Pagan and Christian Rome Part 17

Another inst.i.tution, that of _columbaria_, or _ossaria_, as they would more properly be called, owes its origin to the same cause. Columbaria are a specialty of Rome and the Campagna, and are found nowhere else, not even in the colonies or settlements originating directly from the city. They begin to appear some twenty years before Christ, under the rule of Augustus and the premiership of Maecenas. Inasmuch as the Campus Esquilinus, which, up to their time, had been used for the burial of artisans, laborers, servants, slaves, and freedmen, was suppressed in consequence of the sanitary reforms described by Horace,[121] and was buried under an embankment of pure earth, and converted into a public park; as, moreover, the disappearance of the said cemetery was followed closely by the appearance of columbaria, I believe one fact to be a consequence of the other, and both to be part of the same hygienic reform. No cleaner, healthier, or more respectable subst.i.tute for the old _puticoli_ could have been contrived by those enlightened statesmen. Any one, no matter how low in social position, could secure a decent place of rest for a paltry sum of money. The following inscription, still to be seen in the columbarium discovered in 1838, in the Villa Pamfili,--

[Ill.u.s.tration: TPACIAECVSTL ISARGVRVS _AIPINARIAe QLMVRTINI_]

has been interpreted by Hulsen to mean that Paciaecus Isargyros had sold to Pinaria Murtinis a place for one _as_. Tombstones often mention transactions of this kind, and state the cost of purchase for one or more loculi, or for the whole tomb. Friedlander, in a Konigsberg Programm for October, 1881,[122] has collected thirty-eight doc.u.ments concerning the cost of tombs; they vary from a minimum of two hundred sestertii ($8.25) to a maximum of one hundred and ninety-two thousand ($8,000).

There were three kinds of columbaria: first, those built by one man or one family either for their own private use, or for their servants and freedmen; second, those built by one or more individuals for speculation, in which any one could secure a place by purchase; third, those built by a company for the personal use of shareholders and contributors.

As a good specimen of the columbaria of the second kind we can cite one built on the Via Latina, by a company of thirty-six shareholders.

It was discovered in 1599, not far from the gate, and its records were scattered all over the city. As a proof of the negligence with which excavations were conducted in former times, we may state that, the same place having been searched again in 1854 by a man named Luigi Arduini, other inscriptions of great value were discovered, from which we learn how these burial companies were organized and operated. The first doc.u.ment, a marble inscription above the door of the crypt, states that in the year 6 B. C. thirty-six citizens formed a company for the building of a columbarium, each subscribing for an equal number of shares, and that they selected two of the stockholders to act as administrators. Their names are Marcus aemilius, and Marcus Fabius Felix, and their official t.i.tle is _curatores aedificii x.x.xvi.

sociorum_. They collected the contributions, bought the land, built the columbarium, approved and paid the contractors' bills, and having thus fulfilled their duty convened a general meeting for September 30.

Their report was approved, and a deed was drawn up and duly signed by all present, declaring that the administrators had discharged their duty according to the statute. They then proceeded to the distribution of the loculi in equal lots, the loculi representing, as it were, the dividend of the company. The tomb contained one hundred and eighty loculi for cinerary urns, and each of the shareholders was consequently ent.i.tled to five. The distribution, however, was not so easy a matter as the number would make it appear. We know that it was made by drawing lots, _per sort.i.tionem ollarum_, and we know also that in some cases the shareholders, as a remuneration to their chairmen, administrators, and auditors of accounts, voted them exemption from the rule, by giving them the right of selecting their loculi without drawing (_sine sorte_). Evidently some places were more desirable than others, and if we remember how columbaria are built, it is not difficult to see which loculi must have been most in demand.

The pious devotion of the Romans towards the dead caused them to pay frequent visits to their tombs, especially on anniversaries, when the urns were decorated with flowers, libations were offered, and other ceremonies performed. These _inferiae_, or rites, could be celebrated easily if the loculus and the cinerary urn were near the ground, while ladders were required to reach the upper tiers. The same difficulty was experienced when cinerary urns had to be placed in their niches; and the funeral tablets and memorials containing the name, age, condition, etc., of the deceased, which were either written in ink or charcoal, or else engraved on marble, could not be read if too high above the pavement. For these reasons, and to avoid any suspicion of partiality in the distribution of lots, the shareholders trusted to chance. The crypt discovered in the Via Latina contained five rows of niches of thirty-six each. The rows were called _sortes_, the niches _loci_. Now, as each shareholder was ent.i.tled to five _loci_, one on each row, lots were drawn only in regard to the _locus_, not to the row. The inscriptions discovered in 1599 and 1854 are therefore all worded with the formula:--"Of Caius Rabirius Faustus, second tier, twenty-eighth locus;" "Of Caius Julius aeschinus, fourth tier, thirty-fourth locus;" "Of Lucius Scribonius Sosus, first tier, twenty-third locus;"--in all, nine names out of thirty-six. The allotment of Rabirius Faustus is the only one known entirely. He had drawn No. 30 in the first row, No. 28 in the second, No. 6 in the third, No. 8 in the fourth, No. 31 in the fifth.

