Part 10

There are, properly speaking, only two streets in ancient Rome, which are known as such, namely, the _Via Sacra_ and the _Subura_. The former began at the ridge, which extended from the Palatine to the Esquiliae, and was called _Velia_, known as the place where the house of P. Valerius Poplicola stood; from this Velia it ran across the Forum, and on the other side of the Palatine, the form of which is almost square, it turned towards the boundary line between the Roman and the Sabine town. We know from Varro, that in the language of ordinary life only the first part of the street, namely, that on the Velia, bore the name of Via Sacra. The buildings by which it was lined were by no means splendid; the houses which have been dug out are very small, and no person of rank lived there; but, at the same time, it was the street through which the processions passed, and there were a great many statues in it. The street, as I said before, began at the height; it passed between the temples of Venus and Peace, and had several triumphal arches. At the point where it touched the Forum there stood the _fornix Fabianus_. It is possible that it may have been the custom, even in early times, to make temporary arches of foliage on the occasion of a triumphal procession; but the first arch made of stone was that for the triumph of Q. Fabius Allobrogicus. The arches still existing are those of Titus, Septimius Severus, and that of Constantine, which is entirely composed of stolen basreliefs; but there were many more, as, for example, two of Trajan, one of Valentinian and another of Gratian. They stood in the street of the Ponte St. Angelo, and existed as late as the middle ages; their inscriptions are preserved in copies.

The _Subura_ is still called by the same name. Nardini is quite mistaken in his assertion, that the ancient Subura was situated in a different locality, near the Lateran; no man in his senses can admit this, for it is opposed to all our evidence. We even have the express testimony of Varro, that its site is identical with that of the present Subura, that is, in the plain north of the Esquiliae, whence it had the advantage of being completely built on both sides. In it stood the house of Caesar, and in the times of the republic the aristocracy generally lived there and in the Carinae on the Esquiline. Afterwards, in the time of emperors, a change took place in this respect, and every one removed to the new quarters, whence, in the days of Juvenal and Martial, the Subura was inhabited only by the lowest classes; at present, too, it is the abode of poverty. The _Carinae_ were a quarter rather than a single street, in the district of S. Pietro in Vincola. After the great fire, Nero built a palace (not the golden house) there; and not far from it was the palace of Titus and the thermae of Trajan.

The Quirinal had no remarkable buildings; at a later period Aurelian erected there the temple of the Sun, the most gigantic building in all Rome, of which vast ruins still exist in the garden of the Colonna family. At that time there was a taste for everything gigantic, because architects were no longer able to produce the beautiful. The _Viminal_, too, contained nothing worth noticing. The Carinae, as I have already remarked, were on the _Esquiline_. Within the walls of Servius Tullius, I know of no particularly remarkable edifice belonging to the early period, though it contained a large number of small temples. The same must be said of the _Caelius_ in its narrower sense; only one arch still exists there; in the middle ages it contained many buildings.

On the rugged side of the _Aventine_, towards the river, stood the temple of Diana, which, according to tradition, Servius Tullius had built as a point of union for the Romans and Latins, and in which the table containing the ancient treaty was preserved. On the same hill there existed the thermae of Decius and a number of other buildings. I have already observed, that the Porta Trigemina was on the Aventine towards the river. On the side of the Palatine towards the Aventine there was a flight of marble steps, called the _Scala Caci_; one tradition assigned it to the Palatine, and another to the Aventine, a discrepancy which probably arose from the opposition between the inhabitants of the two hills.

Having thus rapidly passed over the hills, I shall now proceed further. A _suburb_ was first formed between the Palatine, Aventine, and Esquiline on the one side, and the Tiber on the other. I have already mentioned as a part of it the _Forum olitorium_, which was at the same time a fish-market, and still exists unchanged. The suburb became a thickly inhabited district, and in it Augustus built the theatre of Marcellus and the great portico of his sister Octavia.

