Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
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Title: Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
Author: Robert Burn
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OLD ROME:
A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna.
by
ROBERT BURN, M.A.,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Being an Epitome of His Larger Work 'Rome and the Campagna.'
[Illustration]
London: George Bell and Sons, York Street,
Covent Garden.
Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co.
1880.
[The Right of Translation is reserved.]
London:
Printed by William Clowes and Sons,
Stamford Street and Charing Cross.
PREFACE.
This book is intended to serve as a handbook to the actually-existing
ruins and monuments of ancient Rome and the Campagna. It is divided into
topographical sections for the convenience of travellers visiting Rome,
and the monuments which exist in each section have been briefly described,
and a summary given of their history and archæological value.
The introductory section contains general remarks upon the site,
monumental history, and architecture of Rome; and in a section prefixed to
Chapter IX. the nature of the soil and configuration of the hills and
valleys of the district surrounding the city are stated.
In the Appendix to the eighth chapter will be found a list of the chief
monumental antiquities in the museums, galleries, and other public places.
This has been thought to be useful, as these are often difficult to
recognise from being mixed with so many other attractive and important
objects of more modern art and history. All speculative conjectures as to
the probable sites or constructions of ancient buildings or places have
been avoided. Such questions require more space than can be spared in so
small a volume, and have been fully treated of in my larger work, “Rome
and the Campagna.”
I have confined myself in this handbook to a brief topographical,
archæological, and historical description of each existing ruin or
monument. The references given have been restricted to modern treatises
and to a few of the more rarely read Greek and Latin authors. Full
classical authorities are given in “Rome and the Campagna,” and are
referred to in the foot-notes of this handbook.
The importance of topographical and archæological knowledge, in enabling
us to realise the history of ancient life, both national and social, is
fortunately becoming more and more generally recognised. The early growth
and characteristic features of the Roman commonwealth can be traced in
great measure to the conformation of the ground on which the community was
first developed. Such local influences are among the highest and most
philosophical parts of historical investigation, and have a most important
value in enabling us to form an estimate of the truth of statements made
by the ancient writers of history.
Besides this interest which pervades the early stage of Roman history,
there is also a natural connection, by way of cause or explanation,
between the events of later times and the localities in which they
occurred; and this in social as well as in national history. Many Roman
customs and usages, now extinct, are illustrated and realised by the
knowledge gained from monuments of ancient architecture and art. And
again, the spirit of Roman literature is more fully sympathised with, and
its difficult passages and allusions are frequently elucidated by the
light of archæological knowledge.
Thus there is not only the poetical and imaginative satisfaction, which is
usually felt most vividly in treading the soil, surveying the scenes, and
breathing the air in which great historical persons lived and events
occurred, but also an element of fact which gives a firm basis of
incontestable truth to our knowledge, and which no speculative
interpretation can dissolve.
It is hoped, therefore, that even such an abridged description of ruins,
and such a summary of archæological results as that which forms the basis
of the present volume, will not be without use to the student of history,
as well as a guide to the traveller.
In the chapter on the ruins of the Campagna I have inserted some
statements on the geological formations, and on the climate, which appear
to have influenced the history and the architecture of that district.
The books from which useful information has been derived are, in addition
to those mentioned in the list given in “Rome and the Campagna,” some of
the later numbers of “Annali dell’ Instituto,” a small treatise called
“Guida del Palatino,” by C. L. Visconti and R. A. Lanciani, and “A
Topographical Study of the Roman Forum,” by Mr. F. M. Nichols.
ROBERT BURN.
CAMBRIDGE.
_Sept. 24, 1879._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I.
THE PALATINE AND VELIA 14
CHAPTER II.
THE FORUM ROMANUM 38
CHAPTER III.
THE COLISEUM AND ESQUILINE 58
CHAPTER IV.
THE IMPERIAL FORA AND THE CAPITOLIUM 83
CHAPTER V.
THE VELABRUM AND THE CIRCUS FLAMINIUS 103
CHAPTER VI.
PANTHEON, COLUMN OF MARCUS AURELIUS, MAUSOLEUM OF
AUGUSTUS, MAUSOLEUM OF HADRIAN, AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 127
CHAPTER VII.
THE QUIRINAL HILL--BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN--AGGER OF
SERVIUS--CASTRA PRÆTORIA 153
CHAPTER VIII.
THE AVENTINE AND CÆLIAN HILLS 161
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. MONUMENTAL ANTIQUITIES IN THE
MUSEUMS, PIAZZAS, AND OTHER PLACES 177
INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER IX 185
CHAPTER IX.
A. THE VIA APPIA AND THE ALBAN HILLS 194
B. THE VIA LATINA AND TUSCULUM 210
C. GABII AND PRÆNESTE 219
D. OSTIA AND PORTO 229
E. TIBUR 235
F. NORTH-WESTERN CAMPAGNA 256
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
TEMPLE OF JUPITER _Title page._
TEMPLE OF SATURN, ETC. 47
ARCH OF SEVERUS 53
COLISEUM, FROM THE PALATINE HILL 62
COLUMN OF TRAJAN 85
FORUM OF NERVA, IN 1600 95
PALATINE HILL, TEMPLE OF HERCULES, AND CLOACA MAXIMA 109
THEATRE OF MARCELLUS 113
PANTHEON 130
THE QUIRINAL HILL FROM THE PALATINE 154
ARCH OF DOLABELLA 175
PEDESTAL OF ANTONINE COLUMN 179
CONE FROM THE TOP OF HADRIAN’S MAUSOLEUM 180
CIRCUS OF MAXENTIUS 213
TEMPLE OF VESTA AT TIBUR 250
PONTE NOMENTANO 258
MAPS, PLANS, &c.
PLAN OF ANCIENT ROME, WITH RAILWAYS 1
PLAN OF THE HILLS OF ROME 2
MOST ANCIENT ROME 2
ROME, THE PRESENT WALLS, AND WALLS OF AURELIAN 4
PLAN OF THE PALATINE HILL 14
PLAN OF RUINS IN THE FORUM ROMANUM 38
PLAN OF MONS OPPIUS 73
FORA OF THE CÆSARS 82
THE CIRCUS FLAMINIUS 122
FRAGMENTS OF PIANTA CAPITOLINA--THEATRE OF POMPEY 124
THE THERMÆ OF DIOCLETIAN 154
THE SERVIAN WALLS 156
THE BATHS OF CARACALLA 166
GEOLOGICAL MAP OF ROME 185
PLAN OF THE ALBAN HILLS AND GABII 202
PLAN OF THE AREA OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER ON MONTE CAVO 206
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE AT PRÆNESTE 224
PLAN OF OSTIA AND PORTO 229
PLAN OF HADRIANEUM, NEAR TIVOLI 236
PLAN OF TIVOLI 248
MAP OF ANCIENT ROADS 256
ICHNOGRAPHIA 261
[Illustration]
OLD ROME:
A HANDBOOK TO THE RUINS OF THE CITY AND THE CAMPAGNA.
INTRODUCTION.
I.--THE SITE OF ROME AND THE WALLS OF ROME.
One of the principal points in the early history of every nation is the
effect of the natural configuration of the country in which their first
settlements are formed upon the subsequent character of the people.
The site of Rome consists of several separate hills, upon which distinct
groups of original settlers established themselves. These groups after a
temporary rivalry seem to have agreed to form a confederation, in which
the leading part was assigned to the Palatine settlement. Such was the
origin of that special aptitude shown by the Romans for forming coalitions
with rival states, and also of that most valuable trait in their political
character, their reverence for law as laid down by a central authority,
for each group was taught by their confederate union to regard itself as
sharing that central authority. Hence, the historian Livy remarks that
under the Roman Republic which built up the power of Rome, the command of
law was superior to that of men. But besides this aptitude for confederate
union and respect for central authority which the nature of the site seems
to have instilled into them, the Romans were also taught by it a readiness
to meet their enemies in the open field, and not to trust much to the
protection of steep crags or fortified posts. None of the hills of Rome
afforded a strong acropolis, such as most other ancient cities possessed.
The Capitol of Rome was by no means impregnable. Its central depression
rendered it always more or less accessible and liable to be seized by a
powerful enemy. The Palatine, though partially fortified, was never
considered a strong position. Hence we find that the Servian walls were
the only fortifications erected to protect Rome for more than eight
hundred years, from the time of Servius down to that of Aurelian. The
statement of Strabo, that the absence of fortifications round Rome was to
be accounted for by the native spirit of the Romans, which was “to defend
their walls by their men, and not their men by their walls,” is evidently
full of meaning.
II.--MONUMENTAL HISTORY.
Relics of the two great public works executed during the regal period of
Roman history still remain in the venerable stone arches of the main drain
which was constructed to make the Forum valley more habitable, and in the
rough portions of the Servian walls which have been found on the Aventine
and Quirinal Hills. It is probable that the ruined walls at the edge of
the Palatine are anterior to the monuments of the time of Servius.
Of the earlier republican period of Roman history there are no monumental
ruins now existing. The ruins which have been excavated on the Capitoline
Hill and the basement of the Temple of Vesta in the Forum date from the
regal epoch. And this is what might be naturally expected from the dislike
of a republican government to require the forced labour anciently called
for in the erection of large buildings.
But in the later period of the Roman republic some of the oligarchical
leaders and successful generals constructed large buildings, of which
traces can now be found. Thus the foundations of the temples and of the
portico built in the Campus Martius by Metellus Macedonicus and by Cn.
Octavius can be still recognised, and ruins of the immense stone theatre
of Pompeius Magnus remain to the present day. But the greater portion of
the ruins of Rome dates from the Augustan age and the subsequent imperial
ages. First among them stands the Pantheon, which has kept its roof and
its original structure uninjured through the storms and earthquakes and
the wasting hand of time during more than nineteen centuries. It bears the
date of B.C. 27 on the frieze of its portico. The Theatre of Marcellus
must be next mentioned, and the Mausoleum of Augustus. To the Julian
dynasty may be also ascribed the colossal columns of the Temple of Mars
Ultor, with the huge wall adjoining them, and the Egyptian obelisks which
still decorate some of the piazzas. To the same dynasty we owe the vast
arches of the Claudian aqueduct, and the massive brick foundation of the
Palatine palace.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: ROMA ANTIQUISSIMA.]
The Flavian dynasty, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian changed the
characteristic features of the city of Rome. Where Caligula and Nero had
covered the ground with costly palaces and pleasure-grounds, the Flavian
emperors built the resorts of military and of national life. The Coliseum
and the Arch of Titus were the fit accompaniments of their world-subduing,
blood-thirsty legions, and the Baths of Titus, and the public reception
rooms on the Palatine, encouraged the citizen life of Rome once more to
develop itself.
The political aims and imperial ideas of Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines
are nobly illustrated by the modifications and enlargements they
introduced in the structure and extent of the city of Rome. Trajan in his
magnificent Forum and library sought to encourage the metropolitan life
and literary tastes of the nation, while on his storied column he recorded
their world-wide triumphs and reminded them of their enormous power.
The Mausoleum of Hadrian remains to commemorate the vast and ponderous
strength of his rule, and the Aurelian Column stands to attest the lofty
magnificence of the Antonine dynasty.
* * * * *
In the reign of Commodus, between the Antonine era and the time of
Severus, a great fire devastated the central districts of Rome. The
restorations effected by Severus and the popular policy of his successors
are commemorated in the Arch of Severus, the Portico of the Pantheon, and
the huge ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. The defensive power of the Roman
nation then became gradually weaker and weaker, till in sixty years after
the time of Caracalla, Aurelian commenced the sad task of home
fortification. His walls, which were completed a hundred years later by
Honorius, still surround the greater part of Rome. During these hundred
years the power of the Constantinian rule, of which the great basilica and
arch remain monuments, and the warlike courage of Diocletian revived for a
time the imperial spirit at Rome.
The last and most familiar of the monuments which follow the transfer of
power from Rome to Constantinople is the Column of Phocas in the Forum,
erected when three centuries of desolation had followed the grandeur of
Constantine and his dynasty.
The Vatican Hill and the northern end of the Transtiberine district were
not enclosed within walls till the time of Pope Leo IV. He undertook in
A.D. 848 the enclosure of St. Peter’s and the Vatican Hill, thus forming
that district into a separate town, which was named after the Pope Civitas
Leoniana. The western wall of this enclosure may still be traced by its
ruins in the garden of the Vatican palace. After the successive
destructions and minor repairs of the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, in 1527 the architect San Gallo was employed to
erect huge bastions on the wall of Rome, which he placed chiefly between
the Porta Ostiense and the Porta Appia. In 1628 Pope Urban VIII. restored
the walls on the left bank, and subsequently in 1642 he proceeded to erect
the walls which now stand between the Porta Portese and the Porta
Cavallegieri, where the arms of that Pope are still affixed to the walls.
This was the final important addition to the main walls of the city.
III.--ROMAN BUILDING AND ARCHITECTURE.
The earliest form of Roman masonry, consisting of rectangular tufa blocks
placed in layers alternately parallel to and across the line of the wall,
so as to bind the mass together firmly, may be best seen in the ancient
fragments of the Servian wall on the Aventine and the Quirinal Hills and
in the ruins on the western slope of the Palatine. This kind of building
is the natural product of the peculiar parallel cleavage in the
tufaceous rocks of the Roman hills. In those parts of the Campagna where
basalt rather than tufa becomes the usual material, as at Præneste, we
find polygonal masonry. One specimen of a mode of construction anterior to
the introduction of the arch into Roman masonry is left us at Rome. This
is the vault of the old well-house near the Capitol called the Mamertine
Prison, where we find overlapping horizontal blocks of stone which
originally met in a conical roof, but are now truncated and capped by a
mass of stones cramped together with iron. That the principle of the arch
was known in the regal period of Rome is shown by the great arch of the
Cloaca Maxima. But no arches remain of so early a date which are not
subterranean, and it is not likely that the arch was used in the early
temples at Rome. These were, as we learn from Vitruvius, constructed in
the so-called Tuscan style, which was the Italian contemporary of the
Greek Doric. It is possible that the columns in the walls of S. Maria in
Cosmedin, which are placed at unusual distances from each other, may have
been an imperial restoration of the Temple of Ceres, after the old Tuscan
fashion (Fig. 1). The next modification of architectural style, which is
usually called, from the general influence of the Greek colonists on Latin
art, the Tusco-Doric order, may be seen in the lowest range of columns and
bases in the Theatre of Marcellus. The shaft of these columns is much more
slender than in the Grecian Doric, and only partially fluted, if at all;
while a cima recta is substituted for the echinus of the capitals (Figs. 2
and 3). The position of the triglyphs and the proportions of the cornice
were also much changed, and the whole effect became less massive and bold
than that of the Tuscan temples.
[Illustration: ROME THE PRESENT WALLS AND THE WALLS OF AURELIAN]
The ancient Tuscan arrangement of the interior of temples remained after
this modification of their columns and capitals. The three ruins which now
occupy the most prominent place at the northern end of the Forum, the
Temples of Saturn, of Concord, and of Vespasian, all retain the plan
called prostylos by Vitruvius. The Temple of Concord is especially
remarkable for the union of a broad Tuscan cella with a narrow Greek
portico. An alteration peculiarly Roman was made in the cella of the
Greek temple. Instead of surrounding this part of a temple with rows of
columns, the Romans clothed it with pilasters, thus introducing the mode
of construction deservedly stigmatised by Vitruvius, under the name
pseudoperipteral (Fig. 4). This may be seen in the ruin commonly called by
the name of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
The Greek Ionic order became known and employed by the Romans early in the
third century B.C. The Tomb of Scipio Barbatus shows the Ionic volute and
dentil mixed with the Doric triglyph and gutta. The Roman alterations in
the Ionic capital may be best seen in the pillars of the Temple of Saturn,
and in the second range of columns surrounding the Theatre of Marcellus
and the Coliseum. Specimens may also be seen in the basilica of S.
Lorenzo fuori le Mura, and in the church of S. Maria in Trastevere, which
have been transferred from the ancient temples. The distinctive Roman
modification was the position of the volutes diagonally instead of
laterally (Figs. 5 and 6).
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
It is supposed that the first introduction of the Greek Corinthian order
into Rome was brought about by the barbarian act of Sulla, in transporting
the columns of the Temple of Zeus from Athens to the Capitoline Temple of
Jupiter. Of the remaining specimens of this order in Rome, the portico of
the Pantheon is the oldest. In that building the capitals appear somewhat
shorter and broader than in the later examples, at the ruins of the Temple
of Castor in the Forum (Fig. 7), and in the peristyle of Nerva’s Forum
called the Colonnacce.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
The Composite capital, for it can hardly be called an order, as there is
nothing in the entablature or the base to distinguish it from the
Corinthian, was formed probably under the patronage of the early emperors.
The earliest instance we have of it now extant in Rome, is in the Arch of
Titus (Fig. 8) and there are only three other ruins where it is found.
These are, the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Arch of the Goldsmiths, and
the Baths of Diocletian, at Sta. Maria degli Angeli, where it is mixed up
with Corinthian capitals. The peculiar combination of which it consists,
the superposition of the Ionic volutes upon two rings of Corinthian
acanthus leaves, is not generally considered a very happy artistic
design. Hope says of it, that “instead of being a new creation of genius,
it gave evidence of poverty to invent and ignorance to combine,” and
Fergusson is hardly more complimentary to the Roman architects.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
But though we must deny to this Roman adaptation of Greek forms the credit
of originality, or even of symmetrical design, yet its rich appearance was
peculiarly suited to the lavish ornamentation with which the Roman
emperors delighted to trick out their palaces and halls, and it well
represents to us the character of the Roman imperial architecture, with
its indiscriminate combination of mouldings and profusion of gaudy detail.
The three great triumphal arches of Titus, Septimius Severus, and
Constantine at Rome, and also the Arch of Drusus, are decorated with an
unmeaning and foreign dress. In the Arch of Constantine alone, the columns
which stand in front are in some measure justified by the statues they
support.
Of the minor archways at Rome, that of Gallienus has Corinthian pilasters
in the roughest style of art, the Janus Quadrifrons probably had rows of
Corinthian columns between its niches, and the small gateway near it has
decorative pilasters with Composite capitals. On the other hand, the Arch
of Dolabella on the Cælian, which has a single line as cornice, and the
Porta S. Lorenzo are examples of the striking effect of a simple arch
without Greek ornament. The unmeaning pediments and tasteless columns with
which most of these arches are adorned, remind us of Pope’s recipe for the
front of a villa, “Clap four slices of pilaster on’t; that, laid with bits
of rustic, makes a front.”
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
Colossal columns were as genuine a creation of Imperial Rome as triumphal
arches. In both the sculpture had become subordinate to the pedestal. The
idea of placing a statue upon the top of a column was probably unknown to
the Greeks, or at least, never carried out on the immense scale of the two
great Roman Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. It must not, however,
be forgotten, that the Column of Trajan, and probably also that of Marcus
Aurelius, was enclosed within a narrow court, and that the bas-reliefs
were intended to be seen from the roofs and windows of the surrounding
buildings.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
Some of the most characteristic remains of the Roman national taste in
architecture are the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and the Tombs of Cæcilia
Metella and of Plautius. The ponderous walls of these massive and
indestructible marvels of masonry were essentially Roman, but in their
external decorations we find a strange combination of foreign designs. The
Mausoleum of Hadrian was dressed up with an array of pilasters, columns,
and statues, and the Mausoleum of Augustus was covered with terraces and
trees, in imitation of the Temple of Belus at Babylon.
The most conspicuous among the Roman appropriations of foreign monumental
designs were the oriental obelisks which were brought from Egypt, and
erected in the Circi at Rome and in front of some of the buildings, and
some of which still stand in the piazzas of modern Rome. The remains of
eleven of these have been found. The Romans often misused them by placing
them alone, and not following the Egyptian method of always setting them
in pairs.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
The huge vaulted arches of brick-work and concrete which remain in the
Baths of Caracalla, and the Basilica of Constantine, and the massive
arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, are the glory of Roman architecture. For
the Coliseum, astounding as are its durability and massive grandeur, is
not so illustrative of the special Roman development of the use of the
arch and of brick-work as are the other great ruins just mentioned. We see
embodied in them the indomitable energy which bridged the valleys and
tunnelled through the hills, but which possessed no eye for fine
proportion of outline or symmetrical and harmonious combination of
details. Brickwork was the material in which the characteristic Roman
ruins were executed. The Coliseum and the Theatre of Marcellus are dressed
in Greek robes, while the brick arches of the aqueducts, and the massive
structure of the Baths of Caracalla reflect the peculiar genius and
character of the Roman imperial power.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]
CHAPTER I.
