s; I ^ 
 
 '^
 
 A 
 
 NOTICES OF 
 
 SOME EXISTING REMAINS OF 
 ANCIENT ROME, 
 
 COMPARED WITH THE ACCOUNT OF THEM IN" "ROME AND THE 
 
 CAMPAGNA," BY ROBERT BURN, M.A., Fellow and Tutor 
 
 OF Tbinitt College (Cambridge, 1871), 
 
 IN ANSWER TO 
 
 MR. BURN'S REMARKS ON MR. PARKER'S 
 STATEMENTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY PARKER, 
 
 HON. M. A. OXON, F.3.A. LOND., KEEPER OF THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, ETC 
 
 \Re\winicO from ihf Archaeological Journal.]
 
 ROME AND THE CAMPAGXA. By Robert Bdrn, M.A., Fellow and Tutor 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge. 4to. Cambridge, 1871. 
 
 Mr. Burn's book is a very valuable one of its kind, probably the best 
 of its class, and that class is a numerous one. There are many volumes of 
 the same class — that is a book made out of other books, relating to the 
 history and topograpliy of Ancient Rome. Mr. Burn has great advan- 
 tages ; no one can doubt liis scholai-ship : his work teems with learning, 
 and overflows with references to the })assages in the classical authors 
 relating to Rome. He is also well acquainted witli the modern languages, 
 and has made good use of the numerous modern French, Italian, and 
 German books on the subject that liave issued from the press dui'ing the 
 last fifty years. He has chiefly relied on Canina, who spent thirty years 
 and a large fortune on his great work, and produced imquestionably the 
 best worli. of his time on the subject. Mr. Burn has also been to Rome 
 himself more than once to verify what he had previously made out by 
 reading. He also shows that he is a good geologist, and brings that 
 knowledge practically to bear ; and he has in fact produced a valuable 
 book. But there is a great drawback from the value of Mr. Biu-n's work, 
 the author is not an archicologist, has not been in the habit of attending 
 Professor Willis's admirable lectures on Archteologv, or of following him in 
 his discoiu'ses to tlie Archajological Institute, in which he shows so well how 
 to ajiply tlie modern science of archaeology in practice. The consequences 
 of Mr. Burn having neglected this one most important sturly for his 
 pui'pose are serious. His book, with all its learning and real historical 
 value, is full of most extraordinary mistakes. He has forgotten that 
 since Canina, and Niljby, and Fea, and Niebuhr, and liunsen have written, 
 great discoveries have been made in Rome, and that the Inst ten years 
 have been yeai's of very rapid progress in the modern science of 
 Archaeology, and its application to Rome. 
 
 Mr. Burn ignores the im[)ortant proceedings of the British Archtcological 
 Society of Rome, and by so doing he has sadly marred his otherwise 
 valuable woi'k. The opening passage of his book is a case in point. He 
 says, " In tlie Aventine Hill, under the Monastery of S. Saba, there 
 is a vast subterranean quarry, from which carts may often be seen at 
 the present day carrying blocks of a reddish-brown stone to the various 
 quarters of Rome, wherever new buildings hap|)en to be in the course 
 of erection. The stone obtained from this quarry is the harder kind 
 of tufa, of which a great part of the hills of Rome consist. It naturally 
 became the building-stone used by the first founders of Rome, and is 
 found in all the most ancient fragments of masonry which still remain. 
 In many jjlaces, as on the clifts of the Alban Lake, and the sides of
 
 4 QUARRY UNDER S. SABBA. 
 
 the many hillocks up in the Carapagna, this stone may bo seen, pi'esent- 
 ing, when partially decayed, a very considerable likeness to a wall 
 of horizontal layers of stone. When quarried, it naturally breaks into 
 rectangular blocks, and suggests of itself that mode of building which 
 we find actually to exist in the earliest efforts of Roman builders." 
 
 In this passage, which is in many respects excellent, it is clearly im- 
 plied that the large blocks of tufa that were used in the walls of the 
 Kings of Rome (and in their time everywhere iu the Pi'iniitive Fortifica- 
 tions of that early period) may have been brought out from this particular 
 quarry under S. Sabba in the Aventine. It so happens that this par- 
 ticular quai'ry has been explored and examined many times by the Roman 
 Society, and hundreds of its members have seen that this quarry has 
 been made out of the tunnel or species of the Aqua Appia, which passed 
 through this part of the Aventine on its way from the Porta Capena to 
 the Poi-ta Trigemina, or rather to the cave of Faunus, near to it, which 
 was xised as the final reservoir at the mouth of this earliest aqueduct, 
 on the bank of the Tiber. It must have passed this spot, it could not 
 have gone from one part to the other in any different manner. The specus 
 was as usual six feet high, and two feet wide only, just sufficient for a 
 man to stand and cut away one side of it, to make it wide enough for a 
 horse and cart to pass, and this is what has evidently been done. The 
 wells that descended into the specus remain at regular intervals, with the 
 holes for a man's foot, to enable him to go up and down to clear it out 
 when necessary. Within this quarry part of the specus remains perfect, 
 half filled up with the deposit of clay left by the water, and we have 
 often seen a boy sent along it with a light until he was oliliged to return 
 for want of air. 
 
