a º º & §º * º #º º º º º º º saei， șºr： § l [[I] Qı. ('[O]]{ Grad. R. R.1 & 3 1 2 4-8 | 44- • • • • „ © ● ● ● - - - - - - - - ------ * * ** * * * * * * * - - - *_ _* * * * • *- -- - - - - BRONZE STATUE OF A BOXER. Discovered in Rome, 1885. See Chapter XI. ANCIENT ROME IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERIES BY RODOLFO LANCIANI LL.D. (Harv.); F. R. A. s. ; Professor IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ROME, BTC- WZTA/ OAVE HUAVID RED WILLUSTRA T/O.V.S. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Ibe ſiiuergitz aregg, Tambridge 1894 Copyright, 1888, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. TENTH FDITION. The Riverside Press, Camebridge, Mass., U. S. A Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company CONTENTS. PREFACE « » © Ç © e e e o * º g g © º O © © O CHAPTER I. THE RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES . . . . . CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDATION AND PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME . . . CHAPTER III. THE SANITARY CONDITION OF ANCIENT ROME . . . . . CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER V. THE PALACE OF THE CAESARs . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER VI. THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALs . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER VII. THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL ROME 278287 PAGE ix 26 49 74 . 106 . 134 . 178 iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. THE POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT of ANCIENT RomE . . 206 CHAPTER IX. THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR . . . . . . . . 231 CHAPTER X. THE CAMPAGNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 CHAPTER XI. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WoRKS of ART, AND THEIR DISCOVERY IN RECENT YEARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FULL-PAGE PLATES. BRONZE STATUE OF A Box.E.R. (Heliotype) . . Frontispiece PAGE ROME IN THE XIVTH CENTURY º º e • . • e 6 THE FORUM IN THE XVITH CENTURY . º o e o 18 THE CAPITOL IN THE XVITH CENTURY . tº © Q . 22 DETAILS of THE PANTHEON . º o © • e e 24 MAP OF THE LAKE OF ALBANO º e © o º . 30 SITE OF THE PORTA ROMANA e º © o e © 38 THE BoccA DELLA VERITA e º º º e * > . "S6 ARCHES OF THE CLAUDIAN AND ANIO NOVUs AQUEDUCTS . 58 THE ForUM, LookING WEST. (Heliotype) e © º . 74 PLAN OF THE CURIA IN THE XVITH CENTURY . o • 80 THE FORUM, LOOKING EAST. (Heliotype) º o º . 82 REMAINS OF THE FORUM OF AUGUSTUS AND THE TEMPLE OF MARS ULTOR . º © e º º tº e . 84 THE FRIGIDARIUM of THE BATHS of CARACALLA º e 90 THE BATHS OF CARACALLA º e e -> e º . 94 PLAN OF THE PALACE OF THE CAESARs e º º © 106 RUINS OF THE PALACE OF TIBERIUS. (Heliotype) . º ... 108 SUBSTRUCTIONS OF THE PALACE OF CALIGULA º © e 116 CARICATURE OF THE CRUCIFIxION . º ſº e o . 122 RUINs of THE FLAVIAN PALACE. (Heliotype) . e º 124 THE SEPTIZONIUM IN THE XVITH CENTURY . G º . 126 THE ATRIUM WESTAE, LOOKING EAST. (Heliotype) Q e 134 PoRTRAIT OF A VESTALIS MAXIM.A. (Heliotype) . . . 138 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLAN OF THE HOUSE of THE WESTALS . * tº tº tº 158 THE ATRIUM WESTAE, LookING WEST. (Heliotype) 160 SPECIMEN OF PAPYRUs . 184 MosAIC SHOWING THE CIRCUS GAMES 214 THE ExcuBITORIUM of THE SEVENTH BATTALION OF PolicE 230 PLAN of THE RUINs of PoETo 244 BAS-RELIEF SHOWING THE Claupas HARBOR 246 THE WAREHOUSEs AT OSTIA 248 REMAINS OF A TRIUMPHAL ARCH . 256 THE APPIAN WAY 260 THE PINE CONE AND THE PEACOCKs, WATICAN GARDENs 286 BRONZE STATUE OF AN ATHLETE. (Heliotype) . . gº 302 BRONZE STATUE OF BACCHUs. (Heliotype) . 308 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. THE HOUSE OF CRESCENTIUS . e e e tº g º 17 THE WOLF IN THE XVTH CENTURY o tº © ... e 21 CASTEL GANDOLFO AND THE ALBAN HILLS . º e © 27 SECTION OF TRENCH . g ſº te g tº « » © 28 HUT-URN, IN THE WATICAN MUSEUM . © e º tº 29 MARBLE ALTAR FOUND AT OSTIA . c G © tº . 35 REMAINS OF THE SUBLICIAN BRIDGE . © o © º 41 ALTAR DEDICATED TO WERMINUS . Ç º º Q . 52 THE CLOACA MAXIMA . tº tº gº o tº tº e 54 MoUTH of THE CLOACA OF THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS . © 55 JUNCTION OF THE FIVE GREAT AQUEDUCTS . º © º 63 THE CURIA IN THE XVITH CENTURY e 78 THE CURIA IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION 79 CoLUMN AND FoRUM of TRAJAN . 88 REMAINs of THE PORTICO of OCTAVIA 95, 96 RUINS IN THE GARDEN OF SALLUST e tº º . 101, 103 REMAINs of THE House of GERMANICUs . ... 109 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. vii SECTION OF FRIEZE FROM THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO . e . 114 CORRIDOR IN WHICH CALIGULA was MURDERED . e º 117 THE DOMUs GELOTIANA . ſe & tº {º c tº . 119 MEDALLION SHOWING THE SIX VESTALs. * > gº gº ſº 137 STATUE OF FLAVIA PUBLICIA . e © ge * > tº . 141 PLAN of THE PORTA COLLINA . tº e * e wº 145 FounDATION OF THE SHRINE, Court of THE WESTALs . . 149 THE TEMPLE OF WESTA, RESTORED ſº e g © © 159 CAPITAL FROM THE TEMPLE OF WESTA . tº sº c . 160 MOSAIC DISCOVERED AT POMPEII . tº wº © tº tº 165 THE SYMBOLIC GROTTO OF MITHRAS gº º e tº . 166 MITHRAS CAUTES . © gº tº g º e e e 167 MITHRAS-SUN . Ç ſº C. º tº © o tº . 168 STATUE OF PRAETEXTATUS . * º e wº © g 170 SCROLLs, WRITING UTENSILS AND BOOKCASE . ſº º . 181 A PRIVATE CHAPEL & te © º g { } e gº 191 CRYPT OF MITHRAS . e º e º o tº º . 192 MITHRAS TAUROKTONOS . º tº º † º º e 193 THE WATICAN LIBRARY . gº g e O tº e . 195 CHURCH AND HOUSE OF S. GREGORY . e e tº e 197 INSCRIPTION e & e . tº tº © e * > . 200 REMAINS OF THE TURRIS CATULARIA . Ç tº e * 203 THE CLIVUS ARICINUS e © tº * g e * > . 209 INSCRIPTION FROM THE PEDESTAL of THE JOCKEY CRESCENs 215 POCKET-KNIFE OF EUPREPES . & •º & e e . 216 |UPPER PART OF THE COLISEUM . & g © tº * > 220 ENTRANCE TO THE WILLA MATTEI . & sº e o . 227 RELIEF ON SARCOPHAGUS, SHOWING THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR 239 MEDALLION SHOWING THE HARBOR OF TRAJAN . & . . 240 LARGEST BLOCK OF MARBLE IN ROME . e e g . 241 MEDALLION OF CLAUDIUS c e tº e e © © 246 MooRING RINGS ON THE TIBER e ſº O e o . .247 RUINs of THE HORREA GALBANA . tº © © © © 249 viii ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. MoMTE TESTACCIO HANDLE OF AN AMPHORA . & ſº e © AMPHORA FROM THE MONTE TESTACCIO THE NYMPHAEUM IN HADRIAN's WILLA THE MAIN PORTION OF HADRIAN's VILLA THE TORRE FISCALE THE CASINO DEL LIGORIO . THE MASTAI HERCULES INSCRIPTION THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN IN THE XVITH CENTURY SITE OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE SITTING Box.ER BRIDGE BUILT BY LUCIUS CESTIUS 250 251 254 263 271 277 279 288 295 302 305 309 PREFACE. –0– VERY few.persons who have not seen Italy and its cap- ital since 1870 are acquainted with the revolution which is being accomplished in Rome in the department of public works. From the official statistics which have been kindly supplied to me, it appears that between January 1, 1872, and December 31, 1885, 82 miles of new streets have been opened, paved, drained, and built; new quarters have sprung up which cover an area of 1,158 acres; 3,094 houses have been built or enlarged, with an addition of 95,260 rooms; 135 million lire (27 million dollars) have been spent in works of public utility and general improvement; and the population, which fourteen years ago numbered 244,000 souls, exceeds now the considerable figure of 379,000. I have not quoted these statistics with the desire to create a sensation amongst those who still believe Rome to be the “city of death,” and Italy a “mere geographical expres- sion.” I quote them simply on account of their connection with the progress of Roman archaeology, because, since it is impossible to turn up in Rome a handful of earth with- out coming upon some unexpected find, it is easy to under- stand what an amount of discoveries must have been made by turning up two hundred and seventy million cubic feet of that land of promise. I have not been able to ascertain the exact number of works of art and of antiquities brought to light by the gov- X PREFACE. ernment in the official excavations of the Forum, of the palace of the Caesars, of the baths, etc., or by private indi- viduals in building their houses. However, as regards the municipality of Rome, which owns about one third of the ground, within the walls, and of whose antiquarian wealth I am, in a certain way, the happy treasurer, the following works and objects have been stored in the Capitol since 1872: 705 amphorae with important inscriptions; 2,360 terra cotta lamps; 1,824 inscriptions engraved on marble or stone; 77 columns of rare marble; 313 pieces of col- umns; 157 marble capitals; 118 bases; 590 works of art in terra cotta; 405 works of art in bronze; 711 gems, in- taglios, cameos; 18 marble sarcophagi ; 152 bas-reliefs; 192 marble statues in a good state of preservation; 21 marble figures of animals; 266 busts and heads; 54 pic- tures in polychrome mosaic ; 47 objects of gold; 39 of silver; 36,679 coins of gold, silver, and bronze ; and an almost incredible amount of smaller relics in terra cotta, bone, glass, enamel, lead, ivory, iron, copper, and stucco. These collections do not contain merely common or ordi- nary objects; they contain masterpieces in every branch and department, — masterpieces which, in an age a little less devoted to finance and politics, would have created a deep sensation all over the world. Besides, the objects I have named pertain to the material side of the question only; the conquests of science are still greater. They have thrown more light on the archaeology of Rome than had been thrown in a century before. There is an in- stance connected with one single branch of the science, — the branch of epigraphy. The first part of volume vi. of the “Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum,” published by the Berlin Academy of Sciences, contains 3,925 ancient inscriptions (of gods, emperors, magistrates, priests, and PREFACE. xi military officers), discovered from the middle of the four- teenth century to 1876. From 1876 to the end of last year I have myself discovered and published more than one thousand; consequently in ten years' time the Roman soil has supplied epigraphy with one fourth as much as the total amount brought to light during the five preceding centuries. It is impossible for me to mention, one by one, the scien- tific discoveries of special importance made under the au- spices of the city of Rome; if I did, this Preface would ex- ceed in length the volume it introduces. We have discov- ered a new archaeological stratum, totally unknown before, — the stratum of prehistoric or traditional antiquities; we have discovered a necropolis older than the walls of Servius Tullius, containing more than 5,000 archaic specimens in bronze, amber, stone, and clay; we have brought to light more than 5,000 feet of the great agger, or embankment of Servius, and ascertained the site of fourteen gates; we have unearthed the remains of numberless houses and pal- aces, temples and shrines, roads and drains, parks and gar- dens, fora and porticoes, fountains and aqueducts, tombs and mausolea, to such an extent that whereas before 1872 science possessed only approximate attempts at an archaeo- logical map of Rome, we have put at the disposal of stu- dents magnificent ones, covering an area of 3,967,200 square metres of the ancient city. It would be of no use to deny that all these great con- quests in the artistic and scientific field have been obtained with a certain amount of loss and sacrifice. Persons ready to detect the mote in their neighbor’s eye have filled the world with their lamentations over these partial losses and sacrifices. Pamphlets written on the subject, with but little impartiality, by eminent men, have been translated into xii PREFACE. many languages and largely circulated, with the intention of raising a crusade against the profane destroyers of the beautiful city of Rome. As is the case in all controversies not purely scientific, but mixed with personal, political, or religious feelings, the state of things has been exaggerated beyond measure. It appears to me that to satisfy our critics, whose love for art and archaeology goes beyond the limits of practical good sense, it would have been desirable to have had Rome annihilated with the empire at the end of the fifth century, so that we might excavate it now with the same ease and with the same freedom with which we exca- vate Ostia and Pompeii. But we must remember that Rome has always lived, and lived at the expense of the past; every generation has, in a certain measure, absorbed or de- stroyed the works of the preceding one, and it is wonderful that so much should still be left of the works raised by the ancients, after a process of destruction and transformation which has been going on for fourteen centuries The history of the vicissitudes of Rome, from the point of view of the present controversy, must be divided into four periods. The first extends from the fall of the empire to the return of the popes from Avignon; the second, the glorious period of the Italian Renaissance, during which the ruins of antiquity were most abominably treated, ends with the Seicento; the third, which marks the destruction of mediaeval remains, stops with the Napoleonic conquest of Italy; during the fourth, from the empire of Napoleon to 1870, the first moves were at last made in the right direc- tion of discovering and preserving ancient monuments. The Romans of the Middle Ages were not excessively guilty as regards the destruction of ancient ruins, because the monuments crumbled more from sheer old age, from abandonment, from fires and earthquakes, than by the de- PREFACE. xiii terminate action of men. In fact, the poverty and ignorance of the age made the raising of new structures either diffi- cult or impossible; so that people took advantage, as well as they could, of the existing ruins when transforming them, or portions of them, into churches and convents and private dwellings. Thus the temple of Antoninus and Faustina be- came the church of S. Lorenzo; the temple of the Sacra Urbs, the church of SS. Cosma e Damiano; the Senate-House, the church of S. Adriano; the offices of the Senate-House, the church of Santa Martina. Thus, also, the basilica of Ju- nius Bassus was dedicated to S. Andrea; the temple of Concord to SS. Sergius and Bacchus; the temple of Ceres to S. Maria in Cosmedin; the temple of Piety to S. Nico- las; that of Mater Matuta to S. Stefano; that of the For- tuna Virilis, to Santa Maria Egiziaca; the Macellum Mag- num became the church of S. Stefano; the Pantheon and the temple of Minerva were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; and so on indefinitely. Nearly one half of the thousand and more churches and shrines registered in Rome in the fourteenth century were indicated by the titles — in ther- mis, in porticu, in maximis, in archione, in formis, in palatio, in horreis, in marmorata, in paradiso, in lauro, in macello, in piscina. The example set by the clergy in appropriat- ing the above descriptive terms was followed closely by the noblemen of the age: by the Savelli, who had intrenched themselves within the theatre of Marcellus, and within the temple of Libertas on the Aventine; by the Conti, whose famous tower near the Piazza delle Carrette rests on the ruins of the Templum Telluris; by the Frangipani, whose central fortress on the palace of the Caesars was surrounded by detached works, erected on the Colosseum, on the arch of Titus, on the arch of Constantine, on the Janus of the Forum Boarium ; by the Colonnas, masters of the mauso- xiv PR EFACE. leum of Augustus and of the temple of the Sun on the Quirinal; by the Crescenzi, who sought refuge among the great halls of the therma of Severus Alexander; by the Orsini, whose headquarters were established in the theatre of Pompey the Great; by the S. P. Q. R., masters of the Tabularium, and so forth. It is evident that such adap- tations of ancient ruins for the use of churches, fortresses, houses, indirectly contributed to their preservation. At any rate, when we hear of destructions accomplished in the Middle Ages, we have, in many cases, the evidence of their absolute necessity. In the life of Hadrian I., the “Liber Pontificalis” relates how the temple of Ceres in the Forum Boarium was demolished to save the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin from being crushed by the fall of the overhanging ruins. The same Pope Hadrian was obliged to rebuild the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus one hun- dred feet south of its original site, to save it from the danger of being swept away by the fall of the temple of Concord. We must not forget, moreover, that the ruins of the an- cient city were a permanent source of danger to the inhab- itants of the mediaeval city; so much so that the destruc- tion of some of those ruins must be considered to have been in legitimate self-defence. Those galleries tumbling into pieces; those crypts plunged in darkness; those thermae lost in the wilderness of the abandoned quarters of the old town; those porticoes, many stories high, half concealed under a thick growth of ivies and shrubs, were haunted by outlaws, murderers, and brigands, who, sheltered as they were, could defy from their inaccessible dens all the com- bined efforts of the police and of the baronial gens- d’armes. This state of things and this most curious rela- tionship between ancient ruins and public security will be PR EFACE. XV better understood from one or two incidents which have taken place lately under our own eyes or under the eyes of the preceding generation. Antonio Uggeri, the indefatigable explorer of Roman monuments under Pius VI., after relating how a great many skeletons of murdered men had been discovered in the exca- vations of the Colosseum, under the arcades of which they had been secretly buried, speaks of the following personal experience (“Antichità,” vol. xxii.): “There is no doubt that the Colosseum has been for centuries the safest den of Roman outlaws. This is what happened to me there in 1790. I was engaged at that time in correcting some measurements which I had taken of the building on former occasions. I arrived on the spot one afternoon, an hour before sunset, climbed up, not without danger, taking ad- vantage of the roughness of the walls, and entered the main corridor, on my way to the upper galleries. I had walked scarcely a hundred paces when, all of a sudden, a man sprang at me from behind a corner, — a man very tall, en- tirely naked, with rags around his head and ankles, black in the face, bearded, and absolutely repulsive to look at. He caught me by the waist, shook me violently, asking at the same time who I was, what business I had there, and other such questions. I answered, trembling, that I was an archi- tect, and showed him my measure and my compass as an evidence of the purpose of my expedition among those ruins. In the mean while I heard a more gentle voice close by, begging him to leave me in peace; and, proceeding a few steps farther, I discovered the rest of the company under the vault of one of the staircases. It was composed of two more men and one woman (to whose interference I most likely owed my life), all three entirely naked, as the season was very warm. One of the men was standing; xvi PREFACE. the other was cooking something at the farther end of the passage. The poor woman crouched down to conceal her nudity as well as she could.” In case this adventure of 1790 should seem antiquated to the reader, I can instance a more recent and quite personal experience. In the year 1874, when the new Via Claudia was first opened between the Colosseum and the Navicella, I dis- covered a whole family nested in an underground corridor (thirty-six feet below the level of the temple of Claudius). The corridor or channel was but six feet wide, a few yards long, with a scanty supply of air and light. One of the family was lying dead on some straw; the others were pray- ing and sobbing round the corpse. In 1877, when engaged in restoring the so-called Trophies of Marius (the fountain of the Aqua Julia), in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, I dis- covered, likewise, a family who had been living for years inside the dry channel of the old aqueduct. A few months ago the hiding-place of a daring pickpocket was discovered right in the attic-room of the arch of Titus, together with many ancient marble heads and fragments, – a proof of his additional archaeological instincts. If such things can happen in an epoch as civilized as ours, and under the eyes of a vigilant and acute police, we cannot wonder if in the Middle Ages the existence of ruins was considered in some cases inconsistent with public security. I have said all this to prove that, in the long and sad history of the destruction of ancient Rome, the Middle Ages are perhaps the least guilty, -less guilty, at any rate, than the period of the Renaissance which followed. In spite of their enthusiastic love for ancient art and classic civiliza- tion, the great masters of the Renaissance treated our monuments and ruins with incredible contempt and brutal- ity. The original cause of this state of things must be PREFACE. xvii found, strange to say, in the increasing civilization of the age, in the softening and refining of former habits, in the development of public and private wealth, which was push- ing popes, cardinals, patricians, bankers, and rich merchants to raise everywhere magnificent palaces and villas, churches and monasteries, aqueducts and fountains, harbors and bridges, castles and towers. All these constructions of the golden age, which justly form the pride of my city, and make it unique and enviable by the whole world, were built, stone by stone, with materials stolen from ancient ruins. In the course of the present book I shall have occa- sion to speak at length on this subject, proving that the cinquecento excavations did more harm to the monuments of imperial, republican, and kingly Rome than the ten cen- turies of preceding barbarism. I do not say these things to cast reproach upon the memory of men — popes, princes, artists — who so powerfully contributed to the embellish- ment of Rome, and who in place of the edifices destroyed by them left to us other creations which leave nothing to envy in the ancient ones. I make these remarks only to confirm what was said at the outset, namely, that the pro- cess of destruction and transformation is as old as the his- tory of Rome itself, and that this state of things is so true and so in accordance with the nature of the place and its inhabitants that, to prevent so far as was possible further damages to our ruins, the famous legge Pacca was pro- mulgated, a law worthy the brutality of the Middle Ages, which partially attained its end, thanks to its clauses of unheard-of violence. The next period, which runs from the middle of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, ranks also among the saddest in our history, because it marks the almost complete destruction of mediaeval buildings. xviii | PREFACE. Under the pretence of restorations and embellishments, the authorities laid their hands, upon the most noted and the most venerable churches of the city, which had until then preserved their beautiful basilical type in all its simplicity, purity, and majesty. Alfonzo Sotomayor in 1665, Pier da Cortona under Urban VIII., and Borromini under Alexan- der VII. disfigured the twin churches of S. Adriano and S. Martina. Onorio Longhi destroyed in 1651 the church of S. Ambrogio and its marvellous frescoes by Pierino del Waga, to build in its place the tasteless structure of S. Carlo al Corso. The old church of S. Alessio was shame- fully modernized by Tommaso de Marchis in 1750, and so were those of S. Anastasia in 1722 by Carlo Gimach, of S. Apollinare by Ferdinando Fuga, of SS. Apostoli by Fran- cesco Fontana, of SS. Cosma e Damiano by Aririgucci. The basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, profaned and reduced to its present form in 1744 by Passalacqua and Gregorini, is classified by Milizia among the works of ne- farious architects. The same title of nefarious is given by Fea to Paolo Posi, who under the pontificate of Benedict XIV. profaned the attic of the Pantheon, substituting chi- aroscuro daubs for the exquisite marble incrustations of Septimius Severus. And we must acknowledge that the same criticism ought to be applied — from the point of view of church architecture — to Borromini for the disfig- urement of the Lateran, to Antonio Canevari for that of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, to Francesco Ferrari for that of S. Gregorio on the Coelian, and so forth. These churches, before the shameful restorations, were generally divided into three naves by means of colonnades, the shafts of which had been removed from some neighbor- ing classic edifice; their pavements were inlaid with marble slabs, for the greater part inscribed with pagan historical PREFACE. xix inscriptions or with epitaphs, or else worked in alto or basso rilievo, with patches of Cosmati tessellated work here and there. The walls of the central nave, supported by the two parallel rows of columns, were still covered with paint- ings and frescoes of the Middle Ages or of the earliest Re- naissance, and were perforated by narrow, oblong Lombard- esque windows, through which a thread of subdued light penetrated, enough to keep the sanctuary in a dreamy twi- light, which invited the faithful to meditation and prayer. The roof was supported by beams of cedar wood; the façade was ornamented with a portico of spiral or fluted columns, with bases and capitals of various styles and work- manship; the doorposts of the only entrance rested upon the backs of lions, modelled by Vassalletus; the upper façade, above the portico, was covered with frescoes and mosaics. The system followed in restoring these churches was every- where uniform. The columns of the nave were walled up, and concealed in thick pilasters of whitewashed masonry; the inscribed or sculptured marble slabs and the mosaic pavements were taken up, and replaced by brick floors; the windows were enlarged out of all proportion, and assumed a rectangular form, so that floods of light might enter and illuminate every remote, peaceful recess of the sacred place. For the beautiful roofs made of cedarwood, vaults or lacuna- pia were substituted. The number of entrance-doors was trebled; the simple but precious frescoes of the fourteenth century were whitewashed, and the fresh surface was cov- ered with the insignificant productions of Francesco Cozza, Gerolama Troppa, Giacinto Brandi, Michelangelo Cerruti, Pasquale Marini, Biagio Puccini, and other painters equally obscure. All these profanations could be accomplished, not only without opposition, but amid general applause, because such was the spirit and the perverted taste of the age. XX PREFACE. It is enough to quote the example of G. B. Piranesi, archi- tect, archaeologist, engraver, educated under the influence and the inspiration of ancient art, worshipper of ancient masterpieces of architecture, who, when asked in 1765 by Cardinal Rezzonico to restore the church of S. Maria del Priorato di Malta on the Aventine, created such an ensem- ble of monstrosities — inside and outside the church — that it would be difficult to find its parallel anywhere in the world. We must remember, however, that the artists who took such an active and shameful part in the crusade against our mediaeval churches and cloisters were the very ones who embellished Rome with such beautiful creations as the Trevi fountain, the Palazzo della Consulta, the Cu- ria Innocenziana, the Corsini chapel in the Lateran, the churches of S. Agnese, of S. Andrea al Quirinale, of S. Carlo a Catinari, the palazzi Rinuccini, Corsini, Altieri, Pamphili, Falconieri, Madama, etc. Very few words need be spent on the fourth period, - from the end of the last century to 1870, − because the beneficial and munificent spirit shown towards our monu- ments by Pius VI., Pius VII., Count de Tournon, the Na- poleonic prefect of the “département du Tibre,” of Greg- ory XVI., and Pius IX. is known to every one, as we know the grave faults committed at the same time, and the dam- ages inflicted without any apparent reason upon many works of art. Pius VI. founded, in the Vatican, the gallery of inscrip- tions, the cabinet of masks, the hall of the Muses, the Rotun- da, the halls of the Greek Cross and of the Biga. Pius VII founded the Braccio Nuovo and the Chiaramonti museum. Under the wise administration of Count de Tournon not less than one million dollars were spent in works of public utility, and in excavating and laying bare to archaeological PREFACE. xxi investigation such monuments as the temples of Vespasian, of Castor and Pollux, of Antoninus and Faustina, of Venus and Rome, of the Mater Matuta, of the Fortuna Virilis, the basilica of Constantine, the Colosseum, the Golden House of Nero, the Janus of the Forum Boarium, the Basilica Ulpia, the Forum of Trajan, etc. All these works, begun by Tournon, were most successfully brought to perfection by Pius VII. Gregory XVI., devoid as he was of classic instruction and refinement, left to us three incomparable new museums, the Egyptian, the Etruscan, and the Lateran. Under the rule of Pius IX. the monuments of the city, the museums, the galleries, were the object of constant and liberal care. As for the damage done to ancient or Renaissance mon- uments during the same period, a small portion of it has been described by Pellegrini, in the Mémoire which was forbidden publication in Rome by the papal authorities of the time. Coming now to our own times, and the controversy lately raised on the so-called destruction of Rome, I must acknowl- edge that the sensation we felt when the controversy was opened was one of disgust rather than of sorrow. These pretended revelations of vandalism, these condemnations of operations characterized at first as destruction of Rome, later on as simple transformation or disfigurement, were levelled at men who for the last seventeen years have been con- stantly on the watch to defend inch by inch the archaeolog- ical ground against the princes of finance and speculation, against engineers and contractors, against the daily press. Considering, however, the state of things more calmly, we must be grateful to the authors of the controversy, not only because we believe them to have been inspired alone by the pure love they feel for art and archaeology, but also be xxii PREFACE. cause they have given us a solemn occasion for discussing the subject, and making the light of truth shine forth in its full splendor. When at the end of 1870 the Italian government turned its attention towards the archaeological interest of the city, the valley of the Forum was still the Campo Vaccino of past ages. With the exception of the column of Phocas, excavated by the Duchess of Devonshire, of a narrow ledge of the Basilica Julia, and a portion of the temple of Castor and Pollux, excavated by Tournon, all that classic group lay buried under an embankment thirty-three feet high. If in 1870 any one had spoken to us of the probability of an imminent and complete exca- vation of the Forum, from end to end, we should have de- nied the possibility of such an enterprise being accom- plished by a single generation. But now the golden dream has become a reality. To-day, for the first time since the fall of the empire, we are able to walk over the bare pave- ment of the Sacra Wia, from its beginning near the Colos- seum to its end near the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, admiring on either side of the wonderful road the most glorious monuments of the republic and of the empire. To the discovery and excavation of this group we must add the excavation of the baths of Caracalla, of the Sta- dium of Domitian, of the greater portion of the palace of the Caesars; the isolation of Agrippa's Pantheon, and of the so-called Nymphaeum of Minerva Medica; and the transfer from private to public domain of the whole Pala- tine hill, the lands covering the baths of Titus and Cara- calla, the necropolis on the Via Latina, the tombs of the Scipios, Ostia, and the villa of Hadrian. As regards the art-treasures collected since 1870, it is enough to name the two bronze athletes lately discovered on the slope of the Quirinal, the bronze Bacchus of the Tiber, PREFACE. xxiii the Juno of the Palatine, the bas-reliefs of the Forum, and the four hundred and seventy-nine statues and busts brought together by the municipality. To obtain these results, the state and the municipality have spent about one million dollars, and excavated and removed miles away in all two hundred and eighty-six million cubic feet of earth. What state, what city, in the world can boast of having done in so short a time the hundredth part of what has been accomplished in Rome 2 We must not forget that whereas in former times ar- chaeological discoveries were made known to a limited num- ber of privileged experts, sometimes years after they had taken place, how the “Bullettino della Commissione arche- ologica comunale di Roma’ describes every month all the latest discoveries,' thus enabling specialists scattered all over the world to share the privilege of those residing in Rome. I have spoken hitherto almost exclusively of ancient mon- uments and works of art, to keep myself within the radius of my own studies and within the boundaries of my own prov- ince. If the action of the state and of the city authorities has not proved of equal benefit in preserving mediaeval build- ings, it is only because mediaeval buildings are exceedingly scarce in Rome. Still something has been, and more will be, done. The house of the Anguillara, for instance, with its picturesque tower and surroundings, has already been purchased by the city, with the intention of having it turned into a mediaeval museum. The Torre delle Milizie has also been rescued from private hands, as well as the Tower of * The Bullettino della Commissione logical novelties up to the twenty-fifth archeologica comunale di Roma was es- day of the preceding one. It is con- tablished December, 1872, first as a sidered the most interesting “maga- quarterly, later on as a monthly pub- zine” of its kind, especially on account lication. Issued on the first day of of its beautiful illustrations. each month, it describes the archaeo- xxiv. PREFACE. S. Martino a' Monti and the fortified convent of SS. Quat- tro Coronati. As I have remarked above, it would be useless to deny that all these important conquests in the historical, archaeo- logical, and artistic field have been accompanied and followed by a certain amount of loss and sacrifice. It is useless to deny that the picturesqueness and the main characteristics of the Rome of the popes are now a matter of the past. Our churches, our monasteries, our monuments, are still left un- disturbed, - in fact they are better taken care of: but we miss their old surroundings; we miss the aged ilexes, form- ing as it were the frame of the picture, their deep green giv- ing by contrast that vigor and brilliancy to the golden hue which old age lends to ruins in southern climates; we miss the exquisite background of the Alban hills, and the snow- capped summits of the Apennine range; we miss that sense of quiet and peaceful enjoyment which pervaded the whole scene. It is impossible to imagine anything more com- monplace, and out of keeping, and shabby, and tasteless, than the new quarters which encircle the city of 1870. An excuse for this wretched state of things can be found in the rapidity with which these new quarters have sprung out of the ground, and also in the necessity of giving a hasty shelter to the new population of nearly two hundred thou- sand immigrants. The lovely districts crossed by the Via Salaria and the Via Nomentana, formerly studded with pa- trician villas and gardens, overlooking the Campagna, the valley of the Anio, the Sabine and Volscian mountains, have been transformed into an ugly city of five-storied anti- aesthetic houses, looking more like barracks and barns than like dwellings for the cultivated inhabitants of the metropolis of a great kingdom. The same practice has been followed in building on the Esquiline, the Viminal, and PREFACE XXV the Quirinal hills, the plains of Testaccio and of Castello, and the outskirts of the city outside the gates S. Lorenzo, Maggiore, S. Giovanni, Angelica, and Portese. As I wrote in the “Athenaeum ” of December 10, 1887, Rome, seen from one of the neighboring heights, – from the Monte Cavo for instance,—is no more the Rome of our dreams, of a beautiful brownish hue, surrounded by dense masses of foliage: it is an immense white dazzling spot, some six miles in diameter, bordering directly on the wilderness of the Campagna. In other words, Rome is assuming the look of a modern capital, with all its comforts and disad- vantages, -perhaps with more disadvantages than comforts. The thought that, to make room for the new quarters, all but two of our villas have been mercilessly sacrificed, makes us hate the very name and sight of new quarters It is dif- ficult to decide who is to blame for the present state of things. The city authorities have been taken by surprise: they never dreamt that the population would double in fif- teen years; that Italian and foreign speculation was ready to throw hundreds of millions on the Roman market; and lastly, that the result of this sudden influx of “ready money” would be the raising of the value of land from a few centimes the square metre to more than one thousand francs. In my opinion, the blame must be cast especially on the Ro- man aristocracy, on our noble land-owners unworthy the great names, which to our misfortune they have inherited ; because no sooner did this degenerate race discern the pos. sibility of raising a little money on the magnificent villas which their forefathers had built and laid out for the com- fort, health, and welfare of their fellow-citizens, than they did not hesitate one second to sell by the yard, as it were, the glory and pride of their families. We have seen three of them sell the very gardens which surrounded their city XXVI PREFACE. mansions, allowing these mansions to be contaminated by the contact of ignoble tenement houses. We have seen one of them sell, piece by piece, even his collections of works of art and of family souvenirs and documents and relics. We have seen every single one of our patrician villas — the Patrizi, the Sciarra, the Massimo, the Lucernari, the Mira- fiori, the Wolkonsky, the Giustiniani, the Torlonias, the Campana, the San Faustino — destroyed, their casinos dis- mantled, and their beautiful old trees burnt into charcoal; the destruction of the Villa Borghese has been stopped, for the moment, by a more or less just decree of court. In one case only, a nobleman de la vieille roche resisted up to his last breath the temptation of selling his villa. His burial service was scarcely over, when the opportunity was seized, and what he had before strenuously prevented, as a shame to the family, was accomplished by his princely sons and daughters in less than a week, and the site of the villa, the most magnificent one Rome possessed within its walls, is already covered with tenement houses. It is impossible to give an idea of the cruel persistence with which foliage, vegetation, trees, everything which is green, are persecuted in and around Rome. Public admin- istrations, state, municipality, and private individuals seem to vie with each other in taking the lead of the crusade against the few samples of vegetable life which the auri sacra fames of the Roman aristocracy has left standing. When the municipality took possession of the Villa Corsini on the Janiculum, to transform it into a public promenade, they began their work by cutting down the great oaks planted by Queen Christine of Sweden, under the pretence that they interfered with the view. When the Italian au- thorities reorganized the department of public instruction in Rome, they gave up the lovely botanical gardens on the PREFA CE. xxvii Lungara, under pretence of finding a better site for the new ones. The site has not yet been found. The Vati- can authorities, to make room for a monumental column of the Council of 1870 have simply obliterated the beau- tiful Giardino della Pigna. No wonder that private citi- zens do not hesitate to follow such noble examples. No wonder that we already begin to feel the effects of this wholesale destruction, by an increase of two degrees in the average temperature in summer, and by a decrease in the average proportion of the oxygen of our atmosphere. Let us hope that the projects prepared and sanctioned by the city government for the establishment of new parks may soon be carried into execution. There will be three of them: One on the Monti Parioli, bordered by the Tiber, the Anio, and the Via Salaria and Flaminia, the ground for which — nearly five hundred acres — has already been pur- chased ; the second on the ridge and on the slopes of the Janiculum, half of which is already opened for the recre- ation of the public; the last, approved by law of Parliament on July 14, 1887, will be, without exception, the finest park in the world, provided political or financial difficulties do not interfere with its construction. This Passeggiata Archeo- logica, as the movers of the bill, Professors Baccelli and Bonghi have named it, comprises the palace of the Caesars, the valleys of the Forum and of the Colosseum, the baths of Titus, half the Coelian hill, with the temple of Claudius, the picturesque groups of S. Gregorio, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, S. Stefano Rotondo, the Villa Mattei, the vallis Egeria, etc., the baths of Caracalla, the ancient necropolis between the Via Appia and the Via Latina, half of the Aventine hill, the Circus Maximus, the Forum Boarium, and the mediaeval fortress of S. Balbina. To conclude this long Preface I must observe that as in xxviii PR EFACE all human controversies, so in this one concerning the transformation of Rome, there are many arguments in favor and many against. The impartial judge must put in each plate of the scales what has been gained and what has been lost, and must weigh the matter not from one single point of personal view, but from the general point of view of public health, cleanliness, comfort, art, science, history, and archaeology. Our judgment must start from the con- sideration that works of improvement, of enlargement, of transformation are absolutely necessary in Rome. We all remember how difficult it was to move or drive safely about, under the old rule, on account of the narrow and winding character of the streets. Now that the population is fast approaching a half million, how could we live and move in the same space as before, without running serious risks, even risks of life? There were quarters, like the Ghetto and the Regola, the picturesqueness of which was the direct produce of filth, and of a half-savage state of moral and material life. There were the banks of the Tiber, — the main sewer of the city, - the poisonous effluvia of which, at low water, affected all the bordering districts. Can we honestly blame the city government for their efforts to im- prove this shameful state of things 2 Can we blame them for the embankment of the river, for the destruction of the Ghetto and of the Regola, for the widening and straighten- ing of the principal thoroughfares, especially as we know that, in consequence of these works, the health of the city has improved wonderfully 2 My opinion is that, since the works began, we have gained far more than we have lost : it appears to me that those who have so strongly denounced the proceedings of the municipality of Rome act like the miser, who, forgetful of the treasure already secured, gets into a fit of despair PREFACE. xxix over any small gain which escapes his grip. We must re- member, finally, that in every great undertaking there is a period of transition, which is exceedingly disagreeable. Let us reserve our final judgment until the period of transition is over, and the undertaking accomplished. At any rate, if there is a class of people that has no right to complain, it is the archaeological brotherhood; because never before has such a field been thrown open to their investigation, never has the Roman soil yielded such a magnificent archae- ological harvest, as within the last few years. I desire to express my obligations to Mr. Edward Robin- son of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for the kind service which he has rendered me in superintending the preparation of this volume during the process of its manu- facture. The distance at which I have been from the pub- lishers and printers has been greatly lessened by his most generous interest in the work. RoDOLFO LANCIANI. ANCIENT ROME IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERIES. CHAPTER I. THE RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. VERY few students are aware that Cola di Rienzo, the Roman tribune of the fourteenth century, is the real founder of the modern archaeological school; and that to him must be adjudged the credit as regards the renaissance of classical studies, which has been almost exclusively be- stowed on Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarca. They do not deserve it. Dante, “savio gentil che tutto seppe;” Dante, who collected in his wonderful “ Divina Comme- dia” all the learning of his age, and in his wanderings through Italy and Southern France had ample opportuni- ties of admiring the most splendid creations of Roman architecture, once only alludes to antique monuments as a subject of comparison : — “Sī com’ ad Arli ove'l Rodano stagna Sī com’ a Pola presso del Quarnaro Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo.”” Inferno, ix. 112–115. * Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone, Even as at Pola, near to the Quarnaro, The sepulchres make all the place uneven. LONGFELLOw's Translation. 2 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. This is a similitude derived from his recollections of the Ro- man cemeteries of Arles and Pola, the sarcophagi of which, white as fresh snow, were reflected in the blue waters of the Rhone and of the Gulf of Quarnaro. But we should look in vain in his cantos for a souvenir of the amphi- theatres of the same cities of Arles and Pola, which have come down to the present age in a good state of preserva- tion, and which he must have seen in all their magnificence; neither does he mention the Verona amphitheatre, on the steps of which he had so often sat in deep meditation, lamenting, — V “Com’ e duro calle lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale.” Not less silent and indifferent does his Muse remain at the sight of the ruins of Rome. One episode only she drew, not from Church traditions, as it is commonly be- lieved, but from a genuine antique monument, the remains and the memory of which have long since disappeared. I refer to those fascinating lines in which he describes the meeting of the poor widow with the Emperor Trajan. I quote the passage in Italian, that the full harmony of the verses may be enjoyed, - a harmony which can scarcely be preserved in a translation : — “Quiv era storiata l' alta gloria Del roman prince, lo cui gran valore Mosse Gregorio alla sua gran vittoria. Io dico di Traiano imperatore : Ed una vedovella gli era al freno, Di lagrime atteggiata e di dolore. Dintorno a lui parea calcato e pieno Di cavalieri: e l’ aquile dell’ oro Sovr’ esso in vista al vento si movieno. La miserella infra tutti costoro Pareva dir: Signor, fammi vendetta Del mio figliuol, ch' e morto, ond'io m' accoro. RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 3 Ed egli a lei rispondere: Ora aspetta Tanto, ch'io torni. Edella: Signor mio, Come persona in cui dolor s’ affretta — Setu non torni ? Ed ei: Chi fia dov’ io, La ti fara. Ed ella : L'altrui bene A te che fia, se ’l tuo metti in obblio” Ond’ elli: Or ti conforta : chè conviene, Ch'io solva il mio dovere anxi ch'io muova : Giustizia il vuole, e Pietà mi ritiene.” Purgatorio, x. 73–93.” The bas-relief described by Dante as representing this lovely episode is not imaginary, but real; and it does not belong to Purgatory, but to this world. It was sculptured on one of the panels of a triumphal arch, which stood in the centre of the great square in front of Agrippa's Pan- theon. The bas-relief, as is often the case with this class of commemorative monuments, represented and personified a conquered Nation kneeling and begging for mercy bef 1 There the high glory of the Roman Prince Was chronicled, whose great beneficence Moved Gregory to his great victory ; 'Tis of the Emperor Trajan that I speak; And a poor widow at his bridal stood, In attitude of weeping and of grief. Around about him seemed it thronged and full Of cavaliers, and the eagles in the gold Above them visibly in the wind were moving. The wretched woman in the midst of these Seemed to be saying : “Give me vengeance, Lord, For my dead son, for whom my heart is breaking.” And he to answer her : “Now wait until I shall return.” And she “My lord,” like one In whom grief is impatient, “shouldst thou not Return ?” And he “Who shall be where I am Will give it thee.” And she “Good deed of others, What boots it thee, if thou neglect thine own 2 ” Whence he “Now comfort thee, for it behoves me That I discharge my duty ere I move ; Justice so wills, and pity doth retain me.” LONGFELLOw’s Translation. 4 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. the Roman invader. The simple and inerudite imagination of the Middle Ages gave a different meaning to this plain representation, so common on antique coins and bas-reliefs; it was supposed to commemorate the well-known legend of Trajan's soul rescued from damnation at the request of S. Gregory the Great, — a legend which is still believed by the Roumanians, who worship Trajan as their national hero and national saint. The triumphal arch opposite the Pan- theon was accordingly called the Arch of Piety; a hospi- tal close by was called the Hospital of Piety; and the name is still attached to a little church not far from the Pantheon, called the Madonna della Pietà. . The arch was destroyed to the level of the foundations by Pope Alexander VII., Chigi, in order that its marbles might be employed in his restoration of the portico of the Pan- theon itself. It would be useless to deny or excuse the ignorance of Dante in this branch of human learning, and it would be equally unjust to lessen our admiration for him on account of that ignorance. The science of archaeology did not exist in his age, and he cannot be blamed if he was ig- norant of what did not exist. Many years had to elapse before the dawn of the new day should lighten the dark- ness of mediaeval science. Even the most powerful intel- lects are obliged by the law of nature to proceed by slow degrees, and not by leaps. In the literary education of all nations the poetic faculties are the first to germinate and blossom ; last of all comes the culture of the critic. And archaeology, founded as it is upon accurate investigation, upon the comparison of antique monuments with one an- other, and with documentary evidence, written and en- graved, belongs to the period of criticism. Dante confined himself to the study of the few documents RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 5 which were known in his age; he increased their number, and his work was carried still further by Francesco Petrarca, to whom we are indebted for many classical texts, discov- ered in various monastic libraries in the shape of manu- scripts and palimpsests. Still, in spite of his love and admiration for ancient authors, Petrarch no more than Dante deserves the praise bestowed on him by Tiraboschi, of having been the first student of archaeology in modern times. We know that at great expense and labor he had formed a small collection of Roman imperial coins, which he offered as a very rare present to Charles IV., but we doubt whether he could appreciate their historical or chro- nological value. At any rate, the letters on ancient and mediaeval Rome which Petrarch wrote are, from an archaeo- logical point of view, monuments of ignorance. He calls the baths of Caracalla palatium Antonini ; the fountain of the Aqua Julia, cymbrum Marii ; the pantheon of Agrippa, templum Cybelis. He refers to the column of Trajan as the tomb of that emperor; and the pyramid of Caius Ces- tius as the mausoleum of Remus, brother of Romulus, although the title and nature of each of these monuments were carved in huge letters on its front. To explain Pe- trarch's negligence, Poggio Bracciolini has supposed that the inscriptions were concealed from him by plants growing in the joints of the marble blocks. This excuse is exces- sively poor and has in fact no foundation, inasmuch as these inscriptions were seen and copied by Petrarch’s con- temporary and friend, Cola di Rienzo. According to his biographer, who wrote in the vernacular of his age, – producing a document most precious as show- ing the transition from the Latin into the Italian language, — Cola di Rienzo, born in 1313, became in early youth a strong admirer of the Roman classical authors, especially of 6 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. Livy, Sallust, and Valerius Maximus. “Every day,” says his biographer, “he would walk among the ruins, scrutiniz- ing every piece of sculptured marble. None could read and decipher inscriptions better than he.” Yet in spite of his enthusiasm for the antique world and its epigraphic records, in spite of the admiration for Roman grandeur which stirred his soul, Cola di Rienzo cannot be cited, as his biographer claims, as a model of scientific accuracy. His Latin epis- tles are written more in the style of the Bible than in the style of Sallust; and as regards his power of deciphering and expounding ancient inscriptions, the only evidence we possess does not speak highly in his favor." Famous among ancient epigraphic documents is the bronze tablet, now in the Capitoline Museum, containing the lea: Regia ; that is, a copy, engraved in bronze, of the decree by which the S. P. Q. R. conferred on Fla- vius Vespasian imperial power, and the power of life and death. This tablet had been employed by Pope Boniface VIII. in the construction of an altar in S. John Lateran, and it was set in the wall so awkwardly that it was almost impossible to read it. Cola, in 1346, caused it to be re- moved from its obscure hiding-place, and set up in the middle of the basilica. There, showing it to his country- men, he was wont to speak fiery words on the rights of the people to select their own form of government. So far, so good. But when he begins to explain the text of the docu- ment he loses his way and treads upon treacherous ground. The paragraph of the law concerning the pomoerium, that is to say, the right bestowed upon Vespasian to enlarge the boundaries of the city of Rome, is interpreted by Cola as if pomoerium meant pomarium, or apple-orchard ; as if 1 A complete edition of Cola's epis- Gabrielli, under the auspices of the tles will shortly be published by A. Historical Society of Rome. ROME IN THE XIVTH CENTURY. Miniature in the Duc de Berry's " Livre d'Heures " From Müntz, Les Antiquités de la Ville de Rome. RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 7 this paragraph spoke of Italy as the garden of the Roman Empire. I am sorry to say that this interpretation, absurd as it is, was not his own, but was traditional in the Ghibel- line party. Dante himself had already styled Italy the giardin dell’ impero. These unsuccessful attempts to explain ancient texts do not lessen the title of Cola to our gratitude; we are in- debted to him for the very first collection of Latin epitaphs that was compiled according to the principles of modern science. In Prince Chigi's library at Rome, in the Medi- cean Library at Florence, and in the Public Library at Utrecht, three manuscript copies of an epigraphic collection were discovered many years ago, the authorship of which was attributed, first, to Nicola Signorili, secretary of the Roman Senate, under Pope Martin W. Further researches made in the National Library at Naples led to the discovery of a much older copy of the same book, dating from the pontificate of Urban VI. ; that is to say, written at least seventy-five years earlier. After long and patient investi- gation, the original copy has been finally discovered in the library of the abbey of S. Nicola dell’Arena at Catania. There is no doubt that it is the work of Cola di Rienzo. Its materials were collected, evidently, between 1344 and 1347. At that period, nobody but Cola could read and copy ancient marbles; the book is consequently his. We shall henceforth admire the fierce tribune, not only as a great politician, leader, and agitator, but also as an archaeol- ogist, great for his age. We must now pass to the time of the return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, which marks the beginning of the Renaissance, — the beginning, that is, of the most glorious period in the history of my own nation. At this period, mediaeval Italy had disappeared. A new element, the 8 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. genius of the ancient world, had risen in its glory, and had fascinated the higher classes of society, the heads of the various states into which the Peninsula was politically di- vided, the aristocracy, the fashionable and literary circles, and, in a more modest measure, the members of the clergy and of monastic orders. That mighty genius took posses- sion at once of the field of art and science, modified the manners and the education of the higher classes, and even shook, for the time being, the very foundations of the Chris- tian faith. At the head of the movement marched a hand- ful of scientific men, philologists rather than archaeologists, better known under the name of the Humanists. They be- came professors in the universities, they won confidential po- sitions in princely houses as private secretaries, they attached themselves especially to the princes of the Church. Their engagements lasted only for a short period, sometimes for six months only : thus they were able to move without intermission from town to town, from court to court, from college to college, multiplying, as it were, from one end to the other of the Peninsula, and sowing everywhere the seed which was to bring forth such magnificent harvests. The study of the Greek language and literature was the most fashionable of all studies: hence the fifteenth cen- tury has been called the Golden Age of Hellenism. The beginning of the following century saw the first decline of this pursuit; under the Popes of the Medici family, Greek had already left public life, to confine itself again within the precincts of cloisters and schools, which became, and are now, I regret to say, its last insecure shelter. In order to obtain able masters from the East, especially from Byzan- tine schools, fabulous prices were offered and paid to those professors who were willing to change their country; but the capture of Constantinople, May 29, 1453, very soon RENA ISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 9 dried up this rich source. These circumstances enable us to understand why, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, men of letters and women of the upper classes could easily converse in Greek; whereas, fifty years later, the same lan- guage was no longer spoken, but only read, and was totally forgotten at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is difficult to form an idea of such a powerful move- ment towards classical studies; more difficult to investigate its causes. We can explain something by a reference to Fashion, that despotic and capricious goddess; but this will not explain all. Captivated by hitherto unknown fas- cinations, eager to tear aside the veil which concealed its mysteries, the Humanists deified and idolized archaeology, and congregated around its temple to partake of the treas- ures of science which had been kept there in safe conceal- ment since the fall of the Roman Commonwealth, more than nine centuries before. Many conceived the hope or labored under the illusion that pagan science would heal the wounds of society; some followed the movement out of pure love of fascinating inquiries, others from curiosity ; the profanum vulgus felt the contagion of example and fash- ion; the higher classes hoped to find in ancient philosophy the consolations which, to their own misfortune, they had ceased to expect from faith. $ Paganism not only penetrated the domain of science, but conquered also the field of fine arts, although this last was exclusively and absolutely consecrated to the service of the Church. The evidence of this fact is to be found every- where in Italy, in churches as well as in public edifices of Rome, Florence, and Venice. Those genii who surround the Blessed Virgin, holding on high the torch of life; those winged classic youths who are meant to represent angels; those nymphs whose part it is to represent the holy women 10 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAOLOGICAL STUDIES. of Christendom, and whose immodest forms were not con- sidered out of place in a church, – are all nothing but a revival of paganism and pagan art. Every one knows that Daniele da Wolterra was surnamed “il Braghettone,” or breeches-maker, because he contrived to cover the most crude nudities of Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment,” and that the reclining statue of Giulia Farnese, near S. Peter's chair in the Vatican, the masterpiece of Guglielmo della Porta, was clothed by Bernini with clothes of painted lead. Giorgio Vasari asserts that Perugino could never be induced to believe in the immortality of the soul, although he had devoted all his life to painting saints and madonnas. I must quote here an incident from the life of the great Humanist of the fifteenth century, Pomponius Laetus, be- cause, owing to a recent discovery made in the catacombs of S. Calixtus, on the Appian Way, we are able to solve for the first time a mystery connected with the pagan tenden- cies of the Renaissance. Pomponio Leto founded in Rome an academy for classic studies, to which the most celebrated literary men of the period belonged : Cardinal Platina, the historian of the Church ; Giovanni Antonio Campano, Bishop of Teramo; Pietro Sabino, professor of epigraphy in the University of Rome; Marco Antonio Sabel- lico, Pietro Pallini, and many others. All these illustrious members of the Roman Academy, either because they had exchanged their Christian names for names of pagan he- roes, or else on account of their extravagant worship of ancient philosophy and civilization, were stigmatized by so-called public opinion as apostates from the faith, as wor- shippers of false gods, as conspirators against the authority and the life of the Pope. Imprisoned and chained in the Castle of S. Angelo by order of Paul II., a religious and political action was brought against them upon the charge RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 11 of conspiracy to secure the supreme pontificate of Rome for their master and president, Pomponio Leto. Cardinal Platina vindicated the innocence of his colleagues, and Pomponio himself addresséd to the court of Castle S. An- gelo a vigorous speech, the original of which is preserved in the Vatican archives. The lack of positive evidence and the intervention of influential friends caused them to be set free; so that the Academy was able to return to its work, amidst the applause and with the help of cardinals and prelates of the Roman Church. * It is, no doubt, exceedingly remarkable that the evi- dence against these men, sought in vain by Paul II. and his judges, should have come to light only a few years ago, and in a place entirely unsuspected. In the course of the exca- vations carried on by my illustrious master, Commendatore G. B. de Rossi, in the catacombs of Callixtus, a cubiculum, or crypt, was discovered, May 12, 1852, in the remotest part of that subterranean labyrinth which had been used by Pom- ponio's brotherhood as a secret place of meeting. On the white plaster of the ceiling the following inscription had been written with the smoke of a tallow candle : “January 16, 1475. Pantagathus, Mammeius, Papyrius, Minicinus, AEmilius, Minucius, all of them admirers and investigators of antiquities, and the delight of the Roman dissolute women, [have met here] under the reign of Pomponius, supreme pontiff.” Many other records of the same nature have been since discovered in the catacombs of SS. Pietro e Mar- cellino and of Praetextatus, in which records Pantagathus (Cardinal Platina 2) is styled sacerdos academiae Romance, and Pomponius again sovereign pontiff. * It is evident that such a priesthood and such a pontificate have nothing to do with the Christian hierarchy; on the other hand, it is difficult to determine whether we have to 12 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. deal with a more or less absurd pedantry, or with a solemn apostasy from the Christian faith by a handful of disso- lute conspirators. One thing only is certain : that Pom- ponio and his colleagues were very wise in confiding their secret to the deepest and most impenetrable recesses of the Roman catacombs. One line, one word alone, of the rec- ords which have been discovered by us four centuries later, made known in proper time to the court of Castle S. An- gelo, would have brought their heads under the sword of the public executioner. In view of the failure to prove the case against Pompo- nio, it is no wonder that of all the popes of the fifteenth century, the promoter of the trial, Paul II. (Pietro Barbo of Venice), the builder of the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome, should have been the one most violently attacked by the Humanists and the rising archaeological school, as an enemy of the grand movement of the Renaissance. Nevertheless, documents discovered by Eugène Müntz and Constantino Corvisieri prove that Paul II., without being a Humanist in the true sense of the word, loved antiquity and its mas- terpieces with a passionate love, and did his best to favor the development of classical instruction. He reorganized the University of Rome, and actually struck a medal for the occasion, with the legend LETITIA ScholasticA ; he helped the introduction of printing ; granted fifty ducats to the old archaeologist Flavio Biondo, and four hundred to Filelfo. The triumphal arches of Titus and Septimius Se- verus, the two colossal groups on the Quirinal, and the eques- trian statue of Marcus Aurelius were restored at his ex- pense; he caused the porphyry sarcophagus of S. Constan- tia (now in the Hall of the Greek Cross) and a basin of green serpentine to be artistically set up in the Piazza di S. Marco; removing the first from the mausoleum of Costan. RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 13 tia, near the second milestone of the Via Nomentana, the second from the baths of Titus, near the Colosseum. He undertook with enthusiasm one of the favorite plans of Nicolas W., the removal and reërection of Caligula’s obe- lisk in front of S. Peter's. The work of transportation had actually been begun under the skilful leadership of Master Aristotiles, but was soon after given upon account of the sudden death of the Pope. This gifted man was born a collector: from his early youth he devoted himself to searching all over Italy for an- tique gems and coins, and Byzantine stuffs and jewelry; disputing the possession of every piece with his competitors Charles de' Medici and Lorenzo il Magnifico. The passion for antique and precious works did not abate with his elec- tion to the pontifical throne. There came a moment when his mania rose to almost heroic proportions. He did not scruple to lay hands on miraculous images of the Blessed Virgin, if they were remarkable or curious from an artistic point of view, such, for instance, as the one preserved in the church of S. Maria in Campitelli, made in opus sectile, that is to say, in a kind of Florentine mosaic of precious stones. He had at one time a plan for removing to his palace the library of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino; he offered to build at his own cost, for the township of Tou- louse, a bridge across the Garonne, in exchange for a single cameo. As regards his personal appearance, he was in the habit of dressing with unheard-of magnificence. He was so conscious of his own beauty and majestic size and form, that on the day he was elected Pope he actually took the name of Formosus II., “the handsome,” a name which the unanimous protest of the Sacred College obliged him to exchange for the more religious one of Paul. No consid: eration of expense could deter him from acquiring for his 14 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. personal adornment any extraordinary piece of jewelry which might be brought to his notice. A single one of his tiaras cost him the enormous sum of 120,000 ducats of gold (more than six millions of francs); he justified this ex- cess of luxury by remarking that the tiara of his uncle, Eugenius IV., had cost 38,000 gold ducats, the “ransom of a king.” The museum in his Palazzo di S. Marco or di Venezia comprised forty-seven works in bronze ; two hundred and twenty-seven cameos; three hundred and twenty-five inta- glios, mostly portraits of emperors and empresses; ninety- seven gold coins and one thousand silver ones (among which two were forged); ten Byzantine cameos, a respectable number, if we consider that the “cabinet des médailles” in Paris and the “cabinet impérial” in Vienna contain only an equal number of these rare productions of Eastern glyptic art; twenty-five Byzantine mosaic pictures, more than all the European museums put together now possess; two pic- tures in stained glass; many ivory carvings; and many antique embroideries in silk and gold. As regards the works of the Renaissance goldsmiths and the silver plate, the figures of the inventory are simply astonishing. Pearls, turquoises, jacinths, emeralds, amethysts, diamonds, mostly mounted in rings and signets, are numbered by thousands. As for silver plate, I shall mention only two wine-jugs of exquisite workmanship, each weighing one hundred and ten pounds. What has become of all these treasures? There is no doubt that many pieces have been transferred to the “Sala delle Pietre Dure,” in the Uffizi at Florence, from bequests and legacies of the Medici family. But this is almost nothing in comparison with what seems to be lost. Eugène Müntz has been able to trace the existence of one set only, RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 15 from the museum of Paul II., a set of superb nielli, which belonged originally to an evangeliarium offered to Paul II. by Cardinal la Balue. In 1831, half of these nielli were in the possession of the Duke of Hamilton, half in the Galerie Manfrin in Paris. I do not know where they are I] O.W. In view of such exceptional services rendered to classic antiquities by Paul II., who can honestly condemn him for one isolated act of vandalism, the quarrying of blocks of marble and travertine from the Colosseum ? In the fifteenth century, — it is useless to deny it, — the Flavian amphithe- atre was considered by everybody, whether Humanists or illiterate, as a mere quarry of stone for building purposes. Nicholas W., Pius II., in spite of their laws of protection of ancient buildings, knocked down arcade after arcade, without the slightest scruple. To reproach Paul II. for hav- ing followed their example would be historically unjust, since the Colosseum paid the ransom of so many other antique edi- fices, which were protected, restored, saved from destruction, by him. Let us reserve the severity of our judgment for those who, in a more civilized and appreciative age, have destroyed without a moment's hesitation the finest monu- ments of Rome: for Sixtus W., who at the end of the six- teenth century destroyed the Septizonium of Septimius Se- verus; for Paul W., Borghese, who employed the marbles of Minerva's temple in the Forum Transitorium to build the Borghese Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore and the fountain of the Aqua Paola on the Janiculum; for Alexander VII., Chigi, who demolished in 1662 the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius on the Corso. The responsibility of Paul II. is very light indeed in comparison with the responsibility of others. The brief account I have given of the museum collected 16 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. by him in the Palazzo di Venezia (a palace the architecture of which has been wrongly attributed to Giuliano da Ma- iano and Baccio Pontelli, whereas it was designed and partly executed by Meo del Caprino and Giacomo di Pie- trasanta) leads me to mention another subject, of which lit- tle is known even to the initiated, - the subject of the collections of early Italian art and antiquities, in the Re- naissance, from its beginning to the end of the fifteenth century. In the Middle Ages, one class only of antiquities seems to have been cared for, that of engraved stones, and, as a rule, of any objects the materia prima of which is precious. Engraved stones, even when representing profane and immoral subjects, were employed in the ornamentation of Church implements, such as chalices, evangeliaria, pontifical robes, rings, and tiaras. It was not Italian noblemen or prelates only who had a passion for accumulating this class of valuables. Charles W., king of France, owned in 1380 fifty-two cameos; Charles VI., in 1399, one hundred and one. In 1343, Philippe le Bel is said to have sent to the Pope “un Joel appélé le camahieu.” Boniface VIII., of the Caetani family, the illustrious contemporary of Dante and Giotto, possessed from forty to fifty cameos; the catalogue of them, dated 1295, discovered in the Biblio- thèque Nationale, Paris, is remarkable because one of the reliefs is described in it as representing Hercules, an iden- tification really wonderful for such an age. But I can give an instance, far earlier than this, of a real apprecia- tion of antiquities. I speak of the picturesque mediae- val house in Rome near the temple of Fortuna Virilis and near the Ponte Rotto, miscalled sometimes the “house of Cola di Rienzo,” sometimes “ the house of Pilate.” The building was erected, in fact, by Nicolaus Crescen: RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 17 tius, son of the tribune Crescentius, and was built mostly of the fragments of ancient marble edifices and bas- reliefs, in order — as the inscription testifies — that his contemporaries might appreciate the artistic skill of their ancestors. Arnaldo da Brescia, the reformer of the twelfth ſ ; f | % ; :- * / ! A. 3. &# ÉÉ º,7%. % % / % e -- * * % % % %% gº % % ### - ! *: §§ſ/ º º%º #ft=#| % #AE :17 !/ % % % #. * %º %º % % É. ſ { % sº E== #}º * %%% #!/ % #sº º ſº > -- ~ - The House of Crescentius. century, proclaimed in 1150 the necessity for rebuilding the Capitol. I have spoken above of the modest set of Roman coins offered by Francesco Petrarca to the Emperor Charles IV. at Mantua, in 1354. This set was by no means the first collected in Italy; Petrarch had been pre- ceded by another numismatist, Oliviero Forza, or Forzetta, a wealthy citizen of Treviso, who must be considered, if not the originator, certainly one of the first promoters of the new tendencies, and of the new artistic and archaeological 18 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. tastes. His inventory, written by himself, speaks so seri. ously and freely of medals, coins, bronzes, marbles, en- graved stones, and manuscript books that one would think it written fully two or three centuries later. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Florence, which had preceded so many other Italian towns in the reform of literature and art, showed hospitality within its walls to the most remarkable collections of the time. Ar- chitects, sculptors, antiquarians, worked harmoniously and simultaneously towards the development of refined tastes. The names of the three greatest Italian masters of the fif- teenth century — Filippo Brunellesco, the creator of the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore ; Donatello (Donato Bardi), the inimitable sculptor of the S. George on the façade of the church of Or S. Michele ; and Lorenzo Ghiberti, the designer and caster of those bronze doors of the Baptistery which Michaelangelo considered worthy of being the doors of Paradise — are strictly connected with this archaeological revival. Brunellesco and Donatello, dur- ing their visit to Rome in 1407, spent all their time and leisure in measuring ancient buildings and in excavating ruins; so much so that they were nicknamed by the popu- lace of Rome quelli del tesoro, “searchers for hidden treasures.” On his return to Florence, Donatello inspired his protector, Cosimo de' Medici, with his love and passion for antiques, and restored with his own masterly hand the statues which ornamented the mansion of the noble patri- cian. Lorenzo Ghiberti felt even a deeper sense of admira- tion for ancient statuary and gems. The commentaries pub- lished by Lemonnier in the first volume of his Florentine edition of Wasari, speak eloquently of his admiration for a statue of the Hermaphrodite discovered in Rome under his eyes, for a statue by Lysippus (?) discovered at Siena, for an ſ i ;# i : É i | g | : | # Amº§ 2, s—ſºſ g “A * \ r ...W §, sº \-tº- * * & - | 2. ..? ſº. * D ºat - & d • - gº - - 2 . " # i º W. sº - ~k eſ. \ & º t tº º es * * * \. * e & ~ |Wºº iš ... tº gº º ph i * *.