Old Rome Part 18

[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 pa.s.sed 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 Feriae Latinae 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of the Area OF THE TEMPLE of JUPITER ON MONTE CAVO]

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' Inst.i.tuto 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 ma.s.sive 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 ma.s.s of masonry, except where three archways give pa.s.sage 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 Dianae) 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 princ.i.p.al ornaments of the neighbourhood of Rome, and in connection with the widely celebrated temple of Diana. Hence it was called Speculum Dianae, lacus Triviae and Stagnum Dianae.

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 Circaean 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 scoriae, and in some places by banks of tufa. Its circ.u.mference 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 a.s.sert 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 Caesar,' as an ill.u.s.tration of Julius Caesar's extravagance, a.s.serts 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 pa.s.sage 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 p.r.o.nounces 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 mediaeval 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 pa.s.sing 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' Inst.i.tuto 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 pa.s.sed 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 Ba.s.si, 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 s.p.a.ce of nearly three-quarters of a mile in circ.u.mference, 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 Ptinus and Africa.n.u.s and Servia.n.u.s 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 Ba.s.si 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Circus of Maxentius, with Torre Fiscale beyond it and the hills above Praeneste and Tusculum.]

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, pa.s.ses 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 mediaeval fortress of the Dukes of Tusculum, and a few only of the quadrilateral blocks of the ancient enclosure are visible. In the aequian 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 ma.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Mycenae 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 aediles Quintus Caelius Latinus, son of Quintus, and Marcus Dec.u.mo, 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 Sall.u.s.t 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]