THE PALATINE AND VELIA.
The entrance to the ruins on the Palatine Hill is now made through a
gateway opposite to the Basilica of Constantine. This gateway was erected
by the architect Vignola in the sixteenth century as an approach to the
Farnese Gardens, which formerly occupied the north-western part of the
Palatine Hill. On the right and left hand of the gateway are placed two
ancient pedestals, which were discovered near the Arch of Septimius
Severus in 1547. One of these, which stands on the right hand, supported
an equestrian statue of Constantius, erected by Neratius Cerealis, prefect
of the city in A.D. 353, in commemoration of the expulsion from Italy and
death of Maxentius.[1] On the left side pedestal, a representation of the
Suovetaurilia is sculptured in bas-relief, and the decennalia vota, or ten
years’ good wishes to Constantius and Galerius are mentioned. The side of
the hill at the back of the gateway of Vignola is terraced at several
levels, on the third of which ascending from the entrance, a part of the
pavement of an old road, probably the Clivus Victoriæ, leads to the right.
The line of this clivus is represented in the marble plan now on the
staircase of the Capitoline Museum which plan was made in the time of
Septimius Severus.
INDEX TO THE PLAN OF THE PALATINE RUINS.
1, 2. Entrance.
3. Clivus Victoriæ.
4. Museum.
5. Water reservoir.
6. Fragments of ruins.
7. Altar of Calvinus.
8. Fragments of ruin.
9. Domus Gelotiana.
10. Figure of crucified ass.
11. Stadium Palatinum.
12. Exedra.
13. Baths.
14. Palatine Belvedere.
15. Imperial Box over Circus.
16. Augustan Palace.
17. Ruin called the Academy.
18. Triclinium.
19. Viridarium.
20. Peristylium.
21. Smaller chambers.
22. Basilica.
23. Imperial reception hall.
24. Lararium.
25. Area Palatina.
26. Fragment of ancient ruin.
27. Clivus Palatinus.
28. Porta Mugionia.
29. Temple of Jupiter Stator.
30. Walls of substruction.
31. Cryptoporticus.
32. Subterranean passage.
33. Piscina.
34. House of Tiberius.
35. Well.
36. Unknown ruins.
37. So-called Temple of Jupiter Victor.
38. Uncertain basements. Scala Caci.
39. So-called Auguratorium.
40. Soldiers’ quarters.
41. Garden.
42, 43. Staircase and substructions of Caligula’s buildings.
44. Ruins of lavacrum of Heliogabalus.
----> Path to be followed.
_To face Plan on p. 14._
[Illustration: GENERAL PLAN OF THE RUINS ON THE PALATINE]
[Sidenote: Clivus Victoriæ]
The basalt paving stones of this road are well preserved. On the right
hand proceeding towards the northern angle of the hill lie a number of
fragments of ancient houses, among which were probably the house bought by
Clodius and that of Cicero. These houses appear to have looked down upon
the Forum, since Cicero speaks of raising his house in order to exclude
Clodius from the sight of the city which he had hoped to destroy.[2]
Other houses of the Roman nobility of the later republican times were
probably placed on this side of the Palatine, in order to be near the
Forum and the places of political and social meetings.[3]
[Sidenote: Porta Romanula.]
The Museum in which are collected the various fragments of statuary and
antiquarian interest which have been found in the late excavations on the
Palatine has been placed in the ground-floor of the casina which stands
near the Clivus Victoriæ. The ancient road is then overreached and arched
over by the extensions of the Palatine imperial palace built by Caligula,
under which it passes to the site of the ancient Porta Romanula.[4] Most
of the chambers on the left were probably occupied by the guards of the
gateway, and the graffiti they contain are of a character which confirms
this supposition.
Outside the Porta Romanula the road bends round the hill along the side
which looks towards the Capitoline. The first ruins to be seen under the
slope of the hill here are the remains of a portico of the republican era,
constructed of tufa with reticular-work facings. This portico has been
supposed to be possibly that which Lutatius Catulus built after his
victory over the Cimbri in the Area Flacciana, mentioned by Valerius
Maximus and by Cicero as being near his house.[5] But there seems to be
nothing left which can identify this ruin with the Porticus Catuli.
[Sidenote: Area Flacciana.]
Beyond this so-called Area Flacciana the line of walls presents some
projecting masses, which appear to be built upon the ancient substructions
of towers such as would be formed in fortified buildings. A great part of
the walls erected here in imperial times were built of concrete framed and
supported by beams and planks of timber. These beams having now rotted
away, have left their impressions on the concrete, and hence the vertical
and horizontal grooves which form so conspicuous a part of these walls.
Two remarkable fragments of antiquity must be noticed here. The first is a
conical aperture in the side of the hill which supplied a cistern placed
below with water. Such cisterns are to be found elsewhere in the hills,
and may be supposed to have been constructed previous to the great
supplies of water having been brought by the aqueducts.
At the western corner of the hill opposite to the Janus Quadrifrons stands
a large fragment of the most ancient walls of the Palatine. It is
constructed of masses of tufa, taken from the hill behind it, and roughly
laid together without cement or mortar. These stones appear to have been
split from the rock, and not cut by chisel, which shows the antiquity of
their construction. The wall of Romulus is the name by which this and the
other portions of massive tufa walls round the Palatine are now known.
They undoubtedly belong to the earliest defences of the Palatine
settlement.
[Sidenote: Altar.]
Not far from this ancient fragment of wall stands a most interesting relic
of primitive superstition, an altar of travertine stone cut in archaic
fashion, with volutes resembling those in the well-known tomb of Scipio in
the Vatican Museum. The inscription on this altar is as follows: SEI DEO
SEI DEIVÆ SAC. C. SEXTIUS, C. F. CALVINUS, PR. DE SENATI SENTENTIA
RESTITUIT. This is supposed by some antiquarians to be the altar mentioned
by Cicero and Livy, as having been erected in consequence of the voice
heard before the Gallic invasion predicting disastrous times.[6]
But that altar is said to have been placed above the Temple of Vesta at
the end of the Nova Via, which was on the other side of the Palatine. This
mode of dedication to an unknown Deity was not uncommon at Rome, and is
mentioned by Cato and commented upon by Gellius. The form of the word
DEIVÆ shows that the inscription belongs to the earlier Latin.[7]
C. Sextius Calvinus, who restored the altar, was probably son of C. S.
Calvinus, the Consul of A.U.C. 630, and was the competitor of C. Servilius
Glaucia in the year 654.[8]
[Sidenote: Germalus.]
The north-western end of the Palatine Hill, round which we have been
passing, was the spot whence arose the name Germalus which Varro tells us
was given to it in memory of the (germani) twin brothers, Romulus and
Remus having been cast ashore here from the Tiber waters, and suckled by
the wolf. How far the district called Germalus extended over the hill is
not known. Cicero speaks of a house belonging to Milo which stood upon the
Germalus, and Livy says that a wolf ran through the Vicus Tuscus and the
Germalus to the Porta Capena.[9] The bronze figure of the wolf and twins
now in the Capitoline Museum is said by Flaminius Vacca, who wrote in
1594, to have been found at no great distance from this place, and Urlichs
has shown that this figure is probably the one dedicated by the Ogulnii,
ædiles in B.C. 297.[10]
Further southwards at the foot of the slope we come to another fragment of
the most ancient wall of the Palatine settlement. This building appears to
stand at right angles to the line of the hillside, and it was therefore
supposed at first to have belonged to a wall traversing the intermontium
or depression which crosses the Palatine Hill from this point to the Arch
of Titus, and to have confirmed the opinion of those archæologists who
confine the extent of Roma quadrata to the north-western end of the hill.
But subsequent exploration has shown that this wall does not pass along
the intermontium, but turns off at a right angle. Another fragment of the
most ancient wall was found in 1860, according to Lanciani, under the
Villa Mills, showing that the wall of Roman quadrata passed round the
whole hill, and not only round the north-western end.
[Sidenote: Domus Gelotiana.]
Close to the fragment of ancient wall we come to a series of chambers
excavated first in 1857, and afterwards cleared and rendered more
accessible in 1869. These belonged to a building in connection with this
part of the imperial palace, and were occupied by soldiers of the
emperor’s guard, as may be seen by examination of the inscriptions left
on the walls. The traces of a square court, surrounded with a portico, one
granite pillar of which remains, and on the side of this court towards the
hill, of a number of chambers arranged on each side of a semicircular
recess, are the main features of this ruin. The brickwork supports which
appear here were erected by Canina, and a large quantity of remains have
fallen from the higher levels of the hill.
The inscriptions which are most remarkable are the following. On the
right-hand wall near the entrance the name HILARUS, followed by the
letters MI. V. D. N., which have been interpreted to mean “miles veteranus
domini nostri,” a veteran soldier of our Lord. Numerous other inscriptions
with the letters V. D. N. will be found in the chamber to the left of the
central recess. One of these in the triangular room records the name of
two soldiers who belonged to the foreign troop of Peregrini: BASSUS ET
SATURUS PEREG.[11] Other inscriptions allude to a pædagogium, or training
school, as for example, CORINTHUS EXIT DE PEDAGOGIO. Most of these are in
the triangular rooms behind the central semicircular recess, or in the
furthest room on the left of it. In this last is to be seen the figure of
an ass turning a mill, with the inscription, LABORA ASELLE QUOMODO EGO
LABORA VI ET PRODERIT TIBI. But the most famous of these graffiti is that
now shown in the Kircherian Museum representing the crucified ass, with
the title “Alexamenus worshipping his god,” which was taken from the room
on the right of the central semicircular recess, and has been the subject
of much comment. Another record of the same Alexamenus was found here in
1870, in which he is called Alexamenus fidelis.
[Sidenote: Stadium.]
Passing now beneath the Villa Mills which occupy the site of the Augustan
library, and the Temple of Apollo, built by Augustus, we turn to the left
up the slope of the hill and find a large open space in which the later
excavations have disinterred the relics of a stadium, consisting of a
curved series of walls, surrounding the foundation of a meta or goal, and
two lines of bases of columns, which ran along the sides and the end of
the stadium.[12]
A large building in the form of a semicircular recess of exedra, a stand
for viewing the races, is still partially remaining, and also the
foundation of two entrances on the southern side. That this was a stadium
connected with the imperial palace is evident from its shape and its
length, which corresponds to that laid down by the ancient writers as the
proper length of a stadium for foot-races. The large exedra at the
southern side contains on the ground-floor a vast central saloon, and two
side rooms. A few decorative paintings of the latest and least valuable
kind of art remain on the walls, among which are some geographical and
astronomical figures. A coat of foreign marbles covered the walls, and the
pavement was of marble. This part of the Palatine buildings was probably
occupied by the Frangipani in the 13th century. The right-hand chamber was
apparently without decoration, but in the one on the left the wall is
ornamented with fresco paintings of elegance, and the pavement is of fine
mosaic. A list of names with numbers attached to them, which seem to be
those of combatants in the stadium, was found among the graffiti here.
The upper level of the semicircular exedra was filled by a large chamber,
the side of which, towards the stadium, was occupied by a line of granite
columns, fragments of which remain in the arena below. The interior of
this chamber was also ornamented with marbles and statues. Some statues of
Amazons and the Hercules of Lysippus now in the Pitti at Florence, were
found here according to Vacca, who wrote at the end of the sixteenth
century. The brickwork and the architecture of this exedra seem to be of
the time of Hadrian, and the bricks found here with labels give the date
of A.D. 134, the third consulship of Ursus Servianus. The portico which
ran round the stadium was apparently of later construction than the
exedra, as the date on its bricks seems to refer to Tertullus Scapula,
Consul in A.D. 195, in the reign of Septimius Severus, under whom great
alterations and extensions were carried out in this wing of the palace.
The vast ruins which remain on the south of the stadium belong chiefly to
the works of Septimius Severus, and have long been celebrated as the most
picturesque among the Cæsarean relics. The curved wall behind the great
exedra, and the numerous passages and chambers which stand near it, seem
to have belonged to a bath supplied with water from the branch of the Aqua
Claudia, four arches of which are still remaining on the hill below,
opposite to the church of S. Gregorio. This was a branch from the Claudian
aqueduct, and crossed the valley from the opposite Cælian Hill.
[Sidenote: Palatine Belvedere.]
The lofty wing of the palace, which extends along the slope of the Circus
Maximus, opposite to the Aventine, is reached by a modern bridge from the
ruins adjoining the stadium. From the top of this huge ruin a splendid
view of the Cælian, the Aventine, and the Alban Hills may be seen, and the
spot has been sometimes called the Palatine Belvedere. What the exact
nature of the buildings placed upon these lofty ranges of arches was
cannot be easily determined, but they correspond in some degree to the
arched walls of the side between the arches of Titus and Constantine and
to those of the palace of Caligula near the Capitoline, and were mainly
intended to raise the imperial saloons to the higher level of the northern
end of the hill. Spartianus in his ‘Life of Severus’ says that Severus
bestowed particular pains on this part of the Palatine Hill in order to
make it the chief entrance to the imperial palace, and that his reason for
so doing was to produce an impression of his magnificence upon his African
fellow-countrymen, who, when visiting Rome, would naturally enter at this
point by the Porta Capena, which was the gate just below. The Septizonium
was an imperial building near this part of the hill probably built by
Severus, views of the ruins of which are to be seen in the books of the
topographers Du Perac and Garrucci who wrote before the end of the
sixteenth century, when the Septizonium was pulled down by Sixtus the
Fifth.[13] At the western end of the long and lofty ruin, and near the
end of the stadium, is a projecting portion of ruined chambers which has
been generally supposed to have contained the emperor’s private pulvinar,
or box whence he viewed the games in the Circus Maximus. But the
construction of this edifice, including its round tower, seems to be of a
very late style, and it may have been built as late as the sixteenth
century.
We now return along a modern path which runs under the grounds of the
Villa Mills towards the domus Gelotiana described above. A curved terrace
occupies the upper edge of the hill, along which probably ran a portico
commanding a view over the southern part of Rome and the Trastevere. At
the back of this are the buildings called the Villa Mills from their
former possessors, now occupied by a nunnery, and therefore inaccessible
to the public. In the year 1777, the plan of the ancient buildings which
stood here was explored by Rancoureuil. They consist of a court surrounded
with columns and suites of chambers. Parts of the main front looking
towards the circus remained till the year 1827. The brickwork of these
ruins has induced Cav. Rosa to assign them to the Augustan Age and to call
them Domus Augustana. No sure evidence has, however, been discovered for
this, and it seems more probable that the Domus Augustana was nearer to
the Forum Romanum.[14]
[Sidenote: Academia and Bibliotheca.]
Passing back again by the ruins called the Domus Gelotiana as before
described, we turn to the right and ascend the side of the hill. On the
higher level at this point are the ruins of two buildings to which the
names of Academia and Bibliotheca have been given by Rosa. In one of these
the remains of semicircular ranges of seats and a platform have been
supposed to be recognizable, and here may have taken place the recitations
and discussions mentioned by Pliny as constantly kept up in the imperial
palace.[15]
[Sidenote: Ædes Publicæ.]
Behind these rooms stand the ruins of a portico, built upon substructions
of an earlier period, with Corinthian columns of cipollino, probably
forming the side of a small courtyard. Here it may be seen through an
opening in the ground to what a depth the substructions of this part of
the Palatine buildings descend into the depression or intermontium which
originally separated the two parts of the hill, and was filled up by the
Flavian emperors. We now enter the range of reception rooms commenced by
Vespasian when he destroyed Nero’s golden house, and built by Vespasian
and his sons, Titus and Domitian, at the same time with the Coliseum.
These are raised on gigantic constructions of opus quadratum to the level
of the rest of the Palatine Hill. Many stamps on the bricks found here
seem to show that the buildings were finished by Domitian.
[Sidenote: Triclinium.]
The south-eastern side of the range of the Imperial Flavian buildings we
are now entering is still covered by the edge of the monastery which
occupies the grounds of the Villa Mills, and we can therefore only see the
north-western part. But this is sufficient to convey a full idea of the
extent of the suite. We are now entering at the back of the triclinium or
dining hall, at the end of which is a semicircular apse, possibly intended
for the emperor’s table when he dined here. The form of the room
corresponds to Vitruvius’ description of the proper arrangements for a
triclinium. Very little of the original decoration remains, except two
granite columns, of which there were originally sixteen, and a portion of
beautiful pavement composed of porphyry, serpentine, and giallo antico. It
is possible that this may be the triclinium in which Statius dined at
Domitian’s table, and of the marble decorations and spacious size of which
he speaks in the fourth book of his ‘Silvæ.’[17]
Near the apse of this room an opening in the ground leads down to some
subterranean rooms which formerly belonged to a private house situated in
the depression of the hill, and afterwards covered over by the Flavian
emperors. The brickwork in this house seems to be of the later republican
period, and the walls retain decorations of the best style.
These decorative paintings have, of course, suffered very much from damp
and neglect, and all the principal features of the house have been
destroyed by the substructures of the Flavian triclinium. The name of
Bagni di Livia was long used in connection with this spot by the ciceroni.
[Sidenote: Nymphæum.]
Returning to the upper level, we find, at the side of the triclinium, the
remains of a nymphæum or viridarium, consisting of an elliptical basin and
fountain of marble, with niches for statues and bas reliefs, and ledges
for ornamental flowers and plants. On the western side of the nymphæum a
garden-house was built by the Farnese, part of which still stands, the
portico having some arabesques and some paintings by a pupil of Taddeo
Zuccari, representing scenes on the Palatine as described by Virgil, the
meeting of Æneas and Evander, and the monster Cacus.
[Sidenote: Peristylium. Vestibulum.]
[Sidenote: Atrium.]
Beyond the triclinium and nymphæum we come to the remains of the largest
court in the suite, which is called the peristylium, occupying a space of
140 by 154 paces, anciently surrounded by a portico of columns of Porta
Santa marble. The pavement and decorations of this quadrangle would seem
by the remains to have been most superb. On the north-west side of it are
eight rooms of various shapes, arranged symmetrically round an octagonal
central chamber, from which four large doors open, with four corresponding
niches. The same plan of rooms was carried out also on the opposite side
of the peristylium, as was shown by some excavations in 1869. These were
waiting-rooms and offices of various kinds. From the great quadrangle of
the peristylium we pass to the grand audience chamber, the position of
which corresponds generally to that of the atrium of a Roman house. This
was surrounded by a portico of sixteen Corinthian columns of foreign
marbles, and their frieze and bases were ornamented in a most elaborate
manner. Eight niches with colossal statues of basalt are said by Bianchini
to have stood round this court, and in the Tribune at the southern end was
placed the solium augustale, where the emperor sat on grand occasions,
when meetings of the senate or other bodies were held here. The grand
entrance of this atrium, which looked towards the Arch of Titus, was
adorned by two huge columns of giallo antico, and the threshold stone
consisted of a mass of Greek marble from which the altar of the church of
the Pantheon was made. Many of the marbles from this atrium were taken by
the Farnese to Naples.
[Sidenote: Lararium.]
On the right hand of this reception room towards the Villa Mills was a
building which shows us by its position and shape that it was the lararium
or shrine of the household gods where sacrifices were offered on solemn
occasions. The remains of an altar were discovered here.
[Sidenote: Basilica.]
Opposite to the lararium are the foundations of a building with a tribune
and podium, probably used by the emperor in cases such as those described
by Tacitus, when imperial constraint was exercised over a legal verdict.
Two rows of columns, arranged as is commonly the case in the basilicæ, and
a portion of some white marble railings have been found and preserved
here.
Along the side of this tribunal hall and that of the peristylium and its
adjoining offices, ran a long portico connecting the whole suite of halls
together.
The history of this range of imperial buildings has been very probably
supposed to be as follows. Vespasian intended them to be used in support
of his revival of the Augustan imperial policy, and that a name such as
Ædes Publicæ, “National Chambers,” should be given to them.[18]
Accordingly, all these rooms have the character of public rather than
private buildings. There is apparently no provision for domestic life, and
all the sections of the edifice seem to have been public audience or
banqueting rooms.
[Sidenote: Porta Mugionia.]
[Sidenote: Jupiter Stator.]
