna^ nov