CHAPTER IX.

(A) THE VIA APPIA AND THE ALBAN HILLS.

[Sidenote: The Appian Road.]

Of the great roads along which the principal traffic from ancient Rome passed, the Appian Road may perhaps be said to have been the most important, as it led to the southern and oriental provinces of the great empire; and it is on the line of this ancient road that the greatest number of ruined tombs and other buildings are still left. Two hundred ruins are said to stand on the sides of the Appian Road between the site of the Porta Capena, by which this road left the Servian walls, and Albano, a distance of fourteen miles. The tombs were of the most varied and fantastic shapes and designs, the most common forms being those with square or circular bases, cylindrical superstructure, and conical roof. Some were square with several floors, and surmounted by a pyramid, others consisted of chapels in brick, placed upon a cubical base, or of sarcophagi in various shapes, mounted upon brick substructions.

Many fragmentary inscriptions have been found which once belonged to these tombs, but not one of any historical importance. The greater part of them record the names of freedmen, and other obscure people, as the larger and more highly decorated tombs were plundered first, and their marble casing and inscriptions completely destroyed at an early period. The older fragments which have been saved may be studied in the Berlin Collection of Inscriptions where they are learnedly and ably edited by Th. Mommsen.

There were also many fountains and semicircular ranges of seats by the side of the road designed as resting-places for travellers.

The commencement of the ancient Appian Road now lies between the Porta S. Sebastiano and the site of the old Porta Capena. From this part of the road the Via Latina diverged on the left, and the Via Ardeatina on the right. Beyond the Porta S. Sebastiano, the first monument now visible is a mass of stonework on the left hand, about one hundred yards from the gate. From its form and the style of masonry there can be little doubt that it was a pyramidal tomb similar to that of Caius Cestius at the Porta S. Paolo, and that it was built in the Augustan era. The road then crosses the Almo, and the remains of another pyramidal tomb are to be seen on the left. This is sometimes called the Tomb of Priscilla, mentioned by Statius, but that name more probably belongs to the larger tomb further on, beyond the Church of Domine quo Vadis. This latter ruin agrees better with the description of Statius, as it had a cupola and loculi for the reception of unburnt corpses. The immense number of ruined tombs and other buildings which crowd the sides of the road beyond this point, make it necessary to restrict our remarks as much as possible, and we shall therefore only notice a few of the most prominent ruins upon the road or in the immediate neighbourhood.

[Sidenote: Divus Rediculus.]

The brick building called the Temple of the Divus Rediculus stands half a mile to the left of the road at the second milestone in the Caffarella valley. The legend which connects it with Hannibal’s march on Rome is altogether unworthy of credit,[129] and it is plain that the building, which had no rows of surrounding columns, but is constructed with Corinthian pilasters, had two stories, and cannot therefore have been a temple. Professor Reber considers that it was a chapel tomb similar to that to be seen further on the road at S. Urbano, near the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella.

[Sidenote: Grotto of Egeria.]

The Grotto of Egeria, as it is called, lies in the valley of the Almo about half a mile above the building just mentioned. It is an arched nymphæum of brick, at the back of which a plentiful stream of clear water issues. The mutilated statue of the nymph still remains, but no other parts of the decorations. There is little doubt that it was the nymphæum of some suburban villa.

[Sidenote: Temple of Bacchus or Honos.]

On the hill above it stands the Church of S. Urbano, probably an ancient tomb in the shape of a chapel. It is commonly called the Temple of Bacchus from the discovery under it of an altar of Dionysus with a Greek inscription. But this altar seems to have been moved here from some other spot. The building is in the form which has a projecting porch with four Corinthian columns and capitals. These are now built up into the modern wall. The whole, except the entablature and columns, is of brickwork of the Antonine era, as appears from the stamps of the bricks. The triple frieze, forming a kind of attica between the architrave and cornice, seems to contradict the notion that this was a temple, though the great antiquary E. Q. Visconti considered that it was the Temple of Honour built by Marius outside the Porta Capena.[130] The interior is tolerably well preserved, and has a vaulted roof with coffers and reliefs in the form of trophies.

[Sidenote: The Circus of Maxentius and Temple of Romulus.]

On the left of the Appian Road, where it dips suddenly into a valley near the Church of S. Sebastian, lies a group of ruins, the principal of which consist of a circus, a building enclosed in a large square court, and some remains of rooms apparently belonging to an ancient villa. The walls of the circus are still in such preservation that they can be easily traced round the whole enclosure, and are in some parts nearly of the original height. They are built of rubble mixed with brickwork, and with jars of terra-cotta to lighten their weight, as in the case of the masonry in other walls of the same date. The towers at each side of the Carceres, or starting post, the curved line of Carceres themselves, and the spina, or central division line, can be easily traced. An inscription in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, found here in 1825, and now placed at the entrance to the ruins, seems to show the circus was built in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, who died before his father, A.D. 309. This is confirmed by a statement in one of the ancient chronicles published by Roncalli, in which it is said that Maxentius built a circus near the catacombs, evidently referring to the neighbouring catacombs of S. Sebastian and others, and also by the style of masonry used in the circus. The adjoining ruined temple, with its enclosing court, seems to belong to a somewhat earlier style of construction, but some reasons derived from the coins of Maxentius and Romulus have been given for supposing that it was the temple dedicated to Romulus after his apotheosis by his father.[131] The ruins are not sufficiently preserved to make it certain that the building was a temple, and there is nothing to contradict the hypothesis that it was a tomb. Nor is anything whatever known about the adjoining villa.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Cæcilia Metella.]

On the end of the mound formed by the great lava stream which ages ago flowed down from the Alban Hills, and along the top of which the Via Appia runs from this point, stands the conspicuous Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, the daughter of Metellus Creticus, and wife of Crassus, but whether of the Triumvir Crassus, or of the orator, or of some other less well known Crassus is uncertain. The inscription on the tomb is Cæciliæ, Q. Cretici Filiæ, Metellæ Crassi. The shape of the tomb is the same as that of the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and the Tomb of the Plautii at Tivoli; a cylindrical towerlike edifice, resting on a square base of concrete with massive blocks of travertine. The upper part has been destroyed, and the marble casing stripped off, with the exception of a band of ox skulls and garlands which surrounds it, and some trophies carved in relief above the inscription. The roof was probably conical. Mediæval battlements, erected by the Caetani family, who held it as a fortress in the 13th century, now crown the upper edge. The remains of their castle are still visible on each side of the road beyond the tomb.

[Sidenote: Roma Vecchia, Villa of Seneca.]

After passing the third milestone, the Appian Road is fringed with ruins of innumerable tombs, and here and there the relics of a suburban villa. Scarcely any of these can have names attached to them with any certainty. The spot is now called Roma Vecchia, and the Campus sacer Horatiorum, the Fossa Cluilia, and the Villa Quintiliana Commodi lay here. The suburban villa in which Seneca committed suicide by opening his veins was at the fourth milestone, as we learn from Tacitus, and near this was found in 1824, by Nibby, a marble slab with the name of Granius, a military tribune. A tribune of this name was employed by Nero to compel Seneca to kill himself, but whether the stone refers to him or not is of course doubtful.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Atticus.]

At the fifth milestone on the right hand of the road is a round mass of ruins with a rectangular chamber inside, which has been supposed to be the tomb mentioned by Cornelius Nepos, as the burial place of Atticus, Cicero’s friend. Near this is the great platform of peperino blocks which are thought to have been used as a burning place (ustrina) for the bodies interred at the sides of the road.

[Sidenote: Villa Quintiliana.]

On the left hand, a little way beyond the fifth milestone, the remains of the Villa Quintiliana of Commodus begin, and reach along the side of the road for at least half a mile, extending also towards the left into the adjoining fields as far as the edge of the great lava current, on the top of which the Via Appia is here carried. The whole of this space, nearly two miles in circumference, is covered with fragments of costly marbles, of sculpture, and bits of mosaic, showing that it was covered with handsomely decorated buildings. The style of construction, says Nibby, belongs to three different epochs. The buildings nearest to the Appian Road, comprising the great reservoir, on the foundation of which the farmhouse of S. Maria Nuova is built, are of brickwork and reticulated work of the time of Hadrian, the great mass of the ruins which lies on the left towards the new road to Albano, exhibits workmanship of the Antonine era, and amongst them have been found numerous fragments of sculpture, also belonging to the reigns of the Antonines. The third style of building is that called opera mista by the Italian antiquarians, which prevailed in the Constantinian times, at the beginning of the fourth century. The buildings of the Antonines have been repaired and overlaid in many places by this later work. The stamps of most of the bricks found here belong to the reigns of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus, and were made chiefly in the imperial brickyards. Thus the date of the principal parts of the building is decided, and it is seen that the villa was most probably an imperial villa. But all doubt on this point was completely cleared away by the discovery in 1828, of a number of large leaden pipes bearing the inscription, II. QUINTILIORUM CONDINI ET MAXIMI, from which it became evident that the villa was the same place which Vopiscus and Dion Cassius mention as the property of the Quintilii, consuls in the year A.D. 151, under Antoninus Pius, and victims of the spite of Commodus in A.D. 182.[132] Commodus seized their property, and the villa became one of his favourite residences. The great extent of the ruins explains the circumstance related by Herodian, that the emperor, being in the back part of the villa, could not hear the shouts of the infuriated mob on the Appian Road, who were demanding the life of Cleander.[133]

The ruins which extend along the side of the road, are plainly fragments of a kind of vestibule or grand entrance to the imperial villa. They consist of a nymphæum or grand fountain, and a row of chambers intended for slaves’ lodgings. The fountain is supplied with water by an aqueduct, the arches of which can be seen at the seventh milestone, where it leaves the lava rocks, and crosses the country towards Marino, at a higher level than even the Aqua Claudia. This nymphæum and aqueduct are built of opera mista, which shows that they are probably the work of the Constantinian Age.

The principal mass of the villa itself stood nearly half a mile from the old Appian Road, on the edge of the rocks of basaltic lava. Between them and the road the space was occupied by gardens and ornamental summer-houses and ponds. Nibby describes the chief ruins as having belonged to a richly ornamented fountain, and a suite of bathing-rooms of great grandeur.

One spacious saloon, the walls of which form a picturesque ruin, as seen from the new post road to Albano, stands on the edge of the rising ground, and commands a magnificent view of the whole of the Alban and Sabine Hills and the city of Rome. Near this was a small theatre, from which the cipollino columns of the entrance to the Tordinone Theatre in Rome were taken.

An immense quantity of valuable sculpture, now in the Roman museums and palaces, was discovered by excavations here in 1787 and 1792. Among these sculptures was a splendid statue of Euterpe, now in the Galleria dei Candelabri, a tiger now in the Hall of Animals; and the busts of Lucius Verus, Diocletian, and Epicurus, Socrates, the Isis and Antinous in the Vatican, with numerous Sileni, Fauns, and Nereids.

[Sidenote: Casale Rotondo.]

Between the sixth and seventh milestones from the Porta Capena there is a large round ruin 300 feet in diameter, called Casale Rotondo, now supporting a house and olive orchard upon the top. The fragments of sculpture found here have been arranged on the face of a wall, close to the pile of ruins. The name Cotta was found on an inscription belonging to this, and hence it has been supposed to be the tomb of the gens Aurelia, who bore the surname of Cotta. On the left are the arches of the aqueduct which supplied the Villa of Commodus.

At the eighth milestone there was a Temple of Hercules erected by Domitian. Martial mentions this temple in several passages. There are considerable remains of a tetra-style temple on the right hand of the road, consisting of columns of Alban peperino; but this, which was once supposed to be the Temple of Hercules, is now said to have contained an altar to Silvanus.

[Sidenote: Bovillæ.]

The Villa and Farm of Persius the poet is said by his biographer to have been near the eighth milestone. At the ninth stood the Tomb of Gallienus, and perhaps the ruins there belong to his suburbanum. At the tenth milestone, the Rivus Albanus, formerly the Aqua Terentina, is crossed; and at the eleventh, the road begins to ascend the slope towards Albano. At the twelfth, the circuit of the walls of the ancient town of Bovillæ is approached. Dionysius says that Bovillæ was situated where the hill before reaching Albano first begins to be steep, and this answers to the position of the modern Osteria delle Frattocchie. The ruins which are now generally held to be those of Bovillæ lie on the cross road, called Strada di Nettuno, a little way above Frattocchie.[134] They consist of a small theatre built of brickwork and opus reticulatum, and a somewhat larger circus, the enclosure of which and the carceres are still pretty well preserved. The town did not lie close to the road. It was founded by a colony from Alba Longa, and was a flourishing place until Coriolanus destroyed it. For centuries afterwards we find but little notice taken of it. In Cicero’s time it was a very insignificant village, and had it not been immortalised by the assassination of Clodius there, which led to such important results, it could hardly excite any interest in later times.[135]

The honour of being the native place of the gens Julia gave it some artificial importance in the imperial times. Tiberius is mentioned by Tacitus as erecting a sacrarium of the Julian family and a statue of Augustus there, and founding Circensian games in honour of the gens Julia. Some inscriptions found on the spot show the town still existed in the 2nd century A.D. It is now occupied by plots of land laid out as gardens. The Villa of Clodius, Cicero’s enemy, appears to have been at or near the thirteenth milestone from Rome, close to the left side of the Appian Road, between Bovillæ and the modern Albano. It was raised on immense substructions, the arches of which were capable of concealing a thousand men, and Cicero declares that Clodius had not respected even the confines of the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris or the sacred groves of Alba.[136] The ruins which lie under Castel Gandolfo, on the left side of the road towards the Porta Romana of Albano, may have formed part of the substruction of which Cicero speaks. The estate of Clodius passed after his death, when the family of the Claudii Pulcri became extinct, into the hands of the Claudii Nerones, from whom Tiberius inherited it, and thus it became imperial property.

[Sidenote: Villa of Pompey.]

The Villa of Pompey was between that of Clodius and Aricia, and therefore occupied the site of the present town of Albano. Nibby thinks that the walls of reticulated work in the Villa Doria belonged to Pompey’s house, and that the great tomb, near the Roman gate of Albano was Pompey’s burial place. Plutarch states that Pompey was buried at his Alban villa. The tomb, with five truncated cones, usually called the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, has also been called the Tomb of Pompey. It is more probably an imitation of the old Etruscan tombs executed at a later time. After the death of that great general, the estate became the property of Dolabella, and subsequently of Antony, who held it till the battle of Actium, when Augustus took possession of it. After the adoption of Tiberius, it was united with the Clodian grounds, and thus formed the nucleus of the Albanum Cæsarum.

[Sidenote: Albanum Cæsarum.]

Augustus and some of the early emperors found the Albanum a convenient halting-place on their journeys to the south, but it was in the time of Domitian that the place was extended so much as to contain a military camp, enormous reservoirs of water, thermæ, a theatre, an amphitheatre, and a circular temple. It is called Arx Albana by Juvenal, Tacitus and Martial.

The plan of the camp can still be traced. It resembled that of the Prætorian camp at Rome, in being a quadrangular space rounded off at the corners. The two longer sides extend from the Church of S. Paolo at Albano to the round Temple, now the Church of S. Maria. One of the shorter sides was parallel to the Appian Road, and the other ran near the Church of S. Paolo. There were four terraces or levels in the camp rising towards the hill behind. The Porta Decumana was in the north-eastern side, and the Porta Prætoria on the south-western. The great reservoirs for water stand on the northern side near S. Paolo, and the thermæ towards the south-east on the opposite side of the Appian Road. At the western corner is the round building usually called the Temple of Minerva, and supposed to be that alluded to by Suetonius as annually visited by Domitian. This round building is in good preservation, but its purpose cannot be determined with certainty. Nibby says that the ancient mosaic pavement still remains at a depth of six feet below the present surface. The amphitheatre is situated between the Church of S. Paolo and that of the Capuchin Convent. It is principally constructed of opus quadratum, but the interior parts are of a mixed masonry, consisting of bricks and fragments of the local stone. This amphitheatre is supposed to have been the scene of the feats performed by Domitian, in killing with his own hand hundreds of wild beasts with arrows and javelins, and also of the degradation of Acilius Glabrio, who was forced, according to Juvenal, by Domitian to join him in these sports of the arena.

Between Castel Gandolfo and Albano four magnificent terraces, rising one above the other, were traced by Cav. Rosa as forming part of the Albanum Cæsarum, and in the Villa Barberini there is a considerable part of a cryptoporticus, ornamented with stucco reliefs, which probably stands over the old substructions of the Villa Clodi.[137] On the side towards the lake there were open balconies for viewing the mock naval engagements; and near the entrance of the Barberini Villa the ruins of a theatre have been discovered. It appears probable from the numerous ruins found upon the edge of the lake that the whole of it was surrounded with quays and tiers of stone seats, and chapels of Nymphs, making it resemble a gigantic natural naumachia, or sheet of water for sham naval fights. These ruins may possibly, however, have belonged to separate private villas placed at different points round the water.

