CHAPTER VIII.

THE AVENTINE AND CÆLIAN HILLS.

[Sidenote: The Servian walls.]

Before the end of the regal period there was an enlargement of the limits of the city in which the Aventine and Cælian were comprehended. Dionysius, Livy, and Aurelius Victor all relate that Tarquinius Priscus undertook the building of a new stone wall for the defence of the whole of the new quarters of the city, but that he did not live to finish it. The design was carried out by Servius Tullius, who also constructed the enormous agger called by his name, and still partly remaining at the back of the Esquiline, Viminal and Quirinal Hills. Before this great work was accomplished we must suppose that each suburb, as it grew out of the original settlement, was defended by a new piece of fortification, but these fortifications were, as Dionysius describes them, only temporary and hastily erected for the nonce. The expressions of Livy and Aurelius would lead us also to the conclusion that they were not of stone, but probably were entrenchments of earth. Rome then became the capital of Latium; she had lately united all her citizens, the Montani, the Collini, and the other freeholders living within the districts of Servius by a complete military organisation, and her powers were directed by a form of government which has always proved best calculated for the production of great public works. A new stone wall was accordingly planned on a vast scale, and the drainage of the low-lying parts of the city was effected about the same time by colossal sewers. The king having the whole control of the finances of the state could appropriate large sums of money for works of public utility, and could also doubtless command the labour of immense gangs of workmen. The Servian walls and the Cloacæ of Rome are to be looked upon as the parallels in the History of Rome to the pyramids of Egypt, the walls of Babylon, and of Mycenæ and Tiryns. They point to a time of concentrated power and unresisting obedience, when the will of one man could direct the whole resources of the community to the accomplishment of a comprehensive design.

With the exception of a small portion which has been discovered in the depression between the north-western and south-eastern parts of the Aventine, another portion upon the Servian Agger, and a few remnants on the Quirinal in the Barberini and Colonna Gardens,[113] no remnants of the Servian walls are now to be seen, and we have to infer their probable extent from the nature of the ground, the rough estimate given by Dionysius of the space which they enclose, and the positions of the gates as described by various ancient authors. It may be safely concluded that, wherever it was possible, advantage would be taken of the sides of the hills, and the wall would be made to run along their edges. Thus the course of the wall on the outer side of the Capitoline, Quirinal, Esquiline and north-eastern part of the Aventine can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, and the agger serves as a guide along the back of the Viminal and Quirinal. The principal difficulty lies in the portions between the Capitoline and Aventine along the river bank, in the space to the south of the Cælian, and at the Hill of S. Saba and S. Balbina, where there is but little indication in the nature of the ground to guide us.

In the time of Dionysius, who died about B.C. 10, the Servian Wall was already so much covered with buildings of various kinds, that he speaks of it as difficult to trace, and therefore, naturally enough, we find at the present day that nearly the whole has disappeared under heaps of rubbish. The portion brought to light in 1855 under the south-eastern slope of the Aventine was accidentally discovered by digging in the vineyards not far from the Porta S. Paolo, for the purpose of clearing the ground from masses of brickwork. This portion, some of which has since been covered with earth again, was 104 feet in length, 50 feet high, and 12 broad. The breadth shows the great solidity and strength of the construction. The original height was probably greater, as Mr. Braun remarks, and a parapet was placed upon the top. Some parts of this ruin are covered with reticulated work, and on others great masses of masonry have been placed which belonged to dwelling-houses. Mr. J. H. Parker has since been able to clear this fragment of wall, thus doing a very great service to Roman Archæology. No monumental antiquities have been found in these excavations earlier than the imperial times. A stamp bearing an inscription was discovered near one of the more modern arches, and dates from the reign of Trajan.

At the time when these walls were built, the stone generally used for such purposes was the hard tufa. The greater part of the Cloaca Maxima, and the remnants of these Servian walls, are composed of this material. It is hewn into long rectangular blocks, which are placed (in builders’ phrase alternately headers and stretchers) sometimes across and sometimes along the line of the wall, in order to gain greater strength. No cement is used, but the stones are carefully fitted together and regularly shaped.

It must here be observed that the rectangular shape and horizontal position of the blocks in this stonework by no means disprove its high antiquity. It is true that the so-called Pelasgian walls are built in a totally different style, for the stones in them are polygonal. But this difference of shape in the stones arises from a difference in the material. All the so-called Pelasgian walls in Italy are built of a stone which naturally breaks into polygonal masses; but tufa stone is found in the quarry in horizontal layers, and is most easily cut into a rectangular shape. The inference sometimes drawn from horizontally laid masonry that it indicates a more advanced state of art than polygonal cannot be relied upon as certain. The arch in this ruin is of a later date and may have been an embrasure for a catapult.[114]

[Sidenote: Porta Capena.]

The situation of no gate in the Servian Avails can be determined so completely as that of the Porta Capena. We know that part of the Aqua Marcia passed over it, whence it was called the dripping gate (Madida Capena) by Martial and Juvenal. It was therefore in the valley below the Cælian Hill, and we should, judging from the form of the ground, naturally place it where the hill, on which S. Balbina stands, approaches the Cælian most nearly. A striking confirmation of this conjecture has been discovered. The first milestone on the Appian Road was found in 1584 in the first vineyard beyond the present Porta S. Sebastiano--the Vigna Naro--and, measuring back one mile from it, we come exactly to this spot. This milestone is now placed on the steps leading up to the Capitoline Museum. Milestones and horse-blocks were erected on all the great roads by Caius Gracchus before the milliarium aureum was put up in the Forum by Augustus, and it is probable that the distances were always measured from the gates. Mr. Parker carried on excavations for some time to find the exact position of the Porta Capena, and he discovered some of the piers of the aqueduct which passed over the gate in the garden of the Convent of S. Gregorio. These excavations have unfortunately been more or less filled up again.

[Sidenote: Monte Testaccio.]

Near the Porta S. Paolo, between the Aventine and the river, stands the hill called Monte Testaccio from its being composed almost entirely of potsherds mixed with rubbish. The hill is 150 feet high, and one-third of a mile in circumference. Many conjectures have been hazarded about its origin, which still, however, remains a mystery.

The hypothesis which has gained most credit rests upon a passage in Tacitus, in which that historian, after giving an account of the Neronian fire, proceeds to say that Nero intended to have the rubbish carried to the Ostian marshes, and, therefore, gave orders that the corn-ships, after discharging their freight at the Emporium, should take a load of rubbish on their return to Ostia. This explanation appears satisfactory until the peculiar composition of the hill is examined. Nearly the whole mass consists of pieces of broken earthenware, and is not such as we should expect the rubbish left after a fire to be. The absence of bricks may perhaps be explained by the supposition that they were saved in order to be used a second time; but the immense quantity of potsherds still remains to be accounted for. Further, it is said that a coin of Gallienus has been found in such a position on the smaller portion of the hill as to leave no doubt that the accumulation of that part could not have been anterior to Gallienus. A medal of Constantine has also been found in the interior of the larger portion. Bunsen’s explanation that the hill is composed of the rubbish cleared away by Honorius when he restored the walls of Aurelian, and other ingenious hypotheses of the same kind, do not sufficiently account for the peculiar composition of the hill.

