Old Rome Part 20

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 aedes, or shrine of the G.o.ddess 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 Praenestine 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 munic.i.p.ality, 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Ostia & Porto]

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 Praenestine 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 pa.s.s 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 s.e.x. Carminius Parthenopaeus Eq., and T. Flavius Verus Eq., and a terra-cotta inscription on the tomb of Flavia Caecilia, 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 pa.s.ses between the ruins of private houses, without anything more remarkable about them than a few common mosaic pavements and two fountains. The princ.i.p.al 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 Thermae, 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 a.s.signed 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 f.a.gan 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 Generosae. 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 archaeologically, 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 t.i.tles 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 Ca.s.sius. Many points of mythology are also ill.u.s.trated 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 t.i.tle of Augusta was conferred on Antonia by Claudius, whereas Dion on the contrary attributes the conference of this t.i.tle to Caius. The inscription decides the question in favour of the account of Dion Ca.s.sius.

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 Ca.s.sius 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' Inst.i.tuto' 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 aedes Deae Diae, 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 a.s.sembly-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 aedes. 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 s.p.a.ce to place them on the pedestals of the columns.[153]

[Sidenote: Porto.]

Beyond the site of the Arval Chapel, the road pa.s.ses 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 ca.n.a.l which now serves for communication between the sea and the Tiber proper, a.s.sumed 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 ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l. The words of this inscription seem to show that the primary object of the ca.n.a.l 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 ma.s.sive quays and warehouses, the ruins of which still remain. This inner basin is referred to by Juvenal.

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

[Sidenote: Ruins at Torre Paterno.]

Pa.s.sing 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, a.n.a.logous 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 quant.i.ty of mortar. Near these reservoirs is an enclosed s.p.a.ce 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 princ.i.p.al 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 archaeologist until the Aquae Albulae are reached. Some few remains of an ancient building, which may have belonged to the Thermae here, have been discovered. They are now built into the walls of a modern farmhouse. These ruins may have belonged to the Thermae 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 Luca.n.u.s, 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 Na.r.s.es.

[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 Caecilia 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 mediaeval tower built upon the top now disfigures it.

Two inscriptions placed in a projecting front with Ionic pilasters record the names of M. Plautius Silva.n.u.s, consul with Augustus in the year B.C.

2, and his son Ti. Plautius Silva.n.u.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF HADRIANEUM (_NEAR TIVOLI_)]

[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 Roma.n.u.s, 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 s.p.a.ce of seven miles in circ.u.mference, 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 Ca.s.sius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphilinus, does not even mention it, and Spartia.n.u.s and Aurelius Victor pa.s.s it over without such special remark as we should expect. As, however, a great part of the building consisted of the familiar Thermae, 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 aelius 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 aelia. 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 ma.s.s 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 compa.s.s 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.

Spartia.n.u.s gives us the names of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Canopus, the Pcile, 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 Pcile, 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 Palaestra, the Nymphaeum, the Library, the Imperial Palace, the Hospitals, the Stadium, the Camp, and the Thermae.

Proceeding from north to south, the ruins may be divided, for the convenience of description, into ten grand groups--A, the Palaestra, including the Greek and Latin Theatres and the Nymphaeum; B, the Pcile; C, the Guards' Barracks; D, the Library; E, the Imperial Palace; F, the Stadium; G, the Thermae; 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.