Old Rome Part 19

[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 Hermae 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 PRaeNESTE.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Atta.]

[Sidenote: Villa Gordiana.]

The road to Gabii and Praeneste leaves Rome at the Porta Maggiore. The most conspicuous ruin, which it pa.s.ses 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 Praeneste, 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 Thermae 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 s.p.a.cious halls belonging to the Thermae, 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 Thermae are to the east of the reservoirs. One of them was a s.p.a.cious 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 Thermae 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 ma.s.sive 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 t.i.tles 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 quant.i.ty of sculptures and inscriptions now in the Louvre at Paris were discovered. The princ.i.p.al 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 s.p.a.ce of only eight feet was left open, in consequence of the position of the theatre, which ab.u.t.ted 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 Gabin.o.borghesiani,' it appears that it was a rectangular quadrilateral s.p.a.ce, traversed by the Via Praenestina at the southern end, and that it was surrounded with a portico of Doric columns except at the end along which the Via Praenestina 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 t.i.tus Flavius aelia.n.u.s, 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 aelia 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: Labic.u.m.]

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 Labic.u.m 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 Praenestine 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 Labic.u.m, 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 Labic.u.m at the Feriae Latinae. 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: Praeneste.]

Beyond La Colonna, the ancient Labic.u.m, by far the most important place on the aequian frontier was the strong fortress-town of Praeneste, now Palestrina, which commands the pa.s.sage from Latium into the valley of the Sacco. Praeneste 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 Praeneste with tolerable accuracy, as has been done by Nibby and other archaeologists. The modern town, an agglomeration of filthy narrow alleys, occupies little more than the s.p.a.ce 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 mediaeval 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. x.x.x. 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF TEMPLE OF FORTUNE as rebuilt by Sylla. AT PRaeNESTE.]

The original foundation of the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste 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 Praenestine 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.ddess, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.p.a.ce 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 t.i.tles of the builder of the reservoir.[149] The brickwork, which is similar to that of the Praetorian 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Praenestine 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 Praenestine 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.]