Another suburb extended along the Tiber as far as Ponte Sisto at the great reach of the river, where the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus was situated; it occupied the whole side of the river, which in our maps is erroneously called Campus Martius. We generally imagine that this Campus was the only one the Romans had; but this is a mistake, for Campi also existed in front of other hills and gates; and like the great Campus, they were gradually covered with houses, though they were neither as extensive nor as important as the Campus Martius. One of them was the _Campus Esquilinus_, in the plain before the Esquiline beyond the agger, and the _Campus Caelimontanus_ at the foot of the Caelius (now the palace of the Lateran) was another. These two Campi are as clear as possible, and are frequently mentioned; their destination was the same as that of the Campus Martius, and when in consequence of inundations the games could not be held in the latter, they were transferred to the Caelimontanus or the Esquilinus. Both these Campi were national property. Ever since the time of Augustus, houses were built in the Campus Martius. It contained the well known _septa_, a place fenced round, in which the centuries voted; even Pompey had built his theatre on the very border of the Campus; Agrippa erected his thermae there, and his incomparably more beautiful Pantheon; and Augustus had there his Mausoleum, from which an avenue of trees led to the buildings of Agrippa. Alexander Severus built there new thermae, a circus, and several triumphal arches, so that the Campus Martius entirely disappeared. In the second and third century Rome extended more and more in that direction, whence at present that part is thickly covered with houses. Of the buildings which are found there, I have already mentioned the thermae of Alexander Severus, the Circus Agonalis, and the structures of Agrippa, and I shall now say a few words about the _Mausoleum, of Augustus_. This building formed a gigantic mass, and was as imperishable as the pyramids. The descriptions we have of it are very obscure, nor do its remains enable us to form an idea of it; the drawings of its remains, which were made in the sixteenth century, are very doubtful. A large bas-relief may still have existed, also a water basin made of stone, which has disappeared in an unaccountable manner; but otherwise I believe that the drawings contain restorations. It is said that there was also a kind of suspended gardens with the soil artificially carried into them, but this may be founded on some misunderstanding.

The _mausoleum of Hadrian_, at present the Castel S. Angelo, was even a much larger structure. Its restoration, which we see in drawings, is anything but trustworthy; but there are drawings of the fifteenth century, in which a small portion, which was then still uninjured, is represented. At present we still see an immense pile impregnable and inaccessible, into which there was only one entrance like that of a cave, with a passage leading to the burial place. There Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Antoninus the philosopher were buried. Inscriptions about it are still found in the Itinerary of Einsiedeln, which belongs to the seventh or eighth century. This building was used as a fort at a very early period; Belisarius there defended himself against the Goths: the Roman garrison consisted of Huns who hurled the statues with which the building was adorned against the enemies. It is possible that the Barberini Faun was on that occasion thrown down, as it was found there at the time when Urban VIII. built the fortifications. During subsequent wars the Castel S. Angelo was often defended, as for example, when under Crescentius the city refused to surrender to Otho III. The greatest devastations took place in the fourteenth century, when the Romans, who were then little better than barbarians, wanted to level the whole structure with the ground, because it had occasioned them great annoyance: at that time many more inscriptions were preserved than at present. For weeks and months they laboured in tearing away the marble coating and the outward ornaments, but not being able to get through they gave it up at last. Pope Alexander VI. built some towers as means of defence, and on that occasion the destruction was carried still further. But after that time, three inscriptions still remained in the sixteenth century. The present condition, which is still imposing, is the work of Urban VIII. who made a regular fortress of it. In order to provide it with artillery, he caused the bronze of the vestibule of the Pantheon to be melted and eighty cannons to be made of it, which, during the French revolution, were carried by Murat to Naples. The costly sarcophagi of porphyry, which belonged to the mausoleum of Hadrian are dispersed; one of them still exists in the palace Borghese, and another, generally called the sarcophagus of Agrippa, probably also belonged to it. Trajan’s ashes were contained in an urn which stood on his column. Hence the opinion that the gilt ball on the obelisk in front of the Circus contained the ashes of Augustus; but this is only an erroneous opinion of the middle ages; it was opened under Sixtus V. when the obelisk was removed, and nothing but dust was found in it; but how this dust had got into it, no one can tell, perhaps it was introduced by rain. It certainly was not the ashes of Augustus, for we know distinctly where Augustus and his family were buried. There still exists in the Capitol a very simple coffin containing the remains of Agrippina; its side has the inscription _Ossa Agrippinae Germanici_. During an accidental excavation near San Carlo and the Corso, a _bustum_ of the Caesars was discovered, on which their bodies were burnt; each imperial family had a distinct place for this purpose. At present several monumental stones of such _busta_ exist in the Museo Pio-Clementino; they always have an inscription, such as _C. Caesar hic crematus est_. I believe there still exist half-a-dozen of such inscriptions.

Not far from the _moles Hadriani_ there was a third _Circus_, built by Nero, and by the side of it stands the church of St. Peter. According to a tradition, the iron gate, where the apostles Peter and Paul suffered the death of martyrs, still exists there; but according to others, Peter died on the Janiculus, the _mons aureus_ of the middle ages. There, too, a suburb arose as early as the time of Justinian; the church of St. Peter attracted many inhabitants, and the place was especially occupied by Germans, Saxons, and Lombards, who went to Rome for devotional purposes, or were engaged in the service of the Praefectus to defend the pope. They had their quarters (_scholae_) there, whence the name _schola Saxonum_, and in the same district we have the Ospidale in Sassi. This suburb was surrounded with walls by Leo IV. and called _Burgus_ (_Borgo_).

