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ANCIENT ROME IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT Dl SCOVERI ES. With 36 fuU-page Plates (includ- ing several Heliotypes) and 64 Text lUustratioos, Maps, and Plans. 8vo, |6.oo.
U ITINERARIO Dl EINSIEDELN E L* ORDINE 01 BENEDETTI CANONICO. Memoria di Ro- dolfo Lanciani. With Map, Plans, etc. 410, paper, $1.25.
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN ROME. Profusely Illus- trated with full-page Plates and Text Illustrations. 8vot $6.00.
THE RUINS AND EXCAVATIONS OF ANCIENT ROME. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, I4.00.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Boston and New York.
THE RUINS AND EXCAVATIONS
OF
ANCIENT ROME
/
: /ly^'
^^V^'^^
THE
RUINS AND EXCAVATIONS
OF
ANCIENT ROME
A COMPANION BOOK FOR STUDENTS AND TRAVELERS
RODOLFO LANCIANI
D. C. L. Oxford, l.irD. Hakvakii.
■ inpctli : ^ non, hi) HORACI, EHUi
BOSTON AKD KEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Abe KlKL'AtK fittity CanibrBiBt
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY RODOLPO LANCIANI AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
<^ '
PREFACE
In writing the present yolume the author does not intend to publish a complete manual of Roman Topography, but only a companion-book for students and travelers who visit the existing remains and study the latest excavations of ancient Rome. The text, therefore, has been adapted to the requirements of both classes of readers. Students wishing to attain a higher degree of efficiency in this branch of Roman archaeology will find copious references to the standard publications on each subject or part of a subject ; while the description of ruins and excavations will not be found too technical or one-sided for the ordinary reader. Special attention has been paid to tracing back to their place of origin the spoils of each monument, now dispersed in the museums of Rome, Italy, and the rest of Europe. The reader, being in- formed what these spoils are, when they were carried away, and where they are to be found at present, will be able to form a more correct idea of the former aspect of Roman monuments than would otherwise be possible. The volume also contains some \ables, which will be found useful for quick and easy reference to the chronology of buildings, to events in the history of the city, and to the various aspects of Roman civilization. It may be observed, in the last place, that the illustrations of the text are mostly original, from drawings and photographs prepared expressly for this work.
The publications of the author to which reference is constantly made are : —
Ancient Borne in the Light of Xecent DiMCoveriet. Boston, 1889, Hoaghton, MjflUn, & Co. London, Macmillan. — Pagan and Christian Borne. Boston lad London, 1883. — Forma Urhi* RonuBf an archeological map of the city, in fortr-«iz sheets, scale 1:1000, published under the auspices of the Royal Academy dei Lincei, by Hoepli, Milan. Twenty-four sheets already issued.
vi Preface
The remains of ancient Rome can be studied in books or on the spot from three points of view, — the chronological, the topographi- cal, and the architectural. The chronological brings the student into contact, first, with the remains of the Kingly period, then with those of the Republic, of the Empire, of the Byzantine and Mediaeval periods. The topographical takes into consideration, first, the main lines of the ancient city, and then each of the four- teen wards or regions into which Rome was divided by Augustus. The architectural groups the monuments in classes, like temples, baths, tombs, bridges, etc.
Each system has its own advantages, and claims representative writers. The chronological order helps us to follow the progress of Roman architecture, from the rude attempts of Etruscan masons to the golden centuries of Agrippa and ApoUodorus ; as well as the evolution of architectural types, from the round straw hut where the public fire was kept to the marble temple of Hestia, roofed with tiles of bronze ; from the Casa Romuli to the Domus Aurea of Nero.
Dyer's History of Rome is founded mainly on this system. Compare also chapters iii. and iv. (pp. 24-59) of Richter*s Topo- graphie, Parker's Chronological Tables, and Lanciani's Vicende edilizie di RomaA
The topographical system, which divides the city into regions and suburbs, is represented by Nardini and Canina.* They de- scribe first the fundamental lines, — site, geology, climate, hydro- graphy, the seven hills, the Kingly and Imperial walls, the Tiber, the aqueducts, the military roads radiating from the gates ; and
1 Thomas IL Dyer, A History of the City of Rome : Its Structures and Monuments. London, Longmans, 1865. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Sulle ricende edilizie di Roma, reprinted from the Monografa archeologica e statistica di Roma e campagna. Rome. Tipogr. elzevir. 1878. — John Henry Parker, A Chronological Table of Buildings in Rome, with the Chief Contemporary Events, and an Alphabetical Index, reprinted from the Archaology of Rome. — Otto Rlchter, Topographic der Stadt Rom^ Sep.-Abdr. aus dem Handbuch der klassischen Alterthumwissenschaft, Bd. iii. Nordlingen, Beck, 1889, ch. iii., **EntwicklungRgeachichte," and ch. iv., " Zerstorungsgeschichte der Stadt."
2 Famiano Nardini, Roma antica di Famiano Nardini, fourth edition, revised by Antonio Nibby, and illustrated by Antonio de Romanis. Rome, de Romanis, 1818 (four vols.). — Luigi Canina, Indicazione topografica di Roma anttca, fourth edition. Rome, Canina, 1850.
PREFACE vii
then the monuments pertaining to the fourteen regions. Their accounts are founded mainly on official statistics of the fourth century, of which we possess two editions (Redaktionen), The first, known by the name of NotUia regionum urbis Roma cum breviariis suis, dates from A. D. 334 ; the second, called Curiosum urbis Rama regionum XIV cum breviariis suis, must have been issued in or after 357, becaose it mentions the obelisk raised in that year in the Circus Maximus.
Literature. — Ludwig Preller, Die Regionen der Stadt Rom. Jena, 1846. — Theodor Mommsen, Abhandlungen der sacks. Ges. d. W.y ii. 549; iii. 269; viii. G94. — Heinrich Jordan, Topographic d. Stadt Rom in Alterthum., Berlin, 1S71, vol. ii. p. 1. — Ignazio Gnldii Jl testo siriaco della descrizione di Roma, in Bull, com., 1884, p. 218. — Cbrietian Huelsen, II posto degli Arwili nel CoUtseo, in Boll, com., 1894, p. 312. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Le guattordici regiom urbane^ in Bull, com., 1890, p. 115.
The two documents give the number and name of each region, the names of edifices or streets which marked approximately its boundary line, the number of parishes (yici), of parish magis- trates (vico magistri)j the number of tenement houses (insulce), palaoes (domus), public warehouses (horred), baths, fountains, bakeries, and the circumference of each regio in feet. For in- stance : —
''Regio V, the Esqniliae, contains: the fountain of Orpheus, the market of Livia, the nympheeum of (Severus) Alexander, the (barracks of the) second cohort of policemen (firemen), the gar- dens of Pallans, the (street named from the) Hercules Sullanus, the Ampbitheatrum Castrense, the campus on the Yiminal, the (street called) Subager, the (street called) Minerva Medica, the (street named from) Isis the patrician. The Esquiliae contain 15 parishes, 15 streetrshrines, 48 parish officials and two higher officials (curatores)f 3,850 tenement houses, 180 palaces, 22 public warehouses, 25 baths, 74 fountains, 15 bakeries. The Esquilise measure 15,600 feet in circumference."
Comparing these statistics with texts of classics, inscriptions, existing remains, accounts of former discoveries, plans and draw- ings of the artists of the Renaissance, and other sources of infor- mation, we are able to reconstruct, with surprising results, the topography of the whole city.
vm PREFACE
The system, therefore, is highly commendable, and I follow it myself, in my university course of lectures, as the one best calculated, from its simplicity and clearness, to make the student conversant with this branch of Roman archaeology.
The third, or architectural, system takes each class of build- ings separately, and groups temples, theatres, fora, baths, etc., by themselves, irrespective of their position and their relation to other buildings. It might be compared with the study of a museum, like the Museo Nazionale of Naples, in which statues are arranged by subjects, one room containing only Venuses, another only Fauns, etc. The system facilitates the comparison of types and schools, and the study of the origin, progress, and decline of art among the Romans.
The representative works of this kind are Nibby's Roma nelV anno 1838, and Canina's Edifizii di R. A,^
It is impossible to deny that a system which may be use- ful for university work, and for a limited number of specialists, cannot also suit the student or the traveler who does not visit our ruins by regions, but according to the main centres of inter- est and of actual excavations. Were we to follow the architectu- ral system in the strict sense of the word, we should be compelled to study the Forum with no regard to the temples, basilicas, and triumphal arches which lined its border or covered its area, because they belong to another class of structures. Suppose, again, we were bound to proceed in our study strictly by regions : we should be compelled to separate the Coliseum from its accessory buildings, in which gladiators, athletes, wild beasts, and their hunters were quartered, fed, and trained ; from the armories, in which gladiatorial and hunting weapons were made, kept, and repaired; from the barracks of the marines of the fleet of Ra^ venna and Misenum, to whom the manoeuvring of the velaria was intrusted ; from the " morgue," whither the spoils of the slain in the arena were temporarily removed, — simply because the samiarium, spoliarium, and armamentarium belonged to the
1 Antonio Nibby, Roma nelV anno mdcccxxxviii. Parte prima antica, vols, i., ii. Rome, 1838. — Luigi Canina, Gli tdifisi di R, A. e stia campagtMy in six folio volumes. Rome, 1847-1854.
PREFACE ix
second regio ; the amphitheatre itself, the Castra Misenatiumy the SvoMnwa Choragium to the third; the Amphitheatrum Castrense to the fifth ; the vivarium to the sixth.
To avoid these difficulties, the compilers of the Beschretbung, as well as Becker, Burn, Jordan, Richter, Gilbert, Middleton, and others,^ have adopted a mixed system, taking the best from each of the three methods described above. They have divided and described the city in large sections, more or less connected by topographical or historical relationship. Richter, for instance, cats ancient Rome in four parts : ^* das Zentrum," which embraces the Palatine and Capitoline hills, the Velia, the Circus Maximus, and the great Fora of the Empire ; " die Stadttheile am Tiber," which comprises the Aventine, the market, the Campus Martius, and the transtiberine quarters ; ^' der sudosten Roms," made up of the Cselian and of the suburbs on the Appian Way ; and lastly ** der osten Roms," with the Esquiline, Yiminal, Quirinal, and Pincian hills. Richter's scheme is plainly arbitrary, and might be varied ad libitum without interfering with the spirit or dimin- ishing the importance of his work. The same criticism applies to the other manuals of the same type.
Considering that "facile est inventis addere," and that the experience of others must teach us how to find a better solution of the problem, I propose to adopt the following scheme : —
In Book I. the fundamental lines of Roman topography will be described, — site, geology, configuration of soil, malaria, climate, rivers and springs, aqueducts and drains, walls and roads.
The Palatine hill, on which the city was founded and the seat of the Empire established in progress of time, will be visited next (Book IT.).
In Book m. a description of the Sacra Via will be given, from
its origin near the Coliseum to its end near the Capitolium. The
^ PUtner, Bunsen, Gerhard, Rostell, Urlicha, Beschreibung der Stadt Bom. Stuttgart, 1830-1842. — Adolf Becker, Handbuch der Bomiscken AHerthumer. Briber Theil. Leipzig, 1843. — Robert Burn, Bame and the Campagna^ Lon- don, 1871 ; Old Bomef 1880. Second edition, 1895. — Heinrich Jordan, Topo- grapkie der Stadt Bom in Alterthumj vol. i., i.^, ii. Berlin, 1871. — Otto Gilbert, Gexhichle und Topograpkie der Stadt Bom. 188.3-1885. — Otto Rich- ter, Tcpographie der Stadt Bom, Nordlingen, 1.S89. — J. Henry Middleton, The Rewtains of Ancient Borne. Two voIk. London, 1892.
X PREFACE
Sacra Via, the Forum (with its extensions), and the Capitoline hill contain the oldest relics of Kingly and Republican Rome. They are lined or covered by the grandest monuments of the £mpire ; they have been largely if not completely excavated since 1870; and every inch of ground they cross or cover is connected with historical events. Beginning, therefore, from such centres of interest as the Palatine and the Sacra Via, we follow the chronological and topographical systems.
The rest of the city will be described in Book IV. by the regions of Augustus in the following order : —
1. The ruins of the Caelian hill and its watershed towards the river Almo (Regions I and II).
2. The ruins of the Oppian (Regio III).
3. The Viminal, the Cespian, the Subura, and the Vicus Patri- cii (Regio IV).
4. The Esquiline (Regio V).
5. The Quirinal and the Pincian, and their watershed towards the Tiber (Regions VI and VII).
6. The Campus Martins (Reg^o IX).
7. The markets, the docks, the warehouses, the harbor on the left bank of the river.
8. The Circus Maximus (Regio XI).
9. The Aventine (Regions XII and XIH).
10. The Trastevere (Regio XIV).
Each of these sections has a characteristic of its own. The CaBlian may be called the region of barracks, the Esquiline the region of parks, the Quirinal and Aventine the abode of the aris- tocracy. The Coliseum and its dependencies occupied the greater portion of the Oppian. The Trastevere was the popular quarter par excellence. Their description, therefore, from a topographical point of view, is not only rational but lends itself to the grouping of edifices built for the same object, and sometimes by the same man and at the same time.