M. Reifferscheid, in a paper communicated to the Roman Archæological Institute, has propounded the most natural and proper solution of the problem.[115] He observes that it is not necessary to go farther than the magazines of the neighbouring Emporium for an explanation of this immense mass of potsherds. Every kind of provisions brought to Rome in ancient times was stored in earthenware jars, not only wine, but corn, oil, and other articles of commerce. A fire, therefore, which consumed any part of the Emporium would leave rubbish composed in great part of fragments of earthen jars (dolia); and, since many such fires must have taken place in the course of ages, and immense quantities of earthen jars must have been broken in the process of unloading, it does not seem at all impossible that so large an accumulation of matter should have taken place. At Alexandria and at Cairo similar heaps of potsherds are to be seen outside the walls, and their extent, though less, as might be expected, than that at Rome, is such as to create astonishment in the traveller’s mind when he sees them for the first time. An attempt has been made by M. Reifferscheid to determine the earliest date at which we can suppose this gradual deposition of potsherds to have taken place, but the data upon which he builds his conclusion, that the accumulation forming the Monte Testaccio first began to be deposited in the time of the decay of the Empire, about the third century, are not by any means such as to produce conviction.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Cestius.]

Near the Monte Testaccio, and close to the Porta S. Paolo, stands a pyramidal monument, measuring about 97 feet on each side, and 120 feet in height. It is placed upon a square basement of travertine, and the rest of the building is of rubble, with a casing of white marble. It is built into the Aurelian Wall, no pains having been taken to avoid the injury which this might cause to the building. It has, however, suffered but little from this except in appearance. The ancient entrance, which was probably on the north-east side, has been walled up. No trace is now to be seen of it, and the present entrance on the north-west was made in 1663. The interior consists of a small plastered chamber 16 feet long by 13, and 12 feet high, the corners of which are ornamented with paintings of winged genii. No coffin or sarcophagus was found when the tomb was opened, but the inscription on the outside gives the name of C. Cestius, the son of L. Cestius, of the Publilian tribe, as the person who was buried in it. It further appears that this C. Cestius had been Prætor and Tribune of the commons, and one of the seven epulones who superintended the sacrificial banquets to the gods. The date of his burial has been discovered by means of two marble pedestals containing inscriptions which were found near the pyramid. On one of these the foot of a colossal bronze statue is still fixed. They show that C. Cestius’s death took place in the time of M. Agrippa, and, therefore, of the Emperor Augustus, and that the statues were erected from the proceeds of the sale of some costly robes of cloth of gold (attalica), which Cestius had by his will ordered to be buried with him. Such burial being forbidden by law, the robes were sold and the statues erected from the proceeds by order of his heirs. They probably stood at the corners of the pyramid. Two fluted Doric pillars, the fragments of which were found near the spot, have now been placed at these corners. Cestius may possibly have been the same person who is mentioned by Cicero as a Roman knight.

[Sidenote: Baths of Caracalla.]

To the south-east of the hills of S. Saba and S. Balbina, between the Aurelian walls and the Via Appia, lie the most colossal ruins in Rome, covering a space each side of which measures more than a thousand feet. It is certain, from the arrangement of these buildings, that they were destined for public baths; and as tradition and the catalogue of the twelfth region both assign the name of the Thermæ Antoninianæ to them, and the style of the masonry is that of the Antonine era, we may feel satisfied that they belonged to the baths mentioned by Cassiodorus and Hieronymus as already partially built by Caracalla in the year A.D. 216, and finished by Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus.[116]

This enormous mass of building consisted of a central oblong block, containing all the halls and chambers appropriated more immediately to the baths, and a surrounding court, the sides of which were formed by gymnasia and other places of amusement, and the area of which was laid out in gardens, with shrubberies, ornamental colonnades, and fountains. A similar arrangement is found in the Thermæ of Titus and Diocletian.

The central block of buildings contained four immense halls and a rotunda, around which numerous smaller rooms were grouped. The first of these large halls (a) was entered from the north-eastern side by two wide doorways. Rows of niches for sculpture broke the broad inner surfaces of its walls, and it communicated with the chambers on each side by open passages filled with columns of splendid marble and granite. The floor formed an immense basin shaped hollow, showing that the purpose for which it was used was that of a cold swimming-bath. The steps by which the bathers descended into it have been found at the two shorter sides, and on both sides are chambers for dressing and undressing.

In the centre of the group of buildings is another hall (b) of nearly the same dimensions as the cold bath, with large recesses at both ends. The floor of this was paved with the richest marbles. The four lateral circular recesses formed hot baths, and were fitted with steps and seats of various kinds for bathers. In the recesses at the ends stood two enormous porphyry basins, one of which is now preserved in the Museum at Naples. This hall was probably the tepidarium and had a very lofty roof supported by eight granite pillars of colossal size, and by a network of brazen or copper rods. One of the pillars was given to Duke Cosmo I. by Pius IV., and stands in the Piazza di Trinità in Florence. The smaller chambers (c) (d) (e), at the western and southern angles of the tepidarium, contained the apparatus for heating water.

These chambers, the purpose of which is unknown, separate the tepidarium from the rotunda (f). The position of this latter and its shape would seem to indicate that it was a laconicum or hot-air room, but the state of the ruins is at present such as to preclude any positive assertion as to its purpose.

On each side of the above-mentioned three chambers is a similar range of halls. The south-eastern wing (g), being the most perfect, serves as the better guide to the arrangement of this part of the building. We pass through two chambers (h) (i) containing fine mosaic pavement, and then reach a large long hall (g), which apparently consisted of three aisles and two semicircular tribunes, divided from each other by rows of columns, somewhat in the manner of a basilica. A considerable portion of the mosaics on the floor of this hall have been laid bare and may be seen amongst the ruins of the roof and upper part. In the larger tribune was discovered the great mosaic pavement of the Athletes, now preserved in the Lateran Museum, whence it has been inferred that this side hall as well as the corresponding one on the north-west side were used as gymnasia or ball courts (sphæristeria), with galleries for spectators. The purpose of the rooms situated on each side of the rotunda is not known, but it has been conjectured that they were additional tepidaria, since even the magnificent central tepidarium is hardly large enough to furnish the accommodation spoken of by Olympiodorus, who stated that there were 1600 marble seats for bathers in the Antonine Baths.[117]

There were numerous chambers in the upper stories in and about these large halls, to which the staircases led, one of which has been restored. These were perhaps used as libraries, picture galleries, and museums of curiosities.