To the south of Albano, in the grounds of the Villa Doria, there are the ruins of an extensive Roman villa. Whether this was a part of the Albanum Cæsarum or not, is uncertain. Some of the bricks bear the stamps of Domitian, others those of the third consulship of Servianus (A.D. 134), Hadrian’s brother-in-law, others of Commodus.[138]

[Sidenote: Lago Albano or Di Castello.]

The Alban lake belongs to the water system of the Tiber, and has most of its outlets on the western side. It has been supposed that a subterranean communication exists between this lake and that of Nemi, but Nibby asserts that this is impossible, as the level of the lake of Nemi is higher than that of the Alban lake. The circumference of this sheet of water is more than six miles, and it is nearly elliptical in shape. The story of the sudden rise of its waters in the sixth year of the siege of Veii is well known, and the response of the Delphic oracle as given in Livy.

Cicero gives a distinct account of the drainage of the lake. “We are told, he says, by the Annalists, that during the siege of Veii, when the Alban lake had risen to an unusual height, a Veientine noble fled to Rome as a deserter, and declared that it was written in the books of fate which were kept at Veii, that Veii could not be taken, so long as the lake was overflowing its banks, and that if the lake were tapped, and flowed into the sea by its own channel and stream, it would be fatal to the Roman nation, but that if the water were so discharged as to make it impossible for it to reach the sea, then the Romans would be victorious. In consequence of this our ancestors contrived that admirable plan for drawing off and dispersing the water of the lake.”

From this passage it would seem likely that the whole object of the drainage of the lake was to obtain a constant supply of water for the irrigation of the Campagna. In another passage Cicero states his opinion still more clearly, that the work was really undertaken for the benefit of suburban agriculture. “The Veientine prophecy that if the water of the Alban lake rose above its margin and flowed into the sea, Rome would perish; but that if it were checked, Veii would be taken, in consequence of which the Alban water was diverted, was intended to benefit the suburban farms, and not to secure the safety of Rome.” What appears strange, is that it should have been necessary to appeal to a superstitious motive in the case of a people evidently so far advanced in civilization as to be capable of carrying out an engineering work of such difficulty in a single year.[139]

[Sidenote: Emissarium of the Alban lake.]

The tunnel which still carries off the superfluous water of the lake is cut through solid peperino and occasional masses of still harder basaltic lava. It is more than a mile and a half in length, from seven to ten feet in height, and never less than four feet in breadth. The height of the edge of the lake basin above the level of its water at the part which is pierced by the tunnel is 430 feet. Three vertical shafts are still discoverable, by which a draft of air was created and the rubbish was removed, and one slanting shaft for the entrance and exit of the miners. The rock was cut with a chisel an inch wide, as may be seen from the marks left upon the sides of the tunnel.

At the points where the water enters and leaves the tunnel, considerable pains have been taken to regulate the flow. The channel of stonework at the mouth is placed in a slanting direction so as to break the force of the rush of water. At the end of this first channel is a cross wall with openings, protected by gratings to catch the leaves and floating rubbish. Behind this is a reservoir, similar to the cisterns in use in the Roman aqueducts, allowing the mud to settle before the water entered the tunnel. Next to the tunnel itself there is a closed building to protect the canal from the fall of rocks and stones, and the actual entrance into the rock is faced with a massive portal of wedge-shaped blocks of stone. The water in this enclosure is now used by the fishermen of the lake as a receptacle for keeping fish, and is for this purpose provided with sluices. Hirt thinks that these arrangements at the mouth are very ancient.[140] Others ascribe them to the imperial era.

The point where the tunnel emerges from the mountain on the west of Castel Savelli, nearly a mile from Albano, is called Le Mole. The water was there received in a long troughlike reservoir arched over with a stone vaulted roof. From this it ran through five smaller openings into five separate channels, and was so dispersed into the fields for irrigation. At the present time the whole stream is united, and after passing the road to Anzio, thirteen miles from Rome, takes the name of Rio d’Albano, receives the brook from the valley of Apiolæ, and joining the Acqua Acetosa and Cornacciola crosses the Ostian way near Tor di Valle, three miles and a half from Rome, and then discharges itself into the Tiber.

It is the opinion of some archæologists that the Romans brought engineers from Greece to superintend the Alban tunnel. This supposition, however, is not necessary. If the Italian engineers could construct the Cloaca Maxima they would be fully equal to the task of tapping the Alban lake.

The physical conformation of Central Italy compelled its inhabitants to turn their attention at an early period to the construction of drains and other hydraulic works. Considerable artificial channels were rendered necessary in order to regulate the flow of the Arno and Tiber in the neighbourhood of Chiusi. In southern Etruria, the district now known as the pestilent Maremma, could only have been rendered healthy by systematic artificial drainage. The sites of Populonia, Saturnia, Cosa, Veii, and Cære were thus rendered habitable and fertile, and a great part of Latium Maritimum, the Pomptine marshes, and the tract about Suessa Pometia must have been artificially and skilfully drained at the time of the greatest prosperity of those places. Many of the ancient cities of Central Italy had tunnels bored underneath their streets which served as thoroughfares connecting the different parts of the city, or as secret passages leading out into the country. Such tunnels are found at Præneste and Alba Fucensis. An account of the attempted escape of Marius from Præneste, by means of the tunnels, is given by Velleius. The catacombs show that the same genius for tunnelling operations existed at a later time among the Italians of the empire.

[Sidenote: Alban Mount.]

The triumphal route by which the festal processions from Rome ascended the Alban Mount diverged from the Appian road at the ninth milestone. It probably passed by Marino to Palazzuolo and thence ascended to the summit by a series of zigzags. The stones which mark its course have the letters N V. (numinis via) cut upon them. On the summit stood the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the ancient sanctuary of the Latin league. The sole remains of this famous building are now built into the wall of the reservoir of the convent of Palazzuolo. They consist of fragments only.

Most of the stones employed by Cardinal York in 1783 in the erection of the convent of Palazzuolo and the church of the Trinity, on the site of the temple, were taken from the ruins, but nothing can be learnt from them regarding the ancient buildings. The summit of the hill is not broad enough to have supported any large building, and we may therefore conclude that the temple was of small size, and that the great festival games at the Feriæ Latinæ were held in the Prati d’Annibale below. The inscriptions on some of the stones are merely the freaks of some modern stonemasons. The fragments which remain were probably used for the area round the temple.

The explorations carried out in 1876 seem to have proved that the buildings consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris on Monte Cavo were a walled area of about sixty-five yards long, and fifty wide, a fragment of the wall of which was found; a chapel dedicated to Jupiter, one corner of which was excavated; a large altar, and some other chapels dedicated as votive offerings. A tracing of the shape and position of the area, chapels and altar was found by M. S. De Rossi in a seventeenth century MS. in the Barberini Library, and was published in the Annali dell’ Instituto for 1876. This traced sketch agrees with the excavations. (See Plan.)

[Sidenote: Alba Longa.]

The early destruction of Alba Longa, so famous in Roman legendary lore, has completely deprived us of the means of tracing its site by the discovery of any remains of the walls or buildings which it contained. It was razed to the ground by Tullus Hostilius in B.C. 667 and never rebuilt. Dionysius thus describes the site: “The city was built close to the mountain and lake, upon a site between the two. They serve as defences to it, and make it almost impregnable, for the mountain is very steep and lofty and the lake deep and wide.” Livy says that the city was named Longa because it extended along a ridge of the Alban hills. The words of Dionysius seem to imply that Alba stood immediately between Monte Cavo and the lake on the site of the convent of Palazzuolo, and Cav. Rosa, the highest modern authority on the topography of the Campagna, who has made the neighbourhood of Albano and Nemi the subject of special study, holds this opinion. Nibby thought that the whole edge of the crater from Palazzuolo nearly to Marino, a distance of more than two miles, was occupied by the city of Alba. Sir William Gell discovered an ancient road running along the edge of the crater above Monte Cuccu, and a few blocks of stone on the top of the precipice bordering the lake further eastwards, which he thought must have belonged to the gate of Alba.

At the sixteenth milestone on the Appian road beyond Albano, in the valley below the modern town of Ariccia, is the massive causeway 700 feet in length and 40 in width, upon which the old Appian road was raised. It is built of blocks of peperino and is a solid mass of masonry, except where three archways give passage to the water which descends from the Alban hills and the neighbourhood of Nemi.

[Sidenote: Lake of Nemi.]

Beyond the ancient viaduct we come to the tunnel through which the lake of Nemi discharges its waters.

The name of this lake and of the village on its margin, is derived from the great grove of Diana (Nemus Dianæ) whose temple probably stood on the site of the present village of Nemi. The wooded cliffs which surround the crater here are steep and descend immediately into the water, except on the side near Genzano, where they slope magnificently and are planted with vines. Their average height is 300 feet. In the Latin poets frequent mention is made of this lake as one of the principal ornaments of the neighbourhood of Rome, and in connection with the widely celebrated temple of Diana. Hence it was called Speculum Dianæ, lacus Triviæ and Stagnum Dianæ.

Whether the name Lacus Aricinus also belonged to this lake is doubtful, for Pliny speaks of a lake which formerly occupied the valley of Ariccia, and the water in this valley was certainly called Lacus Aricinus in the middle ages.

The water of the lake is supplied partially at least from a small spring near the road from Genzano to Nemi, and also from the copious stream which turns the mills of the village of Nemi. The latter is probably alluded to by Strabo when he says that the sources whence the lake is filled are visible, and are near the temple of Diana.

Nibby gives the following account of the Lake of Nemi, and of the investigations carried on in his time for the purpose of discovering the real nature of the curious wooden fabrics said to have been found at the bottom of the lake:

“The situation of Nemi is picturesque, and the view from it of the crater, and of the lake, which resembles an enormous mirror spread below, is magnificent. But beyond the historical reminiscences of the Temple of Diana, it presents nothing worth particular mention. The baronial castle near it has all the appearance of a feudal fortress. It was built by the famous Colonna family, once the lords of the estate, who also built the round tower or keep which surmounts it. By ascending the side of the mountain which rises above it, a splendid panoramic view of the coast of Latium and of the adjacent Rutulian and Volscian territory may be enjoyed. The eye ranges along the whole coast line of the Tyrrhenian Sea, from the Circæan promontory to the mouths of the Tiber, and the situations of Astura, Antium, Ardea, Lavinium, Laurentum, Ostia and Porto are clearly distinguishable, together with many other points.”

“The crater is surrounded in parts by rocks of the hardest basaltic lava, in others by conglomerated cinders and scoriæ, and in some places by banks of tufa. Its circumference is about five miles; and the level of the water is higher than that of the Alban Lake. The story of the ship discovered at the bottom of this lake and said by some authors to have belonged to the time of Tiberius, by others to that of Trajan, is well known. Biondo, Leon Battista Alberti, and particularly Francesco Marchi a celebrated architect and military engineer of the sixteenth century, who went down into the lake himself, have spoken of it.[141] Fresh investigations have been carried on of late, at which I was present, and saw and examined everything which was brought to the surface, and inquired of those who went down what they saw there. I consider myself in a position to assert that the pretended ship was nothing more than the wooden piles and timbers used in the foundations of a building. The beams are of fir and larch, and are joined by metal nails of various sizes. The pavement, or at least the lowest stratum, of the remains is formed of large tiles placed upon a kind of grating of iron, on which the name CAISAR, in ancient letters, is marked. Some of these tiles and nails and gratings are now kept in the Vatican Library.

“The name Caisar seems to explain the history of the building, for Suetonius in his ‘Life of Julius Cæsar,’ as an illustration of Julius Cæsar’s extravagance, asserts that after having built a villa on the lake of Nemi at an enormous expense, he had the whole destroyed because it did not quite suit his taste. It is my belief that the pretended ship was nothing else than the piles and wooden framework upon which this villa was supported, and that after the upper part was destroyed the foundations under the water still remained, partly covered by the fragments of the demolished building above.”[142]

The mention of paving tiles, marbles, and leaden pipes as among the objects raised from the bottom of the lake, renders the notion that they belonged to a ship improbable, and Nibby’s conjecture that a Roman villa, partly built out into the water, stood here, seems much more likely, though his application of the passage of Suetonius is very doubtful.

Cav. Rosa, who examined the neighbourhood of Nemi and Genzano with a special view to the solution of the question of the site of the Temple of Artemis, has given a careful account both of the ruins under Genzano and those to the west of Nemi. The former he pronounces undoubtedly to belong to a villa, the latter he thinks belonged to a temple with a large court in front, and an ancient road leading to it from the western side of the lake. These ruins are just above the lower road leading from the Capuccini convent at Genzano to Nemi, at the point where a cross road leads to the left and joins the higher road to Nemi, not far from the place called le Mole.[143] Genzano is a town of mediæval origin.

(B) THE VIA LATINA AND TUSCULUM.

[Sidenote: Latin road.]

The modern Porta Giovanni is now the point at which the new road to Albano, and also that to Frascati, leave Rome. The Latin road anciently diverged, after passing the Porta Capena, from the Alban road and had a gate of its own in the Aurelian wall, called the Porta Latina, now walled up.

[Sidenote: Tombs on Latin road.]

The old Via Latina is unfortunately now almost lost, and can only be traced by the lines of ruined tombs which mark its former course. After leaving the old Porta Latina it runs along the edge of the hills which fringe the right bank of the Caffarelli valley, and crosses the new road to Albano at the second milestone, at a point on the other side of the valley almost opposite to the so-called fountain of Egeria. Not far from this spot some very interesting tombs were excavated in 1860. A full account of them has been given in the ‘Annali dell’ Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica’ for 1860. The sarcophagi and stucco ornaments are the most perfect remains of the kind in the neighbourhood of Rome. These sepulchral monuments are near the remains of the Basilica of S. Stefano, a ruin of the fifth century, and on the farm which bears the name of Arco Travertino from the travertine arches of the Claudian Aqueduct which cross it. The ancient pavement of the Latin road has been uncovered in some places near the tombs, and also some traces of a villa, which probably belonged to the Servilian and Anician families, have been excavated. The portico of the tomb which faces the southern side of the road leads down to two large vaults, in the outer of which stand the mutilated remains of a marble sarcophagus in a niche, while the inner vault is decorated with well-preserved stucco ornaments in relief, representing sea-monsters and nymphs. Some of the marble casing which covered the walls remains, but no name has been found on the bricks or stones. In the tomb on the opposite side of the road there is a well-preserved mosaic with figures of sea-monsters at the entrance, and below are paintings of birds upon the arches which support the sarcophagi in the outer chamber, and an inscription which gives the name of the Pancratii as the owners of the tomb. The family figures and profiles are only sketched roughly in outline, as is common in the catacombs. The roof of the inner chamber in this second tomb is exquisitely ornamented with paintings and stucco reliefs, representing mythological subjects and landscapes. In the centre a large marble sarcophagus containing places for two bodies is left standing. This sarcophagus is plain and without any decoration. The date of this tomb cannot precede the Antonine era, as there are no cinerary urns in it.

[Sidenote: Torre Fiscale.]

At the fourth milestone from the Porta Capena, the Latin road passed under the arches of the Claudian and Marcian aqueducts, at the tower now called Torre Fiscale. At this point the two aqueducts cross each other, and present a most magnificent series of arcades running along the side of the old Latin road for more than a mile. The arches of the Claudian aqueduct are here more than fifty feet in height. The railway to Naples runs very close to the line of the old Latin road here.

A great number of ruins are still to be seen at a place called Sette Bassi, four miles and a half from the Porta S. Giovanni and near the Osteria del Curato. This spot, as well as the district near it on the Appian road, bears the name of Roma Vecchia. The scattered ruins occupy a space of nearly three-quarters of a mile in circumference, and appear to have been built at two different epochs. The bricks of which one portion of them is constructed have the dates A.D. 123 and 134 upon them, the years when Pœtinus and Africanus and Servianus and Juventius were consuls. The other part of the building is evidently contemporaneous with the ruins on the Appian road and belongs to the Antonine era. All the bricks were made at one of the imperial kilns, and it has therefore been generally supposed that the villa was an imperial residence, forming a part of the already-mentioned Suburbanum Commodi. The marbles found on the spot show that it was decorated with great magnificence, and a particular kind of breccia, numerous fragments of which have been picked up there, obtains its name, Breccia di Sette Bassi from the place.

The plan, according to Nibby, was that of a large oblong area, the longer sides of which ran north and south. In the centre there was room for a large pleasure garden. The front of the buildings was at the northern end towards Rome, and the remains of a portico can be traced, which supported a terrace on a level with the first floor rooms of the mansion. One of these rooms with three doors and the same number of windows can still be traced. In some of the walls the remains may be seen of terra-cotta pipes for heating the rooms. The ground floor apartments were without decorations, and are therefore supposed to have served as storehouses for grain and farm produce.[144]

Behind this front building, on the eastern and western sides, are long ranges of building, the eastern consisting of two suites of rooms, probably intended for baths or for gymnasia, and the western forming a long ambulacrum terminated by an exedra. On the south side there is a cryptoporticus and a reservoir for water which was supplied by a branch of the Claudian aqueduct.

About a quarter of a mile farther south, near the Latin road, there is an outlying building which seems to have been intended to command a view of that road. The railway to Frascati now runs between the Claudian aqueduct and these ruins.