At all events, as it may suit the reader to study the monuments in a different order, I have added two indexes, in the first of which the existing remains of Ancient Rome are named alpha- betically in architectural groups, and in the second according to
PREFACE XI
their chronology. The name of each is followed by the number of the page or section in which it is described.
Before closing this brief preface, I must warn students against a tendency which is occasionally observable in books and papers on the topography of Rome, — that of upsetting and condemning all received notions on the subject, in order to substitute fanciful theories of a new type. They must remember that the study of this fascinating subject began with Poggio Bracciolini and Flavio Biondo early in the fifteenth century, and that in the course of four hundred and fifty years it must have been very closely inves- tigated. In the preface to the Indicazione topograjica, pp. 4-25 (1850), Canina registers 124 standard authorities, whose books would make a library of a thousand volumes. Since 1850 the number of such volumes has doubled. See in Enrico Narducci's Bibliogrqfia topogrqfica di Roma a list (imperfect) of those pub- lished between 1850 and 1880. The same bibliographer has given us a list (also imperfect) of over 400 works on the Tiber alone.^ In the fourteenth volume of the Archivio delta Societa romana di gtoria patriae 424 publications on the history and topography of the city are catalogued for 1891 alone. How is it possible that, in four hundred and fifty years' time, the antiquaries of the Italian, German, and English schools, working harmoniously, should not have discovered the truth? This does not exclude the possibility that new researches, either on the ground or in libraries and archives, may reveal new data and enable the student to perfect the system of Roman topography in its details, but great innovations are hardly to be expected. Yet there are people willing to try the experiment, only to waste their own time and make us lose ours in considering their attempts. Temples of the gods are cast away from their august seats, and relegated to places never heard of before ; gates of the city are swept away in a whirlwind till they fly before our eyes like one of Dante's visions ; diminutive ruins are magnified into the remains of great historical buildings ; designs are produced of monuments which have never existed. Let each of us be satisfied with a modest share in the work of reconstruction of the great city, 1 Saggio di biUiografia del Tevere di Enrico Narducci, Rome, Civelli, 1876.
XU PREFACE
remembering that both the Roma sotterranea Cristiana and Rome the capital of the Empire have long since found their Columbus.
The periodicals and books most frequently quoted in this work are: —
(Bull, com.) BuUettino delta Commiuione archtologica eomunale di Roma, 1872-1895. 23 vols., superbly illustrated. — (Not. Scavi) NoHsde degli Scavi di antichUa pubblicate per cura della r. (uxademia dei Linceij 1876-1896. 20 vols., illustrated. — (Bull. Inst.) BtdUUino deW Ittituto di corrupondenza archeoiogicOf 1829-1885. 57 vols. — (Ann. Inst.) Annali dell* Istituto di corrispondenza archeologicay 1829-1885. 54 vols. — (Mittheil.) Mitthexlungen des kaiserlich Deutscken archaeol. Itutitutty Roemische Abtheilung, 1886-1895. 10 vols., illustrated. — (Jahrbuch) Jahrbuck de» k. D. archaeol. ItutituU^ 1886-1896. 10 vols., illustrated (Denkmaler). — (F. U. R.) Forma Urbis Roma, conailio et auctoritate R. Academia Lyncasorum . . . edidit Rod*U~ phut Lanciani Romanuty in 46 sheets. — (C. I. L.) Corput Jtucriptumum Lad' narum, vols, i., vi. 1, 2, 3, 4, xiv., and xv. L
CONTENTS Book I. — General Information
PAOB
I. Site — Geology — Configuration of Soil 1
II. Geology 5
III. Malaria ., 6
IV. Oimate 8
V. Hydrography — Rivers, Springs, Ponds, Marshes . 9
VI. Bridges 16
VII. Traiectns (ferries) 26
VIII. Objects of Value in the Bed of the River 26
IX. CloacfB (drains) 28
X. The Quarries from which Rome was built 32
(a) Tufa (lapis ruber) 32
(b) j^eperino (lapis Albanus) 34
(c) Travertino (lapis Tiburtinus) 35
(d) Silex (selce) L^g^jg, 38
XI. Bricks 38
XII. Marbles 42
XIII. Methods of Construction 43
XIV. Aqueducts 47
XV. Muri Urbis (the Walls) 59
XVI. Mums Romuli (Walls of the Palatine) 59
XVn. Other Walls of the Kingly Period 60
XVni. The Walls of Servius Tullius 60
XIX. Walls of Aurelian and Probus, A. d. 272 .... 66
XX. Restoration of the Walls "by Honorius 72
XXI. Gates of Aurelian and Honorius 73
XXIL Walls of Leo IV., Leopolis, Johannipolis, Laurentiopolis 80
XXni. The Fortifications of Paul III., Plus IV., and Urban VIII. . 84
XXIV. Modem Fortifications 86
XXV. The Fourteen Regions of Augustus 87
XXVI. The Population of Ancient Rome 91
XXVII. The Map of Rome engraved on Marble under Severus and
Caracalla 94
XXVni. The Burial of Rome 98
Book IL — The Ruins and Excavations of the Palatine
I. Hints to Visitors 100
II- The Origin of the Palatine Citv 110
m. VignaNusiner ..." 118
Xiv CONTENTS
IV. Templum divi August! (Temple of Augustus) . . .121
V. Fons Jutumse (the Springs of Jutuma) 133
VI. The Clivus Victoriffi 125
VII. The Church of S. Teodoro 126
VIII. Munis Bomuli 126
IX. The Altar of Aius I^cutius 127
X. Scalte Caci (steps of Cacius) 129
XT. Casa Romuli (the Hut of Romulus) 190
XII. The Old Stone Quarries 131
XIII. iEdes Magnie Deum Matris (Temple of Cybele) .... 132
XIV. ^des lovis Propugnatoris in Palatio (Temple of Jupiter Pro-
pugnator) 135
XV. Domus Augustana (House of Augustus) 138
XVI. Domus Tiberiana (House of Tiberius) . ' . . .144
XVn. House of Germanicus 147
XVIII. Domus Gaiana (House of Caligula) 150
XIX. The Palace of Domitian 155
XX. The Gardens of Adonis (Horti Adoniea — Vigna Barberini) . 165 XXI. Medinval Church BuUdings 168
(a) Ecclesia S. Cesarii in Palatio 169
(b) Monasterium quod Palladium dicitur .... 170
(c) The Turris Chartularia 171
XXII. The so-called Stadium (Xystus) 172
XXIII. The Palace of Septimius Severus (tedes Severianie) . . 178
XXIV. The Septizonium 181
XXV. The Water Supply and Reservoirs of the Palace ... 184
XXVI. The Paedagogium and the Domus Grelotiana . . .185
Book III. — A Walk through the Sacra Via from the Coliseum to the Capitoline Hill
I. The Sacra Via 188
II. Tlie Colossus (colossal statue of the Sun) .... 190
III. MetaSudans 190
IV. The Arch of Constantino 191
V. i£des Rom® et Veneris (Temple of Venus and Rome) . 194
VI. Baths of Heliogabalus (?). ^ee Eccle.sia S. Ciesarii in Pa- latio, 169 . 198
VII. Turris Chartularia 198
VIII. The Temple of Jupiter Stator 198
IX. The Arch of Titus 199
X. Basilica Nova (Basilica of Constantine) .... 201
XI. The Clivus Sacer 206
XII. Porticus Margaritaria 207
XIII. The Heroon Romuli (Temple of Romulus, son of Maxen-
tius) 209
XIV. Templum Sacrae Urbis (archives of the Cadastre) . . .211 XV. Fornix Fabianus (Arch of Q. Fabius Allobrogicus) . . 215
CONTENTS
XV
XVI.
xvu.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XX va.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX. XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
xxxvin.
XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
XLII.
XLIII.
XLrv\
XLV,
XLVI.
XLVII.
XL VIII.
XLIX.
L.
LI.
LII.
LIII.
LIV.
^des divi Pii et divse Faustinie (Temple of Antoniuus and
- F'au.stina) 216
The Kegia 219
The Temple of Vesta 221
The Shrine 224
Atrium Vestae (House of the Vestals) 226
Forum Romanum Magnum 232
Area of the Forum 2.51
Columna liostrata 254
The Sculptured Plutei 254
Monumental Columns on the Sacra Via 258
The Caballus Constantini (Equestrian Statue of Constantine) 258 Unknown Building on the east side, opposite the Temple of
Julius . ' 259
Monuments of the Gothic and Gildonic Wars .... 259
The Column of Phocas 260
Curia Host ilia — Curia Julia — Senatus 262
The Comitium 266
i£des divi lulii (Temple of Julius Ccesar) .... 267
Triumphal Arch of Augustus ...... 269
JSAe^ Castorum (Temple of Castor and Pollux) . . . 269
Vicus Tuscus 273
Basilica Julia 273
Vicus Jugarius 278
The Rostra Vetera 278
Genius Populi Romani — Milliarium Aureum — Umbilicus . 279 The Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus . . . .280
The Arch of Tiberius 282
The Arch of Scptimius Severus 282
The Career TuUianum 285
vEdes Concord i« (Temple of Concord) 286
The aivus Capitolinus 288
Temple of Vespasian 288
iEdes Satumi (Temple of Saturn) 291
Porticus Deorum Consentium (Portico of the Twelve Gods) . 292
Tabularium 293
Capitol i urn (Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus) . . 296
Forum Julium • 300
Forum Augustum 302
Forum Transitorium • 307
Forum Traiani 311
Book IV. — Urbs Sacra Regionum XIV
I. The Ruins of the Ctelian Hill, Regio I, Porta Capena
n. HypogsBum Scipionum
ni. The Columbaria (so-called) of Pomponius Hylas
rV. The Columbaria of the Vigna Codini
V, Regio II, C»limontium (the Caelian Hill) .
320 321 327 328 335
XVi COyTENTS
VI. The Castra Ca?liniontaiia 336
(a) The (Vstra E()iiiluin Singularium .... 336
(b) The Castra Peregriuorum 336
(c) Statio Cohortis V Vigil um 338
. VII. The Palaces of the Cttliau 339
(a) Domus Lateraiiorum (Lateran Palace) . . . 339
(b) Dumus Vecti liana 344
(c) Domus Tetricorum 344
(d) Domus Valeriorum 345
(e) Domus PhiLippi 346
(f) Domus L. Marii Maximi 346
(g) Domus of the Symmachi 346
(h) The House of SS. John and Paul . . . .346
( I ) The House of Gregory the Great .... 349
Vni. Claudium (Temple of Claudius) 35C
IX. Macellum (S. Stefano Rotondo) 353
X. The Ruins of the Oppian, Regie lU, Isis et Scrapie . . 357 XI. Domus Aurca (The Golden House of Nero) ... 358
XII. Thermaj Titianae (Baths of Titus) 363
Xni. Therma Triaui (Baths of Trajan) 365
XIV. Aniphitheatrum Flavium (Coliseum) 367
XV. Buildings connected with the Amphitheatre .... 383
The Vivarium 883
The Amphitheatrum Castrense 385
The Claudium 385
The Samiarium 385
The Spoliarium 385
The Armamentarium 386
The T.udi Gladiatorii 386
The Summum Choragium 387.
The C'astra Mi^enatium 387
The Curia Athletarum 387
XVI. The Viminal, the Cespian, the Subura, and the Vicus Patricii,
Regie IV 388
XVII. The Subura 388
XVIII. The Vitus Patricii 390
XIX. Private Dwellings 391
XX^ The Great Parks on the Eastern Side ef the Citv, Regions V,
VI, and VII ' . . .394
XXI. HortiVariani . . . . ' 395
XXII. Uorti Liciniani 400
XXni. Horti Tauriani 404
XXIV. Horti Lamiani et Maiaui . 406
XXV. Horti Ma'cenalis . 409
XXVI. Horti Lolliani 412
XXVII. Horti Sullustiani 413
XXVIII. Uorti Luculliani 419
XXIX. Horti Aciliani 419
Public Buildings 427
CONTENTS
xvu
XXXI. Templum Soils Aureliani 428
XXXII. TherniiB Diocletianas 432
XXXIII. Castra Pmtoria *37
XXXIV. The Caiupu.s Martius and the Circus Flaminius, Regio IX . 440 XXXV. TheTarentum 446
XXXVI. Campus Martius 448
XXXVil. Circus Flamiiiius 450
XXXVIII. Stabula quatuor Factionuin VI 464
XXXIX. Templum Herculis magni Custodis ad Circum Flaminium . 465
XL. The Forum Ilolitorium aud its Ediiices 468
(A) J^desSpei 468
(b) ^Edes Pietatis 458
(c) 2¥Ae% lunonis Sospitie 4.58
(d) Templum lani 458
XU. The Pompeian Buildings 469
XLII. Mausoleum of Augustus 461
XLIII. Horologium or Solarium (sun-dial) 464
XLIV. Ara Pacis Augusta; 466
XLV. Opera S. Porticus Octaviaj 466
XLVI. The Monumenta Agrippae 470
Porticus Pollse or Vipsania 470
Campus Agrippic 471
Diribitorium 471
Septa lulia 471
VaiaPublica 472
XLVII. Pantheon 473
XLVIII. T^konikon 486
XLIX. Basilica Neptuni, Neptunium, Porticus Argonautamm . . 487
L. Theatrum Marcelli 490
LI. Theatrum et Crypta Baibi 493
LII. Odeum . . ' 496
LIU. Stadium 496
LIV. Thcrma* Xeroniana* et Alexandrianffi 498
LV. Isinm et Serapium 500
LVI. Templum Matidiw 502
LVII. The Antonine Buildings 503
LVIII. The Commenial Quarters on the lA'ft Bank of the Tiber . 609
LIX. Forum Holitorium 511
LX. Forum Boariuui 512
LXI. Templum Fortune 514
LXII. Templum Jlatris Matutae 615
LXIII. Templum Cereris Liberi Liberseque 616
LXIV. The Janus and the Arch of Sevenis aud Caracalla . .518
LXV. Statio Annonie . . 519
IJCVI. The Horrea Publica Populi Romani 522
LXVII. The Marble Wharf and Sheds 524
LXVin. SalinsB (the Salt- Warehouses) 527
IjXIX. The I>ead-Warehouses 528
LXX. The Brick-Warehouses 529
• • 4
xvni CONTENTS
LXXI. The Monte Testaccio 529
LXXII. The Aventine, Regionn XII and XIII — Therm« Antoniniaua; 532
LXXIII. Churches and Palaces on the Aventine . . . , 540
LXXIV. The Thermae Decianaj 542
LXXV. The Escubitorium Coh • VII ■ Vigilum .... 544
LXXVI. Horti C«aaris 546
LXXVII. Horti Get® 548
LXXVIII. Horti Agrippime 548
LXXIX. Mausoleum Hadriani 551
Conclusion : The General Aspect of the City 561
Appendix.