*.i. § : }; # 8 | wº #iº * as --~ * ºr * £, . “sº il ºn 3 * . º . ~ y j}} t i. º * , , , . at “ & &P :*: --ºff, *... * * ; : " i !!: rºl ; : *... .*. § 3 #: * * sº - - - --4- !, assº lſº |U}}...]:§ . - is #iſ g { º 㺠i \ | | tli: sº % * - --→ . T-T-7 -ºf----- *---- * f a ; : I.N. iſºllā ; : Nº * & I" Hi}; \\\ t t § - * * * º: t sº | g }*, *: ; * & Agiºs || § * illº (.º. & * i &; $e * & g SSN. º § 2 * 2° S.S. \\ * §§§l|}}}, ſ|| Kº Nº. º * lºn, reº \s. . . ... -- “ , ”S • * * **. # f 17" * f ; ; ; ; * #: ; wº t # 8 | º | #ii', g [] # W º * Sº I' ch ‘sº º #) * * • *-...- ſ'. ! ...º A. : §§§ * = ** § cº * s > * * • * *= -- $º Vº Y_ s ‘. § ºf ſº § ºft|{ /. W. § { t alsº Sºº #H º tºº º:::::::Rºgº * - - - - - --- WA N tº . s: sº- * - -—r- KN - - e-ºr- * -º-º-º-º: * is a , S: Crº º *~ * * !) .." ~ * ! * s t } \r- º § sº § M. § NR 'S & | W-i§s N."N Nkºs º - * - . * * * *. . . .” º sº * * * * * E.- : º sº RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 19 engraved stone belonging to Niccolò Niccoli, and so forth. To him was entrusted the delightful task of mounting in gold the famous cornelian of Giovanni de' Medici, represent- ing Apollo and Marsyas, and it is touching to see with what sincere enthusiasm he speaks of a stone and of an engrav- ing the subject of which is a mystery to him. Poggio Bracciolini, of Florence, born in 1380, has left interesting records of the ancient marbles which he collected during his travels in central and southern Italy. He speaks of a room in his museum entirely filled with busts, all nose- less save one ; a particular which shows that the disfigure- ment of statues and heads is the work of the Romans of the decadence, and not the work of the Middle Ages, as com- monly supposed. I must quote here a fragment of a letter written by Poggio to one of his learned friends, because he speaks of his acquisitions, and of his hopes and fears as a collector, with such good sense and enthusiasm that one would be ready to believe the letter written in our own days by Marchese Campana or Alessandro Castellani. Pog- gio's letter makes evident, also, the fact, almost incredible, that, at the very beginning of the Renaissance, works of art were collected by passionate admirers, even from the shores of Asia Minor and from the islands of the Greek archipelago. “I received yesterday a letter from Chios, in which my correspondent, Master Francis, of Pistoja, an- nounces that he has secured for me three marble heads, one of Juno, one of Minerva, one of Bacchus, the work of Polycletus and Praxiteles (as he says), which he expects to ship at once to Gaeta. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the alleged authorship of these three marbles. Modern Greeks, as you know, like large talk, and in this instance I suspect them to have mentioned those grand names to justify an exorbitant demand. I hope I am giving 20 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES, voice to a false suspicion. My correspondent says that he bought the heads from a certain Caloiro, who, not many months ago, discovered in the deepest recess of a grotto in the same island of Chios about one hundred marble statues, of marvelous beauty and preservation. Do you not share my wish, in hearing of these wonders, to be able to spread wings and fly to Chios ?” The most successful and liberal Florentine collector of his age was, beyond doubt, Niccolò Niccoli, a simple citizen, who without having large means at his disposal, by skill and perseverance, and with the help of such friends as Am- brogio Traversari, of Camaldoli, and Leonardo d'Arezzo, got together a library and a museum which formed the pride of his native town. Here is an instance of the sure- ness and perspicacity of his coup d'oeil in artistic matters, which is described in the life of Niccolò. In walking through the streets of Florence, Niccolò spied, one day, a child, from whose neck a chalcedony, most exquisitely en- graved, was suspended. He coaxed the boy to come and speak with him ; asked the name of his father, and in what place they lived. The next day he offered five florins in exchange for the stone. The good man, having never in his lifetime seen five florins at once, was enchanted with the bargain, and Niccolò became thus the happy possessor of the masterpiece. However, it did not remain long in his hands. During the pontificate of Eugene IV., the Pope's vicar, hav- ing heard of the famous stone, sent for Niccolò, in pass- ing through Florence, and offered him two hundred gold ducats, which Niccolò, not without hesitation and sorrow, decided to accept. After the death of the vicar, the stone was bought by Paul II., and fell ultimately into the hands of Lorenzo de' Medici. As for Rome herself, she can boast of having had a RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 21 museum, not of small objects, however precious, but a mu- seum containing the grandest productions of ancient art, at least since the time of Charlemagne and the ninth century of our era. The museum was kept in and near the Pope's palace at the Lateran, and comprised, first, the equestrian bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, now on the Capitol, commonly asserted to have been found between the º º § - N º§§ § Scala Santa and S. Croce in Gerusalemme. It was never found, because it was never lost : it was con- stantly kept, after the fall of the Empire, near the Pope's residence at the Lat- eran, until Paul III., Far- nese, caused it to be re- moved to the Piazza del Campidoglio. Besides this colossal bronze, the Late- ran museum contained the celebrated Wolf, which is wrongly asserted to have The wolf in the Fifteenth century. been found in the seven- From the Mirabilia Urbis Roma, Rome, 1499. age#-§º 4-º º:w : sº== * * -º,gN : &tà\-- º*à - #º*4 &}ºd teenth century near the church of S. Teodoro; the colossal head of Domitian, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, wrongly asserted to have been found in the fifteenth century near the basilica of Constantine; and the lex Regia, or decree by which the Senate and people of Rome elected Vespasian as their emperor, a document which I have already mentioned in speaking of Cola di Rienzo. All these bronzes were re- moved to the Capitol from the Lateran by Sixtus IV. The 22 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. founding of the Capitoline museum, considering the condi- tions of the age and the elementary state of general culture, is one of the greatest glories of Pope Sixtus IV., Riario della Rovere, and exonerates him in a certain measure for many acts of wanton destruction of ancient buildings which took place under his pontificate. The museum, solemnly inaugu- rated on December 14, 1471, was the very first thrown open to the public after the fall of the Empire. It contained the boy extracting a thorn from his foot; the Hercules of gilt bronze discovered in the Forum Boarium ; all the bronzes of the Lateran; the Camillus, which was then called, I know not why, the “Zingara,” or Gypsy; a marble group of a lion devouring a horse, discovered in the bed of the river Almo; the cinerary urn of Agrippina the elder, wife of Germanicus and mother of Caligula, which urn had been transformed in the Middle Ages into a standard measure for grain, rubiatella di grano ; the bust of Brutus, and the marble statue of Charles d’Anjou. It is to be regretted that this venerable nucleus of the Capitoline collections, a truly national glory, should have been dispersed all over the mu nicipal palaces of Rome, without any regard for the mutual connection of the various pieces in the history of art and science, or for the memory of the founder of the museum, Sixtus IV., whose name is dear to all who appreciate taste, refinement, and liberality. The Riario della Rovere family is certainly one of the most sympathetic, I might say attrac- tive, families of the Renaissance: even the defects and the errors of some of its members have their bright side, and can be excused on account of their very magnitude. Take, for instance, the Pope himself: after blaming the memory of his predecessor, Paul II., for his extravagant luxury, Six- tus IV., near the very end of his life, orders a tiara, worth 110,000 gold ducats. As for his nephew, Pietro Riario, | \\ º § º W W . * § º § º º \\ § § § sº ~ º § W Rºſſ t # -o t -* *i. . . JR ENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 23 whom he had named Cardinal of S. Sisto when only twenty- six years old, with a yearly income of 60,000 ducats, corre- sponding to $600,000, he was capable of spending and squandering during the two years of his cardinalship not less than $2,800,000. We may have instances in our own times of more colossal expenditures; but who among these modern spendthrifts could boast of having left to mankind such souvenirs as those left by the Riarios ?— the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the porch and convent of SS. Apostoli, the cloister of S. Agnese fuori le mura, and many similar masterpieces of the Renaissance. I ought now to mention the illustrious group of the cinquecento masters, at once artists and archaeologists, whose researches, descriptions, measurements, and drawings of the ancient buildings of Rome rank among the finest documents which our favorite science possesses. These documents, which are numbered by thousands, each more precious than the other, were not known until a few years ago. Abeken, the editors of the Florentine edition of Giorgio Vasari, and Baron Heinrich de Geymüller had occasionally mentioned, or actually published, some samples of the collection; but from these fragmentary indica- tions we had conceived the idea that the drawings of the cinquecento masters would be more useful to illus- trate contemporary than antique art. As an instance of the generosity with which archaeology repays from time to time the devotion and the zeal of its students, as an in- stance of the healthy joys and emotions which the study of the ancient world is capable of affording to the initiated, I beg to be allowed to relate a personal experience. In spite of more than twenty years of uninterrupted research, both in the active and the speculative field, many of our Roman ruins were still an enigma to me, their origin, their & 24 RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. design, their history, being absolutely unknown. How many hours have I spent before and around such antique build- ings as those transformed into the church of S. Adriano, of SS. Cosma and Damiano, of S. Stefano delle Carozze, and others, trying, like GEdipus, to solve the mystery of the Sphinx, to snatch the secret which seemed to have been buried under those ruins with the fall of the Empire After giving up all hope of success, having in fact classified these buildings as “nameless,” I happened one day to enter the department of drawings and engravings in the Galleria degli Uffizi at Florence, under the kind guidance of their keeper, Signor Nerino Ferri. The original and un- published architectural sketches of Florentine cinquecento artists were shown to me as a simple matter of curiosity. I could not possibly describe what I felt at that moment, when I saw (at once) the solution of nearly every topographical problem pass slowly before my eyes, in the shape of sketches taken on the spot when those monuments were first exca- vated, three or four centuries ago, and taken by such men, artists, and archaeologists as the eight Sangallos, Baldassare and Sallustio Peruzzi, Raphael Sanzio, the two Albertis, Bramante, Sansovino, Giovanni Antonio Dosio, De Marchis, and so on. I do not think that the naturalist who discovers a new species of coleoptera, the chemist who discovers a new chemical element, the astronomer who discovers a new asteroid, can feel what the archaeologist feels under the blessed influence of such important and utterly unexpected discoveries. When my master, Commendatore de Rossi, dis- covered in the Biblioteca Marciana at Venice the famous codex of Pietro Sabino, he spent thirty-six hours in devour- ing, as it were, the volume, with no consideration whatever for food or rest, and did not leave his long-sought-for prey until he actually fainted from exhaustion. Archaeology is a (-9#97–ægźr) ’ung ºo//wò????ş’ op ozuoyu ſy Mq pºżywyays’ “NOGIH JLN VAI GIHJL HO STIIVJLŐHCI, …--••• • yššĀŅſſì}} į（~JN ** • șº **） �& * *** • *ÇI • f:3: ..., 'sº c{A }}, \ ºn: •ę -~º:prº& RENAISSANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 25 science which, different from others, begins at once to repay the zeal of the student with deep moral satisfaction without obliging him to serve a dull, tiresome apprenticeship. It is a science so noble and fascinating that it helps wonderfully to form the character of intelligent youths; and so protean in form, in its various aspects and branches, that it can suit any taste, any inclination. It is true that its study requires the spirit of enterprise, plenty of means, a subtle mind, and constancy of application. To the young men of America, however, to whom these pages are especially dedicated, these elements have been supplied even more liberally than is the case, perhaps, with other nations. The first move- ments the present generation has made in the archaeological field, such as the exploration of Assos, the contribution to the investigations at Naukratis, the institution of the school at Athens, the establishment of first-class scientific journals, and the like, prove that American students bring to the antiquarian field the same amount of successful enterprise which has made them take the lead in many other fields of science. Let me express the hope that the account of our recent discoveries in Rome which is given in the following chapters will confirm, and even increase, their fancy for these noble and useful pursuits, and entice a greater num- ber of bright young men into the ranks of our sympa" thetic brotherhood. CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDATION AND PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. IN the preface to his beautiful volume, “Ancient Rome in 1885,” Professor Henry Middleton announces the discov- ery of an Etruscan city “ of great size and importance,” said to have existed even “before the legendary regal period, on one of the largest hills” of Rome. This announcement has been made popular and more widely known by the com- ments published in English literary papers and reviews, especially by an elaborate criticism in the “Athenaeum ” of February 6, 1886. The interest raised among students and amateurs by such an extraordinary statement can be easily understood. The existence of an Etruscan settlement on the ground afterwards occupied by the Eternal City would not only give “a serious blow to the long-established tra- dition of the early supremacy of the Latin race ’’ on the region of the seven hills, but would also upset the notions established by the modern school regarding the origin and early history of Rome. As I have had officially the charge of scientific investigations in the area of the new quarters of the town, on the Esquiline and Viminal hills, in which the alleged discovery would have taken place, and as I have brought to light, as it were with my own hands, the many thousand objects belonging to the archaic cemeteries of those same hills, upon the nature of which this new theory of a pre-Roman Etruscan city is based, I may be allowed, I hope, to express my opinion on the subject, en pleine connaissance de cause. PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 27 To begin at once with the conclusion, I say that nothing has been found within the last sixteen years, either in the new or in the old quarters of Rome, which can give any foundation to Professor Middleton's theory. What has been ascertained confirms fully and corroborates with addi- tional evidence the conclusion at which modern science, palaeo-ethnology as well as history, had already arrived, namely, that Rome was founded by a colony of shepherds from the Alban hills, on ground which had never been occupied permanently before. • Many among my readers will recollect with delight the Castel Gandolfo. Monte Crescenzio. Monte Cucco. Castel Gandolfo and the Alban Hills. drive taken from Frascati to Castel Gandolfo and Albano, following the rim of the volcanic crater, which age has transformed into a lake, the Lago di Castello, one of the loveliest sheets of water in the world. On one side of the road, the precipitous cliffs descend almost perpendicularly far below the level of the deep greenish water; on the other side, the mountain slopes more gently toward the ancient Appian Way and toward the blue Tyrrhenian, un- dulating in rich pasture lands which are called the “Pasco- lare di Castello.” It was precisely here, in the Pascolare di Castello, that in the early spring of 1817 a discovery took place, which, despised and neglected at the time, is now con- sidered to be the most important ever made in connection 28 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. with the foundation and early history of Rome. Some peasants of the neighborhood, having decided to plant new vineyards on the Monte Cucco and Monte Crescenzio, the highest hills of the Paseolare, cut a trench many yards long and four feet wide, to investigate the nature of the ground, and determine whether it would prove adapted to the culti- vation of the grape. - * t $!! */ •ºr 4. Y. k •. & Z/ ~ §%. A "...lº. §§ # Aſumus ÉS$ s Zavº §§§ Zspi/; §§§ 4-º Section of Trench. First of all comes a stratum of modern vegetable soil, humus, fourteen inches thick; in the second place, a stra- tum, thirty-six inches thick, of the hardest kind of pepe- rino, which is a volcanic stone produced by the mixture of greenish ashes with hot water; in the third place, an ex- ceedingly narrow line of fossil vegetation. Then follows a bed, about fifty inches thick, of yellowish volcanic ashes; and underneath, other more or less compact volcanic mat- ters, such as lapilli, tufa, and again ashes and peperino. Taking into consideration only the four upper strata, it is evident that after the eruption of yellowish ashes a long period of comparative tranquillity must have elapsed, during which plants and grass could grow and vegetate abundantly on the surface of the ashes. Then another eruption of lava followed, which was evidently the last of its kind in this dis- trict of the Pascolare, but not the last in the history of the PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 29 Alban craters. The discovery above alluded to took place in the bed of yellowish ashes immediately under the lava. Here began to appear to the astonished eyes of the peasants hand-made and sun - dried jars, of an exceedingly rough kind of terra cotta, each one containing one of those vases shaped like a prehistoric hut, which have been accordingly called by Sir John Lubbock hut - urns. Each hut- urn contained the remains of an incinerated body, with fib- ulae and other objects in am- ber and bronze, and it was surrounded by vases and utensils of every shape and Hut-Urn, in the Vatican Museum. description. - As soon as the news of the find spread, it was met at first with incredulity; the superstition of the peasant was also aroused, as if the evil spirit himself, or a supernatural power, had accomplished the deed of concealing treasures in the thickness of a virgin rock. But when the news reached the ears of the authorities and of scientific men, a legal compte-rendu of the discovery was drawn by the hand of a public notary, and Alessandro Visconti was asked to illustrate it from an archaeological point of view. In Wisconti’s pamphlet, Sopra &lcuni vast sepolcrali rinve- ºuti nelle vicinanze dell' antica Alba Longa, the true ex- planation of the mystery, wonderful to say, is given at once. He describes the jars as cinerary urns buried by vol- canic eruptions, but fails to trace any connection between this fossil cemetery and Alba Longa and Rome. 30 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. Tambroni, who wrote a Lettera intorno alle urne cinerarie dissotterrate nel Pascolare di Castel Gandolfo, suggested the idea that the cemetery belonged to barbaric warriors of the fifth century of our era ; the learned Duc de Blacas came back to Wisconti's opinion, modifying it according to his own judgment; and finally, Giuseppe Ponzi, the late leader of Italian geologists, decided that the vases had not been buried by the lava eruptions, but had been introduced under the lava bed from a Roman road which crosses the Pascolare close by. . The controversy was finally settled in May, 1867, fifty years after its origin, by a committee composed among others of Professors Ponzi, De Rossi, and Pigorini. They broke the crust of lava in many places, and succeeded in dis- covering jars and smaller pottery under the same conditions as those described by Alessandro Visconti.” The scientific results of the inquiry were far more important. It was determined that traces of the work of man are to be found all over the northwest spurs of the Alban hills, and around the craters of Castello, Walle Marciana, and other volcanoes; in the second place, it was ascertained that the grass which grew in the period between the last two (ash and peperino) eruptions was the lolium perenne, the shape of the leaves and stems being still visible against the lower surface of the peperino; in the third place, that the district inhabited by the population to which the cinerary urns belong stretched between the famous caput aqua Ferentina, in the Parco Colonna at Marino, and the cliffs of Palazzolo, the supposed site of Alba Longa, remains of square huts with hard black- ened floor, traces of coal and domestic utensils, having been found, especially in the neighborhood of springs of pure drinkable water. In the fourth place, it was ascertained that 1 I myself successfully tried the same experiment in the summer of 1886. - jºs- -:= ~: -22 2%ill W.WS’s 2 *...? *- łż ża ii.f:1:11-1' º %:… .3 N. : % % | º * : * %.'". WNS -* '#|, §, - F 3 & - § ºf Q) Š gº º ve www.u. | | SS Q) º W N. *\º § wit!!! | | | | ...tv Ç "2. § º º sº §ſº Mºw §j%|% #ſº º''/.4% §§ §º. tº. | | % § \\\\\\ All Nºll' º% -D Is WSN % gºss % º ###$$. "2% Ś s > 22% S. 5 # # S. §s. ## $. ... ºss # * S = 5:5: SS § #. As & S$ºs == ^; §§§ .# => ^\; §§§ - §N § .S. #Tº = $ QD § ...'s E =; § # sº == § # sº º w $S * > O şş "E"> § == s =5 tº sº šš $s. § - ;; 3. 3 º Q % Rºž &; % §§ sº **, 1 * * % N O ~ . & % s §§"Wºº \{ § 2. uſ 3 Nº. Zºë 3: 3 *... Yºº º: .S. %. Nºws\\ ~ % % & % % 3%-- - Ž --- §ºž tºº * . * ź º º º % É% % ſº % % § º ºf ºw.".g. ÇA º ºf MVº sº w # Wºº 24 sº º ſ º 3. # É%. º §º 2, §§§ º §§§ {// §§ A gº...º \ --> º º # & § sº § : º ź § §Aº Sº º, J. Z. Wºº, º º: º º º, Nº †º ~. sº T-, 3 : §§º !, J/1, ſ/ 2 § se : - : sº º : ; | % % \º º % % § c º % % ~5 ſºy, º % § Kºſºvº iſºtº º º Ø –sº §ººlºº $º & % (ºil f | º sº º **†† º sº *º- º, --~~ % $º #4%. T-z &º g {{l º & º § tº: § § { &#|| §§§ º % % 2°, 9 gº º --- ºft §§ § º º | ſ tº ºft######### º” ºf º #########|\# § jºi º Žº § j}^ º Marble Altar found at Ostia. we have to resort to philological arguments, which, how- ever, are so powerful and convincing that not a trace of doubt will be left on the mind of the reader. The oldest and most venerable sanctuary of kingly Rome was the Lupercal, a grotto consecrated by the emigrants from Alba to Faun, called Lupercus ; that is to say, the 36 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME “driver-away of wolves” and the protector of herds. This grotto, through which an icy crystalline spring flowed into the green field below, opened under the northwest spur of the Palatine. On February 15, it was the centre of great rejoicings and of religious ceremonies called the Lupercalia, during which the head shepherds, clothed with skins, used to run around the precincts of their Palatine village, asking the protection of Faunus Lupercus on their flocks of sheep. These Lupercalia show clearly what was the condition of the founders of Rome: they were shepherds. I may re- mark also that this worship of Lupercus was so deeply rooted in Rome that it was the very last to die out, in the fight between Christianity and pagan superstition. Traces of it have been found as late as the end of the fifth century of the Christian era, under the pontificate of Pope Gelasius. It is evident from what I have said that the pasture grounds on the Alban hills having become inadequate to support the increased number of flocks, or having become insecure in consequence of violent volcanic eruptions, which followed a long period of calm, a certain number of owners of cattle assembled, and decided to migrate into a richer, larger, and more secure district. The luxuriant plains which stretched from the foot of the hill to the shore of the blue Tyrrhenian naturally attracted their attention. The migration began by exceedingly slow stages; the shep- herds advanced through the green fields until a mighty river stopped their journey, and obliged them to settle on its banks. Here they found a hill surrounded by almost in- accessible perpendicular cliffs, and protected besides by a circuit of deep marshes; here they found springs of pure water in a grotto which they dedicated at once to Faun, the god of the shepherds; here, accordingly, they settled änd built a village, or rather a huge sheepfold. Such was the PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 37 origin of Rome; such has been the origin of many other prehistoric settlements, which in process of time have taken a prominent place in the history of the world. Thus the central village of the Edomites, in the plains of the Haāran, was named Bozrah, and Bozrah means a “fortified sheepfold.” The hill on the banks of the Tiber, which harbored the Alban emigrants and their flocks, was named the Palatium or Palatinus mons. The root of this name is Pales, the goddess of shepherds, the pastorum dea, whose feast, called Paliliae, fell on April the 21st. Such was the importance of Pales for the primitive inhabitants of the Palatine that the date of her festival, the 21st of April, has been universally accepted and recognized for the last twenty-five centuries as the date of the foundation of Rome itself, and we modern Romans are proud to keep it as a great national day, since very few celebrations are, like ours, two thousand six hundred and forty years old. The fortified sheepfold or inclosure on the Palatine had a gate named Mugonia; the root of the name is mugire, the mooing of cattle. In the worship of their gods, the men of the Palatine used milk for the sacred libations. Could a more conclusive chain of evidence be desired? The mighty river which washed the foot of the Palatine had, at that remote period, no special name; it was called Rumon, which means simply “a stream, a river.” The in- habitants of the surrounding villages, which were mostly perched on high hills and mountains, Tusculum, Aricia, Alba, Tibur, Praeneste, having entered into commercial communications with the new settlement, began to name it from its most prominent topographical feature, from its con- nection with the Rumon or river: they called it Roma, which means the “town of the river,” the “Stromstadt,” as Professor Corssen has literally translated the word; they 38 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. called the leader of the settlement Romulus, which means “ the man from the town of the river.” All that I have said is so simple and matter of fact that it conveys persuasion at once, as plain truth always does. But if another argument is required to prove that the names Roma and Romulus are derived from the aboriginal word Rumon or stream, here it is at hand. The gates of a town are not denominated from the town to which they belong, but from the place to which they lead. Thus some of the gates of Rome were named Tiburtina, Praenestina, and Os- tiensis, because the roads issuing from them led respect- ively to Tibur, to Praeneste, and to Ostia. One of the gates of the early Alban settlement on the Palatine hill was called “Romana.” It is evident that the name was given to the gate, not from the settlement itself, but because it led to the Rumon or river. And when the walls of the city were enlarged by Servius Tullius, the new gate leading to the river was likewise named Flumentana. As to the epoch in which the foundation of Rome, this greatest event in the history of mankind, took place, it was, chronologically speaking, the seven hundred and fifty- fourth year before Christ; prehistorically speaking, it was the age of bronze. The state of the ancient world in the year 754 B.C. was as follows: Egypt was ruled by the twenty-fourth Saitic dy- nasty, the last king of which, named Bokenranf by the Egyptians, Bokkoris by Herodotus, was captured and burnt alive by the Ethiopian invader Shabak, sixteen years only after the foundation of Rome. Assyria was ruled by King Assurdanil, of the second dynasty, and was suffering a temporary decadence, which is figured in the legend of a first destruction of Nineveh and in the legend of King Sardanapalus. Oziah was king of Judah, and Zachariah ºš sº º #ff, a. º % % #ſº ſº - ºgº - - , ,-,- %. %) } ... -- ... Sº, º/, • * , , tº 3/2::/ %iº }llić. | f ...’, ¥7/lºſºft ſº.” . 27; :Nº - ?’ ------>| || | gº ºft | ...”. a º - ! º: § Tº jñº. Alſº º, * = ºs. ." . . ºr, % yºk .#% º/ %,3 * º/ ſº.” º : 27% (7/10/44 #7. sº º º | # º # Ş º t % {{R tº A. . jº', Fº - tº...” * % ºft|{ º, ly, '' º 7 ºf zº[2.27. - Zºº &º Z2 ºzzº ę º º tº: ZººZ. - lºſſ. ZººZººZºº - *- * --~m. SITE OF THE PORTA ROMANA. PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 39 (the fifth and last sovereign of the house of Jehu, after- wards murdered by Shallum) was king of Israel. The throne of China was occupied by the dynasty of the Cehoo, the third after Yas. Athens was undergoing a change in the form of its constitution, namely, the substitution of an Archon for ten years to an Archon for life. Alcmaeon is the last ruler of the old system; Charops begins the new. The year 754 is included in the fifth Olympiad, the cham- pion of which, in the competition of the Stadion, was Polychares from Messene. - Such being the political and ethnographical conditions and divisions of the civilized world when Rome was founded, the inhabitants of Central Italy, Etruria excluded, had only attained that degree of civilization which is called the civil- ization of bronze. This statement is confirmed by many arguments. First, in the fossil cemetery of Alba Longa, buried by that volcanic conflagration which induced some of the Albans to migrate into the plain below, no trace of iron has been found, only of amber and bronze. Secondly: the same absence of iron has been noticed in the archaic tombs of Rome discovered within the walls of Servius Tul- lius, and consequently older than the walls themselves. In the third place, early Roman religious rites show such an ab- horrence of iron that we may infer from it that iron was regarded as a profane innovation, as a material which could not be substituted for the venerable brass utensils with- out offence to the gods. I shall enter into more particulars on this subject, because to the attraction of novelty it joins the attraction of a profound interest, especially in a country like America, for which the prehistoric is the only possible kind of national archaeology. Every student is familiar with the verse of Lucretius, – “Et prius aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus,” 40 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. (And the use of bronze was known before that of iron), because it proclaims a scientific law, which, forgotten for nearly twenty centuries, has only lately been revived. Lu- cretius must have drawn his information from early Ro- man rituals, in which the use of iron was anathematized, and forbidden to priests in their religious capacity, and ex: cluded also from places of worship. Here are some instances of this practice : — When a village or a town was founded, its limits were determined religiously by a furrow traced with a bronze plough, a neo vomere; and this practice was maintained long after the contrivance of iron ploughs. The flamen Dialis, one of the high priests of Rome, and belonging to an order instituted at a very remote period, could not shave himself or have his hair cut and trained with an iron razor or knife, – aeneis cultris tondebatur; it was his duty to make use exclusively of a bronze instrument. I may add that several bronze razors have been discovered in the archaic cemetery on the Esquiline. The earliest of Roman bridges, built by Ancus Martius across the Tiber, one hundred and fourteen years after the foundation of the city, was called Sublician, because it was entirely constructed of wood. Among the details of its construction which have been transmitted to us, one is very characteristic : no iron had been used in building the bridge; and, on the strength of religious tradition, no iron was ever used in its subsequent restorations, even in the Christian era, down to the fall of the Empire. The fact is certified by Dionysius, v. 24; Varro, v. 83; Ovid,v. 622; and Pliny, in the 36th book (c. 23) of his Natural History. Pliny, ignorant as he was of prehistoric antiquities, gives a wrong explanation of the fact : he says the Romans have always excluded iron from the Sublician bridge because, at the time PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 41 of its gallant defence by Horatius Cocles, they had such a hard time cutting it down to prevent the enemy from cross- ing it. The explanation is absurd : iron was proscribed from the structure because iron was not known when the bridge was first thrown across the river, 114 A. U. C. Remains of the Sublician Bridge. Macrobius, who wrote in the fifth century of our era, when Christianity had already become the religion of the state, says that, from a very remote period, brass instru- ments alone could be used for religious purposes. In con- sequence of this rule, which shows the tenacity and the an- tiquity of Roman religious practices, every time iron chanced to touch a temple, or a shrine, or any religious building made venerable by age, sacrifices had to be performed to expiate the profanation, except in those cases where the use of iron had been duly authorized and sanctioned by a de- cree of both the political and the religious authorities. Many years ago, a bronze tablet was discovered among the ruins of Furfo, near the village of S. Nicandro, in the province of Aquila, which contains a rather remarkable document on this subject, namely, the law passed by the municipal magistrates for the building and dedication of a shrine to Jupiter. The law, dated July 11, of the year 58 B. C., and written in a rude kind of Latin, such as 42 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. was spoken at that time among the mountains of Abruzzo, declares and provides that although the use of iron in re- ligious buildings was not lawful, still, all circumstances being taken into consideration, its use was authorized in this shrine of Jupiter, and no expiatory sacrifices were required to purify the shrine from the unlawful contact. More remarkable still is the instance afforded by the laws of the most antique and venerable of Roman religious brotherhoods, the College of the Fratres Arvales. The origin of this brotherhood is lost in the darkness of age: it was most likely imported into Rome from Alba together with the institution of the Westal Virgins; at any rate, it is always mentioned by ancient writers in connection with Romulus, the founder of the city. It was composed of twelve members, selected from the highest patrician families, whose duty was to offer sacrifices on various days and months of the year to a goddess called Dea Dia, to implore the blessings of heaven on the produce of the soil, such as crops and harvests of every description, the vintage, and so forth. Their ceremonies correspond, to a certain degree, to the Christian ceremony of the Rogations. They used to assemble in a little wood at the fifth mile- stone of the Via Campana, on the slope of the hills which now overlook the farm of La Magliana, the rendezvous de chasse of Pope Leo X., where he caught the fever which caused his death. The slope, now occupied by a vineyard belonging to the Ceccarelli family, was excavated from top to bottom in 1868 and 1869, at the expense of the Empress Augusta of Germany, and under the direction of the late Professor W. Henzen. The very temple of the Dea Dia was discovered, a round marble structure raised on a very high platform, on the vertical surface of which the annals, or yearly records, of the fraternity were engraved. To PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 43 speak of the importance of these annals, which begin with the reign of Augustus and stop with that of Gordianus II., a lapse of two centuries and a half, and which contain an almost incredible amount of archaeological, historical, and chronological information, would not be consistent with the spirit of this chapter. I must notice, however, one particular, which is evidently a recollection of the age of bronze. The annals of each year were engraved on the marble basement of the temple during the month of April, and were engraved, of course, with iron or steel tools. To expiate this profanation, in the same month of each year sacrifices were offered, ob ferri inlationem et elationem, for the introduction and removal of iron within the sacred pre- cinct : a sow and a sheep were slain over the altar, and their flesh was eaten afterwards by attendants and sacristans of an inferior order. This horror of iron, however, is not the only recollec- tion of prehistoric ages to be found in the ritual of this Arvalian brotherhood. There is another one, still more curious and characteristic. I have already spoken of the hand-made and sun-dried fossil pottery discovered in the vol- canic district of Alba Longa and in the earliest cemeteries of Rome. The Romans knew that this rough kind of earthen- ware had been manufactured, as utensils of prime necessity, by their rough, uncivilized ancestors. Hence Tibullus wrote: Fictilia antiquus primum sibi fecit agrestis pocula (The ancient shepherd first contrived clay cups and vessels). In memory of this primitive state of things, the use of earthen- ware was obligatory, or at any rate was preferred, in sacrifices and libations. “It is worth noticing,” Pliny remarks, “how, in the incredible luxury of our age, libations are offered to gods, not with cups of crystal and murrha, but with rough terra-cotta paterae.” The same remark is made by Diony- 44 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. sius; and Valerius Maximus adds that the sacred fire of Westa was kept in an earthen jar. Among the most ven- erable relics preserved in ancient Rome, there was one called the simpuvium Numae, the drinking-cup of Numa Pompi- lius. Juvenal (vi. 341) describes it as a simple terra cotta tazza, of a dark color and evidently made by hand, – a de- scription which fits exactly the whole archaic suppellex dis- covered at Alba and at Rome. It is easy to understand that in the reign of Numa Pompilius ceramics were manu- factured in Rome with prehistoric roughness, characteristic of the age of bronze. The worship of this ancient cup of Numa lasted until the fall of the Empire. In the annals, also, of the Arvalian brotherhood, the following record is many times engraved : Ollas precati sunt (They have ad- dressed their prayers to earthen jars). Although it was obvious that a connection could be traced between this prac- tice of the Arvalians and the worship of Numa's cup, still no evidence of the fact could be produced. But in 1870, a few weeks before the excavations of the Empress Augusta were brought to a close, there were found at the foot of the temple eighteen prehistoric cups, which, although in a more or less fragmentary condition, could be recognized as abso- lutely identical with the fossil pottery of Alba Longa. Other prehistoric souvenirs, besides those already de- scribed, are to be found in ancient Rome. First, flint im- plements, arrow-heads, and paalstabs belonging to the age of polished stone. These were considered by the Romans as a product of lightning : inveniuntur in loco fulmine icto. Hence they are called gemmae cerauniae, meteoric gems, by Pliny; and lapides fulminis, lightning stones, by Sido- nius Apollinaris. They were kept as amulets and sacred relics, on account of their celestial origin. A Latin inscrip. tion, published by Montfaucon (Orelli, 2510), speaks of a PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 45 diadem ornamented with flint implements offered to Isis. Prudentius describes the helmets of the German tribes as crowned with flint arrow-heads. More important still is the testimonial of Claudianus, who speaks of the same imple- ments discovered in the caverns of the Pyrenees, along the bed of the mountain torrents. “Pyrenaeisque sub antris Ignea flumineae legere ceraunia nymphae.” Who has not heard of the discoveries made by Lartet in the Ossiferous caverns of the Pyrenees, of the Perigord, and of old Castile? Not every Roman, however, believed this story of the electric origin of arrow-heads. Augustus, the founder of the Empire and a passionate student of palaeo-ethnology, made excavations in the prehistoric caverns in the island of Capri; and the res vetustate ac raritate notabiles, “the rare and curious things,” which he found there are de- scribed by Suetonius (Aug. 72) as bones of giants, that is to say, of fossil gigantic monsters, and as arma heroum, weapons of men living in past forgotten ages, which is a tolerably good scientific definition. During my long expe- rience in Roman excavations, twice only have I met with stone implements. An arrow - head, probably kept as an amulet, was discovered in 1874 in a tomb twenty-six centu- ries old, near the church of S. Martino al Monti, together with other bronze tools. In the same year, a paalstab of jadeite was found buried at a depth of thirty-eight feet under the Monte della Giustizia, near the central railway station; but it had no scientific value, as it was lying on the mosaic pavement of a Roman house, built in the year 123 of the Christian era. Nevertheless, we possess the evidence of the actual use of stone knives by the Romans. When a 46 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. treaty of peace or a suspension of hostilities was sworn be- tween Rome and its foes, the negotiator, called fecialis, would offer a sacrifice and kill the victims, sawo silice or lapide silice as Livy describes it (i. 2), a practice imported from the half-savage populations (AEquicoli) living in the upper valley of the Anio. To cut the matter short, I will quote only one more instance, because it gives us an important and unbroken chain from the historic to the prehistoric times, between the age of gold and silver and the archaeolithic age. There was a well-known custom, in ancient times, of throwing votive offerings (sacrae stipes) into lakes, rivers, and springs, which were sacred to the gods, or were famous for their mineral hygienic properties. The custom dates from very remote ages, as the following discovery will tes- tify. In 1852, the Jesuit fathers, owners of the celebrated sulphur springs called by us “Sorgenti di Vicarello,” by the ancients “Aquae Apollinares,” on the west border of the lake of Bracciano, sent from Rome a gang of masons to clear the mouth of the central spring, and to put the whole into neat order. In draining the well, a few feet only below the ordinary level of the waters they came across a layer of brass and silver coins of the fourth century after Christ. Then they discovered a second layer of gold and silver imperial coins of the best period, together with a cer- tain quantity of votive silver cups. In the third place, they came across a stratum of silver family or consular coins, be- longing to the last centuries of the republic, and under this they found bronze coins, sextants, quadrants, trients, and so forth. Seeing that there remained nothing but brass to plunder, after having partaken of the precious booty in equal shares, the masons resolved to announce their discov- eries. It is unnecessary to say that when Padre Marchi, PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. 47 the well-known numismatist, ran to the spot, he found only a few hundred pieces of as grave signatum, the earliest kind of Roman coinage. Under these there was a bed of a's rude, that is to say, of shapeless fragments of copper, a kind of currency which preceded the use of aes grave sig- natum. At the bottom of the well, under the shapeless fragments of copper, there was nothing but gravel; at least the workmen and their leaders thought so. It was not gravel, however; it was a stratum of arrow-heads and paal- stabs and knives of polished stone, offered to the sacred spring by the half-savage people settled on the shores of the Lago di Bracciano before the foundation of Rome. Thus this admirable chronological series of votive offerings, be- ginning with the age of stone, and perhaps with the first appearance of mankind in Central Italy, and ending with the fourth century of the Christian era, has been dispersed and made useless, in a certain degree, to science, partly by robbery, partly by ignorance. Still, the few hundred pieces saved by Padre Marchi, and deposited by him in the Kircherian Museum, Rome, are considered the finest numis- matic group in existence with reference to the origin of Roman and Italian coinage. Now that I have come to the end of this chapter, I feel almost sorry that I have confined myself to a strict scientific inquiry in connection with the origin of Rome, and have spoken the language of dry exactness, when I might easily have abandoned myself to the fascination of poetical and legendary traditions. The duty of a modern archaeologist is rather hard and unpleasant if he has any spark of enthusiasm and poetry in his soul; compelled as he is to demolish piece by piece theories which have been believed and cherished for centuries, and to refuse credence to legends which have in- spired artists and writers in the creation of their masterpieces 48 PREHISTORIC LIFE OF ROME. of art and literature. I recollect the thrill of emotion which I used to feel—and which I feel now in spite of conviction — in reading the speech which Livy attributes to Camillus (v. 54) when he was trying to stop the emigration of his fellow-citizens to Veii: “Not without reason did gods and men select this site for the foundation of Rome: healthy hills; a convenient river, equally adapted to inland and mar- itime trade; the sea not too far off to prevent a brisk inter- national trade, nor so near as to expose Rome to the danger of a sudden attack from foreign vessels; a site right in the centre of the peninsula, – a site made, as it were, on purpose to allow the city to become the greatest city in the world.” We have seen, to our common regret, I trust, that no super- natural influence or inspiration, no deep political thought, presided over the foundation of Rome; that its origin must be attributed plainly to the duris urgens in rebus egestas, the necessity which compelled Alban shepherds to look for surer and better pasture grounds. We have seen that even its name is a matter-of-fact name, derived from the most noticeable landmark of the place. But if we cannot admire the pretended political forethought and wisdom of the founders of Rome, we are compelled, at any rate, to admire their manly vigor, their indefatigable energy, which led them in a short time to exchange their pastoral rod for the sceptre of kings, and which turned them, to use the expres- sion of Homer, from leaders of flocks into leaders of men. CHAPTER III. THE SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. AFTER describing in the last chapter the humble origin of Rome and the simple causes which led to its foundation on the Palatine hill, we must inquire now whether the selection was equally happy as regards the sanitary condi- tions of the district which surrounded the new town. The question is full of practical interest on account of the mighty struggle into which we modern Romans have actu- ally entered against malaria, a plague which seems to be spreading slowly, but surely, wherever there is a supera- bundance of moisture, both in the air and in the land; in other words, which is invading one tenth, at least, of the inhabited world. The history of malaria in connection with Rome must be divided into five periods, – the prehistoric, the republican, the imperial, the mediaeval, and the modern ; each one mark- ing a distinct stage in the increase or in the decline of the plague, as well as a change in the means adopted by the in- habitants of the fever-stricken district to protect themselves from the evil. As regards the prehistoric period, we lack, of course, pos- itive evidence, because, when ancient writers speak of the hygienic condition which existed at the time Rome was founded, either they speak at random, or else they describe things as they appeared in their own age. It seems proba- ble that at that time all the lowlands surrounding the Alban volcanoes, as, for instance, the Pontine, the Volscian, and 50 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. the Latin districts, were comparatively healthy, on account of the purifying action of telluric fires, of sulphuric ema- nations, and of many kinds of healing mineral springs. In the deadly calm of nature which has succeeded the extinc- tion of the Latin volcanoes, we find it difficult to conceive an idea of the subterranean activity which prevailed at the time. All along the valley of the Roman Forum, which valley corresponds to a fissure or rent of the soil between the Palatine and the Quirinal hills, volcanic phenomena continued to appear even in historic times. The chasm under the northeast spur of the Palatine, into which Mar- cus Curtius is said to have leaped, seems to have been the crater of a kind of geyser. Near the Janus Quadrifrons there were hot sulphur springs, described by Varro (ll. W. 32). In the fourth century before Christ powerful jets of water sprang up suddenly in a street called Insteia or Insteiana. Julius Obsequens speaks of other jets of reddish water, near the Senate Hall, which he compares to blood (sanguine fluſcit). A district of the Campus Martius is called campus ignifer by Livy, fumans solum by Valerius Maximus, rô 7tvpóq’spov teótov by Zosimus, on account of volcanic smokes and emanations which for centuries had been noticed there. The Campagna must have been even more strongly puri- fied, especially around the slopes of the Alban hills, where hot mineral springs were particularly abundant. At all events, this is the only way to explain the presence of a thrive ing, healthy, strong, and very large population in places which, a few centuries later (namely, at the end of tradi- tional and at the beginning of historic times), are described as pestilential. Antemnae, Collatia, Corioli, Tellene, Poli- torium, Crustumerium, and many other centres, populous in volcanic ages, seem to have been obliterated more by SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 51 the deleterious effects of the climate than by the chances of war and the overpowering supremacy of Rome. In the Volscian district, along the marshy Tyrrhenian coast, there were numberless settlements: Ficana, Lavinium, Ardea, Pyrgi, Antium, Alsium, and so forth. As to the Pontine region, Pliny asserts that it was the abode of a dense and thriving population. It may be a simple coincidence, it may depend upon a mere accident, this fact of the extinction of human life at the precise time in which volcanic life was extinguished in the old Latium, but it is a coincidence worth scientific investigation. There can no longer be any doubt that malaria invaded the volcanic regions the very minute they ceased to be volcanic. With regard to the site of Rome itself, we can hardly believe the words of Cicero (De Rep., 2, 6), in which he describes it as in regione pestilenti salubris, salubrious in a pestilential region, although the same observation is made by Livy, who considers it almost a prodigious fact that the town should prove healthy in spite of the pestilent and desert region by which it was surrounded (5, 54–7, 38). They evidently refer to the state of things prevailing in their own age. How is it possible that a hill like the Pala- tine, only a few feet high, and surrounded on three sides by poisonous marshes, should be exempt from the effects of malaria 2 The other hills of Rome were not better favored, from a hygienic point of view: the Coelian and the Aventine suffered from the effluvia of the swamps near the Porta Metronia;' the Quirinal and the Pincian likewise from those of the Caprea Palus; * in fact, Livy asserts that, before the * These swamps, called Decenniae, have been drained lately, and filled up with the earth from the excavations of the Forum. * On the subject of the Caprea Palus, see a recent paper of Comm. de Rossi in Bull. Comm. Rome, 1885. 52 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. . construction of the Cloaca Maxima, every valley between the seven hills was nothing but a boggy quagmire. These hot-beds of malaria were fed by numberless springs, run- ning sometimes above, sometimes under ground, impreg- nating the whole region with dampness, which is one, and perhaps the most active, of the three coefficients of the plague. * The clearest proof of the virulence of malaria in the first century of the history of Rome is afforded by the large number of altars and shrines dedicated by its early inhabitants to the goddess of the Fever and other kindred divinities. At the time of Varro, there were not less than three temples of the Fever left standing: one on the Pala- tine, one in the square of Marius on the Esquiline, one on the upper end of the Vicus Longus, a street which corre- sponds, within certain limits, to the modern Via Nazionale. The Esquiline quarter seems to have been the worst of all in its sanitary conditions; in fact, besides the Fever’s tem- ple, there was an altar dedi- cated to the Evil Eye (Mala Fortuna), and an altar and a small wood dedicated to the goddess Mefitis. Near the Praetorian camp, and near the modern railway station, I have found, myself, an altar conse- crated to Verminus, the god of microbes; and lastly, in the very centre of the Roman Forum, there was an altar sacred to Cloacina, a goddess of typhoid, I suppose. It appears from the particulars just given that the <------------ 9.752------------- — sº, : Altar dedicated to Verminus. SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 53 primitive inhabitants of Rome, acting as men always do act when they find themselves exposed to the ravages of an unknown evil, utterly ignorant of its mysterious nature and of the proper way to fight and to lessen its effect, raised their hands towards their gods, and actually increased the number of their divinities, and contrived new ones, im- ploring from heaven the help which they failed to secure with their own resources. After the lapse of many, many years, the request of those simple and energetic men was granted, and their town was made comparatively healthy, not in a supernatural or miraculous manner, but as a just and well-earned compensation for the efforts they had made and for the trouble they had taken to establish a better state of things. Strange as it seems, after the fall of the Empire, when Rome, almost annihilated by the inroads of barbarians, found itself in a condition almost worse than that of its early age, powerless to accomplish any work of improvement, and exposed again to the full influence of malaria, the inhabitants raised again their eyes towards God, built a chapel near the Vatican in honor of the Ma- donna della Febbre — our Lady of the Fever — which became one of the most frequented and honored chapels of mediaeval Rome. The principal works of improvement successfully accom- plished in ancient times for the benefit of public health and for checking malaria may be chronologically described as follows: I. The construction of drains. II. The construc- tion of aqueducts. III. The multiplication and the paving of roads. IV. The proper organization of public cemete- ries. W. The drainage and cultivation of the Campagna. WI. The organization of medical help. First, as regards the drains. The plan of the Etruscan en: gineers employed by Tarquinius Priscus to organize the 54 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. drainage of the town seems to have been to give an outlet to the ponds and swamps and marshes which stretched along the valley between each couple of hills, more than to carry off the sewage, in the modern sense of the word. The Cloaca Maxima, receptaculum omnium purgamentorum ur- The Cloaca Maxima. bis, the main collector, as Livy describes it, has been praised, admired, eulogized by Dionysius (3,67), Pliny (36, 15), Au- relius Victor (V. Ill. 8), Strabo (5, 3), Dion Cassius (49, 43), and in modern times by Niebuhr and Bunsen. There is no doubt that the work is simply wonderful. An im- mense sewer, built twenty-five centuries ago, on unstable ground, under enormous practical difficulties, which still answers well its purpose, is a work to be classed among the greatest triumphs of engineering. But the exactness of an archaeologist compels me to say that the Cloaca Maxima, in spite of its name, can no longer boast of the priority which it has enjoyed for so many centuries in the depart- ment of Roman sewers. In canoeing along the left bank of the Tiber, I had long noticed the mouth of another cloaca, a trifle larger than the Maxima, and separated from it by an SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 55 interval of some three hundred feet. I had heard it called the cloaca of the Circus Maximus, but I was ignorant on whose authority and by what reason such a name had been "/: sº, , /º § t % pºll /, // º º, 3 gº . % E= ."º - -2. -- # / º, / ==#| || ||= 4% # º * ///7. % º ſº * % % Å; - Ž i ſº s - ºfſ %. º % * w º § # ſ º #. Lºt. #. º º º: º º ſ % % I *: **** §ºſſº #º- #ſº, *% - i g k t = f ... • g s ‘.”. & % % $º - - . | 'ſ ſ ſ: }}| # º | % º ; w * #. | |f|, . { %; jº sº º º §º º Ryº Tº º ſ º #: ºft º # # # º | | # !, º º * * : : W. { º | | Mouth of the Cloaca of the Circus Maximus. applied. Six years ago, at the bottom of the valley which separated the Palatine from the Coelian, between the Arch of Constantine and the church of S. Gregorio al Monte Celio, a cloaca even larger and higher than the Maxima was dis- covered, three quarters of a mile from its opening into the Tiber, at the depth of forty feet. The enormous size of its 56 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. blocks, the beauty and perfection of its masonry, and the wonderful preservation make it compare most advanta- geously with its rival, the Maxima, to which it is altogether superior as regards length and extent of district drained. The sewers of ancient Rome answered their purpose pretty well, especially if we take into consideration the remote age in which they were constructed, and their en. gineers' ignorance of modern sanitary principles and of the theory of microbes. Their greatest defects are, first, that: they were used at the same time to carry off the sewage and refuse of the town and the rain-water; second, that this double employment made it necessary to have large open- ings along the streets, so that the population was perma- nently brought in contact with the poisonous effluvia of the sewers. Many of these mouths of drains have come down to us, some exceedingly rough and primitive, some more elaborate and cut in marble. The most celebrated, perhaps, is the so-called Bocca della Verità, a marble disc, five feet in diameter, with the head of the Ocean in alto-relievo in the centre, through the open mouth of which the rain-water would escape. This monument, the scarecrow of children who show an inclination to lie, is preserved in the portico of the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin, near the ancient forum Boarium. The third defect of Roman sewage was that each sewer emptied directly into the Tiber, thus pollut- ing its waters, which were used not only for bathing and swimming, but even for drinking. The best apology for this state of things is to be found in the fact that not only modern Rome itself, but many other European capitals, not to speak of provincial towns and villages, remained until lately in an absolutely identical condition. The improvement in the department of sewers is one of the last, if not the very last achievement of mod- g zºº; º % §§ % //BASIL!CA/~ | ######$ - F Ø }º #! º Q /.../P3%jºtº: Méºyſ - SCIENTIA. CANON #6. 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Sextus Julius Frontinus, a magistrate who presided over the department of aqueducts during the Empire of Trajan, be- gins his “Commentaries” on the subject with the follow- ing remark: “During four hundred and forty-one years the Romans satisfied themselves with the use of such water as they could obtain on the spot, from the Tiber, from wells, or from springs. Some of these springs are still held in great consideration, on account of their supposed healing power. Such are the springs of the Camoenae, of Apollo, and of Mercury.” - The waters of the Tiber, reaching Rome after a run of 249 miles through clay or alluvial soil, are certainly not pure or clear; in fact, they are saturated with mineral and solid matter. It appears from official observations car- ried on between March, 1871, and February, 1872, that with an average daily efflux of 1,296,000 cubic metres, the river has carried down to the sea 8,582,333 tons of sand, equal to a volume of 4,114,253 cubic metres. In spite of this state of things, what the ancients assert about the potability of its waters is proved by the fact that, after the destruction of imperial aqueducts, the population of mediaeval Rome resorted again to this as the only means of quenching its thirst; in fact, the desire and the necessity of being near the river must be considered as the leading cause of the abandonment of the healthy hills, and of the mustering of the population in the Campus Martius. The salubrity of the waters of the Tiber is celebrated by Alessandro Petroni, physician to Gregory XIII., and by Alessandro Bacci, phy- sician to Sixtus W. Clement VII., in the journey to Mar- 58 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. seilles, which he undertook in 1553 to celebrate the marriage of his niece, Catherine de' Medici, with the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Henry II., acting on the advice of his physi- cian, Corti, brought with him such a quantity of water from the Tiber as to be sufficient for all the requirements of the journey. The same precaution was taken by Paul III., Farnese, in his wanderings to Loretto, Bologna, and Nice. Fancy what must have been, in early Roman times, the sanitary conditions of a town the drains of which, not washed by any influx of water, communicated from space to space with the public streets by large unprotected openings, and emptied into a river, the polluted waters of which were drunk by the whole population . The first remedy against the evil was adopted in 442 A.U.C. by the building of an aqueduct, which was to carry into the city the water of a spring seven and a half miles distant, called Aqua Appia, from the name of Appius Claudius Caecus, the builder of the aqueduct and of the Appian Way. The first step in the right direction once taken, it was easy to advance boldly. I cannot follow stage by stage the history of Roman aqueducts. I will trace simply a brief and com- prehensive sketch of the water-supply of Rome, under the Empire; that is to say, at the period in which it was brought to perfection. ſº Comparing the accounts left by Frontinus and Procopius on this subject with the remains of aqueducts radiating from Rome in every direction, and which form such a char- acteristic landmark of the Campagna, we gather the follow- ing information. Eighteen springs have been collected and canalized by the Romans from distances varying from a minimum of seven and a half miles to a maximum of forty-four. The waters were brought to Rome by means of fourteen aque- ‘SJLOQ QIQIQOV SQAON OIN V CIN V NOVICI QVIO HH.J. HO STIH ONI V ſý↓È№_Zºº，ș ſº �ș*/ / //.^ ^ ^»Øº- $\\（~• �% ~\~> —\，T\ſ_2）， | =s~№！2*№.¿№rg~~~~）; º^º � --~~ ***Zººzººſae，（ſæ„--~~~~）^：^ ^ ^ ^ ^---- ***------2=−2−1~ ~ «=**<！?æ%）- …ºº^… --º-º-• ±，±,±，±º--ºzº’º---- - -, / ‘... • •'///// „* t;•§ „... -- ae”）**）Jºwº! ſ ſ ≠ ≠ ≠ ș\\{\\\\\）*<（№ ... . . ， SSSÈT \\\\\\\, \tºſae§§ šiºsº）§）， ،§¶√∞;}}};\，\! § ¶√lſºſ\* §*>■■■< ）_（№ . ģ№È№Èžę • 8§§§§ ?! »-------- - **%%%%% • „//////////~===I77$))/n º:}; wººº///^^^ ' , Jºzvº. ~~ ..）Sºº º *~~~~ ~ ~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~ ！,ſ. ſi; rºſſ," | - • • •ſae}|ºg → » ∞�Š，…） – —- ---%| A →№º！！！. . *= *.==• •()pºſſº" ）№ž| 77m- ~=======）：//¿șº;№， №.* !3，2%)， m№ ae：●� -*. _ ^~--~ſº?¿?º �~ sº5==~~~F=== E−=−=-*’7）— ！ſae % ºſºſ;YAAN90 （±（√°√∞==№__--*…！ ;*）（…）2. 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"Ķ}} №sgºſ， ºſº（）、、、、、、、、、 ātēÈ#$）|\||\|\}-^ ~ ~ ~~ºſ ſſſſſſſſ º £; £ſae-№•*،! 9：º',''）; }; į"|șſae） ;ſł *…* ſ ： ilſae .*（…），•=.* *, },* • •". :）. ¿ſ.º.º.º•,x'/& ·· * ,;~~） •*- ſłº -» º ««*|-St. I* & S” –， № №ſy ='， … -vez, * z.£j ≡≡ 3 （~~~~ （-- --№ſſ, jiſ z`-?！！?！！?,！?;7;（; ſ. !} . （5%， º► 2', '```` （T_1，Tºls-º，±（−~~~~~===。• ...--= - - ~~~~tſſſſſſ！！TĪſāīūō!!!!。 & • •:’’’’’’’’. Lºº •3，2，… -_- --- ~2，~~~ - º -5- - - -5-（2-C（==）=）=）=）=）==-ŤĪTĪījāſŹŹłį， %（Frī£-- : --~~~~）;ËēOEËā№și。āīūōſō， %！！TE→（&）,gaeae; z-ºſzº~7ĒēĪī£7，532:27， -ſšć><！--***#:; Z ž7/2. ºre•--> ... • • ^^^.••• • ►º（-: „ºrºs===* {rº:！∞ -//ŽĢĪ%;Ar;źž·“…»·* • %';u ſºģ%ğ%%%%¿.*+~~~~ ſº§|? \qťȚ\\, , !%Ź2% SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 59 ducts, the length of which varies from a minimum of eleven miles to a maximum of fifty-nine. The aggregate length of these fourteen aqueducts amounts to three hundred and fifty-nine and one third miles; of which three hundred and four miles are under ground, fifty-five above ground, the channel being carried on the top of really triumphal arcades, at prodigious heights, sometimes exceeding one hundred feet. The quality of the waters varied greatly. The best were considered the Marcia, the Claudia, and the Virgo; worst of all, the Anio Vetus and the Alsietina; these two accordingly were employed only for the irrigation of gar- dens and for washing away the drains, and were drunk only in cases of absolute necessity. As regards the temperature, the Marcia was the coldest : “Marsas nives et frigora ducens Marcia,” as Statius sings. It marks 46°Fahrenheit at the spring of S. Lucia. Tacitus relates among the crazy exploits of Nero his attempt to profane the sacred spring by swimming across it from shore to shore. This pollution of the pure icy waters was avenged by a rheumatic fever, which brought the young emperor to the verge of death. I have many times been asked the question why the Romans spent such an amount of time, labor, and money in build- ing these prodigious channels across mountains and valleys, tunnelling the former and bridging over the latter, with tun- nels and bridges many miles long, when it would have been so easy and so economical to lay down pipes, following at a moderate depth the undulations of the country. In other words, I have been asked whether the Romans knew or did not know the principle of the siphon. To be sure they knew it, in theory and in practice. The siphons of Patarae and Aspendus in Pamphylia, of Constantina in Mauritania, and 60 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. of Lyons in the Gallia Lugdunensis are all well known. The finest and most daring of all is the siphon of Alatri, built by a wealthy citizen, Betilienus Varus, a century and a half before the Christian era, and capable of supporting a pressure of ten atmospheres. As to the main aqueducts which supplied Rome with a daily volume of fifty-four mil- lion cubic feet of water, it would have been impossible to substitute metal pipes for channels of masonry, because the Romans did not know cast-iron, and no pipe except of cast- iron could have supported such enormous pressure. Let us rejoice at this state of things, because, had the ancients known the contrivances of modern industry, we should most likely have been deprived of the loveliest sight which our Roman Campagna offers. & Before leaving this interesting subject of the water-sup- ply, I must make two more remarks: the first concerns the system widely followed in our age, of damming the beds of rivers in mountainous regions, in order to create artificial lakes or reservoirs of pure water, from which the supply is derived. The ancients knew and followed this system on a magnificent scale. One of our aqueducts, the Anio Novus, originally drew its supply directly from the river Aniene, at a place forty miles distant from Rome. It happened that every time the river was swollen by rains, the aqueduct carried down troubled and undrinkable water, which would fill up the main channel with incrustations of carbonate of lime, and choke the minor pipes. To mend the matter, and to obtain a constant influx of pure water, the valley of the Anio was dammed, not once, but three times, across the picturesque gorge or cañon of the Symbruine moun- tains, between the modern town of Subiaco and the Bene- dictine abbey of the Sacro Speco, and three artificial lakes were thus obtained, in which the water was purified three times. SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 61 The second remark concerns the system employed by the ancients in boring and tunnelling the mountains for hy- draulic purposes. Two very curious documents have come down to us on this subject. The first is the official report of the perforation of a tunnel, to bring down to Bougie, Algeria (called then Saldae or Civitas Salditana), the waters of a spring, fourteen miles distant, now called Aïn-Seur. The report, engraved on a marble altar, discovered in 1866 near Lambaese, begins with a petition addressed in the year 152 A. D. by Warius Clemens, governor of Mauritania, to Wa- lerius Etruscus, governor of Numidia. The petition reads as follows: “Warius Clemens greets Valerius Etruscus, and begs him in his own name and in the name of the township of Saldae to dispatch at once the hydraulic engineer of the III legion, Nonius Datus, with orders that he finish the work, which he seems to have forgotten.” The petition was favorably received by the governor and by the engineer, Nonius Datus, who, when he had fulfilled his mission, wrote to the magistrates of Saldae the following report: — “After leaving my quarters I met with the brigands on my way, who robbed me even of my clothes, and wounded me severely. I succeeded, after the encounter, in reaching Saldae, where I was met by the governor, who, after allow- ing me some rest, took me to the tunnel. There I found everybody sad and despondent; they had given up all hopes that the two opposite sections of the tunnel would meet, because each section had already been excavated be- yond the middle of the mountain, and the junction had not yet been effected. As always happens in these cases, the fault was attributed to the engineer, as though he had not taken all precautions to insure the success of the work. What could I have done better? I began by surveying and taking the levels of the mountain ; I marked most 62 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. carefully the axis of the tunnel across the ridge; I drew plans and sections of the whole work, which plans I handed over to Petronius Celer, then governor of Mauritania; and, to take extra precaution, I summoned the contractor and his workmen, and began the excavation in their pres- ence, with the help of two gangs of experienced vet- erans, namely, a detachment of marine-infantry (classicos milites), and a detachment of Alpine troops (gaesates). What more could I have done? Well, during the four years I was absent at Lambaese, expecting every day to hear the good tidings of the arrival of the waters at Saldae, the contractor and the assistant had committed blunder upon blunder; in each section of the tunnel they had diverged from the straight line, each towards his right, and, had I waited a little longer before coming, Saldae would have possessed two tunnels instead of one.” Nonius Datus, having discovered the mistake, caused the two diverging arms to be united by a transverse channel; the waters of Aïn-Seur could finally cross the mountain ; and their arri- val at Saldae was celebrated with extraordinary rejoicings, in the presence of the governor Warius Clemens and of the engineer. To come back to Rome, however, the longest tunnel con- structed in its vicinity for the sake of the water-supply is the one of Monte Affliano, between Tivoli and S. Gericomio, 4,950 metres (about three miles) long. Its boring was in- trusted by Domitian to one of the imperial contractors, L. Paquedius Festus. A bold and arduous work it was, especially on account of the difficulty of ventilation in a channel only seven feet high by three wide. The con- tractor, before commencing the tunnel, made a vow to a local goddess, named the Bona Dea, to restore her decayed temple on the top of the mountain if the enterprise should SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 63 succeed. The two opposite sections met most successfully on July 3, A.D.88. The beautiful columns and fragments of gº; *Tºº | %iº.º.º.e. 2-, % # * º # * /… ." wº ~ ſº * • *, *, * - fitſ ... i.” " % ? : \ º 1, 1). #" ". . . . . . º '% . %| ...) .* ‘. . . . . , . ..., §§ *". //ſtill ſº •ºws, “’-ºº: : . . 2:: } \) * … . * sº * *: sºft' " A jºš º | * : * 'll Silſ غ ,, ºn in ‘A’ſº ; , ; |º. . A l ; , " Aſ ſ ºf 1%. ‘...) 'liſt * i º 36 !/ Wººtt ‘. %, 4): 11, - - º #!!! §§ ſ 7. # / %ft % ºl. º \ º \º ſºft. wil/ º }|{ jºić | % > f !. * 㺠- & sa-Sºf dºtſ\}}#} > | Že * $º: \\ º § * | º º Žº gº: - - º ; } * º, ! 7), º º sº º §ºllſ; i. º t §§ \}, ſ , ~\}\!\s % | º -------- Wº l w º'. º: a * ". * .. ‘ji. t; º º Q. \ * * - S/. ſº '', es º } { '') j, || - %)|& } . s %) # | º iſ % %ff} , ... " § º &!/???. N. - Jºj, - sºlº % º ’’....'...iº.º.º.