_Trastevere_, on the same side of the river, though separated by a great space, was a suburb as early as the time of Augustus; it now contains the oldest houses in Rome, which belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Augustus had gardens there, and during the republican period a _navale_ existed there on the south of the Aventine. On the same bank of the river there was a _naumachia_, a district surrounded by a wall, which could be filled with water for mock-fights with small boats.

Ancient Rome had originally only one bridge, the _Pons Sublicius_; it consisted at first entirely of wood, and could be taken down for the purpose of defending the city against the attacks of an enemy. This bridge remained for a long time the only one. The _Pons Milvius_, in the neighbourhood of Rome, was likewise very ancient, but was three Roman miles distant from the Porta Carmentalis. After the third Punic war, Scipio, as censor, built a second bridge (_Pons Palatinus_) across the Tiber. It was situated before the Velabrum, near to the Pons Sublicius, and between it and the island. Not a trace of the Pons Sublicius now exists. The Milvian bridge was at first likewise made of wood, and no doubt that of Scipio also. The latter remained throughout the middle ages until the sixteenth century. There have been hydrostatic disputes about this bridge, as to whether it was built flat against the current of the river or not; it does not, however, seem probable, that, if it had been constructed on a wrong principle, it should have existed for a period of 1700 years; we must rather suppose that during this long interval the Tiber changed its course. In the sixteenth century, when the river had retreated, the bridge broke down. I am of opinion that Cavaliere Linotte, who asserts this, is right, although he is not a man of learning: such investigations do not require much learning, and good common sense is often of greater assistance. In the same century, the bridge was restored, but twenty years later it broke down again; at present only a few arches of it exist, and the first, on the opposite bank, may be assumed with certainty to be the one that was built by Scipio. A poor woman had established a garden upon its ruins, and for the payment of a trifle I was allowed to go there as often as I liked.

The _island_ which, according to tradition, was formed out of the corn thrown into the river after the expulsion of the Tarquins, is remarkable for the temple of Aesculapius. Even in very early times, and long before the age of Augustus, the incredibly tasteless attempt was made to give to that temple the form of a ship, in imitation of the vessel in which the god had been conveyed to Rome; it was built of travertine. During the middle ages a considerable part of the temple still existed, as may be seen from a drawing of Boissard, which was made in the fourteenth century. Old people under Pius VI. still saw a great deal of it, but afterwards a large part of the wall was used for other purposes; in like manner a splendid part of the thermae of Titus was destroyed as late as 1796.

The island was connected with the mainland on both sides by the _Pons Cestius_ and the _Pons Fabricius_, which were very ancient. Next came the _Pons Senatorius_, on the spot now occupied by the Ponte Sisto; _Pons Aelius_ near S. Angelo, and the _Pons Milvius_ outside the city, now Ponte Molle.

I shall now proceed to speak of

LATIUM

as the country of the Latins. We shall first take Latium Proper, then the coast from Antium to Terracina, which was originally a Tyrrhenian and afterwards a Volscian country, and lastly the country of the Hernicans. But I have previously to make some remarks about the port towns of Rome.

All rivers of any importance carrying sand or mud form a delta, their mouths being pushed forward by the tides or the nature of the seas. Down to a certain point, they flow in a straight line, and then divide into two arms, leaving a low sand-bank between them. Such are the deltas of the Po, the Mississipi, the Nile, and the Ganges. The Tiber forms a similar πρόχωσις, and the ridges of sand on both sides become more and more widely separated from each other. On the left arm, which accordingly must have existed as early as that time, king Ancus Marcius, who is no doubt an historical personage, built the town of _Ostia_. I believe I can prove that Ancus Marcius concluded a treaty with the Latins, by which a number of the Latin towns, I mean those between Rome and the sea, were ceded to Rome, while other places remained united with Latium. In after times, Rome twice concluded similar treaties with Latium. Ostia was founded as a pure Roman colony, and became the port town of Rome. Afterwards it grew into a very large place, as is clear from the extensive and very splendid ruins. It was first destroyed in the war between Marius and Sulla, and afterwards frightfully devastated by the Vandals; in the ninth century it existed again, but was then destroyed by the Saracens. The great pope Leo IV. restored it, but the new town was not of long duration. At present the atmosphere is very unhealthy, which was not the case in the time of ancient Rome; whence we must infer, that then there were no marshes in the neighbourhood, for the poisonous air comes from the marshes. The district is at present so neglected that the place is completely deserted.