A. Comparison between Years of the Christian and the Roman Eras . 571
B. Chronological List of Roman Emperors 571
C. Chronological List of the First Eings of Italy 578
D. ("hronological List of the Popes 578
E. Alphabetical List of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects mentioned in
this Book 586
F. Roman Coins 586
G. Roman Measures of I^ngtli 588
H. Roman Weights 588
I. The Roman Calendar 589
J. A List of Ancient Marbles 589
Indexes.
I. The Ex^isting Remains of Ancient Rome described Alphabetically in
Architectural Groups. II. The Existing Remains of Ancient Rome described in Chronological Order.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
•
no. PAoa
1. Map of Hydrography and Chorography of Ancient Rome. Frontispiece
2. The Cliff« of the Capitoline Hill above "La Consolazione " . . 2
3. Section of the Qiiirinal Hill 3
4. Curve of the Flood of December, 1870 11
5. Modem Embankment 13
6. Ancient Embankment 13
7. The Mouth of the Tiber at Fiumicino 14
8. The i£milianf Fabrician, Cestian Bridges, and the Island in the Tiber 17
9. The Stem of the Ship of iGsculapius 19
10. Foundations of Bridge (?) above the Ponte Sisto .... 21
11. The Incline to the iElian Bridge from the Campus Martius (I^ft
Bank) 23
12. Bronze Head found in the Tiber 25
13. Statue found in the Tiber . 28
14. The Course of the Cloaca Maxima 29
15. The Latrina annexed to the Guest-Kooms of the Villa Adriana . 32
16. The Quarries of Travertine, Cava del Barco «37
17. The Opus Incertum 44
18. The Opus Reticulatum 46
19. Map of Aqueducts 47
20. The Channel of the Aqua Appia under the Aventine ... 48
21. Ponte Lupo 50
22. The Aqueducts at Roma Vecchia 52
23. The Seven Aqueducts at the Porta Maggiore 55
24. Map of Walls 59
25. Section of Walls 61
2S. Section of Agger 62
27. Forum Boarium 63
28. The Ditch of the Agger of Servius 65
29. Walls of Servius on the Aventine 67
^, The Covered Way of the Walls of Aurelian, Vigna Casali . . 69
31. The Porta S. Lorenzo 76
32. Door of the First Century built into the Walls of Aurelian . . 79
33. The Two Towers at the Entrance to the Harbor of Rome . 80
34. Tower of Leo IV. in the Vatican Gardens. Bastions of Pius IV. in
the Foreground 83
35. The Fortifications of Laurentiopolis. By M. Hcem^kerk . . 85
XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
36. The French Army entering the Porta S. Pancrazio, Jiilj' 4, 1849 . 87
37. Sketch-Map of the Fourteen Regions of Augustus .... 89
38. The Fragment of the Marble Plan discovered by Castellani and
Tocco in 1867 97
39. The Remains of a Private House discovered under the Baths of
Caracalla by G. B. Guidi, 1867 101
40. SIcetch-Map of Excavations of Palatine . , 108
41. Map of Ancient and Modem Divisions of the Palatine Ilill . . 110
42. Plan of Antemnte 112
43. Reservoir at Antemna; 112
44. Plan of Kingly Palatine 113
45. A Village of Straw Huts near. Gabii (Castiglione) .... 114
46. Plan of the Terramara di Fontanellato . * 115
47. A Fragment of the Marble Plan with Clivus Victorias and Vicus
Tuseus 120
48. Plan of the Augu»ta>um 122
49. General View of Wesrt Comer of Palatine Hill .... 128
50. Hut-urn from Alba Longa 131
51. Headless Statue of Cybelc, found near her Temple on the Palatine 134
52. The Cybele from Formiaj 136
53. Plan of the Domus Augustana, Ground Floor 139
54. Plan of the Domus Tibcriana and of the Domus Gaiana . . 145
55. A Graffito of the Domus Tiberiana 147
56. The Remains of the Palace of Caligula, seen from the Sacra Via . 151
57. A Corner of the Palace of Caligula according to Rosa's Map . . 152
58. The Same, designed in Sheet xxix. of the "Forma T'rhis " . . 153
59. A Brick Stamp of John Vll 155
60. Plan of Domitian's Palace 157
61. The Horti Adonea, a Fragment of the Marble Plan of Rome . . 166
62. Plan of the Horti Adonea (?), according to Ligorio . . ' 167
63. The Church of S. (Vsarius in Palatio 169
64. The Torre Cartularia in the Sixteenth Century .... 172
65. Headless Statue of a Muse discovered in the so-t-alled Stadium . 175
66. Female Head of Greek Workmanship discovered in the so-called
Stadium. . . " 177
67. Substructures of the Palace of Septimius Severus, as seen from the
Aventine 179
68. The Remains of the ^des Severianoe and of the Septizonium, from
a Sketch by Du ('erceau 182
69. The Aqueduct of the Palatine across the Valley of S. Gregorio . 184
70. Plan of the Domus Gelotiana 185
71. One of the Walls of the Ptedagogium with Greek and I^tin Graffiti 186
72. Map of the Sacra Via 188
73. The Arch of Con.stantine in Botticelli's "Castigo del fuoco celeste,"
Sistine (^hnpel 193
74. Plan of tlie Temple of Venus and Rome 195
75. Bas-relief of the Temple of Venus and Rome 197
76. Arch of Titus — Temple of Jupiter Stator in the Bas-relief of the
Aterii 1»»
77. Plan of Neighborhood of the Arch of Titus 199
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
78. The Summa Sacra Via, with Arch of Titus and Temple of Jupiter
Stator 200
79. Plan of Constantine's Basilica 202
80. The Bai^ilica of Constantine at the Time of Paul V. . . . 203
81. The Arco di I^trone under the Basilica of Constantine . 205
82. Plan of Clivus Sacer 207
83. Plan of Porticus Margaritaria 208
84. The Portico of the Heroon Romuli 210
85. Plan of SS. Cosma e Damiano . . . - . . . 211
86. The Church of SS. Cosma e Damiano in the Middle Ages . . 212
87. The Church of SS. Cosma e Damiano at the End of the Sixteenth
Century 213
88. The Frieze of the Temple of Faustina 217
89. Graffiti on the Carystian Columns of the Temple of Faustina . 218
90. The Regia, an designed by Pirro Ligorio 220
91. Temples of Vesta and Castores (Auer's Reconstruction) . . 223
92. Plan of Atrium and Temple of Vesta 225
98. Map of Forum and of Basilica Julia 261
94. The Margo of the Forum 253
95. The Fragments of the Marble Plutei, dij»covered in September,
1872 255
86. One of the Marble Plutei, after Restoration 256
97. The Rostra as represented in a Bas-relief of the Arch of Constantine 257
98. The Column of Phocas — the Marble Plutei in the Foreground . 261
99. Plan of the Senate House, rebuilt by Diocletian . . . .263
100. The Marble Incrustations of the Senate Hall .... 264
101. Details of Cornice of the Senate Hali 265
1<^ The Rostra Julia and the Temple of Caesar 268
103. Fragment of the Marble Plan with Temple of Castores . 269
104. The Substructure of the Temple of Castores .... 272
105. The Southwest Comer of the Basilica Julia 274
106. General View of the Basilica Julia 276
107. The Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, sketched by Heemskerk. 281
108. Pedestals of Columns, Arch of Severus 283
109. A Fruiterer's Shop under the Arch of Severus .... 284
110. The Clivus Capitolinns, now concealed by the Modern (1880)
Causeway * .... 289
111. The Frieze of the Temple of Vespasian 290
112. The Porticus Consent ium 293
113. Old Gate of Tabularium blocked by Temple of Vespasian . . 295
114. Remains of the Pliatform of the Capitolium in the Garden of the
Caffarelli Palace 298
115. The Venus Genetrix by Arkesilaos — a Fragment in the Museodelle
Terme 301
116. Plan of the Forum Augustum 303
117. The .South Hemicycle of the Forum Augustum, excax'ated in 1888 305
118. The Forum Transitorium : a Sketch by Bom-oIo .... 309
119. Forum Tralani . * 311
ISO. Frieze from the Basilica Ulpia (Lateran Museum) .... 314
121, Frieze from the Basilica Ulpia (Lateran Museum) 315
XXU LIST OF ILLISTRATIOSS
122. Heads of Animals discovered in the Forum of Trajan . . . 319
123. Map of Regions I. (Porta Capena) and II. (Cielimontium) . . 320
124. Sarcophagus uf Scipio Bart>atus in the Vatican .... 322
125. Plan uf the Tomb of the Scipios, according to Piranesi . . 324
126. Tomb of the Scipios (Present State) 325
127. Portrait Bust of Scipio the Elder (C'apit<iline Museum) . . 327
128. The 0>]umbarium discovered in the Vigna C<Klini, May, 1852 . 332
129. One of the Courts of the Palace of the Laterans, di.'^-overed in
130. Campus Lateranensis, about 1534 343
131. Plan of the House of SS. John and Paul, and of the Chun-h built
above it 348
132. A View of the Chun-h and Monastery of S. Grcgorio in the First
Half of the Sixteenth Centurv 350
133. The Substructures of the Claudium, West Side .... 352
134. S. Stefano Rotondo, Inner View 354
135. Plan of S. Stefano Rotondo 356
136. Map of Region III. — Isis et Serapis 367
137. Nymphseuni discovered near the Via della Polveriera . . . 360
138. Plan of the Golden House and of the Baths of Titus and Trajan . 360
139. A View of the South Wing of the Domus Aurea .... 361
140. Plan of Wcttern Section of the Flavian Amphitheatre . . .368
141. The Shell of the Coliseum after the Collapse of the Western
Arcades 374
142. The Insignia of the Compagnia del Salvaton* on the Coliseum . 375
143. Stone Cippi surrounding the Coli^jcum 378
144. Step-seat of the Coliseum, with the Name of a Fabius Insteius . 381
145. W^ooden Floor discovered in 1874 in the Substructures of the Arena
of the Coliseum 382
146. Palladio's Diagrams of the Amphitheatrum Castrense . . . 384
147. Plan of the Ludus Magnus 386
148. Remains of Public Bjiths near S. Pudcnzinna 390
149. Ruins discovered in 1684 on the Line of the Via Graziosa . . 392
150. Map of the Parks and Gardens of Ancient Rome . * . . 394
151. Ligorio's Persi^ctive View of the Horti Variani .... 396
152. The Horti Variani, Vigna Conti, by S. Croce in Genisalemme . 399 163. Statue of a Roman Magistruto of the Fourth Century giving the
Signal for a Chariot Race 402
154. Columbaria discovered in 1872 on the Site of the Horti Liciniani . 403
155. Statue of Shepherdess discovered in the Horti Vettiani . . 405
156. Bust of Commodus from the Horti Lamiani 408
167. Statuette of a (Jirl from the Horti Lamiani .... 409
158. The (^Conservatory of the (Jardens of Maecenas .... 411
159. The Fountain of Pontios the Atheuian, discovered in the (iardens
of Maecenas 412
160. Part of the Marble Throne of the Venus Sallustiana, now in the
Ludovisi Museum 414
161. A Group of Pines in the Villa Ludovisj, out down in 1887 . . 41R
162. Cliffs on the South Side of the Vallis Sallustiana, befon? the Con-
struction of the New Quarter.-. 418
• • •
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii
163. The "Parnaso" or Nymphieum of the Villa Aldobrandini at
Frascati 422
164. The Substructures of the Gardens of the Acllii Glabriones on the
Pincian. A Sketch by Yaladier 423
165. Map of Region VI. — Alta Semita 428
166. The Ruins of the Temple of the Sun in the Sixteenth Century . 429
167. The Dioscuri of the Quirinal, as they appeared in 1546 . . 431
168. The Tepidarium of the Baths of Diocletian, before its Transfor-
mation into the Church of S. M. degli Angeli .... 434
169. Group of Cypresses in the Cloisters of La Certosa . . 436
170. Remains of the Castra Preetoria : Northeast Corner of the Quad-
rangle 438
171. The Wails of the Pr»torian Camp, with Aurelian's Superstructure 439
172. One of the Victories from the Arch of Gordianus III. . . . 440
173. Map of Region IX. — Campus Martius and Circus Flaminius . . 440
174. Plan of the Ara Ditis et Proserpinie 447
175. Fragments of the Pulvini of the Ara Ditis 448
176. Architectural Details of the Circus Flaminius .... 453
177. The Inscription of Anicius Faustus from the Circus Flaminius (?) . 464
178. A Fragment of the Forma Urbis showing Round Temple of Her-
cules 455
179. The Finding of the Bronze Statue of the Hercules Magnus Custos,
August 8, 1864 456
180. The Shrine of the Hercules Invictus, discovered in 1889, on the Via
Portuensis 457
181. The so-called Pompey the Great of the Palazzo Spada . . . 460
182. The Mausoleum of Augustus, turned into a Garden by the Soderini
about 1550 463
1«3. The Ara Pacis Augusta; — details 467
1S4. The Ara Pacis Augustae— details 408