The castella of the Aqua Marcia, the Tepula, the Julia, the Claudia, the Anio Vetus, and the Anio Nova lie on the right of the old Latin road here, at the sixth milestone, where the arcades make a right angle. The old road then runs to the right of the present road to Frascati, nearly on the line of the modern Strada di Grotta Ferrata, and ascending the slopes of the Alban Hills, passes behind Tusculum and Corbio, along the valley called Vallis Albana.

[Sidenote: Tusculum.]

Since the excavations carried out by Lucien Bonaparte at the beginning of this century, there has been no doubt left as to the site of the ancient city of Tusculum. The ruins lie from about a mile and a half to two miles above Frascati, upon the ridge forming the edge of the most ancient crater of the Alban Hills. Between this ridge, which bore the name of Tusculani Colles, and the hills upon which Marino and Rocca di Papa stand, the great Latin road ran. Tusculum stands just over this road and was approached from it by a steep path ascending the northern side of the valley. The main road entered the city on the other side, from the direction of Frascati and Rufinella, leaving the Via Latina at the tenth milestone, between Morena and Ciampino. The ancient pavement of this road can be clearly traced on the slope of the hill above Frascati, and it leads us along the top of the hill through what has plainly been the main street of the town to the citadel, which stood at the eastern extremity.

[Sidenote: Theatre.]

The site of the citadel is a platform nearly square and 2700 feet in circuit, standing about 200 feet above the level of the surrounding parts of the hill. Its walls were completely demolished By the Romans in 1191 and not a vestige of them is left. Sir William Gell thought, however, that he could discover the traces of four ancient gates, one on the west, another on the side of the Alban valley, a third on the eastern side, and not far from this last, a postern communicating with a steep and rocky path which descended to the Alban valley. Most of the ruins now visible belong to the mediæval fortress of the Dukes of Tusculum, and a few only of the quadrilateral blocks of the ancient enclosure are visible. In the Æquian and Volscian wars this citadel played an important part. It must therefore have been a fortress of considerable strength from very early times. Dionysius describes it as a very strong position, requiring but a small garrison to hold it, and adds that the whole country as far as the gates of Rome, is plainly visible from it, so that the defenders could see the Roman forces issuing from the Porta Latina. The city itself lay on the ridge of the hill westwards from the citadel. The area which it occupied is an oblong strip of ground about 3000 feet long, and from 500 to 1000 feet in width. On the north and south sides the limits of the city are clearly marked by the edges of the hill, but on the west they are not so easily defined. At the foot of the descent from the citadel are the ruins of a large water tank of an oblong shape divided into four compartments by three rows of piers, and immediately under this tank is a small theatre built of peperino, which was excavated by the dowager Queen of Sardinia Maria Christina in 1839 and 1840. This, with the exception of the theatres at Pompeii, is the most perfectly preserved in Italy. The walls of the scena are unfortunately destroyed, but the ground plan of it can still be traced. The stage, which abuts closely on the western side of the semicircular cavea, is 110 feet in length, and 20 feet in depth. It has the three usual entrances from the back, and one at each end. These open into a corridor and communicate with two chambers, probably used as dressing rooms by the actors. Nearly the whole of the fifteen rows of seats in the lower division are still preserved unbroken, but the upper part which contained, to judge by the height of the outer walls still remaining, about nine rows of seats, is entirely destroyed.

[Sidenote: Other ruins.]

[Sidenote: Gate and walls.]

The curved walls on the northern side of the theatre were supposed by Nibby to have belonged to another theatre, but are now generally believed to have been a part of a fountain connected with the above-mentioned reservoir. Along the northern side of the reservoir are two parallel walls, which apparently enclosed the street leading to the citadel. The roadway must have been here carried by an arched corridor under the side of the theatre. Near the ancient road from the theatre westwards is a mass of ruins the plan of which cannot be determined, and beyond these, not far from the point where the road divides, and on its right-hand branch, is one of the gates of the city, marked by two fragments of ancient fluted columns which perhaps formed a part of its architecture. Near this are the remains of the ancient north wall of the city, consisting of blocks of peperino of great size more or less regularly laid, and of restorations here and there in reticulated work, partly of the later republic, and partly of more modern times. The pavement of the street is here perfectly preserved, and near the gateway there is a wide space left, probably as a turning place for carts or carriages.

[Sidenote: Tank and fountain.]

In the walls near this point is a stone doorway leading into a stone water-tank, with a pointed roof formed by overlapping stones, on the same principle as the roof of the so-called Mamertine prison at Rome, the gate of Arpinum and the treasuries of Mycenæ and Orchomenos. The doorway is about ten feet high and five wide, and the tank of the same dimensions. In the interior are three divisions or basins for water, and at the back an aqueduct enters by means of which the water was supplied. At the side of this tank there is a small ancient fountain under the wall which was supplied from the tank by a leaden pipe. An inscription on the fountain records that it was made by the Ædiles Quintus Cælius Latinus, son of Quintus, and Marcus Decumo, by command of the Senate of Tusculum. Not far from the fountain was found the fifteenth milestone from Rome.

On the road to Frascati, near the point where the western gate of the city has been supposed to have stood, the remains of an amphitheatre can be discovered. The seats are entirely destroyed, and it is only by the oval shape and by the position of the substruction that the ruins can be recognized as those of an amphitheatre. A round tomb stands a little above the amphitheatre, and beyond this the ruins of a large villa called Scuola di Cicerone cover the side of the hill towards the Alban valley.

The legend which ascribes the foundation of Tusculum to Telegonus, the son of Circe and Ulysses, is familiar to all readers of the Latin poets. It is remarkable, however, that Virgil, who mentions most of the towns of Latium, has entirely omitted to notice Tusculum. This may be mere accident, or it may be attributable to a grudge similar to that which led him, according to Aulus Gellius, to omit Nola from the lines in the Georgics celebrating the fertility of Campania, but it certainly cannot be due to the fear of making an anachronism, as Nibby supposes. In the times of the Latin league, from the fall of Alba to the battle of the Lake Regillus, Tusculum was the most prominent town in Latium. It suffered, like the other towns of Latium, a complete eclipse during the later republic and the imperial times, but in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries under the counts of Tusculum it became again a place of great importance and power, no less than seven Popes of their house having sat in the chair of St. Peter. The final destruction of the city is placed by Nibby, following the account given in the records of the Podesta of Reggio, on the 1st of April, A.D. 1191, in which year the city was given up to the Romans by the Emperor Henry VI., and after the withdrawal of the German garrison, was sacked and razed to the ground. Those of the inhabitants who escaped collected round the church of S. Sebastian on the foot of the hill, in the district called Frascati, whence the town of Frascati took its origin and name. They founded their new town upon the remains of an ancient villa, which stood near the round tomb which still remains on the road to the Villa della Ruffinella. The name of Lucullus has been attached to this villa and tomb from the statement of Plutarch that Lucullus was buried by his brother at his Tusculan villa. It is however, much more probable that the larger round tomb in the vigna Angelotti on the road towards Rome was the burial-place of Lucullus.

[Sidenote: Scuola di Cicerone.]

The building now called Scuola di Cicerone is not far from the ruins of the western gate of Tusculum. The ground floor is apparently about 270 feet in length and 100 in depth, but the upper parts of the buildings have now completely disappeared. The materials were of brick and reticulated work, similar to that now found in the gardens of Sallust at Rome, and generally considered as belonging to the last age of the Republic or the early Empire. The ground floor had a cryptoporticus along its whole length, and above this on the first floor was probably an open portico with a colonnade. Eight large rooms opened out behind the cryptoporticus, in the second of which are the remains of some stairs, and at the back of the eighth a recess. At the ends of the cryptoporticus are the remains of some more rooms. There are no signs of decoration on any of the walls, and therefore this lowest story of the building is supposed to have been used as a storehouse for corn and farm produce.

There is, however, no evidence whatever to connect these ruins with Cicero’s Villa. The only indication we have of its site is given by the Scholiast on Horace, who speaks of it as situated near Tusculum on the upper slopes of the hill.[145]

[Sidenote: Villa of Gabinius.]

This will agree either with the ruins just described or with those found in 1741 under the modern Villa Rufinella, which is a little way lower down the western slope. That Cicero’s Villa was upon the upper part of the hill is confirmed by his own statement that it was so near that of the consul Gabinius, that at the time of Cicero’s exile, not only the furniture but the trees in his garden were transferred to the Villa of Gabinius, and we also find that this latter villa was upon the upper part of the hill. Nibby accordingly places the Villa of Gabinius on the site of the modern Villa Falconieri close to the Rufinella.

Several particulars about his villa are mentioned by Cicero himself. It contained two rooms called gymnasia, to the upper of which he gave the name of Lyceum, and which contained his library. The lower gymnasium was called the Academy in honour of Plato.

The Lyceum seems to have been used in the morning, and the Academia in the afternoon, as being more sheltered from the heat of the sun.

The Hermathena, a double-headed bust of Hermes and Athena, mentioned in the letters to Atticus, was probably placed in the Lyceum, for the phrase he uses there seems to refer to Apollo as the patron of the gymnasium, in which it was placed. There were also some Hermæ of Pentelic marble, bronze busts, and Megarian statues placed in the gymnasia, and Atticus had a general commission to buy up anything which he might think suitable for these rooms.

Another part of the villa was called the atriolum. Nibby has shown from one of the letters to Quintus that the atriolum of a villa was a small courtyard surrounded with bedchambers and offices. The Tusculan atriolum was decorated with stucco reliefs on the walls, like those in the tombs on the Latin Road.

(C) GABII AND PRÆNESTE.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Atta.]

[Sidenote: Villa Gordiana.]

The road to Gabii and Præneste leaves Rome at the Porta Maggiore. The most conspicuous ruin, which it passes at about one mile from the walls of Rome, is a very large circular sepulchral monument more than a hundred feet in diameter, to which the name of Quintus Atta has been attached. Beyond this, at a distance of two miles and a half from Rome, we come to the remains of a vast villa, which has been identified with that spoken of by Julius Capitolinus in his history of the Gordian family. That historian says that their “country house was situated on the road to Præneste, and was remarkable for the magnificence of a portico with four ranges of columns, fifty of which were of Carystian, fifty of Claudian, fifty of Synnadan and fifty of Numidian marble. There were also three basilicas in it, each of a hundred feet in length, and other buildings of corresponding size, in particular some Thermæ more magnificent than any others in the world except those at Rome.” The ruins of this great imperial villa extend for nearly a mile along the road, consisting chiefly of some huge reservoirs for water, two spacious halls belonging to the Thermæ, a round temple or Heroon, and a stadium surrounded with arcades. The style of construction in most of these is the irregular brickwork with thick layers of mortar which is known to be characteristic of the third century. Gordian III. was killed in A.D. 244. The great reservoirs are close to the road, two on the left and two on the right-hand side, beyond the depression in which the stream called Acqua Bollicante runs, where the ground rises towards the hill of Torre de’ Schiavi. Some of them appear to be of an earlier date than the reigns of the Gordians, and are referred by Nibby to the Antonine epoch. The brickwork of these last is more regular, and they contain a good deal of reticulated work and layers of squared tufa stones. The two large halls which belonged to the Thermæ are to the east of the reservoirs. One of them was a spacious octagonal building with round windows. It was occupied as a fortress or watch-tower in the middle ages, and has been repaired in the style called Saracenesca. In the walls of this may be seen the earliest instances of a mode of construction afterwards, as in the Circus of Maxentius, very common, the introduction of jars of terra-cotta in the walls to make the work lighter. The interior is ornamented with niches alternately square and circular headed, and retaining some of their ancient stucco decorations.

The other hall of the Thermæ stands not far off, and is circular with a domed roof.

The Heroon, or circular temple, of which mention has been made, is similar to that near the Circus of Maxentius. The diameter of this is fifty-six feet, and it was lighted by four large round windows. The front was turned towards the road according to the rule laid down by the architect Vitruvius. Underneath, there is a crypt supported by a massive round pillar, and containing six niches. In this, Nibby thinks that the ashes of the dead were placed, as their statues were in the temple above, and that the building was the Heroon of the reigning family. In the middle ages this Heroon was used as a church, and some of the paintings then introduced are still visible on the interior walls. Not far from the Heroon are the ruins of the arcades which surrounded the stadium and bounded the domain of the villa on the east side.

[Sidenote: Torre Pignatara.]

In this district, but along the ancient Via Labicana which runs in the direction of Frascati, stands the conspicuous tower now called Torre Pignatara from its construction with pigne or earthen pots. It surmounts a large circular hall and a catacomb to which the titles of S. Helena’s Mausoleum and the Chapels of SS. Peter and Marcellinus have been given, but the real history of the building is unknown.

[Sidenote: Ponte di Nono.]

At the ninth milestone on the road to Palestrina, where the road crosses a small brook, is a magnificent monument of ancient Roman architecture, consisting of an arched viaduct built of peperino and tufa blocks. The length of this viaduct is 105 yards, and the highest of the seven arches about fifty feet. The blocks of stone used are in some cases ten feet in length, and they are firmly fitted together without any kind of cement. This viaduct is now called Ponte di Nono.[146] The ancient roadway of polygonal fragments of basalt still remains, but the parapet on each side has been destroyed.

[Sidenote: Gabii.]

At a distance of about three miles beyond the Ponte di Nono are the ruins of Gabii on the edge of the lake called Lago di Pantano in the district of Castiglione. Numerous traces of the ancient city are still visible. It occupied a long strip of ground extending from the sepulchral mound on the right of the road near the outlet of the lake to the tower of Castiglione. Nibby thinks that this tower stands on the spot formerly occupied by the citadel of Gabii, the original stronghold founded according to the legend by a colony from Alba. In the year 1792 extensive excavations were made on the site by Prince Marcantonio Borghese at the suggestion of Mr. Hamilton a Scotch painter, and a quantity of sculptures and inscriptions now in the Louvre at Paris were discovered. The principal ruins now remaining are those of the cella of a temple built of the famous lapis Gabinus, and some steps in a semicircular form, probably the remains of a theatre. The temple is generally supposed to have been that of Juno alluded to by Virgil.

The form of this temple was almost identical with that at Aricia. The interior of the cella was twenty-seven feet wide and forty-five feet long. It had columns of the Doric order in front and at the sides, but none at the back. The walls of the chamber at the back were here, as at Aricia, prolonged on each side, so as to close the side porticoes at the back. The surrounding area was about fifty-four feet in breadth at the sides, but in front a space of only eight feet was left open, in consequence of the position of the theatre, which abutted closely upon the temple. On the eastern side of the cella are traces of the rooms where the priests in charge of the temple lived.

The shape of the forum can only be partially made out. From the plan published in the ‘Monumenti Gabinoborghesiani,’ it appears that it was a rectangular quadrilateral space, traversed by the Via Prænestina at the southern end, and that it was surrounded with a portico of Doric columns except at the end along which the Via Prænestina was carried. It was believed at the time when the excavations were made that the Curia and Augusteum could be distinguished among the surrounding buildings, but this seems now to be very doubtful. In the centre stood the statue of Titus Flavius Ælianus, the patron of the borough town. The pedestal of this statue with its inscription was found in situ in 1792.

“The stone of Gabii quarried near the lake and the product of its extinct volcano, is used in many of the Roman buildings and especially in the building called the tabularium at the head of the Forum Romanum. It is a hard species of peperino, of a brownish-grey colour, which when exposed to the air becomes paler than the common peperino of Albano. It resists the action of fire, and is a compound of volcanic ashes mixed with small fragments of black, brown, and reddish lava, scales of mica, and bits of Apennine limestone.”[147]

The city of Gabii lost its independence soon after the beginning of the Republican era of Rome. It was restored as a colony of veterans by Sylla, but sank into obscurity, and became almost proverbial for its desolate condition in the Augustan era. It afterwards recovered its prosperity in some degree by means of the celebrity of its cold baths, and in the time of Hadrian was patronised by the Emperor, who built an aqueduct and a Curia Ælia there. The inscriptions found on the spot belong chiefly to the Antonine era, and the busts of Severus and Geta also found there show that in the first part of the third century Gabii was still a flourishing borough town.

[Sidenote: Labicum.]

The most conspicuous outlying hill of the volcanic district not far from Gabii is that of La Colonna, about three miles below Rocca Priora. It stands apart from the rest of the range, and is easily seen from Rome. From Strabo’s description of the site of Labicum there can be but little doubt that this hill must be considered to be the place to which he refers in his account of the Via Labicana. “That road,” he says, “begins at the Esquiline Gate, at which the Prænestine Road also leaves the city, and leaving both this latter and the Esquiline plain on the left, proceeds for more than a hundred and twenty stadia (fifteen and a half Roman miles) till it reaches Labicum, an old, dismantled city, lying on a mount. The road leaves it and Tusculum on the right, and ends at the station called ad Pictas, where it joins the Latin Road.” There are no ancient ruins now on the spot. In Strabo’s time it was apparently ruined and deserted, and at an earlier date Cicero says that it was difficult to find any inhabitant to represent Labicum at the Feriæ Latinæ. It seems probable, therefore, that it suffered severely in the civil wars of Sylla and Marius, and did not recover itself until the establishment of an imperial villa there gave it some importance.