In front of the last described buildings, which we have called the
basilica, the atrium, and the lararium, is an open space, on the right
hand of which, looking towards the Arch of Titus, a fragment of the
earliest walls of the Palatine remains, constructed of tufa blocks taken
from the hill underneath. Beyond this, towards the Arch of Titus, are the
paving stones of an ancient road which was probably the approach to the
palace, and to the left of this road stand the relics of one of the most
ancient gates, the Porta Mugionia. This is described by Vacca as having
been discovered at the end of the sixteenth century, when it was still
decorated with marble. The substructions alone now remain, and close to
them may still be traced the foundations of an ancient temple which can be
no other than the temple of Jupiter Stator. Solinus says that the house of
Tarquinius Priscus was near the Porta Mugionia, and Livy states that he
lived near the Porta Mugionia. The statue of Clœlia is also said by Livy
to have stood at the top of the Sacra Via which was near the Arch of
Titus, and this statue is further placed by Pliny near the Porta
Mugionia.[19] The remains of the temple show that it was arranged
according to the cardinal points of the heavens, looking north and south.
On the foundation stones are the names of Philocrates and Diocles, masons
employed in building. Three old inscriptions referring to the worship of
Jove were found here, and are to be seen in the Palatine Museum.
[Sidenote: Cryptoporticus.]
Near the ruins of this Temple of Jupiter Stator we find vast blocks of
substruction which belong to the complicated ranges of buildings occupying
the north-eastern end of the hill, and generally believed to have been
erected by Caligula. They extend along the side of the hill over the
Forum, and along the Clivus Victoriæ by which we entered, to the point
which overlooks the Velabrum. The modifications and enlargements of this
structure during the ages succeeding Caligula have rendered it a confused
mass of ruins, and the walls and chambers now left have served chiefly as
substructions for the lofty mansions erected upon them in the course of
ages. From the corner of these ruins, next to the Temple of Jupiter
Stator, runs a long arched cryptoporticus or covered passage, which can be
entered from the ruins of this temple or from below nearer to the modern
entrance gateway. It is supposed that this may have been the
cryptoporticus in which, as we learn from Josephus, Caligula was
assassinated on his return from the ludi palatini given in front of the
palace. He is said to have turned off from the direct line of entrance,
and to have passed into this covered way in order to hear and see some
youths from Asia performing. The assassins, after accomplishing their
end, were afraid to venture through the front of the palace, and took
refuge by hiding in the house of Germanicus.[20]
[Sidenote: House of Tiberius.]
At the western end of the cryptoporticus a house has been disinterred by
the late excavations, and it has been inferred that this must have been
the one called by Josephus the house of Germanicus. Whatever name may now
be assigned to it, the house appears to have been preserved for some
reason from destruction, and it seems reasonable to conclude that some
connection with the earlier history of the imperial Cæsars rendered it an
object of veneration and care. The space between the cryptoporticus, along
which we have passed, and the so-called basilica of the palace, is
supposed to have been called the Area Palatina, where those who came to
call upon the emperor had to wait.[21] The long cryptoporticus was
connected with the Flavian public buildings, and perhaps also previously
with the house of Augustus, by a branch passage which runs off from the
long cryptoporticus at right angles, towards the back of the atrium and
lararium. By this means the emperor could pass from his private palace to
the public audience and banqueting chambers without encountering the crowd
of those who were waiting for audience in the area. In this area was
found, in 1868, the pedestal bearing the name of Domitius Calvinus, now
placed on the site of the ruined temple which lies farther to the west,
and which we shall presently mention.
In the angle of the cryptoporticus near the house of Germanicus, are some
beautiful remains of decorative work, consisting of paintings of birds and
winged genii. These have been much injured by the damp exuding from a
piscina which was constructed here in the second or third century for the
keeping of fish, and which can be entered at the angle of the
cryptoporticus. Near this piscina is the entrance to the building called
the house of Tiberius or Germanicus. The construction of this house
belongs to the period of Roman architecture, when reticulated work formed
of the harder tufa, with small diamond-shaped stones, and with corners and
connecting parts of the same stone, but without brickwork, was generally
used. It was therefore probably built during the later republican times,
and this agrees with the supposition that it was the works of Tiberius’s
father or grandfather. Suetonius says that Tiberius was born on the
Palatine.[22] The leaden pipes which have been found here, bear the names
of Julia, the daughter of Titus, of one of Domitian’s, and one of
Septimius Severus’s freedmen.
The house is divided into two main parts, one of larger dimensions for
receiving guests and showing hospitality, and the other of smaller sized
rooms, for the family. The vestibule is an arched passage adorned with
paintings on the walls, and mosaic pavement. From this the atrium is
entered which had no impluvium, but was covered entirely with a roof. On
the left are the remains of an altar of the Lares, and at the further side
of the atrium are three large rooms, the decorative paintings of which are
well preserved.
In the central chamber, the walls are divided into large compartments by
columns of the Composite order, adorned with vine leaves. One of the large
scenes represented here is that of Polyphemus, who, after having crushed
his rival Acis with an enormous rock, turns towards Galatea, who is riding
on a hippocampus. Another, placed above the frieze, is a picture of a
domestic initiation ceremony, as the sacred tænia which is being presented
seems to prove. A third picture, also above the frieze, shows the
preparations for a sacrifice. On the right sits a female figure, with a
mantle, and a faun standing before some utensils for ablution, which are
being lifted by a second female figure, while the sacrificial kid is being
brought by a young slave. The next picture represents a row of houses
along the side of a street or road, at the door of one of which a lady
with her maid is knocking, while four or five figures present themselves
above on the balconies. The last picture is one of Io hidden in the wood
of Juno at Mycenæ, and watched by Argos, with a figure of Hermes
descending by Jove’s command to rescue Io. The names of Io, Argos, and
Hermes are legible here.
The room on the left hand of this one is also divided by Composite columns
adorned with vine leaves, and by a beautiful frieze of giallo antico. The
lower compartments have no figures, but the upper are ornamented with
designs of genii and fantastic flowers.
The room on the right hand is decorated with beautifully-designed
paintings of flowers and fruit, hanging from one column to the next. From
these festoons hang the emblems of various divinities, the lyre of Apollo,
the timbrel of Cybele, and the mystic sieve and mask of Bacchus. These
seem to indicate that this was the lararium of the house. The frieze
contains a number of landscape and marine views, with many figures of men
and animals painted on a yellow ground.
At the north-western corner of the atrium opens a fourth chamber, which
may perhaps have been the dining-room, or triclinium, decorated with
trophies of sacred emblems of Diana and Apollo. The atrium communicates
with the rooms at the back of the house and with a small courtyard by
means of a corridor. Some of these rooms were used as baths, others seem
to have opened towards the street, the pavement of which still remains
along the side of the house.
[Sidenote: Palatine temples.]
On the other side of this street is an entrance to the subterranean caves
which have been cut in this part of the hill. These hollows were mainly
stone quarries and wells. A puteal, or well-cover, has been placed over
one of these in front of the house which we have described. On this side
of the street also stand the foundations which have been supposed to have
belonged to the priests of the Temple of Jupiter Propugnator on the
Palatine, some portions of the fasti of whose college have been found near
the Basilica Julia and the Marforio.[23] There is also the foundation of a
temple, called by Rosa the Temple of Jupiter Victor, to be seen extending
from this street towards the viridarium of the ædes publicæ of Domitian
before mentioned, and towards the edge of the hill which looks over the
Circus Maximus. These ruins consist of masses of tufa work mixed with
later brickwork of the Antonine times. The pedestal with the name of Gnæus
Domitius Calvinus which is placed here came, as we have said, from the
spot called the Area Palatina before mentioned. The Notitia also places
the Temple of Jupiter Victor in the Area Palatina, and for these two
reasons the name seems to be wrongly applied to this ruin. We can trace in
it the remains of a building raised on a basement with lofty flights of
steps, alternating with terraces in front, towards the Circus Maximus,
just as we find at Tibur and at Tusculum temples, placed on the side of a
hill with high flights of steps ascending to them.[24]
[Sidenote: Germalus and Scala Caci.]
The remainder of the upper level of this north-western corner of the hill
is occupied by numerous ruins of squared tufa stone, which evidently
belonged to some of the most ancient and venerated relics of Rome. This
was, no doubt, the part of the Palatine to which the name Germalus was
given, in memory of the Germani, or twin-brothers, Romulus and Remus, who
were cast ashore at its foot from the flooded waters of the Tiber. Two
distinct edifices have been disclosed here, from the first of which, a
rectangular foundation of tufa stones, a passage bearing marks of great
antiquity descends towards the church of Anastasia and the gas works. This
rectangular ruin has been called by many various names, such as the Temple
of Jupiter Feretrius, the Tugurium Faustuli, the Temple of the Magna Mater
Cybele, or of the Lares Præstites. The descending passage to the Vallis
Murcia has been supposed to be the Scala Caci mentioned by Solinus,[25]
and it is possible that the legend of Cacus refers to this point of the
Palatine next to the Aventine. The marks on the stones of this descent are
probably only quarry marks. No brickwork is found here in the lower ruins
nor any marbles. But in the mass of fragments there are remains of the
republican and of the imperial restorations of the many venerated
buildings and altars which must have stood upon this corner of the hill.
On the right hand of this descent a small rectangular court was discovered
in 1872, with a staircase and a channel for water running through it. This
is thought by Lanciani to have been possibly the fifth Argean Chapel,
which was somewhere on the Germalus. A statue found here bears some marks
of having represented the goddess Cybele.
[Sidenote: Auguratorium.]
The most conspicuous ruin at this end of the hill is a mass of concrete
and tufa blocks, apparently of the republican era, in the shape of a
rectangular basement. This has the form of a temple in antis, i.e. with
projecting wings, and faces the south, commanding a view over the Aventine
and Tiber valley. Cav. Rosa has conjectured that this is the ruin of the
auguratorium mentioned by the Notitia as situated near the other most
ancient sacred spots on the Palatine. But an inscription which records the
restoration of the auguratorium by Hadrian does not support this view, as
the work now remaining is mostly republican.[26] Lanciani thinks that this
may have been the Ædes Matris Deum, to which the statue found as before
mentioned in front of it belonged.
At the back of the so-called auguratorium we find a long series of rooms
running in a line across the hill from north-west to south-east, which
have vaulted roofs and are similar to those found below in the domus
Gelotiana, before described. Cav. Rosa has inferred with reason from this
and from the graffiti in these rooms that they formed a part of the
offices and guard-rooms attached to that large portion of the palace which
lay on the site now occupied by the gardens and the vast masses of
brickwork at the northern corner of the hill. The graffiti to be seen here
are chiefly the scribblings of soldiers’ names, rude sketches of ships and
animals, and combats of gladiators.
[Sidenote: Tiberiana domus.]
Several passages of the Roman historians lead us to conclude that the
suite of rooms occupied by Tiberius were situated here. It was from the
Tiberiana Domus, as Tacitus relates, that Vitellius surveyed the
conflagration of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and the engagement
between his adherents and the Flavian party under Sabinus. The Tiberian
part of the palace was also that through which, as Tacitus also tells us,
Otho descended into the Velabrum, after joining Galba at the sacrifice in
the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine.[27] Afterwards, the Tiberiana Domus
became the favourite residence of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, and
it was probably during their reigns that the library which we find
mentioned by Gellius was established here.[28]
We now pass through the garden grounds which lie over the remains of the
Domus Tiberiana, and descend on the side which looks over the Forum, by a
long staircase through the immense masses of brickwork and concrete which
are said to have been part of the insane additions of Caligula to the
imperial palace. He is declared to have made a passage from this wing of
the palace to the back of the Temple of Castor below in the Forum, in
order that he might appear in that sacred shrine as an equal of the twin
gods and an object of worship when the Senate met there. He also joined
this corner of the palace with the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter by a huge
viaduct, which passed over the Basilica Julia, in order that he might thus
make himself the contubernalis of Jupiter.[29] Some of the substructions
of this viaduct are to be seen near the back of the church of S. Maria
Liberatrice. We now leave the Palatine by the Clivus Victoriæ, along which
we entered, and turn to the arch of Titus and the ruins which stand near
it.
THE VELIA.
[Sidenote: The Velia.]
Near the arch of Titus the Palatine Hill runs out in a gradually sloping
ridge north-eastwards towards the Esquiline Hill. On one side of this
ridge the ground sinks towards the Forum Romanum, and on the other towards
the Meta Sudans and the Coliseum. The level of the pavement under the arch
of Titus is fifty-three feet above the ancient pavement of the Forum. It
seems probable that this outlying part of the Palatine was that which bore
the name of Velia.[30]
[Sidenote: Arch of Titus.]
On the summit of the ridge above described stands the arch of Titus, the
most complete of all the monuments of imperial Rome. The central part of
the original building remains, and is easily distinguished from the
subsequent travertine restorations by being constructed of Pentelic
marble. The height of the arch is forty-nine feet and its breadth
forty-two feet. Originally there were two fluted Corinthian columns on
each side of both faces of the arch, the two inner of which are now left,
while the two outer are modern. Over the arch are two bas-reliefs of
Victory which, though much injured, are still remarkable for the beauty of
their outlines. On the keystone of the side towards the Coliseum is a
figure of Rome, and on the other side Fortune with a cornucopia.
The most interesting parts of the arch have fortunately been preserved by
their protected position in the interior. On each side is a magnificent
alto-relievo, representing the triumphal procession of Titus after the
capture of Jerusalem. The relievo on the south side shows a number of
persons carrying the spoils of the Jewish Temple. The golden candlestick,
the golden table for showbread, and the trumpets are clearly recognizable.
These, according to Josephus,[31] among other utensils of the Jewish
temple, were deposited in Vespasian’s Temple of Peace. The procession is
moving towards a triumphal arch.
In the northern relief the emperor is represented in his triumphal car,
drawn by four horses, and surrounded by his guards and suite. Victory is
holding a crown over his head, and the goddess Roma guiding the reins. The
interior of the arch is ornamented with richly-carved rosettes and
coffers, and upon the crown is a rather undignified representation of the
apotheosis of the emperor astride upon an eagle’s back.
On the Coliseum side a small portion of the entablature is left. The
frieze had a bas-relief, which partially remains, of a sacrificial
procession. The attica is modern, with the exception of the inscription.
That the arch was erected after the emperor’s death is shown by the title
Divus, and also by the figure of his apotheosis under the archway. Another
arch had been erected in the Circus previously in the year 80, when the
Coliseum was completed, and Titus gave a great festival. The date of the
extant arch is, therefore, the year 82 or 83.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
[Sidenote: Temple of Venus and Rome.]
Almost the whole of the southern slope of the Velia towards the Coliseum
is occupied by the ruin of a vast foundation which extends under the
church and convent of S. Francesca Romana. The substructions, of which
the inner core only, consisting of rubble-work, is left, were originally
cased with travertine blocks. They form an enormous quadrilateral terrace,
round which a portico of granite columns ran. Upon this was raised a
basement some four or five feet higher, and a building with two apses back
to back, similar to the tribunes of a basilica. These are ornamented with
large square coffers and niches for statues. It has been generally
inferred from the statements of Dion Cassius and Spartianus that this
building was the Temple of Venus and Rome built by Hadrian and dedicated
by the Antonines, but burnt down in the time of Constantine and restored
by him.[32] Pope Honorius I. stripped the bronze tiles from the roof, and
they were placed on the Basilica of S. Peter, whence they were taken by
the Saracens in A.D. 846. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
limekilns were set up near the arch of Titus by the Romans and the marbles
of this spot were burnt into lime.[33] The two tribunes which stand back
to back and the buildings near them have not the appearance of a temple,
but rather of a legal court or basilica. For this reason, and also because
a large portico of this shape is represented in the marble plan of the
city, the fragments of which are now in the Capitoline Museum, as having
belonged to the Porticus Liviæ, Mr. Parker, in his ‘Archæology of Rome,’
has maintained that this was the Porticus Liviæ, built by Augustus and
afterwards used by Hadrian for the Temple of the Sun and Moon. Jordan has
also shown that the Porticus Liviæ was near this spot, but he places it
farther to the north-east, behind the Basilica of Constantino.[34] Since
Dion Cassius speaks of the Temple of Venus and Rome as having been close
to the Coliseum and also near the Sacra Via, and Spartianus says that it
stood in the vestibule of the Domus Aurea of Nero, we are almost compelled
to assign this position to that temple.[35]
[Sidenote: Domus Transitoria.]
Nero’s enormous extension of the Palatine buildings must have occupied a
great part of the Velia, reaching across it from the Palatine to the
Esquiline. But his great Domus Aurea and its surrounding porticoes and
halls, which were called Domus Transitoria, and occupied not only the
slope of the Velia but also the site of the Coliseum, were destroyed by
the Flavian emperors who succeeded him, and we can only point to one
fragment, of the Domus Transitoria which stands near the corner of the
Basilica of Constantine at the side of the path which leads between that
ruin and the buildings of S. Francesca Romana.
[Sidenote: Basilica of Constantine.]
The vast arches of the ruin called the Basilica of Constantine form, next
to the Coliseum, the most conspicuous object in the neighbourhood of the
Forum, and they were long supposed to have belonged to the Temple of
Peace, Vespasian’s great temple. But the decision of modern archæology has
assigned them to Constantine, on the ground that the brickwork is of much
later date than the time of Vespasian, and also that the few remains of
decoration which are extant bear indications of a great decline of
ornamentative art when they were constructed. Further evidence has been
derived from a coin of Maxentius, the rival of Constantine, having been
found in 1828 sticking in the mortar of one of the fragments. Aurelius
Victor says that the basilica called by the name of Constantine was begun
by Maxentius.[36] The three gigantic arches now standing formed the roof
of the eastern aisle of the basilica, which consisted, as the foundation
clearly shows, of a central hall and two side aisles. The arches are
sixty-eight feet in span and eighty feet high. They are ornamented by
octagonal caissons or coffers, containing central rosettes and the
interspaces are relieved by rhomboidal panel work. The two side arches
have their backs walled up, and there are six arched windows in each wall.
At the back of the central arch is a semicircular tribune, with niches for
statues and a central pedestal. Some of the marble ornaments of this
tribune are still left, and show in their rude execution evidence of the
Constantinian style of art. A screen seems to have separated the tribune
from the interior of the hall. In front of the three great arches can be
plainly seen the spring of the enormous roof which covered the central
hall of the basilica. This central hall must have been at least 80 feet in
width and 115 feet in height.
The southern aisle was of the same construction and size as the northern,
and in place of the tribune had a grand entrance on the side towards the
arch of Titus. A flight of steps and a portico with porphyry columns, two
of which are now in the Conservatori Museum on the Capitol, formed the
approach to the entrance. A white column from the central hall is to be
seen erected in front of S. Maria Maggiore, where it was placed in the
seventeenth century by Paul V.
At the western end of the central hall was a tribune, the ruins of which
are now occupied by a warehouse, and at the eastern end an entrance in
three divisions opened into the road between the basilica and the portico
of the so-called Temple of Venus and Rome. This entrance had a vestibule
or verandah similar to those found at S. Giovanni in Laterano and at S.
Maria Maggiore, and answering to the building called a chalcidicum by
Vitruvius.[37] (Fig. 9, p. 33.)
[Sidenote: SS. Cosma and Damiano.]
The church of SS. Cosma and Damiano which now stands at the north-western
end of the Basilica of Constantine is, like many other churches in Rome,
constructed on the ruins of some ancient temple. A most careful account
has been given of its various stages of construction by Mr. Parker.[38]
This may possibly have been the site of the original Temple of the
Penates, and some archæologists have thought that the round temple which
has been converted into the vestibule of the church was that of the
Penates. The doorway of this temple with its columns, frieze and bronze
doors, has been raised from the lower level of the old temple, on which
the crypt of the church now stands beneath the floor. At the back of this
the nave of the church was built on the ruins of some unknown temple, and
behind the apse of the nave is said by Mr. Parker to have been the wall on
which the celebrated Capitoline marble plan of Rome was hung. The
fragments of this plan, which was shaken down, he thinks, by the fall of a
great mass from the Basilica of Constantine, were found here. The chapel
of the Penates was on the road from the summa Sacra Via to the Carinæ,
which would place it near this spot.[39] The name “Temple of Romulus”
given to the ruins by mediæval writers may have been derived from some
restoration by Romulus, son of Maxentius.
[Sidenote: Lavacrum of Heliogabalus.]
We now pass through the arch of Titus along the ancient road towards the
Coliseum, and on the slope of the Palatine to our right stand the ruins
of a mediæval church which was excavated in 1873 by Cav. Rosa. This is
said to have been called the church of S. Maria Antiqua, and to have been
placed upon the ruins of the lavacrum of Heliogabalus.[40] The chambers
now disclosed seem to have been used as a bath. Along the side of the hill
near this are numerous ruins similar to those on the other side of the
Palatine, which were apparently guard rooms.