18.5. Plan of the first (red) and of the third (black) Pantheon . .474
186. The Pantheon flooded by the Tiber 477
187. The Pantheon at the Time of Urban VIII. (1625) . . . .482
188. The Bronze Trusses of the Pronaos of the Pantheon, from a Sketch
br Dosio 483
1H9. Tlie Remains of Raphael, discovered September 14, 1833 . 485
190. The Temple of Neptune : an unfinished Study by Vespignani . 489
191. Remains of the Hall of the Theatre of Mareellus, from a Sketch
by Du Perac (1575) 492
192. Arcades of the Theatre of Balbus, from a Sketch bv Sangallo the
Elder * ... 493
193. Forma Urbis, fragment 115 494
194. Remains of the Cri'pta Balbl, designed by Sangallo the Elder . 495
195. Remains of the Stadium discovered in 1869 at the South End of the
Piazza Navona 497
196. The Nile of the Braccio N novo — A Fragment .... 501
197. A Round Temple or Hall sketched by Giovannoli in 1619, near the
Palazzo Capranica 503
198. The M»-called Arch of M. Aurelius on the Corso, sketched by Li-
gorio 505
XXIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
199. Map of the Harbor of Rome 509
200. Temple of Fort una ; Details of the Order 515
201. The Excavations of 1827 in the Temple of Mater Matuta, from a
• Sketch bv Valadier 517
202. The Janus of the Forum Bbarium, the Arch of Severns, and the
Church of S. Giorgio, from a Sketch by M. Heemskerk . . 619
203. Plan of S. Maria in Cosmedin 520
204. 8. Maria in Cosmedin in the Sixteenth Centurv .... 521
205. The Wharf for landing Marbles on the Banks of the Campus
Martius 526
206. Map of the Thermcp Antoninianip 533
207. Part of the Building discovered by Guidi under the Baths of Cara-
calla 533
208. A I^af from PaUadio*s Sketch-book (Baths of Caracalla) . . 535
209. Capital of the Composite Onler from the Tepidarium of Caracalla*s
Batlis 537
210. Palladio's Plan of the Thermae Dccianie 543
211. Capital from the Basement of Hadrian's Tomb .... 552
212. Diagram showing the Order in which the Imperial Tombstones
were placed in the Mausoleum 554
213. The Girandola at the Castle of S. Angelo, from an Engraving bv
Lauro (1624) *. 566
214. The Mausoleum of Hadrian and the Meta in Raphael's "Vision of
(yonatantine " 657
215. The Prati di Castello in 1870 558
216. The Prati di Castello in 1890 559
THE RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME
BOOK I
GENERAL INFORMATION
I. Site — Geology — Configuration of Soil. — During the sob-Apennine or quaternary j)eriod a powerful stream came down from the mountains, on the line of a rent or fissure which separated the Ciminian from the Alban volcanoes. The stream, from 1000 to 2000 metres wide and 30 deep, emptied itself into the sea between Ponte Galera and Dragoncello. By the combined action of the main flood and of its tributaries, portions of the tableland on the east or left bank became detached and formed small islands, while the edge of the bank itself was fur- rowed and serrated into promontories and inlets. Such is the ori- gin of the isolated hills, since called Capitoline, Palatine, Aven- tine, and C&4ian; and of the promontories projecting from the tableland, called Pincian, Quirinal, Viminal, Cespian, and Oppian. The Vatican and the Janiculum on the west or right bank are less irregular, because they had to withstand the action of the main stream alone, and not of side tributaries.
When men first appeared in these lands the quaternary river had diminished almost to the size and volume of the historical Tiber, and the hills had been reduced to a definite shape ; but the bottom of the valleys remained swampy, so as to be easily flooded by freshets. The marshes of the Velabra, the Caprae pal us, the Beoennise, and other ponds are evidence of this state of things. The month of the river was still near Ponte Galera, 12 kilometres farther inland than the present one. The first human settlement, "dove I'acqua di Tevere s'insala," called Ficana, stood on the hill of Dragoncello, opposite Ponte Galera. The dim remoteness of thne events is shown by the fact that when Ancus Marcius, the
2 GENERAL 7!fFOa.VAT10X
fourth king, fountled Ostia, aa a suliRtitute for Ficaiitt, the mouth of the river had already advanced seawards 5:tt0 metres.
Tig. ft —Till] Cllfli of the Cipltoline Hill nbore ■■ La CoiiwliidOM."
It is difficult to reconstruct in one's mind tlif formpr asjiect of
the »il« of Itoiiic, as hills have been loivcri'd. va)lc\s mind ii]>, .iiiil
clifla turned into jjcntle sloivs. By means of borings made iu
SITE 3
1872,^ and of my own investigations into the depths of the founda- tions of modern buildings, I have ascertained that the promon- tories and the isolated hills were faced — at least on the river side — by sheer walls of rock, of which there are a few specimens left at the southwest front of the Capitoline, and on the west sides of the Palatine and Aventine. In other words, the site of Kome was like that of Veil and Faleria, with narrow dales inclosed by craggy clifts, shadowed by evergreens, and made damp and unhealthy by swamps and unruly rivers (Fig. 2).
The other hills, the Quirinal, Virainal, Pincian, etc., were not different in shajw, as shown by the following section taken across the Quirinal, from the Piazza Barberini to the corner of the Via Xaziouale : —
(44.32)
4iti(«JM.
iMOOO Oittanct:
ing. 3. — Section of the Qoirlnal HilL
Within the limits of the old city there were seven hills, of which those isolated were called mantes (Palatine, Capitoline, Aventine, and Caelian), those connected with the tableland were called rolles (Quirinal and Viminal). The Es(iuiline is an exception to the rule, being counted among the montes, although connected with the tableland. In regard to altitude above sea-level they stand in the following order : —
Metres. Quirinal, Porta Pia 63.05
Viminal, railway .ntation [Oppian, the Sette Sale . Esquiline, S. Maria Magjyiore [f.Vspian, Via Qiiattro Cantoni Palatine, S. Bonavcntura Ca>Han, Villa Mattel . Capitoline, the Arara'li Aventine, S. Alessio .
1 ISaffacIe Cancvari, Atti Accademia Lincet, seric ii. vol. ii
57.48
55.02]
54.43
50.86]
50.00
47.85
46.00
45.92
p. 429.
4 GENERAL INFORMATION
Other summits on the left bank : —
Metres.
Pincian Hill at the Villa Medici 56.33
Pincian Hill at the Porta Pinciana 63.05
Tlie so-called pHeudo-Aventine by S. Saba . . . 43.00 Monte d' Oro, above the Porta Metroai .... 46.00 Monte Citorio 24.34
Before the construction of the central railway station, the highest point on the left bank was an artificial hill called the Monte della Giustizia, the work of Diocletian and of Sixtus V. It rose to the height of 73 metres, and bears the name of " altissimus Komse locus" in Bufaliiii*s map (1551). On the other side of tlie river, the ridge called the mons Vaticanus rises to the height of 14t) metres at the fort of Monte Mario, of 75 metres at the top of the pope's gardens. The Jauiculum measures 89 metres at the Villa Savorelli-IIeyland, 81.73 at the Porta di S. Fancrazio.
Rome stands at an equal distance from the sea and the moun- tains, in the middle of an undulating plain deeply furrowed by ravines. This plain, 47 kilometres wide and 60 long, is bordered on the north side by the Sabatine volcanic range (Rocca romana, 601 metres; Monte Calvi, 590; Monte Virginio, 540) ; on the east side by the limestone pre-Ai)ennines (Monte Gennaro, 1269; Monte Affliano, 598; Monte Guadagnolo, 1218; the citadel of Praenest^ at Castel S. Pietro, 766) ; on the southeast side by the Alban hills, the highest summit of which is not Monte Cavo (940), as generally supposed, but the Punta delle Faette, 950 metres.
Students who visit Rome for the first time would do well to take at once a general survey of the seven hills, of the plain, of its border of mountains and sea, from the dome of S. Peter's, from the campanile of S. Maria Maggiore, or from the tower of the Capitol, which is easier of access and has a more interesting foregi'ound (open every day from ten to three). The landmarks of the panorama can be singled out by referring to —
Henry Kiepert's Carta corogr. ed archeol. delV Italia ce.ntralt, 1 : 250,000. Berlin, Reimer, 1881. — Enrico Abate's Guida della provincia di Roma. Rome, Salviucci, 1890. Map in two sheets. Second ed. 1893. Maps of the Istitutp geografico militare, 1 : 100,000 and 1 : 50,000. (The map 1 : 10,000 is not in the market.) The best for use is the Carta topografica dei dintomi di RotnOf in 9 Bheet;*, 1 : 25,000.
The highest jieaks visible from Rome are the Monte Terminillo, above Hieti, 2213 metres high, and the Monte Velino, above Avez- zano, 2487 metres. They usually keep their shining coat of snow till the middle of May.
GEOLOGY 5
LiTESATURE. — Giovanoi Brocchi, Dtllo iiatojineo del nolo di Roma, Rome, 1820.— Raffaele Canevari, Cenni sulle condkioni aitimetricke ed idraultche ddV atjro romano. Rome, 1874. (Annali Ministero agricoltura.) — Felice Giur- dtno, CondizUmi tcpograficht ej^siche di Roma e Campagna. (Monografia della cittadiRoma, 1881, pp. i.-lxxxvi.) — Paolo Mantovani, Descrizione gtologica deila Campagna romanOf Rome, Loescher, 1874 ; and CottituzUmt gtologica dtl tnolo romano, 1878. — Murray's Handbook ajf Rome, ed. 1875, p. 349. — .\ntonio Nibby, Roma antica, vol. i. pp. 1-65, 207-300. Rome, 1838. — Adolf Becker, Topographie der Stadt Rome, p. 81. (Lage, Weichbild, Klima.) Heinrich Jordan, Topographie d. 8, R., vol. 1. pp. 117-152. (Lage, Boden, Klima.) — Otto Richter, Topographie d, S, R., p. 18. (Lage und Formation.)
There are two museums of geology and mineralogy — one in the University (della Sapienza), consisting of the collections of Belli, Brocchi, and Spada, and of a bequest of Leo XII. ; the other in the former convent della Vittoria, Via S. Susanna, second floor : open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
H. Geology. — There are four geological formations in the district of Rome, with which the student must become familiar if he wishes to understand al once some important peculiarities of Roman masonry and architecture. They are the secoiLd&ry or limestonOi the tertiary or argillaceous, the volcanic, and the qnaternary or d41uvial formations. ~
The limestone is best examined at Monticelli, the ancient Cor- iiiculum, the fourth station on the Sulmona line. The rock, slightly dolomitised, is white at the base of the hill, with terebra- tula in great numbers ; reddish in the middle, with a dozen va- rieties of ammonites ; and white again at the summit, with tere- bratulct and traces of the anomalous fossil aptgchus. The lime of Monticelli, from the Caprine kilns, mixed with pozzolana, makes Roman masonry '^ aere perenniuH." The argillaceous formation is conspicuous in the Vatican and Janiculum ridges, the monti della creta (clay hills) of the present day. A walk through the exten- sive quarries of the Valle dell' Inferno and the Valle del Gelsomino will show the student the details of the formation, rich in ptero- podous molluscs, and will make him appreciate the vastness of the work of roan, since bricks were first accepted as an essential element of Roman masonry. As the Valle di Pozzo Pantal^o has been bodily excavated through the hills of Monteverde by the quarrymen supplying tufa for the '* opus quadratum " and the ''opus reticulatum," so the valleys of the Gelsomino, delle For- nici, delle Cave, della Balduina, and deir Inferno have been hollowed out of the clay hills by the ancient, Renaissance, and modem bricklayers. (See Bull, com., 1892, p. 288, and § xi. on Building Materials.) The pliocene marls of the Vatican ridge abound in fossils; they can easily be gathered along the Via
6 GENERAL INFORMATION
Trionfale opposite the Croce di Monte Mario, or iu the cuttings of the Viterbo railway, at the top of the Valle dell* Inferno.