º.” §§§ºll|}\\\\ sº ſº g * * - -- cº Junction of the Five Great Aqueducts. statuary discovered on the summit of Monte Affliano prove that the vow of L. Paquedius was not what is called the vow of a sailor. The influence of this magnificent supply of water on the 64 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. health of the inhabitants of Rome and the Campagna can easily be understood. There was no farm, no country- house, no villa, there was no neighborhood, however small and insignificant, of rustic people, which could not be favored with copious fountains of icy-cold, salubrious water. Wil- lages and towns, such as Ostia, Portus, Gabii, Bovillae, Veii, the ruins of which are scattered to-day in a waterless desert, were in Roman times almost overflowed, and their aqueducts vie in length and magnificence with the main aqueducts of the capital. The reform and regulation of the public cemeteries— another hot-bed of pestilence — took place even later than the reform in the supply of water. I speak, of course, of public cemeteries, for the burial of artisans, of slaves, and of the poorest classes of the people, because persons belong- ing to higher classes usually provided themselves with private tombs, either within the precincts of their villas and farms, or along the sides of the highways. It is impossible to conceive an idea of the horrors of a common carnarium or fosse in the first centuries of Rome. I will give particulars of one only, which occupied a large district on the Esqui- line, because these particulars were discovered by myself, and have not yet been fully disclosed to the general public. The Esquiline cemetery was divided into two sections: one for the artisans who could afford to be buried apart in Columbaria, containing a certain number of cinerary urns; one for the slaves, beggars, prisoners, and others, who were thrown in revolting confusion into common pits or fosses. This latter section covered an area one thousand feet long, and three hundred deep, and contained many hundred put- culi or vaults, twelve feet square, thirty deep, of which I have brought to light and examined about seventy-five. In many cases the contents of each vault were reduced to a SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 65. uniform mass of black, viscid, pestilent, unctuous matter; in a few cases the bones could in a measure be singled out and identified. The reader will hardly believe me when I say that men and beasts, bodies and carcasses, and any kind of unmentionable refuse of the town were heaped up in those dens. Fancy what must have been the condition of this hellish district in times of pestilence, when the mouths of the crypts must have been kept wide open the whole day ! But there is something still worse. Every visitor to Rome knows the great fortification which protected the city on the east side, called the Agger or embankment of Servius Tullius, from the king who raised it. This fortification, more than one mile long, comprised a ditch or moat one hundred feet wide and thirty deep, with ramparts one hundred feet wide and thirty high, supported and strengthened on the outside by a lofty battlemented wall. It seems that under the republi- can rule, and on the occasion of a stupendous mortality, - to use the words of Livy, - the portion of the huge moat - which skirted the cemetery of the Esquiline was filled with corpses, thrown in as if they were carrion, until the level of the embankment was reached. The discovery of these revolting particulars took place in 1876, under the circumstances which I am going to relate. In building the foundations of a house at the corner of Via Carlo-Alberto and Via Mazzini, the architect, deceived by the presence of a solid bed of tufa on the northern half of the build- ing-ground, began to lay his masonry and fill up the trenches to the uniform depth of twelve feet below the level of the street. All of a sudden the southern portion of the ground gave way, and one half of the area fell through into a chasm thirty feet deep. On careful examination of the circumstances of the catastrophe, it was ascertained that, whereas the northern half of the foundations rested on the 66 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. solid embankment or Agger of Servius Tullius, the southern half had been laid on the site of the ditch, filled up with thousands upon thousands of corpses, which, when brought in contact with the air after twenty centuries, had crumbled into dust or nothing, leaving open a huge chasm. Accord- ing to measurements which I took at the time, this mass of human remains was, at least, one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred wide, and thirty deep. Giving to each corpse an average space of twenty cubic feet, which is more than sufficient, there were not less than twenty-four thou- sand bodies in a comparatively small space. As if all the evils described were not deemed enough, the town authorities had increased their potency by allowing the daily refuse of a population numbering nearly a million souls to be heaped up within and around the precincts of this Esquiline cemetery. In later times, seven centuries after the foundation of Rome, they endeavored to stop the practice, or at any rate to regulate it. Decree upon decree was issued on the subject, and a line of stone cippi, in- scribed with sanitary rules, was set up around the edge of the pestiferous ground. I have found three of these police regulations engraved on square blocks of travertine. Here is the text of one : “C. Sentius, son of Caius, Praetor, by order of the Senate has set up this line of terminal stones, to mark the extent of ground which must be kept absolutely free from dirt and from carcasses and corpses. Here also the burning of corpses is strictly forbidden.” Another hand, probably that of a man living in the neighborhood and within reach of the effluvia of the place, had written in huge red letters the following entreaty at the foot of the official decree: “Do carry the dirt a little farther; otherwise you will be fined.” This line of stones, beyond which the refuse of the town could be legally thrown and be allowed to pu: SAANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 67 trefy under the burning sun, was only four hundred feet distant from the walls and embankment of Servius Tullius. On the day of the discovery of the above-mentioned stone, June 25th, 1884, I was obliged to relieve my gang of work- men from time to time, because the smell from that polluted ground (turned up after a putrefaction of twenty centuries) was absolutely unbearable even for men so hardened to every kind of hardship as my excavators. The reform in this branch of public hygiene, the suppres- sion of the popular cemetery on the Esquiline, took place only under Augustus, at the suggestion of his enlightened prime minister, C. Cilnius Maecenas, who obtained from his sov- ereign and friend the concession of the whole district, bur- ied it under an embankment of pure earth, twenty-five feet high and a third of a square mile in area, and on the newly made ground laid down his magnificent gardens, the world-known Horti Maecenatiani. The event proved to be of such unexpected-importance for the improvement of the health of Rome that Horace himself thought it worth being sung by his muse: “Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico spatiari, quo modo tristes Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum.” (Sat. i. 8, 14.) ** I shall not mention other improvements carried on with the progress of Roman civilization, such as the paving of the streets, the opening of a thick network of roads in the Campagna, the drainage of damp districts, the spreading of suburbs, the careful cultivation of the soil, and the like; because I shall have occasion to speak of these particulars in the chapter on the Campagna. One subject deserves more attention, because little is known about it, — the sub- ject of medical attendance, both public and private, a matter 68 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. which is one of the most important factors in the sanitary arrangements of a civilized nation. The hospital, even in its most rudimentary shape, was not known in Rome much before the third century of the Christian era. In fact, Celsus Aurelianus, an eminent physician, who wrote at the beginning of the third century a treatise “On Acute and Chronic Diseases * (De morbis acutis et chronicis), reproaches his colleagues for their obsti- nacy in keeping their patients in absolute confinement, as a practice injurious to the progress of science. It is not diffi- cult to explain this state of things. First, the members of the higher classes of society were not in need of public san- itary institutions; secondly, the slaves, of whom the manu- facturing and trading class was chiefly composed, had to be assisted at the expense of their own masters in case of sick- ness; and besides, medicine was not known and practised as a science, but only in an empiric fashion. Hence pa- tients were compelled to confide more in gods than in men, and to trust in supernatural help for the relief of their ail- ments. We must also bear in mind that charity was a virtue altogether unknown in ancient times, and even if it existed, was stifled by the spirit of conquest, by the maintenance of slavery, and by the passion for bloody and revolting gladiatorial shows, which rendered even the most tender Roman hearts and souls insensible to the suf- ferings of the neighbor. * Livy asserts that the Romans always remained faithful to the precept of Numa : “Unam opem agris corporibus relictam si paa veniaque ab diis impetrata esset”—that the peace and good-will of gods were the only remedies and means to recuperate lost health : a passage which testifies that the famous faith-cure is at least twenty-six centuries old. Thus the more common cases of sickness to which SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 69 mankind is subject were deified and idolized, and temples and shrines were set up in their honor. I have mentioned above the altars of the Fever, the sacred wood of Mephitis, the shrine of Orbona, and so on. Apollo, as a god of hygiene, had a temple near the theatre of Marcellus. This temple, built in the year 321 of Rome, and opened for pub- lic worship two years later, on the occasion of a terrific stroke of pestilence, was rediscovered quite by accident nine years ago, in the cellar of a third-class inn, near the Piazza Montanara, called the Albergo della Catena. It will be ex- cavated, we hope, in 1889, in consequence of the destruc- tion of the neighboring Jewish quarter (Ghetto); and con- sidering its remarkable state of preservation, we trust we shall be able to find, at least, fragments of the famous group by Praxiteles or Scopas, representing Apollo anni- hilating the children of Niobe, described by Pliny (xxxv., 5, 28). Next in importance to the temple of Apollo was the temple of Health, the site of which corresponds nearly to that of the Barberini Palace, on the northern slope of the Quirinal. Women laboring in childbirth could apply to no less than thirteen goddesses, from Juno Lucina down to Deverra, Diana, Alemona, Nona, Decima, Partula, Ante- vorta, Postvorta, Eugeria, Fluonia, Uterina, Intercidona, etc. In the year of the city 459, when Rome was in danger of annihilation by another plague, the Sibylline books were consulted, as they always were in cases of Supreme danger. The answer was: “AEsculapium ab Epidauro Roma, arces- Sendum” (Livy, x., 32) — AEsculapius must be removed from Epidaurus to Rome — and so he was. The new god was comfortably and neatly installed on an island in the Tiber, now called the island of S. Bartolomeo, and his temple be- came the greatest sanitary establishment in the metropolis. 70 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. The practice followed by the Roman lower classes was this: patients whose life was in danger were brought into the peristyle or atrium of the sanctuary and put to sleep there, evidently by means of narcotic drugs, in order that AEsculapius might manifest in their dreams the proper way of healing their troubles. Once the recipe was obtained, the priests themselves undertook the cure of the patients; and if the cure succeeded, by some unforeseen and wonderful coin- cidence, then an ex-voto was suspended in the sacristy of the sanctuary, together with a tablet describing the happy event. Here is the text of one, given by Thomassinus: “In this last day, said the oracle to Caius the Blind, come to the sacred altar and kneel in front of it, then touch it on the left side, and apply instantly your hand to your eye. Having obeyed, he recovered at once his eyesight, amidst the ap- plause of the assembled multitudes.” Is it not a striking coincidence, is it not a striking proof of the vitality of tra- dition in Rome, that the very island of the Tiber, the very spot on the island, always has been since Roman times, and is now, the seat of a hospital, the hospital of S. Giovanni di Calabita ? Another curious anecdote is this: It seems that at the entrance of the Fabrician bridge (ponte quattro Capi), leading from the Campus Martius to the island, there were shops for the sale of ea-votos of every description, exactly as similar shops are to be seen now along the approaches to the great sanctuaries of Catholic countries. One of these shops was discovered in the spring of 1885 in the founda- tions of the left embankment of the Tiber. It contained a large number of anatomical specimens in painted terra-cotta, beautifully modelled from nature, and representing heads, ears, eyes, breasts, arms, hands, knees, legs, feet, ex-votos to 1 The authenticity of this tablet is rather doubtful. SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 71 be offered by happy mothers, etc. The most interesting pieces are three life-size human trunks, cut open across the front, and showing the whole anatomical apparatus of the various organs, such as the lungs, liver, heart, bowels, etc. These pieces have not yet been examined by experts, and consequently I am not able to say whether they are capa- ble of throwing any light on ancient hygienic and anatom- ical matters. We must not suppose that men of education would resort to such absurdities as those I have described in connection with the temple of AEsculapius. Cicero has strongly con- demned the practice in his book, “De Divinitate,” but the populace, in spite of such good advice, adhered to its igno- rance and superstition; and this obstinacy had then, and has still, such a firm hold, and such deep roots in the lowest classes of Italy, that only three years ago, in September, 1885, when the cholera broke out in Sicily, physicians trying to exercise their mission of charity were stabbed and killed by dying patients, just as happened in similar circum- stances in Hungary and Croatia. Another strange practice, imported from the East into Rome, was the exposure of the sick in the streets and under open porticoes, in order that passers-by might give them ad- vice from personal experience. The first physicians in Rome, if such a name can be applied to men knowing only the use of a few herbs and potions, came from the Abruzzi and from the shores of the lake of Fucino. In process of time, patrician fami- lies secured, at a high price, the services of slaves, ex- perts in medicine, to whom the office of a modern valet de chambre was assigned. These slaves, emancipated after long successful services, used to open shops called some- times Medicinae, sometimes Pharmacopolae, in which drugs 72 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. and physic were sold, and surgical operations performed. For these operations the patient was put into an anaes- thetic state in a much surer way than is now done with chlo- roform or laughing-gas. A successful physician was sure to receive high official distinction. Arcagathus, a Pelo- ponnesian who migrated to Rome in 219, not only was re- warded with citizenship, but obtained a residence, with shop and office, bought at public expense. Asclepias from Drusa, Bithynia, was almost deified by the populace, and held in great estimation by Crassus and Cicero. Julius Caesar was the first statesman to promote the welfare of hygienists, by recognizing them as professors of a liberal art, with rights to citizenship. Augustus, when cured by his freedman, Antonius Musa, of a dangerous illness, by means of fomentations and cold compresses, made him a knight, honored him with a bronze statue in the temple of AEsculapius, and exempted forever his colleagues from any kind of income-tax. Nero organized the service by naming an archiatrus, or superintendent of court-physicians. Schools of medicine were opened, and students organized themselves into a corporation, the seat of which was on the Esquiline. When one of the professors was called to visit a patient, he was followed by the whole body of pupils, because, there being no hospitals at the time, this was the only way by which they could learn and gain experience. Martial de- scribes one of these professional visits in the ninth epigram of the fifth book, and relates how Dr. Symmachus, when sent for, came at once to his bed, accompanied by more than one hundred disciples, who, one by one, felt his pulse with hands almost frozen by the northern wind, or tramon- tana, which happened to be blowing at the time. The merit of organizing a service of public assistance, in the true modern and philanthropic sense of the word, SANITARY CONDITIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. 73 belongs to Antoninus Pius, who acted, I am sure, under the indirect pressure of Christian influence and charity, for the new faith had made immense progress in Rome under his wise and temperate rule. The new sanitary codex comprised the institution of head- physicians (archiatri) in every inhabited centre, and a set of rules for the medical service in the largest cities of the empire. These medical officers had to be elected by the town council, and to be approved by the patres:familiae. In process of time the election had further to be sanctioned by the College of Physicians practising in the same town, and even by the Emperor himself. Assistance to the poor was compulsory and gratuitous. CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. PARKs, gardens, commons, and public squares have been happily compared to the lungs of a city; and if the health and general welfare of a city depend upon the normal and sound function of its respiratory organs, ancient Rome, in this respect, must be considered as the healthiest city which has ever existed on earth. Comparing the documents we possess on Roman topography, texts of classics, inscrip- tions, plans, ruins, and so forth, we learn that towards the end of the third century after Christ there were in Rome eight campi or commons, green spaces set apart mostly for foot-races and gymnastic exercises; eighteen fora or public squares, and about thirty parks and gardens, which, first laid out by wealthy citizens for their private comfort or for the comfort of their friends, had been absorbed into the imperial domain by right of purchase, by bequest, or by confiscation. These three classes of open spaces, namely, commons, forums, and parks, are far from representing the total amount of free ground which the citizens could enjoy at any hour of the day or night. We must add to the list the cemeteries, those marble cities of the dead, shadowed by stately cypresses and weeping-willows; the sacred enclosures of temples with their colonnades and fountains ; the porti- coes, expressly built for the sake of allowing citizens to move about pleasantly in hot or rainy weather; and lastly, the great therma, establishments provided with every possible comfort and accommodation to insure the health of the THE FORUM, LOOKING WEST, PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 75 body and the education of the mind. It is not possible to describe all these groups of public open places in a single chapter. I shall simply sketch the outline of this important feature of ancient Rome, leaving aside commons, ornamental cemeteries, and sacred enclosures, and confining myself to forums, baths, and public parks. Beginning with the forums or public squares, I shall speak of them not from a purely artistic or archaeological point of view, but with regard to their capacity for giving to the citizens free movement and free air. The first forum of Rome, the one called afterwards the Forum Romanum magnum, was established on newly made land, on ground reclaimed from the marshes of the Velabrum : “Hic ubi nunc fora sunt, udae tenuere paludes: nunc solida est tellus, sed lacus ante fuit !” (Ovid, Fasti vi. 395.) It answered its purpose very well during—the first three or four centuries of Rome, not only on account of its size, but especially on account of its central position, and of the facility of access from the neighboring valleys. . In its first state, the forum was a tract of gently undu- lating, grassy, damp ground, bordering on a swamp, sur- rounded on two sides by the lofty perpendicular cliffs of the Palatine and of the Capitol, and used exclusively as a public market. On its sides there were a few conical straw huts, such as the one in which the public fire was kept, transformed in process of time into the beautiful tem- ple of Westa. On the north side, directly under the Capi- toline hill, there were some stone quarries, called Lautumiae, afterwards transformed into the Carcer Tullianum, or Ma- mertine Prison. There were also two fine springs of water, one issuing from these quarries or Lautumiae, the same 76 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. which is shown to visitors as a miraculous feature of S. Peter's Prison; the other issuing from the ivy-clad rocks of the Palatine, and called the spring of Juturna. The first improvement, made at an early date, toward the regular arrangement of the forum was the drainage of the stagnant waters which surrounded it, and the canalization of the two above-mentioned springs. Other improvements were accomplished under the kings. Numa Pompilius organized the service for the mainte- nance of a public fire at the disposal of citizens, and built a very convenient and elaborate hut for the young maid- ens, the Westals, in charge of the fire, and for the high priest charged with the surveillance of this department. Tullus Hostilius built on the east side of the forum a stone enclosure, called the Curia, in which the senators could, hold their meetings; he also fenced in a space in front of the Curia, named the Comitium, in which the poll- ing for election took place. Tarquinius Priscus finally gave to the forum the regular shape of a parallelogram, which it preserved down to the fall of the empire, and divided the ground surrounding it into building lots, which were sold to private speculators with the condition that shops should be built there, and porticoes on the fronts of the houses facing the forum. Such was the character and condition of the public square of Rome during the kingly period. It does not come within the scope of this chapter to follow, stage by stage, even by centuries, its development into a magnificent forum, surrounded by stately edifices. I will satisfy myself by tracing a brief outline of its prominent features as it appeared near the end of the Republic, when, having be: * The forum is represented in every existing plan as a trapezium, whereas it is a perfect parallelogram. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 77 come almost ridiculously small for the accommodation of the people, it began to lose its individuality by the addition of other fora, far larger and more luxurious. Towards the end of the republican period, obscure pri- vate edifices, shops, and houses, had totally disappeared from the bordering line of the square, and had made room for more substantial structures of a public character. Be- ginning at the north side, that is to say, at the side of the Tarpeian rock and of the Capitoline hill, the first conspicuous building was the temple of Saturn, used not only as a place of worship, but also as a public treasury for civil purposes. As a place of worship, it was remarkable on account of its strange ritual : it was the only temple in Rome which the devout could enter with heads uncovered; it was the first to have inaugurated the use of burning wax tapers; it was the first temple, the anniversary feast of which — the well-known Saturnalia — has been transformed in progress of time into the Carnival, an institution once famous, now fast dying out in Italy. Other places of inter- est on the north side were the temple of Concord, used as a military treasury; the Graecostasis, a space set apart for ambassadors from foreign nations, waiting to be admitted into the Curia, or Senate-house, and the State Prison above referred to. The east side was occupied by two structures separated by a wide street, — the Senate-house and the Court-house, – called Basilica A'milia. (In the middle of the street sep- arating the Curia from the Basilica, there was the small square temple of Janus Quadrifrons.) Of these structures the Senate-house was, politically speaking, the most impor- tant building in Rome, in spite of the simplicity of its ar. chitecture. It was an oblong hall, eighty-five feet long, seventy-five wide, raised on a platform made accessible by a 78 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. flight of steps, the same down which the body of King Ser. vius Tullius had been hurled by Tarquinius. Inside it con- EEsº - tº . - *- ſº - 3, … º.º.º.º.º. *Rºmºmºmºmºsºmsºmºsºm, E =>;-Fº ==== *=------ <-- Eº Ess; sº ESE *w- Nº & -: Nº.[...] §: - É # #5 The Curia (S. Adriano) in the Sixteenth Century. tained several rows of wooden benches, the Speaker's desk, a wooden tribune, and behind the Speaker's chair a small apartment containing the archives of the House. So ex- treme was the frugality and self-denial of those worthy republican senators, that they had never allowed their hall to be warmed in the depths of winter, in an age in which even the houses of the peasantry had been furnished with heating apparatus. In a letter addressed by Cicero to his brother, on January 6, 692 A. U. C., he relates how the Speaker Appius, having summoned the senators to an im- portant meeting, tantum fuit frigus, ut populi convicio coactus sit nos dimittere, it grew so intensely cold that he was obliged to dismiss the assembly and expose the senators to the raillery and derision of the populace. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 79 In the year 700 A. U. C. this venerable edifice, more than five hundred years old, was burned down by the partisans of Clodius, the fierce tribune whose name is so familiar to students of Cicero. The revolutionary instincts of the mob having been aroused and excited by violent speeches, a certain Sextus Clodius, a scribe, broke into the adjoining Senate-hall at the head of a band of roughs, carrying on their shoulders the corpse of the murdered anarchist ; and having made a kind of pyre of the benches, tables, books, - 2 --, *-*::3 t ;i 2* 2: --" --- ---. :S * sº; : ::::: --- The Curia (now the Church of S. Adriano) in its present condition. and shelves, set everything into a blaze, and burned with the corpse of Clodius the Curia itself, and the adjoining Court-house, then called the Basilica Porcia. I have spoken more at length of this building and of its 80 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. conflagration in the year 700, because its reconstruction by Julius Caesar and Augustus, together with the reconstruction of the adjoining Court-house, marks the period of the transformation of the old forum itself, as I shall presently relate. To complete our tour along the two remaining sides of the square, I shall mention on the south side, the fornia: Fabianus, a triumphal arch raised in the year 633 of Rome to Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, the conqueror of Savoy, one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, arch in the city, the remains of which we brought to light in March, 1882; the temple of Vesta and the convent of the Westals, the discovery of which will form the subject of my sixth chap- ter; and lastly, the aedes Castorum, temple of Castor and Pollux, built on the very spot at which the two Dioscuri had been miraculously seen watering their horses at the spring of Juturna, to announce the great victory of Lake Regillus, gained by the Romans on that same day, in 496 B. C. The western and last side was still and for the greater portion occupied by rows of shops. Originally they were of an inferior order, mostly butcher shops, such as the one from which Virginius is said to have seized the knife with which he avenged the honor of his violated daughter. Later on, the butchers gave up the place to schoolmasters for elementary teaching. Lastly, towards the end of the Re- public, brokers, bankers, and money lenders and changers took absolute possession of the place, and transformed it into a real Wall Street. As regards the square itself, the proper area of the forum, it was full of every kind of ob- struction; so much so, that we wonder how in such a small and encumbered space the actual populace could move about. 92 Sz 91 } ## ^*）^*)• → ºſje» ove ºp&{;º)�ºbº | 39 | ZĎ - O |N» O6/OI-III || -9│ │ Œ ） EZIWIŁ O on vuºd V º o ！/ºrºſ ſp vººrnhºv·s·tº·ſ?|? O•{••••••••l••• •r•ſ•ſO ſae vove, ſº·ro·layºff~> ·]?{ývº) ·~）; ! ± %ſºv fra seº ovºj O " ſ-ſºy-49 ·š··©) „…» âywºń， º， ſ. ~~~~）;~~ O …y. ~~~~ ºſº y © ?227u.cº.7 9.avssºpyvº/ /ö nzos ‘ole, sººyosº /ſq 22020，7 * ĀTRI QJLN GIO HJL IAX GIHIJL NII VIRI (10 GIHJL „HO NVTIĆI £n. ellauog g|A 31, Mou SunJ BJ 3H „r” „…zºº.، PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 81 In the first place, there was another populace of stone, marble, and bronze : the well known statue of Marsyas, near the Rostra, the daily meeting-place of lawyers and attorneys of an inferior rank, selected also by Julia, daughter of Au- gustus, for her nocturnal rendezvous: the one of Tatius, marking the spot in which the treaty of peace between the Romans and the Sabines had been sworn ; those of Atta Na. vius, Pythagoras, and Alcibiades, near the Senate-house; the bronze statue of Servius Sulpicius, whose descendants had the right of occupying a space of five feet square, free of pay- ment, in front of the statue itself, on the occasion of glad- iatorial games, shows, and festivities; a stone lion, marking the spot in which Faustulus, the tutor of Romulus, had been buried, according to an early tradition; the statues of Horatius Cocles; of the ambassadors murdered at Fidenae; of Q. Marcius Tremulus, the conqueror of the Hernici, and so forth. So great was the hindrance created by this army of statues, that in the year 156 B. C. the censor Cornelius Scipio was obliged to clear away the whole crowd, respect- ing only those which had been put up by a decree of the Senate. The second obstruction was the trees, of every age and quality: the Ficus Ruminalis, which Tacitus de- scribes as having shown the first signs of decay eight hun- dred and forty-one years after the twin infants Romulus and Remus had been exposed under its shade ; a lotus-tree growing between the temples of Saturn and Concord, de- scribed by Masurius as older than Rome itself; a fig-tree, which was cut down at the age of two hundred and sixty- one years, because its roots had undermined and nearly overturned an old stone figure of Sylvanus; a vine and an olive-tree near the spring of Juturna, and others. I shall not speak of the Rostra or public tribune, of the Columna rostrata raised in honor of C. Duillius, the Roman 82 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. admiral who defeated the Carthaginian fleet; of the Puteal Scribonianum, marking a spot struck by lightning, and made sacred; of the Jani, or four-faced porches, because the description of these prominent features of the forum would lead me far from the special topic of the present lecture. I will conclude my brief sketch by remarking that, besides the obstacles already described, the square and its vicinity were occupied by certain classes of people, not particularly distinguished, who so constantly haunted this or that special corner of the place that they actually were nicknamed from it. Thus we hear of the Subrostrani, attorneys and lawyers without employment, who haunted the neighborhood of the Rostra; of the Canalicolae, drunkards keeping themselves near the Canalis, a place the explanation of which is given by Plautus in Curculio, iv. 1; and in a more general man- ner we hear of the forenses, habitués of the forum, who used to spend hours upon hours in laziness and gossip near the Solarium, or sun-dial, or near the Tabula Valeria, a kind of panorama of the battle gained by M. Valerius Messalla over King Hieron of Syracuse, painted on the outside wall of the Senate-house in the year 492 A. U. C. Fruit-sell- ers had taken possession of the ascents leading from the forum to the top of the Welia ; jewellers, goldsmiths, mak- ers of musical instruments, of the Sacred Way; perfumers, of the Tuscan Street (vicus Tuscus), leading to the Circus Maximus; copyists, sellers of books and literary novelties, of the Argiletum, a street leading toward the ill-famed Subura, which was also the rendezvous of pickpockets, who were in the habit of meeting in the afternoon to partake and otherwise dispose of the morning's booty. Then there was a special place in the forum for usurers, lenders, and changers of money; another, the porticoes of the Basilicae, for fishmongers, who poisoned the clients of the court. house with the offensive smell of their merchandise. THE FORUM, LOOKING EAST. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 83 The first important step towards the improvement of this obnoxious state of things was taken in the seventh century of Rome by the construction of a fish-market or forum piscatorium. Then followed the construction of the Basil- icae Fulvia, Porcia, Sempronia, which being surrounded by porticoes, and kept constantly open day and night, increased, in a certain measure, the accommodation of the frequenters of the forum. In the year 699, M. AEmilius Paulus bought private property on the east side of the forum for the sum of $2,400,000, and built his superb Basilica AEmilia, called . . by Cicero magnificentissima. The reason for this great undertaking is given by the same writer; ut forum lawa- Temus, to enlarge the area and extent of the forum. The Basilica, the finest ever built in Rome, was dedicated twenty years after the beginning of the work in 719 A. U. C.; eighteen years afterwards, when it had been injured by fire, Augustus and other friends of Æmilius Paulus supplied the funds necessary to restore the edifice, and to decorate it with the famous columns of pavonazetto marble, which were transferred five centuries later to the basilica of S. Paul outside the walls (perhaps on account of the similar- ity of their names), and almost entirely destroyed by the great fire of 1823. - The work of AEmilius Paulus was continued by Julius Caesar. So enormous was the sum of money which he spent in the year 702 to purchase the area for his new forum (an extension of the old one) that even the unim- pressionable Pliny exclaims, pyramides regum miramur, cum solum tantum foro eastruendo HS millies Caesar dictator emerit / “We wonder at the Egyptian pyramids, when Caesar, as dictator, spent one hundred millions of ses- terces merely for the ground on which to build his forum !” The sum of one hundred millions of sesterces, mentioned by .84 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. Pliny and confirmed by Suetonius, corresponds to four mil- lion dollars; and as the area purchased by Caesar does not exceed ninety thousand square feet, it is evident he must have paid, on an average, $44.45 per foot. This forum of Caesar took the shape of a sacred enclosure sur- rounding the temple of Venus Genetrix, so named because this goddess was considered by Caesar to be the one from whom his own family had originated. The statue of the divinity was a masterpiece by Arcesilaos, and a masterpiece also was the equestrian statue of the dictator himself, placed in front of the temple. The horse was carefully modelled from nature. In the sixty-first chapter of his Life of Caesar, Suetonius speaks at length of this famous charger. It was a charger, he says, whose fore-feet were nearly hu- man, the hoofs being split in imitation of toes. The animal was foaled in the family mews; and as the augurs, when asked to explain the miracle of the hoofs, had declared that it portended the empire of the world for his master, Caesar devoted himself to the education of the colt, and the colt conceived such an affection for his master that he would never allow himself to be fed, or taken care of, or ridden by anybody else. The temple of Venus Genetrix contained famous paintings by Greek artists, which Pliny describes; six collections of engraved gems and cameos; and a breast- plate for the statue of the goddess, entirely covered with pearls from Britain. Augustus followed the example of Caesar, and in continu- ation of the two forums built a third one, still more mag- nificent, named the forum Augustum, or else the forum Martis from the temple of Mars the Avenger, which stood in the middle of it. The reason given by Augustus himself for this work was the absolute insufficiency of the two pre- vious forums for the transaction of business and the admin' º |! Ö *. .# %ź % % ſº % % 'ſil. º ſ: • § d fift #ffl| } }| { { } sºl/I'llá |Wil, T. \\ - \ ! . . --—- {tº glº |º !!!º § ### 5* a º REMAINS OF THE FORUM OF AUGUSTUS AND THE TEMPLE OF MARS ULTOR. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 85 istration of justice. No words could describe the beauty of this architectural chef-d'oeuvre, the remains of which, known by the modern name of the Arco de’ Pantani, rank among the very finest of ancient Rome. The most notable feature of the place was a gallery of statues, representing the gen- erals who by their exploits and victories had increased the power of Rome, and had subjugated to it more than one half of the old world. I can only mention the fourth forum, built by Vespasian, and the fifth, begun by Do- mitian and completed by Nerva. Although smaller and altogether less remarkable than the three preceding ones, they would have been the pride of any other town than Rome. In Vespasian's forum, dedicated to Peace (forum Pacis), the gold vessels and the seven-branched candlestick from the great temple of Zion had been deposited, as a votive offering to the goddess. In Domitian's forum, ded- icated to Minerva, there was another gallery of portrait- statues, in imitation, or rather as an extension, of the one exhibited in the forum of Augustus. The statues were of colossal size, and represented the Roman emperors. One only has come down to us, the so-called Pyrrhus, placed at the foot of the staircase of the Capitoline Museum, and noticeable for the really shameful way in which it was re- stored, altered, and disfigured at the beginning of the last century. We must now enter the last and most magnificent square belonging to the group I have attempted to describe, the forum of Trajan, the handsomest and costliest monument of ancient Rome. To fully explain its importance as a mas- terpiece, not only of architecture, but also of engineering, I must lay before the reader's eyes a sketch of the topo- graphical conditions of the centre of the town, in connec- tion with its viability and traffic. 86 PUBLIO PLACES OF RESORT. The Capitoline hill, situated in the very centre of the town, originally was not isolated, as it is at present, but was connected with the adjoining Quirinal hill by a high ridge, which sloped sharply down towards the Roman forum on the south side, towards the Campus Martius on the north side. In other words, it was not an isolated hill, which the daily tide of the city traffic could turn on every side, as is the case now ; it was a barrier, an obstacle, an ob- struction, which cut the town and its traffic right in two, and could only be overcome in one of two ways: either by ascending and then descending the steep ridge which con- nected it with the Quirinal, along a läne corresponding with the modern Via Marforio, a lane only ten feet wide, with a gradient of 12 to 100, which crossed the ridge at its lowest point, or by rounding the Capitol on the river-side. The passage could be accomplished on this side on level ground, it is true, but it was three times as long as a direct line carried across the ridge ; and besides, fancy what the con- dition of the traffic must have been in that narrow strip of land between the Capitol and the left bank of the Tiber, which afforded the only possible line of communication be- tween two halves of a city inhabited by nearly two million souls To obviate the evil, to allow citizens freedom of move- ment, to relieve the streets surrounding the Capitol on the river-side from the pressure of traffic, and, at the same time, to double at once the surface of the five existing forums, Trajan conceived the idea of severing the Capitol from the Quirinal, of cutting away the ridge, and of substituting for it a level passage, nearly six hundred feet wide. His plans were carried into execution by a skilful man, the architect Apollodorus, in about fifteen years' time. To give an ap- proximate idea of the importance of the work, I will men- PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 87 tion two things only : first, that private property, built on each side and on the top of the ridge, must have been pur- chased and appropriated to the extent of some 275,000 square feet. Supposing the price paid by Trajan to be the same as that paid by Julius Caesar for the area of his forum, namely, $44.45 per square foot, the ground alone must have cost Trajan the sum of $12,223,000. The second remark refers to the work of cutting, excavating, and carting away the mountain. So great was the astonishment created by the titanic achievement, even in a city accustomed to won- ders, that the well-known column, that prototype of monu- mental pillars, was erected at a public cost ad declarandum quanta, altitudinis mons et locus sit egestus, – “to show to posterity how high rose the mountain levelled by the Emperor.” Trajan’s column is one hundred and forty feet high, from the pavement of the forum to the top of the bronze statue. This circumstance helps us to state the total amount of earth and rock removed to make room for the forum at 24,000,000 cubic feet. I have made investiga- tions all over the Campagna, within a radius of three or four miles from the walls, to discover the place where the 24,000,000 cubic feet were carted and dumped, but my efforts have not, as yet, been crowned with success. This fact leads me to suppose that the enormous mass might perhaps have been utilized to fill up some marshy district in the neighborhood of Rome. The reader must not imagine this forum of Trajan as a simple square, surrounded by porticoes, and ornamented more or less abundantly with works of art. The forum of Trajan comprised seven different sections, namely: the pro- pylaia, or triumphal arch of the Emperor; the square itself, with the equestrian statue in the middle; the Basilica Ulpia; the Bibliotheca Ulpia; the two hemicycles; the monumen- 88 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. tal column; and the temple of Trajan. The ensemble of these various sections was considered not only the master- piece of Roman architecture of the golden age, but one of the marvels of the world. Let me quote the words with # #| º ** riºtiſfit N ſº ſº s.ſlſars) ; !º &ſº Y ń r lºft #A § É. §as \!\}: ºs # =sº %iº É ſºlºſſº ſºlº # , .ºllºlº - –*ſ A- Rejºi 'ºls -É *S*=== #=} ſiſſi--- #F §.) * h *, *::=::= "_º - | =#EEHF #; #mºssº. = —zºNſ. fi! - ‘. . ºf lº |...} º Nº. º f s−ºlſ: ſ iſ ſºlº- º's g|A lºts ºffli ſº "lil— | É=== - - º: #|ſ ||| p ſ # r !,' ' |! : "ºff fºſſººij : Lº- Ti: || || | | | | | || ºf ſiliſſ'ſ fºliºſ | hi, iſºlſ|| || 1 fºliº ſil ſº fillſ Jiříž i ºr iº; º;ºsºft sº Til- Aljkº'ſ . . . # fº sºft ºffſ ºftº º º ; + §§ #ſº º §§§ ". . --- "ſº ſº * , ** * : ſº * ~~, - :: * ''. -- ºw º | !. ~s **ś’:*::::::...ºf - $ 2, #5W: ºs-e-º- Exº º + \m-r— f A sº-º-º- | | Column and Forum of Trajan. which Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10) describes the impres- sions felt by the Emperor Constantius at the first sight of the group : “Having now entered the forum of Trajan, the most marvellous creation of human genius, – singularem Sub Omni coelo structuram, - he was struck with admira- tion, and looked around in amazement, without being able to utter a word, wondering at the gigantic structures, – giganteos contextus, - which no pen can describe, and which mankind can create and see only once in the course of cen- turies. Having consequently given up any hope of build- ing himself anything which would approach, even at a re- spectful distance, the work of Trajan, he turned his atten- tion to the equestrian statue placed in the centre of the PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 89 forum, and said to his attendants he would have one like it in Constantinople.” These words having been heard. by Hormisdas, a young Persian prince attached to his court, he turned quietly towards the Emperor, and said, “If your majesty wants to secure and keep such a horse, you must first provide him with a stable like this.” So far Ammianus Marcellinus. Cassiodorius asserts that, no matter how many times one saw this forum, it would always appear a prodigious, a miraculous work, more than the work of man. Such being the estimation in which Trajan's masterpiece was held in ancient times, such being its beauty and perfection, I cannot attempt to enter into details, and describe one by one its various sections and their contents. It is enough to say that by the addition of Trajan’s forum to the five which already existed, the whole space put at the disposal of the people of Rome, for meeting in public, for promenading, for the transaction of business or the administration of justice, and so forth, was brought to the grand total of twenty-five and one half acres. This space contained thir- teen temples, three basilicas, or court-houses, eight trium- phal arches, the house of parliament, thousands of life-size statues in bronze and marble, porticoes more than one mile long, and supported by about twelve hundred columns, pub- lic libraries and archives, and the finest and richest shops of the metropolis. Next to forums I must speak of the baths as places of public resort. At the end of the third century after Christ, Rome numbered 11 large public thermae, and 926 smaller ones conducted under private enterprise. The baths of Caracalla alone could accommodate, at one time, 1,600 people; the baths of Diocletian, 3,600. Taking 1,500 as 90 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. the average accommodation of each of the public thermae, and 50 as that of each of the private baths, we learn that in ancient Rome, at any minute, 62,800 citizens could restore their strength in baths of every nature and description ; and this, without bringing into the calculation the Tiber, the Anio, the Lake of Agrippa, and the bathing accommoda- tions with which every Roman house was abundantly fur- nished. These dry figures and statistics concern only clean- liness and bodily health. But for those who frequented the great thermae bathing was the very last thought, — I mean for the fashionable habitués of imperial times; since the earlier generations, those which had made Rome the queen of the world, had always considered the bath as the most important event and the most essential requirement in the every-day life. In course of time, and under the corrup- tion which began to contaminate Roman society after the conquest of the East, bodily health and cleanliness, although the original object, had long ceased to be the only one; for the thermae, decorated with prodigal magnificence, and sup- plied with all the comforts, conveniences, and novelties that a voluptuary could desire, had become places of amuse- ment, whither people repaired for pastime and enjoyment. They were, in a word, gigantic clubs, where the elegant youth passed the whole day, at least the hours in which the establishments were kept open. Of course, the number of hours varied according to the season, or the good-will of the Emperor. The opening was announced by the sound of a bell heard at a great distance. Sonat as thermarum ! was the exclamation popular among the anxiously waiting habitués. A great deal has been written by Salmasius, Ma- rini, Becker, and other antiquarians about the hours for opening and closing the public baths. The truth is that they varied at different periods, from sunrise until sunset. y^I^IVOVYTVO JO SHLVAI GIHJL HO "HJEV8 ſ) NIWWIAS RIO‘JN QIYIVCI I OI>{{H GIHJL +<===E ----**5ĒĶī£- Te===№ →→→→Ē→=~：：~~===№ …_-+-+-+----* ----- № №- „...！== №*-- ~- - - - ĒĒĒĒĒĒ№ ĒĒĒĖ=E=（^&*========= ::· -5！?=$№№T?， Ā& №rſy? \ş é º 3 :*• } -\ºyº , • � „ſº . • § l } - ź l j} ...A … . . . . . .” ‘.... . .”y", Aº’ ... '" wºrkº *** - -- & ¿??¿¿.* ∞∞∞∞∞.'， $2;;;;;;;ſ. …. ~~~）;∞∞∞∞∞ %ź.£® （23/ZZZZZ%@。 23%→%%żÅ 20%2%%ź¿? |-%%ſae2%· •* .* 2. %% •r,'/'）.'，%ſ% - tº . '-º', **, • ...” º % #: •.2% ºx * % %2. % ar 1,47% % PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 91 Pliny the younger says that his friend Spurinna bathed in winter at the ninth hour, in summer at the eighth. Vopis- cus mentions the ninth as the opening hour. Thermat apud veteres non ante nonam aperiebantur. The Emperor Hadrian made a new regulation. He ordered that nobody should enter the thermae before the eighth hour of the day except those provided with a certificate from the attendant physician, and absolutely no one after sunset. Severus Alexander not only caused the gates to be opened again at sunrise, but ordered them to be kept open until late at night, defraying the expense of illumination from his own private purse. The Emperor Tacitus again restricted the time to the length of the day, as the concession made by his prede- cessor had given occasion to great nocturnal disturbances; but probably this did not continue long in force, for we find again in the Codex of Justinian a certain sum allotted to the cost of lighting. Thermae became by degrees places of the most foolish debauchery. Suetonius relates of Calig- ula that he imagined unheard-of refinements in bathing and eating, and that he carried the luxury of bathing to such an extent that he took his bath, not in water, but in tepid per- fumes. Helagabalus, the mad youth who put vases of mur- rha (the costliest and most precious material known to the ancients) to the vilest uses of the imperial household, used to swim in basins the water of which had been mixed with the oil of saffron. With regard to the custom of allowing both sexes to bathe at the same time, the regulations were changed under different emperors. There is no doubt that Roman women, even the noblest of them, visited the public baths; but, as a rule, they were provided with separate rooms. Atia, the mother of Augustus, after the fabulous rencontre in the Temple of Apollo, bore on her person the indelible 92 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. mark of a serpent, to conceal which from indiscreet eyes she was obliged to give up frequenting public baths. Juve- nal and Martial allude very often to the gross immoral- ity of the men and women bathing together; but we must not believe that the immorality was general. Hadrian was the first Emperor to put an end to this shameful disorder, though only for a brief period; because the periodical re- newal of these interdicts shows that the evil could not be eradicated. In 1870, an inscription was found near some private baths in the Trastevere, containing the fol- lowing notice: “By order of the mighty god Sylvanus, women are prohibited from stepping into the swimming basin reserved for the men.” This inscription shows that police regulations were not enough to keep fast women in order, and that the owners of baths, responsible for the decency of their establishments, were obliged to resort to the intervention of the gods. The last thing we hear on this subject is a general decree promulgated by Hela- gabalus, by which promiscuous bathing was allowed every- where and at all hours. Let us follow one of the ele- gant youths of Rome into one of the great thermae. He is welcomed at his entrance by the Ostiarius, or porter, a tall, majestic fellow with a sword at his side, and by the capsa- Yius, or wardrobe-keeper, who takes charge of his wraps. Then follows a general salutation and kissing of friends, exchange of the last topics and scandals of the day; read- ing of the newspapers, or acta diurna. The visitor then selects the kind of bath which may suit his particular case, — cold, tepid, warm, shower, or perspiration bath. The bath over, the real business begins, as, for example, taking a constitutional up and down the beautiful grounds, in- dulging in athletic sports or simple gymnastics to restore circulation, and to prepare himself for the delights of the table. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 93 The luxurious meal finished, the gigantic club-house could supply him with every kind of amusement: libra- ries, concerts, literary entertainments, reading of the latest poems or novels, popular or Barnum-like shows, conversa- tion with the noblest and most beautiful women. Very often a second bath was taken to prepare for the evening meal. All this could be done by three or four thousand persons at one and the same time, without confusion or delay, because of the great number of servants and slaves attached to the establishment. The excavations and discoveries which Abel Blouet made in 1824, Guidi in 1878, and ourselves during the last fif- teen years in the baths of Caracalla, show clearly how the service was organized. It was carried on entirely under- ground, by means of crypto-porticoes, which allowed the servants to appear suddenly everywhere, and to meet the requirements of the visitors without crossing the halls and without interfering with the circulation of the noble crowd. In fact, we have discovered a fragment of the “ order of the day,” or programme of the distribution of service on the nineteenth day of April, A. D. 226." This unique and most remarkable document, which we were fortunate enough to bring to light in January, 1881, was evidently written by one of the overseers in charge of a special department, say, for instance, the department of the wardrobe; and for the want of the proper material it was written with a black pencil on a piece of marble, evidently belonging to the incrustation of the walls of the room which was used as an office. It contains, first, the above mentioned date (April 19th) and the name of the Emperor, Severus Alexander. Then follows a list of * The year is not absolutely certain, as of the two consuls only Severus Alexander is mentioned. - 94. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. names of slaves and servants, such as Zoticus, Gaudentius, Panacius, Januarius, Stephanus, etc., and near each name a number, which varies from a minimum of one half to a maximum of three and a half, -numbers which probably refer to the hours of duty of each individual. I have spoken of public squares and of baths as places of resort and enjoyment for the people of Rome; I come now to another special characteristic, - that of the porti- coes, which occupied the whole plain of the Campus Mar- tius, stretching from the foot of the hills on the left bank of the river to the river itself. They followed one another almost without interval, filling up the spaces between the great buildings, such as the circuses, theatres, stadia, tem- ples, etc. Between the Capitol, the Quirinal, and the river, not less than twenty porticoes were erected. Under the republican rule they were almost a rarity; and besides, the few that existed at that time were built, not as mere places of pleasant meeting, but with a definite and more practical aim. Thus the porticus Minucia served as a corn ex- change; the one surrounding the forum Olitorium as a market for fresh vegetables; that around the theatre of Pompey was a place of rehearsal for choruses, and a ref- uge for spectators in case of sudden rain. Augustus made porticoes popular; he introduced the fashion and taste for them, either building them with his own money, or else helping and inviting his personal friends and admirers to follow his example. In less than twenty years the whole Campus Martius was covered with colonnades. Augustus himself constructed the Portico of Octavia, the ruins of which are such a prominent landmark in the Ghetto, or Jewish quarter of modern Rome; * another near Pompey’s theatre, 1 This picturesque corner of the city was levelled to the ground in the spring of 1887. "—" in 2T ... * * A.") ***, *, * *}ſ Mºi. *i.; Yeº is & ! 4. t! ſº - & i s § § §§ º: #. * ...,' - º: sº {A , . ..." tº jºi jº i , “ * - ~ # § º ! % º }. ºjºſ i #. t * §§ º, | %. ** º ń. º # º y * 5 # = #24 wº 2 º'ºu.}º Sº ºf 4. §§§e fººt l ! & º 2 . ſ sº |. ſ |. # , , ; º jºu’ | … º § g : |º | ... . ..., Sº...? ſº •. :: º ... . º tº. º. } - ! º ** Pº zº º -- ºžº 㺠tºº | Ş. * -. ". . . . . . ." & * * * ****** ..….:-. § §§ “t s :=# º jº, # ſ • -- ! } '-- 2: . §: l, iš. > -ºratºes...º." §ſº º ~ ; $. it. tº * t * } : gº w - ~ * * … } * { . *{* , * * * * - ...” I'li (, ; , , * , ' t º: i. i.jº º, , , .* .* - - * ºff tº \ . ‘. ...!!!... Yº ſº 'º, & &lſº * * * * : '... sº º % % % º, ** | # , * sº * * § - §§;§ %. £4: sº * § %§ § : d sº # * k § º *..., , *** *.* º sº * * * - . , ; , ;...? - º \ * * º f º §§ § º ; º ºrº <-- ... ** * : º Şı 3, ºft } # sºftº: & ºś -- * º *** *. e - - g lºsiº g- 3. ſº *% %ft º **º ºfrºſºft X. º º % | º * * * * * º º * * i º : PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 95 called Ad Nationes, on account of some colossal statues representing the various nations of the world; and lastly, he rebuilt from the foundations the one named Corinthian, on account of the capitals of the columns being made of gilt Co- rinthian brass. Cornelius Balbus, an intimate friend of the %: - #... ***** *wēś § z ºf # ºt % % 3. . % : i % Remains of the Portico of Octavia. emperor, built his famous Crypta at the rear of his theatre, the ruins of which we are now engaged in bringing to light. Marcius Philippus built the portico which surrounded the . Temple of Hercules; Vipsanius Agrippa, the prime minis- ter and faithful adviser of Augustus, went further, and in the magnificence and grandeur of his constructions cast into the shade both predecessors and contemporaries. To him the Romans were indebted for the porticus Vipsania, so named from his sister, Vipsania Polla; for the Septa, a portico used for electoral meetings under shelter; the villa 96 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. Publica, the portico of the Argonauts, and the portico of Europa. And as if such a superabundance of luxury were not deemed sufficient for the comfort and well-being of º =##3 --> } §ſº % ºft|$7%// === ***=e:Esº-5a ºftºº ºfflijs==#/7% º º N Remains of the Portico of Octavia. the Romans, the example of Augustus and his courtiers found imitators down to the very fall of the Empire, as shown by the porticoes of Constantine and of the Bonus Eventus, and by the porticus mawimſe of Gratian, Valen. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 97 tinian, and Theodosius. Finally, we have accounts of sim- ilar enormous structures, designed but not built, or else begun and not finished. Severus Alexander, for instance, began a portico 1,000 feet long and 100 feet wide, sup- ported by one thousand marble columns, and destined to connect the Septa with his baths. Gordianus the younger also began a portico under the Pincian hill, 900 yards in circumference, and enclosing a garden 44,000 square yards in extent. The enterprise was stopped by his premature death. The same fate befell the portico of Gallienus, a prince illustrious for the extravagances of his artistic pro- jects. I shall mention only one of them. He had designed raising on the very top of the Esquiline hill a most un- heard-of colossal statue, 219 feet high, – that is to say, twice the height of Trajan's column, – which would have represented him as the sun, holding a rod in his hands. A spiral staircase, to be ingeniously made in the rod, was to allow visitors to reach the very top of the colossus. The same prince began a portico 9,000 feet long, which would have led from the centre of Rome to the Ponte Molle (the Milvian Bridge). We do not know whether the idea was carried out to its full extent. I doubt whether students of Roman topography have paid due attention to the special nature of these structures, which covered with a network of colonnades the whole space between the hills and the river. Porticoes have been studied individually, and, under this aspect, they appear to us sometimes as simple enclosures of temples, sometimes as picture-galleries and museums of statuary, sometimes as places of rendezvous for elegant, lazy youths and their sweethearts. Their importance, however, increases ten- fold if we consider them, not individually, but combined, as successive manifestations of the same original concep- 98 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. tion or plan, that is, as an institution contrived and de- veloped for the benefit of the public. In Rome, certainly, the need of open, pleasant places of rest and amusement was not felt. I have already spoken of forums and baths; I shall speak presently of that superb crown of parks and gardens which surrounded and adorned the city ; but these public gardens and parks and squares were natu- rally exposed to the rigor and inconstancy of the seasons, to the sharp tramontana or north wind, to the fierce rays of the sun in the dog-days. To obviate such inconven- iences, to allow the inhabitants of the metropolis to take their “constitutional' walk in every season of the year, at every hour of the day, protected from the rain, the sun, and the cold, these porticoes were planned; or, to express my thought better, the idea was conceived of dedicating to this purpose a certain kind of edifice, which up to that time had had an entirely different purpose. It is needless to say that this happened when the contagion of Eastern luxury had begun to contaminate the purity of the true old Roman education. People have thought that the porticus Vipsania must have been built to exhibit in pub- lic the geographical maps of the provinces of the Empire, surveyed and drawn in the famous census mentioned in the Gospel of S. Luke ; and that the portico of the Argo- nauts was built to exhibit, likewise, the famous picture rep- resenting the history of the Golden Fleece. This was not the design of those buildings, nor the idea the ancients had of them. Whenever classical writers, and especially Mar- tial, speak of the porticoes, they constantly allude to one idea, - to the pleasure of enjoying there the warmth of the sun, when throughout the city people were shiver- ing from the piercing tramontana. The place spoken of most frequently by Martial is the portico of Europa, the PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 99 frequenters of which were protected not only by the colon- nades, but also by high walls of boxwood, which intersected in graceful designs the inner space. By looking at a plan of ancient Rome, however defective and antiquated it may be, one sees very easily how it was possible to cross under shelter the whole plain of the Campus Martius, from end to end. The walk, taken either in a direct line from the Forum Boarium to Hadrian's Mausoleum, or by a longer circuit through the forum of Trajan and Agrippa's buildings, would cover a space of from two to three miles; and the sights which would have struck the eye of the foreign vis- itor at every step were enough to excite an imagination the least susceptible of enthusiasm. I have been tempted to calculate some statistical data concerning this incomparable group. The extent of the twelve larger porticoes of the Campus Martius amounts to 4,600 yards; the surface pro- tected from the sun and rain to 28,000 square yards; the total area of the porticoes, central gardens included, to 100,000 square yards; the number of columns to 2,000, or thereabouts. These columns were cut out of the rarest kinds of breccias and marbles; their capitals were some- times of Corinthian gilt brass; their pavements were inlaid with jasper and porphyry. Every portico contained, as I said before, a museum of sculpture and a gallery of pic- tures; and the space enclosed by them was decorated with lovely gardens, and with thickets of box, myrtle, laurel, and plane-trees, bordering lakes, fountains, and waterfalls. Be- sides, every one of them offered to the stranger some special attraction. In that of Vipsania Polla, the maps of the provinces of the Empire were displayed. The portico of the Septa was transformed into a huge magazine of curi- osities, antiquities, and manufactures of the extreme East, China included. Here, also, some wonderful specimens of * º sº J - *s gº 100 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT natural history were exhibited, such as a colossal beam left over from the building of the roof of the Diribitorium (the widest roof in Rome). Lastly, in the portico built by Marcius Philippus, ladies could find the latest and most re- markable specimens of wigs and hair-dressing which the fancy of Roman coiffeurs could contrive. Having arrived at this point, I must speak finally of the principal subject which I wished to illustrate, namely, the parks and gardens. The city was not only surrounded and enclosed by them, but intersected in every direction. It is necessary to bear in mind that Rome occupies the thalweg of the Tiber, a plain less than a mile wide, and about three miles long, flanked east and west by the parallel ranges of hills, the highest of which, now called Monte Mario, rises to a height of about 450 feet. Both ranges were covered with gardens. Let us begin with the east range, overlooking the plain of the Campus Martius. The Pincian hill, the prom- enade of modern Rome, was occupied by the magnificent gardens of Acilius Glabrio, the existence of which was first made known in 1867 by the accidental discovery of an altar, dedicated to Sylvanus by the overseer or superintendent of Glabrio's gardens. Where the villa Medici, the seat of the French school of fine arts, now stands, were the gardens of the Anician family, as was ascertained in 1789 by the dis- covery of a pedestal and a statue dedicated to the owner of the place, Anicius Acilius Aginatius. The southwest slope of the same Pincian hill, now crossed by the Via S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case, was occupied by the gardens of Lucullus. The valley between the Pincian and the Quirinal, from the modern Piazza Barberini to the Porta Salaria and the Porta Pia, a charming and undulating district, with glens PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. - 101 and overhanging rocks, rivulets of pure water, and other natural attractions, was the seat of the gardens of Sallust, the finest and most celebrated of ancient Rome. Proceed- º “. r ‘’ſ Z, - . % º • *ulſ: i. Ruins in the Garden of Sallust. ing farther south, we should cross the gardens of Lollia Paulina, of Maecenas, of AElius Lumia, of Torquatus, of Epaphroditus, of Gallienus, of Pallans, of Helagabalus, of Statilius Taurus, and many smaller gardens, all forming one stretch of verdure, more than two miles long and over half a mile wide. And here I must answer a question which has often been asked of me, namely, How is it possible that there was room for so many and such large pleasure-grounds in a district which we know for a certainty to have been occu- pied, from a very remote age, by public cemeteries? The careful and almost daily examination I have made of the ground, especially in the new quarters of the Viminal and of the Esquiline, enables me to solve the problem easily. The popular cemeteries having become offensive to public health, and real hot-beds of disease and contagion, Maece- nas, the great statesman, decided to make a bold stroke, and to destroy the evil from the very roots. As I have I02 PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. already stated in the preceding chapter, he obtained from his sovereign and friend a grant of that portion of the Es- quiline necropolis in which human bodies and carcasses, slaves and beasts, were thrown in horrible disorder, together with the daily refuse of the town; then buried the whole space under an enormous mass of pure earth, thirty feet deep, and turned that pestilential den into smiling gardens. The same thing was done, in process of time, for the rest of the Esquiline cemeteries, even in that portion which was occupied by private family tombs. The way in which I dis- covered this fact is curious, and worth relating. When the plans for the new quarters were about to be carried into execution, our Archaeological Commission obtained from the municipality the permission to explore the ground be- forehand, so that, as far as possible, nothing should be left under the new buildings. In carrying on this work of exploration, we left aside, of course, those places which we knew positively to have been searched before. Such, for instance, was the space between the so-called temple of Minerva Medica and the Porta Maggiore, which, ac- cording to the accounts left by Ficoroni and Piranesi, had been thoroughly gone over in the second half of the last cen- tury. Events have proved that our policy may have found an excuse in the necessity of the moment, but was not a wise one. The first explorers of that rich archaeological ground, after crossing the stratum corresponding to the level of the imperial gardens, had stopped their work at the level of the drains, feeling sure that a deeper search would be abso- lutely fruitless. They labored under a false idea. A deeper search would have brought them, as it has brought us, to the stratum occupied by the republican cemetery, buried in the second century of the Christian era, not only for sanitary purposes, but to provide room for such an extension of pub- PUBLIO PLACES OF RESORT. 103 lic parks as was required by the increase of the population ; and as, in the period in which the change took place, the religion of tombs was still deeply rooted even among the commonest workmen, we found those tombs absolutely in- tact, and full of rich funeral deposits. I will give only one instance. In excavating a space fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, within the gardens of Licinius Gallienus, we dis. covered between February 7 and May 27, 1871, five colum- baria, containing 204 inscriptions, 200 lamps, 2 marble and 40 terra-cotta cinerary urns, 195 coins, 150 glass perfume- bottles, 200 flagons of terra-cotta, and a few gold finger and ear rings. The hills on the west side of the valley were also occu- pied by an uninterrupted chain of gardens, from those of the Minician family, on the Monte Mario, to those of Julius Caesar, on the southern ridge of the Janiculum ; and the ſ º **_-, * d ~ : ºf * ~~~~ sº º 2. f : sº º º ** * ...' ... Ly, lºſiſ...}{Z}" ..". Tº sº s § gº º & A-sºº sº-º -> ~3.º.º. 28 * * * * *W * º . . . * * * .*.* * * ~~. . *** ſ/ / |: h | sº sº Ruins in the Garden of Sallust. banks of the river also had been transformed into a garden by Augustus, Pompey the Great, Domitia, Nero, Caligula, and others. 104. PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. As I am prevented by want of space from entering into details, I shall mention only the latest discovery made in this department, — the discovery of an altogether unknown park. In building the foundation of Prince Massimo's pal- ace, near the southwest corner of the central railway sta- tion, a line of terminal stones was brought to light, in- scribed with the following legend: “These stones mark the boundary lines of the gardens of Lollia (horti Lolliani), which gardens are now the property of the Emperor Clau- dius.” Many works of art and ornamental marbles were discovered there at the same time, which enable us to form an idea of the former beauty of the place. There is no doubt that the lady mentioned on the stones as the original owner of the grounds was Lollia Paulina, equally famous for her beauty, her wealth, and her misfortunes. She was the granddaughter of M. Lollius, the teacher and tutor of Caligula, who, having been reproached by his im- perial pupil for the extortions he had committed on the populations of Asia Minor, had poisoned himself from shame and grief. The untold wealth of which Lollius had robbed that province was inherited by Lollia Paulina, of whom Pliny the elder speaks in the following terms: “I have seen the lady at evening parties, with her hair dressed in emeralds and pearls; in fact, she wore emeralds and pearls as ear-rings, necklaces, breast-plate, bracelets, and also as simple trimming of her robe, to such excess that the value of the whole set was estimated at 40,000,000 ses- terces [$1,600,000].” In the year of Rome 790, Caligula fell in love with the lady, and made an empress of her, in spite of the protests of her legal husband, Memmius Reg- ulus. However, he soon grew tired of the alliance, and Paulina was banished from the imperial house, with the in: junction that she should live henceforth with no man, not PUBLIC PLACES OF RESORT. 105 even with her former husband. Eleven years later, the Em- peror Claudius, being in search of a wife, after the death of Messalina, hesitated for a while between the two “profes- sional beauties” of the age, Lollia Paulina and Agrippina. Court intrigues made the balance turn, at the end, in favor of Agrippina, and the first act of the new empress was to obtain the banishment of the abhorred rival and the seizure of her personal property. Among the estates thus confis- cated and incorporated in the imperial domain were evi- dently the gardens on the Esquiline, the existence of which has now been accidentally revealed to us for the first time. CHAPTER W. THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. THE Palatine hill became the residence of the Roman emperors, and the centre of the Roman Empire, not on ac- count of its historical and traditional associations with the foundation and first growth of the city, nor because of its central and commanding position, but by a mere acci- dent. At daybreak on September 21st of the year 63 B. C., Augustus was born in this region, in a modest house, opening on the lane called ad Capita bubula, which led from the valley, where now the Colosseum stands, up the slopes of the hill towards the modern church and convent of S. Bonaventura. This man, sent by God to change the condition of mankind and the state of the world, this founder of an empire which is still practically in existence, never deserted the Palatine hill all through his eventful career. From the lane ad Capita bubula he moved to the house of Calvus, the orator, at the northeast corner of the hill overlooking the forum; and in process of time, having become absolute master of the Roman Commonwealth, he settled finally on the top of the hill, having purchased for his residence the house of Hortensius, a simple and modest house, indeed, with columns of the commonest kind of stone, pavements of rubble-work, and simply whitewashed walls. Whether this selection of a site was made because the Palatine had long before become the Faubourg St. Honoré, the Belgravia of ancient Rome, is difficult to determine. INDEX TO THE PLAN OF THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 1. Entrance to the excavations and ruins, from the Via di S. Teodoro. 2. Lower portion of the Clivus Victoria, leading from the l’elabrum up to the Porta Romana, or Romanula. 3. Site of the Porta Romana, restored under Septimius Severus. 4, 4. Upper section of the Clivus Victoria, leading from the Porta Romana to the temple of Victory. This temple was discovered and destroyed by Duke Francis of Parma and Monsignore Bi- anchini, in 1726. - 5. Entrance to a reservoir for rain and spring water, believed to be contemporary with the foundation of Rome. 6. Remains of the earliest fortifications of the Alban settlement on the Palatine, commonly called the walls of Romulus. 7. Altar dedicated to an unknown god (SEI DEO SEI DEIVAE) by Caius Sextius Calvinus. 8. Other remains of the earliest fortifications of the Palatine. 9. Ruins of the domus Gelo.iana, incorporated by Caligula into the imperial palace. Io. Room in which the caricature of the Crucifix was found. See plate, page 122. 11. Stadium for gymnastic and athletic sports, built by Domitian, restored by Septimius Severus, and transformed into a kind of SACRPA \/ſ. A 22 —ºve-HT1 . tº - ºn ti-l—1. H BALNEAHELAGABAL! Vang Barberini Dom Us NERONIANA amphitheatre by King Theodoric. 12. Imperial tribune. 13. Bathing-apartments connected with the Stadium. 14. A wing of the palace built by Septimius Severus. Its façade on the Via Triumphalis was called the Septizonium. See plate, page 126. 15. The Pulvinar, or balcony from which the emperors could witness the races of the Circus Maximus. 16. Remains of the domus Augustazia, discovered in 1792 by Ran- coureuil. 17. Halls built on an artificial platform over the deepest portion of the gorge which separated the northern from the southern sum- mit of the hill, namely, the Germaalus from the Velia. 18–25. Ruins of the palace built by Domitian for state receptions and banquets. (18.) Triclinium, or banqueting-hall. (19.) Bathing-apartments. (20.) Peristylium, or colonnade surrounding the great Court. (21.) Offices. (22.) Basilica. (23.) State reception hall, or Tablinzem. (24.) Lararium, or private chapel. (25.) A trium. 26. Remains of the earliest fortifications of the Palatine. 27. Street called Vicus Apollinis, leading from the Sacra J’ia to the temple and libraries of Apollo. 28. Probable site of the Porta Mugonia, one of the three gates of the Palatine settlement. 29. Foundations of the temple of Jupiter Stator. 3o. Cellars and storerooms. 31. Crypto-porticus, or subterranean passage in which the murder of Caligula took place. 32. Subterranean passage, leading from the palaces of Tiberius and Caligula to the palace of Domitian. It passed under a public square, called Area Palatina. 33. Basin or tank, supposed to be a zwizarium for fish. 34. House of Germanicus, famous for its paintings and for its excel- lent preservation. See plate, page Icg. 35. Puteal, or mouth of a well or cistern for rain-water. It dates from the first or second century of Rome. 36. Remains of a building not yet identified. 37. Temple of ºupiter Propugnator, or Victor. 38. A group of ruins, dating from the kingly period; bordering on a steep ascent, which leads from the zallis mureia up the Pala- tine, and which was called scala Cacá. 39. Temples of Cybele, called ades magmae Deſtm Matris. 40, 40. Southwest front of the domizes Täberiazza, or palace of Tiberius. 41, 42, 43. Substructions of the palace of Caligula. 