CHAPTER II.
THE FORUM ROMANUM.
[Sidenote: Temple of Castor.]
At a short distance from the entrance to the Palatine we can enter the
Forum near the ruins of an ancient temple, three columns of which are
still standing. These three columns are among the most conspicuous and
beautiful remains of ancient Rome. No doubt can now be felt that they
belonged to the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The situation agrees with
that which is pointed out by the Ancyræan inscription, and by the fact
that Caligula made a passage from the Palatine Palace to this temple.
The substructions of this building have been cleared, and the length and
breadth of the basement and of the steps forming the approach can now be
clearly seen. The three columns belonged to the central part of the
south-eastern side. They are of most elegant proportions, and their
capitals, architrave and frieze are ornamented with decorative work of the
very best period of Græco-Roman architecture. The designs on the
entablature are most delicate and perfect, and well repay a minute
examination. Besides the usual ornaments upon the cornice and corbels
there is along the upper edge a row of beautiful lions’ heads, through
which the rain-water ran off.
The temple had evidently eight columns in front, and eleven side columns,
reckoning in the corner column. The approach was raised high above the
forum level, and has three steps projecting beyond the line of the next
building, the Basilica Julia. The lines of the front steps are preserved,
and also those of the side towards the Capitol, while the other side has
been destroyed. The pavement in front of this has been miserably altered
and mended at a late date, probably after the fourth century.
[Illustration: FORUM ROMANUM]
The capitals when compared with the earlier Corinthian capitals of the
Pantheon, show a longer and narrower type which is also found at the
Temple of Vespasian and the peristyle of Nerva’s Forum, the Colonacce. The
lower foundations of the basement are of old tufa rubble construction, and
possibly belong to the date of the original foundations in B.C. 494 by the
dictator Aulus Postumius, who vowed to build it at the battle of the Lake
Regillus in the Latin war. It was afterwards dedicated by his son in B.C.
484. Two restorations are mentioned, the first executed by L. Metellus
Dalmaticus, consul in B.C. 119, and the second by Drusus and Tiberius in
A.D. 6. The temple was used for meetings of the senate, for harangues from
its steps to the people in the forum, and for holding courts of law. A
register of changes in the value of money was kept in the tabularium of
the temple, and deposits were made here as in many other temples.[41]
Standing as the old temple did near the veteres tabernæ of the forum, and
the newer restorations of them near the Basilica Julia, it was convenient
for business transactions. On the north-west side a street pavement
leading to the Velabrum has been laid bare, which may be that of the Vicus
Tuscus.
[Sidenote: Puteal.]
Descending from the Temple of Castor to the ancient pavement of the Forum
Romanum, we find at the north-eastern corner of the ruin the remains of a
puteal or well-house which has naturally been supposed to be the fountain
of Juturna from its neighbourhood to the Temple of the Twin Brethren, who
are said to have given their horses drink there after the battle of
Regillus.
[Sidenote: Temple of Vesta.]
A little farther to the south the basement of a round building is to be
seen, which may very probably have been the ancient Temple of Vesta. This
was a round building, as we conclude from Ovid and Plutarch’s notices, and
was intended by Numa, the first founder, to denote the spherical shape of
the earth which Vesta personified, or the original family hearth.[42]
[Sidenote: Chapel of Julius Cæsar.]
In front of the Temple of Castor a large block of substructions has been
cleared, which is with great probability assigned to the chapel built in
honour of Julius Cæsar, and called the Heroon of Cæsar. Ovid’s lines, in
one of his letters from Pontus--
“Like the twin brethren whom in their abode
Julius, the god, beholds from his high shrine,”
seem to prove that the heroon was in front of that temple. The body of
Cæsar was burnt in front of the regia and Temple of Vesta, which were at
this end of the Forum, and the heroon was placed on the spot where it was
burnt. The remains of two small staircases were found at the sides of the
heroon, and a wider staircase in front. The epithet “high,” given by Ovid
to its position, seems to be in accordance with the raised basement. The
semicircle of masonry on the north side has not been satisfactorily
explained. It is usually supposed to have belonged to the Julian rostra,
but its shape is not such as to support this idea.
[Sidenote: Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.]
To the north-east of the heroon of Julius Cæsar, we find the ancient
pavement of the road which ran along the north-eastern side of the Forum,
and to this road descend the steps of a temple with a conspicuous row of
six cipollino columns, and with two columns and a pilaster besides the
corner column on each side. These columns have Attic bases and Corinthian
capitals of white marble. The inscription upon the plain architrave in
front shows that the temple was first dedicated to Faustina alone, and
that the first three words, including the emperor’s name, were added after
his death. The Faustina here commemorated was probably the elder Faustina,
wife of Antoninus Pius, as a representation at this temple is given on one
of the medals struck in her honour.[43] She died in A.D. 141, and
Antoninus Pius in 161. The frieze of the temple is ornamented at the sides
with a bold and finely-executed relief representing griffins with upraised
wings, between which are carved elaborately-designed candelabra and vases.
A considerable part of the side walls of grey peperino blocks anciently
faced with marble is still standing. A church was built here at a very
early time, but the present building which forms a strange contrast in the
meanness of its style and proportions to the massive grandeur of the grey
old ruin which embraces it, was built in 1602 by the guild of the Roman
apothecaries.[44]
[Sidenote: Extent of the Forum.]
[Sidenote: Seven brick pedestals.]
[Sidenote: Column of Phocas.]
We now pass along the ancient stone pavement towards the Capitol, and
observe how small the space occupied by the ancient Forum Romanum was. The
temple we have just left stood in the north-eastern corner, and the
columns of the two temples opposite to us on the slope of the Capitol mark
the other end of the Forum. The central pavement now laid bare is of
travertine flags, while the roads are marked by basaltic blocks. On the
side of the central space runs a row of seven large masses of brickwork,
which seem to be the bases of pedestals which supported dedicatory
columns, or statues similar to the one still standing at the end, which
has become known to English travellers as “the nameless column with the
buried base” of Byron. Since Byron’s time the base of this has been
unburied, and bears the name of Smaragdus, proclaimed exarch of Italy for
the eleventh time,[45] who erected it in honour of the Emperor Phocas. The
date is given by the words INDICT. UND., which show that Smaragdus was in
his eleventh year as exarch, and we know that he was exarch under
Mauricius for five years, A.D. 583-588, and six years under Phocas, A.D.
602-608. His eleventh year would thus be in 608, and this was the fifth
year of Phocas’ reign, so that the last words of the inscription confirm
the explanation given of the previous words INDICT. UND.[46] “P. C.” in
the inscription probably mean, as Clinton explains, post consulatum, which
was the way of reckoning in the later years of the Eastern Empire.
[Sidenote: Pedestal of equestrian statue.]
In the centre of the Forum traces of the base of a large pedestal can be
discerned, and this is supposed to have been the position of the
equestrian statue of Domitian described at length by Statius, who says in
the first poem of his ‘Silvæ’ that an equestrian statue of Domitian stood
at the north-western end of the Forum, looking towards the other end. It
was a triumphal statue erected in honour of Domitian’s campaigns against
the Catti and Daci. The poet describes its position very accurately,
mentioning the Heroon of Julius Cæsar which faced it, the Basilica Julia
on the right, the Basilica Paulli on the left, and the temples of Concord
and Vespasian behind. The Temple of Saturn is omitted for some unknown
reason. Statius also alludes to some other principal objects in the Forum,
the Temple of Vesta, the Temple of Castor, and the statue of Curtius. He
concludes with prophesying that the statue will outlast the eternal
city.[47] It seems, however, probable, as Mr. Nichols in his admirable
book on the Forum has said, that the statue was removed after Domitian’s
death, when his memory was execrated, or was dedicated to a succeeding
emperor, and that the statement of Herodian about the dream of Severus,
who imagined that he saw an equestrian statue in the Forum, a colossal
representation of which remained there in the historian’s time, may refer
to this pedestal.[48]
[Sidenote: Trajan’s bas-reliefs.]
Two of the most interesting monuments which have been brought to light by
the recent excavations in Rome were discovered in 1872, near the base of
the column of Phocas, where they have been re-erected. They consist of
marble slabs, sculptured with bas-reliefs and forming low screens. Each
screen is constructed of slabs of unequal size, and some of these have
been unfortunately lost. Their original position has been restored as
nearly as possible, and they stand parallel to each other in a line
crossing the area of the Forum. On the inner sides of both of these
sculptured screens, the sacrificial animals, the boar, sheep and bull,
always offered up at the Suovetaurilia, are represented.
The other sides, which are turned outwards, represent scenes in the Forum,
and are commemorative of some public benefaction of one of the emperors,
probably Trajan or Hadrian. On one of them Italia is represented thanking
the emperor for establishing some “alimenta publica,” public relief
institutions, and for apportioning lands to encourage needy parents to
rear their children. Such relief funds and lands intended to supply the
defective population of Italy were first established by the Emperor Nerva,
and afterwards by Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, and are frequently
commemorated on medals, and mentioned by the historians Dion Cassius and
Aurelius Victor, and the authors of the Augustan history.[49] The emperor
is represented in a sitting posture, and stretching out his hand towards a
child presented by a woman in the character of Italia, who apparently
holds another child ready for presentation. Behind the emperor’s seat is
the fig-tree called Navia or Ruminalis, which is said to have grown near
the rostra, and also the figure of Marsyas which stood in the same place.
At the other end of this sculptured scene stands a speaker with a roll in
his hand, addressing a crowd of citizens from a rostrum, which may perhaps
represent the publication of the edict establishing alimenta.
The other bas-relief scene shows a rostrum at one end, from which a
sitting figure is superintending the burning of large bundles of books,
carried and placed in front of him in a heap. The outline of a figure
applying a torch can be traced, and also of several attendants. At the
opposite end to the sitting figure the fig-tree and Marsyas are placed as
in the other relief.
The style of art in which the reliefs are executed cannot, in Professor
Henzen’s opinion, belong to an earlier period than Trajan’s reign. The
treatment corresponds to that on those reliefs taken from Trajan’s arch,
and set up on Constantine’s arch. After Trajan’s time the style of
bas-relief was so much altered that we cannot suppose them to have been
sculptured later than the first year of Hadrian.
As Trajan gained great popularity in the early years of his reign by an
abolition of the arrears of certain debts due to the imperial treasury,
amounting to a large sum, and as he also established alimenta, these
reliefs have been generally supposed to commemorate his public
benefactions, in founding relief institutions and cancelling public debts.
The backgrounds of both the sculptures are occupied by representations of
some public buildings, but it does not seem possible to identify these
with any certainty. That they roughly represent some of the temples and
Basilicas in the Forum in a sketch is all we can say. One of the temples
shown in the relief which depicts the foundation of alimenta has only five
columns in its portico, showing a want of accuracy in the drawing which
throws great doubt upon its topographical value. The archæologists who
have endeavoured to name the buildings have agreed in calling the Ionic
and the Corinthian portico in the relief where the account books are being
burnt those of the Temples of Saturn and Vespasian, with an arch of the
tabularium between them, and the long row of arches the Basilica Julia,
but they differ as to the buildings shown in the other relief, for while
Mr. Nichols thinks that the Basilica Julia is here again represented with
the Heroon of Julius Cæsar and the arch of Augustus, Signor Brizio is of
opinion that we have here the north-western side of the Forum with the
Basilica Æmilia.[50] The rostra are probably meant to represent temporary
wooden constructions.
The most reasonable conjecture which has yet been made as to the purpose
which these sculptured screens served is that they formed a pons or
passage along which voters passed at a time of election from the Forum to
the office where the votes were taken. A great part of the structures used
at such times was probably temporary, and made of wood for the occasion.
Another explanation suggested by Mr. Nichols is that they formed a passage
leading to an altar and statue of the Emperor. It may be that the
sculptures never reached their destined site, but were left here, as many
of the marbles on the Tiber banks were, and gradually buried in rubbish.
[Sidenote: Basilica Julia.]
We now pass to the rows of restored bases of columns, which occupy the
long space on the south-western side of the seven pedestals above
mentioned. Here we find the ground plan of the great Basilica Julia marked
out by a treble row of columns at each of the larger sides, and a double
row at each end. One pier of the outer row towards the Forum has been
restored by Rosa so as to show the original height.
The proof that these ruins belong to the Basilica Julia which was planned
by Julius Cæsar, and begun by him but completed by Augustus, who dedicated
it to his grandsons Caius and Lucius, is the statement in the monumentum
Ancyranum, in which it is placed between the temples of Saturn and Castor.
A second proof is derived from two inscriptions found during the process
of clearing the site, one of which records the repair of the Basilica
Julia, and the erection in it of a statue by Gabinius Vettius Probianus,
prefect of the city in A.D. 377, and the other the rebuilding of the
Basilica Julia under Maximian after the fire which destroyed it in the
time of Carinus and Numerian. This site is also assigned to the Basilica
on the Capitoline plan which may be seen on the staircase of the
Capitoline Museum. The outline given there, and marked by the name
Basilica Julia, agrees in proportion, and in the rows of columns with the
extant remains, and this shows that the present ruin is the same in its
main points with that which stood in the time of Severus, when the
Capitoline plan was made.[51] Seven steps lead up to the level of the
floor from the Forum level.
A great deal of legal business was transacted here, as may be seen from
the frequent mention of it in Pliny’s Epistles. There were four tribunals,
of which Quintilian speaks, at which four trials could be carried on at
the same time; but these tribunals were probably wooden and temporary
erections, and there is no trace of any semicircular apses, such as those
in the Basilica of Constantine. One of Caligula’s amusements, as we are
told by Suetonius, was to stand upon the roof of this basilica, and throw
money to the mob in the Forum to scramble for. Whether the basilica was
covered over in the centre is not certain, but it probably was so, with
two aisles open to the Forum. The row of arches standing at the north-west
corner is partly a restoration of the basilica by Canina, and partly
consists of some piers and a wall standing behind, which has not yet been
satisfactorily identified with any ancient building. The most probable
supposition is that they belonged to the Porticus Julia mentioned by Dion
Cassius, and were parts of an earlier edifice, in front of which and upon
which the basilica was placed by Augustus.
[Sidenote: Cloaca.]
Under the southern end of the floor of the Julian Basilica, an opening has
been made in which the arch of the main cloaca of the Forum valley can be
seen passing across the Forum towards the Subura. This is the drain of
which Juvenal speaks, when he says that the fish taken from the Crypta
Suburæ is the climax of indignity offered to the unhappy parasite Trebius
at his patron’s table.[52] The course of the drain runs from here under
the Via dei Fenili down to the Janus Quadrifrons in the Velabrum, where it
meets other branches and passes down to the Tiber. Between the eastern end
of the Basilica Julia and the temple of Castor ran the Vicus Tuscus, of
which the paving-stones may still be traced. At the western end the Vicus
Jugarius led towards the Velabrum, but this is buried under the present
Via della Consolazione, and cannot be seen.
[Sidenote: Arch of Tiberius.]
The Arch of Tiberius, which stood at the corner of the Basilica Julia,
where the Vicus Jugarius and the Clivus Capitolinus diverged, cannot be
clearly traced, though some of its ruins have been thought to exist among
those uncovered at the edge of and under the modern road. This arch has
been with great probability supposed to be that alluded to by Tacitus in
speaking of the recovery of the Roman standards lost by Varus, and retaken
by Germanicus under the auspices of Tiberius.[53] The triumphal arch
represented on the Arch of Constantine is also thought to be that of
Tiberius placed here.
[Sidenote: Temple of Saturn.]
We now pass under the modern road to the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and
proceed to examine the most prominent ruin at the western end of the
Forum. This consists of eight columns, six of red granite forming a front,
and two side columns of grey granite. The capitals of these and the
decoration of the entablature, architrave and frieze surmounting them are
of a late and debased Ionic order with volutes in the later style, and
they have been pieced together in the last restoration of the temple with
extraordinary negligence. Unequal spaces are left between the columns, and
some are set upon plinths while others are without them. One of the side
columns has been so badly re-erected that the stones are misplaced, and
consequently the diameter of the upper portion is of the same size as that
of the lower. The restored carving on the inner frieze is of the roughest
description, and the barbarous negligence of the whole restoration shows
that it cannot have been done earlier than the fourth or fifth century. A
comparison of the ruins now remaining with the plan as given on the
fragments of the Capitoline map, bearing the name SAT VRNI has been made
by Jordan, who shows that the remains of a prominent and peculiar flight
of steps in front of the six columns correspond to the rough sketch on the
plan, and that this flight of steps facing north must be taken to be the
front of the temple.[54] The pavement stones of the road which led from
the forum past the front of the temple may still be traced curving round
this projecting flight of steps. Little doubt now remains that the ruin of
the eight columns, the name of which has been so much discussed, belonged
to the Temple of Saturn.
[Illustration: Temple of Saturn. Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.
Coliseum and Arch of Titus. Temple of Castor.]
The inscription now upon the front was placed there at its latest
restoration which, as we have seen, was in Christian times, and the name
of the divinity is therefore omitted.
This temple was one of the most revered and ancient in the city, and its
foundation is traced back in legendary myth to the Hellenic Kronos. The
earliest date given for the dedication is B.C. 498. Many restorations must
have taken place. An inscription recording one in the time of Augustus by
Munatius Plancus has been found. This temple long retained the name of the
Mint, from the fact that the state treasures were deposited under the care
of the god Saturnus, as one of the most venerated of Roman deities.
[Sidenote: Area of the Dii Consentes.]
The ancient road leading up to the Capitol made a turn behind the Temple
of Saturn, and a portico with semi-Corinthian or Composite columns has
been restored from some columns and capitals found here in 1835. At the
back of this portico were twelve recessed chambers occupied by chapels of
the twelve deities called the Dii Consentes. Four of these still remain
under the modern Via del Campidoglio. The walls are chiefly of brickwork,
apparently of the second or third century, but the back wall against the
ascent to the Capitol is of hard tufa. The interiors were faced with
marble, of which traces are left. From the inscription found in 1835 upon
the architecture it appears that Vettius Prætextatus, a prefect of the
city in A.D. 367, restored the statues of the Dii Consentes, which had
stood here from ancient times. Varro mentions gilded statues of the gods
of the council as near the Forum, and also speaks of their temple. This
portico and chambers cannot, however, have been a temple, but were
evidently clerks’ offices connected with the state depositories near the
Temple of Saturn. Cicero speaks of the clerks of the Capitoline
ascent.[55] Vettius Prætextatus, who restored the building in 367, was
notorious for his opposition to the Christian religion and for his zeal in
supporting the ancient cultus. He held several offices, and was pro-consul
of Achaia under Julian, and probably recommended himself to that emperor
by his attachment to the old Roman religion.
[Sidenote: Schola Xanthi.]
Below the portico and its chambers stands another row of lower chambers,
three of which are said by Marliani to have been found entire in the
sixteenth century. Inscriptions found here give the name of Schola to the
chambers, and hence they have been called Schola Xanthi, from the name of
Xanthus, which occurs in the inscription as a restorer. They were
undoubtedly clerks’ offices, similar to those behind the portico of the
Dii Consentes above them.
[Sidenote: Temple of Vespasian.]
We now turn from the portico of the Dii Consentes to the three Corinthian
columns which stand under the large building called the Tabularium. These
three columns have now been proved to belong to the ruin of a temple
dedicated to Vespasian by his son Domitian. This position of Vespasian’s
temple agrees with the statements of the Notitia and Curiosum and of
Statius. The inscription, of which only the letters ESTITUER now remain,
was seen and the whole of it transcribed by a writer of the ninth
century, whose MS. is preserved at Einsiedlen.[56] It recorded the
restoration of this temple by Severus and Caracalla. The letters ESTITUER
stand at the lower edge of the frieze, showing that there was another line
above. This upper line was DIVO. VESP. AUG. S.P.Q.R., and referred to the
original building of the temple, while the lower line recorded its
restoration. The temple was approached by a flight of steps from the road
between it and the Temple of Saturn, the uppermost of which were placed
between the columns and have been partially restored. The three columns
which now remain are the three corner columns of the portico. They have
fluted shafts and Corinthian capitals. The letters of the inscription were
of metal, and the holes of the rivets which fastened them are still
visible. The architrave and cornice are ornamented very richly with the
usual mouldings, and there are some most interesting reliefs upon the
frieze representing sacrificial implements and the skulls of oxen. A
horsetail for sprinkling, and a sacrificial knife with a vase, a patera,
an axe, and a high priest’s mitre are plainly distinguishable. Another
portion of the entablature was pieced together by Canina and is still kept
in the rooms of the Tabularium. The walls of the cella were built of
travertine faced with marble. Against the back wall stands a large
pedestal which supported the statue of the deified Emperor.