 It is evident that as this quarry was made out of the tunnel of an aque- 
 duct, and this could not have been done until after that aqueduct was out 
 of use, consequently not before the Middle Ages, and probably long after 
 that period. Again, the size of the stones brought out of this quarry is 
 very different from those used in the walls of the Kings' ; we have seen 
 scores of cart-loads of stones brought out of this quarry, but never saw a 
 block of stone larger than a man's head ; it is obtained by blasting, and is 
 the stone commonly used for rubble-wjdling and for macadam roads. The 
 stones used in the wall of Romulus ai'e four feet long, two feet wide, and 
 two feet thick ; those of the later kings are rather smaller ; they become 
 gradually smaller as the}^ are later in date (as a general rule, though not 
 an invariable one). Tliose on the Aventine mider S. Prisca, just opposite 
 to this quarry, are not of the same quality, nor of the same size, as the 
 stones tliat come from it ; they are nearly as large as those of the wall of 
 Romulus. This wall against the cliff" of the Aventine is fifty feet high and 
 twelve feet thick, and the quarry that supplied that stone must have 
 been of considerable extent. Part of it probably was obtained from the 
 Aventine, but from another quarry, not now in use, under S. Prisca, in 
 the same large viuej-ard of the Jesuits, or of Prince Torlonia, in which 
 the wall is situated ; but it was only a small part of the stone that 
 came from the Aventine, that part which is of a pinkish hue. It is 
 probal)le that the greater ])art of the stone used for the enormous walls 
 of the Kings came from the ancient quarries now called the " caves of 
 Cervai-o," on the bank of the river Anio, about six miles from Rome, and 
 was floated down the river on rafts. Part of it was likely to be dug out
 
 WALLS OF THE KINGS. 5 
 
 of the hills of Rome, especially in the time of Romulus. In making the 
 great fosses or trenches around the Palatine, and especially the great 
 trench across the middle of that hill, on the southern side of his Arx or 
 citadel, a great quantity of tufa must have been cut out. 
 
 In Mr. Burn's second paragraph we read — 
 
 " The most interesting of such primiieval relics is a fragment of wall 
 which skirts the west end of the Palatine Hill, and is assigned by Mr. 
 Braun to the earliest enclosure of that hill, the so-called Roma Quad- 
 rata of Dionysius. The blocks in tliis wall are arranged in layers placed 
 alternately parallel to, and across the line of, the wall (headers and 
 stretchers), so as to bind tlie mass together firmly. No mortar is used, 
 and the joints are fitted so accurately as to show a more considerable 
 knowledge of the art of masonry than we should expect at so early a 
 period. It seems on this account questionable whether the usually re- 
 ceived opinion as to the antiquity of this wall can be correct, and the 
 fragments of the wall of Servius Tullius (b.c. 578 — .535), found on the 
 sides of the Aventine and the Quirinal Hills, are perhaps more deserving 
 of attention as undoubtedly ancient works. In these fragments of the 
 Servian wall the art of building appears in a more imperfect state than 
 in that on the Palatine. The vertical joints are not so carefully arranged, 
 and are often allowed to stand immediately one over the other, so as to 
 impair the solidity of the masonry. The stones are placed close against 
 the sides of the hill, and in some places the lowest layers of them are im- 
 bedded in the natural rock." 
 
