Part 7

I cannot enter so fully into the topography of Rome as to show you how the streets of Rome were continued throughout Italy and the whole Roman empire. But, as architectural structures, the Roman high-roads are the most magnificent remains of antiquity. They consist of polished polygons of basalt: the foundation was formed of large stones, more than a cubit deep; over them was laid a stratum of mortar made of lime and puzzolano. Upon this a kind of excellent bricks were broken in large pieces, and laid in strata, over which again a cement was poured, which completely hardened into stone. Upon this substratum the blocks of basalt were placed, the lower surface of which was cut perfectly smooth. The polygons were very large, but different in circumference; they are so well fitted together, that in many parts the point of a pen-knife cannot be pressed between them; they were cut with great care, and must have been polished in a peculiar manner. A line is seen between two stones, but there is no interstice. Even if accidentally the water penetrated from above, the lower part was perfectly waterproof. It is well known that roads are mainly injured by water. Whoever has seen those ancient roads, despises the wretched structures of modern times; but if we were to build them now in the same manner, we should be obliged to sacrifice their external beauty and cover them with sand, because horses shod with iron would not be able to run on the surface, which is as smooth as a mirror. The horses of the ancients were not shod, and mules had either a kind of wooden shoes or soles of matting. Near and at Tivoli large parts of such roads exist in a state of preservation so perfect, as if they had been made only a year ago; but no vehicles now go over them. In comparison with ourselves, the ancients used carriages very rarely, and burdens were mostly carried by mules. On each side of the road there was a pavement for foot-passengers, and at intervals stones were set up, to enable men to get upon their horses, as stirrups were unknown.

In regard to the interior of Rome, it is erroneous to speak only of hills, for in later times they constituted only the smallest part of the city; a great portion being situated in valleys and another in plains. But I will first speak of the hills.

The real centre of the later city consisted of the _Capitoline Hill_, which, though not of great circumference, is properly composed of two hills, a southern one towards the Forum, and a northern one; between them a considerable depression of the ground is still visible. This depression, however, was far greater in ancient times than it is now, and in it there was a portico open on both sides, but at present its back is filled up with rubbish, especially from the ruins of the Capitoline temple, which, like many other buildings, has been purposely and barbarously destroyed. There was a _clivus_ leading up the Capitoline hill from the Forum, which, as in the case of all the Roman hills, formed an inclined plain ascending gradually. The names of the _clivi_ of all the other hills, however, are not known. On the Quirinal I do not find a _clivus_, but it had a _semita_. The meaning of this latter term is not correctly given in our dictionaries: the _semita_ does not differ so much from a carriage road by being less in breadth, but it is altogether a way which no vehicles can pass, either from its want of breadth, or from its construction in other respects, and which therefore is available only to foot-passengers and mules; _semitae_ were ways like the one still existing in the Vatican palace, by which the pope can ride on a mule into his own apartment. In Germany there is nothing comparable to it; the Italian name is _cordonata_, and it must be conceived as a strongly, though not inconveniently, inclined plain, with high stones at certain intervals for the purpose of stopping, so that the second step begins lower than the point at which the first left off.[17] Semitae are also found at gates, especially of Cyclopean towns, as at Ferentino. Before the time of Trajan there is no trace of a clivus leading up the Quirinal; on the Esquiline I can prove its existence; the Palatine had two clivi, the Aventine one, etc.

Rome was essentially different from large modern cities which always contain main streets running from one end to the other; such a street cannot be shown to have existed at Rome, which altogether had but few great streets. All the houses built on the same hill formed, as it were, a small town by themselves with little, and probably extremely irregular, streets, and thus every hill was isolated. It was only the plains and valleys that contained some large streets. The _Esquiliae_ were not a separate street, and the _Carinae_ near the Esquiline also were a quarter of the city rather than a street; the _Subura_ beyond the Esquiliae was a real street, and so also the _Via Sacra_ up to a certain point, but it was not a main street.

The intermontium of the Capitoline hill contained the _asylum_. The southern half of the Capitol, towards both the Tiber and the Forum, formed the _Tarpeian Rock_, which did not, as is commonly believed, consist of one side only. A French scholar, Dureau de la Malle, several years ago wrote an excellent essay on this subject, entitled “Mémoire sur la position de la roche Tarpéienne, lu à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.” The same scholar is the author of a very able translation of Tacitus; he has been at Rome, and his work furnishes evidence of very correct observations and sound judgment. The Tarpeian rock was cut quite precipitous, a circumstance which at present is not visible everywhere, because houses of six and seven stories in height were built there, which, when demolished in the time of destruction, formed heaps of rubbish as high as two-thirds of the rock, and upon this rubbish houses were afterwards erected. In one part of the rock there was a flight of one hundred steps, which was visible as late as the twelfth century.