The volcanic formation is represented in or near Kome by three kinds of tufa — the red or lithoid, the yellowish or granular, the grayish or lamellar ; and by two kinds of pozzolana — the red and the black. The surface of tufa beds, soft and unfit for build- ing purposes, is called '* capiHillaccio." The tufa quarries of S. Saba, the largest within the walls, were abandoned in 1889 ; the largest still in use are those of Monteverde, outside the Porta Por- tese, and of S. Agnese, outside the Porta Pia. The best kind of pozzolana is quarried near the Tre Fontane. Diluvial or qua- ternary deposits abound on each side of the Tiber. The cliffs of the Monti Parioli, between the Villa di Papa Giulio and the Acqua Acetosa, as well as the gravel pits of Ponte MoUe and Ponte No- mentano, are best adapted for the study of this late formation, so rich in fossil mammalia, like the Elephas^ the Rhinoceros tichorintis, the Bos primigeniuSf the hippopotamus, the lynx, etc. It is w^ell to remember that tlie flint arrowheads found in the gravel at Ponte Molle do not belong to a local race, but were washed down from pre-Apennine stations by the flood.
Travertine, the king of Roman building materials, is best studied at the Cava del Barco, near the stazione dei hagni of both Tivoli railways.
Pietro Zezi, Indicc hiblioffrajico delle publicaztonl riguardanti la mineraloffia, la geolotjia t la paltontologia della provincia di Botna, (Monografia di Roma, vol. i. p. clxiii.)
in. Malaria. — The Romans did not deny the unhealthiness of the district in the midst of which their city was built. Cicero calls it " a pestilential region," and Pliny likewise calls the Ma- remma " heavy and i)estilential." The hills were comparatively healthy (** colles in regione ])estilenti salubres, colles saluberrimi," Livy, V. 54) ; still, the effects of malaria, increased by ignorance or contempt of sanitary rules, must have been felt also by the settlers on the Palatine, Esquiline, and Quirinal. Under Til>erius there were three temples of Fever left standing — one on the Palatine, one near the church of S. Eusebio, the third near the church of S. Bernardo; but they represented the memory of past miseries rather than actual need of help from the gods, because, long before the time of Tiberius, Rome and the Campagna had been made healthy in a large measure ; and when Horace (Epist., i. 7, 7) describes Rome as half deserted in the summer months, he refers to the habit of the citizens of migrating to
MALARIA 7
their hill farms or seacoast villas, to escape depressing heat rather than malaria. This summer emigration en masse is still charac- teristic of Rome. Sixty thousand citizens left in 1893 for an average perio<l of forty days : one seventh of the whole population. Sanitary reform was accomplished, firstly, by the draining of marshes and ponds ; secondly, by an elaborate system of sewers ; thirdly, by the substitution of spring water for that of polluted wells ; fourthly, by the paving and multiplication of roads ; fifthly, by the cultivation of land ; sixthly, by sanitary engineering, ap- plied to human dwellings ; seventhly, by substituting cremation for burial; eighthly, by the drainage of the Campagna; and lastly, by the organization of medical help. The results were truly wonderful. Pliny says that his villeggiatura at Laurentum was equally delightful in winter and summer, while the place is now a hotbed of malaria. Antoninus Pius and M. Aurelius pre- ferred their villa at Lorium (Castel di Guido) to all other imperial residences, and the correspondence of Pronto proves their presence there in midsummer. No one would try the experiment now. The same can be said of Hadrian's villa below Tivoli, of the villa Quinctilioruni on the Appian Way, of that of Lucius Verus at Acqua Traversa, etc. The Campagna must have looked in those happy days like a great park, studded with villages, farms, lordly residences, temples, fountains, and tombs (see " Ancient Rome," chs. iii. and x.).
The cutting of the aqueducts by the barbarians, the consequent abandonment of suburban villas, the permanent insecurity, the migration of the few survivors under cover of the city walls, and the choking up of drains, caused a revival of malaria. Mediaeval Romans found themselves in a condition worse than that of the first builders of the city; and being neither able nor willing to devise a remedy, as their ancestors had done, they raised their helpless hands towards heaven, and built a chapel in honor of Our Lady of the Fever (see " Ancient Rome," p. 53).
The present generation has once more conquered the evil, and has made Rome the best drained, the l)est watered, the healthiest capital of Europe, except London. This statement may not be agreeable to those who systematically and deliberately condemn whatever has been done by us since 1870; but they would do well to accept facts as they are. Comm. Luigi Bodio, Director of the State Department of Statistics, has favored me with the following official declaration : —
8 GENERAL INFORMATION
" Rome, 10 Not, 1894.
" From Ist January, 1860, to 31st December, 1869, in an aver- age population of 205,229, there were 5477 average annual births, 5946 deaths. Rate of births, 26.70 per thousand; of deaths, 29 per thousand.
" Between 1890 and 1893, in an average population of 437,355 souls, there were 11,678 births, 9791 deaths per annum. Rate of births, 26.70 per thousand; of deaths, 22.38. This last figure includes the floating population, and, above all, the peasants who come down from their mountains to cultivate the Maremma, and furnish the heaviest percentage to the hospital lists. The raie of deaths among the resident population is only \QAo per ^Aotirancf, while in I^ondon it rose to 20.37, in Vienna to 21.53, in Berlin to 23.09, in Paris to 23.80." *
Literature. — Pietro Balestra, V igitne nella citUi e campagna di Roma. 1875. — Guido Baccelli, La malaria di Roma, (Monografia di Roma, 1881, vol. i.p. 149.) — Giovanni Brocchi, Diitcorto tuUa condizione delV aria di Roma net tempi antichi. 1820. — Stefano Ferrari, Condizivni igieniche del cltTna di Roma. (MonograAa di Roma, 1881, vol. i. p. 316.) — Rodolfo Lanciani, Di alcune cpere di risaiMmenio dell* afpro romano. Atti Lincei, 1879. " The Sanitary Condition of Rome : " Ancient Rome, p. 49. — Lanzi-Terrigi, La malaria e H clima di Roma, Rome, 1877. — Francesco Sealzi, Malattie predominanti in Roma. Rome, 1878. — Angelo Secchi, Intomo ad alcune opere idrauliche antiche rinvenvte nella campar/na di Roma. — Corrado, Tommasi Cnideli, The Climate of Rome and the Roman Malaria. (Translated M" Charles Cramond Dick. London, Churchill, 1892.) //' antica foffnatura delle colline romane, Atti Lincei, vol. x., 1881. Alcune rijteitsiimi *m7 clima delV antica Roma. Mittheil., 1877, p. 77. IJancien drainage des collines romainet. Melanges de I'Ecole fran^aise, 1882. — Charles Edmund Wendt, The New Rome and the Question of Roman Fever. New York, 1892. — Philippe Toumon, Etudes ttatistiques sur Rome. Paris, 1855, vol. i. pp. 223, 230.
IV. Climatk. — The climate seems to have been more severe in ancient times than now. Dionysius (Fragm., 1., xii. 8) describes a blizzard which covered the ground with seven feet of snow. Men died of cold, sheep and cattle were frozen, and many hotises fell under the weight of their snoAvy pall. He speaks probably of the year 401 b. c, which Livy (v. 13) calls " insignis hieme gelida ac nivosa," when even the Tiber l)ecame a mass of ice. In 271 snow lay on the Forum for forty days.'^ On 12th January 67 b. c. the meeting of tlie Senate was adjourned on account of the cold
1 Death-rate in 1880 — London, 19.8; Rome, 20.0; Paris, 24.6; Berlin, 25.8; Vienna, 26.2; PetcrsbuiTj, 30.6; Buda-Pest, 39.4.
2 See Augustine, De civitate Deij iii. 17.
CLIMATE 9
which prevailed in the Curia.^ The severity of another winter, per- haps that of 19 B. c, is described by Horace (Od., i. 9). Martial*s epigram, iv. 18, commemorates the fate of a youth transfixed by an icicle. Such excesses of temperature are not recorded In mod- em days. Between 1828 and 1877 the lowest registered was 8.25° Centigrade (February, 1845), the higliest 42°, a most extraordi- nary case, which happened on July 17, 1841. The mean annual temperature is 16.40°. In the course of the day the mercury rises quickly in the morning and falls slowly after noon. In summer there are two maximums — one from twelve to one o'clock, the other towards nine p. m. The temperature is always lowest at sanrise.
Rain is most frequent in November, heaviest in October. There are 155 cloudless days in the year, 122 misty, 83 cloudy. Maximum rainfall (1872), 1050.30 millimetres ; minimum (1834), 319.45. In summer time the land breeze blows from early morn- ing to nine a. m., the sea breeze from eleven to six. These refresh- ing winds make Rome more comfortable in summer than other cities of much higher latitudes.
V. Hydrography — Rivers, Springs, Ponds, Marshes. — The Tiber rises from the Monte Coronaro, at the height of 1167 metres above the sea, and reaches Rome after a winding course of 373 kilometres, through Etruria, Umbria, and Sabina. The mean breadth of the river in the city district was 80 metres (now 100 metres between the embankments), its average depth 3 metres, total length from springs to sea 393 kilometres. Below Rome it expands into a channel 120 metres wide, navigated by steamers and coasting-vessels of 100 tons burden. Ceselli's observations, from March, 1871, to February, 1872, state the daily average out- flow of the river at 1,296,000 cubic metres. During the same year 8,582,333 tons of sand and mud were washed down to the sea, a ?oliune of over 4,000,000 cubic metres. This state of things and the prevalence of southwesterly winds makes the coast advance westwards at a considerable rate. We have just seen that Ficana, the oldest hnman station near the bar of the river, is now 12,(K)0 metres inland, and kingly Ostia 6600 metres. The Torre di S. Michele, built in 1567 by Michelangelo on the edge of the sands, sUnds 2000 metres away from the present shore; the Torre Clementina at Fiumicino, built in 1773, " in ipso maris supercilio,"
I Cicero, Ad Quint. /ratr,j il. 12.
10 GENERAL INFORMATION
stands 690 metres inland.^ The average yearly increase of the coast at tlie Ostia mouth is 9.02 metres, at the Fiumicino mouth ;H0 metres.
LiTERATL'RE. — Gluscppe Ponzi, Storia gtologica del Tevere. (GiomAle arcadico, vol. xviii. p. 129.) DeW -4»i«fie e de suoi rtflitti. (Ibid.) — Aubert, RotfM e /' inondazione dtl Tevere, (Giornale arcad., vol. Ixvi. p. 142.) — ^Vlessan- droBetocchi, Del fume Tevere. (Mouogratia di Koiua, vol. i. p. 197.) Effeme- ridi del Tevere^ published yearly by the Aceademia dei Lincei. — Marco Ceselli, Bullettino nautico e geograjico di Roma, vol. vi. n. 3. — Carlo Fea, Storia delle deque. Rome, 1817. — Kodolfo Laiiciauii / comentarii di Frontino intomo h acque e gli acquedotti. Rome, Salviucci, 1880, pp. 3-28. — Alessandro Nar- ducci published, in 1876, an essay on the bibliography of the Tiber (Saggio di bibliograjia dtl Tevere^ Rome, Civelli), in which over 400 works are registered. Their number may be stated now at 700. The best library for consultation on the subject is the Biblioteca del Ministero dei LAvori publici, Piazza di S. Silvestro. There is a s))ecial department in Rome for the works and embank- ment of the Tiber, with a good collection of maps and diagrams (Ufficio tec- uico speciale per la sistemazione del Tevere. Via di Ripetta, n. 222 c).
The inundations are the great historical feature of the Tiber.
From the traditional flood, in the coui'se of which Romulus and his twin-brother were exposed to the waters under the rocks of the Palatine, to the l>eginning of the Christian era, twenty-eix inundations are recorded; thirty from 1 to 500 a. d. ; twenty-one from 500 to 1000; twenty-three from 1000 to 1500; thirty-two from 1500 to the present day; a total of one hundred and thirty- two. The worst of which we have the measurement reached the following altitudes at the hydrometer of Ripetta (ordinary level
of water, 0.70 metres) : —
Metres.
December, 1280 16.02
November, 1376 17.02
December, 1495 16.88
October, 1530 18.95
September, 1557 18.90
I)K('KMBP:R, 1598 19.56
January, 1606 18.26
February, 1637 17.55
November, 1660 17.11
November, 1668 16.00
DecemlKT, 1702 15.41
February, 1805 16.42
December, 1846 16.25
December, 1870 17.22
1 The coast has increased about 390 metres since Ist April, 1857, when an official survey w as taken by the local collector of customs.
i
THE TIBER
11
The flood of 1598, the highest recorded in history, began on Christinas eve ; at noon the next day there were 6.50 metres of flood in the Via di Ripetta, 6.58 metres at the Pantheon, 5.28 metres at the Piazza Navona, 4.56 metres on the Corso by S. Lorenzo in Lucina. A boat went ashore in the Piazza di Spagna, where the Fontana della Barcaccia was erected by Bernini to commemorate the event; two arches of the Pons ^milius were overthrown at three P. M. on the 24th, a few seconds after Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandino had crossed it to rescue some families sur- rounded by the foaming waters. Houses were washed away by hundreds; 700 persons were drowned in the city, and 800 in the suburbs, besides thousands of cattle. As usual, famine and pesti- lence followed the flood.