[Sidenote: Temple of Concord.]
Next to the temple of Vespasian, we are told by Statius, stood the Temple
of Concord. The site is also determined by passages in Plutarch and in
Dion Cassius, and by the plan given in the Capitoline map. Excavations
were carried out here in 1817, 1830, and 1835 which resulted in disclosing
the foundations of the temple, and in finding some inscriptions which
attest the dedication of this spot to the goddess Concord. The temple of
Concord was founded according to Livy, Ovid, and Plutarch by Camillus in
B.C. 367, on the memorable occasion when the senate after a long and
anxious debate, wisely determined to make peace with the Commons by
throwing open the office of Consul to the plebeian order.[57]
It was placed near the old meeting-place (Comitium) of the privileged
families (gentes), as if constantly to remind them that the newly
established concord of the community was under the special sanction of the
gods. When the Temple of Camillus was first restored we do not learn. The
earliest notice of a new Temple to Concord is the statement that the
Consul Opimius was ordered by the senate on the death of C. Gracchus to
build a new temple to Concord. The temple seems to have been a kind of
Pantheon or museum, for it was filled with a great number of statues of
various gods, and with curiosities. On the left-hand side of the remaining
foundations of the cella are two large pedestals which probably supported
two of the principal statues.
Tiberius rebuilt it after his German campaign in A.D. 6 and 7, and
dedicated it in honour of himself and his brother. The form of the latest
restoration, which seems to have been carried out after the building
behind it, the so-called Tabularium, was built, as it is placed so close
to that building and must have rendered the decorations on its walls
invisible, can be traced by the present relics of foundation walls, and
presents a singular deviation from the normal plan of a Roman temple. The
pronaos, or front chamber, is narrower than the cella or shrine behind it,
and forms a sort of porch to it. This is an instance of the form of temple
called prostylos by Vitruvius, and consisting of a broad Tuscan cella with
a narrow Greek portico.[58]
The cella has greater breadth than depth. The basement is of considerable
height in front, and some of the steps, Cicero’s Gradus Concordiæ[59] can
be traced, while the enormous threshold of African marble still remains. A
coin of Tiberius shows us that the temple had a portico of six columns in
the Corinthian style, and a group of three figures embracing, as a symbol
of Concord, at the top. One of the bases of the columns is still preserved
in the Capitoline Museum, and a portion of the frieze was restored by
Canina, showing that the decorative work was of great beauty. The
inscription is given in the Einsiedlen MS. of the ninth century, and the
temple was still standing in the twelfth century, as we learn from the
Ordo Romanus, a procession route book. The stones were probably carried
away for building purposes in the thirteenth century. Between the ruins of
the Temple of Concord and those of Vespasian’s Temple, the foundations of
a little chapel of Faustina may be seen. The name has been given to it
from an inscription discovered here.
[Sidenote: Arch of Severus.]
Close to the ruins of the Temple of Concord stands the triumphal arch of
Septimius Severus, composed of three archways of Pentelic marble. The side
archways are connected with the central archway by small openings in the
intervening walls, and the arched interiors of all three are decorated by
square coffers with rosette ornaments. On each side stand four columns of
Proconnesian marble with Composite capitals, on the pedestals of which are
bas-reliefs representing figures of barbarian captives clothed in breeches
and wearing the chlamys and Phrygian cap, and conducted by Roman soldiers
wearing the lacerna. The spandrils of the arches are ornamented with the
usual figures of Victory and symbols of captivity, in the outlines of the
river gods of the Euphrates and Tigris. Between each pair of outer and
inner pillars there are large bas-relief sculptured scenes executed in a
very confused and tasteless style. The four lower and narrow compartments
show the goddess Roma receiving the homage of the East, which is
personified by a woman wearing a tiara. Behind her, in a long train of
carts and carriages, come the spoils of the various nations conquered by
Severus. Above this narrow line of figures which runs round below the four
compartments above the side arches, are four larger bas-reliefs
representing the sieges and victories of Severus in Parthia, Adiabene, and
Arabia. On the side towards the Forum is represented on the left hand the
raising of the Parthian siege of Nisibis in northern Mesopotamia by
Severus after he had crushed his rivals Æmilianus and Pescennius Niger in
Pontus and Syria. The taking of the town of Carræ west of Nisibis, and the
march of the Roman army thence against the Adiabenians are also here
portrayed. The compartment, on the right hand, looking from the Forum,
contains a bas-relief representation of the surrender of Abgarus, king of
Osroene,[60] and the siege of the town of Hatra on the Tigris.
[Illustration: Arch of Severus.]
On the other side towards the Capitol and so-called Tabularium, the
second campaign of Severus in the East is portrayed. On the right hand the
flight of the Parthians from Babylon, the entry of the Romans into that
city and the second siege of Hatra are represented. On the left is the
wresting of the towns of Seleucia and Ctesiphon from the Parthians, the
flight of their king Artobanus and the surrender of the Arabians who had
joined the Parthian side.[61]
The entablature which surmounts these arches is badly designed and
executed, the projections over the columns being far too heavy. Upon the
attica above the entablature there are the traces of nails on the corner
pilasters which seem to have borne some military ensigns. The whole
central space of the attica is occupied by a long inscription formerly
inlaid, as appears from the rivets, with metal. Upon a coin of Severus
giving a representation of the arch, a chariot with six horses is shown
standing over the attica, and on the four corners were equestrian statues.
From the inscription it appears that the arch was built in the year A.D.
203. The repetition of the title Parthicus, points to the Parthian
campaigns of Severus. In the fourth line the name of Geta and his titles
have been erased, as in other ruins of the same date, and the words
OPTIMIS FORTISSIMISQUE PRINCIPIBUS inserted in their place. In the middle
ages the tower of a church called SS. Sergio e Bacco was built upon the
top of this arch, but was removed in 1536 on the entry of Charles V. by
command of Pope Paul III.
[Sidenote: Ruins under the road across the end of the Forum.]
Near the Arch of Severus, and also between the temple of Saturn and the
corner of the Basilica Julia, the modern road runs over archways. Under
the archways some substructions of large peperino stones and other forms
of building have been disclosed. These may have belonged to pedestals upon
which statues were placed, or in the case of those near the arch of
Severus to the later Rostra and Græcostasis, and in the case of those near
the corner of the Basilica Julia to the Arch of Tiberius. The round
pedestal which stands near the Arch of Severus was possibly the pedestal
of the Miliarium Aureum, as it is not strong enough to bear the weight of
a heavy statue.[62]
A representation of the Rostra of the Empire which may have stood here is
given in the relief on the face of the Arch of Constantine, which looks
towards the Coliseum, where three arches are seen, corresponding to the
Arch of Severus on the right, and one arch corresponding to that of
Tiberius on the left. Constantine is shown in this bas-relief addressing
the people from the rostra.
[Sidenote: The Carcer.]
Under the church of S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami, which stands near the Arch
of Severus, are two chambers, which are always shown as the ancient prison
of Rome, said to have been first built by the King Ancus Martius, and then
rebuilt or enlarged by Servius Tullius. The upper of these two chambers is
of an irregular shape, but the lower is constructed in a conical form by
the gradual projection of the stones forming the sides. This mode of
building an arch is of very early date, before the introduction of the
principle of the round arch, and is found in the oldest tombs of Etruria,
and in well-houses at Tusculum and Cære.[63]
There can be no doubt that this part of the building is of great
antiquity. But the proofs that it ever formed a prison are not so clear.
This has been inferred from the striking account of the imprisonment of
Jugurtha by Sallust, who states that Jugurtha was placed in a cell with
water at the bottom, and exclaimed, “Hercules, how cold your bath is!”
Hence it has been thought that the prison must have had water in it, as
this chamber has on the floor.
Another proof that this is the ancient prison, called in the middle ages
the Mamertine prison, from a statue of Mars or Mamers, or from the Forum
Martis near it, has been derived from the statements of many Roman
authors, who place the prison on the slope of the Capitol, near the Forum,
and speak of an inferior as well as a superior chamber. The prison was
probably in this neighbourhood, but the shape of the conical vault is
rather that of a well-house. Mommsen has therefore suggested that this was
the original purpose of the lower chamber, and that it was used as a
cistern for collecting the water from the surrounding slopes. The top of
the ancient conical vault is truncated and closed, with the exception of a
round hole, by slabs of stone fastened together with iron cramps.
A communication with the arched sewers which run down to the Forum, and
also with an archway which reaches up the slope to some large chambers on
the north-west under the Vicolo del Ghettarello, has been opened by Mr.
Parker, and these longer vaulted chambers which are of great antiquity,
have been taken to be extensions of the original regal prison. But there
is no sufficient evidence to show that these arched passages were used for
any purpose of transit, and they were more probably channels for draining
off the water, which would otherwise have accumulated in the chambers or
on the slopes.[64]
An inscription is fixed in the outer wall, recording a restoration of the
building by the Consuls C. Vibius Rufinus and M. Cocceius Nerva, as
ordered by a decree of the Senate. These two men were consules suffecti
before A.D. 24, probably in A.D. 22, the ninth year of Tiberius. But the
name of the building is not mentioned in this inscription, and it seems
uncertain whether it has not been removed from elsewhere.
There was another and larger prison in this district, and this larger
prison was called the Lautumiæ. Forty-three Ætolian prisoners are said by
Livy to have been crucified in the Lautumiæ, which must therefore have
been certainly much more extensive than the cell which is called the
Carcer Mamertinus. Seneca also mentions the request of a prisoner, Julius
Sabinus, that he might be removed from the Carcer to the Lautumiæ.[65]
There seems, therefore, to be no distinct proof that the conical cell was
ever anything more than a water tank, and the name of prison which has
been attached to it is probably a mediæval legend invented to indicate a
spot which might be venerated as the prison of St. Peter.
[Sidenote: Tabularium.]
On the side of the Capitoline Hill towards the Forum, a very high and wide
mass of building, now called the Palace of the Senator, and used for the
transaction of urban business, stands. This is founded upon an ancient
range of masonry of which a considerable part still remains, measuring
about 220 feet in length, and 50 feet in height. An entrance has been made
from the Via del Campidoglio, and as the wall was cut through for this
purpose, the structure of the building may be best observed here. On the
inner side red tufa has been used, and on the outer grey peperino, and the
blocks are laid alternately lengthwise and crosswise, as in the Servian
wall building. A great mass of masonry of this sort without cement, forms
the main substructions of the building. Along the front run the traces of
an arcaded passage, which anciently led across from one side to the other
of the building. The arches were walled up by Nicolas V., in order to bear
modern buildings above them. One has now been opened to show the
architecture. A pavement of basaltic lava, such as was used in the streets
of ancient Rome, has been found in the arcade, showing that it was a
public passage. The architecture of the building is Doric, which points to
an early date, and the capitals and cornice are of travertine. It is
probable that another arcade ran above the one now traceable. A high
flight of steps leads up into the chambers from the archway now walled up
at the back of the Temple of Vespasian. From the architecture it may be
concluded that these remains of a large ancient building date from the
republican times of Rome, and are almost the only relics of that era. This
ruin is generally called the Tabularium, but it has been shown by Mommsen
that there is no ground for supposing that the name was ever applied to it
in any ancient writings, and that the name is more properly Ærarium Populi
Romani, or Ærarium Saturni, and that it was attached to the Temple of
Saturn. Many of the temples in Rome had æraria attached to them, and it
does not appear that any central place of deposit ever had the name of
Tabularium alone, without further title, especially applied to it. The
inscription which has been placed at the entrance, and records the
construction of some building, or part of a building by Q. Lutatius
Catulus, when consul, was placed where it now stands by Canina. It is
supposed by Mommsen to refer to the repairs and alterations of the vaults
under the Capitol, which were carried out in pursuance of Sulla’s plan of
improvements on the Capitol, and after Sulla’s death were continued for
many years by Q. Catulus.[66]
CHAPTER III.
THE COLISEUM AND ESQUILINE.
[Sidenote: Meta Sudans.]
On the road from the Forum Romanum to the Coliseum, after passing through
the Arch of Titus, we descend between the platform and ruins of the Temple
of Venus and Rome, and the remains called the lavacrum of Heliogabalus,
mentioned previously, and, close to the south-western corner of the mass
of substruction on the left, we find a conical column of brickwork about
thirty feet high. A large breach on the side towards the Coliseum shows
that the centre was pierced with a perpendicular pipe, and the eastern
exhibits traces of having been divided into three ledges or stages. This
conical building stood in the centre of a circular basin, the ruin of
which has been traced out and restored. The shape would of itself point to
the purpose which this building served, even if this were not rendered
clear by the remains of a watercourse which descended to it from the
Esquiline. The name Meta Sudans by which the ruin is known comes from the
mediæval list of buildings known as the Curiosum Urbis, but the earliest
authentic authority to which we can appeal for its date is a coin of
Alexander Severus, A.D. 222. The passage of Seneca in which he gives the
name Meta Sudans as being a spot at which the flute-players and trumpeters
made a din by their practice, does not give us any information as to its
position, and therefore we are not justified in assuming that the fountain
was erected in Nero’s time.[67] The coins of Titus which represent the
Coliseum do not show it. Cassiodorus and other chronologists place the
date of the Meta Sudans in Domitian’s reign, and this agrees with the
coins of Titus and also with the nature of the brickwork, which is of the
Flavian era.
[Sidenote: Arch of Constantine.]
Near the Meta Sudans at the entrance of the Via di S. Gregorio stands the
Arch of Constantine, which is the most completely preserved of all ancient
Roman buildings. The name of Constantine, revered by subsequent ages,
seems to have defended the archway from the barbarous spoliation which
attacked most of the great monuments of Rome. The most interesting feature
of this arch in the history of art is the proof which it gives of the
decline of art in the fourth century. Some of the reliefs with which it is
ornamented were taken from an older arch, probably that which formed the
entrance to Trajan’s Forum, and those which are of Constantine’s time show
a coarse and harsh style of execution in lamentable contrast to the
flowing and delicate lines of the more ancient work by their side.
Among the sculptures which belong to the earlier and better period are the
large reliefs under the central arch and those which are placed on either
end of the attica. These four were originally parts of a larger relief
which has been sawn into four equal pieces for the purpose of adorning
Constantine’s arch. The order in which they stood in the original design
has been pointed out by Bellori. The first part is that now placed on the
inside of the middle archway towards the Coliseum, the second stands on
the side of the attica over the arch towards the Cælian, the third on the
inside of the middle archway towards the Palatine, and the fourth upon the
attica on the same side. When united they represented Trajan crowned by
Victory, with the goddess Roma standing near, a battle between Dacians and
Romans, ending in the defeat and submission of the barbarian army. The
dress of the Roman soldiers and of the Dacians is similar to that
represented on Trajan’s column, and quite different from the Roman
military habit in the age of Constantine. Beside these four rectangular
reliefs the eight circular sculptures which stand over the smaller
archways belong to the time of Trajan. They represent hunting scenes and
sacrificial ceremonies. One of them, the second from the left, upon the
side towards the Coliseum, has a remarkable figure of the Emperor with a
nimbus or cloud encircling his head, exactly similar to those represented
round the heads of modern saints. The eight large reliefs upon the attica
over the side archways are also of the workmanship of Trajan’s time, and
commemorate some of the exploits of that emperor, among which may be
mentioned the construction of a road through the Pontine marshes
represented upon the second relief from the left on the side of the attica
towards the Coliseum. The reclining figure with a wheel represents the
road, and the other figures the surveyors, one of which is perhaps
Apollodorus, the famous Greek architect of Damascus. The other reliefs
upon the sides of the attica represent interviews of Trajan with barbarian
princes, and the common sacrifice of the Suovetaurilia, so frequently
depicted on the reliefs of the columns of that emperor, and also on the
large marble screens now standing in the Forum Romanum. The remainder of
the sculptures belong to the Constantinian era, and contain, viewed as
works of art, nothing worth attention. One of them on the side next to the
Coliseum is, however, of great interest to the antiquarian, as it
represents the rostra of the later Empire and the northern end of the
Forum, with the arches of Severus and Tiberius, and the end of the
Basilica Julia, and another, on the side towards the Via di S. Gregorio
representing the victory of Constantino over Maxentius at the Milvian
bridge, is historically valuable.
The figures which stand in front of the attica have the Dacian costume,
and have been removed from some one of Trajan’s buildings. Upon the side
of the central archway can be still seen the traces of nails which
fastened some Roman ensigns to the stones. Similar traces of nails are to
be seen upon the arch of Severus as before mentioned.
The inscriptions over the smaller arches refer to the decennalia or
vicennalia, a festival celebrated after the time of Augustus every ten
years of an emperor’s reign when he was supposed to have the imperium
conferred upon him afresh. The meaning of the expression VOTIS X. VOTIS
XX. seems to be that these inscriptions were put up on the “vota” or day
when vows were made for the emperor’s safety at the beginning of the tenth
and twentieth years of his reign. This is not an uncommon signification of
the word “vota” in later Latin. The day which was usually called vota was
either the first or third of January, and the custom of offering these
vows was retained long after Christianity had been nominally made the
state religion, so that it is not surprising to find it alluded to on
Constantine’s arch.[68] The words on the other side of the arch SIC. X.
SIC. XX. may be interpreted as the form of words used in making vows to
the emperor. “Sic x. annos regnet; sic xx. annos regnet.” “May his reign
last ten years more or twenty years.”
The larger inscription which is cut upon the attica on both sides shows
that the arch was erected in honour of the victory of Constantine over
Maxentius, and the union of the empire under one sovereign. It is not,
however, certain that the arch was built in the first year of
Constantine’s sole reign, for not only do the words INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS
“by inspiration of the Deity,” seem to indicate a more decided leaning to
Christianity than Constantine showed at the beginning of his reign, but
the title of Maximus, which is found in the inscription, does not occur in
the coins of Constantine before the tenth year of his reign.
The solid contents of this arch, as may be seen by ascending the staircase
which is entered by a door at some height from the ground at the end
nearest the Palatine Hill, are mainly composed of pieces of marble taken
from other buildings, and it has even been suspected that the plan itself,
which in beauty of proportion surpasses the Arch of Severus, was borrowed,
together with the materials, from Trajan’s Arch or some older building now
destroyed.
[Illustration: The Coliseum, from the Palatine Hill.]
[Sidenote: The Coliseum.]
We now pass from the Arch of Constantine, with its borrowed ornamentation,
to the great ruin of Rome, the Coliseum, or Flavian Amphitheatre. Although
two-thirds of the original building have disappeared under the shameful
treatment to which the barbarous nobles of the middle ages subjected it,
enough still remains to show the arrangement of the entrances, passages,
and seats of this wonderful construction. The plan of the whole may be
best described as consisting of three principal massive concentric
elliptical arcades. The intervals between each of these are filled in
with other arched work containing corridors and staircases, and between
the innermost of these three arcades and the wall which surrounded the
arena was a triple system of substruction supporting the lower parts of
the rows of seats in the amphitheatre. The stone used throughout is
travertine, with the exception of some interior work of brick and
concrete, and some pumice-stone in the arches. The elliptical shape was
probably chosen instead of the circular in imitation of the amphitheatre
of Curio, which was composed of two semicircular theatres with their
stages between them. The name Coliseum was possibly derived from the great
colossal statue of Nero which for a long time stood close to the Flavian
Amphitheatre, and when the real history of the amphitheatre was lost,
would naturally become the most prominent mark by which it could be
designated. This colossal statue was placed originally in the vestibule of
Nero’s Golden Palace, and was 120 feet high, according to Suetonius. The
material was bronze and the artist was Zenodorus. It appears that
Vespasian, and afterwards Hadrian, moved the colossus to make room for
their new buildings, and that it was finally placed upon the massive
pedestal of brickwork which still remains on the north of the Coliseum.
That it actually stood upon this pedestal is shown by a coin of Alexander
Severus, which represents the Coliseum with the colossus close to it. It
is said by Gibbon that the name Coliseum was also given to the
amphitheatre at Capua without reference to a colossal statue. The Capuan
title may, however, have been taken from the Roman.