[Sidenote: Præneste.]

Beyond La Colonna, the ancient Labicum, by far the most important place on the Æquian frontier was the strong fortress-town of Præneste, now Palestrina, which commands the passage from Latium into the valley of the Sacco. Præneste is placed on one of the projecting spurs of the mountainous district which intervenes between the Anio and the Sacco. Standing, as the city does, more than 2100 feet above the sea level, it forms a very conspicuous object in the view from the hills of Rome.

After its eventful history as the great border fortress of Latium, we can only wonder that it has been found possible to restore the ancient plan of Præneste with tolerable accuracy, as has been done by Nibby and other archæologists. The modern town, an agglomeration of filthy narrow alleys, occupies little more than the space on which stood the great Temple of Fortune and its approaches. Nearly a mile distant from this, on the summit of the hill, stood the citadel united with the town by two long walls of polygonal masonry, traces of which are still to be seen, though they do not rise to any height above the ground. The site of the citadel is now occupied by a wretched little suburb called Borgo di S. Pietro, and by a ruined mediæval castle of the Colonnas built in the style called opera Saracenesca. On the side towards the town the walls of the citadel are still easily traced, and present admirable examples of polygonal structure, rising in some places to a considerable height. On the other side, where the steepness of the hill made artificial defences less necessary, the walls have almost disappeared.

The original fortifications of the city may be followed from the Porta del Sole, where the ancient polygonal masonry is visible. “In this part of the walls,” says Nibby, “are some towers of opus incertum, standing between the Porta delle Monache and the Porta Portella. Near the latter gate the polygonal wall is nearly fifteen feet in height, and on one great block may be read in very ancient letters the words PED. XXX. After having surrounded the summit of the hill of S. Pietro, the wall descends to the Porta S. Martino, where it was strengthened at the time of the Punic wars with additions of quadrilateral structure, and where an ancient gate now closed may be seen. From this point the wall proceeds in a nearly straight line in the direction of the upper garden of the Barberini Palace and the Via di S. Girolamo towards the Porta del Sole. This circuit of about three miles in length was intersected at different points by at least three other lines of fortifications above the Contrada della Cortina, and hence perhaps the city bore the name of ‘many crowns,’ given it by Strabo, forming, as it were, four separate inclosures, besides the various terraces of the great temple, which could almost be regarded as so many divisions of the town.”[148]

The original foundation of the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Præneste is lost in obscurity; but the ancient polygonal substructions which support it show that it was a very large temple even in early times.

Cicero in his description of the Prænestine lots, calls it a splendid and ancient temple, and Valerius Maximus speaks of it as the most celebrated oracle of Latium at the end of the first Punic war.

The original extent of the temple appears to have included only that part of the lower town, which lies between the modern streets of the Corso and the Borgo, and the ancient city principally lay on the side towards the citadel. But after Sylla had rebuilt the temple, its precincts reached as far downwards as the modern Contrada degli Arconi, and upwards to the Contrada Scacciato behind the baronial palace. The whole of this space was filled with a gradually ascending series of flights of marble stairs and terraces, arranged in a pyramidal form, at the summit of which stood the tholus or round temple of the goddess, 450 feet above the lowest terrace. The base of this pyramidal approach was 1275 feet broad, and the upper terraces gradually diminished in width. The temple faced the south, like those of Diana at Aricia, of Juno at Gabii and Lanuvium, and of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome. The modes of construction found in the ruins are referred by Nibby to four different epochs--the polyhedral stonework of the primitive temple, which was incorporated in the buildings of the new; the squared stonework of the time of the Punic wars; the structures composed of smaller polygonal stones erected by Sylla; and the brickwork of the imperial times. There were five principal terraces or platforms rising one above the other. Nibby calls these the terrace of the cisterns, the terrace of the halls, the central terrace, the terrace of the recesses, and the terrace of the hemicycle. In front of the lowest terrace was a large open space on which the boundary of the sacred precincts was marked out by stone landmarks, some of which have been found on the spot. This open area was on the right of the Contrada degli Arconi, which takes its name from the arches still remaining. The sides of the area were bordered by two immense reservoirs. One of these is still entirely preserved, but the other is filled with rubbish. On the side of the open area towards the hill were twenty-nine arches, five of which in the centre projected, forming a kind of portico with fountains in niches, while the other twenty-four completed the sides towards the reservoirs. The style of these arches seems to indicate that they were built by Sylla as an addition to the older temple precincts. One arch on the left hand, and all the twelve on the right, still remain intact. They were probably used as rooms for the slaves belonging to the temple.

[Sidenote: Reservoirs.]

The two reservoirs, as may be seen by the brickwork of which they consist, were added after Sylla’s time. They served to collect and keep the water which flowed from the fountains of the upper terraces, and to distribute it to those parts of the city which lay below the temple. The western reservoir, which can still be seen, is one of the most remarkable of such edifices now extant. It is 320 feet in length and 100 in width, and is divided internally into ten compartments, in the same manner as the Sette Sale at Rome, each communicating with the next to it by three apertures, and each lighted by two openings in the roof covered with circular well-mouths of stone. The interior walls of this reservoir are covered with the finest cement. On the exterior to the south, the walls are decorated with niches, one of which, with a square head, was intended to contain the inscription stating the names and titles of the builder of the reservoir.[149] The brickwork, which is similar to that of the Prætorian camp at Rome, and the fact that an inscription dated A.D. 18, when Tiberius was consul-designate for the third time, has been found near, seem to point to Tiberius as the builder. On the western side there are no niches, but a doorway, with a stair leading down to the bottom of the reservoir, and ornamented with two brick half-columns of the Doric order.

[Sidenote: Terrace of cisterns.]

From the area between the reservoirs just described, two staircases built by Sylla ascended to the level of the first principal terrace 1275 feet in breadth, containing two large basins for water, of rectangular shape, each 250 feet by 90 in size. They were intended for the purpose of the ceremonial ablutions commanded by the religious rites of the temple. That on the western side can still be seen in the Barberini garden, though it is now filled with rubbish. The rim or edging of these basins was of white mosaic.

[Sidenote: Terrace of halls.]

Above this terrace two flights of stairs conducted to the next principal esplanade, which was of the same length as the first, but narrower. At the back of this esplanade, against the side of the hill, stood two magnificent halls, with an open area between them. The eastern hall is now entirely destroyed, but that on the western side, now serving as the kitchen of the modern seminario, is partly preserved. The front, which may be seen near the cathedral in the Piazza Tonda, was decorated with four Corinthian half-columns, the capitals of which still remain in their original position. The interior had seven recesses on each side, separated by half-columns and pilasters, and probably intended for statues. In front of the side recesses ran a low wall or podium, ornamented with triglyphs like a Doric frieze. These decorations are executed in a style which Nibby considers equal to that of any of the ancient Doric buildings now extant. At the end of the hall there was a large rectangular recess, with niches for statues. In the easternmost of these recesses was found the celebrated Prænestine mosaic, now in the Barberini Palace at Palestrina. The rest of the floor was composed of white mosaic work. Between the fronts of the two halls ran a row of columns, three of which still stand in their original positions in the wall of one of the chapels near the cathedral, and at the back of the area between them was a corridor with nine windows, some of which may still be seen in the court of the seminario.

[Sidenote: Central terrace.]

Above the terrace of the halls rose the central grand terrace, supported by a great wall of polygonal masonry, which at the point called the Rifolta still stands at its full height. This terrace is now occupied by the Contrada del Borgo. On the eastern side it reached to the wall of the city, where the ancient gate, now closed, near the Porta Portella, stands. Two lofty arches stood, one at each end of the back of this terrace, containing fountains and statues.

It was upon this level, according to Nibby, that the original temple stood, before the alterations made by Sylla.

[Sidenote: Terrace of Recesses.]

The whole of the two uppermost terraces were the work of the great dictator. They were supported by walls of opus incertum, and the lower of them contained two large semicircular recesses, for the accommodation of the persons who came to consult the oracle. Hence it may be called the terrace of the recesses. The eastern recess is still remaining under the name of the Grotta Petrelli. It is supported in the interior by four Corinthian columns, and the roof preserves the traces of decorative designs in bronze. It is probable that the chamber in the centre, between the two recesses, was the spot where, as Cicero narrates, the mysterious Prænestine lots were originally discovered by Numerius Suffucius, and where the statue of Fortuna, mentioned by him, stood. On each side of the recesses were arched chambers, probably appropriated to the priests of the temple and the interpreters of the lots.

[Sidenote: Terrace of Hemicycle.]

Above the terrace of the recesses, rose that of the Hemicycle. This was divided into two parts, the lower consisting of a great rectangular sacrificial court, with porticoes surrounding it, and the upper, of a semicircular recess, somewhat similar to those which existed in the fora of the emperors at Rome, having at the back of it a smaller raised terrace on which stood the actual ædes, or shrine of the goddess Fortune. This must have been the place where, according to the legend as told by Cicero, the olive-tree which yielded honey grew, from which the casket was made for the Prænestine lots.

Fragments of an inscription which are still visible on the frieze, surmounting two arched chambers under the hemicycle, seem to show that this part was rebuilt by the civic officials and the municipality, but at what period is not discoverable. No traces are now left of this part of the building except the ground-plan of the hemicycle, which may be traced in front of the Barberini Palace, and a few columns belonging to the portico of the great square court. These stand in the public prison, and the house of the sacristan of S. Rosalia.[150]

The ancient town extended to a considerable distance beyond the precincts of the temple. Outside the Porta S. Francesco of the modern town, at about the distance of half a mile, are two huge reservoirs, similar to those described as placed at the foot of the Temple of Fortune; and in the Contrada degli Arconi is the cistern of an aqueduct. This, with other ruins near it, belonged to that part of the town founded by Sylla, which extended to a distance of a mile and a half from the lowest terrace of the great temple.

The forum of the city lay between the western reservoir of the temple, and the churches of S. Lucia and S. Madonna dell’ Aquila. This is inferred from numerous inscriptions, and some commemorative pillars and altars found there. The Prænestine Registers of Verrius Flaccus were found in the Contrada delle Quadrelle, a mile and a half from this spot. They may, however, as Nibby suggests, have been moved from the forum, where we should naturally expect to find them.

(D) OSTIA AND PORTO.

[Sidenote: Ostia.]

Ostia is fifteen miles distant from the Porta di S. Paolo of Rome. The site of the old town is plainly discernible by the hillocks of rubbish with which it is covered, and the ruined brick walls which protrude here and there.

On approaching from the modern village, which is half a mile nearer Rome than the ruins of the old town, we pass between lines of tombs on each side of the road, similar to those which have been excavated at Pompeii. The tombs are very closely packed together, and of different sizes and shapes. On the left-hand side, two sarcophagi remain, with the names of Sex. Carminius Parthenopæus Eq., and T. Flavius Verus Eq., and a terra-cotta inscription on the tomb of Flavia Cæcilia, priestess of Isis at Ostia.[151]

At the end of this street of tombs, the gate of the city has been laid bare, and its foundations can be easily traced together with those of a guard-house on the left-hand side, having a rude tabula lusoria marked on the pavement, where the soldiers whiled away their time at some game resembling skittles.

The street which is then entered passes between the ruins of private houses, without anything more remarkable about them than a few common mosaic pavements and two fountains. The principal public buildings which have been excavated, are, I. The house of the priests of Mithras, in which a well-preserved altar still stands with the inscription:

C CAELIVS . HERMAEROS ANTISTES . HVIVS . LOCI FECIT

II. The Thermæ, consisting of a large court, and several smaller side rooms for vapour-baths, with mosaic pavements of various designs. These baths may possibly be the lavacrum Ostiense of Antoninus Pius. The stamps on the bricks are said to be of the Antonine era.

III. A large rectangular brick edifice with three windows on each side. In the interior are the remains of ornamental niches, Corinthian capitals, and a marble cornice. The walls have rivets upon them, by which it appears that they were covered with a marble casing, and the magnificent block of African marble which serves as the threshold shows that the building was of a costly description. Traces have been found of a front chamber with a portico of grey granite columns. Whether this was a temple or not is uncertain, but it has been supposed that the arrangements in the interior would agree with such a supposition. The masonry may be assigned to the age of Trajan or Hadrian. The name of Vulcan has been usually given to this temple, which was at one end of the ancient forum. Many excavations have been made here within the last ten years, and some valuable works of art have been discovered, and numerous stores and shops of various kinds have been uncovered.

IV. The ruins of a theatre supposed by Nibby to be that mentioned in the Acta Martyrum, near which S. Quiriacus and S. Maximus, and S. Archelaus, and a number of others were martyred. It is built partly of yellow and red brickwork, and partly of opus reticulatum, and apparently belongs to the restorations and additions made by Hadrian to the city.

V. The ruins of an extensive building, probably an emporium, on the bank of the river near Torre Bovacciano. In this place a great number of works of art were discovered by Fagan in 1797, showing the magnificent decorations with which the building was ornamented; and several inscriptions with the names of Severus and Caracalla found here are given by Nibby.[152]

[Sidenote: Grove of the Arval College.]

Fiumicino at the present mouth of the Tiber, and Porto which stands at the site of the ports formed by Claudius and Trajan, may be reached from Rome by steamer down the river, or by carriage. The road which leads to Fiumicino and Porto leaves the city walls at the Porta Portese, and at about the fifth milestone reaches the celebrated grove of the Dea Dia, where the worship of the great collegiate priesthood of the Fratres Arvales was carried on. The railway to Civita Vecchia crosses the road at this spot, to which the modern names of the Monte delle Piche and the Vigna Ceccarelli are given. Discoveries of inscriptions had been made here since the year 1570, but no formal collection of them was made until the publication of Marini’s great work in 1785. No effective investigations were, however, carried on until April 1868. The remains of a Christian cemetery were then disinterred on the slope of the hill above the Vigna Ceccarelli, where many of the marble tablets upon which the Arval Brothers had inscribed their records were found to have been used in the graves in lieu of coffins and as gravestones. One tomb was covered with a slab containing the records of the year A.D. 155, and numerous fragments of inscriptions were found scattered in all directions. The cemetery was ascertained to have been adjacent to an oratory founded by Pope Damasus (A.D. 1048), and a subterranean catacomb was found to have been formed, which is mentioned in the Acta Martyrum as the Cemeterium Generosæ. The inscriptions obtained from this spot refer chiefly to the year A.D. 90, but some fragments belonging to the years 38, 87, and 59 were also found.

These inscriptions are of great interest both archæologically, as containing authentic particulars about the worship of the Arval Brothers, and the places at Rome or elsewhere in which it was held, and also historically, since many of them give the titles of eminent persons, or fix the dates of consuls and other ministers of state, and enable us thereby to correct and compare the statements of Tacitus and Suetonius with those of Dion Cassius. Many points of mythology are also illustrated by the mention of the divinities whom the college worshipped in their ritual.

An instance of the value of these inscriptions in determining the relative accuracy of Dion and Suetonius is afforded by the inscription belonging to the year A.D. 39, which gives us some historical facts about the reign of Caius, a portion of Roman history rendered difficult and obscure by the loss of the central books of the Annals of Tacitus. Suetonius states that the title of Augusta was conferred on Antonia by Claudius, whereas Dion on the contrary attributes the conference of this title to Caius. The inscription decides the question in favour of the account of Dion Cassius. Again, the date of the recognition of Caius by the Senate is fixed by the same inscription as having occurred on the 18th of March, and not on the 16th as recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius, nor the 26th, as Dion Cassius states. Many other interesting corrections or elucidations of the Latin historians will be found in Henzen’s learned treatises, or in his articles in the ‘Annali dell’ Instituto’ for 1867, and the ‘Hermes’ 1867. Besides the grove of the Arval College, which was an extensive wood, four buildings are mentioned in the Records--the Ædes Deæ Diæ, the Cesareum, the Tetrastylon and the Circus.

With regard to the position of these, Pellegrini is of opinion that the Circus was situated on the ridge of the hill on the western side of the Vigna Ceccarelli, in which place some remains apparently belonging to a circus have been found. Henzen leaves the site of the Circus undetermined, thinking that there is not sufficient evidence. The Tetrastylon and the Cesareum were supposed by Mommsen to have been names of the same building, but Henzen thinks that they are mentioned as separate places in the same inscription. The college feasts and meetings were held in one or other of these, which must therefore have been large enough to contain, besides the dining hall, an assembly-room, as the Brothers are said to have met there and to have sat in rows of seats. The Cesareum was a quadrangular building, as the form of the inscriptions which were attached to its walls seems to show, since they could not have been placed on a round surface. The temple of the Dea Dia stood upon a hill, for the priests are described as ascending in order to perform the sacrifices, and descending afterwards. Yet there are no vestiges of a building upon the top of the hill. Henzen therefore concludes that the ruins of the round building, upon which the modern Casa rustica in the Ceccarelli vineyard is placed, must have belonged to this Ædes. It was not decorated with columns but with Corinthian pilasters, and the inscriptions were affixed to the interior until the year 81, when it became necessary from want of space to place them on the pedestals of the columns.[153]

[Sidenote: Porto.]