 This paragraph contains several mis-statements. Mr. Burn must have 
 been singularly unfortunate in the portion of the wall of Romulus that was 
 shown to him; it must have been one of the pieces that have been rebuilt 
 with the old materials at a later jjcriod. In the original parts that have not 
 been distiu-bed, so far from the "joints being closely fitted together," there 
 is sometimes room enough between the stones for a man to put in his 
 hand and ai'm ; and we have frequently seen a stout walking-stick inserted. 
 The construction is as rude as it well could be. The size of the blocks 
 of tufa has been already mentioned : they are split off the beds with 
 wedges only, and are not cut with any iron tool ; the construction is ex- 
 actly the same as that of the walls of Fiesoli, Volterra, Perugia, and other 
 Etruscan cities of the same early period, where similar building ma- 
 terial is found. The construction of a wall is necessarily governed to a 
 great extent by the nature of the stone of which it is built. AVhat is 
 often called Cyclopean masonry is generally caused by the geological 
 character of the stone, which naturally s[ilits into large blocks, very con- 
 venient for building the great walls of a fortification. Of the walls of 
 Romulus we have remaining some portions on each of three sides of his 
 Arx, which was an oblong fortification, consisting of the northern end of 
 the Palatine Hill : 1. against the north clifl:', near the western corner, a 
 piece of several yards long, in a genuine unaltered state ; 2. tlie 
 foundations of a series of towers at regular intervals, nearly all along 
 from the west end to the east of this northern clifi", opposite to the 
 Capitol, the most important point to be defended against the Sabines ; 
 3. a reservoir for rain water, which appears to be of the same j)eriod. 
 This is near the south-west corner, and behind the most perfect part of 
 the wall. There are conduits or tunnels to bring the water into this 
 great reservoir from various parts of the hill. This reservoir has been
 
 6 WALL OF SERVIUS TULLIUS. 
 
 recently restored by Siguor Rosa (who, for a Director of Archtcological 
 Investigations, is much too fond of restoration). In this reservoir are 
 several wells of a peculiar form — a hollow coue with the wide mouth 
 downwards. There is a similar reservoir for rain-water under the corner 
 of the Arx of Alba Longa (miscalled a prison), in which are also wells 
 of the same peculiar form, and these two places are the only two where 
 this form has been found in that part of Italy. Of the towers nothing 
 more than the foundations remain, and as these have been built upon in 
 the time of the Republic and early Empire, it seems that the fortifica- 
 tions of Romulus in this part had never been completed. 4. We have 
 portions of this wall again, on the cliff near tiie ch\irch of S. Anastasia, 
 at the north-west end of the Arx of Romulus, and behind this are the 
 remains of one of the earliest temples in Rome, with a grand flight of 
 steps leading up to it from the west, all of the character of the time of 
 Romulus. 5. On both sides of the great trench, or fosse, before men- 
 tioned, across the hill from east to west on the south side of the Arx, 
 parts of the tufa walls have been brought to light by the recent excava- 
 tions of Signor Rosa, who calls this great piece of ancient military engi- 
 neering, a natural Inter-viontium ! 
 
 We may, however, now turn to the great wall of Servius TuUius, 
 which, to the eyes of Mr, Burn, a] ipears " more imi)erfect " than that of 
 Romulus. By the way, the wall of Servius Tullius is not on the 
 Quirinal nor on the Aventiue. The great agger faced by his wall was 
 carried for a mile along the eastern side of Rome, on the high ground, 
 and does not properly belong to any of the hills, or rather pi'omontories, 
 on that side. Each of the seven hills was originally a separate fortress ; 
 each formed one of the seven arces of Virgil, and remains of the tufa 
 wall against the cliffs have now been found on each of the seven hills. 
 Servius Tullius connected these seven distinct fortresses into one city, by 
 making his great agger on the east side, where there could be no clifls 
 to scarp and support by walls, and by building short aggeres across the 
 valleys from one cliff to the other, with a gate in each of these short 
 connecting links. That pai-t of the wall of Servius Tullius, respecting 
 which there can be no doubt, his great eastern agger, is built in a very 
 superior manner to the walls of the time of Romulus; the stones are 
 well cut and closely fitted, and are bound together by i7'on clamps, 
 showing a considerable advance in civilization, as might be expected in 
 two hundred years. A portion of this wall was pxdled to pieces in 1870, 
 to make room for an enlargement of the railway station. The work of 
 destruction was carefully watched by many persons, and several of the 
 iron clamps that were taken out of the stones in the middle of the 
 wall were purchased at once on the spot by English visitors ; amongst 
 others, by Mr. Parker, of Oxford, who carried some of them to the 
 Ashmolean Museum, where they may now be seen. Others remain in 
 Rome. Mr. Burn's plan of the agger of Servius Tullius (which he calls 
 the Servian wall) is very incorrect, or rather incomplete ; he evidently 
 does not understand ancient earthworks, and yet the original fortifi- 
 cations of Rome must have been mainly earthworks, as those of all 
 other cities of the same period were. The walls are merely facings of 
 the earthworks. He does not see that this agger, or bank, turns at a 
 sharp angle at each end, to connect it with tlie cliffs of the Quirinal at 
 the north and the Esquiline at tlie south; and at the angle at each end
 