The major axis of this huge amphitheatre, from one outside wall to the
other, measures 602 feet, the minor 507. The principal outer wall is 157
feet in height, and is divided into four stories.[69] Of these the lowest
stands on a substruction of two steps, and originally consisted of a row
of eighty arches, between which stood half columns of the Doric order.
These outer arches, with the exception of thirty-three archways, have
disappeared. Upon these rests a very simple entablature without any of the
usual peculiarities of the Doric style, and rather belonging to the Ionic,
a mixture of styles not very rare in Rome.[70] The arches are all
numbered. These numbers were probably intended to correspond to those upon
the entrance tickets and rows of seats, in order that the spectators might
find their proper seats with ease. There is a staircase and a vomitorium
corresponding to every four arches, and the vomitoria as well as the
entrance arches were all numbered to prevent confusion. A ticket for the
amphitheatre at Frosinone has been found. It bears an inscription CAN. VI
IN. X. VIII., thus giving the position and number of the seat. The arches
which stood at the extremities of the minor axis were the approaches to
the imperial pavilions. They were ornamented with marble columns and
carved work on the exterior, and led in the interior to a large
withdrawing-room, from which there was a separate passage to the emperor’s
throne (pulvinar) on the podium. On the Esquiline side the imperial
entrance may still be recognised by a slight projection in the
substructions, and by the pillars of white marble lying near it, which
originally stood on each side. The same arrangement was doubtless made on
the Cælian side, where the Emperor Commodus made himself an underground
approach. The other two principal entrances at the extremities of the
major axis lead directly into the arena, and were probably used for the
entry of processions or marching bodies of gladiators, or machines of
various kinds.
The entablature of the first story is surmounted by an attica, with
projections corresponding to the columns below. Above these stand the
arches of the second story, between which half-columns of the Ionic order
are placed. The details of the architecture here are in a very meagre
style, for the spiral lines on the volutes are omitted, and also the usual
toothed ornaments of the entablature. The same remark applies to the third
story, the half-columns of which have Corinthian capitals with the
acanthus foliage very roughly worked. The fourth story has no arches, but
consists of a wall, pierced with larger and smaller square windows placed
alternately, and is decorated with pilasters of the Composite order.
Between each pair of pilasters three consoles project from the wall, and
above these are corresponding niches in the entablature. The purpose of
these was to support the masts upon which the awnings were stretched.
The second and third of the principal concentric walls contain arches
corresponding to those in the outer wall. Corridors run between these
concentric walls, and on the first and second floors of the outer ring,
and the first floor of the inner ring, these circles afford a completely
unobstructed passage all round. The other corridors are blocked up in
parts by various staircases, leading to the upper rows of seats.
Within the third principal concentric arcade the supports of the building
take the form of massive walls, radiating from the centre of the ellipse,
and divided by elliptical corridors into three ranges. Between these
massive walls and in the corridors are the steps and passages leading to
the lower seats of the amphitheatre. The actual seats which were of marble
have been all pilfered for the benefit of the Roman palaces and churches
of the feudal ages, but we can still make out with tolerable certainty the
five principal divisions into which they were separated. The lowest of
these, called the podium, was a platform raised twelve or fifteen feet
above the arena, upon which were placed the chairs of the higher
magistrates and dignitaries. This was protected by railings and nets full
of spikes, and sometimes also by trenches, called euripi, and horizontal
bars of wood or iron which turned freely round, and thus afforded no hold
to the paws of a wild animal.
Above the podium were four different orders of seats, divided by belts of
upright masonry from each other. The first of these consisted of about
twenty rows of seats, and was appropriated to the knights and tribunes,
and other state officers. The upper row of this set was probably at a
height of about ten feet above the top of the arches of the lowest story.
The next ranges of seats between the second and third belt were
appropriated to Roman citizens in general, and held the greatest number of
spectators.
The wall dividing these seats from the next set was very high, and
contained, besides the vomitoria or entrance doors, a number of windows
for the purpose of lighting the corridors and passages. A considerable
part of this wall is still extant upon the side towards the Esquiline
Hill. Above it ran the third set of seats, occupied by the lower classes
of the people, and above this again, and separated from it by a very low
wall without vomitoria, was the fourth group of seats, immediately under
the windows of the uppermost story, and covered by a portico which ran
round the whole top of the building.[71] The traces of this uppermost row
of seats and of the colonnade which supported the portico may still be
seen on the side towards the Esquiline Hill.
The seats in this part seem to have been partly appropriated to women,
partly to the lower classes. On the roof of the portico stood the workmen
whose business it was to manage the awnings, and to move them as the sun
or rain required. The number of seats in the whole amphitheatre is said to
have been 87,000, and a considerable number, in addition to these, could
stand in the passages between the seats at the entrances of the vomitoria,
and in other vacant places, so that the whole number which the building,
when filled from top to bottom, could hold, was probably not less than
90,000.
The exterior arcade of the building diminishes in thickness towards the
top, in order to render it more stable, and while the Doric and Ionic
columns of the first and second stories stand out from the wall by nearly
three-quarters of their circumference, the third row of Corinthian columns
projects less, and the uppermost row are merely pilasters.
Much discussion has been raised on the question of the awnings or
_velaria_ required for so large a space. It is impossible of course, in
the absence of any distinct contemporaneous description, to discover the
exact mode of suspension adopted. Venuti supposes that a net of cords
constructed like a spider’s web, with both radiating and concentric ropes,
was suspended over the amphitheatre, and that by pulleys arranged over
this the vela were drawn across any part which happened to be exposed to
the sun. By means of pulleys attached to this network of rope, the little
boys mentioned by Juvenal as caught up to the awnings may have been drawn
up. The ropes and pulleys, we are told by Lampridius, were managed by
sailors. In rough and windy weather the awnings could not always be drawn,
and umbrellas coloured according to the favourite’s colours, or large
broad-brimmed hats called causiæ or birri, were then used. Martial has
written some amusing epigrams, showing how jealously the seats
appropriated to any particular privileged order were reserved. He gives
the names of Lectius and Oceanus to the boxkeepers of his time, who chased
intruders from the seats to which they were not entitled. And he describes
with great humour the attempts of a certain Nanneius to smuggle himself
into a better place than he was entitled to. The pickpockets of Martial’s
time also frequented the amphitheatre.
The anxiety of the public to attend the shows was so great that they
occupied the free seats in the amphitheatre before dawn in the morning,
and gave fees to the officials to keep places for them, when any favourite
gladiator or bestiarius was announced to perform. The shows lasted whole
days, and hence various contrivances for keeping the spectators in good
humour, and filling up the intervals between the combats. Seneca tells us
of the meridiani, a class of slaves who were kept on purpose to fill up
the midday leisure hours with sham fights, and ludicrous pranks played
upon the bodies of those killed or half killed in the previous fights. The
air was cooled with immense jets of water projected from the centre of the
arena, or from holes in the statues, and scented with fragrant essences,
among which extract of saffron mixed with wine seems to have been the most
popular.
The _arena_ of the Coliseum was originally about 250 feet in length, and
150 feet in breadth. It seems now much larger on account of the removal of
the wall of the podium. The attention which has been drawn to the arena
during the last few years by the re-opening of the hypogæa, or
subterranean passages, renders it necessary to allude to the subject of
these hypogæa, and to estimate how far the recent excavations have thrown
new light upon the history and construction of the great amphitheatre.
When the French occupied Rome, and it was incorporated into their empire
in the four years preceding the Battle of Waterloo, the French Government
carried out considerable excavations in the arena of the Coliseum, and
besides clearing the podium and the chambers annexed to it, they opened
the cryptoporticus which runs underground towards the Cælian Hill, and
also discovered the passages beneath the arena which have been now
excavated again.
A great controversy was raised at that time as to the real level of the
original arena between several of the archæological professors and
antiquarians of Rome. The same controversy has now been again revived, and
the same questions as to the probable date of the underground
constructions have been again raised, but with as little hope as ever of
arriving at a satisfactory solution. The truth seems to be that, as in
most amphitheatres, these hypogæa were constructed at the very first
erection of the Coliseum, but have been altered, neglected, filled up, and
again cleared out many times during the eventful history of the building,
and that it has now become impossible to trace the various stages of such
destructions and restorations. As often as the drains which were intended
to carry off the water became choked and failed to act, these lower
chambers and passages were filled with water and rendered useless.
The French excavations conducted till the early part of this century,
1810-1814, showed the general character of the chambers and passages under
the arena. They consist of one central passage which extends under the
arena from end to end in the line of the major axis of the ellipse.
Parallel to this there are four narrower rectilineal passages on each side
connected with each other by archways and surrounding these are three
curved passages following the elliptical curves of the sides of the
amphitheatre. The material of which these walls were originally built was
great blocks of travertine similar to those in the surrounding
construction of the amphitheatre, but they have been patched and propped
in many places with tufa stones and brick, and now present a strange
miscellaneous mass of masonry. These underground passages are similar to
those found under the arena at Pozzuoli and Capua. It would seem that they
must have been necessary, in addition to the chambers under the staircases
of the building, for keeping wild beasts in large numbers, or for
marshalling and arranging the long processions which were sometimes
exhibited in the arena, or for other unusual exhibitions requiring more
room for preparation than could be otherwise afforded. In the amphitheatre
at Verona the passages under the arena seem to have served the purpose of
drains, as they are much less extensive than those under the Coliseum, and
are apparently connected with the channels which conducted the rain-water
from the upper part. The same is the case with those at Pola in Istria,
but at Pozzuoli and at Capua the hypogæa are of a similar character to
those in the Coliseum, and were evidently used in connection with the
exhibitions on the arena.
The excavations of 1810-14 do not seem to have been carried deep enough to
show the floor of the hypogæa, and among the principal new objects of
antiquarian interest discovered by the recent operations have been some
large blocks of travertine sunk in the floor of the passages, and pierced
in their centre with large round holes. These holes have evidently been
the sockets into which upright posts of some kind were fixed. In some of
these sockets a metal lining still remains, and in one of them the remains
of a wooden post are said to have been found. Many conjectures as to the
purpose of these sockets have been hazarded. They have been imagined to be
the points on which revolving doors turned, or the holes into which posts
for chaining wild beasts were fixed, or the capstans for the purpose of
winding the ropes attached to stage machines. The explanation which
appears to me to be the most probable is that they were used for the
erection of temporary wooden posts in the same way in which at the present
time such movable posts are used in some of the doorways of large houses
in Rome, to divide the doorway temporarily into two distinct passages, by
attaching a rope to the posts. When long processions had to be marched
across the arena it would be necessary, if they were marshalled below, to
have the course of the entering processionists and of those returning kept
apart by some such device as that of a rope stretched between posts of
this kind.
A large wooden framework has been found in the central passage, blackened
by long exposure to the water. This seems to have been a contrivance for
making an inclined plane on which heavy machines could be dragged up from
below.
Another discovery which has been made is that of two cryptoportici, one of
which extends towards the Esquiline and the Thermæ of Titus, and the other
opens out from under the eastern end of the longer axis of the Coliseum. A
few graffiti of interest representing gladiatorial figures, and some
fragments of inscriptions relating to restorations of the building, or to
the munificence of those who indulged the public with amphitheatrical
exhibitions, have also been found.
The mode in which the naval contests mentioned by Dion as having been
exhibited in the Coliseum were conducted, cannot be stated with any
certainty. They were given by Titus at the dedication of the building and
probably before its completion, so that the space now occupied by the
hypogæa may then have been filled with water previously to the
construction of the dividing walls.
Perhaps no building of ancient Rome is so strikingly characteristic of the
builder, and the age in which he lived as the Flavian amphitheatre.
Vespasian is described by historians, and represented on coins, and in
extant sculptures, as a thick-set, square-shouldered man, with a short
neck, small eyes, strongly marked but coarse features wearing an
expression of effort. He cared little for the elegancies of life, and was
plebeian in his tastes, and regardless of appearances, but set a high
value on manliness and obstinate, unflinching endurance.
During his reign the prevalent feeling in the Roman nation was that of a
worn-out and repentant prodigal. Sick of the frivolity and wanton
debauchery of the Neronian age, yet unable to return to the ascetic
simplicity of primitive times, men adored, for want of a better idol, the
blunt honesty and coarse strength of the Flavians. What if their emperor
wished that his courtiers should smell of garlic rather than of perfumery,
if in his contempt for speculative genius he dubbed the agitating
philosophers of his day “barking curs.”[72] Yet he stood before them as a
proof that the stern old vigour of the national character was not yet
extinct, and that the profligate effeminacy of the previous generation had
not yet rotted the Roman character to its core. The same massive power of
endurance, yet ponderous and vulgar character, belongs to the architecture
of the Coliseum. It exhibits a neglect, almost a contempt for elegance of
proportion. The upper tiers are as heavy and solid as the lower. Its
arcades are massive, practical, built to last for ages; the full,
elaborate details of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, in which an artistic
eye usually finds so much pleasure, are merely hinted at as superfluous.
Doubtless as we now see it, the ruin is far more effective than the
complete building can ever have been. For when complete the appearance of
the Coliseum must have been heavy and oppressive. The enormous unrelieved,
flat surface of the upper wall must have seemed ready to topple over or to
crush the arcade below. But now that earthquakes and barbarous hands have
made such ghastly rents in its sides, the outline has become more varied,
and the base more proportioned to the superstructure, so that although we
can still recognise the flavour of a somewhat vulgar and material age, yet
all that would have offended the eye has been removed, and the historical
memories which cluster around its walls, of mighty emperors and
blood-thirsty mobs, of screams of death or triumph, of gorgeous pageants
and heroic martyrdoms, combine to render the Coliseum in its decay the
most imposing ruin in the whole world.
Two architectural merits have been pointed out in the Coliseum, the
impression of height and size conveyed by the tiers of arches rising one
above another, and the graceful curves produced by the continuous lines of
the entablatures as they cross the building. But what the Roman emperor
under whose auspices this great building was raised would doubtless have
valued more than any elegancies of design which could have been pointed
out to him, is the perfect adaptation of the structure to its purposes.
After the great catastrophe at Fidenæ where 20,000 persons were injured or
killed by the breaking down of a wooden amphitheatre, solidity and safety
were the principal requisites. Free ingress and egress for crowds of
spectators, as well as for any great personages who might attend, was
indispensable. A glance at the plan of the Coliseum will show how
admirably each of these objects was attained. The extraordinary solidity
of the building removed all possibility of the failure of any part to bear
whatever weight might be heaped upon it, and the entrances, galleries and
vomitoria were by the oval form of the building rendered so numerous that
each seat in the whole cavea was accessible at once and without
difficulty. A system of carefully arranged barriers in the passages would
effectually prevent confusion and excessive crowding.
In endeavouring to adorn the great amphitheatre of the metropolis more
richly than those of the provinces its architect defeated his own object.
Some of the provincial amphitheatres, as that of Capua, though in other
respects like the Coliseum, show a simpler and therefore more natural
exterior. When the Doric order is retained in all the tiers, it harmonises
far better with the rude strength of such an edifice than the Corinthian
and Ionic orders of the Coliseum. At Verona and Pola a still further
improvement is made by the rustication of the exterior. At Nismes, on the
other hand, the faults of the Coliseum are aggravated by breaking the
entablatures, and introducing pediments over each front; and in the small
Amphitheatrum Castrense at Rome, where the Corinthian order is executed
in brick, a lamentable illustration of Roman want of taste is exhibited.
[Illustration: MONS OPPIUS. After Palladio and Canina.]
The holes which are now so conspicuous in the travertine blocks of the
exterior wall of the Coliseum were probably made in the middle ages to
extract the iron clamps by which the stones were fastened together. Some
antiquarians have however held that they are the holes in which the beams
of the buildings which clustered round the Coliseum in mediæval times were
fixed. At the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the travertine blocks of the amphitheatre were used as a quarry
from which to build palaces, and it is said that the Palazzo di Venezia,
the Palazzo Farnese, and the Palazzo della Cancelleria were constructed of
the stone robbed from hence. During part of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries a castle of the powerful family of the Frangipani, which
afterwards belonged to the Annibaldi stood in the walls of the Coliseum.
Later generations of nobles and popes since the beginning of the
nineteenth century have propped the building by buttresses of brickwork,
and have endeavoured to postpone the date foretold by two Anglo-Saxon
pilgrims as that of the fall of Rome. “When the Coliseum falls, Rome will
fall.”[73]
[Sidenote: Aurea Domus of Nero. Baths of Titus.]
The Coliseum was built by Vespasian in a depression between the Cælian and
Esquiline Hills, which had been occupied by a large lake of ornamental
water, called the Stagnum Neronis, used by Nero for aquarian
entertainments and exhibitions. The vast palace known as the Domus Aurea
Neronis extended along the side of the Esquiline on the north of the
Coliseum. The Flavian emperors destroyed this palace, and Titus built a
new group of courts and chambers over the ruins. The relics of these
buildings of Titus are now remaining mingled with the substructures and
lower parts of the Domus Aurea which they superseded. They are entered by
a gateway on the road leading from the Coliseum to S. Pietro in Vincoli.
So far as we can draw any conclusion from the fragmentary and confused
piles of ruins now left, and from the plan which Palladio sketched at a
time when the remains of the palace had not so completely disappeared, it
seems that this part of Nero’s palace consisted of a long straight façade
of buildings extending along the slope of the Esquiline from east to west
in the direction marked on the plan (A-B). In front of this there seems to
have been a projecting court surrounded by small chambers (C-D). A few of
these still remain at the western end, and are used as a dwelling-house
for the custode. Behind the above-mentioned façade were numerous rooms of
various kinds, and courts surrounded with colonnades. One of these courts
with its adjacent corridors and apartments is now partly accessible (E,
F), but the greater part were filled in with rubbish when the baths of
Titus were built over them, and have never been entirely cleared. In the
centre of this court the remains of a fountain-basin and a pedestal may be
seen. The area is now traversed by parallel walls built by Titus to serve
as substructions to his Thermæ. These are indicated on the plan by the
dotted lines in black.
All the rooms in this part which are now accessible have arched roofs, and
are covered with decorative paintings. Fortunately a great number of these
have been preserved to us by artists who copied them before they were
destroyed by damp and the soot of the cicerone’s torch. At the present
time scarcely enough remains to show the beauty and delicacy of the
designs. The best preserved paintings are in the long north corridor,
where is also an inscription illustrating Persius, Sat. i. 113:
“Pinge duos angues: pueri, sacer est locus, extra
Mejite.”
The two snakes were symbolic of the Lares Compitales, and are common at
Pompeii. Raphael adopted the same style of ornamentation as that preserved
here in the Loggie of the Vatican. The rooms now shown, which contain a
bath and other household apparatus, apparently belonged to a private
house, and may either have formed a part of the Aurea Domus, or of some
house built on its site at the time immediately following Nero’s death.
The eleven rooms (F) which occupied the north side of the court (E)
contain traces of wooden staircases leading to an upper story. The
decorations and fittings of these appear to have been so inferior to those
of the other rooms, that we must suppose them to have been occupied by the
imperial slaves, or by the household troops. At the northern end of this
row of chambers is a room with mosaic pavement at a considerably lower
level than those surrounding it, and which must therefore have belonged to
some building earlier in date than the Domus Aurea. It is sometimes called
a part of the House of Mæcenas, but there is no authority for this, and it
is more probable that the House of Mæcenas stood nearer to the Agger of
Servius.
[Sidenote: Sette Sale.]
Another portion of the Domus Aurea is still visible at the SETTE SALE, a
large brick building lying in a vineyard to the left of the Via delle
Sette Sale. The purpose of this was plainly to serve as a reservoir for
water, and it is shown to have belonged to the Domus Aurea, and not to the
Thermæ of Titus, by the correspondence of its position with the
ground-plan of the former. It may have been afterwards used in connection
with the Thermæ, and was possibly preserved with that view, while the rest
of the palace was destroyed or buried. The peculiar construction of the
interior, which is divided into nine compartments, communicating with each
other by openings--not placed opposite to each other, but in a slanting
direction across the building--is said to have been so arranged in order
to prevent the heavy mass of water from bursting open the sides of the
building. The group of the Laocöon was found near the Sette Sale, and it
is supposed that the state-rooms of Titus may have contained that group of
statues.
[Sidenote: Thermæ or Baths of Titus.]
Returning to the ruins of the Baths of Titus near the Coliseum it may be
observed that these Thermæ were connected with the Coliseum by a portico,
traces of which can still be seen on the north side of the amphitheatre.