44. Baths, opening on the Sacra Pia, supposed to have been built by Helagabalus. ARCUS CONSTANT IN 1 O N tº º Ti §tlyet, Hº LAN () F THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. gº : THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 107 We know that the house of Hortensius, chosen by Augus- tus, was surrounded by those of Clodius, Scaurus, Crassus, Caecina, Sisenna, Flaccus, Catilina, and other members of the aristocracy. I am persuaded, however, that the secret of the selection is to be found in the simplicity, I will even say in the poverty, of the dwelling; in fact, such extreme modesty is worthy the good sense and the spirit of moder- ation shown by Augustus throughout his career. He could very well sacrifice appearances to the reality of an un- bounded power. It is just, at any rate, to recognize that even in his remotest resorts for temporary rest and retire- ment from the cares of government he led the same kind of plain, modest life, spending all his leisure hours in ar- ranging his collections of natural history, more especially the palaeo-ethnological or prehistoric, for which the ossifer- ous caverns of the Island of Capri supplied him with abun- dant materials. It was only after the victory of Actium that, finding himself master of the world, he thought it expedient to give up, in a certain measure, his former habits, and live in better style. Having bought through his agents (per pro- curatores) some of the aristocratic palaces adjoining the old house of Hortensius, among them the historical palace of Catilina, he built a new and very handsome residence, but declared at the same time that he considered it as pub- lic property, not as his own. The solemn dedication of the palace took place on January 14th, of the year 26 before Christ. Here he lived, sleeping always in the same small cubiculum, for twenty-eight years; that is to say, until the third year after Christ, when the palace was almost de- stroyed by fire. As soon as the news of the disaster spread throughout the Empire, an almost incredible amount of money was subscribed at once, by all orders of citizens, to pro- 108 THE PA / ACE OF THE CAESARS. vide him with a new residence; and although, with his usual moderation, he would consent to accept only one denarius from each individual subscriber, it is easy to imagine how many millions he must have realized in spite of his modesty. A new, magnificent palace rose from the ruins of the old one, but it does not appear that the plan and arrange- ment were changed; otherwise Augustus could not have continued to sleep in the same room during the last ten years of his life, as we are told positively that he did. The work of Augustus was continued by his successor and kinsman, Tiberius, who built a new wing (domus Tiberiana) near the northwest corner of the hill, over- looking the Velabrum. Caligula filled with new structures the whole space between the domus Tiberiana and the Roman forum. Nero, likewise, occupied with a new pal- ace the southeast corner of the hill, overlooking the valley, where the Coliseum was afterwards built. Domitian rebuilt the domus Augustana, injured by fire, adding to its ac- commodations a stadium for gymnastic sports. The same emperor raised an altogether new palace in the space be- tween the house of Augustus, on one side, and those of Caligula and Tiberius on the other. Septimius Severus and his son restored the whole group of imperial buildings, add- ing a new wing at the southwest corner, known under the name of Septizonium. The latest additions, of no special importance, took place under Julia Mamaea (diaetae Mam- meianae) and Helagabalus (baths on the Sacred Way). It is impossible for me to give a minute description of this immense and complicated mass of structures; to render such a description intelligible I ought to make use of an indefinite number of plans, diagrams, sections, and photo- graphs, and even then I am not sure that I could reach the necessary degree of clearness. One must be on the ---- __）~~~~）. ：-） . . . . . .|×|…）|× __） ſae.ſae|×|-：|-|- |× " - - - - |- - | ----- ----- RUINS OF THE PALACE OF TIBERIUS. THE PALA C E OF THE CAESARS. 109 spot; one must examine de visu those endless suites of apartments, halls, terraces, porticoes, crypts, cellars, to ap- preciate the difficulty of the problem. Every emperor, to a certain extent, enlarged, altered, destroyed, and recon- Remains of the House of Germanicus. structed the work of his predecessors; cutting new open- ings, walling up old ones, subdividing large rooms into Smaller apartments, and changing their destination. Coming now to some particulars concerning a few of the leading portions of this immense group of buildings, I must remark that one section alone of the imperial Palatine buildings remained unaltered, and kept the former simpli- city of its plan down to the fall of the Empire, — the sec- tion built by Augustus across the centre of the hill, which comprised the main entrance, or propylaia, the portico sur- rounding the templé of Apollo, the temple itself, the Greek and Latin libraries, the shrine of Westa, and the imperial 110 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. residence. A brief description of this group, so simple and yet so magnificent, will be easily understood, and will con- vey to the mind of the reader the true idea of the aspect which the palace of the Caesars, taken as a whole, presented in the golden age of the Roman Empire to the astonished eyes of a foreign visitor. - The state entrance was approached from the Sacra Via by a wide street, named vicus Apollinis, the street of Apollo, from the Sanctuary to which it led. On the top of the central arch of this state entrance Augustus had placed one of Lysias's masterpieces, a chariot drawn by four horses, driven by Apollo and Diana, the whole group being cut out of a single block of marble. This archway seems to have been rediscovered about 1575. Flaminius Vacca, a sculptor and an antiquarian of the time of Sixtus W., who has left a diary or register of discoveries which took place in his lifetime, says: “I remember to have seen in the pal- ace of the Caesars, near the Farnese grounds, the remains of a colossal gate, with posts of Greek marble twenty-nine feet high, and with a niche of African marble which must have been formerly on the top of it.” Passing across the threshold of the propylaia, the visitor found himself at once before the most marvellous sight which human eyes have ever witnessed. There is certainly no exaggeration in the words of contemporary writers, when they give to this group the epithet of golden, of perfect, and of the chef d'oeuvre of Augustan magnificence. The peristyle, surrounding the sacred area paved with white marble, contained fifty-two fluted columns of giallo antico, many of which, more or less broken, were dis- covered on the spot by Pope Alexander VII., by Vespi. gnani in 1869, and by ourselves in 1877. As regards the number of the shafts, there is no doubt that there were THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 111 at least fifty-two, because fifty intercolumniations were occupied by the statues of the Danaids, and one by the statue of their prolific father. In the open space, in front of the figures of the Danaids, stood equestrian statues of their miserable husbands, the sons of Egypt. Many torsos and fragments belonging to this army of statues, the work of the best Greek chisels of Augustus's age, were re- covered on the spot, just three centuries ago. The account of their discovery is given by the same Flaminius Vacca whom I mentioned above : “I remember to have witnessed the discovery of eighteen or twenty torsos, or statues, repre- senting Amazons, a trifle larger than life-size. They were lying under the Ronconi garden, in the centre of the palace of the Caesars. I recollect, also, that in mending the wine- press, the said Ronconi discovered a beautiful marble statue imbedded in the wall. It represents Hercules, and bears on the plinth the signature ATXIIITIO'ſ EPTON, the work of Lysippus. Duke Cosimo de' Medici bought the figure from Ronconi for 800 scudi, and removed it to Florence, where it is still to be seen.” It is evident that Flaminius Vacca, a faithful but simple and unlearned diarist, mistakes Dan- aids for Amazons. As to the fate of the twenty statues, I am afraid they must have come to their end in a limekiln or in a foundation wall. On the west side of the portico, behind the temple of Apollo, was the library of the same name, in two sections, the Greek and the Latin, with a reading-hall between them large enough to accommodate the whole Senate on state oc- casions, and to hold a colossus fifty feet high. This library did not contain books upon every branch of human learn- ing. It is certain that historical works were not included in the catalogue. Vopiscus, the imperial biographer, declares that he collected the materials for the life of Probus from 112 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. books preserved in the library of the palace of Tiberius and in that of Trajan's forum. This means, we believe, that no such documents were to be found in the library of Apollo. Its formal destination has been made known to us by an anonymous scholiast of Juvenal, who, commenting on the 128th verse of the first satire, says: bibliothecam iuris ci- vilis et liberalium studiorum in templo Apollinis palatini dedicawit Augustus. “The Augustan library by the tem- ple of Apollo is devoted to books on civil law and on the liberal arts.” The Romans, after all, knew perfectly well how much more advantageous to science is the institution of special libraries for one single branch of human learn- ing than the institution of miscellaneous, universal, encyclo- paedic arsenals of books, which can scarcely keep up with the times, and reach the necessary degree of completeness in every department. Another peculiarity of literary Ro- man establishments and reading-rooms was the absolute exclusion of trash ; the honor of appearing on the scri- nia, or shelves, was reserved to standard works only, even when the productions of contemporary writers. The Greek and the Latin sections of the library of Apollo were placed under the supervision of a carefully selected staff of officials, under the high directorship of a procurator bibliothecarum Augusti, superintendent of imperial libraries. The principal ornament of the hall was a colossal bronze statue, fifty feet high, representing Augustus with the attri- butes of Apollo. It was the work of an Italian artist, and was cast successfully in Rome, in spite of its enormous size. Nardini attributes to this colossus the bronze head, six feet high, which is preserved in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol, because its size is exactly proportionate to that assigned by Pliny to the whole figure, — whereas it THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 113 would be too small for the colossus of Nero, the height of which was exactly double that of the Palatine statue. The walls of the reading-room were covered with medallions of the most celebrated authors and orators, some in repoussé work of gold and silver, some cast in bronze. Tacitus re- lates how the son of M. Hortalus, having been called to defend himself before the Senate assembled in this reading- hall, would sometimes turn towards the medallion of Hor- tensius the orator, sometimes towards the image of Augus- tus. The medallions were disposed in groups of poets, historians, lawyers, orators, and so forth. In the same library, rare specimens of palaeography were exhibited. Pliny, in the seventh book of his “Natural History,” after declaring how closely old Greek handwriting resembled the Latin, adds: “I can bring the evidence of an archaic bronze inscription from Delphi, which Augustus has placed in his library as a specimen of palaeography.” It is prob- able that in this reading-room were held the sittings of the literary academies and societies, described by Pliny the younger in his letter to Sosius Senecio (I, 13), which were the delight of the Emperor Claudius, the abhorrence and the horror of literary men, who were obliged by their con- nection with the imperial court to lose hours upon hours in listening to silly and narcotic lecturers. Nothing could be more graphic than the description by Pliny of one of these compulsory sittings. “We approach the hall,” he says, “as if we were compelled by main force ; many of us sit outside of the door, and try to overcome the ennui by discussing the gossip of the town. Messengers are sur- reptitiously sent in to inquire whether the lecturer has really made his appearance, whether he has finished his prologue, or how many sheets are still left to be read. Then, when we hear that the moment of deliverance is 114 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. not very far off, we come in slowly, sit on the edge of our chairs, and do not even wait for the end of the dis- course to slip or steal quietly away.” The temple of Apollo, which stood in the centre of the square portico, between the propylaia and the libraries, was built entirely of Carrara marble. The front of the temple was covered with bas-reliefs in Parian marble, the work of Bupalos and Anthermos of Chios, the favorite artists of Augustus. On the top of the pediment, the chariot of arº.2 * * ºf gº, Aºû, g Section of a Frieze from the Temple of Apollo. Apollo, of gilt bronze, shone under the rays of the sun. The two sides of the door were incrusted with ivory bas- reliefs, representing on one side the extermination of Niobe's family, on the other the flight of the Gauls from Delphi. Inside of the temple, the attention of the visitor was particularly attracted by the group of Apollo playing on the lyre, between his mother and sister, the work of three famous sculptors. Scopas had made the Apollo ; Cephisodotos, son of Praxiteles, Latona; and Timotheos had modelled the figure of Diana. The central group was surrounded by the nine Muses. Other works of art are described by Pliny. “Great predilection,” he says, “is shown by artists and amateurs for hanging chandeliers, or for candelabras cast in the shape of trees, which bear lamps instead of fruit. The finest specimen of this kind of work THE PALACE OF THE CESARS. 115 is preserved in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, a work remarkable also for its historical association, having been seized by Alexander the Great in the storming of Thebes, and afterwards dedicated in the Temple of Cyme.” There was also a collection of gold plate, and especially of tri- pods. Augustus had ordered these to be made out of the money raised by the melting of all the silver statues which provincial servility had set up in his honor and against his will. Finally, we have the record of a collection of en- graved gems and cameos, a present offered to the god by Marcellus, son of Octavia and nephew of Augustus. Inside of the pedestal that supported the statue of Apollo two golden chests were concealed, in which Augustus had deposited, as in a safe, the Sibylline books. The last ac- count I have been able to find of these Sibylline books, so intimately connected with the history of Rome and of the world, belongs to the year 363 of the Christian era. In the winter of that year, more precisely in the night between the 18th and 19th of March, the Temple of Apollo caught fire, and was destroyed to the very foundations. The only things which the firemen, led by Apronianus, prefect of police, could save from the conflagration were the Sibylline books. Their subsequent fate is utterly unknown. Of the shrine of Westa, which occupied the space between the li- braries and the palace of Augustus, there is but little to say, except that it was round in shape and built in imitation of its prototype on the Sacred Way. Summing up the brief description I have given of the architectural group raised by Augustus on the Palatine, and which formed, as it were, the vestibule to his own imperial residence, we know with absolute certainty that it contained at least one hundred and twenty columns of the rarest kinds of marbles and breccias, fifty-two of which were of Numi- 116 THE PAI, ACE OF THE CAESARS. dian marble, with capitals of gilt bronze; a group by Lysias, comprising one chariot, four horses, and two driv- ers, all cut in a single block of marble; the Hercules of Lysippus; the Apollo of Scopas; the Latona of Cephiso- dotos; the Diana of Timotheos; the bas-reliefs of the ped- iment by Bupalos and Anthermos; the quadriga of the sun in gilt bronze ; exquisite ivory carvings; a bronze colossus fifty feet high ; hundreds of medallions in gold, silver, and bronze ; gold and silver plate ; a collection of gems and cameos; and, lastly, candelabras which had been the property of Alexander the Great, and the admiration of the East. Has the world ever seen a collection of greater artistic and material value exhibited in a single building 2 And we must recollect that the group built by Augustus com- prises only a very modest section of the Palatine; that to his palace we must join the palaces of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius Severus, Julia Ma- maea, and Helagabalus; that each one of these imperial resi- dences equalled the residence of Augustus, if not in pure taste, certainly in wealth, in luxury, in magnificence, in the number and value of works of art collected and stolen from Greece and the East, from Egypt and Persia. By multi- plying eight or ten times the list I have given above, the reader will get an approximate idea of the “home * of the Roman emperors in its full pride and glory. I have deliberately excluded from my description the res- idence or private house of Augustus, because he himself had deliberately excluded from it any trace of that grandeur he had so lavishly bestowed on the buildings which consti- tuted the approach to it. As regards Caligula's buildings, which extended from Tiberius's palace to the northeast corner of the hill, over - - , , ; *, 3. .* % /3% _2^* … z º., 2 % ºzº, • '; , Eh! 2: 3 3%zº. Žſº º \ à%% ſºº fºſſ: t º % tº § §§§§ & | ºff: * # ºl º º º # ſº º f , &\\\\\ # º %’% º lif \\\\ſ º 3. \\ * *.* * g º * " .. | º ilt sº% %: § Yº Nº N Nº. 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THE PALA C E OF THE CAESARS. 117 looking the forum, the best preserved portion of them is a long cryptoporticus, or subterranean passage, represented in the illustration below. On January 24th, A. D. 41, a scene of horror took place 3'W., 2% .A.%, ſº % £ %; y % % *sº, , & g ‘A’s . 3% % % % % % [. * §§ #/ %. ſ % A & º % ºf % y º * § §%. ** %% ºr ... • 22 §§ ś - Corridor in which Caligula was murdered. in this dark corridor, – the murder of the Emperor Ca- ligula. Whoever will endeavor to picture in his mind all the revolting circumstances of that death, as described by Flavius Josephus, will hear echoing again in the long vaulted crypt the last cries of the frantic young prince, fallen on his knees, and trying to avert with his feeble hands the last implacable blows of his assassins. 118 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. Caligula had spent the morning of that eventful day in attending to the ludi palatini, or scenic plays, which Livia had instituted permanently in honor of Augustus, and which were usually performed on a wooden stage, built for the occasion, in front of the palace itself. Having left the performance towards noon, Caligula walked with his attendants towards the palace, entering by the main gate- way. But once inside, instead of proceeding by the usual way, that is, by the state court-yard and staircase, where the body-guard was in attendance, and whither he had been preceded by Claudius, he suddenly turned to the right, and entered, as the historian says, a solitary and obscure corridor, which led to the bathing apartments. He was tempted to pass this unusual way by the desire of meeting some young noblemen from Asia, whom he had invited to the imperial court to be trained in singing hymns and in performing the sacred pyrrhic dance. Having halted a few minutes to speak to them, and to ascertain the state of their training, he was met by Cassius Cherea, the captain on duty and leader of the conspiracy, who asked the young prince the password for the day. Receiving an exceedingly profane answer, Cassius Cherea with his poniard struck the first blow. Caligula tried to escape towards the group of terrified youths from Asia, but Cornelius Sabinus, who had joined the conspiracy, knocked him down, and held him firm until the deed was accom plished. The conspirators, now that they had succeeded in their murderous attempt, fearing for their own safety, tried to escape unobserved. Not daring, however, to go back the same way they had entered the crypt, for the dread of the sentinels who kept watch at the main gateway, they ran through the other end of the corridor, and concealed THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 119 themselves in the house of Germanicus, which had been incorporated in Caligula's palace. A strange occurrence, indeed, that the murderers of the son of Germanicus should seek refuge in the house of his own father The historical corridor just described, and the apartments which adjoin it on the north side, are not the only additions º %ft, | The Domus Gelotiana. made by Caligula to the imperial palace. He appears to have purchased and embodied in the crown property an- other large house, belonging to a certain Gelotius and hence called domus Gelotiana; and this acquisition was made, not for any want of additional space and accommodation, but to satisfy the mania of the prince for the games of the circus, for horses and grooms. Caligula was a passionate supporter of the squadron of the greens,” so much so that he used to spend days and nights in their stables, sharing their dinners and suppers, and indulging with them in all * For details about the various squadrons or factiones, see chapter on Police. 120 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. sorts of excesses. This house of Gelotius was bought be- cause it lay nearer to the circus than any other building on the Palatine, and because, by simply crossing it, the prince could reach, undisturbed and unseen, his favorite place among the “greens.” From an inscription discovered in Rome in the seventeenth century, which mentions a Sym- phorus tesserarius, or ticket collector, de domo Gelotiana, we gather that this house on solemn occasions could con- tain a large number of guests. Its importance to us, how- ever, is not derived from its connection with the circus, but from the considerable number of graffiti, or scribblings, which cover its walls. The mania for writing on the plaster in public or private buildings, with a nail or a sharp point of any kind, was per- haps stronger in àncient times than it is now. It must have been tolerated by municipal regulations. In that portion of Pompeii which has been unearthed up to the present time, not less than six thousand graffiti have been copied and published; and we have gained more knowledge of the life and habits, the love and business transactions, and the political feelings, of the Pompeians from this source than from any other written or engraved documents. In Rome, not a single edifice escaped the nail and the pocket-knife of idlers or schoolboys. Wherever there was a flat surface of marble or plaster, no matter whether horizontal or vertical, there you are sure to find some more or less interesting rec- ord: checked gambling-tables, caricatures, alphabets, pro- fane words, sentences, emblems, and the like. The dread which neat people felt for scratchers on walls was such that we have actually found a marble inscription outside the Porta Portuensis, which had been put up by a gen- tleman, in front of his property, and in which he begs passers-by not to scariphare or scratch the walls of his THE PALA C E OF THE CAESARS. 121 buildings. When graffiti are found in large numbers in one and the same place, they gain the importance of an historical document. Such are, for instance, those discov- ered in the barracks of the seventh battalion of police," which have revealed to us the most minute details regard- ing the organization and duties of that body; and such are, also, the graffiti, discovered in the year 1857, in the domus Gelotiana, which introduce us into the intimacy of the life of court servants of a higher class. It ap- pears from them, and from the records they contain, that after the murder of Caligula the house became a resi- dence and a training-school for court pages, who had re- ceived their first education in the imperial elementary school, called paedagogium ad caput Africa, from the name of a street which led from the Coliseum to the aris- tocratic quarter of the Coelian. The boys must have been delighted at their deliverance from the rod of the master, and their admittance into the palace; and accordingly they chronicle the happy event on the walls of their new residence with inscriptions modelled on the same pattern: Corinthus exit de padagogio, Marianus afer exit de pa:- dagogio, and so forth. There is another very spirited and -bright allusion to the hardships of school life, composed of a vignette and its explanation. The drawing repre- sents a donkey turning the mill; and the legend says, LABORA ASELLE QVOMODO EGO LABORAVI ET PRODERIT TIBI: “Work, work, little donkey, as I have worked my- self, and thou shalt be rewarded for it.” But by far the most interesting and most widely celebrated graffito of the whole set is the one discovered at the beginning of the year 1857 in the fourth room on the left of the entrance, re- * These barracks were discovered twenty years ago, near the church of S. Crisogono, in Trastevere. See chapter on the Police. 122 THE PA. LACE OF THE CAESARS. moved soon after to the Kircherian Museum at the Collegio Romano, where it is still to be seen. This graffito, illus- trated by Garrucci, Visconti, Becker, De Rossi, and Kraus, contains a blasphemous caricature of our Lord Jesus Christ, — a caricature designed only a few years after the first preaching of the gospel in Rome by the Apostles. Here is a photographic reproduction of the precious sketch. Our Lord is represented with the head of a donkey, tied to the cross, with the feet resting on a horizontal piece of board. To the left of the cross there is the figure of the Christian youth Alexamenos, with arms raised in adoration of his crucified God, and the whole composition is illustrated and explained by the legend, AAEEAMENOX >EBETE OEON: “Alexamenos worships (his) God.” During the rule of Claudius, the successor of Caligula, little or nothing was done towards the enlargement or the embellishment of the palace of the Caesars. Nero, how- ever, the successor of Claudius, conceived the gigantic plan of renewing and of rebuilding from the very foundations, not only the imperial residence, but the whole metropolis; and as the metropolis was crowded at every corner with shrines and altars and small temples which religious super- stition made absolutely inviolable, and as the slightest work of improvement was fiercely opposed by private own- ers of property, and gave occasion to an endless amount of lawsuits, and appraisals, and fights among the experts, he rid himself of all these difficulties in the simplest and cleverest way. He ordered his favorite architects, Severus and Celer, to draw a new plan of the city, and to draw it according to the best principles of hygiene and comfort; then he caused an enormous quantity of wooden booths and tents to be secretly prepared, and ordered fleets of grain- CARICATURE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. In the Kircherian Museum, Rome. THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 123 laden vessels to be kept in readiness to sail from the various harbors of the Mediterranean at a moment's notice. Having taken all these precautions, and insured the suc- cess of his stratagem as far as human foresight could, Nero set the whole city into a blaze of fire, and did it so neatly that although, of the fourteen regions, or wards, into which Rome had been divided by Augustus, three were an- . nihilated completely and seven for the greater part, yet not a single human life seems to have been lost in the gigantic conflagration. The homeless crowds found a ready and comfortable shel- ter under the booths and tents, raised by thousands in pub- lic parks and squares; at the same time, a large number of vessels laden with grain from Sardinia, Sicily, Numidia, and Egypt appeared at the mouth of the Tiber, and relieved the emperor from any anxiety as far as famine was concerned. These vessels, as soon as they had discharged their cargoes, were filled up again with the débris of the conflagration, which was thrown into the marshes surrounding the delta of the Tiber. * Even in our age of progress, and material improvement, and comfort, we cannot help admiring the profound wisdom shown by the two imperial architects, Severus and Celer, in designing and rebuilding the city. The straight line and the right angle were followed, as far as could be done in a hilly region, in tracing the new streets and avenues through the still smoking ruins. Hasty and irregular constructions were forbidden; the line of frontage of each new building had to be sanctioned and approved by one of the official surveyors. Large squares were opened in place of filthy, thickly inhabited quarters. The height of private houses was not allowed to exceed double the width of the street, and porticoes were to be built in front of each one, to pro- 124 THE PAI, ACE OF THE CAESARS. vide the citizens with cool, sheltered walks in case of rain or of excessive heat. Lastly, wooden ceilings were excluded from the lower story of private dwellings, and absolute isolation on every side made compulsory. In the rebuilding of the city the emperor secured for himself the lion’s share; and his Golden House, domus aurea, of which we possess such beautiful remains, occu- pied the whole extent from the Palatine to the Viminal, where now the central railway station has been erected. Its area amounted to nearly a square mile : and this enor- mous district was appropriated, or rather usurped, by the emperor, right in the centre of a city numbering about two million inhabitants. Of the wonders of the Golden House it is enough to say that there were comprised within the precincts of the en- chanting residence waterfalls supplied by an aqueduct fifty miles long; lakes and rivers shaded by dense masses of foliage, with harbors and docks for the imperial galleys; a vestibule containing a bronze colossus one hundred and twenty feet high ; - porticoes three thousand feet long; farms and vineyards, pasture-grounds and woods teeming with the rarest and costliest kind of game; zoölogical and botanical gardens; sulphur baths supplied from the springs of the aqua Albulae, twelve miles distant ; sea baths sup- plied from the waters of the Mediterranean, sixteen miles distant at the nearest point; thousands of columns crowned with capitals of Corinthian gilt metal; thousands of statues stolen from Greece and Asia Minor; walls encrusted with gems and mother-of-pearl; banqueting-halls with ivory ceilings, from which rare flowers and precious perfumes could fall gently on the recumbent guests. More marvel- lous still was the ceiling of the state dining-room. It was spherical in shape, and cut in ivory, to represent the con- • • • � • • • • * @ e * � � � � � º er • • • THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 125 stellated skies, and kept in constant motion by machinery in imitation of the movements of the stars and planets. All these details sound like fairy-tales, like the dream of a fertile imagination; still they are described minutely by contemporary and serious writers, by Suetonius, by Martial, and by Tacitus. Suetonius adds that the day Nero took possession of his Golden House, he was heard to exclaim, “At last I am lodged like a man.” The wonders created by him, however, did not last very long. Otho, his successor, on the very day of his election to the throne, signed an order of fifty millions of sesterces (two million dollars) ad peragendam auream domum, - to bring the Golden House to perfection; but after his murder Wespasian and Titus gave back to the people the greater portion of the ground usurped by Nero. They built the Colosseum on the very spot of Nero's artificial lake, and the thermae of Titus on the foundation of his private palace; they respected only that portion of Nero's insane construc- tions which was comprised within the boundaries of the Palatine hill. This section of the imperial palace, facing the Colosseum and the great fountain named the Meta sudans, has been charmingly described by Cardinal Wise- man as the scene of St. Sebastian's martyrdom. It is the only portion of the Palatine that has never been excavated, —at least, as far as we can judge; and, accordingly, I have little or nothing to say about it. Vespasian and his sons, in their turn, could not resist the temptation of doing something to the imperial residence; and as the houses of Tiberius and Caligula (on the northern summit of the hill) were separated from the house of Augustus (on the southern summit) by a deep gorge, they filled up the gap by means of huge vaulted substructures, and on the artificial platform thus obtained they raised a new building, the Flavian 126 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. palace, the handsomest and noblest of the whole Palatine group, and used exclusively for state receptions and state banquets. The chronology of the group, as far as important or in- teresting additions are concerned, ends with Septimius Sev- erus, who built a magnificent palace at the south corner of the hill, facing the Appian Way and the road to Ostia, in order, as his sharp-tongued biographer says, that his Afri- can countrymen, arriving in Rome by the way of Pozzuoli and Ostia, might be struck at once with a specimen of his grandeur. And magnificent indeed was the wing of the palace built by Septimius Severus, and called Septizonium, because it was seven stories high. The terrace on the top of the building towered to the height of 210 feet above the level of the surrounding streets, commanding one of the finest views over the metropolis. After Severus, we have records of more or less important restorations to the palace, not of additions; unless this name may be given to some baths constructed by Helaga- balus, between Nero's house and the Via Sacra, the remains of which were brought to light in 1874. The mention I have made of that infamous youth leads me to speak of a very curious and scarcely known incident in which he plays a prominent part. In the year 549 of Rome, the high-priests, after consulting the Sibylline books on the issue of the second Punic war, found that, to insure the safety and the prosperity of the Roman Commonwealth, it was necessary to send an embassy to Pessinus in Phrygia, to get possession of a meteoric stone, fallen from heaven, which was worshipped there under the name of the “Great Mother of the Gods,” or Cybele. The embassy succeeded in securing the stone, and I need not repeat the beautiful description which Livy has left THE SEPTIZONIUM IN THE XVITH CENTURY. From a drawing ºy an unknown artist in the Cºsì, Florence. THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 127 (xxiv. 14) of its arrival and solemn reception in Rome. On April 4th of the following year, 550, the precious relic was deposited temporarily in the temple of Victory, on the Palatine; and twelve years later it was finally located in a temple built for the purpose by the censors M. Livius and C. Claudius, known to topographers and historians as the temple of the great mother of the gods: a des magna Deum Matris. We possess a very accurate description of this meteoric stone: it was conical in shape, of a deep brown color; it looked like a piece of lava, and ended in a point so sharp that Servius calls it acus Matris Deum, the “needle” of Cybele. The stone was set in a silver statue of the goddess, in place of the head. Among the wild manias of Helagabalus, Herodianus describes the attempt to collect in his private chapel, attached to the palace of the Caesars, the most sacred relics of the Roman Empire, such as the Palladium, the ancilia, and, of course, the meteoric stone of Pessinus. So far as this last is concerned he succeeded in his attempt: he stole the relic from the temple, and placed it in his chapel, under the name of Sol Helagabalus, the Sun Helagabalus. The description left by Herodianus of the stone is absolutely identical with the description of the needle of Cybele. “The stone,” he says, “is very large, shaped as a cone, and black in color. People think it a stone fallen from heaven, and believe also that some acci- dental irregularities in the surface represent the image of the sun, modelled by supernatural hands.” When the excavations of the palace of the Caesars began, about twenty years ago, I felt sanguine of the recovery of this relic, since it was an object too common to have attracted the attention either of the barbarians, when they pillaged the palace, or of former excavators, unacquainted 128 THE PAZACE OF THE CAESARS. with its value. My hopes were disappointed, however; and it is only lately that I have learned of its discovery, and probable destruction, in 1730. In reading the book written by Monsignor Francesco Bianchini on the excava- tions carried on in the Palatine by Duke Francis of Parma, at the beginning of last century (a book which is little known in spite of its enormous size and the useful information it contains), I have found the following pas- sage. After describing the discovery of the private chapel of the emperors, Monsignor Bianchini says: “I am sorry that no fragment of a statue, or bas-relief, or inscription has been found in the chapel, because this absence of any positive indication prevents us from ascertaining the name of the divinity to whom the place was principally dedicated. The only object which I discovered in it was a stone nearly three feet high, conical in shape, of a deep brown color, looking very much like a piece of lava, and ending in a sharp point. No attention was paid to it, and I know not what became of it.” I shall bring this chapter to a close with a few remarks on the inhabitants of the enormous mass of dwellings which the palace of the Caesars formed. The organization of the imperial household, the number of the servants and attendants, the title and the nature of their duties, are details perfectly well known and full of interest, especially if compared with the organization of modern “maisons royales; ” and the way we have gained our information on the subject is this. Servants attached to the person or to the house of an emperor or an empress, as well as servants attached to the person or to the house of a patrician, usually bound themselves into a corporation, a collegium as it was called, for the purpose of providing THE PALACE OF THE CESARS. 129 themselves with a common and decent resting-place, with a proper funeral, and with the view of securing a suitable commemoration on the anniversary day of their death. Sometimes the columbaria were bought by subscription, raised among the servants of one family or of one person; sometimes servants of two or more persons or families joined in the purchase; sometimes their lords and masters would present them with the much-wished-for resting-place. Columbaria of ordinary size contain from thirty to fifty in- cinerated bodies, and each cinerary urn is labelled with a marble slab, giving the name, the age, and the official title of the deceased. I need not explain what an amount of use- ful and genuine information can be gathered from the dis- covery of well-preserved columbaria belonging to one house- hold. We are able to make a personal review of its various members; we can investigate their life and condition; we can picture in our minds the organization of a rich house, no matter whether patrician or imperial. Hundreds of these columbaria have been discovered since the Renaissance. Two, however, deserve special attention, as capable of throwing ample light on the matter which I have undertaken to illustrate : the columbaria of the servants of the Statilii and the columbaria of the servants of the Empress Livia: one describing the household of a patrician family, noblest among the noble, and connected with the imperial family by the marriage of one of its members, Statilia Messalina, to Claudius; the other describing the household of an empress. I bring the two instances into comparison to show what little difference in luxury and comfort there was between the house of the sovereign and that of a wealthy subject; and to show also how poor the millionaires of to-day must feel in presence of such a dis- play of grandeur and of such legions of attendants. 130 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. The columbaria of the servants of the Statilian family came to light in 1875, in that portion of the Esquiline cemetery which stretches from the so-called temple of Minerva Medica to the Porta Maggiore. The excavations lasted only a few weeks; but in this short time not less than five hundred and sixty-six inscriptions were discovered, together with many hundred objects in terra-cotta, glass, bone, ivory, bronze, gold, silver, marble, belonging to the funeral Supellew of the deceased. Later excavations, car- ried on in the same place in 1880 by the municipality of Rome, have brought the total number of inscribed tomb- stones, discovered within an area of a few thousand square feet, to more than eight hundred. The columbaria of the servants and freedmen of the house of Augustus, and especially of Livia, his empress, were discovered between November, 1725, and January, 1726, in a vineyard then belonging to Giuseppe Benci, on the left side of the Appian Way, at the exact distance of 5,800 feet outside Porta S. Sebastiano. The discovery was beautifully illustrated by an eye-witness, Monsignore Fran- cesco Bianchini, from whose book, dated 1727, I quote the following particulars. He begins by remarking that be- tween the first and the second milestone of the Appian Way many tombs had been discovered already, all built by Augustus for his household; that one of them, found by Fabretti near the bridge spanning the river Almo, con- tained in its three rooms more than three thousand cine- rary urns. The ashes of an equal number of persons had been deposited in the tombs which he describes. The con- sequence is, that in two sepulchres only, comprising six rooms, not less than sia, thousand servants and officials of one emperor and of his relatives were buried, -a number which would seem altogether incredible if we did not pos. THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 131 sess the evidence of many eye-witnesses and that of the tombs themselves, which still exist, although in a state of great dilapidation. It is true that Augustus reigned for nearly half a century, and that, for a reason which I fail to comprehend, many of his servants died very young, and consequently were replaced by others many times during his lifetime. It is true that, besides the servants strictly so called, their children and brothers or sisters were sometimes buried with them. Still, the number of six thousand, as a minimum, is simply astonishing. Out of this powerful army not less than six hundred were attached to the per- son of Livia. • One circumstance which helps us to explain such an ex- traordinary state of things is this: the offices and duties which in modern times, and even in the richest houses, are intrusted to one or two individuals, in ancient times were divided and subdivided to an almost ridiculous extent. Take, for instance, the department of the wardrobes. There were, in Livia's household, a Parmenius, a purpura, keeper of purple robes; an Arion, a veste matutina, keeper of the morning-dresses; a Rhodanus, a veste regia, keeper of the imperial robe; a Bira Canaciana, a veste magna, keeper of state robes; a Eutactus, capsarius, keeper of overcoats; a Blastus, lanipendius, keeper of the manufactured woollen goods; and then many vestiplici or vestiplica, folders of clothes. Take also the department of the personal toilet. We have a general officer ab ornamentis, whose duties, however, are not well defined; an Aponia, a tutulo ornatriæ, a specialist in dressing the hair in the fashion of a high towpet ; a Helico, ad unguenta, keeper of perfumery; eight aurifices, or goldsmiths, an indefinite number of margaritarii, or jewellers; a Secundus, aquarius, or reg- ulator of hot and cold water for the bath; a M. Livius, 132 THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. calciator, keeper and maker of imperial shoes; a Verania, a sandalio, keeper of that special kind of shoes which were called sandals; a Julia Hilara, ornatria; ; another Julia, auriculae ornatria; ; a Calene, untria, and so forth. The same subdivisions of duties occur in the department of silver and gold plate. Then there was a Lydus, a sede Augusta, keeper of Livia's chair; an Aurelia, a cura catella, governess of the favorite pet dog; a Syneros, ad imagines, keeper of family portraits, and so on. It is no wonder, with the particulars which I have given, that the servants of the various members of the imperial family reached such large numbers; indeed, their number was so large that, to provide for their assistance in case of sick- ness, not one, but many physicians of both sexes were per- manently engaged, and placed under the direction of a head physician, supra medicos, named M. Livius Orestes. The servants attached to the person of Statilius Taurus, consul in the year 764, and to his children, numbered at least three hundred and seventy. I say at least, because the columbaria discovered in 1875 on the Esquiline could not have contained the whole body of servants; there were other tombs of the Statilian household, as proved by in- scriptions discovered much nearer the Porta Maggiore in 1880, in which the mention of Statilian freedmen occurs many times. I shall give the titles of such of them as seem curious and full of interest. First of all comes an Asturconarius, keeper of the Spanish horse which Statilius Taurus had bought in the province of Asturia, a province famous for its breed of easy riding-horses. Then comes a puer capsarius, a boy who carried the overcoat for his master; two wet-nurses, nu- trices; a midwife, obstetria: ; a collector of legacies and bequests; a locator of town and country property; a keeper THE PALACE OF THE CAESARS. 133 of the family tomb; a keeper of the clothes of the grand- father; a keeper of bathing implements, such as sponges, scraping-knives, ointments, and so on. Amidst this vari- ety of duties intrusted to male servants, from the washer- man, fullo, to medicus ocularius, or oculist, we find females employed in a very restricted number of occupations, almost exclusively in carding wool. The carding of wool at home was one of the oldest traditional occupations of a Roman lady, held in great estimation as late as the beginning of the Empire. The highest praise which could be bestowed on the mother of the family was contained in the words, Domum servavit, lanam fecit, “She stayed at home to card the wool.” The family of Statilius Taurus seems to have kept faithful to the simplicity of good old times, in spite of the high rank and the honors and riches acquired at the beginning of the Empire. On the tombstones dis- covered in the columbaria at the Porta Maggiore, we find the mention of a female director of the wool manufactory (lanipenda), a weaver and carder of wools (tonstria), and a large number of dressmakers and spinners (sarcinatrices and quasillaria). The wool manufactory was probably established in a separate wing of the mansion, apart from the men's quarters, and its entrance was watched by a doorkeeper, ostiaria. CHAPTER WI. THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. THE discovery of the House of the Westals, at the foot of the Palatine hill, has supplied the friends and admirers of old Rome with a new and fascinating subject of inquiry. After toiling so long over ground searched and pillaged many a time before, with no prospect or hope of surprising discoveries, our perseverance in excavating the Roman fo- rum and its vicinity has at last been splendidly rewarded. The discovery of the Atrium Westæ (the official denomina- tion of the convent) settles at once all controversy con- cerning the topography of this famous district of ancient Rome; and this scientific achievement has been accompa- nied by no less important material results. Between the middle of December, 1883, and the end of the following Jan- uary, we brought to light fifteen marble pedestals, with eulogistic inscriptions describing the life of the Vestales Maxima (the official title of the elder Vestals, or high- priestesses of Westa); five inscriptions relating to historical subjects; eleven life-size statues; nine important fragments of statues; twenty-seven busts and portrait heads; eight hundred and thirty-four silver coins; one gold coin; two pieces of jewelry; several columns of breccia coralina and of breccia di Egitto, which rank among the finest speci- mens of antique marbles; besides many other fragments, which, in a less promising land, would be regarded as a treasure by themselves. In my long experience and practice of archaeological re- THE ATRIUM VESTÆ, LOOKING FAST. THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 135 search and literature, never have I met with a subject more delightful and interesting. Historical accounts of this lovely sisterhood have a charm of their own, which we fail to recognize in other Roman religious corporations. In speaking of the Vestal Virgins, in describing their house, – the secrets of which, from the foundation of Rome to the fall of the Empire, were never revealed to mankind, - it is impossible not to give the reins to imagination and sentiment. Let us recall to life the silent ruins; let us vivify these halls, these porticoes, with the presence of maid- ens clad in snow-white garments, which reflected, as it were, the purity of their minds and souls; in the very prime of beauty, youth, and strength; daughters of the noblest families; depositaries of state secrets, confidants of the im- perial household, and faithful keepers of the sacred tokens of the Roman Commonwealth. The very faults committed by a few Westals in the lapse of eleven centuries, and the penalties they underwent to expiate their shame, quiver- ing under the bloody rod of the high-priest, or breathing their last breath in the solitude of the tomb, in which they had been buried alive, – these sins and these expiations, I say, deeply affect the minds of visitors to the house, and still more, the minds of those who have selected it as a special subject of investigation. The origin of the worship of Westa is very simple. In prehistoric times, when fire could be obtained only from the friction of two sticks of dry wood, or from sparks of flint, every village kept a public fire burning day and night, in a central hut, at the disposition of each family. The care of watching the precious element was intrusted to young girls, because girls, as a rule, did not follow their parents and brothers to the far-away pasture-grounds, and 136 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. did not share with them the fatigues of hunting or fishing expeditions. In course of time, however, this simple prac- tice became a kind of sacred institution, especially at Alba Longa, the mother country of Rome; and when a large party of Alban shepherds fled from the volcanic eruptions of the Alban craters into the plain below, and settled on the marshy banks of the Tiber, they followed, naturally, the in- stitutions of the mother country, and the worship of Vesta — represented by the public fire and the girls attending to it — was duly organized at the foot of the Palatine hill, on the borders of the market-place (forum). We possess many models of prehistoric huts and temples, made by the very people who inhabited or built them. I speak of the terra-cotta hand-made and sun-dried cinerary urns (called by Lubbock hut-urns), discovered for the first time in 1817, in the cemetery of Alba Longa. On page 29 is the drawing of one, from the Vatican collections, which may be taken as representing exactly the shape and appear- ance of the original temple of Westa. No girl under six, no girl above ten, years of age could be chosen as a priestess of the sacred fire. It was neces- sary, besides, that both her parents should be living, both of free condition, both irreproachable in public and in pri- vate life. In the election described by Tacitus (Ann. ii. 86), which took place A. D. 19, and in which the noble daughters of Domitius Pollio and Fonteius Agrippa stood as candidates, the Senate gave the preference to the for- mer, because there had been some kind of misunderstand- ing between Fonteius Agrippa and his wife, and this mis- understanding of the parents was thought by the Senators to make the little girl less acceptable to the goddess. Even the body of the candidate had to be perfect; girls with defective eyesight, or a lisp, or marked by the slight- THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 137 est physical imperfection were absolutely excluded from the sisterhood. The number of the Westals was limited to six ; no new election could take place, unless a vacancy was caused by the death of one of the sisters. Among the many doc- uments which certify this particular, I cite one only, the well-known medallion of Julia Domna, showing the six Vestals gº tº 4°º º g j%| & 34%) sacrificing before the shrine of sº *ś % their goddess, which had just % º º % jºi... º. #ººl €621] I’é at Une private ex º §§§ pense of the empress. *Nºtº tº %3% Nº. i!? As soon as the election was (º %\Słż * W ź * tº E º: |\ſ|{4% º § duly sanctioned, the virgin was & %=%\\º tº e \%%% shown into the Atrium Westæ, & gº º Wºº tº gº where the ceremony of inau- $CXA QT， &Şae©Ķ3 Esaer= E© ® [ ]L[…] ~~~~ （_） ~ ¡ ¿ ======= --！> •••==> w-， -æ æ= & -i =<！--> *** • • • ** = • • • • • • • •- - - - - - - - - - - - - „ „ „ - „ „NS！Ķ ?>COQQQr§§§§§ ∞ √©§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§ Œ œ � ѧ**（№s SCQ || 4- THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 159 Here began, in ancient times, the monastic clausura. Next to it, on the right, are to be seen (B) the remains of the shrine restored under Severus Alexander, a description of which has been given above. The foundations of the round temple of Westa are marked C. This lovely structure, rebuilt for the last time by Julia Domna, after the great fire of Commodus, was discovered first in 1489, in an excellent state of preservation. Re- . discovered in 1549, it was completely demolished, and levelled to the ground. Only thirty-six marble fragments belonging to its architecture by a great chance escaped destruction. These were found by us in 1883 scattered far and wide. With their help we have been able to re- construct most carefully the architecture of the temple, as shown in the following cuts. The Temple of Vesta. D. Three marble pedestals, dedicated one, A. D. 364, to an abbess whose memory was afterwards condemned (see page 170); the second, A. D. 286, to Coelia Claudiana; the 160 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALs. third, A. D. 247, to Flavia Publicia. These three pedestals are not in their original places; they were put here during the Middle Ages, and built into the foundations of a small Capital from the Temple of Vesta. house belonging to an offi- cer of Pope Marinus II., whose name is not known. We have been able to as- certain this fact from the discovery of a small terra- cotta jar buried under the pavement of the house, con- taining, first, the insignia of the officer, in niello work, with the legend DOMNO MARINO PA PA; sec- ondly, a collection of 835 coins, one of gold, the others of silver. The gold coin is of Theophilus, em- peror between 829 and 842. All but four of the silver coins are Anglo-Saxon. Fol. lowing is the catalogue of them : — Alfred the Great Edward the First Athelstan Edmund the First Sitric, King of Northumbria Anlaf, King of Northumbria Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury Mint of Pavia Mint of Limoges Mint of Ratisbon Uncertain . 217 393 195 i | ___ | THE ATRIUM VESTAE, LOOKING WEST. THE THOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 161 The remains of the mediaeval house were unwisely de- stroyed in the course of the recent excavations. We have now entered the cloisters, the Atrium itself, the size of which is so extraordinary in comparison to that of the house that it is no wonder the whole building was named from it. We find in the plan of the building itself the pro- totype of all the convents and nunneries of the world, the characteristics of which are a large court-yard surrounded with porticoes, both necessary to give air, light, and the pos- sibility of a little exercise to women condemned for life to almost solitary confinement. The portico surrounding this Atrium Vestae was ornamented with columns of cipollino on the ground floor, with columns of breccia corallina on the floor above. Near the southern extremity of the court there is a basin, or tank, for the supply of water, which the Vestals drew from one of the neighboring sacred springs, as the use of water running through pipes was against the rules of the order. The basin is marked with the letter F. G. Tablinum, state, or reception hall of the Westals, with traces of marble pavement and marble incrustations. Six small rooms open on this apartment, three on each side, the pavements of which are raised in a peculiar way to avoid dampness, namely, by laying the new floor on half am- phorae, through the interstices of which the dry air could circulate. & H. A small court-yard containing the furnaces for the heating of the whole house. I. A mill used by the Westals to grind meal, with which the mola salsa (the most primitive kind of a cake) was prepared on February 15th of each year, during the cele- bration of the Lupercalia. K. Small staircase leading to bedrooms on upper floor. Remains of these bedrooms have been found only on the 162 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. west side; that is to say, on the side facing the Nova Wia. These cells are exceedingly small and simple, and are sepa- rated from the bath-room which belongs to them by a small corridor. * Apartments not marked on the plan have not been identified. LAST DAYS OF THE WESTAL VIRGINS. The second half of the fourth century of our era was one of the most exciting periods in Roman history, on account of the stupendous fight between the Christian majority and the minority of those who still clung to polytheism in its decrepitude. Both parties were determined to put an end to a state of things which had become intolerable to each; both were determined to strike the final blow; and al- though the emperors themselves were disposed personally to gain the victory with time and persuasion, the impatience of the pagan leaders in Rome caused the catastrophe to be violent and marked by bloodshed. It is rather difficult to describe the character, the feelings, the behavior, of those who distinguished themselves during the fight, because contemporary writers are not impartial; they judge of men and things from their own point of view, from the interest of their party. This discrepancy of ap- preciation is noticeable even in points of supreme impor- tance, in events which had been seen and shared by thou- sands and thousands of witnesses. Christian writers, as a rule, attribute to their antagonists any amount of depravity, even in private life and affections; pagan writers reproach their opponents with conspiring to destroy the Empire, with being determined to open the gates of the Eternal City to the barbarians, provided the triumph of their new faith could be secured. The author of the libel against Virius THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 163 Nicomachus Flavianus,” the leader of the pagan aristoc- racy in the Senaté, describes him as being polluted by unmentionable vices; whereas Theodosius II. and Valen- tinian III., in their official messages to the Senate, A. D. 431, proclaim him nominis illustris, et sanctissimae apud Omnes recordationis, an illustrious name, a man whose char- acter was as pure as gold. Another instance of this more or less sincere discrepancy of opinions is supplied by the well-known quarrel about the statue of Victory in the Curia or Senate-hall, which statue for centuries had been con- sidered as the personification of the power and destinies of imperial Rome. This statue, formerly worshipped at Taren- tum, had been placed by Augustus himself on the tribune of the Curia, and ornamented with the rarest kind of jewelry, which he had collected in Egypt. An altar stood before it, to receive the votive offerings of the patres conscripti. From the day of Constantine's conversion to Christianity to the year 382, the statue and the altar had been left undisturbed. In 382, however, they gave rise to the memorable duel fought between S. Ambrose on the Christian and Symmachus on the pagan side before Wal- entinian II. and Theodosius. Symmachus accused his rivals of enmity, not toward the statue of Victory, but toward the symbol of the fortune of the Roman armies, just then engaged in trying to check the invasion of the barbarians. S. Ambrose, on the other hand, never mentions the statue, venerated by every one because of its glorious origin, won- 1 This libel was discovered by De- shown that Horace’s Satires have come lille in 1867, at the end of the famous manuscript of Prudentius, which manu- script contains marginal notes in the handwriting of Vettius Mavortius Ba- silius Agorius, consul A. D. 427. This statesman was a clever classical stu- dent for his age. Herr Horkel has down to us through one copy only, from the library of Mavortius Basi- lius, somewhat altered by his margi– nal notes and corrections. The libel against Flavianus, discovered by De- lille, was published by Morel in the Revue Archéologique, June, 1868. 164 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. derful beauty, and great age ; he contends simply that the altar and the official worship of the goddess should no longer be imposed on the Christian senators, or offend their feelings and trouble their consciences. The want of trust- worthy contemporary documents is compensated to a certain extent by the admirable series of inscriptions collected in class five of the sixth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, which refers to Roman patrician magistrates of the fourth century, from the time of Diocletian to the fall of the Empire. These inscriptions derive their importance from the fact that, in describing the political, religious, and military career of each statesman and senator, they reveal at the same time absolutely authentic particulars otherwise un- known and events and names concerning which contem- porary writers have not spoken, or have spoken with passion and prejudice. These marbles tell us the names and the exploits of the last champions of polytheism in the Sen- ate. They describe how, during the last outburst of fanat- icism, the most absurd superstitions, the most mysterious and contemptible ceremonies, were revived, - those espe- cially which bore a certain analogy with the ceremonies of Christian worship. They throw a new light also on the catastrophe which brought to an end the worship of Westa, and the life, eleven centuries old, of the sisterhood of the Vestal Virgins. The leaders of the pagan faction in the Curia were Clodius Hermogenianus, Caelius Hilarianus, Clodius Flavi- anus, Petronius Apollodorus, Sextilius Agesilaus, the two Rufii Ceionii, Nonius Victor, Aurelius Victor, and other representatives of the old aristocracy. But, alas ! how miserably they represented the former conquerors of the world ! The whole party was initiated into the mysteries of THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 165 secret Eastern sects, and their religious fanaticism stood in contrast to the original purity and simplicity of Roman re- ligion as did their civil and - military virtues to the wis- dom and valor of the states- men and generals of the Republic, and also of the Empire, in its first three centuries of glorious life. They had selected as the scene of their grand ex- ploits, as a place for confi- dential meetings, two sanc- tuaries, both of recent con- struction, — the shrine of Cybele and Atys on the Vatican hill, and the grotto of Mithras in the Campus Martius. The shrine of Cybele is mentioned by ancient writers among the buildings of the fourteenth region, Transtiberim, under the name Phrygia- num. Although there was no doubt that such a name be- longed to a place of worship of the Phrygian goddess, and that such a place was in the neighborhood of the Vatican, still no positive notice of its history and exact situation was obtained until the reign of Pope Paul W., Borghese. In laying the foundations of the southeast corner of the new façade of S. Peter's, between 1608 and 1609, at a depth of thirty feet below the level of the ground, several altars and pedestals were discovered, on which the history of the shrine was engraved. These marbles apparently had been hammered and split into fragments at some unknown per riod; perhaps after the great religious catastrophe of 394, Mosaic discovered at Pompeii. * To the mysterious symbolism of curious mosaic discovered at Pompeii, one of these sects must belong the and represented above. 166 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. of which I shall presently speak. The sacred grotto of Mithras, in the Campus Martius, was within the limits of the seventh region, on the east side of the Via Lata, be- ‘Z/. *222227 Ż ~~~ /. %2%.22 - - ſºft %%ffſ.jillº %$º 2.7%; ſºil %,,, | § º  > %Sºğ% z\º & º #2\º º wº %% ... : * ºn ...ºf - ºº:: * - ºr t g s' ſit º' A fºl/, // YN º |AA}%\@ \º #N3A% j ‘A j6{\!\%.7% #. !: •T , r", *, * * > * **ść *: % 2. , w &: - * * ºf Jºžº - º - ºft WNº. A Fº ſºft % ºf 0.Y)\\\\ ^ % º % - 7. % 2. &Z}//,”.4: ſº % %iº 4 £#%xºſ" ºft - d Z .* **, 2/// . n Z, - *2 w 7.2% a º &ººl.º. $3%fºſfºroſ A& 2’ ºf .” %. * { A / . -- º/Zºº: : - #: § - %2%WV. %\}%, ’4%% % ºft %2% % / - . . .”. - % .* %’, - - %% ſºº *2&zzazzazzanº… The Symbolic Grotto of Mithras. Relief recently discovered on the Esquiline. tween the modern Corso and the gen- eral post-office in the Piazza of S. Sil- vestro in Capite, and, more precisely, in the plot of ground which is now occupied by the Marignoli palace. It was discovered at the end of the fif- teenth century, but no satisfactory ac- count of the dis- covery has come down to us. Fra Giovanni Giocondo and Pietro Sabino, who seem to have witnessed the event, only copied the inscriptions of the sanctuary, without de- scribing any details of its architecture and disposition. Both places, the Vatican Metroon and the Mithraeum Campense, as they were officially named, had been filled with numberless altars and pedestals, as was said above, to commemorate the initiation of eminent men, mostly senators of the Empire, into those horrid mysteries and into the various degrees of the sect. And do the records engraved upon these marbles enumerate according to the THE HOUSE OF THE VESTALS. 167 ancient custom, the civil, military, and diplomatic offices honorably discharged in the interest of their sovereigns and country? Not in the least. These men pride them- selves upon titles and names which would have made their noble and gallant ancestors blush with shame and burst y ** riziº p g - ***2% Ø:33%; * **, ºx. %% Ø Ž % % º 32% º +1, ..., 21: … a 4- º with indignation. They call tº£%iº º % ; 3%.2% 4::: jº. t Z/4 ºf : themselves pater sacrorum, , º % º father of mysteries; hierocoraa, Wº%*}ºsº % tºº ſº * - ſº te §ºff tº ºllºš invicti Mithrae, sacred crow 㺠sº g g % ºft of Mithras the omnipotent; ſº % | $º * ſº © º sº g - - %2. % % £4) %%Z. archibucolus dei Liberi, great ſ/º 2 gr % É% % %% * ...º º • * 2. • * / º: - §/ % #3% É.4%% %; %% % º tº:#4% j ***///, // a Ž. # * Ž ſº % *** * … * ºr - ºw shepherd of Bacchus; hiero- fantes Hecatarum, high-priest of Hecate, and so forth. And they make use of a peculiar kind of phraseology, unknown in classic times, and evi- dently copied in a ridiculous manner from Christian mod- els. One speaks of the gods anima suae mentisque custodes; another proclaims himself delibutus sacratissi- mis mysteriis, or else in Ceternum rematus, after the baptism of blood; all of them, likewise, testify with un- bounded pride to having received this bloody baptism, under the form of criobolium or taurobolium,' or to having renewed the ceremony after a lapse of twenty years, because it appears that the abominable sacrament was thought to lose its redeeming power after a certain time, like some of º . Mithras Cautes. our cutaneous injections. Two senators, Nonius Victor Olympius and Aurelius Vic- tor Augentius, presided over the Mithraeum Campense, and were the grand-masters of this kind of Free-masonry. In * The criobolium was administered with the blood of a ram; the taurobolium with the blood of a bull. 168 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. the tablets discovered there nearly four centuries ago, we can follow step by step the career of many illustrious adepts. Between A. D. 357 and 377 Nonius and Aurelius adminis- tered right and left the degrees of coraw (crow), cryphius (griffin), leo, Perses, Heliodromos, and pater." In 377, however, the practice was stopped, probably, by the prefect of the town, Gracchus, who —- attempted to destroy all the - º, - *...* *...'.. º º º rº. ޺ º, Z7/ º Mythraic grottoes in Rome. Kºſſº f - % The worship of Westa was § not forgotten in this last out- *} break, in this last revival of f ſº º º wº 3.I’6” X} %tº sº glad to acknowledge, how- º Nº.24 fº/ % ºf Zºº ever, that our virgins did not * |\%lſº %) contaminate the last days of %2%% their life by altering the an- Mithras — Sun. cient purity and simplicity of the institution; they fell nobly and gallantly, faithful to the rules of the order eleven centuries old, free from any suspicion, and respected even by their enemies, in whose diatribes we are happy to find a certain sense of kindness and respect every time the Westals are mentioned. We are also glad to testify that their name is not profaned in the records of the Phrygian and Mythraic sects; the senators, who caused those records to be engraved on marble, only occasionally call themselves pontifices Vesta, and pontifices Vestales. The infidel majority in the Senate fought the last bat- tles under two able and determined leaders: Virius Ni- comachus Flavianus, the senior (with his relatives the Sym. 1 The “numbers’ or degrees of the society were six ; the Venerable of the lodge was called pater patrum. - THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 169 machi), and Wettius Agorius Praetextatus. Flavianus took little or no interest in the Westals, perhaps because the sim- plicity of their worship did not sufficiently excite a soul vitiated by the violent mysteries of the Phrygian and Persian rites. The author of the libel discovered by Delille, and mentioned above, ridicules Flavianus for his performances of the Amburbalia, of the Isia, of the Me- galesia, of the Floralia ; but he never speaks of the Ves- talia, of the perennial fire, or of the Palladium. Wettius Agorius Praetextatus, on the contrary, was intensely devoted to the Virgins, as was also his wife, Fabia Aconia Paul- lina. Their palace stood at the corner of the Via Meru- lana and the Via delle sette Sale, on the site of the new palazzo Brancaccio. It was surrounded by a garden, which extended as far as the present railway station. Many monuments concerning the history of their family have been discovered within these limits. I shall mention, however, one only, on account of its connection with the events which I am relating. When the house of Praetex- tatus was excavated for the first time in 1591, there were found a pedestal and a statue erected in honor of Caelia Concordia, the last (or next to the last) abbess of the Atrium Vestae. The pedestal bore the following dedication: “Fabia Aconia Paullina sets up (in her own palace) this portrait-statue of Caelia Concordia, the Abbess of the Westals, not only as a testimonial to her virtues, her chastity and her devotion to the gods, but also as a token of gratitude for the honor conferred by the Westals upon her husband Praetextatus, to whom they have dedicated a statue in their own convent.” By a remarkable chance, this last-named statue has been discovered in our excavations. Its head, at first missing, was found by accident two years later. It is represented in the accompanying illustration. There seems 170 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. to be no doubt of its being the very one alluded to by Fabia Aconia Paullina. It represents a Senator in the official robe …' º of the fourth century, and it is the only male statue found in the Atrium Westæ ; its pres- ence there would have re- mained almost inexplica- ble, had we not heard of it before, from the above- quoted inscription. I must now mention a pedestal discovered near the northeast corner of the Atrium on Novem- ber 5, 1883, dedicated to one of the abbesses, A. D. 364, from which the name of the lady appears to have been erased purposely. Here is the text of the re- markable inscription : — | OB MERITVM CASTITATIS PVDICITIAE ADQ. IN SACRIS. §§§§4-3.ſº RELIGIONIBVSQVE §ºtº::'Oll," t lº - **, - A - - *ś DOCTRINAE MIRABILIS - >>> → - | C E. V- V. M A X” jº - * . 11 A. Çillipſ () - º | —º º - Lºſſ PONTIFICES. V. V. C. C. PROMAG MACRINIO " STATUE OF PRAETEXTATUs. SOSSIANO. V. C. P. M. . A “[This statue and this ped- estal have been raised] in honor of C [name erased], abbess of the Westals, by the college of the high-priests, under the vice-presidency of Macrinius Sossianus, as a testimonial to her chastity and to her profound knowledge in religious matters.” Discovered in the Atrium of the Westals. THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 171 It would be very interesting in connection with the his- tory of the last years of the priesthood to ascertain why the name of the abbess was hammered out, to know why the memory of the lady was condemned by the pagan faction, after it had bestowed so many praises upon her. The me- moria damnatio must have taken place between 364, which is the date written on the right side of the marble, and 394, the date of the abolition of the order. Three causes only can be suggested: first, the conversion of the priestess to Christianity; secondly, an offence against the rules; and lastly, a secession from the order. It is quite probable that she became a Christian. Prudentius, in the hymn to S. Law- rence, says, AEdemque Laurenti tuam Vestalis intrat Claw- dia, – “Claudia, the Westal Virgin, enters thy shrine”; and these words have been interpreted by some, not as a general and impersonal indication of the conquests made by the gospel in the most famous strongholds of polytheism, but as positive evidence of a special conquest made in the Atrium itself. We must observe, however, that the conversion of an abbess would have been considered such an enormous victory for the faithful that it is remarkable that it is not mentioned and extolled by other, more serious writers than a poet. No less extraordinary an event would have been the in- cest of a Westal; above all, the incest of an abbess. Here, again, we can produce the testimony of a man above sus- picion, that such a crime was actually committed by a Westal Virgin towards the end of the fourth century. Symmachus, the great pagan orator, describes the fall of a Westal named Primigenia, and insists that she be punished accord- ing to the ancient rules. The culprit, however, did not belong to the Roman house of the order; she belonged to the house at Albanum. This explains why the crime of the 172 THE HOUSE OF THE VESTALS. priestess did not create more sensation in Rome. A seces. sion from the order is mentioned by the same authority, Symmachus. One of his letters has come down to us, ad- dressed to a Westal, whose name is not given, in which he inquires anxiously whether he must believe the rumor, spread far and wide, of her intended secession from the order. Of course, such an act was perfectly legal after thirty years of service, and the lady whose name was erased from the ped- estal being a Westalis Maxima, had surely gone far beyond the legal term. But the anxiety of Symmachus is very nat- ural. A leader of the infidel party could not help feeling the wrong done to its interests by the desertion from the battle-field of a woman of such high standing and consider- ation as a Westalis Maxima. And as her behavior was not punishable in any way, Symmachus and his colleagues, the Pontifices majores, resorted to the only possible revenge, —erasure of her name from the pedestal which they had dedicated some time before in the Atrium, and covered with her praises. The signs of an approaching catastrophe were first no- ticed in 383, with joy on one side, with ill-concealed rage on the other. By an imperial decree of that year, signed by Gratianus, the privileges and patrimonies of all pagan places of worship were abolished and confiscated, on the ground that it was not becoming a Christian government and a Christian state to supply unbelievers and infidels with the means of persevering in their errors and of op- posing the conquests of the gospel; that it was unjust and intolerable that profane and offensive sacrifices should be offered, as it were, in the name and with the money of a Christian government. At the same time the pagans were left entirely free to keep their temples and shrines in good THE HOUSE OF THE VESTA LS. 173 order, and to perform their ceremonies even in public, pro- vided this was done at their own cost. The pagan senators, who still commanded a majority in that body, not, perhaps, because there were so many pagans among the populace, but owing rather to the glorious tra- ditions which clustered around many of the pagan family names, did the best they could to obtain a revocation of the decree; but Valentinian II. was inexorable in demand- ing the accomplishment of the edict of his brother Grati- anus. He went even a step further. By a second decree, dated 391, superstitious sacrifices were prohibited in Rome and throughout Italy, even if offered under a private name. Then, as happens generally in such momentous circum- stances, when a disaffected party has the good or bad for- tune to find an energetic, unscrupulous, daring leader, well known to the populace for his social position, for riches, or for nobility of descent, — then the infidels resorted to their last chance, that of open rebellion. Their flag was hoisted by Nicomachus Flavianus himself. In 392, Valentinian II., upon whom the hatred of the rebels was concentrated, was brutally murdered by Arbo- gastes, the Gallic commander-in-chief of the Western armies, and Eugenius was elected in his place. Eugenius, although brought up as a Christian, was a feeble, superstitious, vacil- lating man ; and placed, as he found himself, at the head of a revolution, political and religious at the same time, did not at once repudiate his former persuasion. Twice the Senate sent him embassies to obtain the revocation of the decrees of 383 and 391; twice he refused to restore to the pagan faction the property of its temples, the privileges of its priests. The third embassy was more successful. Eugenius made a kind of compromise between his conscience and his duty: he made a personal gift to Flavianus and his col- leagues of the property seized in 383. 