 rOKTA TRIGEMINA. 7 
 
 is a great earthen mound, or round tower, to protect the approach to a 
 gate. Mr. Burn's plans are almost entirely copied from Canina ; and he 
 takes no notice of the many discoveries made in the numerous excava- 
 tions of the last five years. In accordance with the views of the scep- 
 tical school, to which he evidently belongs, Mr. Burn doubts about many 
 things tliat appear to us natural and obviously true. He does not believe 
 that the foundations of a wooden bridge on the Tiber, under the Aveu- 
 tine, are those of the Sublician bridge, nor that the Porta I'rigemina was 
 also in this narrow strip of ground under the Aventine, close to the foot of 
 this bridge ; yet this is the obvious place where any military engineer 
 would have put those structures, and a long-established tradition should 
 not be lightly set aside when the existing remains appear to bear it out, 
 as in this case. The remains of the short ayiier are clearly visible at 
 the south end of the Sahiria, or salt wharf, which is, and always was, 
 just within the Porta Trigemina; but Mr. Burn puts his Porta Trige- 
 mina in the Forum Boarium, a quarter of a mile to the north of the 
 real site. His plan of the Palatine is only a reproduction of Signor 
 Ptosa's plan, and he omits altogether the important discoveries made by 
 the excavations of the Pontifical Government, under Visconti, in 1869 
 and 1870, in the southern part of the hill, which he leaves nearly 
 blank. 
 
 The illustrations of Mr. Burn's book are admix-able in their way ; they 
 are a series of the excellent woodcuts of the Jewitt family taken from 
 photographs, which have been used as original sketches to make drawings 
 from, and not merely reproduced literally. The exact and minute 
 accuracy of the photograph is thereby lost, and in some cases, such as 
 the construction of walls, this is a serious loss ; no drawing ever shows 
 the mode of construction like a photograph, and for historical purposes 
 this is often very important. Many of these woodcuts are evidently 
 taken from Mr. Parker's series, with which most of the recent visitors to 
 Rome are familiar. In some instances, Mr. Burn himsolf does not seem to 
 understand the drawings or their object, and it would appear that some- 
 one else had supplied these illustrations, which may or may not fit the 
 text. The bridges of the aqueduct, of which one is given (p. 11) near 
 Tivoli, are not merely " picturesque objects," but are important for 
 historical purposes also. The great wall against the cliff of the Aventine 
 (p. 50) is not one of " the Servian walls," as Mr. Burn calls it. The 
 Porta Salaria (p. 60) is one of "the things that have been ;" it is now 
 entirely destroyed, and should not appear as one of the existing gates of 
 Rome. The arch of Honorius, within the Porta di S. Lorenzo (p. 6;)), 
 has also been destroyed. In the drawing of the Porta S. Giovanni 
 (p. 06), the modern embrasure for caanon, erected by the Pontifical 
 soldiers to defend themselves against the Garibaldians, forms so con- 
 spicuous a part of the picture that it should have been explained. This 
 view also shows the Porta Asinaria, and it is curious to see Mr. Burn 
 stating on the oi)posite page that "this old gate is unfortunately hidden 
 by some buildings in front of it." As it has always formed part of the wall 
 of Aurelian, it never could have had "buildings in front of it." The 
 view is correct as it was seen two ycai's ago ; the cml)rasurcs have now 
 been removed, and the aspect is thereby entirely altered. The blocks of 
 marble in tlic Marmorata (shown in p. Ii08) are now entirely hidden again 
 by the mud left in the late flood.
 
 8 PORTA ARDEATINA. 
 
 Most of the subjects in Mr. Burn's plates are what are usually called 
 the "hack subjects" in Rome, familiar to all those who know Home and 
 the usual photographs of it. The few that are novel are taken from 
 Mr. I'arker's series. There are many points on which we sliould not 
 agree with Mr. Burn's conclusions, as we believe that the more the 
 existing remains are brought to light, the more fully they are found to 
 support the general truth of tlie traditional history of Rome as recorded 
 by Livy, followed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 
 
 The excavations of 1871 have not yet been recorded, and are probably 
 the most important that have ever been made in the same s})ace of time. 
 
 We proceed now to notice a few more of the points on which Mr. Burn 
 has expressed an opinion differing from tliose who have followed the 
 researches of the Archaeological Society in Rome. 
 
 Mr. Burn, p. 69, n. 1. — "The Porta Ardeatina. — Nibby, Mura di 
 Roma, p. 201 ; Festus, p. 282. Nibby thinks that this gate was built in 
 the tenth century, but Mr. J. H. Parker refers it to the time of Trajan. 
 (Parker's Lecture before the Society of Archaeology at Rome, p. 18.)" 
 