The arrangement of the building corresponded in some degree to that of the
Baths of Caracalla, consisting apparently of a large square court
surrounded by various offices and places for recreation, in the centre of
which stood a vast mass of building containing the bath-rooms. The sides
of this court were not parallel to any lines of building in the Domus
Aurea, and, therefore, in order to form a level area many new
substructions had to be erected. This is plainly the case with the theatre
(A), which occupied the centre of the side towards the Coliseum. In order
to raise this to the level of the rest of the area, the nine huge arched
chambers, which are now a most conspicuous part of the ruins, were
erected, and one of the courtyards of the Domus Aurea was filled, as we
have seen, with parallel walls of brickwork. On each side of the theatre
there were probably gymnasia, libraries, or ball courts (B B). The central
building was occupied with the frigidarium and tepidarium, and the other
usual adjuncts of a large Roman bath (C C C).
The catalogue called the ‘Curiosum urbis Romæ’ places not only the Baths
of Titus but also those of Trajan in the third region. The anonymous MS.
of Einsiedlen places Trajani Thermæ near the Church of S. Pietro in
Vincoli; and Anastasius in his ‘Life of Symmachus,’ mentions them as near
the Church of S. Martino. It is, therefore, abundantly proved that the
Thermæ of Trajan stood at the back of the Baths of Titus, and it is here
that we find them placed in the plan of Palladio. That they were distinct
buildings seems clear from an inscription in which they are separately
mentioned. A satisfactory explanation of the apparently strange fact that
Trajan erected new and smaller Thermæ near those of Titus is given by one
of the chronologers of the period, who speaks of the Baths of Trajan as
intended for women, for whom there was no separate accommodation provided
in those of Titus. The scattered ruins to the north of the Baths of Titus
may have belonged to Trajan’s Baths.
On the Esquiline Hill, besides the Baths of Titus, the Domus Aurea, and
the Sette Sale, we find four remarkable ruins, which are called the
Trophies of Marius, the Arch of Gallienus, the Minerva Medica, and the
Auditorium of Mæcenas.
[Sidenote: Trophies of Marius.]
The ruin called the Trophies of Marius stands at the corner of the Via di
S. Bibiana. It consists in the lower part of a number of small and
curiously shaped compartments of brickwork, with openings at seven or
eight different points. Underneath these, and now hidden under the level
of the ground, is a large basin or tank, and above them the upper part of
the building is formed by the remains of three niches, in which stood the
marble trophies now placed upon the balustrade of the steps of the
Capitol. They were removed to the Capitol by Sixtus V. in the year 1585.
The name Trophies of Marius is an attempt to explain the more ancient name
of Cimbrum, which we find attached to the ruin in the middle ages, by
identifying the trophies with the Tropæa Marii mentioned by Suetonius as
having been pulled down by Sulla and restored by Julius Cæsar.[74] But
although we must allow that there is some probability in the supposition
that the Marian trophies may have occupied these niches, yet it is certain
that the building itself was intended to serve another purpose, that of
the castellum or principal reservoir of an aqueduct, with a public
fountain in the form of a cascade in front. The basin which has been
discovered under the building, and the peculiar shape of the complicated
interior structure, can be best explained thus, and the remains of some
part of the aqueduct itself may be seen at the back. It was at one time
supposed that the Aqua Julia ended here but it is now generally
acknowledged that the ruin belonged to the Aqua Alexandrina, and that the
name Nymphæum Alexandri, found in the catalogues of the fifth region, must
be assigned to it. The Alexandrine Aqueduct was built by Alexander Severus
in the year A.D. 225. Water was brought to Rome by means of it from a spot
near the Lake Regillus, and a portion is still visible on the left hand of
the Via Labicana about two miles from Rome. The level of this aqueduct
corresponds exactly with the building in question, and the style of
brickwork and architecture are such as might belong to the third century.
It is possible, as Reber remarks, that Alexander Severus may have found
the exact spot where the Trophies of Marius had been placed by Julius
Cæsar convenient for the castellum of his aqueduct, and have used the
trophies to ornament the new building which he erected.
[Sidenote: Arch of Gallienus.]
Close to the Church of S. Vito, and spanning the Via di S. Vito, stands
the Arch of Gallienus, erected by M. Aurelius Victor, prefect of Rome in
A.D. 262, in honour of the Emperor Gallienus and Empress Salonina. It is
constructed of travertine, and the ornamental work upon it is extremely
simple, consisting only of pilasters crowned by roughly worked Corinthian
capitals, and surmounted by an entablature of the commonest kind. Part of
the basement is buried under the present level of the soil, and from a
sketch by San Gallo of its state in the fifteenth century there appears to
have been a pediment above the entablature, and two smaller archways on
each side. The inscription, which is now hardly legible, is cut upon the
architrave and contains a flattering description of one of the most
singularly accomplished and incapable emperors of Rome, of whom Gibbon
says, “Gallienus was a master of several curious but useless sciences, a
ready orator and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and
most contemptible prince.”[75]
[Sidenote: Minerva Medica.]
In the grounds of the Villa Magnani, which are reached from the Via di S.
Bibiana, are two small Columbaria, one of which formerly contained
inscriptions relating to the family of the Arruntii, and also one which
belonged to Statilius Taurus, a nobleman mentioned by Tacitus. This was
decorated with scenes from the Æneid of Virgil, but these are nearly
destroyed. In the same gardens, not far to the north-west of the Porta
Maggiore, stands a lofty and picturesque ruin, comprising a central
decagonal hall surrounded by four other apartments, the ground-plan of
which has been preserved by San Gallo. The central hall contained nine
deep niches, and the entrance passes through the tenth side. Over the
niches and the entrance archway are round-headed windows, and the roof was
of vaulted brickwork. Traces still remain of stucco work and cement on the
inner walls, from which it appears that they were covered with ornamental
work and in some parts with marble.
Parts of the pavement, which was of porphyry, have also been found, and in
the neighbourhood of the ruin a number of sculptures have been at various
times discovered, among which are statues of Pomona, Æsculapius, Adonis,
Venus, Hercules, Antinous, some Luperci, and a Faun. The old
topographers, Blondus Flavius and Lucius Faunus, give the name of Terme di
Galuccio or Galuzze to the ruin, and this name has been ingeniously
explained as referring to the Thermæ or Basilica of Caius and Lucius. But
there is no good foundation for this conjecture, or for the identification
of the building with the Temple of Minerva Medica, mentioned in the
Notitia. The latter name was derived from the supposed discovery here of
the Pallas Giustiniani, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. But
another and more ancient account asserts that the statue of Pallas was
found near S. Maria sopra Minerva, and therefore the name of Minerva
Medica cannot with any certainty be applied here.
Canina has proposed another explanation of the name Galuzze. He thinks
that the ruins belonged to the Palatium Licinianum, which is mentioned by
Anastasius, in his ‘Life of Simplicius,’ as near the Church of S. Bibiana.
This palace, he thinks, is identical with the Pleasure Gardens of
Gallienus, who bore the name of Licinius, in which, according to
Trebellius Pollio, he used to bathe and banquet with his courtiers. The
name Galuzze is, therefore, according to Canina, derived from Gallieni
Liciniaria, and the building may be supposed to have formed a part of the
baths in Gallienus’s pleasure grounds, resembling as it does in its
construction the great rotunda of the Baths of Caracalla. The proximity of
the Arch of Gallienus adds probability to this conjecture. The basin now
standing in the ruin is not ancient, and therefore cannot be held to
support this conjecture, but the brickwork and style of architecture are
said by competent judges to be such as might have been erected at the time
of the later Empire. The building called Minerva Medica by the Notitia may
have been near this spot, as some inscriptions here discovered show, but
it most probably consisted only of a chapel of no great extent standing
near the Via Prænestina.
The extensive alterations which have been carried on at Rome during the
last few years in the district at the back of the Viminal and Esquiline
Hills, where a new quarter of the city is being laid out, have disclosed a
number of fragments of sculptures and inscriptions, a detailed account of
which has been given from time to time in the _Bullettino della
Commissione Archeologica Municipale_, and in the letters of Mr. Hemans to
the _Academy_. The most interesting relics bearing upon topographical
questions are the inscription relating to the Macellum Liviæ and Forum
Esquilinum found near the Arch of Gallienus, and the supposed foundations
of the Villa of Mæcenas.
Most of the antiquarian and artistic relics lately discovered here have
been deposited in the Capitoline Museum.
Unfortunately the necessary extension of the buildings attached to the
railway station has resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the
Servian Agger. Some large fragments of the huge blocks belonging to the
Servian wall may be seen at the back of the station. Traces of a road and
a gate were found which have been supposed to belong to the Via and Porta
Viminalis, and many confused heaps of ruins, the relics of private houses
built up against the side of the agger. In one of these the bricks bore
the date of the third consulship of Servianus, A.D. 134, and of that of
Niger and Camerinus, A.D. 138.
A Hermeracles in marble was found near the station, which is figured in
the _Bullettino della Commissione_ for March 1873, and numerous mosaic
pavements, one of which is laid on the floor of the waiting-room at the
station.
[Sidenote: Auditorium.]
One of the buildings attached to an ancient house in this neighbourhood
has been carefully preserved and walled in for protection. It stands near
the ruin called the Trophies of Marius, and not far from the Arch of
Gallienus, and consists of a semicircular recess with ledges rising one
above another in the form of a miniature theatre. A more correct
description of the site is given by stating that it stands where the
former gardens of the convent of the Redentoristi were situated. This
building has, on account of its resemblance to a theatre, and of its
position on a spot over which the famous Gardens of Mæcenas probably
extended, been called the Auditorium of Mæcenas, and romantic ideas have
been connected with it as having been the actual auditorium where Virgil
and Horace may have recited their poetry to their great patron. This view,
however, has been shown to be untenable by Signor Mau, who thinks with
more probability that the ruin in question is an ornamental recess for
decorative works of art and flowers or a fountain. Such recesses may be
seen in some of the houses at Pompeii. The paintings on the walls are of a
style similar to those in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, and the
building may therefore possibly belong to the Augustan age.
[Sidenote: Porta S. Lorenzo.]
The inscriptions on the Porta S. Lorenzo at the eastern side of the
Esquiline Hill tell the history of the several gateways here built by
Augustus and other emperors down to Honorius. The aqueducts run along the
walls from this gate to the Porta Maggiore.
[Sidenote: Porta Maggiore.]
[Sidenote: Tomb of Eurysaces.]
The Gateway of Honorius was removed from the Porta Maggiore by Gregory
XVI. as the inscription on the present gate records. The removal of the
old gateway disclosed the Tomb of Eurysaces, a bread contractor, which is
a very fantastic monument, constructed of stone mortars used for kneading
dough, and ornamented with some curious bas-reliefs of a good period of
art, representing the operations of baking. The inscriptions upon it are
as follows: “EST HOC MONIMENTUM MARCEI VERGILEI EURYSACIS PISTORIS AC
REDEMPTORIS APPARETORUM. FUIT ATISTIA UXOR MIHEI FEMINA OPTIMA VEIXIST
QUOJUS CORPORIS RELIQUIÆ QUOD SUPERANT SUNT IN HOC PANARIO.” The latter of
these inscriptions, however, probably belongs to some other tomb, the
remains of several having been found here, which lead to the supposition
that this was a spot especially devoted to the burial of bakers.
The present gateway is formed by two arches of the Claudian Aqueduct,
which runs along the course of the walls from this point to the corner
near the Amphitheatrum Castrense. The arches are built of rusticated
travertino blocks, and each of the piers is pierced with a smaller arch,
decorated with Corinthian half-columns of rustic work and pediments in the
usual Græco-Roman style of a triumphal arch. This gateway is one of the
most characteristic creations of Roman architecture. It conveys more than
any other building I know, except, perhaps, the rusticated archways of the
amphitheatre at Verona, the impression of rough force and solidity. Over
the arches are three atticas, upon which the following inscriptions are
cut, recording the erection and renewal of the Claudian aqueduct by
Claudius, Vespasian, and Titus:
TI. CLAUDIUS DRUSI F. CAISAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS PONTIF. MAXIM. TRIBUNICIA
POTESTATE XII. COS V. IMPERATOR XXVII. PATER PATRIÆ AQUAS CLAUDIAM EX
FONTIBUS QUI VOCABANTUR CÆRULEUS ET CURTIUS A MILLIARIO XXXXV. ITEM
AMERIEM NOVAM A MILLIARIO LXVII. SUA INPENSA IN URBEM PERDUCENDAS CURAVIT.
IMP. CÆSAR VESPASIANUS AUGUST. PONTIF. MAX. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. VI. COS.
III. DESIG. III. P. P. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CÆRULEAM PERDUCTAS A DIVO CLAUDIO
ET POSTEA INTERMISSAS DILAPSASQUE PER ANNOS NOVEM SUA IMPENSA URBI
RESTITUIT.
IMP. T. CÆSAR DIVI F. VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS PONT. MAX. TRIBUNIC. POTEST.
X. IMP. XVII. P. P. CENS. COS. VIII. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CÆRULEAM PERDUCTAS A
DIVO CLAUDIO ET POSTEA A DIVO VESPASIANO PATRE SUO URBI RESTITUTAS CUM A
CAPITE AQUARUM A SOLO VETUSTATE DILAPSÆ ESSENT NOVA FORMA REDUCENDAS SUA
IMPENSA CURAVIT.
[Illustration: THE FORA OF THE CAESARS]
CHAPTER IV.
THE IMPERIAL FORA AND THE CAPITOLIUM.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s Forum.]
[Sidenote: Ruin in the Salita del Grillo.]
The whole space between the Quirinal and the Capitoline Hills was occupied
by the immense Forum and public buildings which Trajan constructed. The
Column of Trajan, with its wonderful spiral reliefs, still marks the site
of this great mass of masonry; but the remainder, which included a
basilica, two libraries, a temple, and two extensive porticoes, has
disappeared with the exception of a fragmentary ruin in the Via della
Salita del Grillo under the Quirinal. This ruin is the remains of a part
of the great semicircular side of Trajan’s Forum under the Quirinal Hill.
It consists of a brick building of two stories high, containing in the
lower story small rooms measuring about ten feet square, probably shops or
offices for notaries and lawyers’ clerks. The interior of three of the
rooms is covered with plaster, and painted roughly. The floors were
covered with mosaic pavement of a common kind, of which much still remains
in situ. Above these rooms runs a corridor with arched windows, at the
back of which a row of large and high chambers opens, resting upon the
natural rock of the Quirinal Hill. The front is faced with brick pilasters
on travertine basements, in a mixed Doric and Ionic style, and there were
formerly pediments over the windows.
It will be seen by reference to the plan that a small portion of the Forum
of Trajan can be now seen in the Piazza della Colonna Trajana. The arch
from which the beautiful bas-reliefs on Constantine’s Arch were robbed,
probably stood in the Via del Priorato at some distance from the Piazza.
The two double rows of bases now to be seen in the Piazza formed a part of
the great Basilica Ulpia, part of the ground-plan of which is still
preserved on two fragments of the Capitoline map. Many fragments are to be
seen here of the columns which supported the roof of the basilica, among
which those of grey granite, probably belonging to the outer rows of
columns, are most conspicuous.
[Sidenote: Column of Trajan.]
The great PILLAR with its well-known spiral bas-reliefs, perhaps the most
interesting and instructive monument of antiquity in Rome, was surrounded
when the buildings round it were complete with a narrow court not more
than forty feet square. The south side of this was formed by the Basilica
Ulpia, the eastern and western by the libraries, and on the north there
was probably an open colonnade, the line of which can be traced leading to
the structures beyond, where stood the temple dedicated to Trajan. Thus we
discover a fact which seems at first somewhat surprising, that the pillar
could not be viewed in its full height from any side, and that the upper
part of it alone was visible from the Forum over the roof of the basilica.
That it was intentionally thus enclosed is evident, for had the Greek
architect Apollodorus of Damascus, who designed the Forum, wished it to be
where the full colossal proportions could be seen, the open space of the
Forum was close at hand, in the centre of which it might have been placed.
But it is not unlikely that the sight of a column was almost inseparable
in the Greek architectural ideas from an entablature and pediment. The
Greeks did not place their statues on the top of columns, and probably had
this reason for it, that a single column cannot form a whole by itself,
and wears a forsaken and deserted aspect when viewed from any distance. An
obelisk conveys a different meaning, and the use of a single column cannot
be justified by it. The obelisk tapers upwards and completes itself, but a
column instantly brings the idea of support with it. Obelisks, moreover,
were never used singly by the Egyptians, but always placed in pairs. The
intention of the architect was not that the column should be viewed as we
now view it, as a whole, but that the colossal statue of the emperor might
be raised on high above his splendid group of buildings, and also that the
bas-reliefs should be conveniently viewed from the surrounding galleries.
[Illustration: The Column of Trajan.]
The height of the column is 124 feet from the pavement to the foot of the
statue. It stands upon a pedestal of marble eighteen feet high,
ornamented on three sides with highly interesting bas-reliefs representing
trophies of Roman and Dacian armour of various kinds, the Roman labarum
and the Dacian dragon, coats of mail made of scale or chain armour,
helmets, curved and straight swords, axes, clubs, bows, quivers, arrows,
lances, trumpets, and several kinds of military tools. On the fourth side
two genii bear the tablet on which is the inscription: SENATUS POPULUSQUE
ROMANUS IMP. CAESARI DIVI NERVAE F. NERVAE TRAJANO AUG. GERM. DACICO
PONTIF. MAXIMO TRIB. POT. XII. IMP. VI. PP. AD DECLARANDUM QUANTAE
ALTITUDINIS MONS ET LOCUS TANT[is operi]BUS SIT EGESTUS.
The last words of this inscription are illustrated by a passage of Dion
Cassius, who says that Trajan placed a colossal pillar in his Forum to be
his own tomb, and also to show the amount of labour expended upon the
Forum, the slope of the hill which previously occupied the site having
been dug away so as to afford a level space for the Forum. There is no
need to interpret this, as some writers have done, to mean that the ground
on the spot where the column stands had previously been as high as the top
of the column. Such an interpretation seems highly improbable. The view
taken by Becker and Brocchi is more tenable, that the words allude to the
cutting away of the Quirinal Hill, which was steep and inaccessible before
but was sloped away to a point on the side of the hill as high as the top
of the column. Brocchi’s geological observations have made it almost
certain that the ground has not been cut away to any great depth between
the two hills.
The top of the column is only six feet lower than the level of the Villa
Aldobrandini on the top of the Quirinal, and two feet higher than the
Piazza di Ara Cœli. If, therefore, at any time the ground on the site of
Trajan’s Forum was as high as the column, it must have formed a ridge
between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills, higher than the Capitoline and
very nearly as high as the Quirinal.
In the base of the column the ashes of Trajan were deposited in a golden
urn. Sixtus V. had the chamber in which the urn was placed opened, but
found it empty, and it has now been walled up.
Above the pedestal are two flat stones ornamented with garlands of oak
leaves, and upon them rests a round base carved in the shape of a laurel
wreath. The shaft which stands immediately upon this is composed of
nineteen cylindrical blocks of marble, on the outside of which a spiral
band of beautifully executed bas-reliefs winds from bottom to top,
covering the whole shaft. The capital is a single ring of egg-shaped
ornaments with arrowheads between them, and a simple border below. On a
pedestal above it stood originally the colossal bronze-gilt statue of
Trajan. This statue and pedestal were probably carried off during the
robberies committed at Rome by the Byzantine emperors, A.D. 663. Sixtus V.
replaced it by a modern cylindrical pedestal and statue of S. Peter. The
ancient winding staircase hewn in the solid blocks of marble, and lighted
by narrow openings, still leads to the top. From thence it may be seen how
difficult it is to suppose that the ground ever rose to such a height
between the Capitoline and Quirinal as has been imagined by many
historians and topographers.
[Sidenote: Bas-reliefs representing scenes in the Dacian wars.]
The magnificent wreath of bas-reliefs which winds round the shaft may be
best studied by means of the model to be seen in the French Academy on the
Pincian Hill, or that in the Kensington Museum. It contains the history of
two campaigns against the Dacians, and has been ingeniously and minutely
interpreted by several writers. A complete account of this marble history
of the Dacian wars, with a discussion of all the historical and
antiquarian points connected with it, would occupy several volumes, and we
must, therefore, content ourselves with noticing the general character of
the work and some few of the more interesting portions.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s first campaign in Dacia.]