The whole north-eastern side of the court which surrounded these central halls consists of ranges of rooms built of brick and opening outwards. Many of these are still standing, and the traces of an upper story are to be seen over some of them (j, j). Different opinions have been held as to their use. Some writers think that they were offices and rooms for the slaves belonging to the establishment, others that they were separate baths for women. The principal entrance to the enclosure was in the centre of this side of the court.

On the north-western side of the court the remains can be traced of a large shallow tribune in the shape of a segment of a circle and surrounded by a vaulted corridor or cloister (k). Within this were three large apartments, probably used as lecture and conversation rooms. The rest of this side has entirely disappeared, as has also the opposite south-eastern side with the exception of one of the large apartments. These two sides of the court probably correspond in the same way as the wings of the central building.

The fourth side of the court was occupied by an immense reservoir of water divided into numerous compartments (l), in front of which was the cavea of a stadium (m), and on each side two large halls, possibly used as dressing-rooms and gymnasia (n, n).

The reservoir was supplied with water by a branch aqueduct from the Aqua Marcia.

The numerous magnificent works of art, sculptures, bronzes, lamps, cameos, and coins, which have from time to time been discovered in these ruins, are now dispersed through the museums of Italy. Some of the larger sculptures, including the Hercules of Glykon and the group called the Toro Farnese are in the Naples Museum, and two large porphyry fountain-basins are in the Piazza Farnese at Rome.

Some excavations have been lately made in the Vigna Guidi, a vineyard on the south-east side of the Court of these Thermæ. The ruins of a large house have been found which had been demolished and covered with earth, to make room for the Thermæ. Nothing is known of the history of this house, but various conjectures have been hazarded, taken from the catalogues of the Regionaries.

The vast Necropolis of Rome stretched along both sides of the Appian Road from the Porta Capena nearly as far as the Alban Hills.

[Sidenote: Tomb of the Cornelian Scipios.]

Conspicuous among these burial-places is the tomb which remained in possession of the great family of the Cornelian Scipios for nearly four centuries.[118] The entrance to this is near the gate of one of the vineyards, on the north-east side of the Appian Road, about two hundred and fifty yards from the Porta S. Sebastiano. The tomb itself consists of a number of passages roughly hewn in the tufa stone, as the catacombs are, without any apparent plan of arrangement. Unfortunately, the original state of the catacomb has been so altered by the substructions which have been found necessary to support the roof that it can hardly be recognised at the present day, and the sarcophagi and inscriptions have been removed, and placed for greater security in the Vatican Museum. Those now seen in situ are modern copies. Anciently there were two entrances, one from the Via Appia, and the other from the road which here unites the Via Appia and Via Latina. The present entrance has been cut for the convenience of access from the Appian Road.

[Sidenote: Columbaria.]

The catacomb of the Scipios differs from most of the other burial places which surround it, on account of the retention by the gens Cornelia of the old Latin custom of burying in coffins, instead of burning the corpse of the deceased. Most of the burying places on the Monte d’Oro are arranged in the manner called a columbarium by the Romans, from the resemblance of the niches in it to the holes in a pigeon-house.[119] Four of these columbaria have been excavated in the Vigna Codini, near the Porta S. Sebastiano, and are now to be seen in almost perfect preservation. They consist of a square pit roofed over, and entered by a staircase. The roof is supported by a massive square central column, and the whole of the sides of the pit and of the central column are pierced with semicircular niches, containing earthenware jars filled with ashes. In one of the columbaria in the Vigna Codini there is room for 900 jars. Most of the names which are inscribed above each niche upon a marble tablet are those of imperial freedmen, or servants of great families or public officers, and other persons of the middle class of life, and are therefore of little historical interest. The ashes of some few of a somewhat higher grade, are placed in small marble sarcophagi or urns, but no persons of distinguished rank appear to have been buried in this way. There are, however, few places in Rome where the ordinary manners and customs of the ancient Romans are more vividly placed before the eye than here, and the very insignificance of some of the details exhibited is somewhat striking. In one corner we find the ashes of a lady’s maid attached to one of the imperial princesses; in another, those of the royal barber; and in another, a favourite lapdog has been admitted to take his place among his mistress’s other faithful servants.

[Sidenote: Arch of Drusus.]

Not far from these columbaria, and close to the Porta S. Sebastiano, the Via Appia is spanned by a half ruinous archway, of which little but the core remains, the marble casing having long been torn off. It was probably originally ornamented with eight columns, two only of which now remain standing on the side next the modern gateway. These have shafts of Numidian marble (giallo antico), and composite capitals with Corinthian bases.

Upon the top of this arch is a brick ruin apparently belonging to the Middle Ages, as the style of building is similar to that called opera saracenica by the Italians. It was probably a part of a fortified tower, placed upon the arch, resembling that which formerly surmounted the Arch of Titus.

On each side of the arch are some remains of the branch aqueduct, which brought water from the Aqua Marcia to the Baths of Caracalla, and it is natural to conclude that this arch carried the aqueduct over the Via Appia, and was built by Caracalla for that purpose. The costly nature of the materials used has, however, induced most topographers to reject this explanation, and to assume that the arch is one of the three mentioned by the Notitia in the first region, as built in honour respectively of Drusus, Trajan, and Verus. The composite capitals seem to point to the earliest date of these three, and as the building bears a resemblance to a representation of the Arch of Drusus, which has been discovered upon a coin,[120] the arch has been thought identical with that erected to Drusus, the father of Claudius, mentioned by Suetonius.

[Sidenote: Sessorium and Amphitheatrum Castrense.]

Two ruins standing near the Basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme may be reckoned as belonging to the district of the Cælian Hill They are called by the topographers the Sessorium and the Amphitheatrum Castrense. The first of these consists of a ruin built of brick, containing a large semicircular apse with round-headed windows, from which two walls project. No excavations having been made in order to ascertain the further extent of the buildings, any opinion formed as to their purpose must necessarily be highly uncertain. The most probable conjecture which has been made is that they are the ruins of a tribunal called the Sessorium. Such a court of justice is mentioned by the Scholiast on Horace as situated on the Esquiline near the place where criminals and paupers were buried. Further notices of the same name as applied to an edifice in the neighbourhood of the Basilica of S. Croce are to be found in Anastasius’s Life of S. Silvester, and in a fragmentary history of certain passages in the Life of Theodoric, printed at the end of the work of Ammianus Marcellinus. Theodoric is there said to have ordered a criminal to be beheaded in palatio quod appellatur Sessorium, using the same phrase which Anastasius also employs.

The authors of the Beschreibung Roms supposed that this ruin was the Nymphæum Alexandri of the Notitia, but this has been disproved by Becker, who shows that the Nymphæum was near the Villa Altieri.