In the flood of 1702, which rose to only 15.41 metres, fifty-two streets and squares were submerged on the left bank, north of the Capitol, eighty-five south of that hill, and sixty-two on the other side of the river.
The last flood, on December 28 and 29, 1870, which gave rise to King Victor Emmanuel's first visit to his new capital on a merci- ful errand, marks another important date in the history of the citv, because to it we owe the construction of the new embank- meats, which, when finished, will have cost the state, the county, and the city over 200,000,000 lire. The curve of the flood of 1870 is represented in this diagram : —
. • • i . a , • . • • . I •• •■ I •
i $
8 8^
3 •
m m
5*- ^
* A
8 i
T T
•lW«iW«l«Ol« Sf«
Aa#« S
Momtkt
Dtcemtfr 1870
January 1871
Fig. 4.— Curve of the Flood of December, 1870.
The event is too recent to require a description. It brought to our minds the floods so often mentioned by the " Liber Pontifi- calis/' when the waters, breaking through the walls at the Poste- nda sancti Martini (Ripetta), would dash against the cliifs of the Capitol, ita ut in via lata (Corso) amplim quam duos staturas (3.30 metres) Jluminis aqua excrevisset (a. d. 772).
12 GENERAL INFORMATION
Literature. — Leone Pascoli, // Tevere narigato. Rome, 1740. — Ga^paro Alveri, Delle ifwndazioni del Tevere. (Roma in ogni stato, vol. i. p. 571.) — Antonio Grifi, II Jiume Ttvere nelU sue piu memorabili inondazioni. Album, voL iv. pp. 29, 390. — Philippe Toumon, Etudes statistiques sur Romej vol. ii. p. 207. — Gaetauo Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione ecclesiastical vol. Ixxv. p. 125. — Filippo Cerroti, Le inondazioni di Roma, Florence, 1871. — Raffaele Canevari, Tavola delle j)rincipaH inondazioni del Tevere. Rome, 1875. — Michele Carcani, // Tevere e le sue inondazioni dalle origini di Roma sino ai giomi nostri. Rome, 1875. — Alessandro Bettocchi, Monograjia della citta di Romay 1881, vol. i. p. 243. — Ludovico Gomez, De prodigiotis Tiberts inunda' tionibus. Rome, 1531.
The earliest project for restraining the Tiber from overflowing its banks dates, as far as we know, from the time of Julius Caesar, who moved in the House a bill for the cutting of a new bed from the Fons Molvius to the Trastevere, along the base of the Vatican hills.^ The merit of having placed the unruly river under the management of a body of conservators, selected from the highest consular ranks, belongs to Augustus according to Suetonius (37), to Tiberius according to Tacitus (Ann., i. 76) and Dion Cassius (Ivii. 14, 8).
Augustus gave the posts of chief conservators to C. Asinius Gallus and C. Marcius Censorinus in the year 7 b. c.,when the lied of the river was cleared " ruderibus et aBdificiorum prolapsionibus," deepened and widened, and its banks were lined with terminal stones, marking the extent of public proj^erty which the conserva- tors had rescued from private encroachment. Scores of these stones are still in existence. After the inundation of a. d. 15, w^hich had caused what Tacitus describes as " aedificiorum et homi- num stragem," Tiberius referred the subject to Ateius Capito and L. Arruntius, the first of whom was a great authority on such mat- ters. They suggested, and the Emjieror sanctioned, the institution of a permanent committee of five senators, to be called curatores riparum. This institution lasted until the reign of Vespasian or Domitian, when we hear for the first time of one conservator only, a patrician, assisted by two adiutores of ec^uestrian rank. In or about A. D. 101 the care of the sewers was added to that of the Tiber, and this important branch of the city administration received the title of slatio alcei Tiheris et cloncarum. About 330 the chief conservator exchanged his classic title for that of consu- larisy and about 400 for that of coines. Archseologists have been
1 Cicero, Ad Attic. ^ xxxiii. 3. Caesar^s project was brought forward ai^in in 1879. See Zucchelli, Di una nuovn inalreazione dtl Tevere. Rome, For- zani, 1879.
THE TIBER
18
able to draw an almost complete chronology of these officers from the terminal stones on which their names are engraved.
Lttkrature. — Corpus Irucr., vol. i. p. 180; vol. vi. p. 266. — Theodor Mommsen, StaaUrecht^ ii', p. 1047. — Giuseppe Gatti, Bull. comm. arch.f vol. XV., 1887, p. 906. — Th^enat, DicHonn. antiq. grecques et ram, de Saglio, voL i. p. 1623. — Luigi Cantarelli, Bull. comm. arch.^ vol. xvii., 1889, p. 185; vol. zxii.) 1894, pp. 39 and 354. — Dante Yaglieri, Bull, comm, arch., vol. xxH., 1894, p. 254.
Two means were adopted in imperial times to protect the city (rem floods — an embankment on either side, and the shortening of the bed between the city and the sea.
First, as to the embankment. We have seen how the Tiber is subject to differences of level, which reached to 12.86 metres in the flood of Clement VIII., increasing fourteen times the volume of its waters. To give such a capricious river a regular outlet, modern engineers have built a uniform bed 100 metres in width, which has to serve both for droughts and for floods. Their pre-
Modem embankment
Fig. 5.
decessors, on the other hand, had adopted a triple section, the narrowest to serve in time of drought, the second in moderate, the third in extraordinary floods, as shown in the following diagram : —
Ancient embankment
Fig. 6.
The advantages of the old over the modern system are obvious. With the old the river was obliged to run in every season of the year within limits well defined, and proportioned to its volume,
14 GENERAL INFORMATlOlf
without nuaing sandbaiiks and depositing silt and mud. The moderate height of each of the three receding steps allowed the river to preser'e its pleasing as|)ect, as is the case iu many of the modern capitals of Europe ; while the huge wallH between which we have imprisoned the stream have traustormed it into a deep and unsightly channel, with nothing to relieve the monotony of its banks.
Side outlets to relieve the Soud and shorten its course towards the sea were first cut ojien by Claudius. An inscription discovered at Porto in ISSfi contains the expression ; f<issi8 dvctis vrbkm iNVNDATioNis FEHicvLO LiBEKAViT (see Corpus Inscr., vol. siv. n. 85). Trajan changed the course of tlie channels. Another fragmentary inscription, now in the cloisters of S. Paul ontside the Walls, says of him : fo^sam frcil q\\ i^vstlalionea Tibnis ODSiDVE \rbem veiantea . . . arcerenlur. This subject has been exhaustively treated by —
PiefTO Ercole VlMonli, Dunrlaiimi Aeead. arelirol., vol. viii. (1*381, p. ai3. — Luigi Canina, Ibid., p. 259. — Anionio Sibbv, Dlatorni di Roma, vol, ii. p. Sia. — RciSerechcid, Ball. i<ut., 186-1, p. 8. — Diark'. Texivr, Airur S*ii.d'Arehilerttirt,vo}. xv. p. 308, pis. 31, 32. — Roii.ilto Uncmni, Jtirvn-hr nlla n'tla di Porlo (in Ann. Inst., vol. xl., 1868, p. lU.) Carjiui later. Lai., vol. xiv. p. aa, u. 88.
The following cut represents the mouth of the navigable arm of the river at Fiuniicino, which is the modern representative of the fossa Traiaoa : —
The characteristics of the Tib*r arc, first, the supposed whole- some qualities of its water, the favorite beverage of Clement Vll.,
THE TIBER 16
Paul m., and Gi'egory XIII. This simply proves that the three pontifiPs were proof against typhoid, for the river was then, as it continued up to 1890, the true Cloaca Maxima of ^^he city. The second is the abundance and regularity of its feeding springs, in consequence of which the river has never changed in volume and level within historical times. There is a tendency to l)elieve that the Tiber was much lower in old times, because Pliny (xxxvi. 24, 2) speaks of Agrippa being rowed into the Cloaca ^laxima, the mouth of which it is now impossible to enter. Observations made in 1860 by Padre Secchi at the marble wharf (Marmorata), and by the engineers of the embankment, prove that since the fall of the Empire the bed of the river has hardly risen three feet. While this fact is absolutely certain, it gives rise to problems which are difficult to solve.
In the spring of 1879 a Roman house was discovered on the right bank, in the gardens of la Farnesina, the paintings and stuccoed panels of which have become famous in the artistic world, and form the l)est ornament of the Museo delle Terme.
The pavements of this noble mansion were only 8 metres and 20 centimetres above the level of the sea, and about 3 metres above that of the river. During the four months employed by us in removing the frescoes and the stucco panels, the Tiber entered the house five times. Taking ten times as a yearly average, the paintings and the stuccoes nmst have been washed by ordinary floods four thousand times, from the age of Augustus, to which the house belongs, to the fall of the Empire ; and yet frescoes and stuccoes were in perfect condition, and showed no sign of having been spoilt by water. I have not yet found a satisfactory solution of the problem ; because, even admitting the existence of an embankment between the house and the river, drains would always have provided a way for the flood.
LrrERATrRK. — Nottzie degli Scari, 1880, p. 127, pis. 4, 6. — ^fonumenti ituditi dtW In^tittttOf Siippletnento 1891. — Wolfgang Helbig, Coll ert ions of Amiiquities tn Rome^ vol. ii. p. 220. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Bome^ p. 96-3.
The Tiber was celebrated for it« fish. There is a work on this gnbject by Paolo Giovio, translated from Latin into Italian by Carlo Zangarolo. Macrobius, Pliny, and Juvenal praise above all the Inputs^ when caught ** inter duos pontes " (in the waters of S. Bartolomeo's island), where he fed on the refuse of the Cloaca Maxima. The lupus has been identified by some with the " spigola " or Perca lebrax, by others with the " laccia " or Clupea
16 GENERAL INFORMATION
aloscL, better known by the name of shad, the best Tiberine fish of the present day. There is a bas-relief in the Capitol, represent- ing a sturgeon 46 inches long, with the text of an edict of 1581 providing that any sturgeon caught in Roman waters exceeding the statute size would be considered the property of the city magistrates.
YI. Bridges.
Literature.— Gio. Battista Pirancsi, Opere, vol. iv., Ponti antichi, etc — Stefano Piale, Degli atUichi ponti di Roma. Rome, 183*2. — Adolf Becker, De muris, p. 78; and Topographic, p. 693. — Tbeodor Moinmsen, Berichie der sacks. GeselUcha/l der WtM.y 1850, p. 320. — Heinrich Jordan, Die BrUcketu (Topographic, vol. 1. p. 393.) — Mayerhoefer, Die Brucken in alien Rom, 1883.— Zippel, Die Brucken in alten Rom. (Jahrbuch fiir klass. Phil., 1886, p. 81.) — Otto Richter, Die Befestigung des Janiculum. Berlin, 1882.
Pons sublicius, the oldest of Roman bridges. — Its antiquity is proved not so much by the tradition which attributes it to Ancus Marcius, as by the fact that no iron was used in its original construction, or in subsequent repairs. Pliny (H. X., xxxvi. 15, 23), ignorant as he was of " Pre-history," gives a wrong explana- tion of the fact when he introduces the story of Horatius Cocles, whose followers experienced so much difficulty in cutting it down in the face of the enemy. Such was not the case. Iron was pro- scribed from the structure for the same reason which prevented masons or stonecutters from using tools of that metal in repairing some of the oldest temples ; for instance, that of the Dea Dia (see " Ancient Rome," p. 41). At that time the Romans lived still " morally " in the age of bronze, and felt a religious repulsion for the new metal.
The bridge was carried away by a flood in 23 b. c, perhaps the same mentioned by Horace (Od., i. 2) ; and again in the time of Antoninus Pius. On either occasion it was restored according to the old rite.i It seems almost certain that, if the frame and the roadway were of timber and planks (sublicifp^ the foundations in mid-stream nmst have been of solid masonry.* The piers were prominent enough above the water-mark to make the memory of the bridge last through the Middle Ages, when we hear very often
1 See Dionysius, iii. 45 ; Pliny, xxxvi. 5, 23 ; Macrobius, i. 11; and Vita Antonin., viii.
2 Servius, jEn. viii. 046, says of Porsonna: cum per gublicium pontem, hoc est ligneum (fui modo lapidrtif dicitttr, transire conarttur ; but his words deserve little credit. (See ^thicus, Cosnwgr.^ in Jordan's Topoyr., i. 393, n. 1.)
BRIDGES 17
of a " pons fractus iuxta Uarmoratam." They were destrojed to the water's edge under Sixtus IV. " On July '2'6, 1464," says the Diary of lofessura, "Pope Sixtutt sent into camp 400 large cannon-balls, made of traTertine, from the remains of a bridge at La Marmorata, called ' il ponte di Orazio Coclea.' " The last traces were blown up in 1877 to clear the bed of the riser.
Pons Fabhicius (Pont* Quattro capi). — Tlie island of iEacu- lapius muat have been joined to the left bank by a wooden bridge
ng.S. — TbaSmUlmi, Fubiiclu, ChUu Brldg«, uhI tlis bland in the TRier.
as early as 102 b. c. (see Livy, xxsv. 21, 5) ; another structure of the same kind is supposed to have joined the island with the Trastevere and the fortified summit of the Janiculum. In the year 62 b. c. Lucius Fabrtcius, commissioiier of roads, trans- formed the first into a solid stone bridge. The inscrijitions which commemorate the event, engraved below the parapets on either aide, are followed by a declaration signed by P. I..epidus and M. Txillius, consuls in 21 b. c, that the work had been duly and satis- factorily esecnted. From this declaration we learn one of the wise principles of the Roman administration — that thu contrac- tors and builders of bridges were held responsible for their solidity
18 GENERAL INFORMATION
for forty years, so that they would regain possession of the de- posit which they made in advance only in the forty-first year after it had been made. Nothing speaks more highly in favor of the bridge than the fact that it is the only one which has survived intact the vicissitudes of 1057 years. It has two arches and a smaUer one in the pier between them ; a fourth is concealed by the modern embankment on the left.