In the time of the Antonines, Ostia was the summer residence of the Romans, probably those of the middle classes, who had no large estates and could not afford to remain away from Rome for any great length of time. A very pleasing description of it occurs in the apologetic work of Minutius Felix, the scene of which is laid at Ostia. The Roman jurists spent their vacations there. The beauty and wealth of the place at that time form a remarkable contrast with its present condition, for scarcely any persons but criminals live there; for a long time past Ostia has been a sort of asylum, where murderers are safe against the danger of being seized by the police. This is one of the most fearful changes: the country round it is an immense swamp inhabited by buffalos.

In the reign of Claudius an artificial port was formed on the right arm of the Tiber, which was deeper, the course of the river having been regulated. Trajan extended the port, and this _Portus Romanus_ now became the real sea-port of Rome, a depôt for the immense supplies required for the city. At present, too, the little maritime commerce of the Romans is carried on along the right bank of the Tiber.

I will not mention all the places of ancient Latium which happen to be once noticed by ancient writers, many of them are mere names of destroyed places; much more might indeed be made out than has yet been done, but the advantages would not be very considerable. We must conceive Latium in the earlier times to have been divided into three parts: 1. _Alba and its perioeci_, or thirty neighbouring and dependent places, said to have been colonies, and called _Albenses_; 2. the _Latin demi_, about Alba and its territory, the number of which we may assume, without fear of being mistaken, to have likewise amounted to thirty. They formed the Latin state, and stood in the same relation to Alba in which Latium afterwards stood to Rome; 3. the _Tyrrhenian towns on the coast_, which were properly foreign to the body of the Latin state, but may possibly have been in alliance with it. I have succeeded in throwing more light upon this relation between Alba and the Latin towns than I myself could formerly have expected; I have found all the names of the thirty Albensian towns, but the list of the others is not complete.

ALBA generally appears to us almost as a mythical place, because it vanishes from Roman history at so early a period; but there can be no doubt that its existence is a perfectly historical fact, and that, too, in the relation I have just indicated. But it never was the mother-city of Rome; the first elements out of which Rome grew up may, perhaps, at one time have constituted a portion of the towns which, in a state of dependence as perioeci, were united with Alba into one state, but may have separated themselves from it at an early period: Rome itself was never founded by Alba. The place where Alba was once situated is still so distinctly marked that it cannot be mistaken. From the testimonies of the ancients, we know that it was situated at the foot of the Alban hill, forming one long street, high above the Alban lake, whence its name _Alba Longa_. Every one in that district shows the spot near the place called Palazzuolo, where may be seen the ancient tomb of a praetor with six fasces distinctly cut into the rock. This site has been recognised by several Italians, chiefly men without learning, but who had eyes to see that on this spot the rock has been cut away to a considerable height. This part must be conceived to have been below the town, so that the lake, even when its waters were very low, rendered the town perfectly inaccessible. The present level of the lake is the result of a tunnel (_emissarius_); but I am of opinion that formerly it must have been much lower.[31] In this manner the town was safe on that side, for the rock was cut away to such a height as to render it impossible to scale it by means of ladders; on the precipitous side of the rock opposite no artificial protection was necessary. Thus the town could be attacked only on the two accessible sides, which for this reason were fortified. The summit of the hill was probably fortified by an arx. The hill, now called Monte Cavo, though only 2,900 French feet in height, is one of the highest in that district; from it a person acquainted with Roman history enjoys the most magnificent prospect, for he may there survey the whole territory of the Roman state such as it was until the fourth century of the city. On this summit stood the very ancient temple of Jupiter Latiaris, which was certainly as old as the temple on the Capitoline, and a road led up to it which is still quite intact, and is made in the same style as the Roman high roads. There the Alban dictators once used to ride up to offer their thanks to Jupiter Latiaris for victories they had gained; Roman generals also triumphed there, when they could not obtain permission from the senate to celebrate their triumph in the Capitol; there lastly the Feriae Latinae were celebrated. The temple is now completely destroyed, and the foundation stones, which still existed there, were broken down in the 18th century. The large blocks of stone were too huge for the puny race, and were, accordingly, broken to pieces to build a monastery. The last remains, consisting of beautiful square blocks, were carefully raised from the ground in the year 1780 or 1790. The Monte Cavo, like the lake, is of a volcanic nature.

LAVINIUM, which is nothing else than Lacinium in Oenotria (both forms being only dialectic varieties of Latinium), was the real sanctuary of Latium, and every year a common sacrifice was offered there by all the Latins. There is a tradition, that six hundred families were sent thither from Alba, that is, ten from every demos, the thirty Albensian and the thirty Latin towns. In this manner the statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus resolves itself into a general formula of a common settlement, proceeding from Alba and _commune Latium_ (this is the correct name for all the Latins, like κοινὸν Θεσσαλῶν). Originally Lavinium was regarded as common property, like Washington; but when subsequently it became a place of importance, it obtained its independence, and was a town like all the others.