It took at least thirty-one years for the members of the company to gain the full benefit of their investment; the last interment mentioned in the tablets having taken place A. D. 25. This late comer is not an obscure man; he is the famous charioteer, or _auriga circensis_, Scirtus, who began his career A. D. 13, enlisting in the white squadron. In the lapse of thirteen years he won the first prize seven times, the second thirty-nine times, the third forty times, besides other honors minutely specified on his tombstone.[123]

The theory that Roman tombs were built along the high roads in two or three rows only, so that they could all be seen by those pa.s.sing, has been shown by modern excavations to be unfounded. The s.p.a.ce allotted for burial purposes was more extensive than that. Sometimes it extended over the whole stretch of land from one high-road to the next. Such is the case with the s.p.a.ces between the Via Appia and the Via Latina, the Labicana and Praenestina, and the Salaria and Nomentana, each of which contains hundreds of acres densely packed with tombs. In the triangle formed by the Via Appia, the Via Latina, and the walls of Aurelian, one thousand five hundred and fifty-nine tombs have been discovered in modern times, not including the family vault of the Scipios.[124] Nine hundred and ninety-four have been found on the Via Labicana, near the Porta Maggiore, in a s.p.a.ce sixty yards long by fifty wide. The number of pagan tombstones registered in volume vi. of the "Corpus" is 28,180, exclusive of the _additamenta_, which will bring the grand total to thirty thousand. As hardly one tombstone out of ten has escaped destruction, we may a.s.sume as a certainty that Rome was surrounded by a belt of at least three hundred thousand tombs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF A COLUMBARIUM IN THE VIGNA CODINI]

The reader may easily imagine what a ma.s.s of information is to be gathered from this source. In this respect, the perusal of parts II., III., and IV. of the sixth volume of the "Corpus" is more useful to the student than all the handbooks and "Sittengeschichten" in the world; and besides, the reading is not dry and tiresome, as one might suppose. Many epitaphs give an account of the life of the deceased; of his rank in the army, and the campaigns in which he fought; of the name of the man-of-war to which he belonged, if he had served in the navy; of the branch of trade he was engaged in; the address of his place of business; his success in the equestrian or senatorial career, or in the circus or the theatre; his "etat civil," his age, place of birth, and so on. Sometimes tombstones display a remarkable eloquence, and even a sense of humor.

Here is an expression of overpowering grief, written on a sarcophagus between the images of a boy and a girl: "O cruel, impious mother that I am: to the memory of my sweetest children. Publilius who lived 13 years 55 days, and aeria Theodora who lived 27 years 12 days. Oh, miserable mother, who hast seen the most cruel end of thy children! If G.o.d had been merciful, thou hadst been buried by them." Another woman writes on the urn of her son Marius Exoriens: "The preposterous laws of death have torn him from my arms! As I have the advantage of years, so ought death to have reaped me first."

The following words were dictated by a young widow for the grave of her departed companion: "To the adorable, blessed soul of L.

Semp.r.o.nius Firmus. We knew, we loved each other from childhood: married, an impious hand separated us at once. Oh, infernal G.o.ds, do be kind and merciful to him, and let him appear to me in the silent hours of the night. And also let me share his fate, that we may be reunited _dulcius et celerius_." I have left the two adverbs in their original form; their exquisite feeling defies translation.

The following sentence is copied from the grave of a freedman: "Erected to the memory of Memmius Clarus by his co-servant Memmius Urba.n.u.s. I know that there never was the shade of a disagreement between thee and me: never a cloud pa.s.sed over our common happiness. I swear to the G.o.ds of Heaven and h.e.l.l, that we worked faithfully and lovingly together, that we were set free from servitude on the same day and in the same house: nothing would ever have separated us, except this fatal hour."