The student must remember that the streets of ancient Rome were from three to five metres lower than the present ones, while the bridges have remained the same ; the inclines which gave access to them were, therefore, nmch longer and steej^er than they are now, and offered space for several more ojienings or ai'ches, which have since been buried by tlie accumulation of the soil. These steep inclines were called jtedes pohtis, and coscioi in the Middle Ages.
The Pons Fabricius took the name of Pons Judaeorum when the Jewish colony settled in the neighboring quarter. It is now called dei Quattro Capi, from the four-headed hemice whicli once supported the panels of the parapet. There are only two left in aitu. The river, unfortunately, no longer flows under this most perfect of Roman bridges ; by a miscalculation in the plan of the new embankment the channel has been dried up, and the Ship of ^sculapius has stranded on a mudbank.
Literature. — Luigi ranina, Edijizu di Roma antica, vol. iv. tav. 242. — Corpus Inmcr.j vol. i. p. 174, u. GOO ; vol. vi. n. 1305.
Pons Cestius, Pons Gratianus, Ponte di S. Bartolomeo, l)etween the island and the Trastevere. — Its construction is attributed to Lucius Cestius, one of the six magistrates whom Ca*sar en- trusted with the government of Rome on leaving for Spain in 46 B. o. It was rebuilt by L. Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, pre- fect of the city, in a. d. 365, and dedicated in the spring of 370 to the Emperor Gratianus. (See Corpus Inscr., vol. vi. p. 245, n. 1175.) Its third restoration took place in the eleventh centui-y in the time of Benedict VIII.; the inscription which commemorates it describes the bridge a,s feke dirvtvm in those davs. In 1849, the followers of (iaribaldi threw one of the in- scriptions of Gratianus into the stream. The bridge was altered completely in 1886-89, so that of the three arches only the central one is ancient. In the course of the last work it was found that the blocks of travertine used bv Svmmachus in the restora- tions of 365-^370 had been taken away from the theatre of Mar-
BRIDGES 19
cellus, mainly from the lower (Doric) arcades of the hemicycle. lie had aliw made uim of stones bearing historical ioBCriptioua of the tiuie of Ti'ajaii.
The two bridges made an architectural and pictorial group with the Ship of ^Esctilapius.^ It ia not known when and by whom the island was turned into tliis form. As far as we can
Pig. 9. — The Hlarn of the Ship o( .^culiplu*.
judge from (he fragment of the stern, represented in the cut above, the imitation must have l>t-eii perfect in every detail. The ship, however, did not appear as if it was floating on the river, excejit ill time of flood, l>ecause it rested on a platform 2 metres above low-water mark. It was entirely built of travertine, and measured 280 metres between the periiendiculara, with a beam of 7f! metres. An obeliiik, t)iecefl of which are now preserved in Naples, repre- seHted the main-maHt.
A fanciful copy of this island exists in the Villa d' Este at Tivoli as a part of the I'lan, or rather model in full relief, of the city
I Literature on the Islund o( .^.wiilapiuw. — Corf. I'n*., WiB, f, 42; Jordan, Fonaa Vrbit, ix. 42; Corywi Ivte,-^ viil. vi. n. 0-18, 9824; Aand. Kom. Arch.: »e«siniip 20 gi'iiii. 18SI; BiTfcer, To/Hiiir., p. 661; Kichlcr, Tiipngr., p. 158; Gamucci, Aulidi. di Auiun, iv. p. 27B; Xilby, IComa nulica, ii. 291.
20 GENERAL INFORMATION
of Rome which Pirro Ligorio added to the curiosities of that delightful place. A stream, derived from the Anio, represents the Tiber, on which the ship appears to be floating, with the obelisk in the place of the mast and the coat-of-arms of Cardinal Ippolito instead of the emblems of the " merciful God."
Literature. — Gio. Battista Piranesi, Antichita di Roma, vol. iv. pis. 23, 24. — Antonio Nibby, Roma antica, vol. i. p. 167. — P. Bonato, Annali Societa archit. italianiy vol. iv,, 1889, p. 139. — iVoii^ic degli Scavi, 1886, p. 159; 1889, p. 70.
Pons ^Emilius. — In the early days of Rome there was but one line of communication with the Janiculum and with the cities on the coast of Etruria : the road that passed over the Sublician bridge, crossed the plain of Trastevere by S. Cosimato, and ascended the Janiculum by the Villa Spada. Livy (i. 33 ; v. 40) and Valerius Maximus (i. 1, 10) describe it, on the occasion of the flight of the Vestals to Veii ; and Fabretti (De Aq., i. 18, p. 43) speaks of its rediscovery in the seventeenth century. He saw a long piece of the pavement between the bridge and S. Cosimato ; and where the pavement was missing, as between the Villa Spada (de Nobili) and the church of S. Pietro Montorio, its course was marked by a line of tombs on either side. Tlie ascent up the hill w^as exceedingly steep, and hardly fit for can-iage traffic. Things, however, were improved in the sixth century of Rome, when a new bridge and a new and better road w^ere built. M. iEmilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior, censors in b. c. 181, founded the piers ; the arches were added and the bridge was finished thirty- eight years later. The new road, tlie Lungaretta of the present day. was then traced across the low swampy plain of Trastevere, partly on an embankment, partly on viaducts built of stone. One of these viaducts was discovered in 1889 near the Piazza di S. Grisogono, and is described in the Bull. arch, com., 1889, p. 475, and 1890, pp. 6, 57.
The Pons ^milius, owing to its slanting position across the river and to the side pressure of the floods against its piers, has been carried away at least four times : the first duritig or shortly before the reign of Probus (about a. d. 280) ; the second in 1230, when it was rebuilt by Gregory IX. ; the third on September 27, 1557 (rebuilt by Gregory XIIL); the fourth on December 24, 1598, after which it was never repaired. There is but one arch left now in mid-stream, the two on the right having been destroyed in 1887.
BRIDGES
21
Ltteraturk. — Heinrich Jordan, Topographitj i. p. 420. — Pietro I^uiciani, Delponte senatorio. Borne, 1826. — Gio. Battista de Ros«i, Le prime raccoltt^ etc., p. 57. — Filippo Bonanni, Numism. ponti/., vol. i. p. 323, n. 38, 39.
Bridge op Agrippa. — A stone cippus, discovered in August, 1877, behind the church of S. Biagio della Pagnotta, near the Strada Giulia, has revealed the existence and the name of a bridge of which nol>ody had ever heard before, either from classic writers, or from inscriptions, coins, or other such sources of information.
The inscription reads as follows : " By order of Tiberius Claudius
Line of new embankment
•-•I
Tomb o//,— ,c ;?
Gardm of La farHtsJna
TIBER
'Line of new embankment
rig. 10. —Fooodationft of Bridge (?) aboYe the Ponte Sisto.
C«sar, etc., we, PauUus Fabius Persicus, C. Eggius MaruUus, C. Obellius Ruf us, L. Sergius Paullus, L. Scribonius Libo, chief con- servators of the Tiber and its banks, have marked with cippi the limits of public property (on the left bank) from the Trigarium to the Bridge of Agrippa (ad pontem A gripped)"
The Trigarium was an open space, near the Strada Giulia, for the breaking in and training of horses, for which purpose the ancients availed themselves of the iriga^ the untamed animal being harnessed between two trained ones. As regards the Bridge of Agrippa, all our science is at a loss to explain the mystery. It seems impossible that there should have existed in Rome a large bridge, thrown across the Tiber by such a man as Agrippa, in the golden age of Augustus, and yet that not a trace should be left of it m tUu or in written or engraved documents. Two solutions are more or less acceptable. The first is that the bridge now called Ponte Sisto may have been originally the work of Agrippa. ltd history is unknown. From the name of Pons Aurelius or
22 GENERAL INFORMATION
Pons Antonini, given to it in the third century, its construction has been attributed to Caracalla. Caracalla, however, may have been simply a restorer, as we know that Roman bridges used to change their names after every restoration. The second theoiy is that Agrippa's bridge was swept away by a flood soon after the accession of Claudius, and that its remains were carefully removed to restore free navigation up and down stream. This surmise seems justified by the discoveiy made, 100 metres above the Ponte Sisto, of what appear to be the remains of sunken piers, as shown in Fig. 10.
These remains are lying so low under the bottom of the river, they are so irregular in shape and in their respective distances (9.30 metres, 11.50 metres, 23.50 metres), their construction shows such a curious mixture of large stones and rubble work, that I still hesitate to consider them to be the remains of Agrippa's mysterious bridge.
Literature. — Liiigi Borsari, Notizh degli Scavi, 1887, p. 323; and Bull, arch, com.y 1888, p. 92. — Christian Huelscn, Mitlheilungen^ vol. iv., 1889, p. 285.
Pons jElius (Ponte S. Angelo). — A volume could be written on this most historical of Roman bridges ; but I confine myself to the mention of the latest discoveries made in connection with it.
The Pons yElius was built in a. d. 130 by Hadrian, together with the mausoleum to which it gave access. The construction was recorded by two inscriptions (Corpus Inscriptionum, vi. 973), — copied by Giovanni Dondi dall' Orologio in the jubilee of 1375, — which fell into the river in the catastrophe of 1450. There were six arches visible before the transformation of the bridge in 1892 ; two more have been discovered since in the long incline of the left bank, making a total of eight, of which three only served in the dry season. When the mausoleum was transformed into a fort or tttt de pant in 403, the bridge was closed with two gates, one at each end. The gate facing the Campus Martins is called khpnuKia by Procopius ; ^ the other, facing the Vatican, was named Porta S. Petri in Hadrianio, " Hadrianium " meaning the fort.
The access to the bridge from the Campus Martina is repre- sented in the following remarkable photograph taken in July, 1802. The incline is 40 metres long, with a gradient of eleven per cent. The roadway is paved in the ordinary Roman fashion, the side pavement being of slabs of travertine. The holes on the outer edges of the sidewalks mark the line of the parapets, frag-
1 Goth. i. 19. See Becker, De Murisj p. 113.
meala of which have been found in ».(o. They were composed of pilaeterii and panels, very neatly carvod. On December 19,
Flt< lt< — Tht Inclhw to the StiMB Brfdgg from ths Cunpiu HuUiu (Left Buk|.
1450, while p[Teat crowds were returning from S. Peter's, where NicholitH V. had been showing the Sudaritim, a mule l>plonging to Cardinal Pietro Barbo became restive and canned a panic. The parapets gave way under the pressure, and one htmdred and serenty-two pilgrims fell into the river. To prevent the rf
24 GENERAL INFORMATION
of such a calamity^ Nicholas V. opened the modern Piazza di Ponte (enlarged 1854) ; he also built tuvo expiatory chapels at the entrance to the bridge, from the designs of Bernardo Rossellino. During the siege of the castle of S. Angelo in 1527, Clement VII. and his garrison were much exposed to shots fired by outposts concealed in the chapels. After his liberation the pope caused them to be demolished, and raised in their place two statues, of S. Peter by Lorenzetto and of S. Paul by Paolo Romano. The other statues, representing angels with the symbols of the Passion, were added by Bernini in 1668. In the com*se of the works of 1892 it was ascertained that the foundations of the chapels of Nicholas V. had been built with pieces of statuary and architectural marbles (described by Visconti in Bull. arch, com., 1892, p. 263).
Literature. — Gio. Battista Piranesi, Antichita^ vol. iv. — Antonio Nibby, Roma nnticay vol. i. p. 159. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Itiner. di Etfuiedhn, p. 15 ; and Bull. com.y 1893, p. 14. — Luigi Borsari, Notizit dtgli Scavi, 1892, p. 411. — Christian Huelsen, MittheUungen^ 1894, p. 321.
A hundred metres below the Ponte S. Angelo the remains of another bridge appear at low water. It is probably the work of Nero, who did so much to beautify and enlarge the gardens in the district of the Vatican, which he had inherited from Agrippina the elder. The classic name of the bridge is not known, although many have been suggested (Neronianus, Vaticanus, Triumphalis). In the Middle Ages it was called Pom ruptus ad S. Spiritum in Saxia, See —
Gio. Battista Piranesi, Antichita, vol. iv. pi. 13 ; vol. i. p. 13, n. 91 ; and Camp, Mart., pi. 46. — Stefano Piale, in Venuti's Roma antica, vol. ii. p. 190. — Antonio Nibby, Roma antica, vol. i. p. 205.