The opinion that it was the Temple of Spes Vetus, which Frontinus places near the commencement of the branch aqueduct of Nero, is more likely to be correct, but the shape of the building, so far as it is at present known, does not agree with such a supposition. The ruins are commonly known by the name of the Temple of Venus and Cupid, a name which was given to them from the discovery of a statue near them representing a female figure. But it is a fatal objection to this that the name of the Roman matron (Sallustia) whose statue was supposed to be that of Venus, has been discovered to be engraved upon the pedestal. The statue may be seen in the Museo Pio Clementino.

[Sidenote: Amphitheatrum Castrense.]

On the other side of the Basilica, and forming a part of the Aurelian wall, is a portion of an amphitheatre. The interior, now used as a garden, may be seen by entering the door on the right hand of the basilica. The larger axis of the amphitheatre was apparently about one hundred and ten yards, and the shorter eighty-five or thereabouts. It is entirely constructed of brick, even to the Corinthian capitals which ornament the exterior, and the workmanship shows it to belong to the best age of Roman architectural art. The second tier of arches has almost entirely disappeared, and of the lowest tier only those are left which are built into the city wall. But to suppose, as Becker does, that it was not an amphitheatre, but the vivarium, where the wild beasts used in the games were kept, seems out of the question. The only difficulty is to determine what the special history and purpose of the building, manifestly an amphitheatre, placed so far from the populous parts of the city, was. The Notitia here comes to our aid, for it records the existence of an amphitheatrum castrense in the fifth region; and there can be little doubt that we have here the remains of the amphitheatre built for the entertainment of the prætorian troops quartered in a fortified camp beyond the Porta S. Lorenzo. Aurelian made use of the outer side of the building as a part of his walls, and it is most probable that when Constantine pulled down the inner portion of the prætorian camp, he also destroyed the greater part of this amphitheatre.

[Sidenote: House of the Laterani.]

In consequence of the sinking of part of the wall which supports the apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, excavations became necessary in the year 1876 which disclosed the foundations of some ancient buildings between the baptistery and the Via della Ferratella, and of some others under the apse itself. These were carefully examined, and it became evident that they belonged to the extended ruins of a large villa, probably that called the House of the Laterani, which was occupied and enlarged by the emperors of the second and third centuries, and finally given by Constantine to the Bishop of Rome. The House of Verus, also mentioned by Julius Capitolinus, was probably on this site.

[Sidenote: Claudian Aqueduct.]

Not far from the Sessorium, and springing out of the angle of the wall close to the Porta Maggiore, a series of lofty arches begins which extends throughout the whole length of the Cælian Hill. This is a branch aqueduct of the Aqua Claudia, built by Nero to supply the Cælian and Aventine Hills at a higher level than the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Julia, on which they had previously depended for their supply. It passed over the road leading from the Porta Maggiore to the Basilica of S. Croce, and thence ran along the higher ground through the vineyards of the Scala Santa, whence it skirted the Via di S. Stefano, and, at the Arch of Dolabella, was divided into three branches, one of which crossed the valley to the Palatine, the second ran towards the edge of the hill over the Coliseum, and a third towards the Porta Capena.

[Sidenote: Arch of Dolabella.]

The arch of Dolabella stands a little to the north-west of the Piazza della Navicella, and spans the road leading down from thence into the valley between the Cælian and Palatine, formerly called the Clivus Scauri. The archway consists of a single arch of travertine, without any ornamentation, but carrying an inscription to the effect that Publius Cornelius Dolabella, when consul, and Caius Julius Silanus, when Flamen Martialis, erected the arch by order of the Senate. The consulship of this Dolabella falls in the reign of Augustus A.D. 10, and therefore the arch can originally have had no connection with the Neronian aqueduct. It is possible, however, as Becker and Reber suggest, that the arch may have been originally built to carry the Aqua Marcia and Julia, which, as we know from Frontinus, supplied the Cælian before the building of the Neronian branch of the Aqua Claudia.[121] On one side the Arch of Dolabella is still completely hidden by the brickwork of the Neronian arches, and the other side was probably covered in a similar manner until after 1670, as we find no mention of this arch in Donatus, who could not have omitted to notice it in his description of the Neronian aqueduct had it been visible in his time.

[Sidenote: Navicella.]

The marble representation of a ship, which stands now in the Piazza della Navicella and gives its name to the place, was probably a votive offering to Jupiter Redux, and there may be some connection between these and the Castra Peregrinorum, as having perhaps been the place where the troops employed on foreign service were quartered. An inscription seems to allude to this connection between the Temple of Jupiter Redux and the camp.

[Sidenote: Houses on the Cælian.]

In the time of the empire many palaces of the richer classes stood upon the Cælian. Among them we have distinct mention of the houses of Claudius Centumalus, which was visible from the Arx, of Mamurra, and of Annius Verus, in which Marcus Aurelius was born. Tetricus also, the unsuccessful rival of Aurelian, built a magnificent residence on the Cælian, in which, on his readmission to the emperor’s favour, he entertained Aurelian.

[Sidenote: Palace of Commodus.]

It seems probable, as Bunsen has conjectured, that the Vectilian Palace in which Commodus lived, occupied the part of the Cælian next to the Coliseum. The ruins there consist of arches of travertine, forming a rectangular space upon the northern end of the hill. They are massively constructed, so as to bear a great superincumbent weight, and would be in every way suitable for the terraces of a large imperial villa such as Commodus may have built, when, as Lampridius tells us, he removed from the Palatine, where he found himself unable to sleep, to the house of Vectilius on the Cælian. He was afterwards murdered there. The position may have pleased him from its immediate vicinity to the Coliseum, where he was so fond of superintending the exhibitions, and displaying his own skill in killing wild animals. The story that he had an underground passage made from his villa to the Coliseum is also a strong confirmation of the conjecture of Bunsen, and some additional probability is given to it by the course of the branch aqueduct which leads from the Arch of Dolabella in the direction of this garden, and would certainly be required to supply the luxuries of a large Roman palace.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.

MONUMENTAL ANTIQUITIES IN THE MUSEUMS, PIAZZAS AND OTHER PLACES.

Besides the ruins which are still standing in Rome and the Campagna, many historical monuments may be seen in the Roman museums, and in some of the gardens and piazzas. The principal among these are as follows:

[Sidenote: Egyptian antiquities.]

1. Numerous Egyptian antiquities were found near the Churches of S. Maria sopra Minerva and that of S. Stefano in Cacco, on the site of the ancient Temples of Isis and Serapis. Of these the most remarkable are the two obelisks, one of which now stands in front of the Pantheon, and the other in the Piazza della Minerva. The statue of Isis, now in the Hall of the Dying Gladiator at the Capitoline Museum, the Egyptian lions on the steps of the Capitol, and the famous statue of the Nile now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, were also found here.