A remarkable feature of ancient funeral eloquence is found in the imprecations addressed to the pa.s.ser, to insure the safety of the tomb and its contents:[125]--

"Any one who injures my tomb or steals its ornaments, may he see the death of all his relatives."

"Whoever steals the nails from this structure, may he thrust them into his eyes."

A grumbler wrote on a gravestone found in the Vigna Codini:--

"Lawyers and the evil-eyed keep away from my tomb."

It is manifestly impossible to make the reader acquainted with all the discoveries in this department of Roman archaeology since 1870. The following specimens from the viae Aurelia, Triumphalis, Salaria, and Appia seem to me to represent fairly well what is of average interest in this cla.s.s of monuments.

VIA AURELIA. Under this head I record the tomb of Platorinus, which was found in 1880 on the banks of the Tiber, near La Farnesina, although, strictly speaking, it belongs to a side road running from the Via Aurelia to the Vatican quarters, parallel with the stream. The discovery was made in the following circ.u.mstances:--

A strip of land four hundred metres long by eighty broad was bought by the state in 1876 and cut away from the gardens of la Farnesina, to widen the bed of the Tiber. It was found to contain several ancient edifices, which have since become famous in topographical books. I refer more particularly to the patrician house discovered near the church of S. Giacomo in Settimiana, the paintings of which are now exhibited in Michelangelo's cloisters, adjoining the Baths of Diocletian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient house in the Farnesina Gardens.]

These paintings have been admirably reproduced in color and outline by the German Archaeological Inst.i.tute,[126] but they have not yet been ill.u.s.trated from the point of view of the subjects they represent.

They are divided into panels by pilasters and colored columns, each half being distinguished by a different color: white (Nos. 1, 5, 6, of the plan), red (Nos. 2, 4), or black (No. 3). The frieze of the "black" series represents the trying of a criminal case by a magistrate, very likely the owner of the palace, with curious details concerning the evidence asked and freely given to him.

Near the frieze, the artist has drawn pictures as though hung to the wall, with folding shutters, some wide open, some half-closed. They are genre subjects, such as a school of declamation, a wedding, a banquet; and though the figures are not five inches long, they are so wonderfully executed that even the eyebrows are discernible.

The pictures in the centre of the panels are of larger size. Those of the "white" room are painted in the style of the Attic lekythoi, or oil-jugs. The figures are drawn in outline with a dark, subtle color, each s.p.a.ce within the outline being filled in with the proper tint; though a few only are drawn without the colors. One of these remarkable pictures represents two women,--one sitting, the other standing, and both looking at a winged Cupid. Another represents a lady playing on the seven-stringed lyre, each of the strings being marked by a sign which, perhaps, corresponds to the notes of the scale. In one of the panels from room No. 4 is still visible what we suppose to be the signature of the artist: C??????C ????? (_sic_).

It seems as if Balda.s.sarre Peruzzi, Raphael, Giulio Romano, il Sodoma, il Fattore, and Gaudenzio Ferrari, to whom we owe the wonders of the Farnesina dei Chigi, must have unconsciously felt the influence of the wonders of this Roman house which was buried under their feet. It is a great pity that the two could not have been left standing together. What a subject for study and comparison these two sets of masterpieces of the golden ages of Augustus and Leo X. would have offered to the lover of art!

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAIL FROM THE CEILING OF THE HOUSE DISCOVERED IN THE FARNESINA GARDENS]

The ceiling of the room No. 2, carved in stucco, is worthy of the paintings. The reliefs are so flat that the prominent points do not stand out more than three millimetres. The artist might have modelled them by breathing over the stucco, they are so light and delicate. One of the scenes represents the borders of a river, with villas, temples, shrines, and pastoral huts scattered under the shade of palm or sycamore trees, the foliage of which is waving gently in the breeze. The people are variously occupied,--some are fishing with the rod, some bathing, some carrying water-jars on their heads. The gem of the reliefs is a group of oxen, grazing in the meadow, of such exquisite beauty as to cast into shade the best engravings of Italo-Greek or Sicilian coins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Specimen of outline designs in the ancient house in the Farnesina Gardens.]

Next in importance to the Roman house comes the tomb of Sulpicius Platorinus, discovered in May, 1880, at the opposite end of the Farnesina Gardens, near the walls of Aurelian. A corner of this tomb had been exposed to view for a couple of years, n.o.body paying attention to it, because, as a rule, tombs within the walls, having been exposed for centuries to the thieving instincts of the populace in general, and of treasure-hunters in particular, are always found plundered and barren of contents. In this instance, however, it was our fortune to meet with a welcome exception to the rule.