 From this note it appears that Mr. Burn cannot distinguish between 
 the construction of a wall and gateway of the first century and one of the 
 tenth. This appears to us very extraordinary, for they are most essentially 
 different. The brickwork of the time of Nero, and from tliat to the time 
 of Trajan, is the finest brickwork in the world. The construction of the 
 tenth century is about the worst. That of this gateway, shown in one of 
 Mr. Parker's photographs, is unquestionably of the first century of the 
 Christian era, as we have stated, and such was also the opinion of Nibby ; 
 the mistake is that of his engraver only, who by some accident or some 
 piece of ignorance has put in an where Nibby never wrote one, and 
 has made 1 into 10. In the text, Nibby says, plainly enough, that the 
 gateway is of the first century ; and this fact is a very important one, as 
 it proves that the outer boundary of Rome was then in the same line as 
 the wall of Aurelian in the third, so that if there was not a murns in the 
 technical sense, there was an outer line of defence of some kind to which 
 this gate belonged ; and this is contrary to the theory of the modern 
 antiquaries, who usually make the wall of Servius TuUius, which was 
 the boundary of thk city proper, the only boundary of Rome until 
 the time of Aurelian. 
 
 Mr. Burn, p. 129, n. (4). — "These walls" (called by Canina, followed 
 by Mr. Burn, the Forum of Julius Ceesar) " have been lately assigned by 
 Mr. Parker to the dungeons of the Career Mamertinus, and to the wall 
 of Servius TuUius. But there is not sufficient proof of this to justify an 
 abandonment of the usual opinion about them." 
 
 These arches of ti'avertiue of the time of Tiberius no doubt belong 
 to that part of the great prison that was rebuilt in his time, as recorded 
 upon an inscription at the entrance to the vestibule under the Church 
 of the Crucifixion, usually called the " Prison of S. Peter." But these 
 arches of travertine rest upon tufa walls of much earlier character, of 
 the time of Servius Tullius. These are the walls of a series of large 
 subterranean chambers, now cellars under houses, which can hardly be 
 anything else than that part of the great prison which was called the 
 Lautumke,^ as described by Mr. Burn himself. The subterranean passage 
 
 * Liv. xxvi. 27; x.\xii. 26; xxxvii. 3; xxxix. 44.
 
 THE MARBLE PLAN OF ROME. 9 
 
 from the vestibule had been excavated to the length of thirty yards, 
 and the workmen had come to within six yards of the cellars at the 
 end of last April, and this appears to us conclusive. 
 
 Mr. Burn, p. 156, n. (-1). — " The grotto of the Lupcrcal has lately, it 
 is supposed, been discovered near the Church of S. Anastasia. It is, 
 however, possible that the i-eservoir of an aqueduct may have been 
 mistaken for it. See the Athemeion newspaper. No. 2,068, June 15, 1667." 
 
 This coujectm-e of Mr. Burn is of no value whatever; the grotto or 
 cave called the Lupereal is at too great a depth for any of the aqueducts. 
 The water gushes out from the rock under the north-west corner of the 
 Palatine into the grotto exactly as described by ancient authors. The 
 situation of it also, just on the edge of the Cii-cus Maximus, agrees per- 
 fectly with the spot where the Lupereal must have been. 
 
 At p. 199, Mr. Burn says: — "It is to be observed that Pauvinius 
 speaks of the plan as found near the church, — Garrucci in the church, 
 and Vacca behind the church on a wall. Jordan thinks that the plan 
 was lying about near the place where the church was to be built, in frag- 
 ments, the most considerable of which were used to cover part of the 
 walls when the church was built." And he continues (p. I'OO) :— " Two 
 fragments of the Piauta Capitolina were discovered in 1867, during an 
 excavation undertaken by the monks of SS. Cosmo e Damiano. They 
 represent the gi'ound plan of the Portions Livire, an oblong space sur- 
 rounded by double colonnades. Mr. J. H. Parker {Arclueologia of the 
 London Society of Antiquaries, vol. xlii. pt. i. p. 11) seeks to identify this 
 ground plan with the great platform between the Velia and Coliseum, 
 commonly supposed to be the platform of the Temple of Venus and 
 Piome. It is, however, quite a sufficient refutation of his view to point 
 out that the remains of the central building now existing on the platform 
 differ entirely from the plan represented on the new fragments. It is 
 stated that the new fragments were discovered in a pit dug in a court- 
 yard behind the church and monastery of SS. Cosmo e Damiano, at the 
 foot of a long, lofty wall of brick, on which numerous small bronze hooks, 
 such as were used for securing a facing of marble slabs, were found. 
 These hooks do not necessarily indicate, as Mr. Parker thinks, that the 
 marble plan of Piome was attached to the wall by means of them, for 
 such hooks or rivets were frequently used to attach ordinary marble 
 facing to brick walls." 
 