The exact site of the Capitoline temple is a much disputed question among antiquarians; it is strange that no ruins of it are remaining. The old opinion which was generally adopted until the time of Nardini, is the true one: Fulvius, Marliani, and Donati all agreed in stating that the temple was situated on the southern part of the hill; but Nardini perverts the whole matter by placing it on the north side on the site now occupied by the church and convent of Araceli; the northern part formed the _arx_, as is clear from the history of the Gallic war; it was a very steep height, not a fortress, but only a strong point, and was occupied by houses of private citizens.

The Capitoline temple was built by the kings and completed by the first consuls; it was then consumed by fire in the time of Sulla, but was restored and consecrated by Catulus. It was burnt down a second time under Vitellius, after which Vespasian rebuilt it with great splendour. Twelve years later, fire again broke out in an unaccountable manner, and Domitian restored it a third time. The immense splendour lavished upon it was probably the principal cause of its subsequent total destruction; it is scarcely possible to form any idea of its costly ornaments: the gates were of bronze covered with thick and solid plates of wrought gold. This gilding alone is said to have cost more than two millions sterling. Even the tiles which Genseric carried away were gilt.[18]

All ancient temples consist of two main parts, the cella and the space in front of the cella. The latter might be constructed in different ways, it might be sheltered by a roof, or exposed to the open air, in which case it was enclosed by four walls or a portico all around. We generally imagine the altar to have been in the temple itself; in the ancient Christian churches (_basilicae_) it always stood in the _apsis_, but in the temples it did not belong to the cella of the gods, but to the space in front of it. The cella was generally open, but could be closed; it was usually very small. The Roman temples often were of extremely small dimensions, and at present I scarcely know a chapel of an equally small size, not even in Italy, where there are some incredibly little chapels; for there were temples of which the cella was only seven or eight feet in diameter. The cella contained the statue of the god (τὸ ἕδος), and for this reason it was necessary to have the altar outside in the centre of the space in front of the cella, which was either exposed to the open air, or could easily be aired, because the statue, in consequence of the burnt sacrifices, might have become disfigured by smoke or otherwise, and because the bones and the like might easily have created foul air in the cella and thus produced injurious effects. In the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, the cella was divided into three sacella, separated by walls, for Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. But this cella was only the smallest part of the building; the larger was the space before it, where the ordinary donaria were hung up, except the more precious gifts, which were kept in the favissae, or large catacombs under the temple in the lautumiae. It is possible that they might still be discovered; a few traces of them are visible in the garden of duke Caffarelli. In the twelfth century, under Pope Anacletus II., large ruins still existed; but a church was erected upon them, which bore the name _S. Salvatoris in maximis_ (supply _ruinis_), but has been destroyed long ago. Such names must always be attended to, for they often lead to important discoveries. The heaps of rubbish lying below by the side of the river, belong no doubt to the temple, and if excavations were made, many valuable treasures might be discovered. I often proposed in vain to dig in the favissae, but as I have given some impulse, I hope people will be roused from their indifference.[19]

The hills not only had the same extent which they still have, but must have extended much further at the time when the valleys were more distinct. Thus a part of the Forum, properly speaking, belonged to the Capitoline hill. The _carcer_ was at the north-eastern extremity; its construction is ascribed to Ancus Marcius, the founder of the plebeian order; it seems to have been intended for the plebeians, for the patricians would probably not have tolerated the idea of such a thing.