174 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. Furnished with such powerful means, the victorious fac. tion indulged at once in an outburst of fanaticism. Every long-forgotten exhibition of pagan ceremonies was con- ducted, as it were, in the name of the Empire, with gor- geous and triumphal mise en scène. They began by the lustrum or sacrificium amburbale of Rome, a ceremony which had never been celebrated since the time of Aurelian, when the fear of the invasion of the Marcomanni caused him to fortify the capital, materially with the walls which are still in existence, morally and religiously with the am- burbium. Next came the Isia. During four days Rome enjoyed the ridiculous sight of Flavianus and his partisans mourn- ing over the death of Osiris, and marching in procession, with the hair shaved, in long white woollen clothes, carry- ing cynocephali in their hands. Next, they resorted to the Megalesia, the mysterious worship of Cybele. After being baptized in blood, they carried through the principal thor- oughfares the chariot of the goddess, with lions of solid sil- ver. The last celebration mentioned by contemporary writ- ers is that of the Floralia, which in ancient times was con- sidered the most profligate and indecent of all festivals. Against the army of the avenger, Theodosius I., provi- sions were made worthy of the faction. Images of Hercu- les Invictus were substituted for the glorious Labarum of Constantine, and hundreds of statues of Jupiter, with golden thunderbolts in his hand, were set up on the Alpine passes and military roads through which the army of Theodosius was expected to advance. The exact spot at which the decisive battle took place in upper Italy is not known; we are ignorant also of its date. Socrates, the historian, mentions the 6th of September, 394; perhaps it was fought two or three days later. One THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 175 thing is certain : the people of Rome, on the 17th of that month, were still ignorant of the result of the battle. In 1864, while the central crypts of Priscilla's catacombs were being excavated, a tombstone was found, erected in mem- ory of Urania Aurelia by her servant Leontius, and dated 'acw kalendas Octobres Wicomacho Flabiano consule (the 17th of September under the consulship of Flavianus). Now Flavianus had lost his life in battle, and if the event had been known in Rome, when the city was trembling from fear of reaction and revenge, no one would have dared to engrave on marble the name of the leader of polytheism, who had just paid with his life, and with the life of his emperor and supporter, Eugenius, the folly of the rebellion. Who could properly describe the hopes, the anxieties, the despair, of our Westals during these terrible days of uncer- tainty 2 See them kneeling before the statue of the god- dess, which from hour to hour they expected would be mutilated by the populace; see them trying to screen and protect behind the rampart of their chaste bodies the fire which, after burning with no interruption for eleven cen- turies, was in peril of being extinguished forever ! And when the fatal tidings of the defeat of Eugenius came to their knowledge, when the order for their banishment from Westa’s Atrium was issued, did they find time to conceal the sacred tokens of the Roman Empire (as they had done on the occasion of the Gallic war), to save the Palladium from profanation, to destroy every trace, every sign, which could reveal to the outer world the mysteries of their house, the secrets of their institution? We believe they did; we believe, as we have said, that the secret was buried with the corpse of the last Westal. We have no doubt that the destruction of the penetralia, or innermost sanctuary in which the relics were kept, was accomplished by the Westals 176 THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. themselves, during the few days that elapsed between the defeat of Eugenius and the suppression of their order. The reaction of the victorious party was not violent. Theodosius named as commissaire extraordinaire for Rome and the Peninsula (agens vicem praefectorum praetorio et urbi) a gentleman of moderate ideas, Fabius Passifilus Paolinus. He enforced, no doubt, absolute obedience to imperial decrees concerning paganism, but did not resort to violence or persecution. One thing is absolutely certain: when the gates of the Atrium were thrown open to public curiosity, and the crowd entered the cloisters (confiscated as the property of the state) and stepped over the threshold which no man had crossed before without danger of death, no damage whatever was committed, no injury done either to the building or to its artistic treasures. In spite of mediaeval lime-burners, in spite of natural decay, in spite of the excavations of 1497, 1549, and 1785, we have discov- ered statues and busts, pedestals and inscriptions, bronzes, glass, and jewelry, of which some were still in their ancient places. # We are informed by Zosimus, the historian, that some time after the secularization of the building the young Princess Serena took possession of a precious necklace which still ornamented the statue of the goddess; a dar- ing attempt, indeed, which the lady expiated soon after in a horrible manner. The circumstance is thus described by the historian: “Rome being surrounded and besieged by Alaric, the senators began to suspect Serena of secret con- nivance with the barbarians. The whole assembly, and even Claudia, the sister of the emperor, were determined to put her to death, hoping that her execution would induce the besieger to withdraw. The suspicion, nevertheless, was unjust and groundless, Serena having never dreamed of THE HOUSE OF THE WESTALS. 177 opening the gates to the enemy; but she was doomed to expiate her sacrilege against the gods, as I shall relate presently. When Theodosius II. entered Rome, after the defeat of Eugenius, and priests and priestesses were ex- pelled from temples, and the temples were closed, Serena manifested a desire to enter and examine one of the tem- ples, the shrine of Rhea [Vesta]. Here she was so capti- wated by the beauty of a necklace that she took it with her own hands from the shoulders of the goddess, and fixed it on her own neck. An old woman, the last surviving Westal, having witnessed by chance the profanation, cursed the princess, and predicted that sooner or later she would sadly expiate her crime. Serena, at first, took no notice of the awful malediction; but the old Westal had told the truth, –Serena died by strangulation l’’ CHAPTER WII. THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL ROME. THE history of the public libraries in ancient and medi- aeval Rome has not yet been written, and is only to be gathered in a fragmentary and imperfect way from isolated passages of the classics and from inscriptions. There is no doubt that, in ancient times, special books concerning these libraries were written and published. It appears that one of the eighty volumes which Varro is said to have written was entitled “De Bibliothecis.” According to Suidas, Telephus, a school-teacher of Pergamon, issued a volume, a notitia librorum in three sections, one of which described minutely the leading libraries of his age. These special works, how- ever, have not come down to us; and the subject which I have selected for this chapter has in a certain sense the attraction of novelty, in spite of the more or less successful attempts made up to the present time to illustrate it, as it were, piecemeal. The essays on ancient libraries, published between 1606 and 1876 by Lipsius, Saint-Charles, Lomeier, Struve, Lürsen, Petit-Radel, Michaud, and others, are not only in- complete, but almost worthless, because we have gained more knowledge on this subject within the last few years, by the results of the excavations at Pergamon, Pompeii, and Rome, than the authors above named could gather in the space of two centuries and a half. An exception to the rule must be made in favor of a few absolutely recent publications, which, although relating to some special chap- PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 179 ters in the history of ancient libraries, have still brought many new important facts and particulars under our know- ledge. Such is the essay by Professor Alexander Conze, “Die pergamenische Bibliothek,” read at a session of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences on December 18, 1884; such also is the pamphlet by Carlo Castellani, “Delle Biblioteche nell' Antichità, dai tempi più remoti, alla fine dell’Impero Romano,” published at Bologna in 1884. I have myself been a contributor to the history of public libraries, by describing in 1883 the one annexed to the palace of Augustus on the Palatine hill. All these publications, however, have been superseded by the latest work of Commendatore de Rossi, the title of which is “Commentaries on the Origin, History, and Catalogues of the Archives and Libraries of the Holy See.” The first important library in ancient Rome was that which L. AEmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedonia, brought over from the palace of King Perseus. Sulla, the dictator, when in Athens, laid his hands on a far richer collection, — on the library, namely, of Apellikon, which had belonged previously to Aristotle himself. The vicissi- tudes of this library were remarkably strange. Aristotle bequeathed it to his disciple Theophrastus, who largely in- creased its value and importance by the addition of his own works and of works of contemporaries, secured at a great sacrifice from various lands. Neleus, a disciple and heir to Theophrastus, removed the library to Scepsis in Troas, where it fell to the lot of some ignorant relatives of his. Strabo, the geographer, relates how these relatives, having heard that the king of Pergamon was collecting books for his new library, and fearing for the safety of their own, actually buried it underground in a damp place, in which it 180 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. remained for some time, until Apellikon, of Teos, a Peri- patetic philosopher, bought it, and carried the precious collection back to Athens. Strabo adds that Apellikon, when he found many manuscripts of the great master damaged by mildew and dampness, patched them up ac- cording to his own fancy, and published them, in course of time, as genuine works of Aristotle. Sulla, however, the purchaser or the usurper of Apellikon's library, seems to have guarded his books so jealously that when Tyrannio, Cicero's librarian, was asked by Andronikos, from Rhodes, to compare some passages in Aristotle's books, he could obtain admission into the sanctum only by bribing Sulla's librarian. Lucullus seems to have been more liberal in placing at the disposal of learned men the literary treasures he had brought home from the kingdom of Pontus. His munificence and kindness to scholars and students is highly praised by Plutarch, who says that Lucullus's house was more a temple of the Muses than a private mansion. T. Pomponius Atticus, the faithful and intimate friend of Cicero, seems to have put together his library more from love of speculation than of literature. Cicero, in one of his letters (i. 7), reminds him not to forget his request for literary novelties; in another he asks Atticus to send over two bookbinders, with a supply of parchment, upon which the titles of the books could be written, or rather illu- minated, in bright colors. Atticus dispatched two of his cleverest assistants, named Dionysius and Menophilus, and they put the whole of Cicero's library in order so skilfully and neatly that the illustrious orator actually wrote a letter of thanks and praise to his friend Atticus, the bookseller, Strange to say, even at this early stage of bibliophily there were stealers of books. In another letter, addressed by Cicero to P. Sulpicius (Ad fam. xiii. 77), he relates PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 181 how one of his more trustworthy servants, named Diony- sius, had run away with a certain number of valuable volumes, and begs his correspondent to try to discover the runaway in Dalmatia, to which province he was thought to have made his escape. Re8 ipsa parva, Cicero writes in despair, sed animi mei dolor magnus est. I will not de- scribe other private libraries of imperial Rome: the one of Epaphroditus of Chaeronaea, the secretary of Nero ; the one of the poet Persius numbering 700 volumes; the one of both Plinys, and so forth. I will relate a few anecdotes only which enable us to enter into the secrets of these pri- vate temples of learning. According to Vitruvius, the apartment of the house used as a library should be ex- posed towards the east, not only because such an expos- ure is the most convenient for reading in the early hours of the morning, but also because a southern or a western exposure would favor the development of moths and mildew and the deterioration of books. These apartments were, as a rule, of small size. In 1753, a private library was discovered at Hercula- neum, with bookcases around the walls, and one bookcase Scrolls, Writing Utensils, and Book- in the middle of the floor. ... "..."...º. Although containing at Scaurus, pl. 8. least 1,700 volumes or rolls of papyrus, the size of the room 182 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. did not exceed fifteen feet by twenty. This was due to the fact that libraries were never warmed, even in the depths of winter, either by steam, hot air, or open fires; not only so that the dangers of conflagration might be avoided, but also because heat is injurious to books and bindings, and favors the development of moths. This is the reason why students in our own Vatican library have always been con- demned to freeze for four months of the year. The an- cients avoided both extremes, freezing and burning, by keeping their literary treasures in small rooms, such as the one discovered at Herculaneum. With regard to the number of volumes collected in pri- vate libraries, it varied, of course, according to the taste and pecuniary resources of the owner. Persius, as I have just remarked, satisfied himself with 700 volumes; Q. Serenus Sammonicus, a physician of the third century, collected not less than 62,000, which afterwards became, by bequest, the property of the crown. As a rule, private collectors were exceedingly fond of rare and costly €ditions de luwe, of dainty little volumes in which a skilful hand had concen- trated the contents of an ordinary folio. Such were the three pocket volumes described by Martial, one of which contained the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, one the Met- amorphoses of Ovid, one the opera omnia of Virgil:— “Quam brevis immensum cepit membrana Maronem' Ipsius vultus prima tabella gerit.” We learn from this epigram that the front or title page of these fashionable editions contained, as a rule, the por- trait of the author. No wonder that rare or elegant edi- tions would sometimes cost a small fortune. According to Gellius, Aristotle gave a sum corresponding to $3,300 for a copy of Speusippos; Plato, likewise, paid $1,833 for three volumes of Philolaos. PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 183 King Ptolemaeus Euergetes II., in his efforts to improve the stock of the two royal Alexandrian libraries of the Bruchion and of the Serapaion, sent messengers to Athens to collect new books, and to try to obtain, above all, copies of the tragedies of AEschylos, Sophokles, and Euripides. He promised that as soon as copies of the tragedies could be finished by the Alexandrian amanuenses he would send back to Athens the original, and deposited fifteen Attic talents (or $16,500) as a guarantee for the restitution. It is needless to say that the $16,500 were willingly lost and forfeited ; King Ptolemaeus kept for himself the originals, and sent back to Athens only the copies. The great book market, the “Paternoster-row ’’ of ancient Rome, was the Argiletum, a quarter situated between the Roman Forum and the Subura. Here the librarii and the antiquarii, booksellers and copyists of old works, kept their richly furnished shops, so often mentioned and described by Martial and Horace. On either side of the entrance door there were hung elaborate advertisements, giving the title and the price of literary novelties. Each of the leading booksellers secured the privilege of the works of a lead- ing author. Thus the brothers Sosii were the agents for Horace, and Atrectus and Secundus were the publishers of Martial, Tryphon of Quintilianus, and Dorus of Seneca. Editions of one thousand copies were generally issued, as certified by Pliny the younger, and appeared in various lite- rary markets at the same time : in Athens, where the great meeting-place of bibliophiles was in the orchestra of the theatre of Bacchus; in Alexandria near the Serapaion; in Lyons, and so on. So great was the demand for rare books that spurious ones were freely put in circulation, a practice strongly denounced by Galenus, who complains that he , found in book-stalls volumes bearing the name of Hippoc- rates which had never been written by the great master. 184 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. The first public library in Rome was built and opened, about A. U. c. 717, by Asinius Pollio, the brilliant and spir- ited writer, so much admired by Horace and Catullus. The library was organized in the Atrium Libertatis on the Aven- tine, one wing being set apart for Greek, one for Latin, lit- erature. Four years later, Augustus determined to carry into execution the project of Julius Caesar and of his lite- rary counsel, Terentius Varro, to make of public libraries a state institution. He named Pompeius Macer director of the department, and put at his disposal large sums of money collected during the Dalmatian war. The first state public library, opened according to the new programme, was the Bibliotheca Octavia, so called in honor of Augustus's sis- ter, Octavia; and the first librarian was C. Melissus, of Spoletum. Then followed the Bibliotheca Palatina Apol- linis, organized by the librarian C. Julius Hyginus, of which library I have already spoken in the chapter on the palace of the Caesars. Tiberius gave up a wing of his own palace for a third institution of the kind, which, although called by Gellius and Vopiscus Bibliotheca Tiberiana, seems to have contained state papers and documents, rather than books. The fifth imperial library was established by Vespasian in his Forum Pacis ; the sixth by Trajan in his own forum. This last, the richest and most magnificent in the metrop- olis, and famous for its collection of libri elephantini (books with leaves of ivory), was removed, at the end of the third century, by Diocletian, from Trajan’s forum to his own therma, on the Quirinal. I cannot enter into particulars of the material and sci- entific organization of these libraries, because I must confine myself to a sketch of their main features. The number of volumes which they contained must have been immense. º |-sº ºr-º-º: ###### º:#F#: --~~ AE sº -º-º-º-º-º-º- #===E= - sº-tºes:= "Tº EğE º:- E-ºfflº E->= Hº-E =====#EE::===########, #==es:#;=#=&###: lººr-º-º-º: *... sis:====sººr FE*E=E-ºś E--> Fº tº º - ##: s:#EEEE YE: º:Eº-E - :::::::::::::= #EEEEº ſº ==º" tº º: *=-—— fº # ºš #3 & zºº *= E - g= i #. sº ; : Tisº. º E- º: l PALs, fºssef ºf::=} sº º: = FEºsºf:Fºs $EE:#; * : tº º: = tºe-tº-==E_*===#E # =i-j<=#:== z: jºr i Š PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 185 The two Alexandrian libraries of the Bruchion and of the Serapaion contained 132,800 different works: making a total of more than 400,000 volumes, according to Kalli- machos; 500,000 according to Flavius Josephus; 700,000 according to Gellius. This difference between the number of works and the number of volumes is easily explained by the fact that it was customary, in ancient times, to subdivide each work into as many volumes as there were chapters or cantos. Thus the Iliad and the Odyssey could form a set of twenty-four volumes each, and the oeuvres complètes of Aristotle a set of many hundred. In 1821, a papyrus was discovered in the island of Philae, containing 677 verses from the twenty-fourth canto of the Iliad. The papyrus was eight feet long and ten inches wide. It is easy to understand that this copy of the poem was distributed over forty-one rolls or volumes; and when we hear authors issu- ing a prodigious number of volumes, – of Kallimachos, for instance, to whom 800 volumes are attributed; of Didymos, who is asserted to have written 3,500, − we must never attribute to the phrase the modern meaning, but regard it simply as denoting chapters and paragraphs. From the library of Pergamon, M. Antonius, the triumvir, alone was able to steal 200,000 volumes. Doubt has been expressed as to whether books could be borrowed from these libraries by private individuals; that is, for a definite length of time. Beyond doubt, I think, they could, and the librarians could lend books to trustworthy applicants. Aulus Gellius relates that, one day, being the guest of a distinguished friend in a villa near Tibur (Tivoli) a discussion rose amongst the company as to whether the use of iced water, as an ordinary drink in warm weather, was injurious to health. One of the personages present, in condemning the practice most decidedly, quoted the 186 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. authority of celebrated physicians, and of the great Aris- totle himself. As the audience expressed some doubt in regard to Aristotle's opinion, the gentleman ran to the pub- lic library of Tibur, borrowed a volume of Aristotle, and read the passage in which the use of iced water was strongly denounced as pernicious. Gellius adds that such was the impression created on the assembly by the words of Aris- totle that they all decided at once to give up forever the habit of using water with ice or snow. To come back to Roman libraries, we are tolerably well acquainted with the circumstances and date of their final destruction. The library of Octavia was destroyed by fire in the year 80, under the rule of Titus. The one in the palace of Tiberius appears to have met with the same fate in the great fire of 191, under the reign of Commodus. The one connected with the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus seems to have been annihilated at the same time from the effects of a thunder-bolt. The famous library of Apollo, on the Palatine, was likewise completely destroyed by fire in the night between the 18th and 19th of March of the year 363. As I have stated already in the fifth chapter, on the authority of Ammianus Marcellinus, such was the violence of the flames that only the Sibylline books could be saved out of many hundred thousand volumes. We must not believe that these catastrophes could carry with them the complete destruction of ancient Latin litera- ture. Not only hundreds and hundreds of private libraries were left intact, but, before these catastrophes took place, Christian libraries had already been established, and were flourishing in many places. That Christian communities, soon after the propagation of the gospel, provided them- selves with libraries pertaining to sacred literature is proved by many passages in the Acta sincera Martyrum (“Annals PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 187 of the Persecution of the Church’) from the time of Nero to that of Julian the Apostate. In the “Acts” of Minucius Felix, from Cirta, now Constantine, it is related how the magistrates went to the house in which the Christians met, and opened the library to seize the books; but inventa Sunt ibi armaria inania. Alfius Caecilianus, magistrate of Autun, is said to have found in the local Christian library epistolas salutatorias, namely, correspondence between the bishops. Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage, as soon as he heard of the imminent confiscation of the books belonging to the central library of his diocese, concealed codices pretiosos wel pretiosissimos, and put in their place scripta haereticorum, which he was only too happy to have seized. ... The finest libraries of the first three centuries of Chris- tendom were of course in Rome. They contained not only books and documents of local interest, such as the gesta martyrum, the matriculae pauperum, and so forth, but also copies of the official correspondence between the see of Rome and the dioceses of the Christian world. Such was the importance attributed to books in those early days of our faith that, in Christian basilicas, or places of worship, they were kept in the place of honor, next to the episcopal chair. Many of the basilicas which we discover from time to time, especially in the Campagna, have the apse trichora ; that is, subdivided into three smaller hemicycles. The reason and the meaning of this peculiar form of an apse was long sought in vain; but a recent discovery made at Hispalis proves that, of the three hemicycles in those apses, the central one contained the tribunal or episcopal chair, the one on the right the sacred implements, the one on the left the sacred books. The first building erected in Rome, under the Christian rule, for the study and preservation of books and documents 188 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. was the Archivum (Archives) of Pope Damasus, who occu- pied the chair of S. Peter between 366 and 384. This just and enterprising Pope, the last representative of good old Roman traditions as regards the magnificence and use- fulness of his public structures, selected for the site of his establishment the barracks or stables of the factio prasina, the green squadron of charioteers and riders of the Circus Maximus, and modelled it on the pattern of the typical library at Pergamon, of which the Palatine library of Apollo in Rome had been the worthy rival. He began by raising a basilica, or hall of basilical type, in the centre of the area, which he dedicated to S. Lawrence, and which corresponds to the temple of Minerva Polias in the library of Pergamon, and to the temple of Apollo in that of the Palatine. The hall of S. Lawrence, called still in our days S. Lorenzo in Damaso, or in Prasina, was surrounded by a square portico, into which opened the rooms or cells containing the va- rious departments of the archives and of the library. A commemorative inscription, composed by Damasus himself, in hexameters, seven in number, and engraved on marble by the skilful hand of Furius Dionysius Philocalus, the Pope's calligraphus, was set in the front of the building, above the main entrance. The text has been discovered in a MS. formerly at Heidelberg, now in the Vatican (n. 833). The first four hexameters do not bring out in a good light the poetical faculties of the worthy pontiff, -in fact, their real meaning has not yet been ascertained; but the last three verses are more intelligible: — “Archibis, fateor, volui nova condere tecta ; Addere praeterea dextra laevaque columnas, Quae Damasi teneant proprium per saecula nomen.” (“I have erected this structure for the archives of the Roman church ; I have surrounded it with porticoes on PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 189 either side; and I have given to it my name, which I hope will be remembered for centuries.”) These hopes have been splendidly realized, because, as I have already remarked, the church of S. Lawrence is still called “in Damaso.” I may add that around the apse of the inner hall there was another distich of about the same poetical value, the text of which has been discovered by Commendatore de Rossi in a manuscript at Verdun : — “Haec Damasus tibi, Christe deus, nova tecta levavi Laurenti saeptus martyris auxilio.” (“With the help of S. Lawrence the martyr I have raised, Lord Christ, this hall in Thine honor.”) Mention of Damasus's archives is frequently made in documents of the fourth and fifth centuries. The official comptes-rendus of the council held in Rome in 369, together with the auto- graph signatures of the 146 bishops who attended the sittings, were certainly deposited in them. S. Jerome calls them chartarium ecclesia, Romana, and asserts that the epistles, circulars, decrees, and constitutions of the popes, the regesta Pontificum, as they were called in later ages, were shown to everybody, and could be copied on applica- tion to the keeper-in-chief. Among those who have con- sulted the copious documents of the place, we can mention, on contemporary evidence, Pope Boniface I. in 419 ; Pope Innocent I. in 412; and the members of the Roman synod of 531. I need not say that the library of Damasus has long since disappeared. The first blow aimed at the noble institution came from the centralization at the Lateran of all the docu- ments connected with the Church, which took place in the seventh century. Finally the building itself, repaired and probably disfigured from time to time, was levelled to the ground, four hundred years ago (1486) by Cardinal 190 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. Raphael Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV. A new church was then built, two hundred feet east of the Basilica Damasi- ana, and incorporated by Riario in his magnificent Palazzo della Cancelleria. Those who have visited Rome, or are otherwise acquainted with its prominent buildings, will recollect, I am sure, the wonderful court-yard of this Palazzo della Cancelleria, the chef d'oeuvre of Bramante, resting, as by a miracle of art, on a double tier of light columns of red Egyptian granite. These are the very columns which Pope Damasus carried from Pompey's theatre to his library, and which Cardinal Riario, in 1486, removed from the library to his palace. During the fifth century we hear no more of literary institutions in Rome. In 535, however, Cassiodorius (com- monly miscalled Cassiodorus), then prefect of the Praeto- rium, induced Pope Agapetus to institute a kind of university or higher school for Christian teaching, and to connect with it a select library. Pope Agapetus yielded to the suggestion, and gave up for the new institution his own paternal house, which stood on the Coelian, on the Clivus Scauri, the modern picturesque Salita dei SS. Gio- vanni e Paolo. The library was placed in the principal hall of the house, and above its entrance a commemorative inscription was set up, the text of which has been trans- mitted to us by the author of the well-known “Codex of Einsiedlen,” and which begins as follows: “Here you see assembled, together with Agapetus, the founder of the library, the venerable array of the Fathers of the Church, ready to explain to you the mystic words of the Scriptures.” To understand the meaning of this sentence we must examine, although as briefly as possible, the material and practical organization of Christian libraries, from the fall of the Empire to the Renaissance of classical studies. PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 191 There is no doubt that the words of the inscription just quoted refer to the medallions or images of the Fathers of the Church, painted on the frieze of the cases which con- tained their works. This praiseworthy custom is of very ancient origin. In the chapter on the Palace of the Caesars, I have mentioned the medallions in repoussé work of brass or silver which ornamented the walls of the famous library of Apollo. But without resorting to the testimony of an- cient authors, who very often allude to these iconographic galleries connected with public or private libraries, I can draw upon my own experience, and describe an ancient private library which I have seen with my own eyes. I think I am the only living man of letters who can boast of ..., l'î % § ſº } | r; - º -º- " Myll '%| Af ºft#EE § § === - - * - 9 - - - . - *, *, * * - * * s • - - " . . .--, -, ºr “ , ” . . . . . . . . . ." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - ... * ... ". . " ... - . . . ..º.ºrg. ...????'...,' a...ºr ºv... "... • * * * : y , ... -.” tº. .. -......' *.......: t: lººs iſ * * *- : i\ex.” tº tº ... sº * -- * * ..., º, ...'. “we” “” º,…,’ tº * *w-adº' * = Lararium, or private chapel discovered in the Via dello Statuto, 1883. having been favored by chance with such rare good for- tune. The discovery took place in December, 1883. A new road, the Via dello Statuto, was then in course of 192 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. construction between the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, on the Esquiline, and the Via Cavour, in the Subura. Not far ** ºr -— º - - + - -* -º-º-º- Crypt of Mithras discovered in the Via dello Statuto. from the northeast corner of the church of S. Martino ai Monti, the remains of a private house began to appear in the trench, of which house some apartments were in the most wonderful state of preservation; others had been robbed even of their marble and mosaic pavements. To the intact portion of the building belongs—to cite only one instance—the lararium, or domestic chapel, and the Mithraeum (an underground cell, in which the secret mys- teries of Mithras were performed), represented in the accompanying plates. In the chapel, besides the statue of Fortune, occupying the place d’honneur, there were some seventeen statuettes and busts of domestic divinities still standing upright on the side shelves. In the Mithraeum there were—there are still, because we have saved the place from destruction, and added it to the curiosities of Rome– PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 193 the remnant of the seven torches, that is to say of sticks of fir-wood coated with tar, which were kept burning before the image of Mithras Tauroktonos. The ruined apart- ments, from which no more discoveries were expected, and the excavation of which we did not watch with the same anxiety as we did that of the others, occupied the northern portion of the atrium, and consisted mostly of bath-rooms. I was struck, one after- noon, with the ap- pearance of a ra- ther spacious hall, the walls of which were plain and unor- namented up to a certain height, but beautifully decorated above in stucco work. The decoration consisted of fluted pilasters, five feet apart from centre to centre, enclosing a plain square surface, in the middle of which there were medallions, also in stucco work, two feet in diameter. As always happens in these cases, the frame was the only well- preserved portion of the medallions. Of the images sur- rounded by the frames, of the medallions themselves, ab- solutely nothing was left in situ except a few fragments piled up at the foot of the wall, which, however, could be identified as having been representations of human faces. My hope that at last, after fifteen years of excavations, I had succeeded in discovering a library, was confirmed be- MITHRAS TAUROKTONos. Marble group recently discovered on the Esquiline. 194 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROM E. yond any doubt by a legend written, or rather painted, in bright red color on one of the frames. There was but One name, APOLLONIVS THYAN ... but this name wit more plainly the purpose of the apart- ment than if I had discovered there the actual book-shelves and their contents. The form, disposition, and ornamentation of book-shelves and book-cases, which the ancients called armaria, are well known from the authentic description we possess of the library of S. Isidorus at Hispalis. This library was divided into classes or departments of geography, natural philos- ophy, theology, and so forth. The books of each class were neatly arranged in separate armaria, on the frieze of which the portraits of the most famous authors were painted, together with an epigram explaining what the contents of the armaria were. On the book-case contain- ing works on law there were the portraits of the famous jurisconsults Gaius and Paul, and of the Emperor Theo- dosius, the author of the Codex Theodosianus. The legend read as follows : — “Conditur hic juris series amplissima legum Veridico latium quae regit ore forum.” On the book-case containing historical works were the por- trait of Eusebius and Orosius, with the legend:— “Historias rerum et transacti tempora saecli Condita membranis haec simul arca gerit.” Likewise, on the armarium set apart for works on medicine there were four pictures or medallions, representing Hip- pocrates, Galenus (misnamed Gallienus), and the brother saints Cosmas and Damianus, with the epigram: – “Quos claros orbe celebrat medicina magistros, Hos praesens pictos signat imago viros.” PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 195 The text of the other inscriptions of this well-organized library can be found in the manuscript formerly at Laure- sheim, now in the Vatican (No. 1877). It appears from what I have said that the founders of Christian libra- ries in Rome and elsewhere followed faithfully the clas- The Vatican Library, showing style and arrangement of book-cases in ancient Rome. sic prototypes, not only in the general architecture of their buildings, but also in the minute details of interior arrangement; and the illustration above shows the force of tradition in such matters, the arrangement of the Vat- ican library to-day being precisely that of the ancients. The portraits of learned men were not always painted on the wood of the cases or on the plaster of the walls; there was an endless variety of arrangement. In a letter addressed to Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, by Rusticus, Bishop of Nar- bonne, at the beginning of the fifth century, mention is made of a library in which Rusticus himself had studied * 196 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. classic literature in his younger years. In this library, exclusively devoted saºcularibus litteris, there were many portraits of orators and poets in mosaic (expressa lapillis), or in terra-cotta (formata), or in a kind of pastel (ceris discoloribus), and each image was accompanied by a bio- graphical inscription. * But the ancients by no means confined themselves to simple medallions, in their desire to honor the memory of learned men; they actually set up life-size statues in the vestibules and porticoes of their libraries, and herma or Thusts in the inner halls. The taste for this display of literary luxury was introduced into Rome in the Augus- tan era, by Asinius Pollio. Asinius Pollio primus Ro- ma’ bibliothecas publicavit (grascam atque latinam) ad- ditis auctorum imaginibus in atrio. In a fragmentary inscription discovered by Stevenson at Bolsena four years ago, the will of a gentleman is praised, who had be- queathed to his Wolsinian fellow-citizens bibliothecam cum libris et statuis, with the books and statues. Statues and busts that have belonged to libraries can easily be recog- nized, at least in some cases, because the list of the oeuvres complètes of the authors they represent is generally en- graved on the base of the bust, or on the plinth of the statue. Monuments of this kind, such as the famous Eu- ripides of the villa Albani, have been illustrated by Ennio Quirino Wisconti in the “Iconografia Greca,” by Winckel- mann in the “Monumenti Inediti,” and quite recently by Comparetti and Di Petra in their volume on the “Villa dei Pisoni’’ and its library. In spite of the decadence of art and refinement, in spite of the poverty of the age, the Christians followed classic traditions even in this particular, as we see from the famous life-size sitting statue of S. Hippolytus, doctor of the Church PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 197 and martyr, on the plinth of which the catalogue of his works is engraved in minute Greek letters. The impor- tance of this document has always been considered so great that when in 1756 the two learned brothers, Stephen Evo- dius and Joseph Simon Assemani, by order of Benedict XIV., published the first volume of the catalogue of the Vatican library, they began the preface with the list of S. Hippolytus, considering it as the oldest specimen of an index of sacred literature. Books were not placed upright on the shelves, as with us, but horizontally. The first illumination of the volume offered by the Abbot Ceolfridus to the Holy See in 716, now in the Biblioteca Laurenziana at Florence, of which book I shall speak again presently, represents an armarium with open shutters, and with the books lying horizontally on the shelves. The same particular is represented in one of the mosaics of S. Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna. Church and house of S. Gregory. 198 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. I have mentioned above the name of Cassiodorius as the one who suggested to Pope Agapetus the establishment of a Christian university on the Coelian, an institution which was enlarged and improved by S. Gregory the Great, and which has in a certain measure come down to our age, as the library of the convent of S. Gregorio at Monte Celio. Tired of his political career, Cassiodorius left the wicked world in 536, and retired to one of the most secluded spots in Calabria, to devote himself to monastic life; I ought to say, rather, to devote himself to his passion for rare books and well-organized libraries. The one he founded in his Calabrian monastery of Vivarium is spoken of so frequently and so passionately in his book, “De Institutione Divina- rum Litterarum,” that we know every particular connected with it. I shall mention one or two. In the first place, great care and taste were displayed in binding the volumes; a body of docti artifices, clever bookbinders, was attached to the establishment, and a col- lection of models and specimens was placed at their disposi- tion for instruction. In the second place, some wonderful lamps were contrived for the assistance of students and copyists in their nocturnal work. Cassiodorius describes them as mechanicas lucernas qua, humano ministerio cessante, prolize custodirent uber- rimi luminis claritatem (mechanical lamps, which, even when left entirely to themselves, would continue to shine brilliantly for many hours), — lamps, I suppose, built on the 'moderateur or “Carcel ” principle. In the third place, the library was furnished with sun- dials and clepsydrae, horologium solare and aquatile, to regulate the hours of study and work by day or night, in clear or cloudy weather. Lastly, a large staff of amanuenses and copyists, called PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 199 antiquarii in classical times, was kept at work without interruption, like the printing departments of our libraries. A. Reiffersheid shows, in a pamphlet published at Bres- lau in 1882, what an incredible number of books was put in circulation by Cassiodorius at Vivarium, and by his friend Eugippius at the coenobium Lucullianum, near Naples. Their joint literary productions and copies of first-rate books inundated not only lower and central Italy, but even the African bishoprics, as proved by the epistles of S. Fulgentius to Eugippius. . As to catalogues, in the strict modern sense of the word, we know they must have existed, but we have no positive evidence about them, except, perhaps, the unique passage in the ninth chapter of Seneca “De Tranquillitate,” in which he mentions voluminum frontes, frontispieces; titu- los, titles; and bibliothecarum indices, real catalogues. The titles, as Cicero describes them, were beautifully illuminated on a small piece of parchment, and pasted on the back of the volume. ‘The oldest catalogue of a Christian library is that inserted by Eusebius in the third book of the life of Pamphilus. Others, anterior to the thirteenth century, have been quite recently collected and edited at Bonn by Profes- sor Gustav Becker, beginning with the catalogue of the Fon- tanelles library, written in 745. The series of Professor Becker, although numbering 136 catalogues, is far from complete, and many important documents have escaped his attention. Such are, for instance, the index of books of fered to the church of S. Clement in Rome, engraved on a marble slab in the vestibule of the church itself; the cata- logue of the Cluny library, the first divided according to subjects; those of Anchin and Puy, the first in which books are regularly numbered, and so forth. But, as the proverb says, facile est inventis addere. 200 PUBLIC LIBA’ARIES OF ROME. An interesting paper might be written on the exchange of manuscripts between Rome and the newly converted inhabitants of remote provinces, especially those of Anglo-Saxon countries. In 601, Pope Gregory the Great sent to S. Austin, then preaching the gospel in the British Isles, plurimos codices, of which only two seem to have come down to us, namely, the two evangeliaria preserved, one in the Cambridge, one in the Bodleian, library. Wanley, West- wood, Goodwin, and Garrucci agree in recognizing these two volumes as unique, rather than rare, specimens of the sixth-century palaeography. There is a third volume, which has long been considered as belonging to the set sent by Gregory to S. Austin, a psalterium now in the British Museum library, described on p. 8, Part II., of the catalogue printed in 1884. Bond, Thompson, Warner, and Delisle, however, have proved beyond dispute that the volume must have been written by an Anglo-Saxon amanuensis, towards the end of the eighth century, and is, accordingly, two hundred years younger than the evangeliaria of Ox- ford and Cambridge. Demands for books from the Gallic, Spanish, and Alexan- drine churches were not only taken into consideration at Rome, but granted as liberally as the resources of the ar- chives and library of the Holy See would permit. Apostles and missionaries, sowing the good seed, especially in the northern regions of Europe, would constantly beg for copies of the sacred books. In 649, Amandus, Bishop of Trajec- tum, sent a messenger to Pope Martin I. to obtain du: plicates from the pontifical library. The answer of the Pope was : “Our library is absolutely exhausted, and we PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 201 could not give your messenger a single duplicate. We authorized him, however, to transcribe and copy some of them himself, but he left Rome in a hurry.” The reason why no duplicates could be obtained is evident. In 649, the great Roman Council was assembled, and all available copies in the library had been distributed among the bish- ops, to help them in their inquiries about the heresy of the Monothelites. The founders of monasteries in England showed a real passion for books and libraries, and in the course of the seventh century they did not spare time, labor, or money in securing rare manuscripts from Rome. Bede, in his biographies of abbots, relates how one of them, named Benedict or Biscopus, travelled the whole distance to Rome not less than five times between the years 653 and 684, for the purpose of increasing the literary supply of his abbey. And if we consider how difficult, fatiguing, disagreeable, and even dangerous a journey between the British Islands and Italy must have been in those days of anarchy and barbarism, we can appreciate the intensity of Benedict's passion for beautiful and costly volumes. From his third pilgrimage, in 671, he brought back a set of theological works wel pretio emptos wel dono largitos, bought of copyists or received as presents; on his fourth journey, in 678, he increased his collection with an “innumerable quantity of books in literature; ” whereas the fifth journey was devoted again to the purchase of sacred and theological treatises. Even on his death-bed he could think of nothing but his library, and his last words were of earnest en- treaty to his successor to preserve and enlarge. his copio- sissima et nobilissima bibliotheca, of which the chef d'oeuvre seems to have been a codex of geography, mi- randi operis, of marvellous workmanship, bought, like the others, in Rome. 202 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. * The library contained also a valuable collection of pic- tures, of holy images, as Bede says, purchased during the fourth and fifth journeys. The most noticeable was a set of illustrations representing the concordia veteris et novi testamenti, the harmony between the old and the new tes- taments: for instance, Isaac carrying on his shoulder the fagots for his immolation, and our Lord carrying the cross for his crucifixion. This is, as far as we can judge, the ear- liest, or at least one of the earliest, records of a Bible illus- trated with parallel pictures from both testaments. These Bibles, popularized at first by the work of hand and pen- cil, later on by the help of wood-cuts, are better known under the name of Biblia pauperum. Rome was the centre of this sort of literary and artistic industry; and there is no doubt that the earliest fresco- paintings in Anglo-Saxon churches and cloisters, repre- senting Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and so forth, were copied from models sent from Rome. To this class of original drawings belongs the codex of Cambridge, already mentioned, splendidly ornamented with illustrations of evan- gelical history, designed in Rome. The successor of Benedict, named Ceolfrid, shared his passion for valuable manuscripts. He brought over from Italy a “pandect” of the sacred text, of which he ordered three copies to be made; and, being already far advanced in years, he undertook another journey to Rome to offer to the library of the Holy See the best of the three copies. Death overtaking him, near Lyons, in the spring of 716, his disciples and followers pursued the journey, and pre- sented the precious volume, containing the translation of S. Jerome, to the Pope. The volume still exists; it is pre- served in the Biblioteca Laurenziana at Florence, to which it was carried from the monastery of Monte Amiata. PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 203 There is no doubt that the direct descent of Roman libraries and the transmission of classic and religious books from age to age, from generation to generation, can be fol- lowed uninterruptedly from the fall of the Empire down to the middle of the thirteenth century. We do not know how ſº §4. ". fºr iſ § % d * % § - ''' Nº. K; j; * } M.) w § §§ Remains of the Turris Cartularia. long the great library and central archives of Pope Damasus existed as a special and individual institution; we know, however, that as early as the eighth century the Lateran pontifical palace became the centre of the literary, histor- ical, and religious libraries and archives belonging to the Holy See. There they remained undisturbed until the tenth century, in the course of which the most precious documents were transferred to a stronghold, especially built for the purpose, in the Turris Cartularia, a massive tower, to which the triumphal arch of Titus served as a buttress." The only means we possess of following the life and * This Turris Cartularia, or “Tower What remains of its foundations is of the Archives,” was dismantled at represented in the accompanying the beginning of the present century. illustration. 204 PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. vicissitudes of this invaluable collection of sacred and classic books, in an age the history of which is absolutely obscure and fragmentary, are the regesta Pontificum ; that is to say, the collection of official documents, epistles, constitu- tions, and canons issued by each Pope. The regesta are known to have existed, as a complete series and without any interruption, from the remotest ages down to the middle of the thirteenth century. Honorius III., who died in 1227, is the very last Pope who saw the volumes, who studied them carefully, and who makes express mention of them. None of his successors, so far as we can discover, mentions the library and the archives as an existing institution. Not one of the volumes, of the documents, of the re- gesta, belonging to the incomparable collection formerly in the buildings of Damasus, then in the Lateran, and lastly in the Turris Cartularia, has escaped destruction, — not one has come down to us ! Before the present learned and enterprising pontiff, Leo XIII., threw open to everybody the secret archives of the Vatican, many of us believed that the long-lost documents might be discovered there, in that mysterious den, which was inexorably closed to scholars, from the time of Pope Eugenius IV. to the time of Pope Pius IX. Our expectation has been completely disap- pointed: not a trace, not a particle, of the old collection has been found as yet, and most likely none ever will be. Therefore we are forced to believe that the catastrophe by which the collection was destroyed, and by which the link connecting modern with ancient libraries was severed, must have taken place soon after the death of Pope Ho- norius III. ; but we are absolutely ignorant of the precise date, the nature, the details, of the catastrophe. The only plausible explanation which we can offer is to be found in the history of the Turris Cartularia itself. This strong- PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ROME. 205 hold, built by the Frangipani family, as a detached work of their Palatine headquarters, and used by the Popes as a safe receptacle for their state documents, was handed over to the imperial faction in 1244. Its contents were doubtless burnt, or otherwise destroyed, out of spite and revenge towards the Popes and their faithful supporters, the Frangipani family. CHAPTER VIII. THE POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT OF ANCIENT ROME. AMONG the many points of resemblance which one dis- covers in comparing the leading features of life in ancient Rome and modern London, that concerning the organiza- tion of the police is perhaps the most striking. Regular troops, in the modern sense of the word, infantry as well as cavalry, were not allowed to take up permanent quar- ters in Rome, and so are they excluded from London; they were garrisoned within a certain distance of the me- tropolis, ready to answer any sudden call in case of extraor- dinary emergencies. The only bodies of troops tolerated in Rome were those attached to the person and to the special service of the emperor: the praetorian guard, cor- responding to our European gardes impériales et royales, and a few select horsemen, called in ancient times equites singulares; in modern, cent-gardes, or horse-guards, or cuirassiers du roi. These men, however, praetorians as well as equites singulares, had nothing to do with the maintenance of public order; in fact, they were decidedly against it, and their barracks were nothing but hot-beds of disturbance and riot. The protection of the great metrop- olis was intrusted to a select body of constables, 7,500 in number; a number which corresponds very well to the 9,000 policemen of modern London. The only difference in the organization of the two bodies is that the Roman vigiles — this was their official name — had to perform at the same time the duties of firemen and policemen; and neither duty w POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 207 was a sinecure, as we shall see in the course of the pres- ent chapter. Ancient Rome has never enjoyed a good name for its respect of private property and the personal security of citizens. The principal cause of disorder is to be found in the almost incomprehensible fact that the metropolis, in which all the wealth, luxury, and comfort of the world was concentrated, was kept in perfect darkness at night ! How this could have happened in such a civilized age — why the plain, simple idea of a system of public illumination was not conceived and adopted — is a mystery hard to solve. Yet excavations at Pompeii, Ostia, and other well- preserved antique cities fully confirm the fact. Not a trace of a bracket fixed to the front of a house, or of a rope or small chain drawn across the street to support lamps or lanterns, has as yet been found, and probably none ever will be. People took advantage of moonlight when the moon illuminated the streets; but during quite half of the year, and when the silvery satellite was veiled by clouds, they made use of lanterns, the frame of which was generally of bronze, the other part of glass, or of thin plates of horn, or of oiled linen. People of the lower classes carried lan- terns themselves; gentlemen and noblemen were preceded in their nocturnal strolls by a valet or slave, called by Cicero laternarius, and by Suetonius 8ervus praelucens, who lighted their path, sometimes with a lantern, sometimes with a torch. In consequence of this state of things, as soon as the twilight had vanished, shopmen and merchants were obliged, for safety, to lock up their premises; and the solitary streets, plunged in darkness, wore a sinister look, and be: came dangerous for the passer-by. The shop and house doors were closed in a very ingenious way, inwards or 208 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. outwards, according to the requirements of the case. The doors were composed of three or four pieces of solid board, sometimes of a double thickness, and these pieces were made to slide, one after the other, in a groove made for the purpose in the threshold and the architrave; then a cross- bolt, the two ends of which were inserted in hollows sunk in both the door-posts, was drawn from the inside. When the door was opened and fastened from the outside, locks and keys were made use of, the arrangement of which is now perfectly well known, since Giuseppe Fiorelli, formerly director of excavations at Pompeii, and now general direc- tor of antiquities in the kingdom of Italy, conceived the happy idea of taking plaster casts of the impressions left by Pompeian doors on the soft volcanic ashes under which that lovely city was buried. So precarious were the conditions of public security in Rome, and so great the audacity of burglars, that even windows were locked at night, as described by Pliny the elder, or else protected by railings, – a custom which has prevailed down to our own age, and which gives to the stately palaces of modern Rome the aspect of prisons. I need not say that house-doors were watched day and night, especially at night, by the Ostiarius, or janitor, who carried a staff in his hands. The janitor, generally assisted by a dog, could be called from the outside by ringing a bell. In early times, and even during the Empire, although an exception to the ordinary rule, the attendance of the janitor was sometimes secured by fastening him by a chain to the entrance. All these precautions were not deemed super- fluous for the protection of private property. Rome and the Campagna have been afflicted, from time immemorial, by two plagues, mendicity and brigandage, which after having infected the district with more or less POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 209 violence for nearly twenty centuries, have been finally thoroughly extirpated by the Italian national government, and relegated to a place among the legends of the past. Mendicity was practised at certain definite points as a means of dragging out an idle existence. In the city, beg- gars haunted chiefly the bridges and the gates; that is to say, they haunted places the narrowness of which would sometimes stop, and always slacken, traffic, and expose pass- ers-by to the full importunity and impudence of the brother- hood. For the same reason they took up their abode on the clivi, or steep ascents of public roads in the Campagna, where they were sure that even the fastest horses and the lightest carriages would be obliged to slacken their speed. Famous amongst all was the Clivus Aricinus, a steep gradient of the Appian Way, just outside the gates of Aricia, fifteen miles from Rome, which is represented below. On this -- ~~, *.*.*.*.*. 2 ----, &= - The Clivus Aricinus. Showing the viaduct built by Pius IX, 1852. ill-famed slope swarms of filthy professional beggars used to take up their station, to tax the benevolence of travel- lers with their importunities. They actually followed riders and drivers up the hill, harassing them with their vocif- erations, until the victims, to rescue themselves from such a persecution, would throw a handful of coins among the 210 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. dirty crew, which ransom would make them stop and fight one another, and leave the traveller alone. On these occa- sions wonders could be seen, – the blind recovering eye- sight, the crippled and paralytic recovering the use of their limbs, and the like, – scenes and incidents which the trav- eller in modern Spain, or in Italy of fifteen years ago, has certainly witnessed. As regards the exploits of robbers, highwaymen, and brigands, accounts have been left by ancient writers, and are sometimes engraved on the tombstones of the victims. Travelling on the great consular roads of Italy was always made disagreeable by publicans, or toll and octroi collec- tors, and by innkeepers insatiable of undue gain, and some- times made dangerous on account of the precarious con- ditions of public security. There were regular associations of brigands in central and southern Italy, and also in Sar- dinia, against which the Emperor Tiberius dispatched bands of Jews, who had received military drill, hoping that the two contending parties would destroy each other. The geographer Strabo mentions other such associations as flourishing in Corsica, Pamphylia, and Pisidia. In conse- quence of this state of things, timid or prudent travellers were obliged to place themselves under the protection of the escort accompanying distinguished magistrates, ambas- sadors, governors, proconsuls, and other public officials. In Italy, the greatest insecurity prevailed, as a rule, at the end of civil wars. Even the short journey from Rome to Tibur was at times extremely insecure. Augustus, at the very beginning of his reign, attempted to stop the evil, and covered the whole Empire with a network of military and police stations, the number of which was largely in- creased by Tiberius, his successor to the throne. The high- waymen caught by these patrols were executed on the spot, POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 211 without ceremony, or else were held prisoners to be devoured by wild beasts at the next show in the amphitheatre. The audacity of these men was such that sometimes they would ride to the very gates of the city, and make there a razzia of horses and beasts of burden. The Pontine marshes and the dense forest near Cumae, called the Silva Galli- naria, were considered the most dangerous of all to cross. Juvenal says that the expeditions sent, under extraordinary circumstances, to chase the brigands from their haunts suc- ceeded in restoring security for the time being; but as soon as the troops were withdrawn the hydra would again raise its head. The disturbances which usually followed the election of an emperor always caused a revival of brigand- age. When Septimius Severus, in his general reform of the Roman military system, caused the praetorian soldiers, or body-guard, to be drafted from the provinces watered by the Rhine and the Danube, instead of Italy, as had been done before, Italian youths, inclined naturally to military life, gave themselves up to brigandage, as a means of en- joying their favorite sport of war. The disaffection of the younger generation, thus neglected by Septimius Severus, reached such a point that an intrepid chief, Felix Bulla, succeeded in putting the whole of Italy to ransom for two years, crossing it from end to end and from sea to sea, at the head of an army of six hundred brigands. Betrayed, finally, by the woman he loved, he was caught by the police, and ended his adventurous career in the arena, devoured by wild beasts, amidst the applause of a num- berless multitude. º: Ancient epitaphs very often speak of persons murdered in encounters with brigands. I have described in the third chapter the assault committed by Mauritanian robbers on Nonius Datus, an officer of the engineers of the third legion, 212 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. on his way from Lambaese to Saldae. A tombstone discov- ered near Oteyza, Spain, speaks of the murder of a Roman knight, only twenty years of age, named Calaetus. Another, discovered on the bank of the Danube, commemorates L. Julius Bassus, president of the town council of Drobeta, and quaestor, interfectus a latronibus. His death was avenged by a brother, named Julius Valerianus. Three sons, like- wise, in an inscription discovered in the same province of Moesia, state that they had revenged the murder of their mother. The most interesting of these epitaphs, however, is an inscription discovered sixteen years ago, near the farm of La Magliana, six miles from Rome, on the high road to Porto. This tombstone, which belongs to the beginning of the third century of our era, describes how a schoolmaster, named Julius Timotheus, only twenty-eight years old, and held in high estimation in Rome, having gone out for an excursion on the Via Campana with seven of his pupils, fell into an ambush, and was murdered by the thieves, together with his young companions. This wholesale slaughter, ac- complished almost within sight of the walls, and on the line of the great traffic between Rome and its harbor (Portus Augusti), must have created an intense excitement in the capital, and must have given occasion to some extraordinary measures towards the extirpation of the evil, inasmuch as I have not been able to find, either in books or in inscrip- tions, any further accounts of acts of brigandage, in the neighborhood of Rome, after the beginning of the third century. Another source of annoyance, and, in some cases, of real personal danger, came from meeting, in the dark streets, parties of fashionable youths returning home from a late debauch. Woe to the peaceful and unoffending father of a family, who chanced to meet one of these drunken par- POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 213 ties in the darkness | The poor man was insulted, beaten, wounded, and occasionally his clothes were torn off, so that he would have remained exposed to the full violence of the winter frost. One peculiarity of ancient Rome, common, I dare say, to all large capitals not belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race, was the perfect accordance of all classes of citizens in evad- ing, as much as they could, police regulations: for instance, those concerning the protection of passers from the fall of tiles and flower-pots, the free use of the city streets, and the proper construction of scaffoldings and new structures of every kind. That citizens were seriously injured and even killed by the accidental fall of pots from window-gardens, and of tiles from roofs not kept in proper order, is a fact positively asserted by Juvenal and Gaius. I shall describe in the tenth chapter the obstructions which made traffic almost impossible in the narrow and tortuous streets of Rome, in spite of edicts promulgated by the magistrates to stop this evil. As regards accidents occasioned by the fall of scaffoldings and of hurriedly-built structures, I shall quote one instance, which is connected, besides, with another source of public disturbances and riots, – the in- sane passion of the populace for races and jockeys, and for special horses and special jockeys, a passion which often brought on bloody encounters. Before the reign of Domitian, the agitatores circenses, or charioteers of the circus, a state institution, magnificently lodged, fed, and endowed, were divided into four squadrons or factions, named albata, prasina, russata, and veneta, from the white, green, red, or blue color of the caps and jackets of their champions. Domitian increased the Hum- ber of squadrons to six, by the addition of the factio au- rata, the “golden,” and of the factio purpurea, the “pur- 214 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. ple,” organized and supported from the inexhaustible re- sources of the privy purse. The first bad example of fa- naticism for a special squadron or color was set by the emperors themselves. Tacitus says that Vitellius put the care of riders before that of the government. Caligula was such an ardent partisan and supporter of the squadron of the greens that he spent the greater portion of his time in their stables, rioting with them until a late hour of the night. Sometimes one squadron would remain popular and enjoy the favor and partiality of the turbulent crowds for a period of several years. From the time of Caligula to the end of the empire of Hadrian, the greens always main- tained supremacy, never losing the confidence and affection of the public. This fact makes us understand better the following passage in the ninth satire of Juvenal: “The whole of Rome has flocked to the circus to-day, and the up- roar of the crowd can be heard miles away. I understand from this that the greens have, as usual, won the day; otherwise I should see the city in deep mourning, just as if the consuls had been slain over again in the battle-field of Cannae.” With good reason Juvenal himself asserts that one jockey alone could make in a short time one hundred- fold the income of a celebrated lawyer, — centum patri- monia causidicorum. They amassed their prodigious fortunes in two ways: first, by getting the prizes established for the different races; secondly, by taking their share in betting, and, I dare say, by conspiring with book-makers. On May 20, 1878, we discovered, not far from the stables of the green squadron at S. Lorenzo in Damaso (in prasina), a pedestal dedicated to a jockey of African extraction, named Crescens. Ac- cording to the inscription of this pedestal, Crescens, when only twenty-two years old, had already gained 1,558,346 ·#997 ºu ſvØS' ‘vuo.499 79 puno y ‘SAWvo snoRIIO ，IHL ONIAAOHS OIVSOW $$$$$$$$ < && &&&& „Elaeae § •ſº � % ſă ț¢ * . ºğ011） ¡ & g, * > * § •::... 3. Nº. Sº ||||| |} Šºš 130 13-san v Tºo. Riºt Sº ¿ įº &{; ：ק§§§ 0 º-º-º--:№f§§§ §§. &&!§§§ya :aeº***** . º ： *¿¿.$ºsº）. T &?-|-- - §§§§§.§§§！ ¿¿.*§§§§§§§§§§§§žŞae§§§§§§§:?！,5)& &（?:.*?）（ *）， §.?:• *** ?”; * * *！ 2*（N.S）';$$$（'±， ±,±）， ۩✉}}&ÄÄ%→-+ſºšºs: º*-§§§§§§§§。-Ř®Åxn +·X· * * • •→ ·š，.*š' （'J':':.*? \* （.*?.*{};{№}} ºra POLICE AND F/RE DEPARTMENT. 215 sestertii, a sum equal to $65,000. The greatest of Roman jockeys, the William Archer of classic times, the famous Diocles, left to his son a fortune of 35,863,120. Sestertii, equivalent to $1,250,000. Horses were not less beloved than their riders. Inscrip- tions, mosaic pictures, bronzes, frescoes, have not only per- petuated their names and valiant deeds, but have trans- mitted to us even their effigies. Here is a copy of the precious mosaic discovered near Gerona, Spain, in 1884, representing a chariot- race, with the names of the champions inscribed near each group of run- ners. The four thor- oughbreds with which the young Crescens won his first race were called Circius, Acceptor, Deli- catus, Cotinus. In de- stroying the towers of Sixtus IV., which flanked the Porta del Popolo, we found some bas-reliefs, representing the five horses, Palmatus, Da- naus, Ocean, Victor, Vin- dex, which bas-reliefs had been removed by the Pope from the tomb of the famous champion, 3.2 ºyºſt ºf ºzºº, º - % % ź - '... - %3%Yº - §§ - %. 3% §§ % % #2. ſº. 37. ^ ºr gº.º.