 Mr. Bui-n overlooks some material facts in this case. The marble plan 
 of Rome was made in the third century, in the time of the Emperor 
 Severus, as is stated in an inscription to that eflect upon one of the 
 marble plates." " The central building on the platform " was erected 
 thirty years afterwards, in the time of Maxentius, as was pi'oved by 
 his brick stamps found in the walls by Nibby; this construction of a 
 later time, therefore, could not be represented on the marble plan. 
 Mr. Burn in his index refers to the Portions Livise as identical with 
 the iVirticus Octaviaj. They are quite distinct : we have plans of both 
 of them, with their names engraved on two of the fragments of the 
 marble plan of Rome. 
 
 All the fragments of this marble plan have been found in the same 
 place, at the foot of a lofty wall faced with brick of the time of Severus, 
 
 ' See Card. Maii Spicilegium Romauum, voL vii. p. 654.
 
 10 THE MAllMORATA. 
 
 in which arc rows of metal hooks snapped off; these were evidently for 
 the purpose of fixing a marble facing to the wall, and this plan is engraved 
 on such a marble facing. It has never been trodden upon, the lines are 
 quite fi-esh; but the slabs are broken into fragments. In front of this 
 v,'ii]\ lies a great mass of one corner of the Basilica of Constantino, which 
 had fallen from the top in an earthquake, and has the upper part of a 
 corkscrew staircase in it, now lying upside down on the pavement, but 
 buried again. It appears quite probable that such a mass of stone as 
 this would fall through tlie roof of the Portico on to the pavement, and 
 that the jar would cause the marble slabs to vibrate violently, snap off the 
 hooks that held them up, and so cause them to fall and break to pieces in 
 falling on the ])avement. Those authors who were living at the time •' 
 when tlie other fragments were found, in the sixteenth century, describe 
 this as the situation where these were also found. 
 
 " It is well known (says Mr. Burn, p. 224) to all Roman archseologists of 
 any experience that the 'reticulated work' is not found after the time 
 of Hadrian, or about a.d. 120. It is, therefore, probable that these 
 quays were made or rebuilt at that time, or towards the end of tlie first 
 centuxy of the Cliristiau era. It is ])robable, however, that they con- 
 tinued in use for two or three centuries, and that the blocks, neglected or 
 left tiiere so long in oblivion, were placed there in the third century, 
 when such enormous quantities of marble were imported into Rome that 
 they could not at once find employment for it. Further excavations, 
 made after Mr. Parker wrote, showed that these great quays extended 
 tlie whole length of the Port of Rome, or for about half a mile, and that 
 the quay now in use for the same purpose, and always called ' The Mar- 
 morata,' was the upper part of the same series of quays. These were, 
 however, not used for landing marble only, but also for wine and other 
 things, as shown by the sculpture of an amphora on one of the walls, to 
 indicate the place for landing such things on their way to the great ware- 
 houses above, called 'the Emporium.' " 
 
 " The ruins of the Emporium consist of a large quadi'angle, open on the 
 side towartls the river, and occupied on the other three sides with ware- 
 houses. Several of the quays in connection with this building have been 
 lately (18G8) excavated, and a vast number of valuable marble blocks of 
 great size exhumed from the silt with which the river had covered them. 
 These quays are mainly of brick, the walls against the clitf faced with 
 opits reticidatum. Mr. Parker thinks that the reticulated work is of the 
 first century. He considers that the newly excavated quaj's were 
 intended to replace some older ones, then found to be placed at too low 
 a level, and consequently abandoned. But why were the marble blocks 
 left thci'e 1 It seems more probable that they were neglected, and 
 gradually silted up by successive floods dm-ing some continued period of 
 great political and social distress." 
 
 These quays extend all down the lower part of the Port of Rome on 
 its eastern bank, under the Emporium. There is reason to believe that 
 there were similiu- quays on the western bank opposite to these, at that 
 part of the river now called the Ripa (irande, and that they extended as 
 far up the river as the large stone corbels with holes through them for 
 poles ; these corbels are carved into the form of lions' heads of such early 
 
 ^ See Flaminio Vacca, Meniorie, apud Fea, Tiliscellanca, vol. i. No. 1.
 