[Sidenote: Bas-reliefs from Arch of M. Aurelius.]

2. At the corner where the Strada della Vite crosses the Corso is a tablet recording the improvements made by Alexander VII. in the Corso at that point, whence he removed the ruins of an ancient triumphal arch which impeded the thoroughfare. A view of this is given by Donati, who calls it the Arcus Domitiani. But Nardini and all topographers since his time are agreed that the arch which stood here till 1662, must have been erected at a later time in honour of M. Aurelius. When it was pulled down, for public convenience as the inscription tells us, there were still four columns of verde antico standing, two of which are now used to adorn the principal altar in the Church of S. Agnese in Piazza Navona, and two are in the Corsini Chapel of the Lateran Basilica. The keystone of the arch is preserved in the Collegio della Sapienza; on each side of the arch there were two reliefs, now placed in the Capitoline Palace of the Conservators on the landing places at the top of the stairs. One of these represents M. Aurelius standing on a suggestus to deliver an harangue, and the other the apotheosis of the younger Faustina, his wife, who is being carried up to heaven by a genius, while the emperor is seated below, and at his feet the genius of Halala, a town at the foot of Mount Taurus where Faustina died.

These two reliefs were removed into the Palace of the Conservators in order that they might be placed near four other reliefs, which had been found in the sixteenth century in the Church of S. Martina on the Capitol. A fifth, also found in the same church, is now in the Palazzo Torlonia in the Piazza di Venezia. The earlier history of the removal of these last five reliefs is not known, but it seems certain, from their style and subjects, that they belonged to the Arch of M. Aurelius. The four which are now in the Conservators’ Palace represent Marcus Aurelius on horseback with his army, a group of barbarians kneeling before him, the goddess Roma, receiving the emperor who comes on foot to the gates, and presenting him with the globe, the symbol of empire, the triumphal procession of M. Aurelius in a quadriga crowned by Victory, and his thanksgiving sacrifice on the Capitol. The fifth relief, which is now in the Palazzo Torlonia, represents either M. Aurelius, or his brother Lucius Verus in conference with some barbarians who kneel as suppliants before him. Even supposing that the last mentioned five reliefs do not belong to this arch, yet the two first which are known to have stood upon it are quite sufficient to prove that it was the arch of M. Aurelius. The similarity between the representation of the apotheosis of the younger Faustina and that of Antoninus Pius and the elder Faustina is too evident to be overlooked and the whole style of sculpture and architecture points to the Antonine Age.

3. With the bas-reliefs from the Arch of M. Aurelius must be compared that on the pedestal of the column of Antoninus Pius now placed in the Giardino della Pigna at the Vatican. On one side of this is an inscription recording its dedication to Antoninus Pius, and on the other sides are reliefs, the principal of which represents the apotheosis of Antoninus and Faustina, while the others represent groups of cavalry and infantry.[122] One fragment of the column now placed upon the pedestal has a Greek inscription upon it showing that the stone of which the column was formed was originally cut in the ninth year of Trajan, and after lying for a long time in the imperial stoneyard was subsequently used for this column. In the same place, the Giardino della Pigna, is to be seen the gigantic bronze fir-cone which may have formed the summit of Hadrian’s Mausoleum, now the Castle of S. Angelo, and also the bronze peacocks which ornamented the same building.[123] The colossal head of Hadrian from his mausoleum is now in the Museo Pio Clementino.

4. The inscription cut upon the pedestal of the urn of Agrippina, the mother of Caligula, may still be seen in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitol, and also the cippi recording the burials of some of the imperial family. The pedestal was hollowed out and used as a measure for corn in the Middle Ages, and hence it was called Rugitella di grano.

Other colossal fragments are also kept in this courtyard, and on the staircase are the fragments of the inscription on the Duilian column found near the arch of Septimius Severus, and a bas-relief of Curtius leaping into the gulf, found in the Forum Romanum near the Church of S. Maria Liberatrice. The bas-reliefs mentioned above, No. 2, are also there.

5. The fragments of the ancient register of Consuls from A.U.C. 272 to the end of Augustus’ reign, which were found in the Forum Romanum, near the Temple of Castor, are arranged on the wall of the fourth room in the Halls of the Conservators on the Capitol. These are printed and discussed in the Berlin ‘Corpus Inscriptionum,’ Vol. I.

6. The famous bronze figure of the wolf and twins is placed in the gallery of bronzes on the Capitol. It was found, according to Flaminius Vacca, who wrote in 1594, near the Arch of Janus Quadrifrons. Urlichs, who has discussed the probable history of this figure in the Rheinisches Museum, thinks that it is the figure dedicated by the Ogulnii, Ædiles in B.C. 297, and mentioned in the tenth book of Livy.

7. A stupendous sarcophagus brought from Vico Varo, with a bas-relief representing the Calydonian boar hunt, stands in the Museum of the Capitol, and in the next room is the sepulchral monument found at the Porta Salaria in 1871, recording the young Greek scholar who won the prize at the Agon Capitolinus in A.D. 86. Another most interesting sarcophagus, which was found at the Monte del Grano on the road to Frascati, and contained the vase called the Portland Vase now in the British Museum, stands in the Hall of the Urns in the Capitoline Museum.

8. On the wall of the staircase in the Capitoline Museum are the fragments of the celebrated marble plan of Rome cut in the time of Septimius Severus, which shows the sites and ground plans of the Portico of Octavia, the Theatre of Pompeius, the Basilica of Trajan, the Basilica Julia, and the Theatre of Marcellus.

9. The Dying Gladiator, or more properly the Dying Gaulish Herald, was found in the gardens of Sallust, near the Porta Salaria. It now stands in the room called the Hall of the Dying Gladiator at the Capitoline Museum.

10. In the Hall of the Faun at the Capitoline Museum may be seen one of the most beautiful ancient bas-reliefs in Rome, representing the battle of Theseus, and the Amazons. This is on a sarcophagus which was found near Torre Salona on the Via Collatina.

11. In the Capitoline Museum, the Halls of Busts of the Emperors and of Illustrious Men, the Venus of the Capitol, and the Doves of Pliny, are monuments connected with several celebrated spots in Rome and the Campagna.

12. The places, however, at which most of the important antiquities have been found are the Villa of Hadrian, near Tibur, and the ruins of Veii and Ostia. The following is a list of the chief monuments which were found there and are now placed in the Vatican Museum.