The _Forum_ was situated below the Capitoline hill, between it and the Palatine. This is the real point from which the reform of the topography of Rome must proceed, for point by point can be established by the aid of the ancient authors. I there made the beginning of some happy discoveries, which, however, were not continued, because those who have it in their power to grant permission, are afraid lest their arbitrary assertions should be overturned. Materials are not wanting, and many have undertaken the task, but a singular misfortune seems to hang over these things. In the earlier times this part of Roman topography was sadly bungled, even by most excellent men, and Nardini proceeded in quite a wrong way. He is one of those who, with great industry but insufficient learning, produced very little; he did not understand Greek, but helped himself by means of Latin translations, whence he often commits the strangest blunders. Notwithstanding his great diligence, he has not only produced bad and perverse results, but has done positive harm by making posterity acquiesce in his conclusions, for, until our own days, it was the prevalent opinion that he had settled every point, and people were satisfied with having read Nardini. Hence his work has been translated into Latin and incorporated in the “Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanorum.” There were only few able men that were not misled by his authority, and ventured upon independent investigations after him, such as Ficoroni, though he entered only into special points. I knew at Rome a bookseller, a respectable and unassuming person, whose business was stopped for no other reason but because he had disregarded the authority of Nardini. Morelli, an excellent Italian, has written a treatise on the decay of scholarship in Italy, in which he makes a witty application of the scriptural expression, “Ablatum ab Israel, translatum ad gentes,” telling his countrymen, that they have to learn their own antiquities from foreigners, and that philology in Italy is at an end. This is not indeed quite true, but the Italians are not sure in their own minds, they are often influenced by a certain feeling of uneasiness, and do not possess calm confidence. An honest inquirer need not despond; he does not mind owning that he has been mistaken, for who is exempt from it! Whoever makes great pretensions without having corresponding abilities, becomes unfaithful to truth, and will endeavour to crush and calumniate others, in order to preserve for himself dictatorial influence. Such is the case of Fea. Roman topography, as I have said before, was brought by Nardini to a stand still which lasted more than a century and a half. Zoëga too has made inquiries into it: being a Dane he is almost a countryman of mine, and I do not undervalue his learning; but if his works were written at the present time, the true scholars of Germany would not be a little surprised, for he was entirely deficient in real grammatical knowledge. He directed his mind and attention to things about which a healthy philology does not concern itself, such as the Egyptian mysteries and the like. His reading was uncommonly extensive, but he had little scholarship, and owing to this he will be forgotten. He had examined the antiquities of Rome, and had read all the books upon them, but formed no sound conception of the ancient city. Nardini was quite aware that the Forum was the heart of Rome, both topographically and politically, but he unfortunately took an entirely wrong direction; instead of making the buildings succeed one another on the left, he makes them follow on the right, and puts in juxtaposition those which belong to different periods. Hence his confusion; his view of ancient Rome is altogether false. I have gained the right point of view in a peculiar way, and am quite certain of its correctness. I will relate the matter to you as an example of a thread in a labyrinth. Pliny states that, before sun-dials were known at Rome, the parts of the day, sunrise, noon, and sunset were cried out. But the Romans did not calculate according to the moment when the sun really set, but from the moment when the sun was no longer visible in the Forum. By this means it was determined as to whether an act had taken place at the right time or not, for the Romans were very exact in such trifles. Now in the Forum the sun became invisible about three minutes before the real sunset; the crier called out from the Curia, and at the different seasons of the year stated, when he had seen the sun. I have been on the spot innumerable times, and knew the district as well as I knew my own room; I sought the place where the Curia must have stood, and made experiments by watching the sun from that point at the different seasons of the year. By this means I obtained the advantage of certainty in regard to the whole side near the Palatine. Having once found the Curia Hostilia, I had at the same time the Comitium[20] and the Graecostasis. In a poem of Statius there occurs a description of the gigantic equestrian statue of Domitian, and the poet says that it looked towards the temple of Concord: the site of this statue I also succeeded in discovering. It then happened very fortunately that during an excavation an enormous cube was found, on which smaller cubes had been fastened bearing pillars: this was the identical pedestal of the equestrian statue of Domitian. It is clear, that its base consisted of bricks with a coating of marble; the masonry belongs to a period which a practised eye cannot mistake, and we may assert, that the great cubic block was built before the time of Severus, for afterwards the masonry became quite different. In the Monumentum Ancyranum of Augustus, the author, in speaking of a basilica, mentions that a temple of Castor was adjoining it; and this temple I discovered with the assistance of Statius. Its site is a subject of great difficulty, for according to the Monumentum Ancyranum, it was adjoining the basilica Julia, whereas it is commonly supposed to have been situated on the other side; but I knew from Ovid[21], that it was at the end of the Forum, and in this manner the whole Forum was made out.

Respecting the extent of the Roman Forum equally erroneous notions are current, because not only the district occupied by the ancient Forum, but the whole valley far and wide, up to the eminence from which the Via Sacra came down, has several times been covered with rubbish. This whole district is now called Campo Vaccino, and Andreas Fulvius and Bartholomaeus Marliani imagined that all this space, from the Capitol to the arch of Titus, was occupied by the Forum. People were the more tempted to assume this extent, as they entertained the most exaggerated notions about the population and magnitude of the city, as is the case, e.g., in Lipsius’ book, “De Magnitudine Urbis Romae.” He believes that Rome extended north as far as Civita Castellana, a distance of from thirty-five to forty English miles; for he imagined that the numbers of the census under the first emperors were those of the inhabitants of the city, whereas they embraced the whole body of citizens, and accordingly amounted to millions. Nothing can be more senseless than what Lipsius has written on this subject; the exaggerations are enormous: sometimes he was misled by appearances, but sometimes he has not even this excuse. The Forum, in comparison with the present Campo Vaccino, was small, and in all our maps it is pushed too far towards the Capitol. It was situated between the Tarpeian and the Palatine, but did not occupy the whole length of the Capitoline; the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus stood beside, and not in, the Forum.