Beyond the site of the Arval Chapel, the road passes by the relics of the papal palace of La Magliana, and then along a causeway six miles in length to Porto. The site of the ancient Portus Trajani on the right branch of the Tiber is now occupied by the town of Porto, mainly consisting of the cathedral, the Villa Pallavicini, and some farm buildings. The sea has here continuously receded for many centuries, and the river deposits of sand and marl have extended. Fiumicino at the present mouth of the river is two miles distant from Porto, and its site was entirely covered by the sea at the time when Claudius, and Trajan after him, constructed their new ports. The large marshy tract to the north of Porto marks the site of the port of Claudius. The hexagonal basin of Trajan lies between this marsh and the town of Porto.

It is not at all clear when the right arm of the Tiber, or rather the canal which now serves for communication between the sea and the Tiber proper, assumed its present shape. Inundations and occasional repairs and alterations have changed its course, and the constant retreat of the sea must have lengthened it considerably.

Nibby’s opinion is that, besides the large harbour, Claudius constructed an inner basin between the harbour and the old course of the river. Into this basin he cut a canal from the bend of the river near modern Ostia, and thus allowed the superfluous waters of the Tiber to escape through the harbour, and at the same time gained a supply of water for his docks. The inscription found in 1837, and now placed by the roadside near the Villa Pallavicini, alludes to this canal. The words of this inscription seem to show that the primary object of the canal was to supply the port with water, and that the advantage of preventing inundations at Rome was only secondary. Trajan probably enlarged and reconstructed the inner basin of Claudius, and surrounded it with the massive quays and warehouses, the ruins of which still remain. This inner basin is referred to by Juvenal.

At the same time the canal was probably enlarged, and it is to this enlargement that Pliny alludes when he speaks of the canal formed by the most provident of all emperors.[154]

[Sidenote: Ruins at Torre Paterno.]

Passing from Ostia along the sea coast through the woods of Castel Fusano to Torre Paterno, we find the ruins of a large villa, which have been supposed by some to belong to Pliny’s Laurentinum. But they are more probably the relics of an imperial villa mentioned by Herodian as the retreat to which Commodus withdrew, by the advice of his physicians, at the time of the great plague in Rome, in the year 187. The neighbourhood of Laurentum was recommended, says the historian, on account of its being cooler than Rome, and also because it was shaded with large woods of laurel and bay trees, the strong scent from which was supposed to counteract the influence of the deadly malaria which was devastating the capital.[155] The present ruins at Torre Paterno consist of brick walls in two styles, one of which Nibby refers to the age of Nero, and the other to the reign of Commodus or Severus. The central building, which contained the grand suite of rooms, is the only part where work of the first century, analogous to that of Nero’s buildings at Rome, is to be seen; the rest, says Nibby, is composed of various courtyards in the style of the Antonine era, which have been altered and partly concealed by later modern edifices. On one side of the ruins are two large cisterns, supplied by an aqueduct which comes from the Tenimento la Santola. The brickwork of this is apparently contemporaneous with other works which we know to have belonged to the age of Commodus or Severus as having very thin bricks and a great quantity of mortar. Near these reservoirs is an enclosed space which was probably a courtyard or garden of a rectangular shape. On the north side it has some ruins in the mode of construction called opus mixtum of the fourth century; and on the east is the principal part of the villa built of large and thick triangular bricks, with thin layers of mortar beautifully laid, and evidently of an early date. On the west there is a large dining-hall looking towards the sea, like that described in Pliny’s Laurentinum. Various other rooms and the foundations of a tower can be traced on the sites occupied by the modern guardhouse and the Chapel of S. Filippo.[156]

(E) TIBUR.

The Via Valeria or Tiburtina leading to Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, now leaves Rome at the Porta S. Lorenzo. Traces of the polygonal pavement of the old road can be seen at intervals along the modern road to Tivoli, especially between the eighth and ninth milestones, and here and there elsewhere. In the Basilica of S. Lorenzo, a mile from the gate, are many ancient fragments of architecture. The Ponte Mammolo, by which the Anio is crossed at three and a half miles from Rome, is modern and there are scarcely any relics of the old bridge. Here and there on the road are the naked cores of tombs, but nothing of any interest offers itself to an archæologist until the Aquæ Albulæ are reached. Some few remains of an ancient building, which may have belonged to the Thermæ here, have been discovered. They are now built into the walls of a modern farmhouse. These ruins may have belonged to the Thermæ of Agrippa, which Augustus frequented.

The ancient quarries of travertine mentioned by Strabo, whence the stone of the Coliseum came, lie on the right of the road beyond the Solfatara, and the modern quarries on the left. The road then crosses the Anio over an ancient bridge still called the Ponte Lucano, from Marcus Plautius Lucanus, a Tiburtine magistrate, whose memory is preserved in an inscription discovered upon the ancient fourteenth milestone on this road.

The bridge was originally composed of three travertine arches, of which the one next to the left bank remains entire. The central arch has been restored with masonry of the sixth century, similar to that in the Ponte Nomentano and the Ponte Salario. The arch on the right bank was restored in the fifteenth century, and the whole bridge was repaired again about 1836. This bridge was broken down by Totila when he was encamped at Tibur, and Nibby thinks that he destroyed the middle arch, which was then restored by Narses.

[Sidenote: Tomb of the Plautian family.]

Just on the other side of the bridge is the tomb of the gens Plautia, well known from numerous paintings and photographs. It is very similar to that of Cæcilia Metella on the Appian Road, and to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, in its main features. A cylindrical tower of travertine, based on a square foundation, and capped with a cone, was the original design, but a mediæval tower built upon the top now disfigures it.

Two inscriptions placed in a projecting front with Ionic pilasters record the names of M. Plautius Silvanus, consul with Augustus in the year B.C. 2, and his son Ti. Plautius Silvanus, prefect of the city in A.D. 73. A third inscription, which is now destroyed, commemorated a P. Plautius Pulcher. The longer inscription is given with notes in Wilmann’s Inscr. Lat. No. 1145. The person whose memory it preserves was the pontifex who officiated at the rebuilding of the Capitoline Temple in A.D. 70, as recorded by Tacitus.

[Sidenote: Hadrian’s Villa.]

Beyond the Ponte Lucano to the right are the ruins of Hadrian’s great Tiburtine Villa. They occupy the slopes of a hill of volcanic tufa, which may be called an outlying part of Monte Affliano, extending for about three miles in a direction from south-east to north-west. The various levels afforded by the ground have been formed into terraces adapted to the buildings they were intended to support by means of substructions, which in some places are of vast solidity and gigantic height. “From these terraces,” says Nibby, “the views are most varied and picturesque. On one side the horizon is bounded by the pointed heights of the Montes Corniculani, and by the ridges of the Peschiatore, the Ripoli, and the Affliano, and on the other, the eye ranges over the gently undulating expanse of the Ager Romanus, from which rise the towers of the Eternal City; while beyond, the long streak of light reflected from the waters of the Etruscan and Laurentine Sea seems to encircle the whole with a silvery zone. The situation of the villa is open to the healthy breezes of the west wind, but is sheltered by the mountains from the fury of the north wind, the piercing chills of the north-east, and the unwholesome hot summer blasts of the south.”

The high ground on which the villa stands rises between two valleys, which may be called from their position the north and south valleys. They run down into the plain through which the Anio cuts its bed. The northern valley has been artificially altered, with the view of increasing its picturesque appearance, by cutting the sides so as form perpendicular cliffs of reddish stone. The tints of these rocks, the soft verdure of the plants and trees which grow luxuriantly upon them, the bright colours of the wild flowers scattered here and there, and the lovely hills which rise as a screen behind them, give this valley such a character of soothing and enchanting retirement and beauty, that it has been universally regarded as the spot to which the name of the Vale of Tempe was given by the emperor. The southern valley is less deep and bold, and from its monotonous and severe aspect it may perhaps have been the spot where Hadrian placed his imitation of the infernal regions.[157]

The brook which runs at the bottom of the northern valley (Fosso dell’ Acqua Ferrata) has received the name of the Peneius from antiquaries, and that in the southern valley is called Fosso di Risicoli by the modern inhabitants. These streams are now very scantily supplied with water, but in ancient times, when the villa was watered by a constant flow from its aqueducts, they must have been of considerable volume. The ruins, now overgrown with clumps of cypress and other trees, extend for a space of seven miles in circumference, and in the middle ages were known as Tivoli Vecchio, from a vague and unfounded idea that the ancient city of Tibur stood here. It has been remarked that the Coliseum is strikingly characteristic of the Flavian emperors who planned and executed it, and with equal truth it may be said that the Tiburtinum of Hadrian gives a marvellous picture of the many-sided genius of the great man who was at once the ruler of the whole known world and had travelled throughout his vast domains from Britain to the Euphrates, organising and controlling everywhere, and at the same time showing an appreciation of and value for literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, which was generally foreign to the Roman character. Hadrian constructed in his villa at Tibur a panorama of all the sights which had struck him most in his world-wide travels, in order that he might in this realm of enchantment, when no longer able to travel, have the sights and thoughts in which he had taken such pleasure, revived for his imagination to feed upon. Considering the size and magnificence of the place, which almost resembles a town in its vast extent, it is surprising that so few notices of it should be found among the Roman historians and biographers. Dion Cassius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphilinus, does not even mention it, and Spartianus and Aurelius Victor pass it over without such special remark as we should expect. As, however, a great part of the building consisted of the familiar Thermæ, stadia, theatres and gymnasium, which were constructed in every large Roman villa, they were perhaps not noticed, as matters of course, and only the peculiarities of the villa were recorded. After Hadrian’s return to Rome at the end of his last journey to the East in A.D. 135, he resigned the care of the empire to Lucius Ælius Verus and retired to this villa, which had probably been built during his absence, and may have been begun in 125 when he returned to Rome from his first journey, and finished during the last three years of his life from 135 to 138.

This opinion as to the date at which the villa was built is confirmed by the stamps found on the bricks, which range from the year 123 to the year A.D. 137, and that the ruins belong to Hadrian’s villa is sufficiently attested by universal tradition, and by the number of statues of Antinous, and other works of art found here unquestionably belonging to the reign of Hadrian.

The ruins contain specimens of almost every kind of construction. The most ancient part is a wall of opus incertum, composed of small polygonal fragments of tufa, which stands near the Casino Fede. This wall is probably a remnant of some older villa rustica or farmhouse which occupied the site before Hadrian’s time, and may have belonged to the gens Ælia. It apparently belongs to the first half of the first century B.C. The most common mode of construction is opus reticulatum, with squares of tawny coloured tufa cut in the valley adjoining and bonded at the corners with blocks of the same rock, or with red bricks. In those parts of the buildings, which require great durability from being exposed to the action of water, brickwork is used throughout. The Greek theatre and parts of the academy are built of small squared blocks of tufa, or in some cases of irregular fragments of tufa resembling the later opera Saracenesca. These are sometimes strengthened with bands of reticulated work. In most cases the outer covering of the walls has been removed, especially where it consisted of marble slabs. Some of the stucco ornaments are still very beautiful and well preserved.

Each part of the buildings is complete in itself, but they do not seem to have been arranged on any general plan, and now that the roads which conducted from one part to another have disappeared, they present a confused mass which requires some careful attention to unravel. I have been obliged to confine myself to a very general and cursory account of each main feature. To notice every detail would be far beyond the compass of this book. In Ligorio’s plan 334 different parts of the villa are marked and separately described, and he spent a year in his investigation of the ruins.

Spartianus gives us the names of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Tempe and the Inferi as the parts of the villa made by Hadrian in imitation of their foreign originals. To these Ligorio has added the name Cynosarges found upon a brick stamp. The sites of the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Academy, Tempe, and the Inferi may be said to be ascertained with tolerable certainty, but those of the Lyceum and Prytaneum have not been discovered.

The other names given by antiquarians to the different buildings are generally founded upon some definite evidence drawn from their shape and situation, and are probably upon the whole fairly applicable. They are the Theatres, the Palæstra, the Nymphæum, the Library, the Imperial Palace, the Hospitals, the Stadium, the Camp, and the Thermæ.

Proceeding from north to south, the ruins may be divided, for the convenience of description, into ten grand groups--A, the Palæstra, including the Greek and Latin Theatres and the Nymphæum; B, the Pœcile; C, the Guards’ Barracks; D, the Library; E, the Imperial Palace; F, the Stadium; G, the Thermæ; H, the Canopus; I, the Academy, including the third theatre or Odeum; K, the Inferi. In giving these general divisions, some attempt is made to represent the parts of the villa as they were in Hadrian’s time. The ruins are in such different states of preservation--some being entirely destroyed and the ground-plan barely traceable, while others are almost entire--that their real relative importance is completely obscured. The modern alleys and walks also create much confusion, and render the recognition of the ancient arrangement much more difficult.

The ancient grand entrance to the grounds was at the north-western end of the ruins, on the road towards Tibur, about a quarter of a mile beyond the Ponte Lucano. It seems to have consisted of two large pedestals of white marble, between which the carriage-road passed, and which were pierced with arched passages for the footways on each side. One of these is still traceable in the Vigna Gentili, and has the remains of a bas-relief upon it, while the other has been destroyed, and its corresponding bas-relief placed in the Villa Albani at Rome. This gateway has been imitated by the architect of the gateway at the old Villa Borghese. It is erroneously called a tomb by Piranesi and Ligorio (see Piranesi, Ant. Rom. tom. ii. tav. 39.)

The modern entrance to the ruins is at the gate of the Villa Braschi, and leads, through an avenue of cypress-trees, in a direction at right angles to the ancient road of approach. The avenue runs across a space which was formerly a large quadrilateral court, 350 feet by 250 feet, surrounded with porticoes, attached to the theatre which stands a little to the side at the end of the avenue. The ancient road from the Ponte Lucano entered this court at the northern angle. The porticoes have now nearly disappeared, but part of them was remaining in Ligorio’s time. They served the same purposes as the great colonnades behind the Theatres of Pompey and Balbus at Rome. The theatre is an oval building, sunk in the slope of the rising ground, the southern side containing the seats for spectators, and the northern being occupied by the orchestra and scena, which has a stage in the form of a long and narrow parallelogram. The plan corresponds exactly to the description by Vitruvius of a Greek theatre, and has, therefore, been called the Greek Theatre by the antiquaries. The Greeks had the orchestra wider and the actual stage much narrower than the Latins. Fragments of the travertine substructions of the scena still remain.

At some distance from this theatre, towards the east, and on the other side of the stream which runs along the Valley of Tempe, is the Latin Theatre, so called because the stage is much broader than that of the theatre just described. Externally it was surrounded with arched porticoes decorated, like the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome, with half-columns, There were probably two tiers of these arches, corresponding to the two divisions of seats. At the sides of the scena there were rooms for the use of the actors and for the machinery, and behind the scena are three rooms, probably corresponding to the three doors in the wall behind the stage. The spectators’ seats are turned towards the south, contrary to the rules of Vitruvius.

Between the two theatres there is a natural rise in the ground, which has been further heightened by the rubbish heaped upon the spot. The ruins here occupy a space in the form of a trapezium, the largest side of which lies towards the north-west, and the shortest towards the south-west. They are now covered with modern buildings belonging to the Villa Braschi.

[Sidenote: Palæstra.]

The northern angle of these ruins shows the remains of a quadrilateral area surrounded by a covered way; and at the eastern angle there is another smaller court, surrounded with a portico, which has a double row of columns on the south-west side. This court is called the Palæstra by Ligorio and Piranesi, and it is supposed by them that the double portico was intended to be used in bad weather, when the athletes could not take their exercise in the unsheltered part of the court. Several statues of athletes, the colossal bust of Isis, now in the Museo Chiaromonti, and a statue of Ceres, were found here. There is a suite of rooms on the north-west side, intended, perhaps, for anointing-rooms, dust rooms, or sparring-courts. On the southern side there is a spacious recess, with niches for statues, and attached to it are two large halls, in the form of a Greek cross, with small recesses at the sides, still retaining some marks of their ancient decorations in stucco and paint. The western angle of these ruins is conjectured to have been the site of the Xystus or covered Palæstra, a cloistered court, with a small square opening in the centre.

The ruins of the Nymphæum lie on the south side of the Palæstra, and are connected with it by some chambers in which the stucco ornaments are still well preserved, and show what elegance of design and workmanship was bestowed even on the inferior parts of the villa. The curved basin of the Nymphæum can be traced, though it is now overgrown with trees, and some of the niches still covered with stucco-work remain. The western side of one of the adjacent rooms, now used as a granary, is ornamented with niches, and Nibby thinks that this, which was the back of the Nymphæum, was arranged so as to present a fountain supplied from the main pipe of the aqueduct. A similar arrangement, he says, may be seen in the remains of the Nymphæum at Ampiglione. The great vase now at Warwick Castle came from Hadrian’s Villa.

[Sidenote: Pœcile.]

The Pœcile lies to the south of the Nymphæum. Between them is a reservoir and the remains of a fountain belonging to some building now entirely destroyed.

[Sidenote: Castra.]