A. From Hadrian’s Villa.

1. Faun. No. 84. } 2. A Vestal. No. 120. } 3. A Niobid. No. 176. } Museo Chiaromonti. 4. Clotho. No. 498. } 5. Bacchic bas-reliefs. No. 642. } 6. Hercules. No. 732. }

7. Baths of granite and masses of alabaster in the 4th portico of the Cortile di Belvedere.

8. Mosaics on the wall in the Hall of the Animals and in the Cabinet of the Masks.

9. The Candelabra on each side of the Ariadne in the Gallery of Statues.

10. Colossal bust of M. Aurelius in the Hall of the Busts. No. 288.

11. Corinthian columns in the Hall of the Muses.

12. Colossal Hermæ at the entrance of the Rotonda and bust of Faustina, No. 541 in the Rotonda.

13. Granite statues at the doorway of the Hall of the Greek Cross.

14. Discobolus, No. 618 in the Hall of the Biga.

15. Ephesian Diana, No. 81, and Female Statue No. 222, in the Gallery of Candelabra.

16. Egyptian figures in the Egyptian Museum.

B. From Veii and the North-Western Campagna.

1. Statue of Tiberius. No. 400. } Museo Chiaromonti. 2. Head of Augustus. No. 401. }

3. Statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, in the Braccio Nuovo.

C. From Ostia.

1. Antoninus. No. 6. } 2. Winter. No. 13. } 3. Bust of young Augustus. No. 416. } 4. Bust of Julia. No. 418. } 5. Juno. No. 534. } Museo Chiaromonti. 6. Head of Neptune. No. 606a. } 7. Boy and Swan. No. 651. } 8. Sarcophagus of Nonius Asprenas. No. 685. } 9. Æsculapius. No. 684. } 10. Bust of Antoninus Pius. No. 700. }

11. Ganymede. No. 38. } 12. Ceres. No. 83. } Braccio Nuovo. 13. Bust of Commodus. No. 121. }

The other principal ancient monuments now in the Vatican Museum besides those from the Villa of Hadrian, from Ostia, and Veii, above-mentioned, are:--

1. The statue of Demosthenes from the neighbourhood of Cicero’s Tusculan villa. No. 62. Braccio Nuovo.

2. The Torso Belvedere found near the ruins of the Theatre of Pompeius. No. 3, Museo Pio Clementino.

3. The Laocoon found near the Baths of Titus. Cortile di Belvedere. No. 74.

4. The great porphyry basin found at the Baths of Diocletian. Rotonda.

5. Sarcophagi of S. Constantia and S. Helena, and cippus of Syphax found on the road to Tibur. Hall of the Greek Cross.

6. Sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, from the Tomb of the Scipios, near the Porta S. Sebastiano. Museo Pio Clementino.

In the Capitoline Museum are placed:--

A. From Hadrian’s Villa.

1. Colossal head of Cybele. No. 9 in the courtyard,

{ Psyche. No. 53. } 2. { Cupid of Praxiteles. No. 13. } In the Gallery. { Euterpe. No. 32. }

3. Roman Matron. No. 3. } 4. An Amazon. No. 5. } In the Hall of the Dying Gladiator. 5. Flora. No. 11. } 6. Antinous. No. 13. }

7. The Faun. No. 1 in the Hall of the Faun.

8. Centaurs in bigio antico. No. 2. } 9. A Gymnasiarch. No. 27. } In the Saloon. 10. Harpocrates. No. 34. }

Some other great ancient monuments are placed as follows:--

1. The first milestone on the Appian Road, found in 1584, is now placed in the Piazza del Campidoglio at the top of the steps leading up from the Piazza d’Ara Cœli on the right hand. The seventh milestone is placed opposite to it.

On the stairs of the Capitol are also placed the marble sculptures called the trophies of Marius which were brought from the ruin on the Campus Esquilinus, not very far from the Arch of Gallienus. At the top of the steps stand two equestrian figures of the Dioscuri, said to have come from the neighbourhood of the Theatre of Balbus, and the statues of Constantine and his son Constans from the Baths of Constantine on the Quirinal. At the foot of the staircase are the two Egyptian lions found as above mentioned near the Church of S. Stefano in Cacco. The history of the bronze equestrian statue of M. Aurelius, now in the Piazza of the Capitol, cannot be traced as Palladio states to the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, but it was more probably found as Fea has recorded, near the Arch of Septimius Severus.

2. A bronze cista mistica found at Præneste is in the Kircherian Museum.

3. The wooden beams from the Villa of Cæsar in the lake of Nemi, are kept partly in the Kircherian Museum, and partly in the Gallery on the right hand of the Vatican Library.

4. The caricature of Alexamenos from the Palatine is in the Kircherian Museum.

5. The mosaics from the Baths of Caracalla are in the Hall of Mosaics at the Lateran.

6. One of the white marble columns from the Basilica of Constantine is placed in front of the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore.

7. The history of the great pair of figures on the Piazza del Quirinale called the Dioscuri and their horses, cannot be traced further back than the time of Constantine, in whose baths they stood, as we are told by Bufalini. The style of sculpture is of the Imperial Age of Rome, and the inscriptions ascribing them to Phidias and Praxiteles are erroneous.

8. Many good specimens of columns, ancient ornamental sculpture, and other monuments may be seen in the following places. The Churches of S. Lorenzo and S. Agnese fuori le Mura; S. Maria in Cosmedin, di Aracœli, degli Angeli, and in Trastevere. The Villas Ludovisi, Borghese, Albani, and Spada.

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IX.

The geological strata found on the site of Rome and in its immediate neighbourhood divide themselves into three principal groups. The oldest of these is a marine formation, and exhibits itself upon the Vatican, Janiculum, and Monte Mario. The second, of which all the hills on the eastern bank and the district of the Campagna are composed, is of volcanic origin, and consists chiefly of beds of tufaceous matter erupted from submarine volcanoes and more or less solidified. The third, which appears in the hollows of the Tiber valley, is a fresh-water formation, and is found on the slope of the hills on both banks of the river.

[Sidenote: Marine formation.]

The oldest of these three groups belongs to the division of the tertiary period, called by Lyell the older pleiocene, as having had a fauna and flora in which the greater number of species were identical with those now living on the earth. These strata are of marine formation, and are similar to those which extend over a great breadth of Italy on both flanks of the Apennine mountains, reaching as far south as the point of Reggio in Calabria. Their lower bed consists of a bluish-grey clayey marl, which will be found in the valley between the Janiculum and the Vatican. Its marine origin is sufficiently proved by the fossils found in it, and the remains of sea-weed. This bed of clay is of a plastic nature, and is still used for making pottery, as it was in the time of Juvenal. Above it lies a stratum of yellow calcareous sand, which sometimes takes the form of loose sand with boulders, sometimes of a stratified arenaceous rock, and sometimes of a rough conglomerate. This may be seen outside the Porta Angelica, on the left, under the walls of the city, and in the Belvedere Gardens on the Vatican Hill. The Church of S. Pietro in Montorio is said to derive its name Montorio, monte aureo, from the yellow colour of this sand.

On Monte Mario an abundance of fossil shells, of the Ostrea hippopus and other varieties of sea shells, may be seen, plainly indicating the marine origin of this formation.