º.A:0 % º ſº ;% § % % ź }% 3. º % *, % •º % § -- ſº º º &º & % § § sº ... ſº tºº ׺ fººtºzººlºº ºf Zºº º 33.3% - - º º §1%ft 3&#% ſº º %5% º % º º % % % &iº %;% %&zºº’eezzº 24%.3%.3% sº l ſ %| Ji EW& Inscription from the pedestal of the jockey Crescens. Publius AElius Gutta Calpurnianus. The names and effigies of these runners were cut upon various domestic utensils, objects of daily use, and even children's toys. In our 216 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. storerooms in the Capitoline museum, we keep a couple of leaden wheels of a very small cart, evidently the toy of a child two or three years of age, on the circumference of which the names of famous horses and jockeys are en- graved. In Rome, in the Via Porta S. Lorenzo, and at Ostia, in the Via delle Pistrine, I have myself found two handles of pocket-knives, of bone, both ornamented with the head and name of a certain horse, Nereos, and of his jockey Euprepes, the beautiful. |-º-º-º: ~ kill. -- PE's º Fancy what an incredible amount of labor fell upon the poor Roman policemen on race days, and generally on days of popular entertainments in theatres, amphitheatres, cir- cuses, and the stadium. The Circus Maximus alone could accommodate 285,000 spectators, all comfortably seated; the Circus Flaminius, 150,000, and the Colosseum, 87,000. This mania for spectacular shows, and the assemblage of these gigantic crowds, very often gave occasion to not less gigantic catastrophes, in comparison with which the recent ones of the Ring Theatre at Vienna, of Nice, Marseilles, Brooklyn, the Opéra Comique in Paris, and Exeter, sink into insignificance. Tacitus relates that, in the year 27 after POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 217 Christ, a certain Atilius, a man sprung from the lowest classes of the city, obtained the right of building a tem- porary wooden amphitheatre near Fidenae, now Castel Giu- bileo, five miles outside the Porta Salaria. As, under Ti- berius, athletic and gladiatorial shows had become quite a rare occurrence, on account of the indifference, even antipa- thy which the emperor himself felt towards them, an enor- mous crowd met at Fidenae, to enjoy the novelty of the ex- hibition, and at the same time to enjoy an excursion up the green valley of the Tiber. These spectators had scarcely taken their seats on the wooden steps, when, in a moment, and with a terrific crash, the whole structure gave way, and buried under its ruins the entire assembly. Tacitus, who had at his disposal and who consulted the official reports of the police, assures us that the number of dead and wounded amounted to 50,000. The town was struck with profound terror and amazement. Noblemen turned their palaces into hospitals. Matrons and maidens of the aristocracy took the office of nurses. “We had an example in those eventful days,” says the historian, “of the fine old times, when, after a great battle, the town was turned into one affectionate family, in which the able portion gave up all their time and attention to the disabled.” The Senate made new regulations for the safety of public places of entertainment; generous subscriptions came to the relief of the sufferers; and, to make the similarity with modern cases more perfect, just as the author of the Marseilles catas- trophe was fined only a few hundred francs, so Atilius, the author of the Fidenae slaughter, was only banished from Rome and from Italy. There is no doubt that all the evils and accidents I have described must have kept the vigiles constantly on the qui 218 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. vive; still, I have not yet mentioned their principal duty and labor, as firemen. I do not think there has ever been a town so often and so thoroughly purified by fire as ancient Rome was. That conflagrations on a large scale should have oc- curred in the first two or three centuries of its life was natural enough, since its houses were mostly of timber and covered with thatched roofs. I admit also the possibility of great fires after the city, burnt down and destroyed by the Gauls A. U. C. 364, was reconstructed with stone and brick, because, as soon as those barbaric hordes were swept from the region of the Seven Hills by Camillus, the only care and solicitude of the patres patriae was that the city should be rebuilt quickly, not that it should be rebuilt regularly and well. Livy relates that as soon as the decisive words of the centurio, hic manebimus optime, were heard through the Forum, the populace at once gave up the idea of migrating to Veii, and that antiquata lege promiscue urbs aedificari coºpta; they began to rebuild their houses, with no consideration whatever for regularity, for the straight line, or for aesthetic and sanitary laws. Bricks and tiles were distributed gratuitously; every one was allowed to quarry stones wherever they could be obtained, and to establish lime-kilns in the very heart of the city. The eagerness to gain the prize prômised to those who would complete their constructions in twelve months' time made them despise the straight line in the new streets and lanes; and the desire of gaining more ground caused them to increase the size of the houses at the expense of that of the streets. “This is the reason,” Livy concludes, “why the drains, which before the fire of the Gauls ran under public land, now run irregularly under private property; this is also the reason why the plan of Rome is more er- ratic than that of any other great city.” POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 219 No wonder that, under such adverse circumstances, we hear of fires sweeping periodically over whole quarters of the capital. Such was the fire described by Livy in chap- ter twenty-seven of the twenty-sixth book, by which all the shops and houses surrounding the Forum, the palace of the high-priest, the fish-market, and the region of the Lautumiae, were levelled to the ground; such also was the fire described by Livy in chapter twenty-six of his forty-seventh book, a fire by which the region of the Forum Boarium, from the modern Piazza Montanara to the foot of the Aventine, was totally devastated. I need not speak of the most fearful of all conflagrations, – of the conflagration which, under Nero, in the year 65 of our era, annihilated two thirds of the great metropolis, – because I have had occasion to describe it in my fifth chapter, on “The Palace of the Caesars.” In all these reports of fires, however, there is one thing which I fail to understand, and that is how fire could have attacked, injured, or altogether destroyed edifices built of marble and bronze, without a particle of timber or other combustible matter. Take, for instance, the Pantheon of Agrippa, which ancient writers assert was twice burnt, — once under Titus, once under Trajan. There is not an atom of it capable of catching fire; not even French pétro- leurs could do the slightest harm to it. It is also a mys- tery to me how the Colosseum could have been set into a blaze by a thunderbolt, on August 23, A. D. 217, and that it should have taken not less than six years to repair the damage. Still, the fact is proved by the testimony of Dion Cassius (lxxviii. 25), by the coins of Severus Alexander, showing the view of the restored amphitheatre, and by the amphitheatre itself, the upper tiers of which appear to have been rebuilt in haste, with materials taken from other edifices. 220 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. As to smaller fires, of single houses and premises, they were almost a daily occurrence. In fact, they broke out z_----, - ºr--ºr # \º lºº 3. lººr º; 1, A {/ % #: § º . * TH ſº .” Aft -*=º illinſ|| || i. - tº ºx fi, sº #y. × -— -viº- r º: ". w !" - ! | *º {T} | W Wºr { Upper part of the Colosseum. so often and so unexpectedly that there sometimes arose suspicion of the owners themselves having set the prop- erty on fire; because, although the Romans did not pos- sess, as far as we can judge, fire insurance companies, yet such munificent contributions were made by friends and clients to the sufferers that it was in many cases a fortu- nate thing to be burned down. Martial, in the fifty-second epigram of the third book, speaks of a certain Tongilianus, whose house, worth two hundred sesterces, had been rebuilt, after a suspicious fire, at a cost of ten thousand, raised by the subscriptions of friends. Juvenal, in the third satire, describes the zeal of those who, not satisfied with rendering POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 221 pecuniary help to the sufferers, made them also presents of statues, pictures, books, and furniture. Let us see now in what way Rome tried to protect itself from so many perils, risks, and casualties. At a very remote age the direction of the police was intrusted to three magistrates, called triumviri nocturni, because their principal duty was to watch for the safety of the city at night. Valerius Maximus speaks of one of them, P. Willius, being fined quia vigilias neglegentius circumi- erat (for not having kept with diligence his nocturnal watch), and of other triumviri who were punished because they had not run with proper speed to extinguish a fire which had broken out in a jeweller's shop on the Sacra Via. The triumviri capitales was composed of a body of men belonging to the familia publica, “servants of the com- monwealth,” stationed in groups of twenty or thirty in the neighborhood of the gates of the town, and furnished with the most elementary instruments known to our firemen, such as ladders, saws, pickaxes, and ropes. In process of time, these servi publici having become insufficient to meet the requirements of a largely increased population, compa- nies of volunteers were formed for the extinction of fires, and for helping the triumviri gratuitously in the accom- plishment of their duties. These companies, however, did not enjoy particularly the favor of the government, whether republican or imperial. In the thirty-third letter addressed by Pliny the younger, when governor of Bithynia, to the wise Emperor Trajan, permission is asked to form a body of one hundred and fifty volunteer firemen at Nicomedia. The answer of the emperor is not favorable to Pliny’s pro- posal, because, he remarks, societies originated with a praiseworthy idea often degenerate into political sects, and 222 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. become a permanent source of disturbance and danger to state institutions. In the year 6 B. C., a fire having destroyed a large dis- trict of Rome under the eyes of Augustus, that emperor at once decided to reform the service, and enrolled for this purpose a body of freedmen, seven thousand strong, which was divided into seven battalions, or cohortes, and placed under the command of an officer of the equestrian order. The body was distributed and lodged throughout the city, so that each battalion could watch two of the fourteen regions, or wards, into which the city itself had been di- vided by Augustus. The seven companies of each battalion were placed under the orders of centuriones, or captains; each battalion under the orders of a colonel, or tribunus; and the whole body under a general or prefect of police, called praefectus vigilum. The cost of the maintenance of the corps was charged against the public treasury; and as the state of the public treasury was not very flourishing at the time, Augustus not only suppressed unnecessary out- lays, such as the subsidy which used to be allowed to mag- istrates who gave, in their own private name, gladiatorial shows, but also increased the public revenue by instituting a new contribution, called the vicesima quinta venalium (twenty-five per cent. on the sale of slaves). Every time a fire took place the prefect of the vigiles was obliged to open an official inquiry, and judge of the case, sitting in court. Of course no penalty was inflicted in case of a pure accident; but if the fire had been caused by neg- ligence, the culprit was punished either by a solemn public admonition, or, in the worst cases, with castigation, the number of strokes being fixed according to the degree of the culprit's responsibility duly ascertained. Incendiaries were handed over to the higher court of the prefect of the JPOLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 223 city, and sentenced to death. However, as the spirit of the police regulations of Rome was rather to prevent than to punish, the prefect of the vigiles was authorized to watch and examine kitchens in every house, and state whether the supply of water in the kitchen corresponded to the impor- tance and size of the house, and whether the furnaces and heating apparatus worked properly. Another of his duties was to supervise wardrobes at the entrance of the great thermae, and to pass judgment upon the wardrobe-keep- ers, or capsarii, every time the loss of wraps or overcoats was complained of by a customer. Imagine what the life of these poor magistrates must have been, if they put any particle of zeal into the accomplishment of their functions, obliged as they were per totam noctem vigilare, and to sit the whole day in court, dealing with the worst class of roughs and vagabonds. Some of the cases brought be- fore them were discussed for eighteen years; that is to say, for a space of time considerably longer than that occupied by the famous Tichborne case. Near the church of S. Antony, on the Esquiline, inscriptions have been discovered relating to a process instituted in the year 226 of our era by the collegium fullomum, the corporation of washermen, against the curator aquarum, or superintendent of public aqueducts, on account of a certain supply of water to which the corporation claimed to be gratuitously entitled. The controversy lasted from the year 226 to 244, and was finally settled by an elaborate sentence of the prefect of police, the very text of which, engraved on a marble pedes- tal, has been discovered in the above-mentioned place. The policemen themselves, whom Augustus at first en- rolled among freedmen, did not enjoy, as usual in Euro- pean cities, the favor of the populace; and as in modern Rome the guardie di publica Sicurezza are called all sorts 224 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. of names by the roughs and their sympathizers, so the clas- sic vigiles were nicknamed sparteoli by our forefathers. Yet this ludicrous and sarcastic denomination is not devoid of interest for the archaeologist, because it is evidently de- rived from Spartum ; in other words, it shows that the fire- men used to carry water in buckets of spartum, made water- tight with a coating of pitch or tar. To console them for the want of public sympathy, the emperors increased pe- riodically their privileges and their accommodations, and conceded to them the rights of Roman citizenship, not after the expiration of their term of service, as was cus- tomary, but after only three years of good service. The captains, in case of promotion, had the right of serving in the praetorian guard; and their prefect usually exchanged the department of police first for that of the annona, then for the governorship of Egypt, to end his career as pre- fect of the praetorium, the highest dignity which a Roman knight could reach. In my opinion there is no single instance better adapted to show the difference in the accommodations of ancient and modern police than the comparative study of their lodgings or barracks. In Rome there were seven main barracks, called stationes, and fourteen corps de garde, or detached posts, called excubitoria. Of the seven stations, four have been discovered; of the fourteen eaccubitoria, only two. The barracks of the first battalion, which con- tained also the headquarters of the whole corps and the offices of the commander-in-chief, were found during the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII., Barberini, in 1644, at the northern extremity of the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, in the foundations of the Palazzo Muti-Savorelli, now Balestra. Their remains were examined and described by Lucas Hol- stenius. He speaks of huge halls, ornamented with columns, POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 225 pedestals, statues, marble incrustations, mosaic pavements, and of waiting-rooms and offices, having marble seats around the walls, which were covered with finely designed fres- coes. Amongst the statues raised to gods and emperors in the vestibule and in the atrium of the barracks, only eight were discovered, in a more or less fragmentary state; they represented the Genius cohortis prima vigilum, Cara- calla, Gordianus Pius, Furia Sabinia Tranquillina (his empress), Constantine, Constans, Valentinian, and Gratianus. If the site occupied by these barracks were not actually covered with palatial and costly structures, such as the Palazzo Muti-Savorelli and the convent of S. Marcello, it would be well worth while to excavate it again, for I have come across documents proving the existence there of some remarkable works of art. In the archaeological memoirs of Pietro Santi Bartoli, imperfectly published by Fea, are the following memoranda: — “Amongst the many exquisite works of leading Greek chisels discovered by Cavaliere Giovanni Battista Muti in rebuilding the foundations of his palace, at the northern end of the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, there was the bas-relief representing Perseus and Andromeda (now preserved in the Casino of the Villa Doria-Pamphili). Two more bas-reliefs were brought to light, of the same perfect workmanship; but by order of the Cavaliere Muti they were broken in pieces, and buried again under the foundations of the palace.” - As regards the adjoining convent of S. Marcello, Pietro Santi Bartoli says: “In laying the foundations of that wing of the convent which lies toward the Palazzo Muti, and overlooks the same Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, Inaily col- umns and ancient marbles were discovered, and among them a fine statue of colossal size and in perfect preserva- 226 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. tion. By order of the monks, it was buried again.” It is worthy of consideration how, in my native city, even fate seems to be inspired by archaeological instincts. Who in modern times has taken possession of this convent of S. Marcello, built on the site of the barracks and headquarters of the ancient Vigiles? The superintendent of police him- self, the Questore di Roma, with his staff of Guardie di Publica Sicurezza. The barracks of the second battalion were discovered during the pontificate of Clement XII., on the road leading (at that time) from the Esquiline to the Porta Maggiore, and corresponding to the ancient Via Labicana. Affixed to the walls of the edifice were inscriptions commemorating the dedication of a tetrastyle temple in honor of Jupiter Dolichenus, and of a Nymphaeum, by Claudius Catullus, prefect of the Vigiles in the year 191, together with some of the officers of the second battalion. The site of the barracks of the third battalion is unknown. The site of the fourth Statio, in the neighborhood of the church of S. Saba, on the so-called Pseudo-Aventine, was revealed, as early as the beginning of the fifteenth cen- tury, by the discovery of a pedestal dedicated in the year 205 to the emperor Caracalla. On the left side of this pedestal the following remarkable document was inscribed: “Severus and Caracalla emperors, to Junius Rufinus, pre- fect of the Vigiles, greeting. You are hereby authorized to punish with the rod or with the cat-o'-nine-tails (fusti- bus vel flagellis) the janitor or any of the inhabitants of a house, in which fire has broken out through negligence. In case the fire should be occasioned not by negligence but by crime, you must hand over the incendiaries to our friend Fabius (Septimianus) Cilo, prefect of the city. Remember also that one of your duties is to discover runaway slaves and to return them to their masters.” POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 227 We have now reached the barracks of the fifth battalion, which occupied, as I shall presently show, the higher plat- Entrance to the Villa Mattei. Site of the Barracks of the Fifth Battalion of Police. form of the Villa Celimontana, formerly belonging to the ducal family of the Mattei di Giove, and now the prop- erty of Baron Richard von Hoffman. An inscription was found in that part of the villa which overlooks the church of S. Stefano Rotondo, describing how a shrine, dedi- cated A. D. 111 to the Genius of the fifth battalion, had been restored forty-five years later, in 156. Another in- scription, discovered in the same place in 1735, speaks of another aidiculum dedicated to the same Genius in the year 113. The shrine itself, or, at any rate, one of the many shrines of the barracks, seems to have been found and brought to iight in the sixteenth century in this ileighbor- hood, more precisely in the garden then belonging to Uberto Strozzi of Mantua. I describe it to show what an 228 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. extraordinary display of art and luxury there was in a chapel belonging to ordinary police barracks. The shrine was built in the shape of a small temple, circular outside, octagonal inside, and was surrounded by a colonnade of the Corinthian order, with shafts of porphyry, capitals, frieze, and cornice of Carrara marble. Each of the eight sides of the interior was ornamented with a niche for stat- ues, of which niches four were semicircular, four square. One of these last served as a door. In the corners of the octagon there were eight columns of porphyry, supporting an exquisitely carved frieze. The discoveries I have described were cast into the shade by those made in January, 1820, a little to the left of the main gate of the same Villa Mattei, or von Hoffman. At a depth of thirteen feet, two marble pedestals, five feet high, were dug up ; they were found standing in their orig- inal position, on a tessellated pavement, and bore the com- plete rolls of the battalion. The first pedestal had no ded- icatory inscription, but began at once with the rolls of the first company, commanded by Captain Caesernius Senecio. The inscription on the second pedestal began with the fol- lowing words, which I translate freely : — “To the Emperor Caesar M. Aurelius Antoninus Cara- calla, the pious, the fortunate, consul for the third time, son of the late Emperor L. Septimius Severus Pius Perti- nax, this pedestal and this statue have been raised by the officers and men of the fifth battalion of police on July 6th, under the consulship of Faustinus and Rufinus’’ (the year 210 A.D.). Then follow the names of the superior officers, of C. Julius Quintilianus, prefect of police and general commanding the corps; of M. Firmius, adjutant- general; of L. Speratius Justus, colonel of the fifth bat- talion; of the captains commanding the seven companies; POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. 229 of the four physicians and surgeons attached to the bar- racks; and lastly, of the two officers to whom the care of erecting the statue had been intrusted, namely, the captain and the standard-bearer of the first company. The importance of these two documents, however, is far greater if we take into consideration the rolls of the men. In the year 105, which is the approximate date of the first pedestal, the battalion numbered 115 officers and sub-offi- cers, and 930 men. In the year 110 the number of the former had decreased to 109, the number of the latter had increased to 1,013. Taking as the average strength of a battalion, 1,033 men all told, the whole police corps of imperial Rome must have numbered 7,231 men. The strength of each of the seven companies varies from a min- imum of 125 to a maximum of 173, the seventh or last company excepted, which numbers scarcely 94 men, prob- ably tirones or recruits in course of training. The sites of the sixth and seventh barracks have not yet been ascertained. Before leaving the subject of police and firemen I must add a few words on the comparatively recent discovery of one of the detached posts or corps-de-garde. The discovery of the ea cubitorium, or outpost, of the seventh battalion, stationed in the fourteenth region, Trastevere, took place in 1868 near the church of S. Crisogono. It appears that the police authorities established outposts according to circumstances, at special points of the district where disturbances were most likely to take place. For this pur- pose they rented a private house, or portion of a private house, and stationed men in it, until the requirements of public security made a further move necessary. The house discovered in 1868 seems to have been rented by the police for a long term, at least from the reign of Cara- 230 POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENT. calla to that of Philip the Arab ; in other words, for more than thirty years. It is an elegant structure, with mosaic pavements, fresco paintings, marble fountains, baths, and heating apparatus. The importance of the discovery, how- ever, does not come from the beauty of the building, but from the many inscriptions scratched in the plaster by the policemen themselves, during the hours of indoor rest, which inscriptions admit us into the most intimate secrets of barrack life, and reveal to us every minute detail of the daily routine of the men, their own feelings towards their emperors and officers, and other items of police life. The language they use in scrawling their sentiments is always direct and plain, very often profane. I refer those of my readers who wish to know more on this subject to the essay by the late Dr. Wilhelm Henzen (L'escubitorio della set- tima coorte dei Vigili), published in the “Annali dell’ Instituto, 1869.” | "../m... ?, 1-7--- %ff tº ſtrº-2 º,":722%-32%. wº J ſº ºf ' | 7/77, *º. i mºrrºr nº | ###zºi. #4%; } %eat. ºº::gº ſ §: º ! --,-7 rº,f,” Mºr- : g_* *\º G *" • ...I.T. ... . ...” ,- --~ * * º %.” º §'2: 㺠* #º rºº. 1 $ %:º § A \ - -W), W | #º § % \\ ;º Ø23. º #. 2 T * ~ * ~ -. “º -1- | | || - - - L. '... ', ºn f ~k. _* T ~ * # Aft/ ºft t{d * ſ -- " -: , T ~~, ºsº Ç ; * _-ºr-2 »,": º º * º * Aº’ * // #. |ſ|| º - ./9}}} %ft % º º ſ * , sº - º ºf ºrº * -.… " # º ~7 | º --> &: º g-- ºft|ºº::::::::. g|##!"; " ſº % # f & 3 tº a º * º } > / r r a - a ºf º º ~ & A --> --> #|ſ | ſº º-3 sº c. yº zºº % †: É? * ~~ º; # ºf º- - º * Š. 2.É &#y jº- ' > , ' * - §ºffº/ ?/ ?, 1.34giº §2. * , º:-- ºt’l º sº ſº #: º: gº' --&gº §- --- - （º %jū % Ž 3. Žº SA; # ſºft A. % º ºº::--> : º arºſt { fº/ºff gºš y aºzº º Hºmº gº ºzº º º & - f º,5- Iºdit- */// •rr - tº tº, º sº & **- 11 Fººtiſ. º ~n-u tº - z Titºiº t *:::: ; º % º ſ % º % % g Ž%% : #: . t % % § #}; &É. #;"º: A Lºrrº hº-Jūji...—? ſº iſjº Juli: 3 gº. -º-º: d ... 1 - | ſº. I * * ºft||| -- º ºft||| * ſºlilº; tºft; - *** *w- *...*º fº ºiſº}}##### § f # *A- ºi | Tiuti.itº T. º ſlºtt!!! º º f ſ *-i--ill. g f g {}}} || hiº ... f**- - --------e. lºſſº º º º 3-2. Tº zº # º #º º % ź tºº, 2. ź% | * zz, ſº - zºº !, tº º º: g , oft' | {{}} º ſl; | ſy THE EXCUBITORIUM OF THE SEVENTH BATTALION OF POLICE. CHAPTER IX. THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. THE subject which I have selected for this chapter, the archaeology of the Tiber, is so comprehensive, and covers such a vast space in the field of Roman antiquities, that it gives the writer an embarras du choir, and makes it a difficult task to concentrate the whole subject within pre- scribed limits. In the Essay on the Bibliography of the Tiber, published by Enrico Narducci in 1876, not less than four hundred special works are registered, perhaps two thirds of the whole number on this subject. If the publi- cations of the last twelve years were added to the list, we may be sure that a special library on the famous river of Rome would contain about eight hundred volumes. There is probably no other river in the world which has been dis- cussed so exhaustively. The principal springs of the Tiber are located in a gorge of Monte Coronaro, in the Apennines of Tuscany, at the height of 3,600 feet above the sea. The river runs through the lowlands of Etruria, Umbria, Sabina, and Latium for a distance of 249 miles, of which nearly 80 are navigable even by steamers of moderate size. Between Rome and the sea, it expands into a beautiful channel some 400 feet wide, and is navigated by steamers and barges of nearly 100 tons register. Nothing can be more charming than a sail down the river from Rome to the sea, not only on account of the historical associations of the river itself, but more especially on account of its natural beauty. Let us recall the mag- 232 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HAR BOR. nificent verses in which Virgil describes how AEneas, sail- ing along the Latin coast, discovered the mouth of the Tiber and entered the unknown waters, wondering at the lovely scene which opened before his eyes, and at the feel- ing of rest and tranquillity which pervaded all his being, after a long and eventful voyage, — “Atque hic AEneas ingentem ex aequore lucum Prospicit: hunc inter fluvio Tiberinus amoeno, Vorticibus rapidis, et multà flavus arenå, In mare prorumpit. Variae circumque supraque Assuetae ripis volucres et fluminis alveo, AEthera mulcebant cantu lucoque volabant.” The fidelity of this picture is astonishing; at least it was so, until two or three years ago, before the appearance in this remote region of peace and enchantment of so-called civilization, with its pretence of making the air healthier, and of banishing malaria from the lowlands of the delta. The trees sung by Virgil have been cut down ; the sand- banks, a favorite resort of flamingoes and pelicans, have been dredged away; and to make the profanation com- plete, a cast-iron bridge is to be thrown across the river, in place of the picturesque old boat which for centuries has ferried passengers across from Ostia to Fiumicino. The special characteristics of the river are three : first, the wholesome quality of its waters; second, the consid- erable amount of solid matter it carries down to the sea, which, deposited on each side of the bar, makes the coast advance at a considerable rate ; and, third, the abundance of the springs that feed the river, in consequence of which its normal level never varies by an inch, summer or winter. Of the first characteristic, I have spoken in the third chapter; of the second, I shall have occasion to speak at length in this. For the third, I may observe that the THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 233 Tiber, as regards volume and level of water, has never changed within historical times. One may read, even in books of sound archaeological value, that the Tiber was much lower in ancient times than it is now. Even Bonini, one of our best engineers, has stated the difference of level at eighteen feet. His great argument, repeated so often, is drawn from the passage in Pliny which describes how Agrippa once'rowed into the Cloaca Maxima, the mouth of which is not high enough above the water now to admit the possibility of any such anti-hygienic sport. But from a series of observations taken in the course of the present works of embankment, it appears that for the last twenty- one centuries the level of the water, and consequently the bed of the river, has risen only two feet and two or three inches. There is an important work, written in Latin by Paolo Giovio on the fish belonging to the Tiber. The most fa- mous and costly in ancient times was the lupus, a fish de- scribed and praised by Macrobius, Pliny the elder, and Juvenal. . The best in quality, the ones reserved for impe- rial and aristocratic tables, were caught inter duos pontes, near the island of S. Bartolomeo and near the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima. The sturgeon also was highly appreciated. In the Conservatori Palace, on the Capitol, there is still to be seen a marble bas-relief, representing a sturgeon forty- six inches long, and underneath it is engraved the text of a law passed by the Senatus populusque Romanus, in the year 1581, according to which any sturgeon caught in Roman waters, equalling or exceeding the statute size, as represented in the bas-relief, must be considered public property, and placed at the disposal of the city authorities. As far as I know, the eity authorities have never feasted on a sturgeon since the promulgation of that strange decree. 234 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. As regards inundations, the Tiber ranks among the proudest rivers in the world. That of December, 1870, will never fade from the memory of the living generation; and I fear that this impressive and picturesque spectacle will never again be seen, since civilization has taken up the matter, and by means of lofty embankments, of locks and gates, will succeed, I am sure, in keeping the river confined hereafter within its two parallel walls. In the second century after the foundation of Rome, King Ancus Marcius, feeling the safety of the kingdom well insured on the land side, turned his eyes towards the Mediterranean, the waters of which he could see glistening under the rays of the setting sun, within a few miles of the city, and in order to open a débouché for interna- tional trade, occupied the mouth of the Tiber, and founded a colony by it, which was named Ostia Tiberina, from its position near the bar of the river. At that remote age, however, very little seems to have been done to secure safety of navigation ; and when we hear the harbor of Ostia mentioned by writers of the republican and early imperial periods, we must not think of a real basin of water with piers, and jetties, and breakwaters, but only of the natural channel of the river, which shoals, moving sands, and an almost complete absence of tide made ex- ceedingly difficult and dangerous for sailing vessels. To these natural defects, common to all river harbors on the coast of the Mediterranean, another must be added, resulting from exceptional local causes, – the enormous yearly enlargement of the coast, by means of the sand carried down to the sea by the Tiber, and deposited on each side of the river's mouth. I have already stated in the third chapter that the flavus Tiberis washes down every year eight and one half million tons of sand, cor- THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 235 responding to a volume of more than four million cubic metres. No wonder that, in such extraordinary circum- stances, ancient Ostia, the Ostia of King Ancus Mar- cius, is at the present day fully four miles distant from the bar; that the tower built by Michael Angelo in 1567, on the very edge of the coast, and named Torre S. Michele (now used as a light-house), is 2,250 yards inland; and that the tower built by Clement XII. at Fiumicino, in ipso maris Supercilio, as the dedicatory inscription says, is now separated from the sea by a line of sand-hills 970 yards wide. From careful measurements taken by the astronomer Angelo Secchi and by myself, the average yearly increase of the coast along the delta of the Tiber has been deter- mined at nineteen feet, from a maximum of twenty-eight at Ostia, to a minimum of ten at Fiumicino. I may here men- tion a fact, highly illustrative of this singular state of things. The sacred island surrounded by the two arms of the Tiber was sold in 1830 by the pontifical government to the Marchese Guglielmi, of Civita Vecchia, with no stipu- lation whatever, except the payment, once and for ever, of a fixed amount of money. It was only two years ago that the fiscal authorities opened their eyes to the ir- regularity of the bargain. It has been ascertained that since the day the property was bought, fifty-six years ago, its surface has been nearly doubled by the addition of 648 acres of ground, which should have been added, of course, not to the patrimony of the Marchese Guglielmi, but to that of the nation. In spite of so many adverse circumstances, a very brisk trade began to be carried on between Rome, Ostia, and the Mediterranean very soon after the foundation of Ostia. The vessels sailing to it, if men-of-war, could easily get over the bar, on account of their light draught, and also 236 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. on account of the considerable propelling power they de- rived from a numerous and well-ordered crew. If mer- chantmen, they had to steer a different course, accord- ing to their capacity and size. Wessels under 3,000 modii, that is to say, under thirty or thirty-five tons register, could sail up the mouth of the river easily. Wessels of larger tonnage were obliged to cast anchor at a certain dis- tance from the bar, and to diminish their draught by trans- ferring part of their cargo to barges and lighters. These particulars show that the Romans of the republic never tried to improve the approach to their only harbor by skilful engineering. By the help of two palisades, or jet- ties, which have been built at Fiumicino, vessels and steam- ers of one hundred and fifty tons are now able to reach Rome with perfect ease. With regard to the navigation of the river from Ostia to Rome in ancient times, we must again make a distinction between war and trading vessels. War vessels could easily overcome the force of the current with their powerfully- manned oars; trading vessels had to be towed up-stream by oxen and buffaloes, for which purpose tow-paths on each bank of the river were opened and carefully paved. Navigation was suspended at nightfall, when every ship was obliged to moor at the nearest station. There must have been at least thirty of these stations between Rome and the sea. & In view of the fact that the quantity of shipping moored at night along the banks must have been enormous, and that the crews of those days were certainly not better nor quieter than those of our own, we need not wonder that special police precautions had to be taken to insure order, and to protect neighboring property from the nocturnal inroads of marauding sailors. Vigiles, that is to say, a THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 237 special body of constables and firemen, were stationed from point to point along the banks; but the expense of this night watch, and of keeping their stations in due repair, had to be met by the owners of property facing the river, who were subject accordingly to an extra tax, called onus vigiliarium. The Tiber was not always navigable : in winter, because its water would sometimes freeze; in summer, on account of shoals and sand-banks. Of course I am speaking of re- publican times, during which the river was left absolutely to itself, and to its own caprices, with no check or im- provement by hydraulic means. The best season for navigation along the coast of Ostia was from the beginning of March to the middle of Septem- ber; but there were captains and merchants daring enough to run the risk in winter. Wessels would generally sail into the harbor in the afternoon, and sail out in the morn- ing, a practice due entirely to the regularity with which the breeze blows from the sea in the afternoon, and from the land in the morning. I may add that, under favorable circumstances, vessels sailing from the mouth of the Tiber could reach Alexan- dria and the Nile in eleven days; the Straits of Gibraltar in seven ; the Straits of Messina and even the Albanian coast in five : the coast of Barcelona in four ; the Gulf of Marseilles in three ; the coast of Africa in less than two. At the beginning of the empire, when Rome had become the centre of the trade of the world, and had gained a population of over a million souls, for whose maintenance, comfort, and luxury the produce of the whole world was scarcely deemed sufficient, the necessity of building a large and safe harbor forced itself upon the government. So shallow had the waters become at the bar of the river, that 238 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. Caligula was obliged to resort to a simple biremis, the smallest kind of war sloop, to convey to Rome, from the island of Ponza, the ashes of his mother and brother. We know also that the Emperor Claudius made an unsuc- cessful attempt to land, after a cruise, and was obliged to ride at anchor until boats could be sent from Ostia to his rescue. This explains why large ships laden with grain, such as the one mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as having on board, besides its heavy cargo, two hundred and fifty souls, were obliged to avoid Ostia, and to land either at Brindisi or Pozzuoli. *. Julius Caesar was the first statesman who proposed the construction of a spacious harbor, not at, but near, the mouth of the Tiber; his project was propter difficultatem omissus (given up on account of its difficulties), as well as that other curious plan of his for opening a deep canal from Rome to Terracina, to save vessels the danger of rounding Cape Circeum. The honor of the great under- taking was reserved to Claudius, the prince famous for his gigantic hydraulic enterprises, such as the aqueducts of the Aqua Claudia and of Anio Novus, eighty-nine miles long in all, and the drainage of the Lake of Fucino. I shall not describe the harbor two miles west of Ostia, which he suc- ceeded in building, in spite of untold natural difficulties, and in spite of the opposition of the supreme council of government engineers. It was inclosed by two jetties, each 809 yards long. The area of the harbor amounted to 691,000 square yards, the depth from 15 to 18 feet, with an aggregate length of quays amounting to 2,600 yards. This colossal work necessitated the removal of 112,000,000 cubic feet of sand. Its only defect was the faulty position of the breakwater, which had been built, not far out at sea, so as to shelter the entrance to the harbor, but on the line THE TIBER AND THE CLA UDIAN HARBOR. 239 connecting the ends of the jetties, leaving the two entrances exposed to the full force of the high sea. Tacitus informs us that, during a fierce gale in the time of Nero, not less than two hundred vessels were lost in the roads. I might add that this breakwater, in spite of its defective position, is one of the best, if not the very best example in ancient times of successful construction in deep water by means of caissons. Claudius managed the enterprise in this way: There was moored at the time — I do not know whether at Rome or at Ostia — the huge ship by which the great Wat- ican obelisk had been brought over from Egypt. To give an idea of its size I will say, that, besides the obelisk itself, weighing many hundred tons, the vessel was laden with a ballast of 120,000 modii of lentils, corresponding to one thousand tons. Claudius caused the ship to be moored at the place designed for the breakwater, and to be filled with concrete until the weight of the masonry made it sink. This foundation was then strengthened by a gir- dle of rocks on the weather side, and in due time it grew above the water-level, and was crowned with a lighthouse nearly two hundred feet high, built in imitation of the celebrated Pharos of Alexandria. ºr. * g s ºr - ' … ." - § 3-2. º: sº: '': º ..º. º:... sº tº *… º † : jº º, * 32.3 ~ == 2. º º_. #$: {ZZ º ; 33;º *º. º rºarrigº Rio ºsº. tº: º % ºxstºwn tº ºšš , £º $nal º, ºw lyºxºlºg ºf º * º: gºrº *...* T it is : º º º ºf". º §% ºzºsº % § *Z-. غ % Ž% Relief on a Sareepbagus showing the Claudian Harbor. Nero, the successor of Claudius, conceived the grand idea of making Rome itself a seaport, by dredging a deep canal 240 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. between the metropolis and the Claudian harbor. The idea does not seem to have been carried into execution. The same emperor, acting on the advice of his favorite engineers, Severus and Celer, began another canal between the harbor of Misenum, on the Bay of Naples, and Rome. If it had been completed, this canal would have been one hundred and sixty miles long, and wide enough to allow the passage of two lines of quinqueremes abreast, the quinqueremis be- ing the largest kind of man-of-war used in the Roman navy. The cutting was begun in that district of Campania Felix, near Amycla and near the gulf of Gaeta, where the famous Caecubus was grown, the wine which, according to Pliny, had held the first rank among Italian brands from remotest antiquity. The only result of Nero's undertaking was to ruin forever this noble wine-growing district. The place of the lost Caecubus on the tables of the Roman aristocracy was henceforth to be taken by the Setinian, a wine which Augustus first brought to the notice of connoisseurs, and which was grown on the slopes of the Lepini mountains, facing the Pontine marshes. The harbor system at Ostia was brought to absolute per- fection under Trajan, who, like Claudius, was devoted to grand hydraulic enterprises, as shown by the bridge thrown across the Danube in its widest part; by the harbors of Ancona and Civita Vecchia, still among the best and safest in the Mediterranean, and by the Trajan aqueduct which still supplies one fifth of the city. The fact is that the Claudian or outer harbor had long been in- Medallion showing the Harbor of Trajan. THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HAR BOR. 241 sufficient for the trade of the metropolis. Everything which taste or luxury required, and all the supplies neces- sary to feed a population which had increased to nearly two millions of souls, had to be landed and stored at Ostia. Egypt alone every year shipped nearly one hundred and ninety million bushels of wheat and grain. A far larger supply was imported from Sicily, Sardinia, Africa, Numi- dia, Mauretania, and from the provinces bordering on the Danube and the Black Sea. To the commercial transactions we must add the trade in building stone, so brisk and active that even Tibullus complained that the streets of the metropolis were always obstructed by enormous carts, loaded with transmarine columns and blocks: columns measuring, sometimes, six feet in diameter [and fifty-five in height], like the one discovered in May, 1887, among the ruins of Trajan's tem- ple ; blocks weighing, sometimes, twenty-seven tons, like the one belonging to the temple of the Sun, now lying ; s, % % #, ºft||| § W W The largest Block of Marble in Rome. in the Colonna gardens on the Quirinal. This mania for rare and costly products of quarries, thousands of miles 242 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. distant, began in the year 610 of Rome. Q. Metellus Macedonicus is said to have been the first Roman citizen to bring into fashion foreign building stones; and, accord- ingly, he is reproached by Welleius Paterculus as the first corrupter of republican simplicity. Pliny relates that when Lucius Crassus, fifty-two years later, deeorated his house on the Palatine with six columns wholly of Sicilian marble, and only twelve feet high, he was nicknamed the Palatine Venus. Four years later, M. Lepidus imported for the first time columns of Numidian marble (giallo antico), and was publicly censured for having cut a thresh- old out of the same valuable material. Lucius Lucullus brought over from Egypt the first samples of black marble (nero antico), called marmor Lucullanum on his account. Sulla, the dictator, stole from the Olympeion at Athens many columns of Pentelic marble. Marcus AEmilius Scau- rus, to celebrate his nomination as AEdile, built a tempo- rary stage and decorated it with 370 columns of Lucul- laan marble, 33 feet high. About the same time, Mamurra was adorning his house on the Coelian porticoes with shafts of cipollino and Carrara marble. No wonder that, at this stage of luxury, the price of elegant private man- sions should have reached fabulous sums. Messala bought the house of Antonius for a sum corresponding to $165,000. Cicero gave for the house of Crassus $155,000; the house of Claudius had cost $655,000; that of Scaurus was valued at $4,425,000; and I am speaking of republican times | No wonder that the contractor for the maintenance of public drains should have required from M. Scaurus a security against any possible danger of the sinking of streets in the transportation of his columns and blocks of marble, so heavy were they. A gentleman possessed of great per- severance, Sig. Faustino Corsi, counted in Rome, forty-one THE TIBER AND THE CLA UDIAN HARBOR. 243 years ago, 7,012 ancient columns, or important pieces of ancient columns, which had escaped destruction. The num- ber has been increased through recent discoveries and ex- cavations to nearly 9,000. I have brought to light, in the excavations intrusted to my care, 390 of them. Consider- ing what an amount of destruction, of breaking up, of burn- ing into lime, has been accomplished in Rome since the fall of the empire, there is no danger of exaggerating if we place the total number of columns landed at Ostia at 50,000 at least ; and columns represent but a small item in the marble trade of ancient Rome. The Claudian harbor was not only a commercial, but also a military station, from which emperors and admirals were wont to sail, escorted by powerful fleets, on their expeditions to the far-away border lands of the empire. The same harbor contained a central post office for corre- spondence with the provinces beyond the sea, the existence of which office was revealed for the first time in 1874. Our late King Victor Emmanuel, when undertaking, near the end of that year, some excavations on his hunting estate of Castel Porziano, between Ostia and Torre Paterno, dis- covered the public square or forum of a village, named Vicus Augustanus Laurentium, mentioned by Pliny the younger as adjoining his famous Laurentine villa. In the centre of the square stood the marble pedestal of a statue, raised by the worthy inhabitants of the village in mem- ory of a local benefactor, named P. AElius Liberalis, a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian. As usual, the career of the gentleman so highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens is described in the legend on the pedestal. We are told by it how Liberalis began his career in the finance department, as praepositus mensae nummularia fisci frumentarii Osti- ensis, that is to say, as cashier of the branch office for the 244 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. importation of breadstuffs, which had been established at Ostia as the landing-place of the fleets laden with the har- vest of all the provinces of the empire. In course of time he was elected to another office, procurator pugillationis et ad naves vagas, – postmaster of Ostia and superinten- dent of the fleet of despatch boats. Postal institutions, in the modern sense of the word, were not unknown in Roman times. To secure quick and accurate intelligence, even from the remotest provinces, Augustus established, all along the great highways, a sys- tem of couriers mounted on swift horses, and stationed at an average distance of seven miles from one another. Later on, he organized a regular service of mail coaches, which seems to have been brought to a higher point of perfection by the Emperor Trajan. These accommodations, however, were reserved for the benefit of government employees, – such as cabinet messengers, military officers, governors, and so on, — and very seldom were for the benefit of private in- dividuals, to whom the privilege of using mail coaches was granted only by the emperor himself, or by the governor of a province. At the same time, all the burden of the insti- tution had to be borne by the inhabitants of the villages and towns crossed or approached by the high road: they were compelled to supply horses, mules, and oxen, and to keep the stations in proper repair; in other words, they had to pay all the expenses of an organization from which they did not reap any advantage, except the manure from the stables, graciously left them by the generosity of the government. Good, humane emperors did their best to re- lieve the populace from this indirect heavy taxation. There is a coin struck in honor of Nerva, with the legend, ve- hiculatione Italia, remissa, which signifies that the inhab- itants of the Peninsula at least had been exempted from mºmº ȘIH JE ŠIO NOWIŁ ĶÅN\ \\\\ \\ €\\ Ķī£ș �}\ Įſ#ffff;(mm)¿? !{{i�� * TRIOT. s NigrºwſIn. ~{{#¡¡¡¡¡rtae-ºnniſ vºiſiſſaeÅſſiaeſſaetr º№teſſääſſſwaeÚſ ºnurrſºtſi *（w） ŹRN######- �N， Ē （2×） № “， - <！---。、： *~* s---și2ąźŘ®]（\\ \！， 、-Ē=¿¿}? ########\ \"（±āÈÈÈąéſ&&&\\\\ ſ\，: \\ \\ Įſįjįſiſiſſſſſ|}}}¿yÅ №2）. ∞$3…--ſae！”\bºſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſſffffff;&Åsſå?！ SNOW.LVAVOX{ LSE JWT'zzņķËïſºl ;-（\\ \\UIſ ſź，---z: Ķ\\ \\&\ſ? º：• = ±∞，∞ = �ºsuſ)- "aſſa，***ëğ№to：[^\\ \\??ſ??）;3：a, ----！*¿:C~~~ :，：gº→_zaº y \\ ~ L 8 0 d)N \ \ d n \， ^■ ■ 8. O {{ Q | R 3 AL X El THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 245 compulsory supply of horses. Hadrian and Antoninus seem to have met the exigencies of the service with their own purse; and, finally, Severus Alexander transferred perma- nently the burden from the people to the imperial treas- ury. The postmaster-general, styled praefectus vehiculo- rum, of equestrian rank, was selected generally from among retired cavalry officers: he had under his orders provincial postmasters of inferior rank. Such was the state of things as regards the over-land post; regarding the maritime post nothing was known until the inscription of P. AElius Liberalis was brought to light. His double office of postmaster and master of despatch boats makes it evident that the two things were connected as two branches of the same department. There is no doubt that the naves vaga of the inscription were some- thing like the naves tabellariae mentioned by Seneca as running in front of the fleet laden with grain from Egypt, to announce its arrival at Pozzuoli, or like the naves spe- culatoriae, corresponding to the avisos of the modern navy. There is no doubt that, with the combined action of canvas and oars, finely-modelled ships could accom- plish as quick a passage across the sea as was usually made in the first quarter of the present century. This is proved, to quote only one argument, by the remark- able instance related by Plutarch, in chapter sixteen of his life of Cato, when, to impress the Senate with the ne- cessity delendae Carthaginis, he unfolded his mantle, and showed the astonished assembly a batch of fresh figs which had been gathered on the African coast only two days before. I have already said that the harbor system at Ostia was brought to absolute perfection by Trajan. He was the builder of that magnificent inner dock, which, although 246 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. left fully two miles inland by the filling up of the estuary, still exists in its integrity, and is known, especially among wild-duck shooters, as the Lago Trajano, the Lake of Tra- jan. It had the form of a regular hexagon, 393,000 square yards in extent, with a line of quays 2,156 yards long, and with a constant depth of 18 feet. The construction of Trajan's dock required the excavation and removal of 85,000,000 cubic feet of sand, and the construction of 1,940,000 cubic feet of masonry. In modern times undertakings of the same kind have been accomplished successfully even on a larger scale; but for beauty of construction, richness of decoration, and splendor of materials, these will not bear comparison with the work of Claudius and Trajan. We can see with our own eyes the perfection of Trajan's dock, and I better than any one else, because I have been the only archaeologist allowed to follow the excavations which Prince Alexander Torlonia, the owner of the ruins, has carried on for five consecutive years, doing more harm to the place in this short time than had been done in fifteen centuries of abandon- ment and desolation. Of the outer harbor, built by Claudius, and now inaccessible be c a use of the pestilential marshes, we possess three genu- º º ine and perfect representations; one in bronze, one in colors, and one in marble. The bronze one - ºf ºś f wº §§ - ſºft. § º: º º º º º, ſº - * 2, º ºs tº: §º º Uğ§ iſſº º Medallion of Claudius. is a large medallion in alto- rilievo struck by Nero, with his own portrait on one side and a bird’s-eye view of the harbor on the other, reproduced by Donaldson in Plate No. 89 of ºº:: : *::: * º *** *...? : ...~~ * , rºº ãº" :^ 3 ºrrºzzº ~...ſº #.º.º.º.º. sººzzzzzzzzº -º- v ſº – - * * * * *** * * * *** **-4-ºf # = sº iſ º . # = 3. it.” - :* * º ** = tº º ºs ºf ix, *. ſº - . . : º ºg - ſº -- - jº º Tº A. : : - s ii - SA) . - * t - Aff 3 #""" - ºf Ağ ſº -: .. ºf - #ſº ñº: d • 3.1; i --- * h : .# t ... - . ºf 3. t # , º 1 ſº º |->|: º, - tº Aº jº i lºi- & A .* º i § {}, . * ła t º r *** - - - & Tºxi- º º §. Z. r Al{} --- 3 º &* : * ~ * ºft THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HAR BOR. 247 his “Architectura Numismatica.” The painted view was discovered some three centuries ago on the walls of a Roman house near the Subura, and has been reproduced Mooring Rings on the Tiber. and illustrated by Bellori, Falconieri, Canina, Mercklin, and De Rossi. The marble representation was discovered by Prince Torlonia in the spring of 1863. It is a bas-relief, of exquisite workmanship, four feet six inches long, two feet six inches high, showing the inside of the harbor, with its jetties, breakwater, light-house, colossal statues, triumphal arches, and the like, and two large ships, one named the “She-Wolf,” the other the “Lynx”: the first sailing for an expedition on the high seas; the second furling her canvas as she approaches the quay. There is no doubt that, in ancient times, no hydraulic work was cousidered perfect unless it joined to the skiii of engineering the beauty of architeture. What I mean is this: we are satisfied, for instance, with fixing to our 248 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. wharves iron rings and old guns as moorings: in ancient times, the rings (dactylia) were cut in stone or marble, in the shape of a lion's head, or dolphin (see previous page); — and the columns were costly marbles, and bore inscrip- tions in praise of the constructor of the harbor. We fence the space alloted to commercial transactions with iron rail- ings; the ancients enclosed it with colonnades of Oriental marble. We enter the docks, or the line of customs, through an iron gate; the ancients entered through tri- umphal arches, such as the well-known Arch of Trajan on the eastern pier of the harbor of Ancona. For the storing of merchandise, we make use of wooden and iron sheds, and, in exceptional cases, when we want to impress the stranger with our magnificence, we build brick ware- houses. I wish the reader could see, as it has been my privilege to see, the beauty of the docks and warehouses of Porto, the perfection of their reticulated masonry, their cornices and entablatures, carved and moulded in terra- cotta, their mosaic pavements, their system of drainage and ventilation The aggregate length of the warehouses around Trajan’s dock amounts to 17,500 feet. At Ostia, a town nearly two miles long by one wide, they cover one half of the area. In Rome the statistics are even more wonderful. We are now engaged in building a new quarter in the so-called “Prati di Testaccio,” that is to say, in the plain stretching from the foot of the Aventine hill to the left bank of the Tiber, and surrounding the artificial hill called Monte Tes- taccio. This enormous extent of ground, amounting to 800,000 square yards, was entirely occupied by imperial warehouses, denominated Horrea Galbana, from the family of Sulpicius Galba, who owned the greater portion of them before they were incorporated in the imperial domain. Of ‘WIJLS () JLV SGIS []. O HIGINI V AA GIHJEL ſºſ &#ŹŹ% ####22%ſae ſºſºkºłºzº??）;· Œ œae??? %%%%%% %%%%%%%% §¶√≠√∞ √∞ ########## ſaeſſºſ/ſººſ %ſ，%ſ，%ſ，%ſ,£; £ %%%%%%%% %ſ. ſý∞ %% �&m . , & ſae ！ » ! // • • • |-}： ----Źº-L .،kºv�- . ^^ ^ （ :% $ $ → jº?）：^{.*-|-…Č， * .|-±āïaeſº/,y! ←→|- -~w º £3º -`S¿№, -º-， --★ .*- • •• • • • v``• -\,\,JY* · §, |\\\\\\\$（, ， > �\j\ſin^*）\ \!\, ，- -- \\\\\\\\ \\. ^· \ \ . . . . ' •\\ŅĢĒM« ،\}}}\\!'', nº ſ' ,ìyw '. --„(\}\}sººſ ،[[}}, \\ ,\\\\\， ，§|-,，*） {', 'S =====||įŘ\\\&\\\\\'\， ，±* ** }} ~--~|ſ，m\!\!\!\，.^\$\s*\$ \\（\\}\\}\\%#\\\\\（\\$} ¿?¿�*§§§§ }.*suwa i ſ.}} †·* \\ ſſ £7，4% %}}}}} -* * *-º--º-: J. Šiºs （， ， ！?！? ±±± --¿??¿?ºgºčeº×e s-º · * sezº-，>…<！”， • •* •----|-- - -----+~· * -->------ș » . . == lºſ 2， …:………--~sºxº-2，± 3~~~~ --~~&-º THE TIBER AND THE CLA UDIAN HARBOR. 249 these public warehouses, there were in Rome 290: this, at least, is the number registered in the official almanac of the empire, in the original edition of the year 312 of our era. Ruins of the Horrea Galbana. Of course, not all of them equalled, or even approached in extent and importance, the Horrea Galbana; but we must bear in mind that more than one half of the population of Rome was fed directly by the emperor, from his own private treasury. Imagine what precautions must have been taken to avoid even the slightest suspicion of famine, which would have brought with it revolution and disorder. Au- relius Victor says that, under Augustus, at the beginning of the imperial period, not less than 48,115,000 bushels of grain (of our standard) were imported from Egypt, but that this quantity was sufficient for four months only : 250 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 144,345,000 bushels were thus required for the whole year, and for a population which had not yet reached its max- imum of nearly two million souls. - The Horrea Galbana, in imitation of which all Roman storehouses were built, was composed of a certain number of courts, surrounded by porticoes wide enough to allow the free circulation of carts, and the unloading of merchandise under shelter. The magazines themselves opened upon these porticoes, and were usually two stories high. The lower floor generally was reserved for heavy and common merchandise, – timber, fuel, lead, iron, tin, marble, wine, oil, grain, honey, dried fruit, dried fish ; the upper floor for rare and costly merchandise and for offices of adminis- * * .*.* . . . . . ….” “... -- - “ºº. . .” * . . ; & . . /e & a *... & A •: w ... • £f . ºf *****{4}|ºf - t %&s: ºxy T.: zºº %20º 2%iº | !!j}: i\| |ſ i"ji'; | | — — . . . .*-xx. " ' Monte Testaccio from the Tiber. (In the foreground the quay at which marbles were landed, as it appeared during the excavations of 1868.) tration. Not long ago, I watched the excavation of one wing of the horrea which some workmen were uncovering: of the four storerooms searched under my direction, the first contained huge tusks of ivory, forming a total volume of 675 cubic feet; the second contained a few bushels of lentils; the third, a bed of crystalline sand, used by stone- cutters; the fourth was filled up with amphorae of various SIZeS. THE T/BER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 251 I have mentioned the Monte Testaccio two or three times. This singular hill, unique of its kind, rises from amidst the plain occupied by the imperial warehouses to the height of one hundred and forty feet, and covers an area of nearly sixteen acres. Its singularity arises from the fact that it is not the work of nature, but the mysterious work of man, composed of millions and millions of broken am- phorae, and terra-cotta jars, piled up in regular layers, in imitation of geological strata. Many conjectural explana- tions have been made of its origin and character. Com- mendatore de Rossi has suggested one which is worth con- sideration. On the quay of the Tiber, near the foot of the Monte Testaccio, where the grain and wine-laden ships and barges were moored, there was a large marble slab in- scribed with the following notice: Quidguid usuarium in- vehitur, ansarium non debet, —“Whatever is imported of first necessity for the subsistence of the population is not subject to the octroi.” The word used for octroi is ansa- rium, and the root of the singular word is ansa, “ handle,” evidently the handles of amphorae, in which wine, oil, dried fruit, caviar, and salt fish were shipped over. Considering now that nearly one half of the whole mass of Monte Testaccio is composed of handles, or ansae, Rossi supposes that the customs officers, to mark out the amphorae for which duty (an- º sarium) had been regularly paid, would sº knock away one of the handles with a $º wooden hammer. In other words the Monte a Testaccio would be nothing but a gigantic Handle of an Am- phora, from the Monte Testaccio. !-----, -ſ’ --~~~!--4-- ~£ 44-2. --------4- 4+4+ £4---- 11eap U_L 1eceipus UIL U11t; 1111pulu uuuy JL1 Uill the custom-house of Rome. This explana- tion, however ingenious and impressive it may seem, cannot 252 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. be regarded as satisfactory. There is no doubt, I admit, that a large part of the provisions for Rome was shipped in amphorae. The amphora is the unit, the standard meas. ure, by which the capacity of a merchant vessel was calcu- lated. In the Torlonia Museum there is a bas-relief repre- senting the unloading of a ship, moored alongside the quay in the Claudian harbor. There is a plank connecting the ship with the quay, and upon this plank a line of sailors and porters, each carrying a laden amphora upon the left shoulder, and a tessera or ticket in the right hand. On the jetty, there is a commissionaire, or, perhaps, customs officer sitting at a desk, with a large book before him ; each of the sailors and porters, in passing by on his way to the warehouse, throws the tessera or ticket on the desk. Thus the scribe or customs officer, whichever he may have been, had no trouble whatever in keeping his accounts; he had simply to see that, for every amphora landed and re- moved to the shed, a mark was left on his table, and, at the end of the operation, sum up the marks, and compare their number with the bill of lading declared by the captain of the ship. An interesting instance of shipment by amphorae in an- cient times came to light in the spring of 1885, when I was residing at Sorrento. Some amphorae were shown to me which evidently had remained at the bottom of the sea for centuries, for they were covered with the most wonderful incrustations of shells and corals, of zoöphytes and mollusks. On inquiring about their origin and discovery, I was told that they had been found under water, near the Promon- torium Minervae, now Capo della Campanella, and that they belonged to a wreck many centuries old. I had not then the means or the opportunity of verifying the accuracy of this account. But about a month later, at Porto d’ Anzio, a THE TIBER AND THE CLA UDIAN HARBOR. 253 delightful little harbor thirty-six miles from Rome, amphorae of the same kind, I mean with the same beautiful incrusta- tions, were offered for sale to some of the noble owners of villas on the coast. This time I was more fortunate in tracing the origin and real nature of the discovery. About two miles west of the castle and harbor of Astura, a place well known in the history of Cicero, Augustus, and Con- radin von Hohenstaufen, and about fifty yards from the shore, which is there exceedingly shallow, a fisherman had discovered the wreck of an ancient Roman trading ship, of no considerable size, the hull of which was filled with am- phorae. The incrustations, a work of centuries, had ce- mented, as it were, the whole mass into a kind of corallifer- ous rock, from which it was very difficult to extricate an amphora without breaking it. Still, by perseverance and skill in diving, the fisherman had succeeded in removing the four or five beautiful specimens which I had admired at Porto d’ Anzio. But to come back to Commendatore de Rossi’s explana- tion of the origin of Monte Testaccio; I cannot admit that customs officers would be allowed to knock away the handles of amphorae, because the amphora was a costly receptacle, and without ansa could not be used any longer. If handles enter in a large proportion into the composition of the mys- terious hill, this is due to the fact that they were the most solid and heavy portion of the vase, and could not, like the thin body of the receptacle itself, be broken into atoms. The true explanation has been given by Professor Hein- rich Dressel in a memoir, “Ricerche sul Monte Testaccio,” published in the “Annali” of the German Institute, 1878. it appears that, when the trade between Reme and the provinces began to assume a certain amount of importance, the authorities of the Tiber set aside a space of ground in 254 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. the vicinity of the landing-place, in which the fragments of amphorae broken during the journey, or in the act of un- loading, could be thrown. These fragments were piled up, heap after heap, of the same height, until the whole surface allotted by the magistrates was covered with a stratum, four or five feet high. The horizontal space hav- ing been thus all occupied, the deposit began to increase in height; and so layer after layer was superimposed, until a real hill, at least 150 feet high, and nearly 4,000 in circum- ference was formed. I say at least 150 feet high, because we must remember that it has been for centuries a quarry for building materials, and must have lost a considerable percentage of its former volume. Professor Dressel has been able to investigate the surface only ; he examined nearly 3,000 fabric-stamps, impressed on handles of am- phorae before they were baked in the kiln, and nearly 1,000 inscriptions, written in pencil and in red or black tint º 2 ºf "..., % % º & on the body of the amphorae % | • º º %\º by the producers or under-writ- % | º %/// - % % § ºi// § % "... • *...}. , • 3. •lº - " 1 * º ers, of ship-captains or customs %. A % /.../ſºft officers; and the results of his º %; 3 examination prove that the º º sº mountain reached its actual sº height and size at the followin sº gn size at the to 9. §º dates: on the north side be- - tween the years 140 and 149 of Sº . our era; on the east side be- Amphora from the Monte Testaccio, tween 150 and 160; on the showing inscriptions. west side between 174 and 230. The latest date, 251, was discovered not far from the summit, on the east side, but evidently out of its original place. THE TIBER AND THE CLA UDIAN HARBOR. 255 I come now to the most important question connected with the archaeology of the Tiber, to the question of the treasures which are said to be buried in its bed. The ques- tion may be treated from a theoretical point of view, or, practically, from the point of view of discoveries actually made in the river. The idea that the river contains an un- told amount of wealth, buried at great depth in its soft, yellowish sand, has been generally held since the Middle Ages. Familiar among the mistaken beliefs is that con- cerning the golden plate and the seven-branched candle- stick, which Titus brought over from Jerusalem, and which are commonly supposed to have been thrown into the Ti- ber. No such plate and no such candlestick ever were thrown into the river; the story has no more foundation than the parallel one of the wealthy banker Agostino Chigi. But setting aside all information which is not based upon solid evidence, I must declare that the number and the im- portance of discoveries, made in the bed or on the banks of the Tiber before the present age, and registered in ar- chaeological books, are not such as to make us believe in the existence there of any extraordinary amount of riches. One or two marble statues, one or two busts, and some blocks of rare marbles, very likely fallen overboard in the act of unloading, were, before 1875, the most noticeable objects discovered in the river. With such scanty evidence at our disposal, we came to the conclusion that any reg- ular search of the stream would prove, if not fruitless, cer- tainly not particularly remunerative. Our judgment was confirmed by a strange occurrence, which took place in 1866. A freight train having been carelessly coupled on the gradient which leads from the railway bridge at S. Paolo to the station of Porta Portese, fourteen trucks began to descend the steep incline towards the bridge with such 256 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. velocity that the central span, which was open for the pas- sage of a steamer, could not be closed in time, in spite of the desperate efforts of the guardsmen. The fourteen trucks fell through the gap in mid-stream and were heaped up to the height of some twenty feet above water. It took the government engineers a little more than two weeks to make the necessary arrangements for the removal of the wreck; but they had scarcely completed these when they found, much to their astonishment, that the whole mass had disappeared without leaving a single trace of the catas- trophe. The fourteen cars had been swallowed, as it were, by the quicksands which fill the bed to a depth of some thirty feet. From this fact it appeared evident that the power of absorption of the Tiber was such as to leave no hope of the recovery of heavy objects sunk in its waters. As re- gards lighter objects, we were of the opinion that a stream running occasionally at the rate of six feet per second must have carried them to such a distance from the town as to make a search for them almost useless. It is with deep satisfaction that I acknowledge that I was deceived this time by false appearances, and by false deductions. The work on the embankment of the Tiber, carried on in the course of the last ten years, has proved beyond a doubt, that never has such an abundant mine of valuable antiquities been open to science before our age; that the bed of the river has power of absorption enough to keep works of art firmly and softly embedded in its sands, but not so deeply hidden as to escape the reach of man; that smaller articles have not been carried far away by the violence of the stream ; and lastly, that if we were to collect in a special museum the contents of the Tiber, this museum, arranged in chronological sections from the early ages of ‘949， ſ.tºQ, Z ??? ſo pºgº 07/7 1/2pºtezowsza ‘HON V (I V H&IJN QIRIJ, V HO SNIV WGIRI ¿ shawi ≠√≠√∞u', §xy+4. JHYN 1483??AT! ، ، “）.→ ſi içišºſ ſºſºg ſ.3 s ABITYN & 3.930ſ $ 13, § ^ ∞ √æ√ √ √∞ f√≠ ≤ ∞ f√¶ ！\，\！ yºnqułwyſław Iwafuaſi ugungſwſ ſ a ſię， ż* 3 *****{utrae«.*** x，-ae swº-wsweisewaewae º sl.， & -（b & : S Į savaruut ſowºłaºu xynuºwa-mayrºuxinwa • b ſ'. w d- rw ws = ºrixe aºſ *** r— THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. 257 stone, of brass, of iron, to the pontificate of Pius IX., would be absolutely without parallel in the world. To those who may find my assertions slightly extrava- gant, or think that the works of art and miscellaneous an- tiquities, found lately in the Tiber, do not correspond in number and value with the brilliant prospect above referred to, I must reply that a regular search of the river has not yet been commenced ; and that the considerable amount of Tiberine antiquities already put aside by us has been brought to light quite accidentally, during the construction of the embankment. Fancy what would happen if a truly scientific investigation, amply furnished with the proper contrivances, should be undertaken Twice only has the bottom of the river been explored more or less regularly, although in an exceedingly small space, and twice have we gathered a surprising mass of scientific and artistic objects. The first search was made in October, 1878, under the first arch of the Ponte Sisto, on the left (or cis-tiberine) side, in an area sixty feet long by fifty wide. There we discovered the remains of a tri- umphal arch, raised A. D. 367, in honor of the emperors Valentinian and Valens, together with pieces of one of the bronze colossal statues which stood on the top of the monu- ment. We found, also, an historical inscription describing how the banks of the Tiber had been surveyed and enclosed within a line of stone cippi, under the rule of Vespasian, by Caecina Paetus, chief commissioner of the river, A. D. 71; another inscription, describing how the bridge, now called Ponte Sisto, had been rebuilt under the rule of Wa- lentinian and Valens, between 366 and 367, by L. Aure- lius Avianius Symmachus, praefect of the city; and then, coins, terra-cottas, fragments of marble statues and bas- reliefs; fragments of a third inscription which must have 258 THE TIBER AND THE CLAUDIAN HARBOR. measured 320 feet in length; and many architectural pieces belonging to the decoration of the old bridge. The second search took place in the summer of 1885, right in mid-stream, and about 250 feet above the island of S. Bartolomeo. In sinking the compressed air caissons, for the foundations of the central pier of the new bridge (Ponte Garibaldi), a lovely bronze statue was discovered, lying head downwards at a depth of some thirty-five feet below the bottom of the river, described and illustrated in Chapter XI. ; a patera of gilt bronze, in repoussé work, two feet in diameter; an inscription mentioning a land sur- vey made under Agrippa; and then the usual prodigious mass of smaller objects, from the family coins of the sev- enth century of Rome, to the medals of devotion struck under Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. CHAPTER X. assº THE CAMPAGNA. MANY of my readers must have seen districts of the Ro- man Campagna, either when walking, riding, or gliding swiftly by in the railway carriage; many must have read descriptions of it in historical works, or in works of fiction ; but I wonder if a passing view only, in some particular sea- son of the year, or a more or less imaginary description, has placed before them a true picture. In a letter addressed to his friend M. de Fontanes, the charming writer Comte de Chateaubriand speaks of the famous district in the follow- ing terms : — “Imagine something like the desolation of Tyre and Babylon, of which the Holy Scripture speaks: a silence and a solitude as vast as the noise and tumult of the men who formerly occupied the same soil. One imagines that he hears again the malediction of the prophet: “Venient' tibi duo hac in die uno, sterilitas et viduitas,’ — ‘Two things shall come to thee in the same day, sterility and widowhood.” One can see here and there remnants of old Roman roads in places where now no one passes; one can see here and there dried-up beds of winter torrents, which, at a certain distance, have the aspect of roads well beaten and frequented, and in reality are only the furrows exca- vated by a passing wave. One hardly meets with a tree; but everywhere, in whatever direction one gazes, are ruins of tombs and aqueducts, – ruins which appear like a forest of indigenous plants, the growth of an earth composed of 260 THE CAMPAGNA. the dust of the dead. Sometimes, in the large plain yon- der, one seems to discover rich, luxuriant harvests; one ap- proaches: burnt grass and dry herbs have deceived the eye. On examining these sterile harvests traces of ancient cultivation are discovered. No birds, no laborers, no happy country sounds, no activity, no bleating of flocks; no vil- lages clustered around the antique church. A small num- ber of dilapidated farm-houses rise from the midst of the plain : the windows and doors are closed; no smoke rises in graceful curls from the chimney; one hears no noise; in fact there are no inhabitants, – a sort of savage, pale and trembling with the chill of evening dew, gazes at these dens of fever, like the spectres who in Gothic ballads de- fend the entrance to an abandoned château. In fact, one would say that no nation has dared to succeed the great masters of the world on their native soil; and that the fields of Latium are as they were left by the iron spade of Cin- cinnatus, and by the last Roman plough.” After this impressive description you might be led to believe that there is nothing worse to behold than the Roman Campagna. You would be greatly mistaken. The Campagna has an inconceivable grandeur of its own; one is always ready, in contemplating its wonderful aspect, to exclaim : Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, magna virum. / — Hail, land of fecundity, land of Saturn, mother of great men | If you look at it from an eco- nomic point of view, it will completely discourage you; if you contemplate it as an artist, as a poet, even as a philos- opher, you would not wish, perhaps, to have it different from what it is. The view of an undulating field of grain, or of a luxuriant vineyard, cannot give you a stronger emo- tion than the aspect of this Campagna, the soil of which has not been rejuvenated by a modern cultivator, and has ‘ĀVAA NIV Id{cIV GIHJ, $č.~º„* ==Ë|-š„“-mae'r I • . <-->~~~~ ºſ c�،· + ||}} – „T•.•;،* .*J-）：= ！=Ę Į š , : /~ ' 。{/} \\ -: №， №./.