 SPE, Sl'ES, Oil SPEC US 1 1 1 
 
 character, as to indicate their being of the time when the Port of Rome 
 was made, d.c. 180 (Livii, Hist. xi. 51). The upper part of the Port 
 of Rome in the Tibei* is now called Porta Leoni. The Em})orinm was 
 paved a few years afterwards (Livii Hist. xii. 27). The construction of 
 the walls on the quays and against the bank in the lower part is of 
 the time of Trajan or Hadrian, and therefore shows a rebuilding of 
 that period. Opus Reticulatum is not found later than the time of 
 Hadrian. There are similar large corbels for poles in the lower part of 
 the Port under the Emporium, oidy left square not carved, evidently of 
 later date. They are supposed to have been for the purpose of fastening- 
 chains across the river both at the upper and lower end of the Port, or 
 they may have been only for fastening vessels to in the rapid stream. 
 These quays continued in use for a very long period, and there is 
 reason to believe that the numerous large blocks of marble found there 
 were brought to Rome as tribute from colonies in the third and fourth 
 centuries. Small portions of these extensive quays are still in use for 
 landing marble and salt, but these parts are entirely modernised. 
 
 The Coliseum (Mr. Burn says, p. 2."36, in a note). — " The holes which are 
 so conspicuous in the travertine blocks of the exterior were probably made 
 in the Middle Ages for the purpose of extracting the iron clamps by 
 which the stones were fastened together. Another opinion is that they 
 were the holes in which the beams of the buildings which clustered round 
 the Coliseum in the Middle Ages were fixed. See the treatise of 
 Suaresius " De Foraminibus Lapidum," in Sallengre's Thesaurus, vol i., 
 p. 313." 
 
 The general opinion mm.' is that these holes were caused by the rusting 
 of the iron clamps vrith which the stones had been fastened together. 
 This rust splits stone and causes the iron to fall out by a natural 
 process not requiring any violence. The holes are always at the edge 
 of the stones, just where clamps would come of the same simple form 
 as those used in the wall of Servius Tullius. This appears to have 
 been a common practice of the Roman builders for some centuries, when 
 the nature of the stone or other cii'cumstances seemed to call for such a 
 precaution. They also occur in the interior, and under the vaults, in 
 places where no buildings could have been erected against them, nor are 
 they large enough to receive beams. 
 
 Mr. Burn, p. 219. " Frontin. de Aquied., §§5, 20, 21, 60. Mr. J. 
 H. Parker, Ardia'ologia, vol. xlii., pt. 1., p. 11, thinks that we should 
 I'cad in all the four passages of Frontinus specmn for spei7i. The accus. 
 specum occurs in Suet. Nero. 48, and specus is fern, in Front. 17. But it 
 seems impossible that spem could have been employed as an abbreviation 
 for specum in the MS." 
 
 (P. 227.) "Frontin. de Ag. ID, 20; Plin. Ep. vii. 29. Mr. Parker's 
 conjecture that Pallantiani Palatini can hardly be admitted as possible. 
 Arcli. Journ. xxiv. p. 345. From Frontin. 19, 20, 21, and 5, Go, it seems 
 to follow that Spes Vetus was the name of the district near the Porta 
 Maggiore, where tlie Neronian arches of the Aqua Claudia leave the main 
 aqueduct. Dionysius, ix. 24, mentions a Ifpov 'EXnlSus there. J. H. Pai-ker, 
 Archyeol. Journ. xxiv. p. 345, thinks that xpes means specus." 
 
 The word specus is a local technical word for the tunnel conduit of an 
 aqueduct, ncjt used out of Pome, or in immediate connection with Rome. 
 Tlic word was not to be found in that sense in anv Latin dictiuuiirv initil
 
 12 SPE, SPES, OR SPECUS? 
 
 iiuite recently ; it was equally uuknown to the original transcribers of 
 Frontinus, who filled up the abbreviation " spe " with " spem," instead of 
 " specum." Mr. Parker printed and distributed in Rome last season a 
 brochure containing all the passages in Frontinus in which the word 
 occurs, and facsimiles of the best manuscript of the author, that of 
 Monte Casino. He has shown clearly that in every instance specus makes 
 good sense of each passage in an obvious natural meaning. " Spes " 
 generally requires a very forced and unnatural intei*pretation, not in any 
 degree borne out by the facts.
 
 PREFACE TO YOL. X. OF THE JOURNAL. 
 
 (Beprinted.) 
 
 f MHE Tenth Volume of the Journal of the Transactions of 
 the YiCTORiA Institute is now issued ; and the best 
 thanks of the Members and Associates are due to the writers 
 of the Papers it contains. 
 
 It is satisfactory to find the undiminished interest taken in 
 the welfare of the Society by those who^ at home and abroad, 
 become its Members and Associates ;* for with them rests, in 
 no small degree, the future of the Victoria Institute and the 
 accomplishment of its objects. 
 