The only places within the actual walls of Rome where these tertiary marine strata are to be found, are the Vatican and the Janiculum. At the base of the Capitoline, in the subterranean vaults of the Ospitale della Consolazione, under the volcanic rock which forms the upper part of the hill, Brocchi found a stratum of calcareous rock and clay, which he affirms to be of marine origin, and to resemble the limestone of the Apennines.

[Sidenote: Volcanic formation.]

The second group of strata found on the site of Rome is one which is not confined to the neighbourhood of Rome, but is most extensively spread over the whole of the Campagna, the district of Campania, and a considerable part of southern Italy. The great mass of the Capitoline, Palatine, Aventine, Esquiline, Cælian, Viminal, Quirinal, and Pincian Hills, is composed of this formation. Geologists give it the general name of tufa, and divide it into two kinds, the stony and the granular. It is distinguished from lava by not having flowed in a liquid state from the volcano, and is a mechanical conglomerate of scoriæ, ashes, and other volcanic products which have been carried to some distance from the crater of eruption, and then consolidated by some chemical re-arrangement of their constituent elements. The harder kind of tufa, the tufa litoide, is a reddish brown, or tawny stone, with orange-coloured spots. These spots are embedded fragments of scoriaceous lava. It is hard enough to be used as a building stone, and has been quarried largely under the Aventine Hill near S. Saba, at Monte Verde, on the southern end of the Janiculum, and at other places near Rome, as at Torre Pignatara on the Via Labicana, at the bridge over the Anio, on the Via Nomentana, and at the Tarpeian rock.

This tufaceous stone presents itself in very thick banks, traversed by long vertical and oblique fissures, probably produced by the contraction of the mass on passing from a humid and soft to a dry and hard state. The Arch of the Cloaca Maxima, near S. Giorgio in Velabro, is built of this stone, and the inner part of the substruction of the so-called tabularium on the Capitol. Portions of the Servian wall were also built of it, and many stones which were taken from this wall are to be seen at the present day in the walls of Aurelian, near the gate of S. Lorenzo; and others have been laid bare by the railway excavations in the Servian Agger. Brick-shaped masses of it are found in the ambulacra of the Theatre of Marcellus, so that the use of it must not be restricted to the earliest times of Roman architecture. In fact, several buildings of the Middle Ages in or near Rome consist of this stone, as may be seen at the Fortress Gaetani, near the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, and in the large tower at the side of the palace of the Senator.

[Sidenote: Freshwater formation.]

Fresh-water formations cover the bottoms of all the valleys in the district of Rome and in the whole of the Campus Martius, and ascend to a considerable height on the flanks of the hills and into the Campagna. They consist chiefly of sand, clay, gravel, and the stone called travertine, and of tufa beds which have been disturbed and then re-deposited. This re-deposited tufa has been the subject of some controversy. It was at one time thought to indicate that the lower tufa was also a fresh-water deposit, since it is sometimes found overlying the fresh-water formations. But no doubt now remains that it must have been formed by a re-arrangement in fresh water of previously deposited marine tufa beds. The water of the Tiber, at the time when these fluviatile formations took place, stood at such a height as to leave deposits upon the intermontium of the Capitol, and as high as the Church of S. Isidoro on the Pincian, and it must have partially removed and shifted the previously existing light and porous volcanic soil of the sea-bottom. Even the top of the Pincian was covered by this fresh water; for modules of calcareous matter, such as are deposited in fresh water alone, were found in digging the excavations for the fountain on the public promenade.

The surface of the broad river which then existed, seems, in fact, to have been at from 130 to 140 feet above the present surface level of the Tiber, and its water must have been more surcharged with alluvium, derived from sources with which the present river is no longer connected.

Among the fluviatile deposits, argillaceous marl beds now play an important part. They intercept the water as it descends from the hills, and impede its descent to the river, thus furnishing supplies to the wells in Rome, but rendering the soil less dry and healthy. The greater portion of these strata consist of a mixture of sand and clay. The ridge between the Campo Vaccino and the Coliseum, on which the Arch of Titus stands, is formed almost entirely of these mixed strata of clay and sand. To prove the fresh-water origin of these deposits, we need only refer to the modules of travertine and the shells of lacustrine animals which they contain. Such species of fresh-water shell-fish could not live in turbid and rapid water like that of the Tiber as it now is, and we must therefore conclude from their presence that the waters of the Tiber valley where such fossils are found were once in a semi-stagnant state. That there was also a period of violent movement during the prevalence of this lacustrine era is testified by the quantities of matter brought from a distance and accumulated at considerable altitudes, and by the size of the pebbles and boulders which have been rolled along by the stream. But before a more accurate investigation of facts shall have been made, it will be impossible to distinguish these two periods of stagnation and rapid movement from each other.

[Sidenote: Tiber water.]

The river water has no longer the power which it once possessed of depositing the travertine which we find lying in thick beds upon the slopes of some of the hills of Rome, and from which the larger ruins are all built. This travertine is formed from carbonate of lime which the waters take up as they pass through the soil containing it. In order to give the water the power of holding this carbonate of lime in solution, a certain quantity of carbonic acid gas must be present in it. When by means of the rapid movement of the water or from other causes this gas becomes disengaged, it leaves the carbonate of lime behind in the shape of a hard stony deposit. This natural process of petrifaction is familiar to all who have seen the Falls of the Anio at Tivoli, and the way in which the artificial canals of running water in that neighbourhood are choked by limestone concretions, and it may be seen in all vessels made use of to boil water which is impregnated with lime. The more violent the agitation of the water the more rapid is the disengagement of the carbonic acid gas, and the consequent settlement of the lime. This process is accompanied, in most places where it can be seen, by the presence of sulphuretted hydrogen, which produces a white colour in the water by depositing the sediment called gesso by the Italians. Hence an explanation of the ancient name of Albula given to the Tiber is easy. In the period when the Tiber had the power of depositing travertine, its waters were much more strongly impregnated not only with carbonate of lime, but also with gesso, which gave a white tinge to the water as it now does to the sulphureous waters near Tivoli. The same colour was characteristic of “the white Nar, with its sulphureous stream,” Virgil’s description of the chief stream of the central Apennines.

[Sidenote: Climate.]

The subject of the climate of Rome is naturally connected with that of the nature of the soil and configuration of the hills and valleys.

It is not difficult to see why the peculiar geological formation of the Campagna proves, without careful drainage, extremely deleterious to health. We have there a district containing numerous closed valleys and depressions in the soil without outlet for the waters which naturally accumulate. The tufa which composes the surface seems commonly to take the shape of isolated hills with irregular hollows between them, so as to impede the formation of natural watercourses. Under this tufa is a quantity of marl and stiff clay, which retains the water after it has filtered through the tufa, and sends it oozing out into the lower parts of the country, where it accumulates, and, mixed with putrescent vegetable matter, taints the surrounding atmosphere. A want of movement in the air caused by the mountainous barriers by which the Campagna is enclosed is another source of malaria.