The first question here is as to the distinction between the Forum and the _Comitium_. In the earliest times they were as different as the populus was from the plebs: the Comitium being the place of assembly for the curiae (patricians), and the Forum the original market-place, in which, however, the plebeians met for the purpose of voting. The Comitium has been the subject of endless discussions and controversies, but most of the opinions about it are quite foolish. Things went so far that Nardini gained immense applause from the _imperiti_ when he declared that the Comitium was the building of which three pillars are still standing: but these pillars belong to the Curia Julia. The Comitium was no building at all, it was nothing but an open place, and a part of the Forum in its wider sense. Both the Forum and the Comitium are parts of the same plain; at a later time the Comitium, in every-day language, was included in the word Forum, and there can be no doubt that the portico surrounding the Forum also inclosed the Comitium. The _rostra_ formed the separation between the two. It is difficult to give you an accurate idea of the rostra, for we have no word conveying an adequate notion. Imagine a _suggestum_ about twelve feet in breadth and at least thirty in length; imagine this to be of the height of a full-grown man, perhaps even somewhat higher, and on both sides steps leading up to it. I should never have been able to form a correct notion of it, had it not been for the fortunate accident, that just during my residence at Rome the new rostra were excavated. No person recognised it or understood what it was; I was not inclined to enter into a dispute, but only took my friend, De Serre, the greatest orator of the present time, to see the spot, where if he had lived in ancient times, he would have achieved as great a reputation as any other. The inner kernel only remains, which is constructed of beautiful bricks and cement. The outside was probably, or I may say certainly, covered with marble, and the beaks of the ships (_rostra navium Antiatum_ or _Antiatium_) were walled in in the front. So long as I had no correct notion of the rostra, I could not understand the meaning of the words _statuae in rostris positae_; it is only on such an extensive platform that they could be set up. Such a space is quite natural if we bear in mind the animated character of southern oratory, in which the speaker is in constant communication with those around him. One may still see this. There was at Rome a highly respectable monk who preached every Sunday, and during Lent, daily, in the Colosseum. He stood in the open air, and walked up and down as if he were conversing with his hearers. I think I never heard a sermon that made a deeper impression: sometimes he stood still, and sometimes he went from one to another of his hearers, without, however, calling any one by his name. It is this active communication with the audience that produced the _percussio laterum_; if a man, standing on a small platform, were to do this often, he would become ridiculous. At Athens, the case was different; the orators there did not move about so much, and the βῆμα seems to have been smaller; I have not indeed found any passage about it in the ancients, but I infer it from the locality; and according to the descriptions we have of it, it seems that it could not have been otherwise. Upon the rostra, at Rome, the statues stood _in loco aprico et conspicuo_. In the most ancient language, this platform was called _templum_, and the new name arose in 417, from the beaks of the ships, with which the front was adorned. I have often been on that spot, and often stood in the Roman Forum: who will describe the emotions that rise in one’s breast on a spot where Tiberius spoke upon Augustus, and other relations upon Germanicus (for these rostra are not the most ancient), where all the funeral orations upon the emperors were delivered, and where all great solemnities took place! And how wretched, how bare, and how stripped is that spot of all its splendour! Before you, you have Rome and its most ancient monuments, the career of Ancus Marcius; on the other side, the place once occupied by the temple of Concord, which Camillus built after having appeased the plebs: the lacus Servilius, where in the days of Sulla the heads of the proscribed were stuck up; the site of the temples of Castor and Vesta, and the Capitoline district: to such a place one can always return with a feeling of reverence; there one may imbibe the inspiration for writing the history of ancient times, and there one becomes familiar with it. The most ancient rostra were, no doubt, constructed of peperino. According to Plutarch, C. Gracchus transferred the real sovereignty to the people, by turning towards the Forum and the commonalty, instead of facing the Comitium where the patricians and the senate stood. Until then it had been customary for the orator, even when communicating something to the plebeians, to turn towards the patricians: but Gracchus turned round, and thus symbolically threw off the mask which he had worn until then. The present level of the Forum is about twenty-five or twenty-six feet higher than in ancient times.