From an inscription engraved on marble above the entrance door, we learn that the mausoleum was raised in memory of Caius Sulpicius Platorinus, a magistrate of the time of Augustus, and of his sister Sulpicia Platorina, the wife of Cornelius Priscus. The room contained nine niches, and each niche a cinerary urn, of which six were still untouched. These urns are of the most elaborate kind, carved in white marble, with festoons hanging from bulls' heads, and birds of various kinds eating fruit. Some of the urns are round, some square, the motive of the decoration being the same for all of them. The cover of the round ones is in the shape of a _tholus_, a building shaped something like a beehive, the tiles being represented by acanthus leaves, and the pinnacle by a bunch of flowers.

The covers of these urns were fastened with molten lead. The unsealing of them was an event of great excitement; it was performed in the coffee-house of the Farnesina, in the presence of a large and distinguished a.s.sembly. I remember the date, May 3, 1880. They were found to be half full of water from the last flood of the Tiber, with a layer of ashes and bones at the bottom. The contents were emptied on a sheet of white linen. Those of the first had no value; the second contained a gold ring without its stone,--which was found, however, in the third cinerarium; a most extraordinary circ.u.mstance. It can be explained by supposing that both bodies were cremated at the same time, and that their ashes were somehow mixed together. The stone, probably an onyx, was injured by the action of the fire, and its engraving nearly effaced. It seems to represent a lion in repose.

Nothing was found in the fourth; the fifth furnished two heavy gold rings with cameos representing respectively a mask and a bear-hunt.

The last urn, inscribed with the name of Minasia Polla,--a girl of about sixteen, as shown by the teeth and the size of some fragments of bone,--contained a plain hair-pin of bra.s.s.

Having thus finished with the cineraria and their contents, the exploration of the tomb itself was resumed. Inscriptions engraved on other parts of the frieze gave us a full list of the personages who had found their last resting-place within, besides the two Platorini, and the girl Minasia Polla, just mentioned. They are: Aulus Crispinius Caepio, who played an important part in court intrigues at the time of Tiberius; Antonia Furnilla; and her daughter, Marcia Furnilla, the second wife of t.i.tus. She was repudiated by him A. D. 64, as described by Suetonius.[127] Historians have inquired why, and found no clew, considering what a model man t.i.tus is known to have been. If the marble statue found in this tomb, and reproduced in our ill.u.s.tration, is really that of Marcia Furnilla, and a good likeness, the reason for the divorce is easily found,--she looks hopelessly disagreeable.

The bust represented in the same plate, one of the most refined and carefully executed portraits found in Rome, is probably that of Minasia Polla, and gives a good idea of the appearance of a young n.o.ble Roman lady of the first half of the first century. Another statue, that of the emperor Tiberius, in the so-called "heroic" style, was found lying on the mosaic floor. Although crushed by the falling of the vaulted ceiling, no important piece was missing.

Both statues, the bust, the cinerary urns, and the inscriptions, are now exhibited in Michelangelo's cloisters in the Museo delle Terme.

It is difficult to explain how this rich tomb escaped plunder and destruction, plainly visible as it was for many centuries, in one of the most populous and unscrupulous quarters of the city. Perhaps when Aurelian built his wall, which ran close to it, and raised the level of Trastevere, the tomb itself was buried, and its treasures left untouched.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WORKS OF ART DISCOVERED IN THE TOMB OF SULPICIUS PLATORINUS]

Beginning now the ascent of the Janiculum, on our way towards the Porta S. Pancrazio and the Villa Pamfili, I must mention a curious discovery made three centuries ago near the church of S. Pietro in Montorio; that of a platform, lined with terminal stones inscribed with the legend: DEVAS CORNISCAS SACRVM ("this area is sacred to the divine crows"). The place is described by Festus (Ep. 64). It is a remarkable fact that in Rome not only men but animals should remain faithful to old habits and traditions. Some of my readers may have noticed how regularly every day, towards sunset, flights of crows are seen crossing the skies on their way to their night lodgings in the pine-trees of the Villa Borghese. They have two or three favorite halting-places, for instance the campanile of S. Andrea delle Fratte, the towers of the Trinita de' Monti, where they hold noisy meetings which last until the first stroke of the Ave-Maria. This sound is interpreted by them as a call to rest. Whether the area of the sacred crows described by Festus was planted with pines, and used as a rest at night, or simply as a halting-place, the fact of their daily migration to and from the swamps of the Maremma, and of their evening meetings, dates from cla.s.sical times.