Two campaigns are represented. The first of these took place in the year
101, and during it Trajan’s army passed down the river Save and crossed
the Danube in two divisions at Kastolatz and at the confluence of the
Tjerna. The two divisions effected a junction at the pass of the Bistra,
called the Iron Gate, which they forced, and then attacked and took the
royal city Zermizegethusa. Trajan was not satisfied with this success, but
pushed on into the heart of the enemy’s country, and gained a great
victory at Tapæ, after which Decebalus, the Dacian king, sued for peace.
The bas-relief begins at the base by a representation of the banks of the
Save, down which the Roman army passed, and shows military storehouses,
piles of wood, stacks of hay, and wooden huts. Then follow forts with
soldiers on guard, and boats carrying barrels of provisions.
The river god Danube then appears and looks on with astonishment at the
bridge of boats over which the Roman army is passing. The baggage of the
soldiers on the march, tied to the top of the vallum or palisade which
they carry, and the different military standards, are very distinctly
shown. Many of the men are without covering on their heads, but some wear
lions’ skins. The emperor and his staff are then introduced. He is sitting
upon a suggestus or platform, and Lucius, the Prætorian prefect, sits
beside him. The suovetaurilia, a grand sacrificial celebration, is the
next scene, with priests in the Cinctus Gabinus and trumpeters. After this
the emperor is seen making a speech to the army, and a little farther on
the building of a stone encampment enclosing huts is being carried on with
great vigour, and bridges are being thrown across a river, over which
cavalry are passing.
A battle seems then to take place, and the heads of two enemies are being
brought to the emperor. The Dacian army with the dragon ensign and the
Dacian cap, the symbol of superior rank, seen upon the statues of the
Dacian prisoners on the Arch of Constantine, appears. Jupiter gives the
victory to the Romans, the Dacian camp is burnt, and the Dacians fly.
Numerous representations of forts, boats, different kinds of troops,
skirmishes, and sieges follow, ending with the surrender of Decebalus and
the return of Trajan to Rome, where a great festival is celebrated. The
arrival at Rome, and the crowd of Romans going to meet the great
conqueror, are very vividly drawn. An immense number of bulls for
sacrifice, altars, camilli, and half-naked popæ are introduced into the
triumphal rejoicings, and the first campaign ends with the figure of
Trajan offering incense on the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s second campaign in Dacia.]
A somewhat similar series of scenes are represented in the sculptures
which depict the second campaign. Perhaps the most interesting is that of
the great bridge over the Danube, made of wood supported on stone piers,
the foundations of which may still be seen in the bed of the river.
Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, designed this immense work, which
crossed the Danube at a spot where it is not less than 1300 yards wide,
near the village of Gieli. A permanent road into Dacia and secure
communications with his basis of operations having thus been secured,
Trajan gradually advanced from post to post, driving the Dacians into the
mountainous parts of the country. The sculptures represent a number of
skirmishes and assaults upon fortified places, but no regular pitched
battle. At last the ghastly spectacle of the head and hands of Decebalus
is exhibited on a board by two soldiers in front of the Prætorium. This
disgusting scene is followed by a representation of the storming of the
last strongholds of the enemy in the mountains, and a mournful procession
of fugitives carrying away their goods and driving their cattle into exile
forms the close of the sculptured history of the Dacian campaigns of
Trajan.[76]
In these curious bas-reliefs we have a treasury of information on the
religion, the military science, the habits and dress of the Romans of the
Empire far more valuable than ten thousand pages of descriptive writing.
The lover of Roman antiquities will learn more by studying Fabretti’s
engravings of these reliefs, or the casts at the French Academy at Rome,
and at the Kensington Museum, than by much book-labour. The descriptions
of Livy and Polybius, Cæsar and Tacitus, receive life, and movement, and
interest as we look at the actual figures (oculis subjecta fidelibus) of
the general and his staff; the Prætorian guards marked by their belts over
the left shoulder; the fierce-looking standard-bearers and centurions with
their heads covered by lions’ skins, the shaggy manes of which stream down
their backs; the rank and file carrying enormous stakes; the master
masons, sappers, and pioneers, with their axes and crowbars; the lancers,
heavy and light cavalry, and royal chargers; the Sarmatian horsemen,
clothed, both riders and steeds, in complete scale armour, and the Moorish
cavalry, riding without reins.
Bridges are constructed, Roman causeways laid, forts attacked with all
kinds of military engines; the charge of cavalry, the rout and confusion
of a defeated army, are all most vividly depicted. Trajan in person
traverses the ranks on foot, or mounts the suggestus and harangues his
men, or receives with simple dignity the submission of the enemy, or
marches with all the pomp of a Roman procession under the triumphal arch.
The soldierlike simplicity of the great military emperor is strikingly
portrayed. There is no silken tent, or richly decorated chariot, or
throne, or canopy of state to be seen. His colonel of the guards sits
beside him, as an equal, on the suggestus. In the midst of a battle the
emperor tears up his robe to bind the wounds of his soldiers; he is
present everywhere, wearing a sword and fighting in person. Nothing could
be more illustrative of the state of Roman affairs in that iron age when
again, as in the olden times, a rough and unlettered warrior, fresh from
the camp, swayed the destinies of the empire.
In this vast spiral relief there are said to be above 2500 figures of men
sculptured, and the higher they are placed on the column the larger are
their dimensions, showing the care that was taken to counteract the
effects of the increased distance from the eye. The whole of the carving
from base to summit is executed with equally minute care, though the upper
part can never have been easily visible, except from the windows or roofs
of the basilica and the libraries which, as we have seen, were placed very
near. The opinion which prevailed for some time, that the figures had been
coloured, is incorrect, as the more minute examination since made has
proved that the colours imagined to be artificial are the natural results
of the decay of the stone and oxidisation of the metallic parts of the
structure, under the effects of the rain, sun, and dust.
[Sidenote: Remains found on the site.]
A vast number of fragments of columns, of inscriptions, and of
architectural ornaments have been dug up at various times on the site of
Trajan’s Forum. The great granite columns which now lie near the base of
the pillar were found in laying the foundations of the Church of S. Maria
in Loreto, by the architect, the elder San Gallo, and are mentioned as
lying near that church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio,
stands upon a pedestal made by Michael Angelo out of an immense fragment
of entablature found on the site of Trajan’s Forum.
An inscription, which is now built into the wall on the north of the
pillar, commemorates the remission of all debts to the emperor’s private
purse (fiscus) by Hadrian, a fact which we find also mentioned in Dion
Cassius and Spartianus. The latter writer adds that it was in the Forum of
Trajan that Hadrian publicly burnt the list of his debtors, and the
inscription was no doubt intended to mark the spot of this act of
liberality or bribery.
[Sidenote: Ruins of the Forum Julium.]
The ruins of two portions only of the Forum Julium, which adjoined that of
Trajan, have been discovered in modern times. The first is a considerable
part of the outer wall of the Forum, standing in the court of the house
No. 18 in the Via del Ghetarello, a small street which opens out of the
Via di Marforio, near the Carcer and the Church of SS. Martina e Luca.
This ruined wall consists of three arches composed of large blocks of
peperino and travertine skilfully cut and joined without mortar and
under-built by another arch, as if in order to enable the wall to bear a
great weight. The length of the fragment of wall is about 50 feet and the
highest point about 30 feet.
The other relic of Cæsar’s Forum is now no longer visible. We obtain our
information about it from Palladio, the architect, about the middle of the
sixteenth century, who relates that while he was at Rome the ground-plan
of a temple was uncovered in digging the foundations of a house between
the Salita di Marforio and the temple of Mars Ultor, a description which
points plainly to the block of houses behind SS. Martina e Luca. There was
a peculiarity in the inter-columniations of this temple, which Palladio
particularly remarked. The distance between the columns, he says, was the
eleventh part of the diameter of a column less than a diameter and a
half.
[Sidenote: Forum of Augustus. Temple of Mars Ultor.]
The almost universal opinion of Roman topographers now is that the three
Corinthian columns on the left-hand side of the Via Bonella and the
massive arch which leads from it into the Via di Tor di Conti are the
remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which Augustus built in his Forum,
and of the north-eastern portion of the enclosing wall.
This opinion was already held by Palladio in the sixteenth century, but
the Italian antiquaries since his time have adopted the most various
hypotheses on the subject. There is, it is true, no actual proof that this
was the temple of Mars Ultor, but there is strong presumptive evidence
that it was so. The ‘Catalogue of the Curiosum’ places it next to the
Forum Julium in the eighth region. Now the eighth region was bounded on
the east, in this neighbourhood, by the Quirinal Hill and the Via del
Sole, or a street a little to the east of it, and we are tolerably sure
that the forum transitorium filled up a great part of the space between
the temple in question and the above-mentioned street, and that the Forum
Julium intervened between it and the Forum Romanum, while the Forum
Trajani limits the space to the westward within which we can suppose the
Forum Augusti to have been. Thus the only space left in the eighth region
within which the Forum of Augustus can be supposed to have been contained,
is that bounded by the Via della Croce Bianca, the Via del Priorato, and
the Via di Tor di Conti.
The ruins of the temple consist of three lofty fluted Corinthian columns,
a pilaster of white Carrara marble, a part of the surmounting architrave,
and the corresponding wall of the cella of the temple. Antiquarians are of
opinion that the purity of style and elegance of these columns, and their
ornamentation, forms a strong proof that they were designed and executed
in the best times of Roman architectural art, and cannot belong to a
period later than that of Augustus. The richest decorative work is to be
seen under the roof of the portico, between the columns and the wall of
the cella.
[Sidenote: Exterior wall. Arco dei Pantani.]
These three columns stood at the side of the temple which abutted on the
exterior wall of the Forum, as the ruins show. A large portion of this
wall is still standing on each side of the arch called the Arco dei
Pantani. The arch itself is built of travertine, the wall of blocks of
peperino laid alternately with the longer and shorter sides outwards as in
the masonry of the tabularium. In the middle ages a door was fitted on to
this archway, and a portion of the stone was cut away on the west side.
This has injured its architectural beauty very much. It has also been
stripped of the marble facing with which it was probably covered
originally, and being now half buried in the rubbish of ages, it presents
a somewhat mean and rough appearance.
This archway formed one of the entrances to the Forum Augusti from the
east. The wall of the enclosure can be traced for a considerable distance
on each side of it, but there are no other archways now open. The
monotonous appearance of so high a wall is relieved by having the edges of
the stones cut so that each block stands out separately, and the lower
part of the wall is divided into two, and its upper into three stages by
projecting ruins of travertine.
It is said that the blocks of stone in this masonry are fastened with
wooden bolts made in the shape of double swallow tails, and that some of
these have been found completely petrified. When the Forum was first
designed Augustus encountered great opposition from owners of private
house property; and through fear of the unpopularity which wholesale
evictions might have caused, he accommodated the shape of the external
walls to that of the ground he could occupy. Hence arose the irregular
line of the exterior, which was, however, reduced to a symmetrical plan
inside by secondary walls. The general shape of the interior area of the
enclosure was that of a broad oblong piazza with two large semicircular
side extensions or wings (somewhat like those in the Piazza S. Pietro)
opposite to and corresponding to each other. The area was large, for the
horse races, and games in honour of Mars were held here once when the
Tiber had overflowed the circus.[77] The temple stood at the northern end
between these two side extensions, and occupied about one-sixth of the
whole space. Tribunals were placed in the hemicycles and courts of law
held there. Some portions of the semicircular recesses are still extant
by which their plan may be traced, but the outer wall is in no part
preserved entire except at the back and sides of the temple. Its height at
the back of the temple is 120 feet, and over the Arco dei Pantani 100
feet, which we must suppose to have been the normal height of the rest of
the enclosure. These enormous walls served as a defence against fire, no
less than to exclude the traffic and noise of the streets.
Although it is possible that Augustus may have entertained the design of
erecting a new group of public buildings as a means of gaining distinction
and popularity before the battle of Philippi which established his power,
yet so far as we know, the temple of Mars Ultor and the Forum Augusti owed
their existence to a vow made by the emperor immediately before the
decisive battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, to build if victorious a temple to
Mars as the avenger of his adopted father. The dedication of the temple
took place in B.C. 2, accompanied with most magnificent shows of
gladiators and splendid sham sea-fights.
[Sidenote: Forum of Nerva.]
[Sidenote: The Colonnacce.]
The Forum of Nerva was in the district through which the Via della Croce
Bianca passes, and was connected with the ruin commonly called the Temple
of Minerva, still standing on the right-hand side of that street where it
is crossed by the Via Alessandrina. Two columns are there to be seen now
called the Colonnacce, half buried in the earth, surmounted by an
entablature and an attica. The wall behind the columns is built of blocks
of peperino of unequal size, and is in a style of masonry inferior to the
walls of the Forum of Augustus. In it may be seen the traces of an arch
which has been filled up with the same stone as that of which the wall is
built. The columns, which are of fluted marble, stand out in front of the
wall; but, as in the Arch of Severus, the entablature does not lie between
them, but projects from the wall over the capitals, and unites them with
the wall. The edges of the architrave are richly decorated, and the frieze
contains an elaborately carved bas-relief, which, though unfortunately
much disfigured, can be partially understood by the help of old engravings
taken before it was reduced to its present lamentable state.
[Illustration: Forum of Nerva as it stood in 1600. From Du Perac, ‘Vestigj
di Roma.’]
From these it appears that the figures represent various attributes of
Minerva as the patroness of household management. Some of them are drawing
water, others weaving or spinning, and others dyeing, washing, holding
scales and purses as if bargaining. The remaining portion of the design is
incomplete, and was probably carried round the rest of the frieze of the
enclosure.[78] On the cornices, both upper and lower, the ornamentation is
very rich, but not so chaste as work of the Augustan period. In the centre
of the attica stands a figure of Minerva in alto-relievo, with spear,
helmet, and shield.
That this beautiful ruin, which is one of the most picturesque in Rome,
belonged to the wall of Nerva’s Forum is rendered certain by the old views
of the sixteenth century, which represent it as part of the inner side of
the wall enclosing a splendid temple which stood to the north-west of it.
Seven of the columns of this temple were still standing in the fifteenth
century, belonging to the left-hand side of the portico, and a
considerable part also of the walls of the cella with the pilasters of the
portico. The cella of the temple adjoined the semicircular part of
Augustus’s Forum on one side, and, as will be seen by the plan, the wall
of the enclosure met it on the other, so that only the portico of the
temple projected into the open space of the Forum.
On the front were the words, probably the last line of a longer
inscription, IMP. NERVA CÆSAR AUG. PONT. MAXIM. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. II.
PROCOS, showing that the temple was dedicated by Nerva.
There can be but little doubt that this was the temple of Minerva begun
together with the Forum by Domitian, and finished by Nerva. It is true
that there is no actual mention in any of the ancient writers of a temple
of Minerva here, but the assertion of Dion Cassius that Domitian had a
particular reverence for Minerva and Janus, and the character of the
designs and statues of Minerva found upon the ruined part of the enclosure
already described, leave little doubt on the subject. The name of
Palladium given to the Forum by Martial also agrees with this supposition.
The fate of the Temple of Minerva is better known than that of most of the
ancient temples in Rome.
In the time of Pope Pius V. (1566-1572) the building of a new quarter of
the city was begun in this district. The streets Via Alessandrina and Via
Bonella were laid out, and as the new quarter grew, the ruins of the old
temple became an impediment to their progress, which Paul V. in the
beginning of the seventeenth century ordered to be removed, and to be
applied to the construction of the Chapel of S. Paul in the church of S.
Maria Maggiore and that of the Fontana Paolo upon the Janiculum. The great
gateway which stood at the end of the Via della Croce Bianca was suffered
to remain for a century longer, but is now quite gone.
[Sidenote: Tomb of Bibulus.]
We now return to the Piazza Trajana. Between it and the Piazza del
Campidoglio, in a street called the Via di Marforio, are two of the more
ancient ruins in Rome consisting of tombs now built into the walls of
houses. These tombs are monuments of imperial Rome, and were probably
outside the ancient Servian Wall not far from the Porta Ratumena.
The more prominent of the two, the Tomb of Bibulus, stands close by the
junction of the modern streets of Macel de’ Corvi and Marforio. The front
of it only can be seen, as the rest is built into the wall of a house. The
inscription is as follows,
C . POPLICIO . L . F . BIBULO AED . PL . HONORIS.
VIRTUTISQUE . CAUSSA . SENATUS.
CONSULTO . POPULI . QUE . JUSSU . LOCUS.
MONUMENTO . QUO . IPSE . POSTEREIQUE.
EIUS . INFERRENTUR . PUBLICE . DATUS . EST.
The inscription was also placed on the side of the tomb, where the
beginning of it may still be seen. It must not be inferred that the
privilege of being buried within the walls was granted to Bibulus contrary
to the regulations of the twelve tables, which forbade any corpse to be
buried or burnt within the city walls. Had this been the case the
exemption would have been expressly mentioned in the inscription, and
besides this the course of the Servian Wall, which crossed the depression
between the Quirinal and Capitoline, would naturally run so as to exclude
the tomb. The inscription only records the gift of the burial place to
Bibulus by the Senate, and is intended to prevent the burial of any other
person there, except the family of Bibulus.
An Ædile of the name C. Bibulus is mentioned in the ‘Annals’ of Tacitus in
the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 22, and the style of the tomb agrees tolerably
well with this date. The whole is built of travertine, and the basement is
of the simplest description possible. Four Doric pilasters with Attic
bases surmounted by an Ionic entablature, ornamented with wreaths of fruit
and ox-skulls, form the whole decoration of the front. Bergau, however,
thinks that the architecture is Italian, and should not be called by these
Greek names.[79]
The other ruin of a tomb is in the wall of a house nearly opposite to that
of Bibulus, and is reduced to a shapeless mass of remains.
[Sidenote: Capitolium. Temple of Jupiter.]
Passing from the Tomb of Bibulus to the Piazza del Campidoglio, and thence
to the Caffarelli or southern end of the Capitoline Hill, we find in the
gardens of the German Embassy an excavation which shows a number of tufa
blocks fitted together without mortar, and in an irregular manner.[80]
The area of the great temple and the wall surrounding it have been traced
out by Lanciani and Jordan among the fragments which are found in this
garden, and on the north side of the Caffarelli palace, and between the
garden and the rotunda of the museum. Jordan thinks that the measurements
of the area indicated by these fragments correspond to the size of the
environs of the temple as given by Dionysius, and that they afford a
conclusive proof that the great temple of Jupiter was on the Caffarelli
and not on the Ara Cœli height. The north-eastern corner of the excavation
in the Caffarelli garden shows a part of these constructions, and a
fragment may be seen in the wall of the Montanara Garden in the Vicolo di
Monte Caprino.
The natural features of the Capitoline Hill could hardly have been more
completely concealed than they are by the present situation of the
buildings upon it, even if those buildings had been erected with the
express purpose of changing the appearance of the hill. For the convent of
Ara Cœli and the Palazzo Caffarelli, which occupy respectively the
north-eastern and south-western summits of the hill, are comparatively
low and unconspicuous, while the so-called Tabularium and above it the
Palace of the Senator compose a lofty pile which nearly fills up the
depression between these two heights. To the spectator looking at the
Capitol from the Forum, the higher part of the hill appears to lie nearly
in the centre, whereas in reality the shape is that of a double hill
rising at each end. The north-eastern end is somewhat curved round towards
the north, while the south-western approaches within 300 paces of the
river. The whole core of the hill is formed of the harder volcanic tufa, a
section of which may be plainly seen, composing the face of the low
precipice now shown as the Tarpeian rock, and also in a courtyard
surrounded by cottages, near the spot called Palazzaccio. This tufa was,
as has been frequently mentioned, used as a building stone in the early
ages of Rome before the lapis Gabinus, or Albanus (peperino) or the lapis
Tiburtinus had been introduced.
[Sidenote: Tarpeian Rock.]
The Tarpeian Rock whence criminals were hurled, was, according to the
older Italian topographers down to the time of Nardini, placed at the
western edge of the hill towards the Tiber, where the Piazza Montanara now
is. But Dureau de la Malle in the Mémoires de l’Académie for 1809, pointed
out that this was inconsistent with the statements of Dionysius, who says
that it was over the Forum, and that the executions took place in full
view of all the people. This would seem to place it on the S.E. side
towards the Palatine near S. Maria della Consolazione. Becker’s objection
that the hill is less steep there than at the western edge, may be met by
the fact that several large masses of rock are recorded to have fallen
down from this spot, and therefore the face of the cliff is entirely
changed. The further objection that the criminals would have fallen into
the Vicus Jugarius, instead of which they ought, according to custom, to
have been cast over the city
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