^ ^* „º--> ••••*%%%ſį{ |-•ſaeſºſ § ¶ ¡ ¿ ș***！ ~$_-ș’#/„” Se º " ?t*ſae/*№me， * · • ¶A} / •→ *,|（ZZZ）%\\ }<！--æ„-”， ！Žć;:# }-،ſaeſ, ·ý};ºſ¿} · · ·ſ ſ„ ”* º „- ſ.%¿? … }/* , （~~~~|?:f*،º-- §§=№Ēģ=æs===№ãȚ №s ===~ №=- ：：№gā ſētāſtaea ،$$（) % Ķwº [[] d.ſy % #ffffff §$%% ：Zºſ* № º §), ¿% ¿Nº yaº: ·§§ ¿ · • ×fiſ ! /\įſſºſ,~ §§ §@₪ ###### }}|: }};}|#| };*/ ſſſſſſſ. ſºſ ſºſ {·w}}* §§§§", *r 5:•ìț \ \ >\ \ ،¡ �{ i\}）; ~%）¡¡¡¡ ¿*****, * «sĶī£}t}Ī~~}} %:№mº.“„Iſºj/ -pºsſº ...ºff/ THE CAMPA GNA. 261 remained as ancient as the ruins which cover it. Nothing can equal, or be compared with the lines of the Roman ho- rizon, the gentle inclination of its plains, the soft and fugi. tive outlines of the mountains which surround it. Often the valleys in the Campagna have been shaped by nature like arenas, circuses, and hippodromes; their slopes are cut in steps and terraces, as if the powerful hand of the Ro- mans had up-turned and moulded all this land. A pecu- liar kind of vapor, rising in the distance, softens all objects, and hides those that might be hard or ungainly in their outlines; the shadows are never heavy or black; there are never masses of rock or foliage so dense or obscure that some little ray of light does not penetrate them. A singu- larly harmonious tint unites the earth, the heavens, the sea; by means of an insensible gradation of color, the lines of contact melt so that one cannot determine where one shade begins and the other finishes. Doubtless every one has admired in the landscapes of Claude de Lorraine and Gaspard Poussin that seemingly ideal light, more beautiful almost than nature itself. Well, this is the light, this is the atmosphere of Rome. I never tire of looking from some lofty point — for instance, from the Parnassus or Belvedere of the Villa Medici on the Pin- cian — at the sun setting behind the stately cypresses of Monte Mario, or behind the pines of the Villa Pamphili, planted by Le Nôtre. Often I have sailed up the Tiber, as far as its junction with the Anio under the hill of Antemnae, in order to enjoy the grand scene of the declining day. The summits of the Sabine Mountains appear as if they were melted in lapis lazuli and opals, while their slopes and bases are steeped in a violet of purple tint. Sometimes beautiful clouds, resembling light chariots of gods borne along with inimitable grace and swiftness by the wind, 262 THE CAMPAGNA. make one almost believe in former apparitions of the in- habitants of Olympus, under this mythological sky. Some- times ancient Rome seems to have spread on the western horizon, under the last steps of the god of day, all the pur- ple robes of her consuls and of her Caesars. This rich and powerful effect does not fade as quickly as in northern cli- mates; when you think that the last tints are dying away, they suddenly light up again in some other part of the hori- zon; one twilight follows another, and the magical effect of sunset is thus indefinitely prolonged. It is true that at this hour the Campagna rests in deep repose : one hears no pastoral songs; the laborers have migrated to other cli- mates: dulcia linquimus arva / But one still can see the gigantic white oxen, raised on the banks of the Clitumnus, or herds of half-wild horses, descending to the bed of the Tiber, to refresh themselves in its cool waters. One imag- ines one's self transported to the time of the old Sabines; to the age of Evander the Arcadian, when the river was called Albula; to the age of the pious AEneas, sailing up the un- e e - l--- Artº “ſº rºº ~rro +ower +,-, *** *** **** l, c. clair, a + +1, a £AA+ ~ſ: 4-1-2 TX.1-4-3-- ~ Jº-JL L^_X Y.W. Jill YY CU UV-V.R. Nº UV IR liſt. V VJ. J.R.LN) **t, CUU Ull'O' LVU U U L Ull'U l- CULCU U Lll'U e I admit that the views of Naples, of Rio de Janeiro, of Constantinople, are more dazzling than that of Rome. For instance, when the brilliant sun or our own satellite rises above Vesuvius, like a ball of fire thrown up by the vol- cano, the bay of Naples, with its banks fringed with bloom- ing groves of lemon and orange trees; with its island of Capri, rising in snowy whiteness from the sapphire waters of the Tyrrhenian ; with the hills of Posilippo clothed in myrtle, stretching towards Baiae and Miseno; all this land sung by Virgil presents, no doubt, a truly magic aspect. But, in my opinion, it has not the grandeur of the Roman Campagna. However that may be, one soon becomes pro- digiously attached to this famous soil. THE CAMPA GNA. 263 Has the Campagna always been in its present state of fascinating desolation ? By no means. It is sufficient to take a ride across its fields and valleys in any direction you may choose, to meet at every step with remains of villas and farms which in ancient times must have been teeming with life. These villas are all modelled on a uniform pattern, rising in steps and terraces from the foot of the hill, each terrace supported by huge foundation walls, or- namented with niches, and nymphaea. The lower terraces Aft'ſ...','A,% % /º % % 4% The Nymphaeum in Hadrian's Villa. never contain buildings; they were simply laid out in gar- dens, and less frequently in an orchard: the mansion of the landlord is perched on the very top of the hill, and within the area of the highest terrace. This general type of a Latin villa was praiseworthy for two reasons: first, 264 THE CAMPA GNA. because from the edge of each platform the eye could freely command every point of the horizon; secondly, because, with a comparatively small quantity of water, many foun- tains and nymphaea could be supplied, by taking advantage of the surplus of every basin, and making as many shows of it as there were steps and terraces. But it is incredible how ingenious and clever ancient architects proved them- selves to be, in adapting the general type of villa to the natural conditions of the special tract of land which had been selected for its establishment; and equally surprising was their skill in exposing palace and gardens to the north, or to the mid-day sun, according as their patron wished to have a winter or a summer country residence. From the last century of the republic, and on a much larger scale under the imperial rule, the wealthiest patri- cian families owned not one, but several villas, planned and arranged on a different principle, in accordance with their destination of winter, spring, or summer residences. The two ill-fated brothers, Quintilius Condianus and Quintil- ius Maximus, owned a magnificent winter seat at the fifth milestone of the Appian Way ; indeed, so magnificent that the Emperor Commodus caused both brothers to be mur- dered, to secure by confiscation what he had failed to secure by direct purchase. This villa, the ruins of which cover an area of nearly a square mile, was only seven miles distant from another, built by the same family on the slopes of Tusculum, as a summer resort. The Valerii, likewise, owned a line of villas, beginning at the second milestone of the Via Latina, and ending near the Castrimoenium, the modern Marino, which was adaptable to the various seasons of the year. The same practice is known to have prevailed in the Servilian, the Flavian, the Claudian, and other fam: ilies of the old aristocracy, THE CAMPAGNA. 265 We must not consider, however, this abundance and va- riety of country seats as an extravagant display of luxury. The old Roman aristocracy was educated under the same principles as the English aristocracy is at the present time. Latin gentlemen of the republic and of the empire, as Eng- lish gentlemen of nowadays, were not brought up in lazi- ness and inactivity, but served their country with their in- telligence and their strength, fighting gallantly in their youth against the foes of the commonwealth, and sharing the cares of government in their mature age. From iden- tity in the education and principles of the two aristocracies came identity in their systems of life. Our patricians, like the English, had houses in town, in keeping with the rank of the owners, in which hospitality was practised during the winter, as it is now during the London season; though in Rome the season was, so far as I can judge, exceedingly short. As soon as spring began to appear, with its tepid breezes and brilliant sunshine, the aristocracy dispersed at once to their country seats; I mean to those the average distance of which did not exceed six or seven miles from the outskirts of the metropolis. So short a distance, which they could cover with their swift Numidian ponies in less than an hour, allowed them to attend daily, and without inconvenience, to their official duties, – to the administra- tion of public waters and granaries; to the préfecture of the Tiber and its docks and harbors; to the government of the city, and of the praetorium ; to the administration of justice; to court duties; to the sittings of Parliament. At the same time, the comparative quiet of their delicious dwellings, half urban, half rustic, helped them wonderfully to recover the peace broken or lost among the vicissitudes of political life, to shelter themselves from court intrigues; to regain strength and vigor, after the hardships of long 266 THE CAMPAG NA. journeys, made through the military outposts, along the far- away frontiers, and through the provinces beyond the sea. How like the Roman aristocracy of the present day ! We must attribute to the state of things which I have described the origin of that circle of villas which sur- rounded the Capitol within a radius of four to ten miles from the umbilicus Roma: ; otherwise it would be impos- sible to explain why the Romans should have spent for- tunes for building-sites which could not be inhabited in summer, as they were at that season hotter and less salubri- ous than the town itself. The number of these villas is really incredible : one must have scoured the Campagna as I have for twenty years; one must have explored every re- motest corner, on each side of the Tiber and of the Anio, as I have done, to recognize how near to truth comes the theory of those who extend the surface of Rome as far as the neighboring territories of Ostia, Bovillae, Tusculum, Tibur, and Veii. In the golden age of the empire, before the transformation of Rome into an intrenched camp, ac- complished by Aurelian, it was impossible to define, even approximately, its extent. To the thick nucleus of the four- teen regions into which Augustus had divided the city, to the houses adjoining one another succeeded a second ring of houses separated by small gardens; a third, of houses separated by larger estates; and lastly, a fourth ring of great villas and huge latifundia, each one constituting a populous and flourishing village. These groups of rustic dwellings were laid out in the town fashion, with the shrines of the compital or domestic gods at the street corners, and with local festivities and solemnities, registered in the Cal- endars discovered by Colocci and by Della Valle. One who attempts in our days to cross the wilderness of Fiorano, for instance, and of Capobianco on the Via Appia and on THE CAMPAGNA. 267 the Via Nomentana, finds it difficult to believe that, in by- gone days, these very solitudes could have resounded with the joyful mirth of large gatherings of the peasantry; but of those meetings, festivities, and games, we possess records engraved on stones discovered on the spot. To this radia- tion of life from the city, decreasing, it is true, in direct proportion with the distance, but decreasing little by little, without the sudden transition of the present day, - to this radiation of life, I say, let us add the intensity of traffic on the high-roads, on the cross-lanes, on the flood and on the banks of the Tiber; let us think of the aqueducts, run- ning on triumphal arcades through the inhabited centres of the district, distributing everywhere life and health; let us mould again those shapeless ruins into temples, shrines, and sanctuaries, lining at short intervals the banks of the high-roads with roofs of bronze, glistening under the rays of the sun; let us picture to the mind those endless marble cemeteries, shaded by the ilexes of the villa, and by the olive-trees of the farm ; let us animate the brilliant scene with groups of countrymen carrying into town the produce of the fertile soil, with pious pilgrims offering libations and flowers on the tombs of dear ones, and with travellers car- ried on the lectica or driving the rheda or the petorritum,- and we shall thus gain a faint idea of the aspect of the Roman Campagna in bygone times. The picture which I have endeavored to sketch is not imaginary; it represents with exactness the state of things under the first three centuries of the empire, as I have been able to reconstruct it, by the aid of daily discoveries, and on the evidence of many thousand published and unpub- lished documents which I have collected. Wherever, since 1867, I have seen excavations made in the Campagna, always and everywhere, even in the most remote and se- 268 THE CAMPA GNA. cluded corners, they have brought to light traces of the work of man, – roads, bridges, aqueducts, drains, rustic houses, patrician villas, mosaic pavements, enclosure walls, tombs, granaries, wine cellars, oil presses, and besides, am- phorae, oil jars, coins, utensils, bricks, water-pipes, building materials, sculptured marbles, busts, statues, inscriptions, and so forth. Totally unknown, I am sure, to my foreign readers, and, I dare say, to my countrymen also, are the names of the “tenuta (farm) di Benzone,” lost in the wil- derness crossed by the Via Praenestina; of the “tenuta delle Casaccie,” lost in the woodlands crossed by the Via Clodia; or the savage glen of Monte Oliviero on the Fla- minia; desolate places, miles distant from the nearest inhab- ited house. And yet the excavations made under my per- sonal supervision in these three places, in 1873, 1878, and 1883, seemed like excavations made in Rome itself, so grand was the extent and the magnificence of the buildings, the perfection of roads and drains, the abundance of works of statuary. If any one supposes the tints of my picture too enthusiastic, let him examine de visu, or at least let him read the official account of the excavations which my learned friends, the brothers Lugari, are carrying on, in their farm of Tor Carbone, at the fourth milestone of the Appian Way, with a view to laying open permanently a district of the an- cient Campagna. Although these researches are far from being completed, the work accomplished in the last five years by the Lugaris is enough to convey to the visitor the true idea of the perfection to which the suburban districts were brought under the empire. The ground is crossed at right angles by roads, as frequent as they would be in the city itself; and these roads are so neatly levelled and paved, and their sidewalks so cleverly arranged, that one would scarcely believe them to be country roads. Some cross-lanes THE CAMPA GNA. 269 were on private property, and were closed accordingly with gates at each end. You can see still the very walls, or ma- ceria, as they were styled in ancient times, enclosing the fields; and in these fields, remains of rustic dwellings, of a modest appearance, but wonderfully well adapted to their purpose. They show what care Roman landlords took of the hygiene and welfare of their peasants. The ground- floor rooms are provided with double pavements, for the cir- culation of the hot air, or vapor, in the interstices, – a pre- caution most commendable in damp, low lands. Great care was bestowed on the drainage of the house, which was al- ways carried to a great distance, and forced through its channel by a permanent jet of water. Remarkable, also, were the arrangements for the supply of water; which, when not actually needed for drinking, bathing, or irrigat- ing purposes, was stored in huge reservoirs and cisterns, ready for any extraordinary emergency. At the crossing of the roads, or quadrivia, there were fountains for the accom- modation of travellers and of their horses; in fact, the gen- tleness and kindness of those happy generations went so far as to provide the weary pilgrim with seats, shaded by trees, where he could rest during the hottest hours of the day. The starting of a patrician family for its country manor (I quote Becker and Friedländer almost verbatim) was al- ways an event of great importance, witnessed by idlers with curiosity and admiration. Driving in a carriage was for- bidden in Rome, at least during the first century of the empire, on account of the narrowness and crookedness of the streets, filled as they were with a motley, bustling crowd, especially about the sixth hour of the day, when there was a generai cessation from business, and people were wout to take their morning meal. Great annoyance was created by sellers of matches (sulphurata) and of boiled peas, who 270 THE CAMPA GNA. would sometimes take in exchange broken glass instead of money. The abode of these miserable street pedlars was Trastevere, from which quarter they dispersed every morn- ing through the whole city, but especially in the direction of the infamous Subura. The streets were choked, too, with clusters of disagreeable shops, built, in spite of muni- cipal regulations, by hucksters and merchants of all sorts, barbers and salve-sellers, butchers and pastry cooks, but chiefly by wine-sellers, whose tables, protruding far into the street, were covered with bottles which were fastened by lit- tle chains, lest they might be stolen by some passer-by. To gain the outskirts of the city, ladies and gentlemen of fashion made use of litters. These litters were manned by six powerful slaves in bright liveries; the rest of the escort were dressed in brown travelling suits. Numbers of slaves were despatched in advance with the baggage, while others followed in the rear, the lord and the lady being accompanied by those only whose services were deemed absolutely indispensable. The carriage which awaited the travellers outside the gate was the rheda, a sort of light vehicle drawn by a couple of swift ponies. The body of the carriage was ornamented with beautifully wrought foliage in metal, and Medusa heads. The hood of leather served as a protection against the hot rays of the midday sun, whilst the purple hangings, half fastened, admitted an agreeable current of cool air, and protected the inmates from being incessantly seized by the hands, addressed, or kissed, by passers-by. This exceedingly disagreeable fashion, which began to prevail under Augustus, is ridiculed in several humorous epigrams by Martial. Not merely at the official morning salutation, but at every meeting in the streets, a person was exposed to a shower of kisses, from friends and acquaintances, in fact from any one who desired to show THE CAMPA GNA. 271 his attachment, whether farmer, tailor, barber, shoemaker, or what not. The misanthrope Tiberius, who was unwilling to be humbled by this custom, issued an imperial decree *24 & º % sº - %| \º A § *sº 4 - / £es. , "WWW *.- à % § -% ; t- # É º ºº::#; ºf f* § &. Ps Šá (2. X. canopus 18;|23s Sº tº ſº taggiºs & ºfflº''' Wºl Miſſ #ºns 39 ** q, *. *e tºo §§2 ** Nº. wº & ...tº * w § º & Sº sº aº tº & * & sº º: º º &= • * , 3 & §§ Timons Tºwer lº .* * ..S The Main Portion of Hadrian's Villa, showing to what excess the buildings and architectural decorations were carried in ancient villas, and how little space was left for landscape effects. against it; but it does not seem to have done much good, as the jokes of the poet above alluded to prove. In winter only was it improper to annoy another with one's cold lips. Roman villas, as a general rule, but especially those of the Campagna, were divided into two distinct and inde- pendent portions. The first comprised the lord’s manor, with more or less spacious gardens surrounding it: the sec- ond comprised the farmer's house, the various stables and barns, the dwelling of the slaves, orchards, olive-yards, vine- yards, cornfields, woodlands, and so forth. The characteristic of an ornamentai Roman garden was the entire absence of natural beauty. Its style can be com- pared, to a certain extent, to the French and Italian villas 272 THE CAMPAGNA. of the sixteenth century. No tree or shrub dared to grow in its own natural fashion, for the topiarius, or head gar- dener, was ready instantly to force it into the prescribed form. The allées were shut in by walls of green box or laurel, with windows, doors, and niches imitating the archi- tecture of palaces. Here and there appeared threatening forms of wild beasts, bears and lions, serpents winding themselves round the trees, all cut by the skilful hand of the topiarius out of the green cypress, box, yew-tree, myr- tle, and laurel. The reluctant foliage was compelled to imitate letters, indicating in one part the name of the owner, in another the name of the artist to whose invention the garden owed its present appearance. Grounds laid out in this style, in which vegetation is forced into stiff geomet- rical figures, and every vestige of nature's free dominion annihilated, are not only described by ancient writers, es- pecially in the famous letter of Pliny the younger, on his Laurentine estate, but actually painted, I might almost say photographed, in the frescoes of Pompeian dining-rooms, in those of the greenhouse in the gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline, and in those found in the villa of Livia, ad Gal- linas Albas, near the eighth milestone of the Via Flaminia. An excuse for such absurdities can be found in the fact that the means afforded by nature in those days were but small in comparison with the abundant resources of our time. Foreign countries had not as yet unfolded their rich treasures of rare and splendid vegetation, nor their thou- sand shrubs and flowers: restricted to a barren flora, but little improved by culture, the Romans sought to create, by artificial means, a striking contrast to the free forms of na- ture. This is, at all events, the excuse given by Becker. The trees represented in the magnificent paintings of the villa of Livia are the laurel, the pomegranate, the stone THE CAMP AG WA. 273 pine, three different kinds of firs, corbezzoli, popularly called sea cherries, ilexes, plane trees, myrtles, and cy- presses. Great ingenuity was displayed in training ivy, evergreens, and acanthus upon the walls, the trees, and the terraces. Paths were usually covered with trellises and green arbors, constructed of canes and vines; and their floors were spread with yellow golden sand. Windows were generally lined with flower pots. Greenhouses were very common ; winter grapes, aspara- gus, gherkins, watermelons, and flowers were forced, by the proper exposure of the conservatories to the mid-day sun, and by a proper shelter of glass. Much might be said concerning the flowers known to the Romans; for, though the flora of those days was but poor in comparison with ours, still there is no truth in the assertion that the Ro- mans contented themselves solely with wild plants, and neither laid out flower gardens, nor cultivated any exotics. Violets and roses were certainly the main ornament of pleasure grounds. Next came the bulbous roots, the cro- cus, narcissus, lilies of more than one sort, iris, hyacinth, poppy, amarynth, and so on. The Roman flower, however, the flower par excellence, was the rose. So excessive was the demand for roses in the cold season, that to supply the requirements of the market, and to meet the deficiency of native production, they were imported from Egypt; means were employed, of course, for keeping them as fresh as pos- sible during the journey. Another famous place for the winter rose trade was Paestum, and the surrounding low- lands, bordering on the Gulf of Salerno, biferi rosaria Paesti, as Virgil calls those gardens, because they bloomed for a second iiiue in the late autului. We must not suppose that all the villas of the Roman Campagna were absolutely identical in stiffness, of the type 274 THE CAMPAGNA. I have attempted to describe; and that in every one of them nature was constrained into uncongenial forms. I have excavated and examined one, at least, from which art had been thoroughly banished, and everything left to the free play of nature. The author and inspirer of this mag- nificent park is the over-calumniated young Emperor Nero, the Hausmann of ancient Rome. The place selected by him is one of the wildest gorges of the Simbruine spurs of the Apennines, a little above the modern town of Subiaco. Through this gorge the icy stream of the Anio forces its way, leaping by three graceful falls into the valley below. By damming it three times, with dams more than two hun- dred feet high, he created three mountain lakes, where he could indulge in the sport of trout fishing and in cold bath- ing, his passion for hydropathy being well known. These sheets of water were overshadowed by enormous oaks and beeches, and overhanging rocks, in the interstices of which grew arborescent ferns. The two hunting lodges, on either side of the glen, were connected by a bridge spanning the abyss at a prodigious height. One of these lodges, discov- ered three years ago, directly under the famous Sacro-Speco, the abbey founded by St. Benedict, makes us wonder at its extreme simplicity. But what perfection in that simplicity What exquisite wall paintings what exquisite mosaic pave- ment, and marble ornamentation We found, in the course of the excavations, only one marble statue, and that lacks a head; but this statue, headless as it is, is perhaps the only purely Greek work which has come to light since I began to take an interest in excavations. It represents a youthful male figure, nude, in a leaning posture, perhaps engaged in athletic exercises. The Secretary of State for Public Instruction, to whom the care of national monuments belongs, has accepted our suggestion of leaving the statue THE CAMPAGNA. 275 in the Benedictine abbey close by ; and henceforth visitors will surely be struck by the appearance of this wonderful specimen of Greek art under the mediaeval cloisters of an abbey, hidden in one of the wildest cañons of the central Apennines. Trajan, who was fond of warlike and hunting sports, moved a step farther in the direction chosen by Nero ; he built another lodge, on the very summit of the pass lead- ing from Nero's villa to the source of the Anio, at a height of 3,200 feet above the sea. Words cannot properly de- scribe the natural attractions of the place selected by the imperial sportsman for his summer residence. Limestone peaks 7,000 feet high, marked occasionally with snow even in the heart of summer; green valleys, resorted to as a summer pasture-ground by flocks of cattle from the Cam- pagna ; dense oak and beech forests, the haunts of bears and wolves; mountain streams teeming with trout, — in fact all the characteristics and beauties of a modern Alpine summer resort, with the addition of a magnificent marble palace, furnished with the treasures of the world. Hadrian, the successor of Trajan, inherited his passion and love for travel, for mountains, and for fine natural scenery; only he went much higher. If the Torre del Fil- osofo, the striking ruin near the top of Mount Etna, did really belong to a lodge built by Hadrian, we have in it an instance of a Roman summer palace 3,631 feet higher than the Rigi Kulm, and 3,277 feet higher than Mount Washington. A very interesting chapter might be written on the de- struction of the villas of the Campagna, during the appal- iing vicissitudes which shook and nearly annihilated the Peninsula, in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era. I do not belong to the school which condemns the barbaric 276 THE CAMPA GNA. hosts, and holds them responsible for the material destruc- tion of Rome and its immediate surroundings. The barba- rians took gold, silver, bronze, jewelry, whatever could be easily moved and carried away; they may have set fire to a few monuments in the excitement of battle, or out of spite; in their ignorance and in their hatred of the Latin name, they may have knocked down from their ped- estals statues of emperors and gods; but it would be folly to throw upon them the blame and the shame of the destruction of substantial marble, stone, and brick build- ings. They did not have time to indulge in that sort of sport ; they did not possess the proper tools to accomplish such Titanic deeds; they did not care to commit acts of vandalism from which they could reap no benefit. Rome has been destroyed by its own inhabitants; and, if I dared to deviate from the subject of this chapter, I could easily prove how perfectly true is the statement, announced in the Preface, that during the glorious cinquecento more harm was done, more destruction was accomplished, more monuments were overthrown, than in the course of the pre- ceding ten centuries. As regards the Campagna, however, there is no doubt that the barbarians were the indirect cause of its abandon- ment and devastation in the fifth and sixth centuries after Christ. In that age not only had the patrician families lost nearly all the fortune necessary to keep up those costly establishments, because the latifundia, which they pos- sessed in the various provinces of the empire, had already fallen into the hands of the invader; but the insecurity of the Campagna, even during the interval of peace between two successive incursions, had become so great, that no one any longer dared to leave, even for a short time, the shelter of the town walls. Moreover, by the cessation of the supply THE CAMPA GNA. 277 of water, the most important source of life, health, and wealth had been withdrawn from the Campagna. And finally, we have the positive evidence of an eye-witness, the Byzantine historian Procopius, that during the numberless sieges of Rome by the Goths and Vandals, the districts surrounding their camps were given up occasionally to merciless devastation. In the account of the Gothic war, Procopius describes one of these camps established by the barbarians among the arcades of the great aqueducts, at the sixth milestone of the Via Latina, between the pictu- resque tower, known by the name of Torre Fiscale, and º*',y* * ºf * & ºt, - * dº - - * - - * … • w * - e * -º-º: ,- *- ºf --" de' Law. º, , - - - - - - -- " " -st. A• --- " - "" . . " * *_e = * * * * * * * * *. **º J.-S. sº. T – - * * .º.º.º. ..., * ſ * = º - - * Kºśs; - ? \ & 4 W º,. .* --~~ sº sº 7 ~ *J. Sºº-yº .. l, A || l “A l *::::::::: *- ::\{tl||, .......Sººº. Sºhº. *. , \' ºl. * : *º-Sºy: { % JSSN' " t - ~~.” * - * * &W,\" , S - . . . . ** ºis. ** 2-part. * * -º', s: ~~ HT3 ... The Torre Fiscale, showing the site fortified by the Goths. 278 THE CAMPA GNA. the modern race-course at the Capannelle. Here the two main aqueducts of the Claudia and of the Marcia cross each other twice, leaving, between the first and the second crossing, an oval space, two thousand feet long by six hun- dred wide, encircled by lofty arches, and presenting the aspect of an amphitheatre. This enclosure the Goths for- tified by walling up the arches with huge stones; and they established themselves within, with all possible comfort. They numbered seven thousand men, not including the outposts. Here they remained many months, waiting for the proper occasion to storm the city. In the mean time they spent their leisure hours in setting fire to neighboring villas, in uprooting trees, in violating tombs, and in de- stroying farms, until an outbreak of pestilence obliged them to leave their fortified camp and disperse. Commen- datore de Rossi has collected important evidence on the accuracy and truthfulness of the account by Procopius of this episode of the Gothic war. In 1853 he saw many tombs in the course of excavation in the modern road to Albano, and within half a mile of the Torre Fiscale. These tombs were built with the spoils of more ancient ones, and contained skeletons covered with rich clothes woven with golden thread. Other skeletons were bound around the loins and the breast with bands saturated with blood. “I at once recalled,” Commendatore de Rossi says, “the ac- count of Procopius, and thought myself in the presence of Roman or Gothic warriors, whose wounds had been hur- riedly dressed, and who had been slain during that murder- ous campaign.” This supposition was confirmed by dis- coveries made near and on the same spot in 1876, and described by the same distinguished archaeologist. In spite of the devastation of the Campagna, which closely followed the fall of the empire; in spite of its pres- THE CAMPA GNA. 279 ent state of abandonment and solitude; in spite of the works of improvement begun by our national government, which threaten to change altogether the aspect of this ven- erable district, there are still, there always will be, nooks and corners which will enable one to form a vivid idea of its ancient beauty. Take, for instance, the Casino del * ~. *-ºs- | ! ->=— *a º ºft||| ~ ºf...ºf # º j Kºjić | º #x? A :*::::===== *:::= E:º-º: | ºr , º, 3. gº º - e Ž ºr. it is dºes.” & º sºlº º ...-: .* - ------ • - ºft º” .h. ºf a 㺠--~~ "litº, haº. —ſ — $ - - * § sº ºf {: ; ſh. . } º • * 2 º ºf 2. à– Jºž...ºliºſ, £ • *-*. - Nº . .º º £; ! . . . sº º 2% º lº. * * ſ] } * * * 1 * #7. Sº tºº, * . The Casino del Ligorio, Vatican Gardens. Ligorio and its surroundings, in the Vatican gardens. It is a perfect image of an ancient country-house. Take, also, the Willa Barberini, at Castel Gandolfo, which I con- sider not only the very finest I have ever seen, but also the one which comes nearer than any other to the type of an ancient Sºbºrbarºm. It is true that its general plan and outline follow precisely the plan and the outline of the glorious villa of Domitian, which that emperor built on the 280 THE CAMPAGNA. west slope of the Lake of Albano, uniting in one body his own with the villa of Clodius and Pompey the Great. But the ancient ruins, the foundation walls of the huge terraces, the nymphaea, and other remains are so com- pletely concealed and screened by a thick growth of ivy, ferns, and other evergreens, that one feels, more than sees, the antiquity of the place. By a singular coinci- dence, no tree, no shrub, no flower, no bird, that is not purely classic, seems to be allowed to live in this magnifi- cent domain. In looking at the groups of aged ilexes, pines, firs, cypresses, corbezzoli, laurels, myrtles, and pome- granates, which shade the lawns in graceful and pictu- resque clusters, one is led to remember the frescoes repre- senting the villa of Livia. No flower is allowed to diversify the emerald green of the lawns, except the classic rose and violet. And to make the illusion more perfect, flocks of peacocks have selected the groves of this villa for their abode, and increase the variety of the scene with the bril- liancy of their plumage. As to the view which oné com- mands from the Villa Barberini, there is perhaps more clas- sic history contained in the district stretching far away, from the foot of the Alban hills to the Mediterranean, from the promontory of Circe to Mount Soracte, from Ostia to the Tiber, than in all other districts of Italy together. An- other particular worth mentioning is this: it was a well- known custom of Roman patricians to build the last rest- ing-place of the family within the precinct of the paternal villa, – a pious and touching practice, almost completely abandoned and forgotten by modern generations ! It has not been forgotten, however, in this Willa Barberini at Cas: tel Gandolfo, and the family tomb has been raised in the lovely pine forest which borders the domain on the side of the Lake of Albano. THE CAMPAGNA. 281 The number of ancient family crypts and mausoleums scattered all over the Campagna is really astonishing; and whereas it helps us to form an idea of the number of an- cient villas, within the precincts of which those tombs were raised, it enables us, in many cases, to identify the name of the family to which the property belongs; because we seldom find a tomb, without finding, at the same time, epitaphs and inscriptions relating its history. Among the many thousand tombs which have been discovered in mod- ern times in the Campagna, and among the many hundred which have been discovered by myself, or in my presence, one has always attracted and captivated my sympathy more than any other, — the tomb of a beautiful, fascinating girl of the highest aristocracy, whose premature death has been so sadly and touchingly described by Pliny the younger, in the sixteenth letter of the sixth book. I refer to the sepul- chre of Minicia Marcella, daughter of Minicius Fundanus, brought to light by military engineers, on the very top of the Monte Mario, the highest summit in the vicinity of Rome, when they were laying the foundations and digging the moat of the new fortress, which commands the approach to Rome from the upper valley of the Tiber. The family crypt of the Minicii presented the appearance of a room, twenty-six feet square, of modest architecture, with brick pavement, door, steps, and posts of common stone, and walls simply whitewashed. When the stillness and solitude of the place was first broken, and we stepped over the threshold which had never been violated since the burial of the girl, seventeen centuries and a half ago, I saw six mar- ble sarcophagi, without inscriptions, set up in couples against three sides of the ceii. Near the waii facing the entrance there stood a marble cippus, or cinerary urn, inscribed with the name of Statoria Marcella, the mother of our heroine. 282 THE CAMPA GNA. The cippus, or cinerary urn, contained the ashes of this lady. A fine piece of marble, exquisitely carved and orna- mented, stood in the centre of the room. The inscription engraved upon it reads as follows: — D. M. MINICIAE. MARCELLAE. FVNDANI. F. WIX. A. XII. M. XI. D. VII. “To the soul of Minicia Marcella, daughter of Fundanus; died at the age of twelve years, eleven months, and seven days.” C. Minicius Fundanus, father of the girl, was con- sul from the first of May to the first of September, in the year 107; and governor of Asia Minor in 124. Being a cultivated gentleman, he enjoyed the intimacy of many dis- tinguished contemporaries, – of the Emperor Hadrian, of Pliny the younger, and especially of Plutarch, who speaks of him in his book on “Equanimity,” and introduces him, as a leading personage, in his dialogue “De Cohibenda Ira,” — “How to check Anger.” There is no doubt that Fun- danus and Statoria were the parents of the young girl whose tomb we discovered on the Monte Mario: as a proof, we have the beautiful letter of Pliny, above alluded to, ad- dressed to their common friend Marcellinus, of which letter I will give a few extracts: “I write to you with my soul deeply saddened and distressed, on account of the death of the younger daughter of our Fundanus, a bright, lova- ble, attractive girl, worthy not only of a longer life, but I might almost say of immortality. Although she had not yet completed her thirteenth year, she united the wisdom and the gravity of a matron to the simplicity and gen- tleness of a girl, the modesty and sweetness of a virgin. With what tranquillity, patience, and strength of mind she supported her fatal disease, followed the advice of the attending physicians, consoled her father and elder sister, and maintained the declining strength of her body with the THE CAMPAGNA. 283 vigor of her mind! Already she was betrothed to a worthy young gentleman ; the day of the marriage had been set- tled, the invitations issued. I cannot express to you in words the sense of grief I experienced, when I heard Fun- danus order that all the money which had been put aside for the trousseau, and settled on for the marriage, should be devoted to the ceremony of the cremation of the poor body.” Pliny then urges his friend Marcellinus to hasten his return, that he may comfort Fundanus in his terrible affliction and bereavement, and concludes his letter with the following exquisite sentence: “As it happens that the wounded body dreads, at first, the hand of the surgeon, later endures it, and finally seeks it with anxiety, so the soul, depressed or bent down with sorrow or grief, rebels, at first, against words of comfort, later hears them with resignation, and lastly seeks them as the sweetest balsam for a wounded heart.” CHAPTER XI. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WORKS OF ART, AND THEIR DISCOVERY IN RECENT YEARS. IN a manuscript volume of the Vatican library, belong- ing to the Syriac collection and numbered 145, a short description of Rome has been found, written, A. D. 546, by Zacharias, a Byzantine historian and Bishop of Mytilene in the island of Lesbos. From his account we gather that, towards the middle of the sixth century of our era, there were in Rome eighty statues of gilt bronze representing gods, thirty-seven hundred and eighty-five bronze statues of miscellaneous subjects, and twenty-five bronze statues which, according to tradition, had been removed from Jeru- salem by Vespasian: in all thirty-eight hundred and ninety works of art in bronze, exhibited in public places. Of this immense and invaluable collection a small portion only has come down to us; in fact, the list of ancient bronzes in modern Rome is so short that, as regards number, the contents of our museums cannot compare favorably with those of the National Museum in Naples. Our list com- prises, first of all, the Capitoline group, namely, the Bronze Wolf, the equestrian statue of M. Aurelius, the colossal Head of Domitian, the Camillus or Sacrificing Youth, the Boy extracting a Thorn, and the Hercules from the Forum Boarium. Many errors connected with the origin and the discovery of these famous bronzes have been circulated, and are still believed by many. The equestrian statue is said to have been found between the Lateran and the Ba- LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 285 silica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, in a vineyard adj oining the Scala Santa; the She-Wolf, to have been found under the northwest spur of the Palatine hill, near the so-called Arco degli Argentieri, at S. Giorgio in Velabro; the colos- sal Head of Domitian to have been found, in 1487, near the Basilica of Constantine on the Sacra Wia, and so on. The truth is that these celebrated works were never lost and rediscovered; but, as I have already stated in Chapter I., from the fall of the empire downwards, they have been kept together and preserved in and around the Pope's pal- ace at the Lateran, until Sixtus IV. and Paul III. caused them to be removed to the Capitol. Of the equestrian statue of M. Aurelius we have records from the tenth century. In the year 966, Peter, prefect of Rome, was executed for rebellion against Pope John XIII., - being hung by the hair from the horse; and at its feet was flung the corpse of the Anti-pope Boniface, son of Ferru- cio, in the year 974. We hear again of the group in 1347, during the festivities which followed the election of Rienzi to the tribuneship, when, for nearly a whole day, wine was made to flow from one nostril of the horse, water from the other. This constant connection of the equestrian group with the Lateran, from time immemorial, makes us believe that it was never removed there from the Forum, as com- monly asserted, but that it must have belonged to the 'im- perial residence of the Lateran from the time of Marcus Aurelius, who was born and educated in the house of the Annii, close by. As regards the She-Wolf, the positive evidence of its being kept at the Lateran dates from the beginning of the ninth century. Benedict, a monk from Mount Soracte, who wrote a Chronicon in the tenth century, speaks of the institution of a supreme court of justice “in the Lateran 286 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. palace, in the place called the Wolf, viz., the mother of the Romans.” Trials and executions “at the Wolf” are re- corded from time to time until 1450. Paolo di Liello speaks of two highwaymen, whose hands, cut by the execu- tioner, were hung at the Wolf. It was removed to the Conservatori palace on the Capitol in 1473, together with the colossal Head and the Camillus. The ancient bronzes in the Vatican museum are less important in number and in interest than those of the Cap- itol; in fact, only two are worth mentioning, — the Pine- cone, in the Giardino della Pigna, and the Hercules, dis- covered in the autumn of 1864 under the foundations of the palazzo Pio di Carpi, on the site of the theatre of Pompey the Great. The Pine-cone, eleven feet high, is generally described as the pinnacle of Hadrian's mausoleum (now Castel S. Angelo), in the ruins of which it is said to have been found. The truth is that the Pine-cone has always been the central ornament of a large fountain, or basin, or pond, the water flowing in innumerable jets per foramina nucum ; that is to say, from each of the spikes. Pope Sym- machus, who did so much toward the embellishment of sacred edifices in Rome (between 498 and 514), removed the Pine-cone from its ancient place, most probably from Agrippa's artificial lake in the Campus Martius, and used it for adorning the magnificent fountain which he had built in the centre of the so-called “Paradise ’’ of S. Peter's, viz., in the centre of the square portico in front of the basilica. Considering the decadence, the poverty, and the semi-bar- baric taste of the age in which Symmachus lived, his foun- tain must be considered as a real masterpiece. Cencius Camerarius, who became in process of time Pope Honorius III., wrote in 1190 the following description of the foun- * if ºt * † • *-*- - TI-7.3, - - ... • 4. ma º 2- . ~~ * • — "...º º .* * £...ºu.4% . . . . | .. # 2. -á , º, . . " ; - * iſſ. º %. , . . . . a Z & * - - s %{& *. w {{ { * * º/ZZZZZZ}%/ft| ºff/ft2// % * rººmſºftºpºlº Cº. º.º. º r Jººf Jº; #######7%. Aſſiſſ/ſiſſiſſiliff, ####8%? > ºff: * - - **:Artiliº sº gº mºſſ ###, d /Zºllhºſ/º # 77%iº § ſºft|ºff # łº ź % % % % // º % / ſ//// % 7% § à fiftſmº".TIII # |W º | ſº 3. * #: ºft %. . / s • -s gº -- seer. Fº ºft º tº. % /* * , ; ; ; ºr º Haw ºf ºf º,..., ' ' ' ' . | J| | | *... } || || || º g f | | } ' . . . . ~~ : ) ill # ... '" THE PIN E-CONE AND THE PEACOCKS Jim f/he Vaticazz Gardezzs, LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. 287 tain : “In the ‘Paradise ’ of S. Peter there is a basin built by Pope Symmachus, surrounded by columns of porphyry, which support a dome of gilt metal; of gilt metal also are the dolphins and the flowers, from the mouth and the petals of which the water flows. In the centre of the piece stands the Pine-cone.” The two lovely bronze pea- cocks now preserved in the Giardino della Pigna are sup- posed to have come from the same fountain. M. Lacour- Gayet has recently discovered a remarkable document con- nected with the Cone, – the very signature of the artist who modelled and cast it, engraved twice around the lower edge of the piece : P. CINCIWS - P - L - CALVIWS - FECIT “This is the work of Publius Cincius Calvius, freedman of Publius Cincius.” The other bronze of the Vatican, the colossal Hercules, discovered twenty-three years ago near the piazza di Campo dei Fiori, under the foundations of Pompey’s theatre, is remarkable more from having been an oracular statue than from its beauty. Very few persons are acquainted with the most striking feature of this Hercules. I mean, very few persons know of the existence of a hole in the back of the head, thirty-eight centimetres in diameter, through which a full-grown youth could easily make his way into the colossus. The experiment was actually made by a young mason, named Pietro Roega, in November, 1864, in the presence of Commendatore Tenerani and other eminent per- sonages; and the sound of his voice, in answering the ques- tions addressed to him, was really impressive and almost supernaturai. Hercules, iike AEsculapius, Apollo, and the Fortune, was undoubtedly an oracular god, as shown by the existence of many temples and sanctuaries in which re- 288 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS or ART. sponsa or oracles were given in his name. Such were the temple of Bura, in Achaia, described by Pausanias; the temple of Gades in Bae- tica, described by Silius Italicus; the temple in the Cyn o sargo s, at Athens, described by Suidas; and such was most probably our Ro- man temple of Hercu- les, near the Circus Flaminius, to which the colossal statue found in 1864 is supposed to be- long. How happens it that so very few, among the many thousand bronze statues of ancient Rome, have escaped destruc- tion ? The answer has already been given by Fea, in his “Istoria della rovina di Roma; ” by Gibbon, in his “De- cline and Fall of the jºº Roman Empire; ” by %% Dyer, in the last chap- ters of his “History of the City of Rome.” During the long agony of the capital of the world, an agony which lasted nearly seven centuries, from Constantine's age to the final burning of the city by Robert Guiscard and * 's.' - K. º | ſ | º: º } º º * The Mastai Hercules. In the Vatican. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 289 his Normans, in May, 1084,. no one, except a few lime- burners, paid any attention to marbles; works of bronze and other metals were sought for, stolen, stripped, and melted with an almost incredible amount of labor and patience, on account of their marketable value and facility of trans- portation. In justice to the barbarians, upon whom is often cast the blame of spoliations committed by the Ro- mans themselves, we must acknowledge that the emperors set the bad example of stealing bronze and other valuables from public places, especially from pagan temples and shrines, after the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the state. The first inroad upon this class of works of art was undoubtedly made by Constantine, when he trans- ferred the seat of the empire to Byzantium : at any rate, under him began the wanton practice of changing the heads of bronze and marble statues, in order that they might be dedicated to new personages with no cost and no trouble. The next important step towards the destruction of the artistic treasures of Rome was made A. D. 383, by Grati- anus, when he ordered, by imperial decree, the abolition and confiscation of the privileges and the patrimony of all pagan places of worship, on the ground that it was not becoming a Christian government and a Christian state officially to supply the infidels with the means of persever- ing in their errors. In 391, the edict of Gratianus was confirmed by his brother Valentinian II., and this measure so roused the indignation of the pagan majority in the Senate-House, ready to break into open rebellion, that the emperor decided to strike the final blow; and before that memorable year was over, another decree prohibited for- ever superstitious sacrifices in Rome and in Italy, even if offered under a private name, at private cost, and within the threshold of a private house. - 290 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. The masterpieces of Greek and Italo-Greek art, to which divine honors had been offered for centuries, were removed from their temples, and exhibited in public places, in the baths, in the forums, in the theatres, as simple objects of curiosity. There is no doubt, however, that on this oc- casion, when suddenly exposed to the hatred and violence of a Christian populace, who had so long and so bitterly suffered from the hatred and violence of the pagan aris- tocracy, the works of art must have suffered a certain amount of damage. The Hercules of the Vatican, for in- stance, still bears the evidence of an ignoble attack, which must have taken place when the gates of the temple were shut behind it. In 408, Alaric was induced to withdraw from Rome, on the payment of an exorbitant ransom, one of the items of which was five thousand pounds weight of gold. In order to meet this demand, the Romans were compelled to strip the bronze statues of their heavy gilding. Two years later, on the 24th day of August, 410, Alaric and his hordes stormed the town, and plundered it for three con- secutive days, carrying off an incredible amount of articles of value. According to Procopius, the Jewish spoils from Jerusalem, which Titus and Vespasian had dedicated in the temple of Peace, and which are so beautifully represented in the bas-reliefs of the triumphal arch of Titus on the Sacred Way, were among the booty. Traditions, however, differ with regard to the fate of this precious and venerable collection of metals from Zion. The writers of the Tal- mud, for instance, believe the seven-branched candlestick to have been thrown into the Tiber, and describe the bed of the river as paved with solid bronze from Rome to Ostia. The Jewish colony of Rome, acting under the influence of this tradition, is said by De Brosses to have applied to the LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 291 Pope for a permit to excavate the whole bed, and recover the candlestick; a request which of course met with a refusal. Others think that when Alaric, the plunderer, died in Southern Italy, near Cosenza, his followers buried him and his treasures in the bed of the river Busentinus, first diverting the course of the waters, and then letting them flow again over the tomb. I wonder whether this story is based upon a practice actually followed by the bar- barians in the burial of their great chiefs and leaders, or whether it is simply a revised edition of the true story of Decebalus, king of the Dacians. On the approach of the Roman army, led to victory by Trajan, Decebalus caused the Sargetia, now Istrig, to be turned out of its regular course, and buried an enormous mass of gold, silver, and jewelry in a kind of cave which had been built for that purpose in the middle of the dry bed. The river was then restored to its natural channel, and all the men who had been employed in this extraordinary work were slain by Decebalus, in order that the secret might be safe from in- discreet disclosure. The secret, however, was revealed to Trajan by the king's intimate confidant and adviser, Be- ryx; and the Romans found in the cave money and val- uables enough to defray all the expenses of that costly war. According to Fabretti (“De Columna Traiana,” c. 8), some Wallachian fishermen, plunging and diving into the Istrig, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, discovered a considerable portion of the treasure, which had somehow escaped the search of the Roman emperor. To go back to the Jewish treasure in Rome, it seems certain that the whole of it cannot have been carried off by Alaric, since part was plundered by Genseric, as we shall presently see. In June, 455, the third day after the mur- der of Petronius Maximus, who had succeeded Valentinian 292 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. III., the Wandals, with whom mingled Bedouins and Afri- cans, entered Rome by the Porta Portese, and plundered it at leisure during a whole fortnight. On this occasion the palace of the Caesars was completely robbed, not only of its precious statues, but even of its commonest brass uten- sils. Genseric appears to have devoted himself particularly to the plunder of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus: its statues were carried off to adorn the African residence of the Wandal king, and half the roof was stripped of its tiles of gilt bronze. That portion of the Jewish spoils which had escaped the previous attempt of Alaric, was apparently landed safely at Carthage, where, eighty years later, it was discovered again by Belisarius, and removed to Constantino- ple. On the 1st of January of the following year, 456, the Senate decreed that a bronze statue should be raised in Trajan’s Forum, in honor of Sidonius Apollinaris, the son- in-law of the Emperor Avitus. Although the decree of the Senate must be understood in the sense that a new head, representing within a certain approximation the likeness of Apollinaris, was to be put on a statue already existing, still the fact proves that, in spite of all these inroads and plun- ders, works in metal were still left in Rome, not only in private palaces and villas, but also in public places, such as the forum of Trajan. Nearly half a century later, in 500, Theodoric the Great appointed a magistrate (or count, as he was called at the time), whose duty it was to take care of the statues; and although Cassiodorius evidently exag- gerates in comparing these to a population of bronze and marble (populus copiosissimus statuarum, greges abun- dantissimi equorum, viz., of equestrian statues), the new office was not a sinecure. The gilding which covered Roman statues seems to have been a motive to theft, or at least to mutilation. As to the metal employed in public LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. 293 buildings, especially in their roofs, an edict of Majorianus, dated 457, which forbids the application of the materials from ancient structures to new purposes, under a fine of fifty pounds of gold, betrays the fact that classical edifices were already regarded in Rome as mere quarries of stone and mines of metal. On July 11, 472, Rome was captured, for the third time, by Ricimer and his German hordes, and plundered again, except in the district of the Janiculum and the Vatican. In 537, during the siege of Rome by Vitiges, the mau- soleum of Hadrian, which had been long since fortified, was furiously assaulted, and the statues which adorned its forty-eight intercolumniations, for the most part master- pieces of Grecian art, were hurled down upon the heads of the assailants. On December 17, 546, the Goths, under the leadership of their king, Totila, stormed Rome by treachery, and did more damage to its monuments and works of art than had been done before by the Wandals. In the following year, Belisarius repaired the line of Aurelian's walls between the Porta Pinciana and the Porta Maggiore : the work was completed in less than a month, undoubtedly at the expense of the neighboring monu- ments." It does not enter into my present purpose to follow, chapter by chapter, the history of the destruction of Rome. Two incidents only remain to be noted. First, the erection of a monumental column in honor of Phocas, the usurper * Between the third and the fourth these niches were actually walled up tower on the right of the Porta S. Lo- renzo, Belisarius enclosed in his hasty fortifications a nymphaeum of a pri- vate garden, ornamented with mosaics and niches. The statues belonging to in the thickness of the masonry. I discovered them in January, 1883, on the occasion of the opening of the new Porta Tiburtina. 294 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. of the throne of the East, and the murderer of Mauritius; because, from the inscription engraved on the pedestal, we learn that the column itself was surmounted and crowned with a statue in gilt bronze. A statue in gilt bronze could not have been modelled and cast in Rome in 608: it was merely a statue cast centuries before, of which, I am in- clined to believe, not even the head had been changed. The second incident worth noticing is the grant from the Emperor Heraclius to Pope Honorius of the first of the gilt bronze tiles forming the roof of Hadrian's temple of Venus and Rome. The grant had been requested in be- half of the basilica of S. Peter: it led to the destruction of Hadrian's masterpiece. At length, in 663, Rome suffered, for the last time, the misfortune of an imperial visit. Constans II., com- pelled by the guilty conscience of a fratricide to wander from sanctuary to sanctuary, undertook the pilgrimage to Rome in the spring of that year, and was met by Pope Vitalianus and the few inhabitants near the sixth mile- stone of the Appian Way. The short and friendly visit of this Christian emperor proved absolutely fatal : he laid his hand on everything which, after the repeated sieges of the Wandals, Goths, and Lombards, had been left for plunder. “In the twelve days which Constans spent at Rome, he carried off as many bronze statues as he could lay hands on ; and though the Pantheon seemed to possess a double claim to protection, as having been presented by Phocas to the pope, and as having been converted into a Christian church, yet Constans was mean and sacrilegious enough to carry off the tiles of gilt bronze which covered it. . . . After perpetrating these acts, which were at least as bad as robberies, and attending mass at the tomb of S. Peter, Constans carried off his booty to Syracuse; . . . LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 295 his plunder ultimately fell into the hands of the Sara- cens.”” A remarkably interesting discovery has recently been made in connection with this visit of Constans to Rome. It is certain that the emperor, between his acts of doubtful devotion in churches and basilicas, found time enough to visit the pagan monuments and ruins. These visits were recorded by one of his attendants, as a Cook's tourist would do to-day, by scratching the name of the emperor on the most prominent place of each building which the party chanced to dishonor with its presence. Here is the fac- simile of the record scratched on the “Janus quadrifrons’’ in the Forum Boarium : — Ko, NctANT1 Noc % taekº Ni Noc Another signature has been discovered and read on the very top of Trajan’s column. I have no doubt that a care- ful examination of the principal monuments of Rome — of the Colosseum, for instance, of the Pantheon, of the Anto- nine column, etc. — would lead to the discovery of other such graffiti, and would enable us to follow step by step the wanderings of the last emperor who saw Rome before its final destruction by the Normans. After such a marvellous succession of robberies and spo- liations, there is no reason to wonder at the scarcity of antique bronzes in Rome; in fact, our wonder is excited more at the fortune which has preserved the few we do pos- sess. The explanation of the mystery is this. Every bronze found in Rome since the Renaissance (I speak of this later period, because our knowledge of earlier discoveries is too imperfect and fragmentary to be valued) had been carefully * Dyer, p. 355. 296 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. concealed or buried, evidently under the apprehension of a great and imminent danger. The secret of the hiding- place was never revealed, either because of the murder or death of those who knew it, or else on account of the de- struction of the building under which the treasure had been buried. To mention only those discoveries which have taken place in my lifetime, I will name first of all the treas- ure-trove of the Wicolo delle Palme in Trastevere. In 1849, a few weeks before the storming of Rome by the French army of General Oudinot, under the house No. 17 in the above-mentioned passage, a most remarkable collec- tion of works of art was discovered by mere accident. It included the Apoxyomenos of Lysippus, now in the Braccio Nuovo, - a marble copy from the bronze original, which stood in front of the baths of Agrippa ; the bronze Horse, now in the Palazzo de' Conservatori, described by Emil Braun as “an unique work, masterpiece, and a genuine Grecian antique; ” a bronze foot, with a beautifully orna- mented shoe, which may possibly have belonged to the rider. of the Horse; a bronze Bull, and many other fragments of less importance. Here we have the evidence of a collection of works in metal, stolen from different places,’ and con- cealed in that remote corner of Trastevere, in readiness for shipment from the quay of the Tiber, close by. Whether the deed was accomplished by a barbarian of the hordes of Genserie, who entered and left Rome precisely at this quar- ter, or by a Jew of the transtiberine community, the fact is that the treasure was never removed from its hiding-place until its accidental discovery in 1849. 1 It has been proved by Canina that modelled and cast by Lysippus, had the Horse belongs to the famous group been removed to Rome by Metellus representing the horsemen of Alex- Macedonicus, and dedicated in his por- ander the Great, killed at the battle tico, maximum ornamentum eius loci, as of Granicus. The equestrian statues, Paterculus says. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 297 The colossal Hercules of the Vatican (Ercole Mastai), discovered August 8, 1864, under the foundations of Pom- pey's theatre, had been not only concealed, but actually buried, with the utmost care, in a kind of coffin built of solid masonry, and veneered with marble. In 1881, when the foundations of the English chapel were being laid, at the corner of the Via del Babuino and the Via del Gesù - Maria, a collection of bronze imperial busts was found, piled up and concealed in a subterranean passage. A similar discovery was made two years before, at the corner of the Via Nazionale and the Via di S. Eufe- mia, when a remarkable set of bronzes was found by Mad- ame Ristori, hidden under the foundations of her palace. The discovery of the two magnificent statues of athletes, which form the special subject of this chapter, took place in circumstances absolutely identical. In the spring of 1884, an application was made to the national government and to the municipality of Rome for the institution of a “National Dramatic Society,” and for the grant of a plot of ground, upon which the society’s theatre could be built. Both requests having been granted by the state and city authorities, the society took possession of a beautiful site, on the western slope of the Quirinal hill, between the Co- lonna Gardens and the Palazzo Campanari, on condition that whatever should be found in clearing it should become the property of the state. The work of excavation had not even begun, when I received a letter from an old digger of antiquities, warning me to watch carefully the building of the new theatre, on account of some rare bronzes which he thought were buried there at a great depth. The surmise was not based on any real knowledge; the spot had never been explored before; and no human being could foretell the chances or the results of such an excavation. Strange 298 LOSS AND A&ECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. to say, the prophecy of my humble correspondent, Signor Giuseppe Gagliardi, proved to be correct beyond expecta- tion: the two bronze statues discovered there in March and April, 1885, must be classed among the finest masterpieces ever brought to light from the soil of Rome. The slope of the Quirinal hill, upon which the society is building, was occupied in ancient times by three different edifices: by the temple which the Emperor Aurelian ded- icated to the sun, A. D. 273, after his victories in the East; by the shrine dedicated to Semo Sancus, an archaic, little- known Sabine god; and, lastly, by a portico built in the reign of Constantine, and known in works on the topo- graphy of Rome as the Porticus Constantini. The limits of these three buildings were so imperfectly known that we could not tell how large a portion of each would be uncov- ered, in clearing the site for the new theatre. The result of the excavations has shown that the lower portion of the ground was occupied by a private house of modest appear- ance, the existence of which was altogether unknown ; the upper portion was occupied by the towering substructure of the temple of the Sun. The house being built on a steep slope, its apartments rose, of course, gradually one above another, in steps or terraces, from the level of Constantine's portico to the level of the platform of the temple, – a difference of nearly fifty feet. The apartments were beautifully decorated with fresco-paintings, mosaic and marble floors, and marble stair- cases; but everything was in absolute disorder, as if a sud- den catastrophe had destroyed the house. This catastrophe (whatever it may have been, sinking of the foundations, fire, earthquake) must have taken place at the end of the second or at the beginning of the third century, since no coin later than Commodus was found among the ruins. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. 299 It must, besides, have been sudden and unexpected, because all the works of art the house contained shared its fate, and were buried under its ruins. Of these works, which show the exquisite taste and finish characteristic of the golden era of Graeco-Roman art, I will mention one only, a lovely tazza, or basin of a fountain, exquisitely carved out of a single block of nero antico. The tazza, four feet six inches in diameter, is fluted all around, the rim being or- namented with twelve beautiful lion-heads in full relief, through the mouths of which the water fell in graceful jets into the basin below. This house and all its artistic treas- ures belonged to a rather obscure personage, a freedman named Cnaeus Sergius Crater. The way we discover the names of owners of the build- ings we are excavating in Rome is very simple and matter of fact, and differs from the practice followed at Pompeii. At Pompeii the property cannot be identified unless a sig- net ring, or a bronze stamp, or a graffito, betraying the se- cret, is discovered. In Rome, this is done by means of the lead-pipes which carry and distribute the water through the fountains and bathing apartments of the house. Water, in the capital of the empire, was the property of the crown : it was conceded to private families and individuals on the condition that the name of the “concessionaire’ should be engraved on the pipes through which the water was brought from the nearest crown-reservoir, – a practice absolutely necessary for distinguishing any particular pipe out of the many, many thousand running in every direction and under every street. The legend of that discovered in the house above described reads thus : — CNSERGCRATER • * * Of the temple of the Sun, the huge foundations of which 300 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. tower high above the house of Sergius, I must content my- self with a concise account. The immense building was raised by Aurelian — on the edge of the perpendicular cliff of the Quirinal, facing the Campus Martius—for two pur- poses: first, to commemorate his conquest of the kingdom of Palmyra and the capture of Queen Zenobia; secondly, to provide the populace of Rome with an easy and unob- structed ascent from the plain of the Campus Martius to the top of the hill. This second purpose was accomplished by means of two gigantic staircases, the foundations of which are still to be seen in the Colonna gardens, in a good state of preservation. These staircases are perhaps better known as having supplied the material for the steps lead- ing from the piazza to the church of the Aracoeli on the Capitol." The temple itself was built by Aurelian and his architects when under the influence of impressions received in their journey through the East; more especially affected by the two great sanctuaries of the Sun, which they had seen at Ba'albek and at Palmyra. Our Roman temple was raised in the centre of an artificial platform, supported by massive foundations, ninety-two feet high. The desire of the con- structors to surpass, if possible, the magnificence of the East is shown by the colossal size of every architectural piece of their work. Each of the forty-four columns of the per- istyle measured seven feet eight inches in diameter, sixty- five feet in height; the area of the temenos was 464 feet * The steps of the Aracoeli, one hun- dred and twenty-four in number and all of white marble, are wrongly de- scribed in guide-books as belonging to the temple of Quirinus. They were removed from the temple of the Sun in the year 1348, by decree of the Senate and People of Rome. The new staircase was begun on the 25th of October of that year, under the di- rection of Lorenzo Simone Andreozzi, master mason. The cost of the work, amounting to five thousand florins, was raised by voluntary contributions as a votive offering to the Madonna. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT 301 by 320. To give an intelligible idea of the size of the blocks employed in this building, I will mention the fact that the marble fountain formerly in the Piazza del Pop- olo, and now in the public gardens on the Janiculum, near the church of S. Pietro in Montorio, is cut out of the base of one of the columns from Aurelian's temple. As an instance of that practical tendency of the Romans which enabled them to seize every advantage offered by edifices of this kind, and to use even such buildings as were ostensibly erected for purposes of display, for any ma- terial purpose, I may cite the account of Vopiscus, Aure- lian's biographer, in which he relates that the extensive vaults under the portico of the temple were used as a store and tasting-rooms for the wines which the crown offered for sale. The temple of the Sun seems to have been destroyed at a very early date, save the southwest corner, which bravely withstood the destructive action of man and nature as late as the pontificate of Sixtus W. (1585–1590). This colossal ruin, known in the Middle Ages as the Torre di Mesa, or as the Frontispizio di Nerone, was one of the most impor- tant landmarks in this district of Rome. On the following- page is a view of it, from a drawing made by Stefano du Perac in 1575, twenty years before its final destruction by Sixtus W. Only three blocks have escaped destruction, and may be seen under the ilexes which shade the upper terrace of the Colonna gardens. One belongs to the lovely frieze of the temple; one to the capital of a pilaster; the third, be- longing to the corner of the entablature, measures 1490 cubic feet, and weighs upwards of one hundred tons. This is the block described and illustrated on page 241. 302 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. To come back to the building of the Teatro Drammatico, After clearing away the remains of the house of Sergius, The Temple of the Sun in the XVIth century. After a drawing by Stefano du Perac (1575). above described, we met with a fragment of the Servian walls, and behind it, the southwest corner of the founda- tions, or, to speak more precisely, of those of the plat- form upon which stood the temple and its surroundings. The foundations are built of concrete, six feet in thick- ness, and cross each other at right angles, according to the lines of the colonnades above. The space between these walls was not empty. I mean it was not used as a vault, or cellar, or crypt, but was entirely filled up with BRONZE STATUE OF AN Discovered 1885. ATHLETE. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. 303 clay and loose earth. This circumstance makes more cu- rious and interesting the discovery which I am going to relate. On Saturday, February 7, 1885, toward sunset, a work. man engaged in clearing away the rubbish which filled up the space between the first and the second foundation walls, discovered the forearm of a bronze statue, which was lying on its back, at a depth of seventeen feet below the level of the platform of the temple. The news was kept secret by the contractor of the works until the following day; and when the government officials met on the spot the statue had been already removed from its place of con- cealment, and consequently we were not able to study and take notice of the circumstances of the discovery, which, however minute and uninteresting they may appear at first sight, sometimes throw an unexpected light on problems otherwise very hard to deal with. This noble figure is seven feet four inches high, two feet wide at the shoulders, and represents a nude athlete, or at least a man of the athletic type, in the full development of his strength, whose features are evidently modelled from nature; in other words, it is a portrait statue. Some adepts of that modern archaeological school which attempts the identification of everything have started the idea that the statue may represent one of the Macedonian kings, – I do not now remember which ; but there seems to be hardly any foundation for such a statement. The figure stands on the left leg, the right being extended a little forwards. The right arm is bent behind the back and rests on the hip, as is the case with the Vatican Meleager and the Farnese Hercules. The left arm is raised high above the head, and was supported by a rod or a lance, the traces of which 304 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. are to be seen all along the forearm. On the breast of the figure the letters L - WIS • L - XXIIX were engraved at a very late period; that is to say, many years, centuries perhaps, after the removal of the statue from Greece to Rome. These letters have given rise to much speculation. They have even been read and ex- plained as follows: L(ucius) WIS(ullius) L(uctavit) XXIIX., – “Lucius Visullius fought in the arena twenty-eight times ' " I need not dwell on such absurdities; the truth being that nobody — not even the great Mommsen — has been able to give a satisfactory explanation of the myste- rious signs. The excitement created by this extraordinary discovery had scarcely abated, when, about a month later, a second bronze statue was dug up, under the same circumstances as related above. The discovery took place between the sec- ond and third foundation walls, at a depth of eighteen feet below the level of the platform. Being notified at once, we assembled this time on the spot and were present when only the head of the figure appeared above the ground, and consequently we could follow and study the minutest details of the discovery. On the opposite page is a drawing from a photograph taken at the moment of the discovery. The most important piece of evidence collected in wit- nessing and following the removal of the earth in which the masterpiece lay buried is that the statue had not been thrown in there, or buried in haste, but had been concealed and treated with the utmost care. The figure, being in a sitting posture, had been placed on a stone capital of the Doric order, as upon a stool; and the trench, which had LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. 