 The Institute has ever urged the value of accurate inquiry, 
 rather than conjecture, in the work of elucidating scientific 
 
 * Let me offer ray congratulations to the Society on its present position 
 and prospects, and on the increasing consideration and respect with which 
 its operations are regarded by men capable of judging. It has attracted to 
 itself representatives in the various departments of science, well capable 
 of defending the faith from the attacks of scientific scepticism, and standing 
 so high in their several departments of science or literature, that their 
 opinions must be received with attention and respect. No one also could, 
 I conceive, deny that the philosophical character of the Society has been 
 most severely maintained in all its papers and discussions, and that every 
 theory opposed to the belief of the ordinary Christian philosopher has 
 been treated with the most scrupulous fairness and respect. Personalities 
 have been altogether avoided, and an example has been set of the proper 
 way of conducting such controversies, which will, we may presume, have 
 considerable influence for the avoiding of bitterne?s and unfairness for the 
 future. {Badcliffe Observer's Address, 1875.)
 
 11 PREFACE. 
 
 truth. And iu connection with this remark allusion may 
 
 liere be made to one or two of the many recent researches in 
 
 l^hysical Science. In a work just published,* Professor 
 
 P. G. Tait speaks of '^the Law of the Dissipation of Energy, 
 
 discovered by Sir W. Thomson,^^ and adds that the Uni- 
 
 formitarian theories of geologistsf are inconsistent thei'ewith : 
 
 " It enables us distinctly to say, that the present order of things has not 
 been evolved through infinite past linie by the agency of laws now at work, 
 but nuist have had a distinct beginning — a state beyond which we are 
 totally unable to penetrate, a state which must have been produced by 
 other than the now (visibly) acting causes." 
 
 And, arguing from our present knowledge of radiation, 
 
 against the claims of 
 
 " Lyell and others, especially of Darwin, who tell us that even for a com- 
 paratively brief portion of recent geological history three hundred millions 
 of years will not suffice," 
 
 Professor Tait quotes Sir W. Tliompsou's three lines of 
 
 argument, and urges 
 
 " Ten million years as the utmost we can give to geologists for their 
 speculations as to the history even of the lowest orders of fossils " and " for 
 all the changes that have taken place on the earth's surface since vegetable 
 life of the lowest known form was capable of existing there." 
 
 Of course, it remains to be seen how far future researches 
 may induce others to modify the above statements. An 
 example of the change in our conceptions of Nature resulting 
 from recent investigations, is afforded by the fact that whilst 
 the use of improved telescopes was considered to have resolved 
 some of the nebulge into multitudes of stars, spectrum analysis 
 now shows them to be, wholly or in part, masses of glowing 
 or incandescent gas. These remarks can scarcely be concluded 
 without a reference to the researches into vvliat Professor 
 
 * Recent Researches in Physical Science. 2nd Edition, 187C. 
 
 t They are " totally inconsistent with modern pliysical knowledge as to 
 the dissipation of energy." — Hid., lecture VII. 
 
 Ufuc •■
 
 PREFACli:. Ill 
 
 Lionel Beale, F.R.S., lias called '^tlie Mystery of Life '^ 
 
 upon whieli Professor G. G, Stokes^ F.R.S., no mean 
 
 authority among scientific men (see Nature, No. 298), 
 
 recently remarked [in his Address as President of the British 
 
 Association in 1872) : — 
 
 " What this something, which we call Life, may be, is a profound uiystery. 
 We know not how many links in the chain of secondary causation may yet 
 remain behind ; we know not how few. It would be presumptuous indeed 
 to assun)e in any case that we had already reached the last link, and to 
 charge with irreverence a fellow-worker who attempted to push his investi- 
 gations yet one step further back. On the other hand, if a thick darkness 
 enshrouds all beyond, we have no right to assume it to be impossible that 
 we should have reached even the last link of the chain, a stage where 
 further progress is unattainable ; and we can only refer the highest law at 
 which we stopped to the fiat of an Almighty Power. To assume the 
 contrary as a matter of necessity, is practically to remove the First Cause of 
 All to an infinite distance from us. The boundary, however, between what 
 is clearly known and what is veiled in impenetrable darkness is not ordi- 
 narily thus sharply defined. Between the two there lies a misty region, in 
 which loom the ill-discerned forms of links of the chain which are yet 
 beyond us : but the general principle is not afi"ected thereby. Let us fear- 
 lesslj' trace the dependence of link on link as far as it may be given us to 
 trace it, but let us take heed that in thus studying second causes we forget 
 not the First Cause, nor shut our eyes to the wonderful proofs of design 
 which, in the study of organized beings especially, meet us at every turn. " 
 
 F. PETRIE, 
 
 Hon. Sec. and Editor. 
 December 30. 1876.
 
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