The Athenian Pœcile, of which this is an imitation, was a portico, the walls of which were decorated with the paintings of Polygnotus and Micon. From the description given of it by Pausanias, the Athenian building appears to have been a portico with three sides at least, on one of which the battle of Oenoe was represented; on the second, and longest, the wars of Theseus against the Amazons, and the council of the Greek chiefs after the capture of Troy; and on the third, the battle of Marathon. It thus appears that one of the sides was much longer than the others; and this is the case with the ruin in the Villa of Hadrian, which has three sides, one, 640, on the north, and the others, on the east and west, each 240 feet in length. In Ligorio’s time, 1550, a part of the porticoes, which were of brick, still remained, and some of the paintings corresponding to the Athenian pattern. It is not certain whether there was a similar wall and portico on the southern side. The wall of the northern side, which is the longest, still remains entire. It had a portico on the exterior, which terminated in two circular buildings; and in the centre was the principal entrance to the Pœcile. The present entrance is modern. Both the eastern and western sides are slightly curved. The former contains a recess in the centre connected with the buildings behind. In the centre was an open reservoir of the same shape as the building surrounding it. On the western and southern sides the area of the Pœcile is supported by substructions of masonry, against which are built a number of soldiers’ rooms commonly called the Cento Camarelle. At the corner towards the south-west is a public washhouse, the tubes of which are still in good preservation.

Attached to the north-eastern corner of the Pœcile is a fine building, in the form of a recess, with a semicircular niche turned towards the north, which, from the connection of the Stoic philosophy with the Stoa Pœcile at Athens, has been called the Temple or School of the Stoics. It was possibly a hall for conversation and discussion.

[Sidenote: Library.]

Opening from this school, towards the north-east, is a building in the form of two concentric circles. Between the two circular parts there was a canal filled with water. This edifice was probably a swimming-bath. It appears to have been very highly ornamented with precious marbles and sculptures, most of which were taken to Rome by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and others to Tivoli by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. The ruin commonly goes by the name of Theatrum Maritimum. A little farther to the north-east is a quadrilateral court, 200 feet wide, which was surrounded by a portico with Corinthian columns. On the north-west side of this court are the buildings usually supposed to belong to the library, and called the Greek and Latin libraries. They consist of a large number of rooms, more or less preserved, which may have been ante-rooms and chambers for the attendants and librarians. In the centre of the north-western side of the court is a well-preserved Nymphæum, and on the north-east a long corridor with windows towards the south, which may be called a Helio Caminus, or room for basking in the sun, from its resemblance to the place so called by Pliny at his Laurentine villa. The ruins to the north-east of these, towards the Valley of Tempe, are thought by Nibby to be the remains of a suite of rooms belonging to one wing of the imperial palace, but their plan is very imperfectly known.

[Sidenote: Palace.]

The great mass of the imperial apartments were farther to the south-east, and were grouped round three large courts of dazzling magnificence. The most splendid of those, which afforded spoil for generations of plunderers, is called by Piranesi, from the richness of its decorative work, the Piazza d’Oro. Round the courts were numberless suites of rooms and several large recesses, a basilica, and a great hall now called Eco Corintio, formerly supported on vast granite columns, and cased with slabs of the choicest marbles.

[Sidenote: Stadium.]

The Stadium lies in a direction at right-angles to the southern side of the Pœcile. The curved end is towards the south. Between the swimming-bath and the northern, or square end of the Stadium, are some bath-rooms for the use of the athletes, and on the west side stands a temple surrounded by a sacred enclosure formed by two vast semicircular walls ornamented with niches. On the eastern side are more rooms, and a magnificent quadrilateral covered way.

[Sidenote: Thermæ.]

The Thermæ stand between the Stadium and the Canopus. Numerous pipes and conduits for water, and also the arrangement of the various parts of the buildings, show that they have been rightly placed here. There seem to have been two distinct sets of bath-rooms, which are generally called the Terme virili and the Terme muliebri by the Italian antiquaries. The northern group of buildings is connected with the curved end of the Stadium, and contains the usual number of halls and an elliptical Laconicum. The Laconicum of the southern wing is circular, and is connected with a grand central hall similar to that in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome.

[Sidenote: Canopus.]

The place called Canopus lies to the south of the Thermæ, and close to a mass of buildings now utterly destroyed, but in Piranesi’s time thought to be a vestibule of the villa. The Canopus itself consists of an oblong pool of water or euripus excavated in the tufa, with a row of buildings on the west side, and a magnificent nymphæum at the southern end, containing a great number of niches for statuary, and holes for jets of water. At the back of the Nymphæum is a hall called the Sacrarium, in which it is supposed the statue of Serapis stood. A passage of Strabo explains the idea which Hadrian had in forming this canal and Nymphæum. He says that on the grand festival of Serapis, whose temple and oracle were at Canopus, 120 stadia from Alexandria, immense crowds of men and women go down to Canopus from Alexandria by boats on the canal, on the banks of which are pleasant houses of entertainment, where the worshippers stop on their way to feast and dance.[158] The long, broad pool was intended to represent the Canopic canal, and the rooms ranged along the side, the houses of refreshment. A confirmation of this is derived from the character of the statues found here which were almost all those of Egyptian deities.

[Sidenote: Academy.]

To the south-west of the Canopus rise the immense substructions, 1755 feet in length, which supported the highest terrace on this side of the villa. They extend as far as the square tower called Rocca Bruna in Ligorio’s plan. This terrace and hill are supposed to have been the imitation of the Athenian Academy mentioned by Spartianus. There was a gymnasium here, the ruins of which are to be seen in a vineyard at the southern end of the hill, consisting of a large court, a circular temple, and a large recess. Beyond these there was a large square block of buildings supposed by Nibby to have been used for the students and masters of the School of Art maintained by Hadrian, and beyond this again was a spacious Odeum or theatre for musical performances. The raised seat of this is now converted into a vineyard, but the stage is still well preserved. There were, as in the Odeum of Catania, two divisions, and at the top of the central division was a round temple dedicated to the presiding genius of the Odeum; just as in the Theatre of Pompey the Chapel of Victory stood above the seats.

Close to this Odeum are the vast subterranean passages supposed to be the Inferi which Spartianus mentions. The depth at which these lie is only fourteen feet, but they occupy a trapezoidal area, the longest side of which is about one thousand and fifty feet, and the shortest two hundred. Most of these corridors are excavated like catacombs in the natural rock. A brick stamped with the name Cynosarges was found near the aqueduct which runs to the south of the Inferi. There are two other names found in Spartianus, the Lyceum, and the Prytaneum, and Piranesi identifies the Lyceum with a ruined portico at a little distance to the south of the Inferi, and the Prytaneum with some more extensive ruins to the south-east.

After Constantine’s time, the Villa of Hadrian remained in a desolate state, and was abandoned to the caprices of the imbecile Cæsars, who tormented the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, and to occasional visits from the plundering hordes of Goths, Vandals, and Heruli, who successively ravaged the neighbouring country. In the middle of the sixth century it was completely pillaged and ruined. In the Gothic wars of 546-556 Totila took Tibur after a siege of some months, and revenged himself for the resistance of the Isaurian garrison by putting all to the sword without sparing even the bishop. At the same time Totila broke down all the bridges on the Anio. During that long siege, the Villa of Hadrian with its enormous halls, its vast ranges of rooms, and its advantageous and commanding site at the junction of several roads, offered convenient quarters to the barbarian king and his host. It may be imagined what devastation such tenants would inflict upon the place. In the sixth century the villa fell more and more into ruins; to the disasters of the Gothic wars were added those incurred during the Lombard wars under Astulf. The Lombards were a more savage horde than the Goths, and their object was to destroy the Roman empire utterly, and to divide Italy into dukedoms. These barbarians attacked Rome many times, and ravaged the Campagna, but Astulf distinguished himself above all the rest in these incursions, massacring and burning everywhere without distinction. As we hear that he was encamped near Tivoli, we may conclude that the Villa of Hadrian suffered severely in or about the year 755.

The wars between emperors and popes, and the quarrels between the factions in Rome itself which followed, injured Rome perhaps rather more than the cities of the Campagna. But the greatest damage of all was done to the villa by its being made the quarry whence the churches, the monasteries, and the houses of the wealthy Tiburtines were decorated with marbles, columns, and costly stonework, and when these were filled and could hold no more of the innumerable marble sculptures and statues, they were condemned to the lime-kiln and converted into mortar. After the revival of letters and arts in the fifteenth century, the lamentations poured out in the time of Pius II. (A.D. 1458) over the ruins of the villa are most pathetic. “The lofty vaults of the temples are still standing, and the wonderful columns of the cloisters and magnificent porticoes. The swimming-baths and Thermæ can be traced, where the water of the Anio once mitigated the summer heats. But the hand of time has defaced all these, and the walls once draped with embroidered tapestry and cloth of gold are now clad with ivy; the thorns and briar grow where tribunes sat in purple robes, and serpents crawl, in their kings’ chambers.” In spite of the existence here and there of such love of antiquity, the burning of the Tiburtine marbles into lime continued throughout the sixteenth century, and the levelling of the ground for cultivation has gone on even to the present century.[159]

The same fate attended all the other grand monuments of the Campagna. Rutilius Numatianus, writing probably in 417 in the reign of Honorius, speaks of the buildings of Rome and the aqueducts of the Campagna as if they were still uninjured, but he prefers to return to his native home in Gaul by sea, on account of the bad state of the roads on the coast caused by the Gothic devastations.

[Sidenote: Tibur.]

Ascending from Hadrian’s Villa to the point where the Anio issues from a valley dividing the Æquian from the Sabine Mountains, we find the river winding round a considerable hill, partly clothed with groves of olive, and rising to the height of 830 feet. At the back of this hill the river has forced a passage for itself through the limestone rocks which threaten to impede its exit from the upper valley, and falls in a tremendous cataract down a precipitous cliff of 320 feet in height to the lower level. The water is strongly charged with carbonate of lime, which is constantly being deposited in the shape of masses of travertine in the channels through which the stream runs, especially where the water, in consequence of the violent agitation caused by its rapid descent, parts quickly with the carbonic acid gas contained in it. The course of the stream is from time to time blocked up by its own formations of stone, and it is forced to open new passages for itself. From this cause the city of Tibur, which stands on the hill, close to the point where the river falls to its lower level, has always been subject to violent and dangerous inundations. The great inundation of 1826 proved so formidable that it was at once resolved to divert the course of part of the river and provide it with an artificial outlet. This was effected by boring two tunnels through Monte Catillo on the east of the city, through which any rush of water can be allowed to pass and fall harmlessly into the lower valley. A part of the river water is always allowed to pass through these tunnels, and forms at their lower end a magnificent cascade. Another part passes under the bridge called Ponte S. Gregorio and then rushes through a fantastic grotto of travertine blocks called by the local guides Grotta di Nettuno, and joins the stream from the tunnels at the bottom of the valley. A third portion of the Anio is diverted just above the bridge into canals apparently of very ancient date, which, passing completely through the centre of the town, are used as the motive power of watermills and factories of various kinds, and then fall again into the main stream at various points of the romantic cliffs on the western hill side. These form the wreaths of “snow white foam” so celebrated as the cascades of the Anio, and explain perfectly the expression of Horace:

O headlong Anio, O Tiburnian groves, And orchards saturate with shifting streams.

But few traces of the ancient walls of the city are left. Nibby is however doubtless right in saying that there can be no question about their course along the northern and eastern sides of the city, where the brow of the hill is steep and perfectly adapted for defence by a wall placed on the edge of the rocky valley of the Anio. The citadel was probably situated in the quarter called Castro Vetere--where the two temples commonly called the temples of the Sibyl and of Drusilla stand, for it is plain that some pains have been taken to isolate this from the remainder of the site. On the western side the limit of the ancient walls is marked by the old gate, and by the fragments of walls which still exist at the point where the direct road from Rome enters the city by the modern Porta del Colle. The course of the walls then excludes the Villa d’Este, and runs across the hill to the Church of the Annunziata and the Porta Santa Croce and the citadel built by Pius II. on the site of the ancient amphitheatre. From thence the walls passed in a straight line down to the river near the Church of S. Bartolommeo. The ancient town did not extend to the right bank of the Anio.

[Sidenote: Temple of Vesta.]

Two ancient temples are still standing in tolerable preservation at Tibur. The first of these is a small round temple perched on the very edge of the precipitous ravine through which the Anio dashes. It has been protected against the violence of the furious torrent by massive substructions, which apparently existed in ancient times and have often been renewed. Ten of the eighteen columns which formerly surrounded the inner chamber still remain.

The details of this temple are rather peculiar in style, and show an originality of invention very rare in Roman architecture. The columns have Attic bases, but the grooves of the fluting are cut in a style which is neither Doric nor Ionic. They terminate above in an abrupt horizontal line, and reach at the foot of the column quite down to the base without any intermediate cylinder. The capitals exhibit a fantastic variety of the Corinthian order, having the second row of acanthus leaves nearly hidden behind the first, and a lotus blossom as the decoration of the abacus. The frieze is ornamented with the skulls of oxen and festoons, in the loops of which are rosettes and pateræ placed alternately. The inner chamber, which is built of opus incertum, is partly destroyed, but the lower half of the door and a window still remain.

From the above description it will be seen that the architecture of the temple appears to belong to the end of the Republican era, but the inscription on the architecture gives us no further hint of the exact date, as the whole of it: with the exception of the words L. CELLIO. L. F., has disappeared. The most probable conjecture as to the deity to whom it was dedicated is that based upon the fact that Vesta was worshipped at Tibur, as is shown not only by two inscriptions found near the spot, but also by the mediæval name of this quarter of the town. The form of the temple also confirms such an opinion.

[Sidenote: Temple of Albunea.]

The second temple stands quite close to this round building, and is now consecrated as the Church of S. Giorgio. Its shape was that of a pseudoperipteral temple, i.e. with the side columns half sunk in the walls, raised on a meagre base of tufa blocks. It had a front, with four Ionic columns, one of which still remains, forming a support to the Campanile. An inscription dedicated to Drusilla, the sister of Caligula, was found here, but no reference as to the name of the temple can be drawn from it. A bas-relief, also found on the spot, represents the Tiburtine Sibyl sitting, and in the act of delivering an oracle. Hence it has been thought that we have in the Church of S. Giorgio the Temple of the Sibyl Albunea mentioned by Horace, Tibullus, and Lactantius, and this seems to be the most probable of the various conjectures which have been hazarded on the subject. The Grove of Tiburnus mentioned by Horace was probably on the right bank of the Anio, but further than this it is impossible to determine its exact position. There was also a grove dedicated to Diana. The Mons Catillus, now Monte Catillo or Monte della Croce, is the height on the right bank of the Anio. The name is at least as early as the time of Servius.

[Sidenote: Villas.]

As may easily be imagined there are numerous remains of ancient villas scattered about the immediate neighbourhood of Tibur, and the local guides, in order to please travellers but without the slightest evidence in support of their assertions, have dubbed them the Villas of Catullus, Horace, Ventidius, Quintilius Varus, Mæcenas, Sallust, Piso, Capito, Brutus, Popillius, and other celebrated Romans.

The most remarkable ruins are those to which the name of Mæcenas has been attached. The greater part of these have been now unfortunately concealed by new buildings and by an iron manufactory, but a fine terrace and parts of the porticoes still remain on the lofty bank of the Anio. The rest is a mere confused mass of vaulted chambers and archways. The Via Tecta, or Porta Oscura, as it is sometimes called, by which the road passes underneath these ruins, was built, as we learn from an inscription now in the Vatican collection, by O. Vitulus and Rustius Flavos. The materials and style show that it can hardly be of a later date than the first century A.D.

[Sidenote: Tempio della Tosse.]

The Tempio della Tosse which probably obtains its name from a vulgar interpretation of the name of the gens Tossia, is a ruin standing in a vineyard at the side of the old road, called the Via Constantina, below the Villa d’Este. It has none of the characteristic marks of an ancient temple, and the large number of windows it contains forbid us to suppose it to be a tomb. The interior of the building is round, the exterior octagonal. It is built of layers of small fragments of tufa intermixed with courses of bricks, materials which point to the fourth century as the earliest possible date of its erection. On the walls are the remains of frescoes of the Saviour and the Virgin, dating probably from the 13th century. These show that, if it was not originally a Christian Church, it was used as one at the time the frescoes were painted.

[Sidenote: Villa of Cassius.]

The ruins of a considerable villa lie near the Porta S. Croce of Tivoli, in the estate called Carciano, from the mediæval name of the Fundus Cassianus, which is stated in a list of the estates belonging to the cathedral at Tivoli to have been the site of a villa of Caius Cassius. Part of these ruins consist of a very ancient structure of polygonal work, but the rest is pronounced by Nibby to belong to the time of the later republic. The casino of the Collegio Greco is now built on the spot, but the plan of the ancient villa can be so far traced as to show that it had several terraces, and looked towards the south-west. In the 16th century there were still eighteen large apartments existing, surrounded with a portico of Doric columns, and also some temples, a theatre, some fountains, and fish ponds. The opus reticulatum of these ruins is peculiar for the alternate arrangement of coloured tufa in its lozenges. An immense number of works of art were dug up here, and the nearly complete destruction of what still remained of the villa in the 16th century, is probably due to the fact of its having been found to be so rich a mine of sculpture.