305 been opened through the lower foundations of the temple of the Sun, to conceal the statue, had been filled up with sifted earth, in order to save the surface of the bronze from any possible injury. £; : 1 t z' *:72. " ...}. -. xx: 3. * - ~f_* w” * A "*. tºº, ~~~ Af º - º: f º #: º: #º. † Fº *SE 23 $3% sº &# •. . :- 2. -** wº --~~ % . º, : § º g: g r* 3. tº: - |% Aº * * - L-º- 2 -- º §4. &####". W ſºft|||}}º'." *-*. <&. #: * /%-3 -- # 2: :- <> * > º ſ - * * * -- ..º-º: ºr } * º -- §pº. & • * 4: * - r * .." A. ~f º Site of the discovery of the Sitting Boxer. I have witnessed, in my long career in the active field of archaeology, many discoveries; I have experienced surprise after surprise; I have sometimes and most unexpectedly met with real masterpieces; but I have never felt such * To convey an idea of the riches some figures from the municipal sta- which our Roman soil is still capable tistics. From January 1, 1872, to De- of yielding, after so many centuries cember 31, 1885, works of art and ob- of uninterrupted excavations, I quote jects of virtu were found in building the 306 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF AFT. an extraordinary impression as the one created by the sight of this magnificent specimen of a semi-barbaric athlete, coming slowly out of the ground, as if awakening from a long repose after his gallant fights. (See Frontispiece.) His body is bent slightly forward; his elbows rest on his knees; his attitude is that of a boxer (pankratiastes) ex- hausted by the numerous blows received, the traces of which are visible all over his body. The face, of the type of Hercules, is turned towards the left; the mouth is half open; the lips seem to quiver, as if speaking to some one; in fact, there is no doubt that the statue belongs to a group. Every detail is absolutely realistic: the nose is swollen from the effects of the last blow received; the ears resemble a flat and shapeless piece of leather; the neck, the shoulders, the breast, are seamed with scars. The modelling of the mus- cles of the arms and of the back is simply wonderful. The gallant champion is panting from sheer fatigue, but he is ready to start up again at the first call. The details of the fur-lined boxing-gloves are also interesting, and one won- ders how any human being, no matter how strong and pow- erful, could stand the blows from such weapons as these gloves, made of four or five thicknesses of leather and for- tified with brass buckles. This bronze was at first thought to belong to the best period of Graeco-Roman sculpture; the majority of connois- seurs and archaeologists are now in favor of a purely Greek origin. This latter opinion, to which I fully subscribe, is confirmed to a certain degree by a circumstance which loses new quarters as follows: 192 marble intaglios, and precious stones, 47 ob- statues, 266 busts and heads, 152 bas- jects in gold, 39 objects in silver, reliefs, 77 columns, 2,360 lamps, 1,824 36,679 coins in gold, silver, and bronze, inscriptions, 405 bronzes, 711 cameos, etc. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF A.R.T. 307 none of its importance because it is small. Under the mid- dle toe of the left foot I have discovered the existence of a big A, which was not engraved after the casting (as is the case with the signs on the breast of the standing ath- lete), but cast at the same time with the figure. The let- ter is not a Latin A, but a Greek Alpha, and of a rather early shape, its height and width being absolutely the same. This minute circumstance proves, if I am not mistaken, that the work was not cast in Rome, but in Greece, and cast at a comparatively early period. I have no doubt that the building in which the two stat- ues were exhibited in Rome, and from which they were removed under the apprehension of danger, to be buried so carefully and at such a depth, was the baths of Constan- tine, separated from the temple of the Sun by a narrow street. Statues of athletes were the special ornament of Roman thermae, and those of Constantine must have pos- sessed their share of this class of works in metal and mar- ble. No doubt many more statues may be found if a proper search is made under the foundations of the tem- ple; the work, however, is difficult, costly, and not exempt from danger, on account of the modern buildings under which the exploration would have to be extended. The third bronze statue, discovered in Rome in the spring of 1885, comes from the bed of the Tiber, from that mighty reservoir of antiquities which seems to be inex- haustible. It was found in making the foundations of the middle pier for the new bridge (Ponte Garibaldi alla Re- gola), which spans the river between the Ponte Sisto and the island of S. Bartolomeo. The statue was found in an almost perpendicular position, head downwards, sixteen feet below the bottom of the river, 308 LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART. and twenty-six below the surface of the waters. The merry god is represented in the full bloom of youth, and has a de- cidedly feminine type, especially in the arrangement of the long, curling hair, which is parted in the middle and fas- tened with a band at the forehead. The band is grace- fully inlaid with copper and silver. The eyeballs are made of a soft yellowish stone called palombino. This figure, compared with the two superb masterpieces from Constantine's baths, seems altogether too tame, and need not be described at length. It is, nevertheless, a Graeco-Roman work of the first century of the Christian era, - a fact proved, first, by the stiffness, and, as we Ital- ians say, by the maniera, or conventionality of the attitude and outline of the figure; secondly, by the impression of a coin on the calf of the left leg. Our best numismatists think that this coin must have been an imperial gold piece, probably of the time of Nero. The lower portion of the body has evidently suffered from the effects of fire ; but under what circumstances, by whom, at what period, this valuable work of art was hurled into midstream, it is impossible to determine. Its discov- ery, at all events, affords us a compensation for the many losses which the gigantic work of the embankment of the river makes us suffer. One of these losses, the greatest perhaps of all, is the destruction, or, to speak more exactly, the deformation of the ancient bridge connecting the island of S. Bartolomeo with Trastevere, to which bridge two modern arches will be added on each side, as the bed of the Tiber must be widened there. The bridge represented was built twenty-one centuries ago by Lucius Cestius, and re- stored, A. D. 380, by the Emperor Gratianus, with blocks - - BRONZE STATUE OF BACCHUs. Found in the bed of the Tiber. LOSS AND RECOVERY OF WORKS OF ART, 309 of travertine stolen from the theatre of Marcellus, close by, — a circumstance which shows to what degree of poverty and humiliation Rome, the queen of the world, had de- scended, at the end of the fourth century of the Christian * ~~ # s # § *::22%; *E**** -, * : ? ## % % % ####: ~. =º ...yº - º :::::: 2 ź. º ...+2+- *. 2. : -- Žiš. - - +. *śZążičiſ/ZººZAZąż-Ż §ºžº tºpºzzº Žiž #%T^{ % ºf 6; ſ % § ºf f º º º % * /* s --- - 3 : % B- 3$33. %. § % tº . . ‘. .32 Ż - - ..º. * º º;}"); , &ſº. –3 iº * 3– ºf ſº º ź. - %.º-É " . º | § { $– 3 º' Tº Lº Y ~ ; 7% ºº ºf 2% ºft||| 2T_% %3 º'Sº |ºſſ § KºśF&N | ºft | Bridge built by Lucius Cestius. •. INDEX. Latin personal names are, in general, entered under the cognomen, except in cases where some other part of the name has come into general use. ABRUZZI, 71. Accidents in the streets, 213; in the cir- cuses, etc., 216. Acta diurna, 92. Acta sincera Martyrum, 186. Adriano (S.), church of, 24, 78 (cut), 79 (cut). AEdes Castorum, 80. AEmilia, basilica, 77, 83. AEneas, sails into the Tiber, 232. AEs grave signatum, 47. AEs rude, 47. AEsculapius, temple of, 69; the sick brought to, 70. Affliano, Monte, tunnel through, 62. Agapetus, Pope, founds a university for Christian teaching, 190. Agger of Servius Tullius, 65, 302. Agitatores circenses, 213. Agnes (S.), catacombs of, 153. Agnese (S.) fuori le mura, cloister of, 23 Agrippa, Fonteius, daughter of, 136, 138 Agrippa, M. Vipsanius, public buildings of, 95; enters the Cloaca Maxima, 233. Agrippina the elder, cinerary urn of, 22 Agrippina, the younger, Empress, 105. Aïn-Seur, spring of, furnished water for Saldae, 61. Alaric, 158, 290, 291. Alatri, siphon of, 60. Alba Longa, remains found on the site of, 30; traffic with the Etruscans, 31; original site of, 31; colonists from build Rome, 33; colonists from shepherds, 35; the advance to Rome gradual, 36; no iron found in the fossil || cemetery, 39. Alban Hills, 27 (cut); traces of the work of man found in many places, 30; early volcanic action, 32. Albano, Lake of, 30 (map), 280. Albanum, 146; house of Westals at, 171. Albergo della Catema, 69. Albula, ancient name of the Tiber, 262. Alcibiades, statue of, 81. Alemona, goddess, 69. Alexander VII., Pope, 4, 15, 110, 157. Alexandria, libraries at, 183, 185. Almo river, marble group discovered in, 22. Alsium, 51. Alta semita, 144. Altar found at Ostia, 34 (cut); discov- ered in 1866 near Lambaese, 61; dedi- cated to Cloacina, 52; to goddess of the Fever, 52; to Mala Fortuna, 52; to Mefitis, 52; to Sylvanus, 100; to Verminus, 52 (cut). Amandus, bishop of Trajectum, 200. Ambrose, S., 163. Amburbalia, 169. Amburbium, 174. Ammianus Marcellinus, quoted, 88. Amphorae, remains of in the Monte Tes- taccio, 251 (cut), 254 (cut); their ex- tensive use, 252; found off the Capo della Campanella, 252; off Astura, 2:53. Amulets, arrow-heads, etc., used as, 44. Amyclas, 240. Anatomical models discovered near the temple of Æsculapius, 70. Ancona, 248. - Ancus Martius, builder of the Sublician bridge, 40; founds Ostia, 234. Andreozzi, Lorenzo Simone, master ma- son, 300. Andronikos of Rhodes, 180. Angelo (S.), castle of, Hadrian's mauso- leum, 157, 286, 293. Anician gardens, 100. Aniene river, source of the aqueduct Anio Novus, 60. Anio, 261, 274. Ansarium, 251. 312 1.N.D.E.X. Antemnae, 50. Antevorta, goddess, 69. Anthermos, sculptor, 114. Antiquarii, 183, 199. Antiquities of the earliest period, 26– 48; loss and recovery of, 284–309; num- ; of discovered from 1872 to 1885, 9. Antium, 51. Antoninus and Faustina, temple of, 155. Antoninus, M. Aurelius, arch of, demol- ished in 1652, 15; equestrian statue of, 12, 21, 156, 285. Antoninus Pius, 245; organized public medical service, 73; column of, 157. Antonius, Marcus, 185. Anzio, Porto d’, 253. Apellikon, library of, 179. Apollinare (S.) in Classe, church of, in Ravenna, 197. Apollinares aquae. See Vicarello, Sor- genti di. Apollinaris, Sidonius, statue of, 292. Apollo and Diana, in a chariot, marble group, 110. • Apollo and Marsyas, engraved on a cor- nelian, 19. Apollo, chariot of, on his temple, 114. Apollo, library of, 184, 186. Apollo, street of, 110. Apollo, temple of, 69, 114; frieze, 114 (cut); burned, 115. Apollodorus, architect, 86. Apollonius Thyaneus, medallion of, 194, 200 (cut). Apostoli (SS), piazza dei, 224; porch and convent of, 23. Apoxyomenos of Lysippus, 296. Appian Way, 130, 260 (cut), 264, 266, 268; beggars on, 209. Appius Claudius Caecus, builder of the first aqueduct, 58. Appius Claudius Pulcher, celebrates his triumph under the protection of a Wes- tal, 138. Apronianus, prefect of police, 115. Apse of the early basilicas, its peculiar . form explained, 187. Aqua Appia, 58. Aqua Ferentina, 30. Aqua Julia, fountain, Petrarch's view of, 5. Aqua Juturna, 76, 80. Aqua Paola, fountain, 15. Aquae. See also Aqueducts. Aquae Albulae, 124. Aquae Apollinares. genti di. Aquarius, 131. Aqueducts, 58; junction of five great aqueducts, 63 (cut); fortified by the barbarians in the Gothic war, 277; See Vicarello, Sor- Anio Novus, 58 (cut), 60; Appia, 58; Claudia, 58 (cut), 278; Marcia, 278. Aracoeli, church of ther 300. Aºtº. murderer of Valentinian II., 173. Arcagathus, a physician, 72. Arcesilaos, 84. Archaeology, the science of, a late devel- opment, 4; rise of in the fifteenth cen- tury, 9; the joys and emotions which the study affords, 23; American prog- ress in, 25; character of the study of, by men of the Renaissance, 156. Arches, of Augustus, 155; of Constan- tine, 157; of Fabius Maximus, 80, 155; of Marcus Aurelius, demolished in 1662, 15; of Piety, in front of the Pantheon, 3, 157; of Septimius Seve- rus, 12; of Titus, 12, 203; of Trajan, 87; of Valentinian and Valens, 257. Archiatrus, superintendent of court phy- sicians, 72. Architectural beauty aimed at in works of engineering, 247. Archives, 78; papal archives collected in the Archivum of Damasus, 188; trans- ferred to the Lateran, 189; transferred to the Turris Cartularia, 203; destroyed, 204. Archivum of Pope Damasus, 188; de- stroyed in 1486, 189. Arco de’ Pantani, 85. Ardea, 51. Arezzo, Leonardo d', 20. Argiletum, 82; the book-market of Rome, 183 Argonauts, portico of, 96, 98. Aricia, beggars near the gate of, 209. Aristocracy of Rome, compared with that of England, 265; their season in Rome short, 265; their duties, 265; their country life, 265. Aristotiles, Master, 13. Aristotle, 182; his library, 179; on the use of iced water, 186. Arles, Roman cemetery mentioned by Dante. 2. Armaria, 194, 197. Arnaldo da Brescia, 17. Arrow-heads, found in Rome, 44; used to ornament diadems and helmets, 45; discovered in 1874 near the church of S. Martino ai Monti, 45; found in 1852 in the springs at Vicarello, 47. Arvales Fratres, origin and ritual, 42; their annals discovered in 1868, 42; the importance of them, 43; avoided the use of iron, 43; use of earthenware vessels, 44; wide dispersion of the frag- ments of their annals, 152; situation of their temple, 153. Asclepias of Drusa, a physician, 72. INDEX 313 Aspendus, 59. Assemani, S. E. and J. S., their catalogue of the Vatican library, 197. Astura, 253. Asturconarius, 132. Athletes, statues of, found in 1885 on the Quirinal, 298; description of, 302 (he- liotype); bronze statues of, 303, 305 (cut); frontispiece (heliotype). Atia, mother of Augustus, 91. Atilius, builds a temporary amphitheatre at Fidenae, 217. Atrectus, publisher for Martial, 183. Atrium Libertatis, 184. Atrium Vesta. See Vestals, house of. Atticus, T. Pomponius, his library, 180. Augusta, Empress of Germany, 42, 44, 153. Augustanus Laurentium, Vicus, 243. Augustus, Emperor, 72, 80, 83, 94, 140, 163, 244; excavates on the island of Capri, 45; reforms the public cemetery on the Esquiline, 67 ; enlarges the Fo- rum, 84; born on the Palatine, 106; his palace burned, 107; money sub- scribed to rebuild it, 108; establishes state libraries, 184; covers the Empire with military and police stations, 210; reforms the fire service, 222. Augustus, arch of, 155; colossal statue of, 1.12; house of, 107, 116; library of, 111 ; obelisk of, 157; temple of, 155. Aurelian, Emperor, 174, 266; his tem- Fº º the Sun, 298, 300, 302 (cut), 241 Cut). - Aurelius Titus, 141. Aurifices, 131. Austin, S., 200. Avianius Symmachus, L. Aurelius, 257. Bacchus, theatre of, in Athens, 183; bronze statue of, 308 (heliotype). Bacci, Ales, quoted, 57. Balbus, Cornelius, crypta of, 95. Balestra palace, 224. Bankers on the Forum, 80. Barberini palace, 69; piazza, 100; villa, 279, 280. Bartoli, Pietro Santi, quoted, 225. Bartolomeo (S.), island of, 69, 258. Basilica AEmilia, 77, 83; Fulvia, 83; Por- cia, 79, 83; Sempronia, 83; Ulpia, 87. Basilicas (Christian), cause of the trichora form of the apse, 187; Damasiana, 190; S. Lorenzo, 188; S. Paolo fuori le mura, 83. Bas-reliefs, representing Trajan and the poor widow, described by Dante, 3; Perseus and Andromeda, 225; a stur- geon, 233; the Claudian harbor, 247; unloading a ship, 252; ivory, on the doors of the temple of Apollo, 114. Bassus, L. Julius, of Drobeta, 212. Baths, 89–94; hours of opening, 90; places of debauchery, 91; women at 91; abuses remedied by Hadrian, 92; manner of use, 92; organization of ser- vice, 93; supervised by the praefectus vigilum, 223; – of Caracalla, 5, 90 cut), 93, 94 (cut), 153; of Constantine, 7; of Licinius Sura, 157; of Severus Alexander, 157; of Titus, 13, 125. Becker, Gust., collection of catalogues of libraries, 199. Becker, Wilh. Ad., quoted, 269; on the artificial style of Roman gardens, 272. Bede quoted, 201. Beggars, 209. Belisarius, 292, 293. Benci, Gius., 130. Benedict or Biscopus, his journeys to Rome to obtain books, 201. Bºie, monk of Mt. Soracte, quoted, RSO. Benzone, tenuta di, 268. Bernini, Lorenzo, house of, 157. Betilienus Varus, 60. * Bianchini, Frane., quoted, 128, 130. Biblia pauperum, 202. Bibliothecae. See Libraries. Biondo, Fl.; patronized by Paul II., 12. Biscopus, or Benedict, his journeys to Rome to obtain books, 201. Blacas, Duc de, on the remains discov- ered in the Pascolare di Castello, 30. Blouet, Abel, excavations, 93. Boarium, Forum, 22, 56, 219. Bocca della Verità, 56 (cut). Bona Dea, temple of, on M. Affliano, 62. Bonaventura, S., church of, 106. Boniface VIII., Pope, his collection of cameos, 16. Boniface, Anti-pope, 285. Bonini, on the level of the Tiber, 233. Bonus Eventus, portico of, 96. Book-binding, 198. Book-cases, inscriptions on, 194. Book-market, 183. Books, editions de luxe prized by Roman collectors, 182; portrait of the author on the title-page, 182; price of, 182; size of editions, 183; spurious editions circulated, 183; with ivory leaves, 184; each work divided into many volumes, 185; a special place provided for in Christian basilicas, 187; position on the shelves, 197; vast numbers circulated by Cassiodorius and Eugippius, 199; titles of, 199; eagerly sought by the English monasteries, 201; illustration of, 202. Bougie, Algeria, tunnel near, 61. Bovillae, 64. Boxer, bronze statue of, found in 1885, 314 INDEX. 304, 305 (cut), frontispiece; proved to be Greek, 306. Bozrah, 37. Bracciano, Lago di, 47. Bracciolini, Poggio, excuses Petrarch’s ignorance, 5; a collector of antiques, 19; letter on discoveries in Chios, 19. Braghettone, Il, 10. Bramante, 190. Brancaccio palace, 169. Braun, Emil, quoted, 296. Bridges. See Pons, Ponte. Brigandage, 210. Brindisi, 238. Bronze age in Central Italy, when Rome was founded, 39. Bronze plough used to trace the limits of a newly-founded town, 40. Bronze razor and knife used by the Fla- men Dialis, 40. Bronzes in Rome in the sixth century, 284; manner of their destruction, 289; those preserved had been concealed, 296; found in the Wicolo delle Palme, in Trastevere, 296; at the corner of the Via del Babuino and the Via del Gesù- Maria, 297; at the corner of the Via Nazionale and the Via di S. Eufemia, 297 ; horse in the Palazzo de' Conserva- tori, 296; pine-cone, 286; she-wolf, 21 (cut), 285. See also Statues. Bruchion, at Alexandria, 183, 185. Brunellesco, Filippo, 18. Brutus, bust of, 22. Building stone, importation of, 241. Bupalos, sculptor, 114. Bura, temple of, 288. Burial, of artisans, 94; of slaves and beggars, 64; in the moat outside the Esquiline cemetery, discovered in 1876, 65. See also Tombs. Busentinus river, the treasures of Alaric supposed to be buried in, 291. Butcher shops, 80. cºnv Alfius, magistrate of Autun, 187. Caecina Paetus, chief commissioner of the Tiber, 257. Caecubus wine, 240. Caesar, Julius, 72, 80, 140; enlarges the Forum, 83; his horse, 84; proposes a harbor at the mouth of the Tiber, 238; equestrian statue of, 84; gar- dens of, 103; temple of, 155. Caesars, palace of, 106 (plan), 133. Calaetus, Roman knight, murdered, 212. Calciator, 132. Caligula, 91, 238; marries Lollia Pau- lina, 104; his additions to the imperial palace, 108, 116, 117 (cut), 119 (cut); substructure of palace of, 116 (cut); his death, 117; his passion for the cir- cus, 119, 214. Caligula, obelisk of, 13. | Calixtus, S., catacombs of, inscription in regard to the Roman Academy, 10. Callistratus, Q. Veturius, 141. Calvus, house of, 106. Cameos, 16. Camillus, 48, 218; statue of, 22. Campagna, 259–283; originally healthy, 50; described by Chateaubriand, 259; its grandeur, 260; its beauty, 260; its light, 266; its desolation, 262; former populousness, 263; its villas, 264; gen- eral aspect in former times, 267; an- cient remains very abundant, 268; roads, 268; insecurity of during the barbarian invasions, 276. Campama Via, 42, 153, 212. Campano, Giov. Ant., Bishop of Teramo, 10. Campi, or commons, 74. Campidoglio, piazza del, 21. Campo dei Fiori, piazza di, 287. Campus Martius, 50, 94, 300; in medi- aeval times, 57; porticoes of, 99. Campus Sceleratus, 145. Canalicolae, 82. Canals, proposed by Nero, 240. Cancelleria, Palazzo della, 23, 190. Cancellieri, Franc, on the sacred relics preserved by the Westals, 147. Candelabras, 114. Camina, quoted, 296. Capannelle race-course, 278. Capitol, in the XVIth century, 22 (cut). Capitoline Hill, originally connected with the Quirinal, 86. Capitoline Museum, 6, 85; founded by Sixtus IV., 22; its original nucleus dis- persed, 22. Capobianco, 266. Caprea Palus, 51. Capri, island of, excavations made by Augustus, 45. Caprino, Meo del, 16. Capsarius, 92, 131, 223. Caracalla, baths of, 5, 93, 94 (cut), 153; Frigidarium of the baths of, 90 (cut). Carcer Tullianum, 75. Carnarium, 64. Carnival, 77. Carriage driving forbidden in Rome, 269. Carriages, 270; used by the Vestals, 139. Cartularia Turris, 203 (cut), 205. Casa della Missione, 157. Casaccie, tenuta di, 268. Casino del Ligorio, 279 (cut). Cassiodorius suggests the foundation of a Christian university, 190; his collec- ; of rare books, 198; quoted, 89, INDEX. 315 Castel Gandolfo, 27 (cut), 279. Castel Giubileo, 217. Castel Porziano, 243. cºlºni, Carlo, on ancient libraries, 179. Castello, Lago di, 27. Castello, Pascolare di, strata of the soil, 28 (cut); geological history of, 28; early remains discovered here in 1817, 29; further discoveries in 1867, 30. Castor and Pollux, temple of, 80, 150, 155, 156. Castrimoenium, 264. Catacombs, of S. Agnes, 153; of S. Ca- lixtus, inscription in regard to the Ro- man Academy, 10; of Priscilla, 175. Catalogues of books, 199. cºme abbey of S. Nicola dell’Arena, Catena, Albergo della, 69. Catiline, palace of, 107. Cato, the censor, 245. Catullus, Claudius, prefect of police, 226. Ceccarelli family, 42. Celer, architect under Nero, 122, 240. Celer, accomplice of Domitian, 146. Celer, Petronius, governor of Mauritalia, 62. - Celimontana, Villa, 227. Celsus Aurelianus, quoted, 68. Cencius Camerarius, quoted, 286. Cemetery, public, on the Esquiline, 64; reformed under Augustus, 67 ; covered and turned into gardens, 101 ; discov- ered by the Archaeological Commission, 102. Ceolfridus, Abbot, 197, 202. Cephisodotos, 114. Ceres, priestesses of, 143; temple of, in Ostia, 34. Cestius, Caius, pyramid of, Petrarch's view of, 5. Cestius, Lucius, bridge built by, 308, 309 (cut). Charioteers of the circus, 213. Charity, unknown, 68. Charles V., of France, 16. Charles VI., of France, 16. Charles d’Anjou, statue of, 22. Chateaubriand, quoted, 259. Cherea, Cassius, murderer of Caligula, 118. Chigi library, 7. - Chios, ancient marbles Italy, 19. Christ caricatured in a graffito, 122. Christianity, struggle with paganism in the fourth century, 162. Churches, S. Adriano, 24, 78 (cut), 79 (cut); S. Agnese fuori le mura, 23; SS. Apostoli, 23; Aracoeli, 300; S Bonaventura, 106; S. Clement, 199; sent from to SS. Cosma and Damiano, 24; S. Criso- gono, 121, 229; S. Gregorio, 197 (cut); S. John Lateran, 6; S. Lorenzo in Da- maso, 188; Madonna della Febbre, 53; Madonna della Pietà, 4; S. Maria dell’ Anima, 157; S. Maria in Campitelli, 13; S. Maria in Cosmedin, 56; S. Maria Maggiore, 15, 157; S. Maria del Po- polo, 156; S. Maria in Trastevere, 151; S. Martino ai Monti, 192; S. Paolo fuori le mura, 150; S. Peter, 153, 154, 165; S. Saba, 226; S. Stefano delle Carozze, 24; S. Vito, 152. - Cicero, his library, put in order by two bookbinders from Atticus, 180; quoted, 51, 71, 78, 147, 242. Cilo, Fabius, prefect of the city, 226. Cinerary urns, discovered in the Pasco- lare di Castello in 1817, 29. Cinquecento masters, 23; value of their drawings in solving archaeological prob- lems, 24; their admiration for ancient remains, 156; their wanton destruction of them, 156, 276. , Circeum, Cape, 238. Circus Maximus, the stables of the factio prasina, 188; its factions, 213; public tumults caused by, 214; the jockeys, 214; mosaic, 214 (cut); the horses, 215; other circuses, 216. Claudia, Westal, 171. Claudian harbor, at Ostia, 238, 239 (cut), 243; representations of, preserved, 246 (cut); bas-relief of, 246 (cut); ware- houses, 248 (cut). Claudiana, Coelia, Vestal, 159. Claudianus, quoted, 45. Claudius, Emperor, 105, 113, 122, 238, 242; constructs a harbor near Ostia, 238, 239 (cut); medallion of, showing the harbor at Ostia, 246 (cut). Claudius, Appius. See Appius. Claudius, C., censor, 127. Clemens, Varius, governor of Mauritania, 61. Clement VII., Pope, 57. Clement XII., Pope, 157, 235. Clement (S.), church of, 199. Clivus Aricinus, 209. Clivus Scauri, 190. Cloaca Maxima, 54 (cut), 148, 155; en- tered by Agrippa, 233. Cloaca of the Circus Maximus, 55 (cut). Cloacina, altar to, 52. - Clodia, Westal, 142. Clodia via, 268. Clodius Pulcher, P., the tribune, his body burned in the Curia, 79 Clodius, Sextus, a scribe, 79. Cluny library, 199. Coelian hill, 51. Coins, Petrarch's collection, 5; those dis. 316 INDEX. covered at the Sorgenti di Vicarello in 1852, 46; Anglo-Saxon and others, dis- covered under the pavement of the house of an officer of Marinus II., 160. Cola di Rienzo. See Rienzi. Collatia, 50. Collegium, 128. Collegium fullomum, 223. Collina porta, 144. Colonna gardens, 241, 301. Colosseum, 106, 125; regarded as a mere stone quarry in the fifteenth century, 15, 158; set on fire by a thunderbolt, 219; upper part shows hasty rebuilding, 220 Cut). Columbaria, 64, 129; discovered under the gardens of Licinius Gallienus, 103; of the Statilian family, 130; of the family of the Empress Livia, 130. Comitium, 76, 146. Commodus, Emperor, 264. Commons, 74. Concord, temple of, 77. Concordia, Caelia, Vestal, statue of, 169. Condianus, Quintilius, his villa, 264. Conservatori, palazzo dei, 21, 112, 233, 286, 296. Constans II. Emperor, spoliations in Rome, 158, 294. Constantia, S., sarcophagus of, 12. Constantina, 59. Constantine, Emperor, 289; arch of, 157; baths of, 307; portico of, 96, 298. Constantinople, capture of, its effect on Greek studies, 8. Constantius, Emperor, impressions of the Forum of Trajan, 88. Conze, Alex., on the library of Perga- mon, 179. Corinthian portico, 95. Corioli, 50. Corn-exchange, 94. Cornelia, a Westal, 138, 146. Corsen, Wilh., quoted, 37. Corsi, Faustino, on the number of ancient marble columns in Rome, 242. Cosma and Damiano (SS.), church of, 24. Council at Rome in 369, its records, 189; in 1649, 201. Country dwellings. See Villas. Country life, 267. Court-house, 77; burned, 79; rebuilt, 80. Crassus, L., 242. Crater, Cn. Sergius, house of, discovered in 1885, 298. . Crescens, a jockey, 214; inscription from a pedestal, 215 (cut). Crescentius, Nicolaus, house of, 17 (cut). Crescenzio, Monte, trench on, showing strata, 28. { Criobolium, 167. Crisogono, S., church of, 121, 229. Crucifixion, caricature of, 122 (cut). Crustumerium, 50. Crypta of Cornelius Balbus, 95. Cubiculum, 107. Cucco, Monte, 28. Curator aquarum, 223. # Curia, or senate-house, 76, 77, 78 (cut), 79 (cut), 163; plan of in sixteenth cen- tury, 80 (cut); not warmed in winter, 78; burned by a mob, 79; rebuilt, 80. Currus arcuatus, 139. Curtius, Marcus, 50. Custom duty and the remains of ampho- rae, 251 Cybele, needle of, so-called, brought from Pessinus, 126; removed by Hela- gabalus, 127; probably discovered by Bianchini in 1730, 128; temple of, 127; worship of, in Pessinus, 126. See also Megalesia. Cybele and Atys, shrine of, 165. Cyme, temple of, 115. Cynosargos, temple of, at Athens, 288. Damasus, Pope, builds the Archivum, 188. Danaids, statues of, 111. Dante Alighieri, references to antique monuments, 1 ; quoted, 1, 2, 7. Dea Dia, the goddess sacrificed to by the Fratres Arvales, 42; temple of, exca- vated in 1868, 42, 152. Decebalus, king of the Dacians, his buried treasure, 291. Decenniae paludes, 51. Decima, goddess, 69. Delille, discovers the libel against the senator Flavianus, 163. Destruction of Roman monuments in the Middle Ages, 154, 276, 284, 289. Deverra, goddess, 69. Diaetae Mammeianae, 108. Diana, 69. Didymos, 185. Didius Julianus, 140. Diocles, a jockey, 215. Diocletian, 184. Dion Cassius, quoted, 54, 219. Dionysius, bookbinder, 180. Dionysius, dishonest servant of Cicero, 181. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the site of Alba Longa, 31 ; quoted, 40, 54. Dioscuri. See Castor and Polluſc. Diribitorium, 100. Discoveries, recent, of works of art, 284–309; in building the new quarters, 1872–1885, 305. Disfiguration of statues, the work of the Romans of the decadence, 19. INDEX. 317 Dispersion of inscribed marbles, 151. Doliola, 148. Domitian, 62; rebuilds the Domus Au- gustana, 108; tries and puts to death one of the Westals, 146; increases the factions of the circus, 213. Domitian, colossal head of, 21; forum of, 85; villa of, 279. Domna, Julia, 159; medallion of, 137 (cut). Domus Aurea of Nero, 124. Domus Gelotiana, 119 (cut). Domus Tiberiana, 108. Donatello, 18. Door-fastenings, 208. Door-keepers, 208. Doria-Pamphili villa, 225. Dorus, publisher for Seneca, 183. Drainage of country houses, 269. Drains, 53; defects of, 56. Dressel, Heinrich, on the origin of the Monte Testaccio, 253. Dyer, Thomas, on the destruction of bronzes, 288; quoted, 154. Earthenware pottery, its use obligatory in sacrifices, 43; Numa's cup, 44. Eastern sects in Rome, in the fourth century, 165. Egypt, roses imported from, 273. Einsiedlen, Anonymus of, 152, 190. Elephantini libri, 184. Engraved stones, passion for, in the Re- naissance, 16. Epaphroditus of Chaeronaea, secretary of Nero, 181. Equites singulares, 206. Esquiline hill, 72; its sanitary condition, 52; public cemetery on, 64, 130. Esquilinum forum, 152. Etna, Mt., the Torre del Filosofo, 275. Etruscan origin of Rome disputed, 26; pottery found on the Alban hills, 31. Etruscus, Valerius, governor of Numidia, 61. Eugenius, Emperor, favors the pagan party, 173 Eugeria, goddess, 69. Eugippius, 199. Euprepes, a jockey, 216. Europa, portico of, 96, 98. Evander the Arcadian, 262. Evangeliaria in the Cambridge and the Bodleian libraries, 200. Evil Eye, altar to, 52. Excubitoria, for the police, 224; of the seventh battalion, 229. Ex-votos discovered in 1885 under the left embankment of the Tiber, 70. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, arch of, 80, 155. Fabretti on the Trajan column, 291. Fabrician bridge, ex-votos discovered near, 70. Factions of the circus, 213; public tu- mults caused by, 214. Faith-cure, 68. Familia publica, 221. Farmacopolae, 71. Farnese, Giulia, statue of, 10. Farnese palace, 157. Fasti Consulares, 155. Fasti Triumphales, 155. Faun Lupercus, shrine dedicated to, 35. Faustulus, tutor of Romulus, 81. Fea, on the destruction of bronzes, 288. Feciales, 46. Felix, Minucius, 187. Felix Bulla, brigand chief, 211. Festus, L. Paquedius, engineer, 62. Fever, temples of, 52. Ficana, 51. Ficus Ruminalis, 81. Fidenae, fall of a temporary amphitheatre at, 217. Filelfo patronized by Paul II., 12. Filosofo, Torre del, 275. Finanze, Palazzo delle, 144. Fiorano, 266. Fiorelli, Gius., on door-fastenings, 208. Fire department, 206. - Firemen, organization of the service, 221; the service reformed by Augustus, 222; buckets carried by, 224. Fires, frequency of, in ancient Rome, 218; described by Livy, 219; liberal contri- butions made to the sufferers by, 220; punishment of the culprit, when caused by negligence, 222; inscription relating to this punishment, 226. Fº M., adjutant-general of police, 228. Fiscale, Torre, 277 (cut). Fish of the Tiber, 233. Fish-market, 83. Fishmongers in the Forum, 82. Fiumicino, 235. Flamen Dialis required to use bronze in- struments exclusively, 40. Flaminia via, 268, 272. Flavia Publicia, Vestal, 139; statue of, 141 (cut). Flavian amphitheatre. See Colosseum. Flavian palace, ruins of, 124 (heliotype), 125. Flavianus, Virius Nicomachus, senator, 163, 168, 173; death, 175. Flint implements found in Rome, 44. Floralia, 169; celebrated by Flavianus and his partisans, 174. Fº flourishing condition of the arts. in, 18. Flowers, 273. 318 INDEX. Flumentana gate, 38. Fluonia, goddess, 69. Foglia, Giov., treasury contractor, 158. Fontanelles library, 199. Forenses, 82. Formix Fabianus, 80. Forum Romanum Magnum, volcanic ac- tivity of the district, 50; altar to Cloa- cina, 52 ; early condition, 75; improve- ments under the kings, 76; appearance toward the end of the Republic, 77; statues in, 81; trees in, 81; destruc- tion of its buildings in the sixteenth cen- tury, 154; its buildings destroyed by fire, 219. Forums, 74–89; in the sixteenth century, 18 (cut); looking west, 74 (heliotype); looking east, 82 (heliotype); of Au- gustus, 84 (cut); Boarium, 22, 56, 219; Esquilinum, 152; Martis, 84; of Nerva, or Domitian, 85; Olitorium, 94; Pacis, 85, 184; Piscatorium, 83; Trajanum, 85, 88 (cut), 184; of Vespasian, 85. Forza (or Forzetta) Oliviero, numisma- tist, 17. Foundation of a town, its limits traced by a bronze plough, 40. Fountains, the Meta sudans, 125; in the Paradise of S. Peter's, 286; basin of, found in the house of Cn. Sergius Cra- ter, 299; in the gardens on the Janicu- lum, 301. Francis, Duke of Parma, excavations on the Palatine, 128. Frangipani family built the Turris Car- tularia, 205. Fratres, Arvales. See Arvales Fratres. Frattocchie, Le, farm, 153. Friedländer quoted, 269. Frieze on the temple of Apollo, 114 (cut). Frontinus, Sextus Julius, quoted, 57. Frontispizio di Nerone, 301, 302 (cut). Fucino, lake of, 71. Fullo, 133. Fullonum collegium, 223. Fundanus, C. Minicius, sepulchre of his daughter, 281. Furfo, bronze tablet discovered at, 41. Gabii, 64. Gades, temple of, 288. Gagliardi, Gius., 298. º Sulpicius, warehouses of, 248, 249 Cut). Gallienus, Emperor, gardens of, 103; por- tico of, 97 ; proposed statute on the Esquiline, 97. Gallinaria silva infested by highwaymen, 211. Gandolfo, Castel, 27 (cut), 279. Gardens, 100–105; extended over the public cemeteries, 101 ; cemeteries dis- covered under them, 102; absence of natural beauty, 272; lack of variety of cultivated plants, 272. Gardens of Acilius Glabrio, 100; of the Anician family, 100; of Gallienus, 103; of Julius Caesar, 103; of Lollia Pau- lina, 104; of Lucullus, 100; of Mae- cenas, 67,272; of the Minician family, {j of Sallust, 101 (cut), 103 (cut), 158. Garibaldi, Ponte, 258, 307. Gates. See Porta. Gates of a town named from the place to which they lead, 38. Gauls, flight from Delphos, bas-relief, 114; destroy Rome in 364 A. U. C., 218. Gellius, Aulus, quoted, 182, 185. Gelotius, house of, 118 (cut); becomes a training-school for court pages, 121. Gems, 20; passion for, in the Renaissance, 16; in the temple of Apollo, 115. Genseric, 158; plunders Rome, 291. Germanicus, house of, 109 (cut), 119. Gesta martyrum, 187. Ghetto, or Jewish quarter, 69, 94, 153. Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 18. Gibbon on the destruction of bronzes, 288. Giocondo, Giov., 166. Giovanni e Paolo (SS.), Salita dei, 190. Giovio, Paolo, on the fish of the Tiber, 233. Giubileo, Castel, 217. Giudea, Piazza, 157. Glabrio, Acilius, gardens of, 100. Goito, Via, 145. Golden House of Nero, 124. Gordianus, portico of, 97. Goths and Vandals, devastation caused by, 277. Gracchus prefect of Rome in 377, 168. Graecostasis, 77. Graffiti, importance of, 120; in the house of Gelotius, 120; donkey turn- ing a mill, 121; caricature of Christ, 122; in police barracks, 230; relating to the visit of Constans II. to Rome, 295. Grain ships, 238. Grain supply for Rome, 241, 249. Grain trade, 244. Gratianus, Emperor, 308; abolishes the privileges of pagan worship, 172, 289. Greek language and literature, study of, fashionable in the fifteenth century, 8. Greenhouses, 273. Gregory the Great, Pope, 200; rescues Trajan's soul from damnation, 4; church and house of, 197 (cut); en- larges the Christian university on the Coelian, 198. INDEX. 319 Household service, extreme subdivision of, 131. Houses, private, how the names of their owners are determined in Rome, 299. Humanists, 8. Hut-urns, discovered in the Pascolare di Castello, 29 (cut); represent the shape of the temple of Vesta, 136. Hydraulic engineering of Claudius, 239. Hyginus, C. Julius, librarian, 184. Iced water, use of, discussed in a company in Tibur, 185. Illustrations in manuscripts, 202. Imperial household, organization of, 128. Innocent XII., Pope, 157. Inscriptions, first collection of, made by Cola di Rienzo, 7 ; care necessary in establishing conclusions from, 151; in the Corpus Inscr. Lat., 164. — Lex Re- gia, 6; in the catacombs, relating to the Roman Academy, 10; law for the building and dedication of a shrine to Jupiter, found at Furfo, 41; relating to a tunnel near Saldae, 61 ; police reg- ulations relating to the disposition of refuse, 66; ex-voto in the temple of AEsculapius, 70; prohibiting promiscu- ous bathing, 92; order of the day at a public bath, 93; in the house of Gelo- tius, 120; begging passers-by not to scratch the walls, 120; relating to the horse of a Vestal, 139; shrine at the corner of the street of Vesta, 150; in the church of S Maria in Trastevere, 152; the pedestal of a statue of Caelia Concordia, 169; on the Archivum of Pope Damasus, 188; in library of Pope Agapetus, 190; on book-cases, 194; on a pedestal dedicated to Crescens, a jockey, 215 (cut); authorizing punish- ment to be inflicted in the case of fires caused by negligence, 226; roll of the fifth battalion of police, 228; on a bas- relief of a sturgeon, 233; on a quay of the Tiber, 251 ; survey of the banks of the Tiber, 257; on the rebuilding of the Ponte Sisto, 257; on water-pipes, 299; on the bronze athlete discovered in 1885, 304. See also Graffiti. Insteia or Insteiana via, 50. Intercidona, goddess, 69. Iron, its use not allowed in early Roman religious rites, 39; its touch profaned a temple or shrine, 41; its use allowed by special law in building a shrine of Jupiter in Furfo, 41; not used in con- structing or repairing the Sublician bridge, 41. Isia, 169; celebrated by Flavianus and his colleagues, 174. Guglielmi, Marchese, buys the island at the mouth of the Tiber, 235. Guidi excavations, 93. Guiscard, Robert, 288. Gutta Calpurnianus, P. AElius, champion charioteer, 215. Hadrian, 245; regulated the opening of the baths, 91, 92. Hadrian, mausoleum of, 157, 286; as- saulted and injured in 537 A. D., 293; villa of, 263 (cut); plan, 271 (cut). Hair-dressing, specimens of, in portico of Marcius Philippus, 100. Health, temple of, 69. Heating of houses, 78, 269. Helagabalus, 91, 108, 126; brought to- gether the most sacred relics of the Roman Empire, 127; violates the Atrium Vestaº, 148. Henzen, W., excavates the temple of the | Dea Dia, 42; and the banqueting hall of the Arvales Fratres, 153; on an ex- cubitorium of the police, 230. Heraclius, Emperor, 294. Hercules, statues of, in gilt bronze, found in the Forum Boarium, 22; marble statue by Lysippus, 111 ; the Farnese Hercules, 153; the colossal Mastai Hercules, 287, 288 (cut), 290, 297. Hercules, temple of, 95; other temples, 287. Hercules Invictus, images of, 174. Hermaphrodite, statue of, 18. Herodianus quoted, 147. Hippocrates, spurious editions of, 183. Hippolytus, S., statue of, 196. Hispalis, 187; library at, 194. Hoffman, Baron R. von, his villa, 227. Holstenius, Lucas, on the barracks of the first battalion of police, 224. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, manuscript of, 185. Honorius I., Pope, 294. Honorius III., Pope, 204, 286. Horace, satires, 163; his booksellers, 183; quoted, 67. Horatius Cocles, 41; statue of, 81. Horkel quoted, 163. Hormisdas, Persian prince, 89. Horrea Galbana, 248, 249 (cut). Horses, compulsory seizure of, 139; names and popularity of the horses of the circus, 215; Numidian ponies, 265. Hortalus, M., 113. Hºw house of, 106; medallion of, 113. Hospitals unknown before the third cen- tury, 68 House, private, excavated under the Via dello Statuto, 193. | Isidorus, S., library of, 194. 320 INDEX. Istrig river, 291. Ivory, bas-reliefs in the temple of Apollo, 114; ceilings in the Golden House of Nero, 124; found in the Horrea Gal- bana, 250. Jani, four-faced porches, 82. Janiculum, public gardens on, 157. Janitors, 208. Janus Quadrifrons, temple of, 77, 295; hot sulphur springs near, 50. Jerusalem, spoils of the temple deposited in the forum of Vespasian, 85; their ultimate fate, 255, 290, 291. Jews apply for a permit to excavate the bed of the Tiber, 291. Jockeys, fortunes amassed by, 214. John (S.) Calibitas, hospital of, 70. John (S.) Lateran, church of, inscription on a bronze tablet set in an altar, 6. Jonah, statue of, 156. Josephus quoted, 117. Julia, daughter of Augustus, 81. Julius III., Pope, villa of, 157. Juno Lucina, 69. Jupiter, shrine of, in Furfo, 41; statues of, set up in the Alpine passes, 174. Jupiter Capitolinus, temple of, 140, 157, 158, 292; library connected with the temple of, 186. Jupiter Dolichenus, temple of, 226. Justus, L. Speratius, colonel of fifth bat- talion of police, 228. Juturna, spring of, 76, 80. Juvenal, quoted, 44, 211, 214, 220; scho- liast of, quoted, 112. Kallimachos, 185. Kircherian museum, 47, 122. Kissing, the customary salutation under Augustus and later, 270; Tiberius is- sues a decree against, 271. Knife, pocket, of Euprepes, 216 (cut). Labarum of Constantine, 174. Labricana via, 226. Lacour-Gayet, 287. Laetus, Pomponius. Lambaese, 61. Lampridius quoted, 148. *. Lºgº in the library of Cassiodorius, Land, price of, 84. Lanipedius, 131. Lanipenda, 133. Lanterns, 207. Lararium discovered in the Via dello Statuto, 191 (cut). Lateran museum, 21, 285. Lateran palace, documents of the Church gathered here, 189; libraries and ar- chives collected in, 203. See Leto. Laternarius, 207. Latifundia, 266, 276. Latina via, 264, 277. Laurentian library at Florence, 197, 202. Lautumiae, 75, 219. Lavinium, 51. Lectica, or sedan-chair, 139, 267. Leo X., Pope, 42. Leo XIII., Pope, 204. Lepidus, M., 242. Leto, Pomponio, founder of the Roman Academy, 10. Lex Regia, 6, 21. Liberalis, P. AElius, 243. Libraries, 178–205; trash excluded from, 1.12; authorities on, 178; recent dis- coveries relating to, 178; Vitruvius on their construction, 181; the rooms small, 181, and unheated, 182; private libra- ries, 182; first public library, 184; state libraries, 184; number of vol- umes in, 185; books lent from, 185; destruction of, 186; Christian libraries established, 186; material and organ- ization of Christian libraries, 190; fol- low the arrangement of classic mod- els, 195; portraits of authors used for decoration, 191, 193, 196; private li- brary discovered under the Via dello Statuto, 193; statues of authors in, 196. Libraries, of L. AEmilius Paulus, 179; of Agapetus, Pope, 190; of Apellikon, 179; of Aristotle, 179; in Alexandria, 183, 185; of C. Asinius Pollio, 196; of Cassiodorius, 198; of the convent of S. Gregorio, 198; of S. Isidorus, at Hispalis, 1945 of Lucullus, 180; Octa- via, 184, 186; Palatina Apollinis, 184, 186; of Pergamon, 179, 185; of T. Pomponius Atticus, 180; of Q. Serenus Sammonicus, 182; of Sulla, 179, 180; Tiberiana, 184, 186; of Trajan, 184; Ulpia, 87; Vatican, 195 (cut); of Ves- pasian, 184. Librarii, 183. Liello, Pietro di, quoted, 286. Ligorio, Casino del, 279 (cut). Literary academies and societies de- scribed by Pliny, 113. Litters, 270. Livia, Empress, columbaria of her house- hold discovered in 1725, 130; market of, 152; villa of, 272. Livius, M., censor, 127. Livy, references to volcanic action, 32; quoted, 32, 33, 46, 48, 50, 51, 54, 68, 69, 145, 218. Locks and keys, 208. Lollia Paulina, her life, 104; her gar- dens discovered on the Esquiline, 104. Lollius, Marcus, 104. INDEX. 321 Longfellow, H. W., translation of the Divine Comedy, quoted, 1, 3. Lorenzetto, 156. Lorenzo (S.), basilica of, 188; Porta, 293. Lotus capillata, 137. Lucretius quoted, 39. Lucullus, L., 242; gardens of, 100; li- brary of, 180. Ludi palatini, 118. Lugari brothers, excavations by, 268. Lupercal, the oldest sanctuary of Rome, 35. Lupercalia, shows that the founders of Rome were shepherds, 36; traces of the festival still to be found in the fifth century, 36; the meal used at, 161. Lupus, a fish, 233. Lustrum, 174. Lyons, 60. Lysias, sculptor, 110. Lysippus, 18, 111, 296. Macellum Liviae, 152. Macer, Pompeius, director of public li- braries, 184. Maceriae, 269. Macrobius quoted, 41. Madonna della Febbre, church of, 53. Madonna della Pietà, church of, 4. Maecenas, 101; gardens of, 67, 272. Maggiore, Porta, 102. Magliana, La, farm, 42. Maiano, Giuliano da, 16. Mail coaches, 244. Majorianus, Emperor, 293. Mala Fortuna, altar to, 52. Malaria, history of, in Rome, 49; ap- peared after the cessation of volcanic activity, 51; its prevalence in the first century of Rome proved by the altars to the fever, 52; diminished by the construction of important public works, 53. Mamaea, Julia, 108. Mamertime Prison, 75. Mamurra, 242. Manuscripts, exchange and circulation of, Maps of the Empire, 98. Marble, importation of, 241 (cut); quay at which it was landed, 250 (cut). Marcella, Mimicia, her sepulchre, 281. Marcella, Statoria, 281. Marcello (S.), convent of, 225. Marcellus, 115; theatre of, 309. Marchi, Padre, numismatist, 47. Marco (S.), palazzo di, the collection of Paul II., 14; its architecture, 16. Marco (S.), piazza di, 12. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. See Anto- ninus. Margaritaria, Porticus, 150. Margaritarii, 131. Maria (S.) dell’ Anima, church of, 157. Maria (S.) in Campitelli, church of, its Madonna of Florentine mosaic, 13. Maria (S.) in Cosmedin, church of, the Bocca della Verità, 56. Maria (S.) Maggiore, church of, 157; Bor- ghese Chapel, 15. Maria (S.) del Popolo, church of, 156. Maria (S.) in Trastevere, church of, 151. Marignoli palace, 166. Marino, 264; Parco Colonna, 30. Mario, Monte, 100, 261, 281. Market, in the Forum, 75, 80; of Livia, 152. Mars, temple of, 84; Mars Ultor, remains of temple of, 84 (cut). Marsyas, statue of, 81. Martial, his publishers, 183; quoted, 72, 98, 182,220. Martin I., Pope, 200. Martino (S.) ai Monti, church of, 192. Massimo palace, 104. Matches, 269. Matriculae pauperum, 187. Mattei villa, 227 (cut). Mavortius Basilius Agorius, Vettius, con- sul, 163. Maximaº porticus, 96. Maximus, Petronius, Emperor, 291. Maximus, Quintilius, his villas, 264. Maximus, Valerius, quoted, 44, 50, 221. Medallions, in the reading-room of the library of Augustus, 113; of Julia Domna, 137 (cut); of authors, used in decoration of libraries, 191. Medical attendance, 67; organized by Nero, 72; by Antoninus Pius, 73. Medicean library, Florence, 7 Medici villa, 100, 157, 261. Medici, Cosimo de’, 18, 111. Medici, Giovanni de', 19. Medici, Lorenzo de’, 20. Medicinae, 71. Medicine, schools of, 72. Medicus ocularius, 133. Mefitis, altar to, 52. Megalesia, 169; celebrated by Flavianus and his partisans, 174. Melissus, C., librarian, 184. Menophilus, bookbinder, 180. Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage, 187. Merulana, Via, 169. Mesa, Torre di, 301, 302 (cut). Messalina, 140. Messalina, Statilia, 129. Messalla, M. Valerius, 82, 242. Meta sudans, fountain, 125. Metellus Macedonicus, Q., 242, 296. Meteoric stone, sacred, brought from Pes. sinus, 126; removed by Helagabalus, 322 INDEX. 127; probably discovered by Bianchini in 1730, 128. Metronia porta, 51. Metroon, 166. Michael Angelo, 10, 156, 235. Michele (S.), tower of, 235. Middleton, J. Henry, his theory of the Etruscan origin of Rome disputed, 26. Milk used for libations by the early set- tlers of Rome, 37. Mineral springs, at Vicarello, 46; on the Alban hills, 50. Minerva, temple of, 15; destroyed by Paul W., 15. Minerva Medica, temple of, 102. Minician gardens, 103. Minicii family crypt, 281. Minucia, portico of, 94. Minucia, a Vestal, 143. Misenum, 240. Missione, Casa della, 157. Mithraeum Campense, 166. Mithras, grotto of, 165; represented in a relief, 166; worship of, in Rome, 167; degrees conferred, 168; represented as the Sun, 168 (cut); crypt of, discovered in the Via dello Statuto, 192 (cut). Mithras Cautes, 167 (cut). * Tauroktonos, marble group, 193 cut). Mola salsa, kind of cake, 161. Money lenders in the Forum, 80. Montanara, piazza di, 69. Monte Affliano, tunnel through, 62; Co- romaro, 231; Crescenzio, 28; Cucco, 28; Mario, 100, 261, 281; Oliviero, 268; Pila, 31. Monte Cassino, library of, 13. Monte Testaccio, 248, 250 (cut); its composition, 251; De Rossi’s theory, 251, 253; Dressel's theory, 253; he traces its development, 254. Mooring rings on the Tiber, 247 (cut). Moricone, Sabina, 154. Mosaic in the Circus Maximus, 214 (cut). Mosaic from Pompeii, 165 (cut); por- traits, in libraries, 196. Mugonia, gate on the Palatine, 37. Müntz, Eugène, on the fate of the treas- ures of Paul II., 14; quoted, 158. Mº Antonius, freedman of Augustus, 2. -- Museum, the earliest, in Rome, 21. Muti, G. B., discovers ancient bas-reliefs under the foundation of his palace, 225. Muti-Savorelli palace, 224. Naples, view of, 262. Naples, national library, 7 ; national mu- seum, 153. Nardini, on a colossal bronze head, 112. Narducci, Enr., his bibliography of the Tiber, 231. National Dramatic Society, bronzes found in building their theatre, 297. Naves speculatoriae, 245; tabellariae, 245; vagae, 245. Navius, Atta, statue of, 81. Neleus owns the library of Aristotle, 179. Neptune, temple of, 157. Nero, Emperor, 59, 246; organizes the medical service, 72; enlarges the im- perial palace, 108; burns Rome and rebuilds it, 122; invites the Vestals to the athletic contests, 143; proposes to make Rome a sea-port, 239. Nero, colossal statue of, 113; his Domus Aurea, 124; his villa in the Apen- nines, 274. Nerva, 244; forum of, 85. Niccoli, Niccolò, 19; a collector of an- tiques, 20. Nicomedia, 221. Niobe group, 69; bas-relief, 114. Nomentana via, 13, 153, 267. Nona, goddess, 69. - Nonius Datus, hydraulic engineer, 61. Nova via, 150. Numa Pompilius, 68, 76; his simpuvium, or drinking-cup, 44. Numidian ponies, 265. Nutrices, 132. Nymphaea, 264, 293; of Claudius Catul- lus, 226; of Hadrian’s villa, 263 (cut). Obelisk, of Augustus, 157; Caligula's, 13; Vatican, ship which brought it from Egypt, 239. Obsequens, Julius, quoted, 50. Octavia, library of, 184, 186; portico of, 94, 95 (cut), 96 (cut). Olitorium forum, 94. Oliviero, Monte, 268. Oracular statues, 287. Orbona, shrine of, 69. Ornatrix, 132. Ostia, marble altar found at, 34 (cut); water-supply, 64; pocket-knife discov- ered at, 216; founded by Ancus Mar- cius, 234; advance of the coast line from deposits by the Tiber, 235; com- merce of, 235; best season for ap- proaching, 237; shallowness of the water, 238; a harbor made by Clau- dius, 238, 239 (cut), 243; improved by Trajan, 240, 245; representations of the Claudian harbor preserved, 246 (cut). Ostiaria, 133. Ostiarius, 92, 208. o, Emperor, 125. Ovid quoted, 40, 75. INDEX. 323 Paalstabs, found in Rome, 44; found in 1874 under the Monte della Giustizia, 45; found in 1852 in the springs of Wi- carello, 47. Pacis, forum, 85, 184. Paedagogium ad caput Africa, 121. Paestum, roses cultivated at, 273. Paganism, in science and fine art under the Renaissance, 9; last struggles of, with Christianity, 162, 172; its pri- vileges abolished and its property con- fiscated in 383, 172; its sacrifices prohibited in 391, 173; favored by Eugenius, 173; outburst of fanaticism, 174; the pagan party defeated by Theodosius II. in 394, 175. Palace of the Caesars, 106–133; enlarged by successive emperors, 108; section built by Augustus unchanged, 109; described, 110; summary of its con- tents, 116; Caligula's additions, 116, 117 (cut), 119; additions by Nero, 122; additions by Vespasian, 125; additions by Septimius Severus, 126; later re- storations, 126; organization of the household, 128; plundered by Gense- ric, 292. Palaces, Balestra, 224; Barberini, 69; Brancaccio, 169; della Cancelleria, 23, 190; dei Conservatori, 21, 112, 233, 286, 296; Farnese, 157; Mari- gnoli, 166; di S. Marco, or di Venezia, 14, 16; Massimo, 104; Ministero delle Finanze, 144; Muti-Savorelli, 224; Piero della Valle, 156; Pio di Carpi, 286. Palaeography, specimens of, in the library of Augustus, 113. Palatine hill, 51; the first of the hills of Rome to be settled, 36; derivation of the name, 37; became the resi- dence of the Emperors, 106. Palazzola, supposed site of Alba Longa, Pales, the goddess of shepherds, 37. Paliliae, or feast of Pales, still celebrated on April 21, 37. Palladium, guarded by the Westals, 147, 175; stolen by Helagabalus, 148. Pallini, Pietro, 10. Palme, Wicolo delle, 296. Palmyra, conquest of, 300. Pamphili, villa, 261. Pantheon, 157, 294; details of, 24 (cut); Petrarch’s view of, 4; burned, 219. Paolo (S.) fuori le mura, basilica of, 83; church of, 150. Papyrus, specimen of, 184 (cut). Pardalus, AEmilius, 141. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, catalogue of cameos dated 1295, 16 ; Galerie Manfrin, 15. Parks, 100–105. Partula, goddess, 69. Pascolare di Castello. See Castello. Passifilus Paolinus, Fabius, 176. Patarae, 59. Paul II., Pope, 20; tries the members of the Roman Academy, 10; promotes learning and the study of archaeology, 12; his mania for collecting, 13; first took the name of Formosus II., 13; his extravagance, 13; his museum, 14. Paul III., Pope, 21, 58, 285. Paul V., Pope, 15, 165. Paullina, Fabia Aconia, 169. Paulus, L. AEmilius, his library, 179. Paulus, M. AEmilius, 83. Peperino, volcanic stone, 28. Perac, Stefano du, drawing of the Torre di Mesa, 302 (cut). Pergamon, library of, 185. Perseus and Andromeda, bas-relief of, 225. Persius, 181. Perugino, disbelief of in the immortality of the soul, 10. Pessinus in Phrygia, meteoric stone wor- shipped there, 126. Peter (S.), his prison, 76; church of, 154, 165; the sacristy, 153. Peter, prefect of Rome, 285. Petorritum, 267 Petrarch, presents a collection of coins to Charles IV., 4; knowledge of archaeol- ogy, 5. Petroni, Ales, quoted, 57. Pºlº island of, papyrus discovered in, 185. Philippe le Bel, king of France, 16. Philippus, Marcius, portico of, 95, 100. Philocalus, Furius Dionysius, calligra- phus, 188. Philolaos, 182. Phocas, column erected to, 293. Physicians, 71. Pia, Porta, 100, 156. Piazza, dei SS. Apostoli, 224; Barberini, 100 ; Campidoglio, 21 ; Campo dei Fiori, 287; Giudea, 157; di S. Marco, 12; Montamara, 69; del Popolo, 157. Pietrasanta, Giacomo di, 16 Piety, Arch of, 3, 157. Pigna, Giardino della, 286. Pila, Monte, 31. Pilate, house of (so-called), 16 (cut). Pilentum, 139. Pincian hill, 51, 100, 261. Pio di Carpi, palace, 286. Platina, Bart., Cardinal, 10. Plato, 182. Pliny, the elder, quoted, 40, 43, 44, 54 83, 104, 113, 114. 324 INDEX. Pliny, the younger, his Laurentime villa, 243; quoted, 91, 113, 146, 221, 282. Plostrum, 139. Plutarch quoted, 144, 245, 282. Pola, Roman cemetery at, mentioned by Dante, 2. Police, 206–230; regulations frequently evaded, 213; duty as firemen, 218; or- ganization of, 221; reorganized by Augustus, 222; duties of the praefec- tus, 222; privileges conceded to, 224; barracks, 224; of the first battalion, 224; second, 226; third, 226; fourth, 226; fifth, 227 (cut); sixth and sev- enth, 229; numerical strength, 229; excubitorium of the seventh battalion, 229, 230 (cut). Politorium, 50. Pollio, C. Asinius, built the first public library in Rome, 184, 196. Pollio, Domitius, daughter of, 136. Pompey’s theatre, 190; his villa, 280. Pons Cestius, 358, 359 (cut); Fabricius, 70; Sublicius, 40, 41 (cut). Ponte, Garibaldi, 258, 307; Sisto, 257. Pontelli, Baccio, 16. Pontifex Maximus, care of the Vestals, 143. Pontine district, originally healthy, 50, 51; infested by highwaymen, 211. Ponza, island of, 238. Ponzi, Gius., on the remains found in the Pascolare di Castello, 30. Popolo, Piazza del, 157. Porcia, basilica, 79, 83. Porta, Collina, 144; Flumentana, 38; Maggiore, 102: Metronia, 51; Mugo- nia, 37; Pia, 100, 156; Portese, 153, 292; Portuensis, 120; Romana, site of, 38 (cut); Salaria, 100; S. Lorenzo, 293; S. Sebastiano, 130; Tiburtina, 293. Porta, Guglielmo della, statue of Giulia Farnese, 10. Portese, Porta, 153, 292. Porticoes, 74, 94, 123; general plan and purpose, 97; Ad Nationes, 95; of the Argonauts, 96, 98; Bonus Eventus, 96; of Constantine, 96,298; Corinthian, 95; of Europa, 96, 98; of Gallienus, 97 ; of Gordianus, 97; of Marcius Philippus, 95, 100; Margaritaria, 150; Maximae, 96; Minucia, 94, Octaviae, 94, 95 (cut), 96 (cut); Septa, 95, 99; of Severus Alexander, 97; of Vipsania, 95, 98. Porto, plan of ruins of, 244 (cut); docks and warehouses of, 248. Porto d’ Anzio, 252. Portuensis, Porta, 120. Portus, 64. Porziano, Castel, 243. Postal service, 243; extended by Augus- tus all over the Empire, 244; the mar. itime post, 245. Postvorta, goddess, 69. Pozzuoli, 238, 245. Praefectus vehiculorum (postmaster), 245. Praefectus vigilum, 222. Praenestina via, 268. Praetextata, Calpurnia, Vestal, 139. Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius, devotion to the Vestals, 169; his house exca- vated in 1591, 169; statue of, 170 (cut). Praetorian guard, 206. Prata-porcia, farm of, 139. Prati di Testaccio, 248. Primigenia, Vestal, 171. Priscilla, catacombs of, 175. Probus, 111. Procopius quoted, 277, 290. Procurator bibliothecarum Augusti, 112. Propylaia of the Imperial Palace, 110. Prudentius quoted, 45, 171. Psalterium in the British Museum, 200. Ptolemy Euergetes II., King, obtains cod- ices from Athens, 183. Public places of resort, 74–105. Publica villa, 96. Publicia, Flavia, a Vestal, 160, Punic war, second, 126. Puteal Scribonianum, 82. Puticuli, 64. Pyrgi, 51. Pyrrhus, statue of, 85. Pythagoras, statue of, 81. Quadrivia, 268. Quasillariae, 133. Quay * which marbles were landed, 250 (cut). Quintilian, his publisher, 183. Quintilianus, C. Julius, prefect of police, 228. Quirinal hill, 51; originally connected with the Capitoline by a bridge, 86; bronzes found in excavations, 297. Quirinalis, Flamen, house of, 148. Raphael, 156. Ravenna, church of S. Apollinare in Classe, 197. Refuse, heaped up in the Esquiline ceme- tery, 66; decrees concerning its dispo- sition, 66. Regesta Pontificum, 189, 204. Regillus, Lake, battle of, 80. Regulus, Memmius, 104. Reiffersheid, A., on the library of Cassio- dorius, 199. Renaissance, 7; pagan character of, 9; illustrated by the Roman Academy, 10 Reservoirs, 60. Rhea. See Vesta. Rhea Sylvia, legend of, 34. INDEX. 325 Rheda, 267, 270. Riario della Rovere, family, 22; Pietro, his extravagance, 23; Raphael, Cardi- 190 3 * * * * Ricimer, 293. Rienzi, Roman tribune, founder of the modern archaeological school, 1 ; inter- prets the Lex Regia wrongly, 6; house of (so called), 16, 17 (cut); election of, as tribune, 285. Ristori palace, bronzes found under, 297. Roads of the Campagna, 268. See Via. Roman Academy, its pagan tendencies,10. Roman aristocracy compared with the English, 265. Roman topography, caution necessary in drawing conclusions in regard to, 151. Roniana gate, 38. Rome, foundation and prehistoric life of, 26; Etruscan origin disputed, 26; cred- ibility of its early history, 33; founded by colonists from Alba Longa, 33; who were shepherds, 35; origin of the name, 37; date, 38; state of the ancient world, 38; sanitary conditions, 49–73; burned by Nero, 122; rebuilt accord- ing to admirable principles, 123; the struggles of the fourth century, 162; not lighted at night, 207; burned by the Gauls, 364, A. U. C., and rebuilt irregularly, 218; surrounded by villas, 266; character of the suburbs, 266; destruction of ancient monuments in, 276, 284, 289; number of bronze stat- ues in the sixth century A. D., 284; plundered by Alaric, 290; by Genseric, 292; by Ricimer, 293; by Totila, 293; refortified by Belisarius at the expense of ancient monuments, 293; despoiled by Constans II., 294; in the fourteenth century, 6 (cut). Rome. University of, reorganized by Paul II., 12. Romulus, not purely legendary, 34; ori- gin of the name, 38. Romulus, son of Maxentius, temple of, 155. Ronconi garden, 111. Roses, excessive demand for, 273. Rossi, Comm. G. B. de, discovers inscrip- tions in the catacombs relating to the Roman Academy, 11 ; discovers the codex of Pietro Sabino, 24; on the li- braries of the Holy See, 179; discovers an inscription of Pope Damasus, 189; on the origin of the Monte Testaccio, 251, 253; on the Gothic war, 278. Rufinus, Julius, prefect of Vigiles, 226. Rusticus, Bishop of Narbonne, 195. Saba (S.), church of, 226. Sabellico, Marco Ant., 10. | Sabino, Pietro, 10, 166. Sabinus, Cornelius, conspirator to murder Caligula, 118. Sacomarii, corporation of, 34. Sacra via, 82, 110, 150. sº relics preserved by the Vestals, 147. Sacro Speco, Benedictine abbey, 60, 274. Salaria, Porta, 100. sº or Civitas Salditana, tunnel near, Salita dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 190. Sallust, garden of, 101 (cut), 103 (cut), 158; palace of, 158. Sammonicus, Q. Seremus, his library, 182. Sanitary conditions of Rome, 49–73. S. Nicandro, bronze tablet discovered near, 41. Sarcinatrices, 133. Sargetia, river, 291. Saturn, temple of, 77. Saturnalia, 77. Scauri, Clivus, 190. Scaurus, M. AEmilius, 242. Seeleratus Campus, 145. Schools on the Forum, 80. Scipio, Cornelius, 81. Scopas, 114. Scrimia, 112. Sebastian, (S.), his martyrdom, 125. Sebastiano (S.), Porta, 130. Secchi, Ang., on the advance of the coast at the mouth of the Tiber, 235. Secundus, publisher for Martial, 183. Semo Sancus, shrine of, 298. Senate, meetings in the reading-hall of the library of Apollo, 111. Senate-house. See Curia. Seneca, his publisher, 183; quoted, 199. Senecio, Caesernius, captain of police, 228. Septa, portico of, 95, 99. Septimius Severus, restored the imperial buildings, 108; additions to the imperial palace, 126; increase of brigandage under, 211. Septimius Severus, arch of, 12. Septizonium, 108, 126; in the sixteenth century, 126 (cut); destroyed by Sixtus ., 15. Serapaion at Alexandria, 183, 185. Serena, Princess, takes a necklace from the statue of Vesta, 176; her death, 177. Servants of a great household, 128. Servius Maurus quoted, 127, 147. Servius Sulpicius, statue of, and privileges of his descendants, 81. Servius Tullius, 38, 78; Agger of, 65,302. Servus praelucens, 207. Setinian wine, 240. Severina, Campia, Vestal, 141. Severus, engineer of Nero, 122, 240. 326 IND EX. Severus Alexander, Emperor, 91, 245; baths of, 157; portico of, 97; shrine dedicated to, 150. Sewers, 53; defects of, 56. Ships, speed of, 245; represented on a bas-relief, 247; unloading of, 252; a wreck discovered off Astura, 253. Sibylline books, 69; deposited by Augus- tus in the temple of Apollo, 115; their subsequent fate, 115. Sick, taken to the temple of AEsculapius, 70; exposure in the streets, 71. sºul. C. Sollius Apollinaris, quoted, Signorili, Nicola, reputed author of a col- lection of inscriptions, 7. Silva Gallinaria, infested by highwaymen, 211. Simbruine mountains, 60, 274. Simpuvium Numae, 44. Siphon, principle of, known to the Ro- mans, 59. Sisto, Ponte, 257. Sixtine chapel, 157. Sixtus IV., Pope, 285; founder of the Capitoline museum, 22; his extrava- gance, 22; towers of, 215. Sixtus V., Pope, 15. Slaves as physicians, 71. Socrates, the historian, quoted, 174. Sol Helagabalus, 127. Solarium, 82. Sosii, agents for the sale of Horace's works, 183. Sossia, 139. Sossianus, Macrinius, high-priest, 170. Sparteoli, nickname for the police, 224. Speusippos, 182. Spurinna, 91. Statilian family, columbaria of the ser- vants of, 130. Stationes for the police, 224. Statius quoted, 59. Statues, in the forum, 81; in the forum of Augustus, 85; in the forum of Do- mitian, 85; those in honor of Augustus melted by his direction, 115; found in a lararium, 192; those of authors, set up in libraries, 196; in the barracks of the first battalion of police, 225; a pure Greek statue in the Benedictine abbey of Sacro-Speco, 274; dedicated to new personages by changing the heads, 289; removed from temples after the aboli- tion of pagan worship, 290; a Count appointed to care for them in 500 A. D., 292; those we now possess have been preserved by concealment, 296. — Of Alcibiades, 81; found in the Tiber in 1885, 258, 307; Antonius Musa, 72; Apollo in his chariot, 114; Apollo with Latona and Diana, 114; Apoxyomenos of Lysippus, 296; athletes found in 1885 on the Quirinal, 298, 303, 305 (cut), frontispiece; Atta Navius, 81; Augustus, colossal, 1.12; Bacchus, 308 (heliotype); boxer, discovered in 1885, 303, 305 (cut), frontispiece; boy extract- ing a thorn from his foot, 22; Brutus, 22; Caelia Concordia, Vestal, 169; Ca- millus, 22; Charles d’Anjou, 22; Cy- bele, 127; Danaids, 111; Flavia Publi- cia, Vestal, 141; Gallienus (proposed), 97; Giulia Farnese, 10; Hercules, 22, 111, 153, 287, 288 (cut), 290, 297 ; Hermaphrodite, 18; Hippolytus, 196; Horatius Cocles, 81; Jonah, 156; Julius Caesar, 84; lion devouring a horse, 22; lion in the forum, 81; Marcus Aurelius, 12, 21, 156, 286; Marsyas, 81; Mithras Tauroktomos, 193; Nero, colossal, 113; Pyrrhus (so called), 85; Pythagoras, 81; Q. Marcius Tremulus, 81; Servius Sulpicius, 81; She-wolf, 21 (cut), 285; Tatius, 81; Venus Genetrix, by Arcesi- laos, 84; Victory, 163. Stefano (S.) delle Carozze, church of, 24. Stipes sacrae, 46. Stone knives, used at the ceremony of making a peace, 46; found in the springs of Vicarello, 47. Strabo quoted, 54, 179, 210. Street-lighting unknown, 207. Street pedlers, 269. Streets, insecurity of, at night, 207, 212; accidents frequent, 213; crowding of, 269; choked by shops, 270; Alta Se- mita, 144; Insteia, or Insteiana, 50; Vesta, 150; Vicus Apollinis, 110; Lon- gus, 52, 144; Tuscus, 82. See also under Via. Streets (modern), Carlo - Alberto, 65; Goito, 145; Marforio, 86; Mazzini, 65; Merulana, 169; Porta S. Lorenzo, 216; S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case, 100; delle Sette Sale, 169; dello Statuto, 192; Vicolo delle Palme, 296. Strozzi, Uberto, garden of, 227. Sturgeon, 233. Subiaco, 60, 274. Sublician bridge, built of wood, and no iron used even in repairs, 40; remains, 41 (cut). & Subrostrani, 82. Subura, 82, 270. Suetonius quoted, 45, 84, 91, 125, 188. Sulla, 140, 242; his library, 179, 180. Sulphur springs at Vicarello, 46; near the Janus Quadrifrons, 50. Sulphurata, 269. Sun, temple of, 156, 241 (cut), 298, 300, 302 (cut). Sun-dials and elepsydrae in the library of Cassiodorius, 198. INDEX. 327 Sura, Licinius, baths of, 157. Sylvanus, altar to, 100. Symmachus, physician, 72. Symmachus, Pope, 286. Symmachus, Q. Aurelius, 163. Symphorus tesserarius, 120. Tablinum, or reception hall of the Ves- tals, 161. Tabula Valeria, 82. Tacitus quoted, 59, 113, 136, 216. Tacitus, Emperor, 91 Tambroni on the remains discovered in the Pascolare di Castello, 30. Tarquinius Priscus, 76. Tarquinius Superbus, 53, 78. Tatius, statue of, 81. Taurobolium, 167. Taurus, Statilius, 132. Teatro Drammatico, its building leads to important discoveries in 1885, 297, 302. Telephus, his Notitia librorum, 178. Tellene, 50. Temples, Æsculapius, 69; Antoninus and Faustina, 155; Apollo, 69, 114, 115; Augustus, 155; Bona Dea, on Monte Affliano, 62; Castor and Pollux, 80, 150, 155, 156; Ceres, at Ostia, 34; Concord, 77; the Fever, 52; Great Mother of the Gods, or Cybele, 127; Health, 69; Hercules, 95, 288; Janus Quadrifrons, 77; Julius Caesar, 155; Jupiter Capitolinus, 140, 157, 158,292; Jupiter Dolichenus, 226; Mars, 84; Minerva, 15; Minerva Medica, 102; Neptune, 157; Romulus, son of Max- entius, 155; Saturn, 77; the Sun, 156, 241 (cut), 298, 300, 302 (cut); Trajan, 88, 241; Venus Genetrix, 84; Venus and Rome, 294; Vesta, 75, 155, 159, (cut), 160 (cut); Victory, 127; at the corner of the street of Vesta, 150. Terra-cotta, portraits in, in libraries, 196. Tesserae, use in unloading vessels, 252. Testaccio, Monte, 248, 250 (cut). Testaccio, Prati di, 248. Tetrastylum, banqueting-hall of the Ar- vales Fratres, 153. Theatre, of Marcellus, 309; Pompey's, 190. Theodosius I., Emperor, 163; defeats the pagan party in 394, 174. Theodosius II., Emperor, 163. Theophrastus, disciple of Aristotle, his library, 179. * Thermae. See Baths. Thieves, 82. Tiber, ex-votos discovered under the left embankment in 1885, 70; archaeology of, 231; bibliography of, 231; source of the river, 231; description of its mouth, 231; wholesomeness of its wa- ter, 57, 232; its constant level, 233; its fish, 233; inundations of, 234; ex- tensive deposits of sand at the mouth, 234; enlargement of the island belong- ing to the Marchese Guglielmi, 235; navigation of the river between Ostia and Rome, 236, 237; property along the banks protected by special police, 236; treasures supposed to be buried in, 255; discoveries before 1875 scanty, 255; quicksands of the bed of the river swallow up a freight train, 255; very abundant antiquities probably preserved at a slight depth, 256; regu- lar explorations carried on twice over a small area, 257; survey of the banks under Vespasian, 257; the Jews desire to excavate its bed, 291; embankment of, 308. Tiberius, Emperor, 210, 217; added to the imperial palace, 108; ruins of pal- ace of, 108 (heliotype); establishes a library, 184, 186; decree against kiss- ing, 271. Tiburtina, Porta, 293. Timotheus, sculptor, 114. Timotheus, Julius, schoolmaster, mur- dered by brigands, 212. Titus, Emperor, 125; arch of, 12, 203; baths of, 13, 125. Tivoli, 157. Toilet, officers of, 131. Toll collectors on the consular roads, 210. Tombs, archaic, no iron in, 39; found intact under the gardens of Licinius Gallienus, 103; on the road to Albano, excavated by De Rossi, 278; family tombs, built on the family estate, 280; large numbers scattered over the Cam- pagna, 281; of Minicia Marcella, 281. Tongilianus, 220. Tonstrix, 133. Topiarius, 272. Tor Carbone, farm of, 268. Torlonia museum, 252. Torlonia, Prince Alex, his excavations, 246 Torre del Filosofo, 275. Torre Fiscale, 277 (cut). Torre di Mesa, 301, 302 (cut). Torre S. Michele, 235. Totila, 293. Tow-paths along the banks of the Tiber, 236. Toys inscribed with the names of horses and jockeys, 216. Trajan, Emperor, 244; meeting with the poor widow, described by Dante, 2.; the national hero and saint of the Rouma- nians, 4; cuts away the ridge between the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, 86; refuses permission to form a fire com- 328 INDEX pany, 221; his hydraulic enterprises, 240; victory over Decebalus, 291. Trajan, arch of, 87 ; arch on the pier of the harbor of Ancona, 248; column of, 5, 87, 88 (cut), 295; forum of, 85, 88 (cut), 184; harbor of, at Ostia, 240, 245; hunting-lodge in the Apennines, ; library of, 184; temple of, 88, Trajano, Lago, 246. Trastevere, 153; the abode of street ped- lers, 270; antiquities discovered in, 296. Traversari, Ambrogio, 20. Trees and shrubs. 273; in the forum, 81. Tremulus, Q. Marcius, statue of, 81. Tripods in the temple of Apollo, 115. Triumphal arch, remains of, 256 (cut). Triumviri capitales, 221; nocturni, 221. Troops, regular, excluded from Rome, 206. Tryphon, publisher for Quintilianus, 183. Tullus Hostilius, 76. Tunnels, 61 ; at Saldae in Algeria, 61; of Monte Affliano, 62. Turris Cartularia, 203 (cut), 205. Tyrannio, librarian of Cicero, 180. Uffizi gallery, Florence, 14; architectural sketches by cinquecento artists, 24. Umbilicus Romaº, 266. |Untrix, 132. Urania Aurelia, tombstone of, 175. Uterina, goddess, 69. Utrecht, public library, 7. Vacca, Flaminius, antiquary, quoted, 110, 111. Valentinian II., Emperor, 163; enforces the edict against paganism, 173, 289; murdered, 173. Valentinian and Valens, arch of, 257. Valerianus, Julius, 212. * * Valerii, their villas, 264. Valle, Piero della, palace of, 156. Varro, M. Terentius, quoted, 40, 178, 184. Vasari, Giorgio, quoted, 10, 18. Vatican gardens, the Casino del Ligorio, 279 (cut). — Library, 195 (cut); cata- logue of, by the Assemani, 197; hope that it contained the Regesta Pontificum disappointed, 204. — Museum, 29, 286, 296, 297; the Pine Cone and Peacocks in, 286 (cut). Veii, 64, 148. Velabrum, 75, 108. Velia, 82. Venezia, palazzo di, the collection of Paul II., 14; its architecture, 16. Venus Genetrix, temple of, 84. Venus and Rome, temple of, 294. Verminus, altar to, 52 (cut). Verus, Ulpius, 141. Vespasian, Emperor, 6, 125, 140, 257; additions to the imperial palace, 125; forum of, Sö ; library of, 184. Vespignani, excavations in the Palace of the Caesars, 110. Vesta, shrine of, 115; restored by Severus Alexander, 159. – Temple of, 75, 155, 159 (cut); capital from, 160 (cut); its shape and appearance represented by the hut-urns, 136. – Worship of Westa, its origin, 135; established in Rome by Alban shepherds, 136. — Street of, 150. Vestales pontifices, 168. Vestals, qualifications of, 136; shown on a medallion of Julia Domna, 137 (cut); portrait of a Vestalis Maxima, 138 (he- liotype); inauguration, 137; term of service, 137; wealth, 138; privileges, 138; seats of honor reserved for, 139; right of driving in the streets, 139; owned a stable, 139; duties at state ceremonies, 140; secrets and documents entrusted to them, 140; intercession in behalf of criminals, 140; right of in- terment within the city, 141; only one tombstone has been found, 142; du- ties and obligations, 142; precautions against wrong-doing, 142; trial and execution of, 143; situation of the crypt in which they were immured, 145; sacred relics preserved by, 147; buried by them when the Gauls stormed Rome, 148; probably destroyed the shrine themselves, 150; last days of, 162, 168; statue raised to an abbess, from which the name has been erased, 170; possible conversion of a Vestal to Christianity, 171; their house at Alba- num, 171 ; the secession of an abbess referred to by Symmachus, 172; final suppression by Theodosius I., 175; de- stroyed the penetralia of the temple, 175. Vestals, house of, discovery in 1883–84, 134; plan of, 158 (cut); view looking east, 134 (heliotype); view looking west, 160 (heliotype); special interest of, 135; burned in 191 A. D., 147; violated by Helagabalus, 148; the foundations only of the shrine discovered, 149 (cut); plan and description, 150, 158; unin- jured on the suppression of the order, 176. Vestiplici, 131. Via Appia, 130, 264, 266, 268; Campana, 42, 212; Clodia, 268; Flaminia, 157, 268, 272; Labicana, 226; Lata, 166; Latina, 264, 277; Nomentana, 13, 153, 267; Nova, 150; Praenestina, 268; Sacra, 82, 110, 150. Vibidia, a Vestal, 140. Vicarello, Sorgenti di (mineral springs), INDEX. 329 rich store of antiquities found here in 1852, 46. Victor, Sex. Aurelius, quoted, 54, 249. Victor Augentius, Aurelius, senator, 167. Victor Emmanuel, King, excavations at Castel Porziano, 243. Victor Olympius, Nonius, senator, 167. Victory, temple of, 127; statue of, quar- rel concerning, between Christians and pagans, 163. Vigiles. See Police. Villa Publica, 96. Villas, ancient, general plan, 263; wealthy families owned several villas, 264, 265; their use, 265; their number, 266; shrines, 266; journey of a patrician family to their villa, 269; two distinct and independent portions of an ancient villa, 271; decay and destruction, 276; devastated by the Goths and Vandals, 277; frequency of family crypts and mausoleums, 281. — Of Clodius, 280; of Domitian, 279; of Hadrian, 263 (cut), 271 (cut); Hadrian's supposed palace on Mt. Etna, 275; of Livia, 272; of Nero, in the Apennines, 274 ; of Pompey, 280; of Quintilius Condianus and brother, 264; Trajan's hunting- lodge in the Apemmines, 275; of the Valerii and other families, 264. Willius, P., triumvir nocturnus, 221. Violets, 273. Vipsania, porticus, 95, 98. Virgil quoted, 232, 260. Virginius, 80. Visconti, Aless., on the remains discovered in the vicinity of Alba Longa, 29. Vitalianus, Pope, 294. Vitellius, Emperor, 140,214. Vitiges, 158, 293. Vito (S.), church of, 152. viºus on the construction of libraries, 181. Vivarium, monastery of, its library, 198. Volcanic action in early times, references to, in Livy, 32; religious ceremony to be performed on occasion of, 32. Volscian district, originally healthy, 50. Volterra, Daniele da, il Braghettone, 10. Vopiscus quoted, 91, 111, 301. Vortumnus, shrine of, 155. Votive offerings, found in the springs at Vicarello, 46; in the Tiber, 70. Warehouses, 248. Water supply, in the fifth century, 57; under the Empire, 58; in the country, 269; domestic supply, supervised by the praefectus vigilum, 223; how dis- tributed to private houses, 299. Window-gardening, 273. Windows, protected by railings, 208. Wine, Caecubus and Setinian, 240. Wine-sellers’ shops, 270. Wolf in the Lateran museum, 21 (cut), 285. Wool-carding practised by the women, Writing utensils, 181 (cut). Zacharias, Bishop of Mytilene, quoted, 284. a Zenobia, Queen, 300; bath-house of, 157. 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