And now, leaving on our right the Villa Heyland, the Villa Aurelia, formerly Savorelli, which is built on the remains of the mediaeval monastery of SS. John and Paul, and the Villa del Vascello, which marks the western end of the gardens of Geta, let us enter the Villa Pamfili-Doria, interesting equally for the beauty of its scenery and its archaeological recollections. We are told by Pietro Sante Bartoli that when he first came to Rome, towards 1660, Olimpia Maidalchini and Camillo Pamfili, who were then laying the foundations of the casino, discovered "several tombs decorated with paintings, stucco-carvings, and _n.o.bilissimi_ mosaics." There were also gla.s.s urns, with remains of golden cloths, and the figures of a lion and a tigress, which were bought by the Viceroy of Naples, the marchese di Leve. Some years later, when Monsignor Lorenzo Corsini began the construction of the Casino dei Quattro Venti (since added to the Villa Pamfili and transformed into a sort of monumental archway), thirty-four exquisite tombs were found and destroyed for the sake of their building-materials. One cannot read Bartoli's account[128] and examine the twenty-two plates with which he ill.u.s.trates his text, without feeling a sense of horror at the deeds which those enlightened personages were capable of perpetrating in cold blood.

He says that the thirty-four tombs formed, as it were, a small village, with streets, sidewalks, and squares; that they were built of red and yellow brick, exquisitely carved, like those of the Via Latina. Each retained its funeral _suppellex_ and decorations almost intact: paintings, bas-reliefs, mosaics, inscriptions, lamps, jewelry, statues, busts, cinerary urns, and sarcophagi. Some were still closed, the doors being made not of wood or bronze, but of marble; and inscriptions were carved on the lintels or pediments, giving an account of each tomb. These records tell us that in Roman times this portion of the Villa Pamfili was called _Ager Fonteia.n.u.s_, and that the inclined tract of the Via Aurelia, which runs close by, was called _Clivus Rutarius_. Bartoli attributes the extraordinary preservation of this cemetery to its having been buried purposely under an embankment of earth, before the fall of the empire. Since the seventeenth century many hundreds of tombs have been found and destroyed in the villa, especially in April, 1859. The only one still visible was discovered in 1838, and is remarkable for its _painted_ inscriptions, and for its frescoes.[129] There were originally one hundred and seventy-five panels, but scarcely half that number are now to be seen. They represent animals, landscapes, caricatures, scenes from daily life, and mythological and dramatic subjects. One only is historical, and, according to Petersen, represents the Judgment of Solomon (see p. 271). This subject, although exceedingly rare, is by no means unique in cla.s.sical art, having already been found painted on the walls of a Pompeian house.

VIA TRIUMPHALIS. The necropolis which lined the Via Triumphalis, from Nero's bridge near S. Spirito, to the top of the Monte Mario, has absolutely disappeared, although some of its monuments equalled in size and magnificence those of the viae Ostiensis, Appia, and Labicana.

Such were the two pyramids, on the site of S. Maria Traspontina, called, in the Middle Ages, the "Meta di Borgo" and the "Terebinth of Nero." Both are shown in the bas-reliefs of Filarete's bronze door in S. Peter's (see p. 272), in the ciborium of Sixtus IV. (now in the Grotte Vaticane), and in other mediaeval and Renaissance representations of the crucifixion of the apostle. The pyramid is described by Ruccellai and Pietro Mallio as standing in the middle of a square which is paved with slabs of travertine, and towering to the height of forty metres above the road. It was coated with marble, like the one of Caius Cestius by the Porta S. Paolo. Pope Donnus I.

dismantled it A. D. 675, and made use of its materials to build the steps of S. Peter's. The pyramid itself, built of solid concrete, was levelled to the ground by Pope Alexander VI., when he opened the Borgo Nuovo in 1495.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Judgment of Solomon.]

The "Terebinth of Nero" is described as a round marble structure, as high as Hadrian's tomb. It was also dismantled by Pope Donnus, and its materials were used in the restoration and embellishment of the "Paradisus" or quadriportico of S. Peter's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Panel from the bronze door of S. Peter's, by Filarete.]