[Sidenote: Sabine Farm of Horace.]

The Sabine farm of Horace can hardly be passed over here, though it is not strictly included within the district of Tibur. There is no evidence to show that Horace ever had any villa at Tibur in addition to his Sabine farm; indeed his own words seem expressly to imply the contrary. The estate he had was plainly usually called a Sabinum, not a Tiburtinum, and must therefore be looked for at some distance from Tibur. Horace mentions two places in its neighbourhood, Varia, and Mandela, the sites of which can be exactly determined. The ancient list of towns places Varia on the Via Valeria, eight miles beyond Tibur, and precisely at this distance are the remains of an ancient town now covered by the modern village of Vico Varo. But the position of Mandela is more important for ascertaining the site of Horace’s farm, because if we can fix upon it, we then can discover to which of the mountain streams which flow into the Anio the name Digentia belonged. An inscription dug up in 1757 near the Church of S. Cosimato on the Via Valeria, two miles from the village of Bardella, shows that an estate in the modern district formed by the union of Cantalupo and Bardella was called in the later imperial times, or the early Middle Ages, Massa Mandelana.

From this it is plain that the Digentia was the torrent called Mariscella, which joins the Anio between Cantalupo, Bardella and Vico Varo, descending from near Licenza, a small village about six miles from Vico Varo. As to the exact spot where the farm of Horace itself stood in the valley of the Digentia, we cannot be quite certain. The ruins usually pointed out are on a little knoll opposite to the village of Licenza, and on the other side of the stream. These are possibly situated on the spot on which the farmhouse stood, if they do not date so far back as the lifetime of the poet himself. Dennis in Milman’s Horace says, “The ruins consist only of a mosaic pavement, and of two capitals and two fragments of Doric columns lying among the bushes. The pavement has been much ruined by the planting of a vineyard, and can only be seen on removing the earth which covers it. The groundwork is white with a border of animals in black. These are the sole traces now visible (1842), but some fifty years ago, the mosaic floors of six chambers were brought to light, but were covered again with earth, as nothing was found to tempt any further excavation. The farm is situated on a rising ground which sinks with a gentle slope to the stream, leaving a level intervening strip now yellow with the harvest. In this I recognised the sunny meadow which, as the poet says, was in danger of being inundated. The sunny fields were probably then, as now, sown with corn. Here it must have been that the poet was wont to repose on the grass after his meal, and here his personal efforts perhaps to dam out the stream provoked his neighbours’ smiles.” The place is surrounded on all sides by hills, except where the main valley of the Digentia separates them, running nearly due north and south, so that facing down the valley, the sun before midday rests on the right-hand slopes, and in the afternoon on the left hand, thus corresponding exactly to the poet’s description of the site.[160]

The other spots mentioned by Horace as near his farm, are the Chapel of Vacuna, the slopes of Ustica, and the mountain of Lucretilis. The first of these has been placed by the Italian topographers at Rocca Giovane, a village perched on a hill on the west side of the valley about two miles above Cantalupo Bardella. The evidence for this identification is, however, very doubtful.

The Ustica cubans of the poet is commonly with some probability supposed to be La Rustica, which lies on the hill close to Licenza on the eastern side of the valley. Lucretilis is probably a name applied to the whole range of hills connected with Monte Gennaro. Cav. Rosa, however, places it at Monte del Corynaleto just above Rocca Giovane. The name of Fons Bandusiæ has been given to most of the springs in this valley by the enthusiastic admirers of Horace, but it is quite uncertain whether the Fons Bandusiæ was not in Apulia.

(F) THE NORTH-WESTERN DISTRICT.

The principal roads which traversed the Campagna to the north and north-west of Rome are the Nomentana, the Salaria and the Flaminia. These roads offer but little, within the bounds of ancient Latium, which calls for remark.

The Via Nomentana diverged from the Via Salaria at the Collina gate in the Servian walls, and passed through the Aurelian wall at a gate which now stands a little to the south of the modern Porta Pia. The present road follows the line of the ancient Via Nomentana, as may be seen by the ruins of tombs which fringe it beyond S. Agnese. The Chapel of S. Constanza, opposite S. Agnese, is an interesting building of the Constantinian epoch, and the mosaics it contains, including a mixture of Christian and pagan emblems, are very remarkable. The Mons Sacer stands just beyond the bridge over the Anio, and the Villa of Phaon, where Nero ended his life, was at the Vigne Nuove, on a side road which branches off to the right, just beyond the Ponte Nomentano.

The Via Salaria is said to have been so named from the supplies of salt conveyed along it to the Sabine district at the time when the Romans and Sabines were confederates. It is first mentioned in history as the scene of the single combat between Manlius and the gigantic Gaul. The ancient road passed out at the Collina gate, and followed very nearly the same line as the present road along the left bank of the Tiber, as may be seen by the ruins near Serpentara, and by the position of the ancient bridge, the Ponte Salaro, which carries it over the Anio close to Antemnæ. Beyond this, Fidenæ and the Allia are the most remarkable points of interest upon the road in the neighbourhood of Rome. Beyond Malpasso, the ancient road, according to Nibby, diverges to the right, crossing the railway to Ancona.

The Via Flaminia, after passing through the Porta Ratumena at the Tomb of Bibulus, left the Aurelian fortifications at the Porta Flaminia, which stood a little nearer the slope of Monte Pincio than the present Porta del Popolo. It ran to the right of the present street, and then crossed the Tiber at the well-known Milvian bridge, and then diverged to the right along the Tiber valley, while the Via Cassia ascended to the left among the Etruscan hills towards Veii, which lay to the right at the twelfth milestone. The old Flaminian Road lay closer to the river than the modern, which is carried through a cutting in the hills and rejoins it at Tor di Quinto. There are a few rock tombs on the left hand, between the fifth and sixth milestones. One of them has been connected with the poet Ovid by a mistaken inference drawn from the inscription found upon it which bears the name of Q. Nasonius Ambrosius.

The Ponte Molle, which derives its name from an unknown Roman Mulvius, or from the neighbouring hills, carries the Flaminian Road over the Tiber at a distance of two miles from the Porta del Popolo. Some of the foundations of the bridge, and parts of the peperino and travertine stonework in the smaller arches, are ancient. The victory of Constantine over Maxentius, which is usually called the battle of the Pons Mulvius, was gained six miles further along the road.

An inscription cut in a block of travertine has been fixed in the right-hand parapet of the bridge. This inscription records the inspection of the banks of the Tiber by the Censors of M. Valerius and Publius Serveilius, who were Censors in the year B.C. 55.

[Sidenote: Villa of Livia at Prima Porta.]

One of the imperial villas of an early date was placed on the right bank of the Tiber at the ninth milestone on the Via Flaminia in the Veientine territory.

The Via Flaminia is here bordered for a long distance on the left-hand side by tufa rocks of a reddish hue, whence the district had obtained, in Livy’s time, the name of Saxa Rubra. The Cremera, now the Valca, is one of the streams which enter the Tiber in this district, and beyond it, where the road turns to the left, and, leaving the valley of the Tiber, ascends the hill through a cutting, is the stream and hamlet of Prima Porta. On the right of the road here, and between it and the Tiber, lie the ruins of a large villa, the various terraces of which, raised one above the other, occupy the whole of the top of the hill, and command magnificent views of the Sabine and Æquian highlands. There can be no doubt that these ruins are the remains of the villa of Livia called ad Gallinas, mentioned by Pliny and by Suetonius as situated at the ninth milestone on the Via Flaminia. The style of construction in the walls which remain corresponds to that of the Mausoleum of Augustus in the Campus Martius. The reticulated work has that peculiar irregularity about it which indicates the transition from the opus incertum to the more regularly formed opus reticulatum. Nibby had pointed out this spot in 1837 as one in which a rich harvest might be reaped from excavating, but it was not till 1863 that the splendid Statue of Augustus, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican with other interesting sculptures, was dug up here.[161]

At the same time some rooms were excavated at a depth of ten feet, under the level of the ancient villa. They had apparently been closed at a very early time and filled with earth, in order to erect a building over them. The largest of these was apparently intended as a cool retreat during the summer heats, and the walls are painted with trees and birds, in imitation of a rustic bower. These paintings have attracted great attention as being some of the most ancient now in existence, and also on account of their intrinsic beauty, and the wonderful way in which they have preserved their freshness of colour. The pavement of this painted room was of marble, which was, however, removed when the earth was thrown in at the time of building the rooms above.

The legend about this villa connects it with the death of Nero, relating that the laurel bushes and the white fowls, for which the villa had been celebrated since the days of Livia, withered and died out during Nero’s last days.

[Sidenote: Veii.]

Beyond Prima Porta, to the west, is the site of Veii. This is about twelve miles from Rome, and now bears the name of Isola Farnese. But little remains of the ancient city have been found, but no doubt is now felt by antiquaries that the city occupied the rocky ground between the Cremera and the Fosso de’ due Fossi.

Inscriptions bearing the names of some Etruscan families, especially the Tarquitii, have been found here, and the remains of the ancient citadel, on the spot now called the Piazza d’Armi, are mentioned in some old ecclesiastical documents.

One of the gates must have been at the spot now called the Porta de’ Sette Pagi as the road from Veii to Sutri probably passed out here, and another gate was opposite Isola called the Porta dell’ Arco. A third may have stood towards Fidenæ, where the ancient postern and flight of steps is now to be seen, called La Scaletta. Other remains are to be seen near the site of a gate called by Canina La Spezieria. The Ponte Sodo and the tombs near it are worth attention, as is also the ancient Etruscan tomb called the Grotta Campana, in which a most interesting set of sepulchral ornamentations and cinerary urns has been preserved. The chief monuments of Veii, which have been taken to Rome, are the Ionic columns in front of the Post Office in the Piazza Colonna, the Statue of Tiberius, and the colossal heads of Tiberius and Augustus, now in the Vatican Museum.[162]

INDEX.

A.

Academia, 21, 246

Ædes Publican, Flavian, 22, 24

Æsculapius, temple of, 116

Agger of Servius, 157

Agon Capitolinus, 181

Agrippina, pedestal of, 146, 178

Alba Longa, 207

Alban Hills, 192, 194; Emissarium or tunnel of, 204

---- Lake, 203

---- Mount, 206

Albanum Cæsarum, 202

Albula, 189

Albulæ Aquæ, 236

Alexamenus, 18

Allia, 257

Altar of Sextius, 16

Amphitheatrum Castrense, 173

Ancient stone work, 163

Anio, falls of, 249

Antoninus Pius, pedestal of column, 178

Appian Road, 194

Aqua Virgo, 135

Arches, 9

Arch of Constantine, 59

---- Dolabella, 174

---- Drusus, 171

---- Gallienus, 77

---- M. Aurelius, 177

---- Severus, 52

---- Silversmiths, 104

---- Tiberius, 46

---- Titus, 31

Architectural styles, 5, 11

Arco dei Pantani, 92

Area Flacciana, 15

Arena of Coliseum, 67

Arricia, causeway at, 208

Arval College, 231

Atta, tomb of, 219

Atticus, tomb of, 198

Atrium, Palatine, 23

Auguratorium, on Palatine, 30

Augustan buildings, 21

Aurelius, M., bas-reliefs from arch, 177

Aventine and Cælian Hills, 161.

B.

Bandusiæ Fons, 256

Basilica, Constantine, 34, 35, 183

---- Julia, 44

----, Palatine, 24

----, Ulpia, 83

Bas-reliefs in Forum, 42, 43

Baths of Agrippa, 134

---- Caracalla, 166, 183

---- Constantine, 100, 183

---- Diocletian, 153

---- Titus, 75

Bibliotheca, 21

Bibulus, tomb of, 97

Brickwork, 12

Bronze cone, 149, 178; peacocks, 150, 178

Bovillæ, 200

C.

Cæcilia Metella, tomb of, 197

Cælian, houses on, 176

Caffarelli Palace, 98

Caligula, Palace of, 31

Calydonian boar hunt, 181

Campagna, hills of, 191; population, 192

Capitoline map, 120, 181

Capitolium, 98

Casale Rotondo, 200

Cestius, tomb of, 165

Cicero’s Villa, 218

Circus Flaminius, 123;

---- Maximus, Carceres of, 112

Claudian Aqueduct, 20, 81, 174

Climate, 189

Clivus Victoriæ, 14

Cloaca Maxima, 46, 105

Clodius, Villa of, 201

Cluilia Fossa, 197

Coliseum, 61; architecture of, 72; characteristic of builder, 70

Colonnacce, 94

Colossus of Nero, 63

Columbaria, 73, 170

Columns, 10

Column of Marcus Aurelius, 138

---- Phocas, 41

---- Trajan, 84; cast of, 89

Columna Centenaria, 142

Commodus, Palace of, 176

Constantine, Baths of, 100

Cornelia Gracchorum, 121

Cosmedin, S. Maria in, 111

Cremera, 259

Cryptoporticus, 25

Curtius, bas-relief, 179

D.

Dacian campaigns, Trajan’s, 87

Decebalus, 88

Demosthenes, statue of, 182

Digentia, 254

Dii Consentes, area of, 48

Dogana, in Piazza di Pietra, 136

Domitius Calvinus, pedestal, 26, 28

Domus Aurea of Nero, 73

Doria Palace, 127

Duilian column, inscription on, 179

E.

Egeria, grotto of, 195

Egyptian antiquities, 129, 177

Einsiedlen MS., 51, 76, 100, 125, 138, 148

Eurysaces, tomb of, 81

F.

Fasti Consulares, 179

---- Prænestini, 229

Faustina, the younger, 178

Fidenæ, 257

Fiumicino, 231

Flaminia, Via, 257

Forum Augusti, 92

---- Julium, 91

----, Nerva’s, 94

---- Romanum, 38

----, Trajan’s, 83

Fratres Arvales, 231; buildings of, 232

Freshwater strata, 187

Frontispicium Neronis, 100

G.

Gabii, 221

Gabinius, Villa of, 218

Galuzze, 79

Gelotiana, Domus, 17

Geology of Campagna, 185

Germalus, 17, 29

Germanicus, House of, 26

Geta, erased, 104, 119

Gladiator or Gaul, dying, 181

Gnomon Obelisk, 137

Gordiana, Villa, 219

Gradus Concordiæ, 51

Graffiti, 18, 70

H.

Hadrian, colossal head of, 178

Hadrian’s Villa, 237; antiquities from, 181, 183

Heliogabalus, Lavacrum, 36, 58

Horace, Sabine farm, 254

House of Laterani, 173

I.

Imperial monuments, 3

J.

Janus Quadrifrons, 103

Julius Cæsar, Heroon of, 39

Jupiter Pluvius, 141

---- Propugnator, 28

---- Redux, 176

---- Stator, 25

---- Victor, 28

L.

Labicum, 223

Laconicum, 134, 155, 168

Laocoon, 182

Lararium, Palatine, 24

Latifundia, 192

Latin road, tombs on, 211

Latium, towns of, 191, 192

Lautumiæ, 56

Legio fulminata, 141

Lucretilis, 256

M.

Mæcenas, Auditorium of, 80; Tower of, 102

Mamertine Prison, 55

Mandela, 254

Marcus Aurelius, statue of, 183

Marine strata, 185

Masonry, Roman, 4

Mausoleum of Augustus, 143

---- Hadrian, 148

Maxentius, Circus of, 196

Meta Sudans, 58

Milestones on Appian Road, 183

Miliarium Aureum, 54

Minerva Medica, 78

Mons Sacer, 257

Monte Cavallo, 183

---- Testaccio, 164

Monumental History, 2

Monumentum Ancyranum, 145

Muro Torto, 147

Museum, Kircherian, antiquities in, 183

N.

Navicella, 174

Nemi, Lake of, 208; Cæsar’s Villa at, 210

Nomentana, Via, 257

Nymphæum, Palatine, 23

O.

Obelisks, 12, 129, 145

Oligarchical monuments, 2

Ostia, 229; antiquities from, 182

P.

Palatine, Belvedere on, 20; entrance, 14; paintings on peristylium, 23, 27; walls, 16, 17

Pantheon, 130; plundered, 135

Pedestals, in Forum, 41, 42

Phaon, Villa of, 257

Piazza Navona, 143

Pillar of Antoninus Pius, 138

Plautian Tomb, 236

Pompey, Villa and Tomb of, 201

Pons Ælius, 148

Ponte Lucano, 236

---- Molle, or Milvian bridge, 257

---- di Nono, 221

---- Rotto, 115

---- S. Sisto, 126

Porphyry basin, 182

Porta Capena, 163

---- Chiusa, 159

---- Collina, 257

---- Maggiore, 81

---- Mugionia, 24

---- Ratumena, 97

---- Romanula, 15

---- S. Lorenzo, 81

---- Viminalis, 153

Porticus Catuli, 15

---- Metelli, 120

---- Octaviæ, 119

Portland Vase, 181

Porto, 233

Præneste, 223

Prætorian Camp, 158

Prima Porta, statue of Augustus from, 260; Villa of Livia, 259

Puteal, in Forum, 39

Q.