The sites of Veii, Fidenæ and Gabii, once the rivals and equals of Rome are now entirely deserted except by a few shepherds and cattle stalls. Along the coast stood Ardea, Laurentum, Lavinium and Ostia, all of them towns apparently with a considerable number of inhabitants. Of these Ostia is now a miserable village, Ardea contains about sixty inhabitants, while Laurentum and Lavinium are represented by single towers. During a part of the year the ancient Roman nobility lived in great numbers on these very shores now found so deadly. Pliny the younger describes the appearance of their villas near Laurentum as that of a number of towns placed at intervals along the beach, and he writes an enthusiastic letter in praise of the salubrity and convenience of his own house there.[124] Lælius and Scipio used to make the seaside at Laurentum their resort, and to amuse themselves there with collecting shells.[125] Nor was it only on the seacoast that the country villas were placed. Six miles from Rome on the Flaminian Road, at the spot now called Prima Porta, there stood a well-known country house belonging to the Empress Livia, part of which has lately been excavated.[126] This was a highly decorated and commodious house, as the rooms which have been discovered, in which was found a splendid statue of Augustus, and the busts of several members of the imperial family, amply testify. The views from this spot over the Campagna and the Sabine Hills are most lovely, but the contrast between the beauty of nature and the haggard and fever-stricken appearance of the modern inhabitants is melancholy enough. A few squalid houses occupied by agricultural labourers stand by the roadside. Among their tenants not a single healthy face is to be seen, and even the children are gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and sallow in complexion. No wealthy Roman would now consent to live on the site of Hadrian’s stately villa in the Campagna near Tivoli. Tivoli itself, which Horace wished might be the retreat of his old age, and which was celebrated as a healthy place in Martial’s time, has now lost its reputation for salubrity, and is known as--

Tivoli di mal conforto, O piove, o tira vento, o suona amorto.

Strabo speaks of the now desolate district between Tusculum and Rome as having been convenient to live in. But there is no need to multiply proofs which might be gathered from all sides of what is an acknowledged fact, that the malarian fevers of the present day were not nearly so deadly in the classic times of Rome, or even in the Middle Ages. The troops of labourers who, fearing to pass the night in the country, are met returning to Rome every evening, the forsaken towers and buildings which stand rotting everywhere about the Campagna, all tell the same tale of a pestilence-stricken district.

The peculiar physical features of the district have had no little influence in determining the mode in which the population was grouped in ancient times. Everywhere we find the hills of Rome reproduced on a reduced scale. Small isolated flat-topped hills, irregularly divided by deeply cut watercourses, and edged with steep low cliffs, afford numerous sites for the settlement of limited independent communities. Such are the hills on which Laurentum, Lavinium, Fidenæ Antemnæ, Ficulea, Crustumerium and Gabii stood, and similar places abound in many parts of the district. Such hills afforded suitable sites for the small fortified towns with which ancient Latini was thickly studded. Their sides can be easily scarped so as to afford a natural line of defence, and they are in general fairly supplied with water from numerous land springs.

Thus, although the general aspect of the Campagna is that of a plain country, yet the main level of its surface is broken by numerous deep gullies and groups of hillocks.

The tertiary marine strata, already described as forming the Janiculum and other hills upon the right bank of the Tiber, do not rise to the surface in the Campagna, except on the flanks of the Æquian and Sabine hills. These hills themselves consist of great masses of Apennine limestone jutting out here and there into the spurs upon which some of the more considerable cities of the Latin confederacy stood, as Tibur, Præneste, Bola and Cameria.

The Alban Hills form a totally distinct group, consisting of two principal extinct volcanic craters somewhat resembling, in their relations to each other, the great Neapolitan craters of Vesuvius and Somma. One of them lies within the embrace of the other, just as Vesuvius lies half enclosed by Monte Somma. The walls of the outer Alban crater are of peperino, while those of the inner are basaltic. Both are broken away on the northern side towards Grotta Ferrata and Marino, but on the southern side they are tolerably perfect.

From the legendary times, when Latinus, Evander, Æneas, and the rest of Virgil’s heroes are supposed to have occupied the great plain of Latium, down to the final settlement of the district by its subjection to Rome in B.C. 338, the Roman Campagna was peopled by communities chiefly living in towns. Etruria on one side and Latium on the other, contained confederacies of independent cities, with one or other of which the Romans were constantly at war. Etruria gave way first, and after the fall of Veii in B.C. 395, the Roman dominions extended northwards as far as the Lago Bracciano and Civita Castellana.

At that time the great confederacy of Latium, though Alba was destroyed, still existed under the Hegemony of Rome as the successor of Alba, and numbered Tibur, Præneste, Tusculum, Aricia, Antium, Lanuvium, Velitræ, Pedum, and Nomentum among its members. But after the victories gained by the consuls of the year B.C. 338, the absorption of the Latin cities made rapid progress, and the character of the population of the Campagna began to be completely changed.[127] In this, the second period of the history of the Campagna, the towns were gradually reduced to mere villages, the small farmers disappeared, and the land was occupied by the immense estates (latifundia) of rich proprietors cultivated by hordes of slaves. Such is the condition in which we find the Campagna in the time of Cicero.[128] The great villas which strew the ground everywhere in the neighbourhood of Rome with their ruins were then constructed, and the colossal aqueducts which served not only to supply Rome with water but also to irrigate the farms and country seats of the Campagna.

There seems to have been a constant tendency during the later republic and early empire to reduce the amount of arable land, and to increase the extent of pasturage in the Campagna. Thus the country was rendered less and less healthy, and Rome became gradually more dependent than ever on foreign countries for her supply of corn.

The last phase of the history of the Roman Campagna is the most melancholy. The aqueducts were nearly all destroyed by the Gothic army at the siege of Rome under Vitiges in A.D. 536, and the great country seats of the Roman nobles and princes must have been ruined by the successive devastations of Roman territory during the fifth and sixth centuries in which the Lombards were the principal actors. Agriculture ceased, and the few villages and country houses which remained soon became uninhabitable during a great part of the year, in consequence of the increase of malarious exhalations arising from the uncultivated state of the soil, or were rendered unsafe by the lawless bands of ruffian marauders who infested the open country. Such is in the main the condition of the Roman Campagna at the present day, for the most part a waste of ragged pastures without human habitations, and wild jungles tenanted only by foxes, bears, and other wild animals.

The above remarks will serve to show that after B.C. 338 the Campagna became deprived of all historical interest except as the summer residence of the great Roman proprietors. Its history belongs almost entirely to the early times of the Roman Republic.