Quintiliana, Villa of Commodus, 198, 212; sculpture from, 200

Quirinal Hill, 101

Quirinale, or Monte Cavallo, Piazza, 101, 183

R.

Rediculus, Divus, 195

Regal Monuments, 2

Republican Monuments, 2

Rienzi, 147

Roma Vecchia, 197, 212

Rostra of Empire, 54

Rutilius, 248

S.

Salaria Via, 257

Salita del Grillo, ruin in, 83

Sallustia, statue of, 172

S. Andrea della Valle, 123

S. Angelo, bridge of, 148

S. Constanza, Chapel of, 257

SS. Cosma and Damiano, 36

S. Maria degli Angeli, 153, 155

S. Maria in Via Lata, 127

S. Nicola in Carcere, ruins in, 117

S. Urbano, 195

Sarcophagi and cippus, 182

Saxa Rubra, 259

Scala Cœli, 29

Schola Xanthi, 49

Scipio, Sarcophagus, 182

Scipios, Tomb of, 170

Sculpture, ancient specimens of, 184

Seneca, Villa of, 197

Septa, 127

Septizonium, 20, 151

Servian Walls, 161

Sessorium, 172

Sette Basse, 212

---- Sale, 75

Site of Rome, 1

Sortes Prænestinæ, 225, 228

Stadium Palatinum, 18

Suovetaurilia, 42, 60, 88

T.

Tabularium, 56

Tarpeian Rock, 99

Tarquin Dynasty, 106, 157, 161

Teatro Correa, 143

Temple of Albunea at Tivoli, 252

---- Antoninus and Faustina, 40

---- Artemis at Nemi, 210

---- Bacchus or Honos, 195

---- Castor, 38

---- Ceres, 110

---- Concord, 50

---- Cybele, 29

---- Fortuna Prænestina, 225

---- Fortuna Virilis, 107

---- Hadrian, 137

---- Isis, 128

---- Jupiter Capitolinus, 98

---- Jupiter Feretrius, 29

---- Jupiter Latiaris, 207

---- Lares Præstites, 29

---- Marcus Aurelius, 139

---- Mars Ultor, 92

---- Minerva, 96

---- Penates, 36

---- Romulus, 196

---- Saturn, 46

---- Serapis, 128

---- Sibyl, or Vesta, at Tivoli, 251

---- Sun, Aurelian’s, 100

---- Venus and Cupid, 172

---- Venus and Rome, 32

---- Vespasian, 49

---- Vesta, 39

---- Vesta or Hercules, 108

Temples, on Palatine, 28

Theatre of Balbus, 122, 183

---- Marcellus, 112

---- Pompey, 123

Theseus and Amazons, 181

Tiber, Island of, 115; bridges, 116; water of, 188

Tiberius, House of, 26, 30

Tivoli, or Tibur, 235; Villas at, 252

Torre Fiscale, 212

---- Paterno, ruins at, 234

---- Pignatara, 221

Torso Belvedere, 182

Totilas, 152, 236, 247

Transitoria, Domus, 34

Transtiberine Walls, 4

Travertine, quarries, 236

Triclinium, Palatine, 22

Trophies, of Marius, 76, 183

Tufaceous stone, 186

Tunnels, subterranean, 206

Tusculum, 214; gate and walls, 216; history of city, 217; theatre at, 215

U.

Ustica, 256

Ustrina Cæsarum, 144, 146

V.

Vacuna, Chapel of, 256

Varia, 254

Vatican Hill, enclosed, 4

V. D. N., 18

Veii, 260

Veii and Campagna, antiquities from, 182

Velabrum, 103

Velia, 31

Vettius Prætextatus, 49

Vicus Tuscus, 39

Vigna Guidi, 169

Villa Mills, 21

Villas, ancient, 190, 193

Vitiges, 149, 152, 193

Volcanic strata, 186

Vota, 60

W.

Wolf, bronze figure, 17, 180

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Corp. Inscr. Lat. vol. vi. 1, No. 1158.

[2] Cic. de Har. Resp. xv., 33. Vettius, in Cic. ad Att. ii. 24, calls Cicero “vicinus consulis,” i.e. near the Regia.

[3] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ ch. viii. p. 160.

[4] Festus, p. 262, “infimo clivo Victoriæ.”

[5] A descent to the right to the Forum has been observed by a French architect. See ‘Le Forum Romain,’ par Dutert; Lévy, Paris, 1876, p. 14. ‘Guida del Palatino,’ p. 71. Valerius Maximus, vi. 3, 1. Cic. pro Dom. 38. 102.

[6] Cic. de Div. i. 45; ii. 32. Liv. v. 32.

[7] Corp. Inscr. i. 632. Wordsworth, Frag. of early Latin, p. 167, 410.

[8] Cic. de Orat. ii. 249.

[9] Cic. ad Att. iv. 3, 3. Liv. xxxiii. 26.

[10] Vacca Memorie 3, Urlichs, in Rheinisches Museum, 1846.

[11] See Henzen, in Bull. dell. Inst., 1867. The name of Domus Gelotiana has been given to this ruin by Visconti. See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 181.

[12] The marks on the bricks found here bear the names of Clonius and Ermetes, freedmen of the Gens Domitia, but the walls which stand near the meta are constructed of materials which show that they are of later date, and belong to the Restoration of Theodoric, A.D. 500.

[13] Hist. Aug. Severus, 19, 24. See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 180.

[14] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ pp. 174, 200.

[15] Plin. Ep. I. 13.

[16] See ‘The Journal of Philology,’ Cambridge 1869, vol. ii. p. 89.

[17] Stat. Silv., iv. 2, 26.

[18] The name Basilica Jovis, placed here by Rosa, probably refers to a temple and not to this tribunal.

Plin. Panegyr., 47.

[19] ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 34.

[20] Josephus, Ant. Jud. xix. 1, 15.

[21] Gell, N. A. xx. 1, 2.

[22] Suet. Tib. 5.

[23] Orelli, Inscr. 6057, 6058.

[24] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 178.

[25] Solinus, i. 18.

[26] Orelli, 2286.

[27] Tac. Hist. i. 27.

[28] Hist. Aug. Ant. Pius, 10; Ant. Phil. 6; Gell. xiii. 20.

[29] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 160, Note 1.

[30] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 162.

[31] Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii. 5, 7.

[32] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 170.

[33] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 171.

[34] Parker’s ‘Archæology of Rome,’ vol. ii. p. 98. Jordan, ‘Forma urbis Romæ’; Berlin, 1874, p. 37.

[35] ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 169.

[36] Aur. Vict. Cæs. xl. 26. See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 166.

[37] Vitruv. v. 1.

[38] ‘Archæology of Rome,’ vol. ii. p. 75.

[39] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 163.

[40] Lampridius, Hist. Aug. Ant. Hel. 8, 17, in ædibus aulicis. Parker, ‘Archæology of Rome,’ vol. ii. p. 92.

[41] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 100.

[42] Ibid. p. 103.

[43] Eckhel, vii. 37. On the mistaken appropriation of the temple to M. Aurelius, see ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 114.

[44] See Reber’s ‘Ruinen Roms,’ p. 132.

[45] Corp. Inscr. Lat. vol. vi. pt. 1, No. 1200. “Indictionis undecimo Post Consulatum pietatis ejus anno quinto” are the last words of the inscription. “In the eleventh year of his appointment and the fifth year of his reverence the emperor.” See Nibby, ‘Roma antica,’ p. 152; Zell. Epigr. 1226. A D = A Deo.

[46] See Clinton, Fast. Rom. A.D. 608.

[47] Stat. Silv. i. 1. Mr. Parker thinks that this was the pedestal of a statue of Constantine. Archæol. vol. ii. pl. xix.

[48] Nichols, ‘The Roman Forum,’ p. 78.

[49] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ Appendix, p. 452.

[50] Gardhausen, ‘Hermes,’ viii. 129. Nichols, ‘Roman Forum,’ p. 67. Ann. dell. Inst. 1872. Mr. Nichols’s explanation does not account for the position of the fig-tree and Marsyas satisfactorily.

[51] Jordan, ‘Forma urbis Romæ,’ pp. 4, 25. The proportion of the length to the breadth is nearly that given by Vitruvius as proper for a basilica.

[52] Juv. Sat. v. 104.

[53] Tac. Ann. ii. 41.

[54] Jordan, ‘Forma urbis Romæ,’ p. 26.

[55] Cic. Phil. ii. 7.

[56] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 58.

[57] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 91.

[58] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. xxix.

[59] Cic. Phil. vii. ch. 8. The third Catilinarian oration was delivered here.

[60] Dion. Cass. lxxvii. 12.

[61] Herodian iii. 9, 10, 11. Hist. Aug. Vit. Sev. 9, 16, 17.

[62] See Parker’s Archæol. vol. ii. pl. xi.

[63] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 354, Appendix.

[64] See Jordan, Top. Rom. p. 13, Note 20.

[65] Liv. xxxvii. 3. Seneca, Contr. ix. 4, 21.

[66] Corp. Inscr. Lat. i. 591, 592. Mommsen, Ann. Inst. 1858, p. 211. Canina, Rom. Ant. p. 290. Virgil’s use of the plural tabularia is not, therefore, merely poetical: Georg. ii. 502.

[67] Seneca’s letter was written from Baiæ, which seems to place the building he speaks of there and not at Rome. The word “meta” was used by the Latin classical writers in speaking of haystacks or cream-cheeses made in a conical shape. Columella, ii. 19; Mart. i. 44.

[68] See Casaubon’s note on Spartian, Hist. Aug. p. 40; B.C. Tac. Ann. vi. 17; xvi. 22.

[69] The great amphitheatre at El Djemm in Tunis is 480 feet by 420 and 102 feet in height, that at Pola in Istria 437 by 346 feet and 97 feet in height. Shaw’s ‘Travels,’ i. p. 220. Ann. dell’ Inst. 1852. Allason’s Pola.

[70] The tomb of Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican is another curious instance of this mixture of Doric and Ionic decorative forms.

[71] This portico is shown in the medals of Titus and Alexander Severus. The remains of a similar portico exist in the amphitheatre at Thysdrus (El Djemm) in Tunis. See Canina in the Ann. dell’ Inst. 1852, tav. d’Agg. U.

[72] Suet. Vesp. viii. 13.

[73] Gibbon, ‘Decline and Fall,’ ch. lxxi.

[74] Suet. Jul. ii. Propert. iv. ii. 46.

[75] Gibbon, ‘Decline and Fall,’ ch. x.

[76] See Dion Cassius, lxviii. 9-13.

[77] Dion Cass. lvi. 27.

[78] The frieze is described and representations of it are given in the Annali and Monumenti dell’ Inst. 1877.

[79] See ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. xlii.

[80] See the Annali and Monumenti of the Inst. di Corr. arch. 1876.

[81] Dionys. iv. 27.

[82] Tac. Ann. ii. 49. Dionys. vi. 7, 94. Vitruv. iii. 3, 5. Plin. N. H. xxxv. 4, 24. 10, 99. 12. 154.

[83] Auson. Sept. Sap. prol. 22. Mon. Ancyr. tab. iv. Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 44.

[84] See Reber, Ruinen Roms, p. 316. Eckhel, Num. Vet. tom. v. p. 210.

[85] Ann. dell’ Inst. 1850, p. 347. Monum. v. xxiv.

[86] Festus, p. 178, ed. Müller. Velleius, i. 1, 3; ii. 1, 2.

[87] Vitruv. v. 9.

[88] Tac. Ann. xiv. 20.

[89] Hier. Chron. ed. Ronealli, i. 475; ii. 247.

[90] Grut. Inser. cxi. 6. Amm. Marc. xvi. 10.

[91] Juv. Sat. vi. 529. Joseph. B. J. vii. 5, 4.

[92] Fea, Misc. lxvi. 26; cxxv. 17; ccliv. 112.

[93] Amm. Marc. xvi. 10. Seneca de Ben. iii. 32.

[94] Dion. Cass. liii. 27.

[95] In the Curiosum the temple and column are placed together in the ninth region.

[96] Plin. N. H. xxxvi. 9, 71, 72.

[97] Annali dell’ Inst. 1852, p. 338.

[98] Dion. Cass. lv. 23. Orelli, Inscr. 517, 5447.

[99] Gruter, Inscr. 466.

[100] Strabo, v. 3, 8.

[101] Dion. Cass. liii. 32, liv. 26.

[102] Dion. Cass. lxix. 23.

[103] Reumont, Gesch. Roms, vol. ii. p. 917, A.D. 1354; Gibbon, ch. lxx.

[104] Procop. Bell. Goth. 22.

[105] Bunsen’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 208. Hirt. Gesch. der Bauk, ii. p. 373.

[106] Hist. Aug. Sept. Sev. 19, 24. Herodian iv. 1, 4.

[107] Gibbon, ch. xlix.

[108] Donati ‘Roma vetus ac recens,’ 1665, p. 476.

[109] Dionys. ix. 68. Brocchi, Suolo di Roma, p. 144.

[110] Ann. dell’ Inst. xxxiv. 133. Festus, p. 261. Varro, L. L. v. § 49.

[111] Herodian, ii. 6.

[112] Bunsen, Beschreibung Roms, iii. 2, 359.

[113] Bull. dell’ Inst. 1855, p. 87.

[114] Abeken. ‘Mittelitalien,’ p. 143.

[115] Bull. dell’ Inst. xxv. 85, 116; xxxvii. 235.

[116] Hist. Aug. Car. 9. Hel. 17. Al. Sev. 25.

[117] Olymp. ap. Phot. Bibl. 80, p. 63. Bekker.

[118] Cor. Insc. Lat. vol. i. p. 12.

[119] Marini, Frat. Arv. p. 674.

[120] Eckhel, Num. Vet. ii. 6. 176.

[121] Frontin. 76.

[122] See Woodcut on p. 179.

[123] Ibid. p. 180.

[124] Plin. Ep. ii. 17. The depopulation of the Campagna began even in the time of the later Republic. See Appian, B.C., i. 7. In the Antonine era and the following reigns, pestilence and famine swept off millions of inhabitants. Zumpt, ‘Stand der Bevölkerung,’ p. 84, quoted by Merivale, vol. vii. p. 610.

[125] Cic. de Or. ii. 6. Val. Max. viii. 8. See Mommsen, R. H. i. 13, p. 200.

[126] Suet. Galb. i. Plin. N. H. xv. 40, 136, 137.

[127] Plin. N. H. xxxiv. § 20. Rutilius de Red. 224. Strabo, v. 3.

[128] Cic. pro Planc. 9. De Leg. Agr. ii. 35.

[129] Festus, p. 232.

[130] Visconti, op. Milan 1829, vol. ii. p. 387.

[131] Hobler, Roman coins, p. 821. No. 2035. Eckhel, Num. Vet. viii. p. 59.

[132] Hist. Aug. Flor. 16. Dion Cass. lxxii. 5, 13.

[133] Herodian, i. 12.

[134] Ann. dell’ Inst. 1853, 1854.

[135] Cic. pro Planc. 9; Propert. v. 1, 33.

[136] Cic. pro Mil. 10, 19, 20, 31.

[137] The mock council held over the gigantic turbot described in the Fourth Satire of Juvenal was at the Albanum.

[138] Ann. and Mon. dell’ Inst. 1854, p. 101.

[139] Cic. de Div. i. 44; ii. 32.

[140] Hirt, Gesch. der Bau, ii. p. 106.

[141] Fea, Miscellanea, pp. cccxvii. cclxxiv.

[142] Nibby, Analisi, ii. 305.

[143] Annali and Monumenti dell’ Inst. 1856.

[144] Nibby, Anal. iii. p. 736.

[145] Schol. ad Hor. Ep. i. 29.

[146] Canina, Mon. dell’ Arch. ant. tav. 183.

[147] Nibby, Anal. vol. ii. p. 87.

[148] Nibby, Anal. ii. 496.

[149] Cecconi, ‘Storia di Palestrina,’ p. 162.

[150] See ‘Tempio di Fortuna Prænestina,’ Thon and Nibby, Roma 1825.

[151] Mon. dell’ Inst. VI. tav. xi. Ann. dell’ Inst. 1857 p. 281.

[152] Nibby, Anal. II. 468.

[153] Lanciani, ‘Scavi nel Bosco Sacro,’ Roma 1868.

[154] Plin. Ep. viii. 17.

[155] Herodian i. 12, 2.

[156] Nibby, Anal. ii. p. 205.

[157] Hist. Aug. Hadrian 26. Aur. Vict. Epit. xiv. Tertull. Apol. 5.

[158] Strabo, xvii. 17.

[159] Nibby, Anal. iii. 655.

[160] Dennis in Milman’s Horace, p. 101; pratum apricum, Ep. i. 14, 30; aprica rura, Od. iii. 18, 2. See also, Od. iii. 16, 30; Ep. i. 14, 35, 39. ‘Rome and the Campagna,’ p. 430.

[161] Nibby, Anal. iii. 31. Bull. dell’ Inst. 1863, pp. 72, 81.

[162] See Dennis, ‘Etruria,’ ch. i.

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Transcriber's note:

Footnote 16 appears on page 21 of the text, but there is no corresponding marker on the page.