Pons Vai.entinianus (Ponte Sisto). — The bridge of Valen- tinian I., represented by the modern Ponte Sisto, was one of the noblest structures spanning the river. It was rebuilt in 366 and 367 by the same Symmachus whom I have mentioned in connec- tion with the Pons Gratianus, with the spoils and on the site of an older one (of Agrippa? or Caracalla?), and was dedicated to V»- lentinian and Valens. Overthrown by the inundation of 797 (?), it was repaired by Sixtus IV., in 1475, from the designs of Baccio Pontelli. In 1878, the branch of the river which flows under the first arch on the left having been diverted, the corresponding arch of Valentinian's bridge was found lying bodily on the bottom of the stream in such good order that the pieces of an inscription^ which ran from one end to the other of the south parapet, were
BRIDGES 26
diBCOvered in their proper succesHiou. A triumphal arch which decorated the approach from the Campus Martius ' had fallen also into the river, with the bronze statues and groups by which it was crowned. The pieces, recovered in 187S, are now exhibit«d in the Museo delle Terme, except a head which found ita way into the
Ylg. 12. — Bnue End iDDBd ia tlui Tibsr.
s bought, many years ]ftf«r, by Ales- markable head is of the highest im- I As in cluaic Umes Iriumpbal uvbes wore raieed on the Sacra Via leading to Ibe Capitolium, w in the ChriMian era they were raised on the roails enn- rrrgiag towardi 3. Pcler's; and »Kp«cially ad peilri inmliam, at the foot o( tbe bridKca which the pil)(Tim* croKAvd rm Iheir way to the Atnntle'i' tomb. Tliat of GratianuR Talentinianua and Theiidmius stood in the Piasza di Ponte S. Angelo ; that of Arcadius, Honoriun, and TheiuloiiiuK at the a|iproath In the Poni TaticanuB ; that at Talentinianus and Valcns by [Jie Pontic Sisto.
26 GENERAL INFORMATION
portaiice in regard to the controversy whether the bronze statues placed on this and other monuments of the end of the fourth century were contemporary works, or simply spoils from earlier edifices which were considered to answer the new purpose more or less satisfactorily ; and also whether the head was changed or not into a new likeness. Experts consider this head to be of better style than that prevalent in the second half of the fourth century.
The parapets were divided into panels by projecting pilasters. £ach panel contains six or eight letters of an inscription which ran the whole length on either side, and each pilaster an in- scription of its own regarding the statue placed upon it. One of the pedestals found in 1892 is dedicated " to the august Victory, faithful companion of our lords and masters, the S. P. Q. R., under the care of Avianius Symmachus, ex-prefect of the city." Near it was lying the right wing of the statue of Victory. It is evident, therefore, that if a proper search were made in the bed of the river nearly all the bronzes of tlie bridge could lie recovered.
The fragments of the Pons Valentinianus are dispersed in vari- ous corners of the Museo delle Terme. The inscriptions of Sixtus IV. are in the Museo Municipale al Celio (Orto botanico).
LiTEKATURE. — Bull. (irch. com., 1878, p. 241. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome, p. 257. — Theodor Mommsen, in Epkem. epigr.^ vol. iv. p. 279. — Chris- tian Iluclsen, MitlheilungeUy 1892, p. 329.
VII. Traiectus (ferries). — The traffic between the two banks of the Tiber was can*ied on also by means of ferries, known by the name of traiectus, the traghetti of the present day. Each had a name of its own : like the traiectus Luculli, Marmorariorura, Togatensium at Ostia (Corpus Inscriptionum, xiv. 254, 403, 425). The sites of the ferries at Home are marked by corresponding pos- terns in the walls of Aurelian, along the banks of the Campus Martius : there was one at the Porto di Ripetta, others at the Porto della Tinta, at the Posterula Domitia, at the Porto dell* Armata, etc. The ferries of the Armata and Kipetta lasted till 1887.
Literature. — Bull. arch, com.j 1889, p. 175 ; and NoUi's Pianta di Roma, 1748.
VIII. Objects of Value in the Bed of the River. — The belief in their existence dates from the Middle Ages. Leav- ing aside the old stories of the seven-branched candlestick and of the gold-plate of Agostino Chigi, which rest on no foundation of truth, the dredging works carried out since 1877 prove that the bed of the Tiber contains a marvelous quantity of objects of value,
THE BED OF THE RIVER 27
from bronze statues, masterpieces of Grseco-Roman art, down to the smallest articles of personal wear, from flint arrowheads of prehistoric times to the weapons used in fighting the French in 1849. The dredging, unfortunately, has been only superficial, its purpose being to give the stream a uniform depth of 9 feet; while the objects of value have been absorbed to depths which ?aiy from 3 to 35 feet below the bottom of the river. Twice only the maximum depth has been reached (Ponte Garibaldi, Ponte Sisto), and on either occasion a great mass of works of art or antiquity has been gathered.^ By comparing these discov- eries with those made in the foundation of the embankment walls, we have satisfied ourselves on several points : —
1. That, however great the absorbing power of mud and sand- banks is, the objects are not so deeply hidden as to be beyond the reach of man.
2. That the power of the current to wash heavy objects down stream, even in time of flood, is moderate. A fragment of the annals of the Salii palatini, which fell or was thrown into the ri\ier at the Sponda del la Regola towards the end of the fifth century, was recovered in 1881, 5«50 metres below that point. The fragment had traveled, therefore, at the slow rate of 39 metres per century.
3. That there is a certain chronological regularity in the strata of sunken objects, each stratum corresponding to one of the revolutions, sieges, and political disturbances so frequent in the history of Rome. The higher strata are contemporary with the siege and capture of the city by General Oudinot, when thousands of "improvised" war weapons were thrown into the river to avoid detection. There are traces of the disturbances of 1831, of the French Revolution, and of the Napoleonic wars. These objects are more curious than valuable. The real wealth begins with the layer corresponding to the Sacco di Roma of 1527, not to speak of mediaeval or barbaric invasions. For two or three years the average of coins dredged up amounted to twelve hun- dred per month, mostly coppers of the last two centuries, even of popes whose reigns were peaceful and undisturbed. How did they happen to be there ? The solution of the mystery lies, perhaps, in the fact that the dirt collected from the streets or from private houses was thrown daily into the river at two points, "la Penna" above Ripetta, and S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini. To lose money in the streets is a rare occurrence, but at home it hap-
1 See Ancient Rome, p. 257.
28 GENERAL mPORMATION
pena very eaaity : coppers may drop on the carpets and roll under pieces of furuitnre, and when serrauts sweep the rooms the coins may get mixed up with Ihedust. Suchrefusehasbeen thrown into the river for many centuries.
4. That the objects sunk in the river are recovered in good condition, whether of t«rTa^otta,or marble, or metal, iron excluded. Iron not only gets rusty and almost dis- solved in water, but imparls to :narble — if in contact with it — a deep reddish hue, which is quite chars^teristic of the Ti be rine sculpture. Brass Im- perial and Republican coins are t*plendidty preserved, but without " patina," which makes thera less valuable in the market.
I can give no better evi- dence of the care which Old Father Til>er has taken of the works of art intrusted to him than by reproducing here one of the marble statues found ir) his bed not long ago. This archaic Apollo, a copy of a bronxe original, is now exhib- ited in a cabinet of the Museo <1elle Terme on the south side of the quadrangle. A short Fig. 13.— stitMfaandiDUHmjer. notice of the find is given
in the " Mittheilungen " of
1891, p. 302. Compare " Notizie degli Scavi," 1801, pp. 287 and
337; Ilelbig'B " Guide," vol. ii. p. 214. n. 1028.
CLOACA 29
leys, each having its own outlet for spring, rain, and waste waters. The northern basin, between the Pincian and the Quirinal, was drained by the river Petronia, which collected the Salliistian qiringa, and fell into the Tiber a little above our Ponte Garibaldi ; tbe middle baain, between the (juirinal and the Esquiline, by a river probably called Spinon, which collected the wat«rs of the Viciu Loi^ua, Vicus Patriciua, and the Subura, crossed the Argi- letom, the Forum, and the Velabnuu, and joined the Tiber at the
present mouth of the Cloaca Maxima ; the southern basin, between the Esquiline, the C%lian, and the Aventine, by a third river (No- dinus], 36C>0 metres long. Aft«r receiving eight tributaries from the springs of Aywllo, of the Camceufe, of Mercuiy, of the Piscina Pablica, etc., it emptied itself into the Tiber a little below the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima. (See map, Fig. 1.)
The first step towards the regulation of these three rivers was taken even before the advent of the Tartiuins. Their banks were then lined with great square blocks of stone, leaving a chaimel about 5 feet wide, so as to prevent the spreading and t]ie wander- ing of dood-water, and provide the swampy valleys with a perma- nent drainage ; but, strange to say, the course of the streams was not straightened nor shortened. If the reader looks at the map above (Fig. 14), representing the course of the Cloaca Maxima through the Argiletnm and tlie Vetabrum, he will find it so twisted and irregular as t« resemble an Alpine torrent more than ■ drain built by skillful Etruscan engineers. Tlie same thing may be repeated Tor the other main lines of drainage in the valleys Sallustiana, Murcia, et«. AVhen the increase of the population and the extension of the city beyond the boundaries of the Pala- tine made it necessary to cover those channels and make them run
30 GENERAL INFORMATION
underground, it was too late to think of straightening their course, because their banks were already fixed and built over.
The Roman cloacsB have been overpraised. It is certainly a marvelous fact that some of them were still in use a few years ago, after a lapse of twenty-six centuries; but they bid defiance to modern sanitary principles. First of all, they served to carry off the sewage and the rain-water together. This double employ- ment made it necessary to have large openings along the street, which exposed the population to the effluvia of the sewers. In the third place, the sewers emptied themselves directly into the Tiber, thus polluting its waters, which were used not only for bathing but also for drinking purposes. Only six years ago did the Til>er cease to be the cesspool of Rome. It must also be borne in mind that the ^^atrina" of Roman houses was incon- veniently placed next the kitchen, and the same cloaca was used for the sinks. Against such great dangers to public and private health the Romans had but two protections : the masses of water by which the drains were constantly flushed, and the hilly nature of the city ground, which allowed them to give the drains a steep gradient.
Drains dating from the time of the Kings or of the Republic are built of blocks of pej>erino and lapis Gabinus (sperone), those of the Im|)erial period of bricks. Two tiles, placed against each other in a slanting position, form the roof ; the floor is made of a large tile slightly convex. There are no sluices or flood-gates.
The Cloaca Maxima and that of the Vallis Murcia (described in Ancient Rome, p. 54 ; and Bull. arch, com., 1892, p. 279) are by no means alone in resi>ect of their size, length, and magnificence of construction. There is a third, discovered by Enrico Narducci in the plain of the Circus Flaminius, equal, if not superior, to them. The section which Narducci explored in 1880 begins at the corner of Via Paganica with the Piazza Mattel, and runs in a straight line to the Tiber, by the Ponte (Taribaldi. Its side walls are built of blocks of lapis Gabinus, some of which measure 45 cubic feet ; the arched roof is made of ^\& blocks only, wedged together ; the floor is paved like that of a Roman road. It runs at the considerable depth of 9.53 metres under the modern city. (See Bull. Inst., 1881, p. 209.)
We must remember that these great sewers were built through marshes and jwnds, and generally through a soil soaked with spring-water. Home may be said to Ik* floating over this subter- ranean alluvium even now. In the sixty days reijuired to build
CLOACA 31
the sewer of the Via del Babuino in 1875, 650,000 cubic metres of water were absorbed by seven steam pumps. The inundation of the Coliseum in 1878 could not possibly be got under control : powerful engines only lowered it by a few inches, and it cost the city nearly one million lire to provide the Coliseum with a regular outlet.
The level of the subterranean flood has risen since Roman times. In the foundations of the Banca di Roma and of the Palazzo Canale, on either side of the Via Poli, the pavement of a street was found under two feet of water. The cellars of the wine docks, discovered in 1877 in the gardens of la Farnesina (cellcc rinaria Nova et ArTuntiand)^ were flooded up to the key of their vaulted roofs. The chefs-d'oeuvre of Saitic art, discovered by Tranquilli in 1858 in the sacred area of the Iseum, near the apse of la Minerva, were lying on the floor of the peristyle three feet under water. An excavation made by Parker in 1869 in Cara- calla's Baths, by SS. Nereo and Achilleo, in the Via di Porta S. Se- bastiano, had to be given up, although successful, in consequence of the invasion of spring-water.
In the many hundred antique drains discovered in my time, I have never seen a sign of communication with the houses lining the streets through which the drains passed. All the side chan- nels which empty into the Cloaca Maxima, from the Forum Au- giistum to the Tiber, belong to streets or public buildings — none to private dwellings. The same observation has been made with regard to the sewers of the Esquiline, Viminal, etc. This fact would lead us to believe that cesspools, or pozzi neri^ were more popu- lar iu Rome than the latrina, communicating dii*ectly with the public sewer. Yet only one pozzo ncro has been found in our excavations. It is described in the Bull. arch, com., 1892, p. 285. In the same periodical, 1873, p. 243, pi. ii., 3, there is a description and the design of a latrina discovered in the drilling grounds of the Praetorians, Via Magenta, No. 2. Fig. 15 (next page) repre- sents the latrina annexed to the guest-rooms of the Villa Adri- ana.
LiTKKATURR. — Antike DenkmSler of the German Arch. Inst., vol. i., 1889, t«f. XXX vii. — Bnll. arch, com., 1872, p. 279; 1890, p. 95, pis. 7, 8. — Pietro Nardocci, Foffnatura della citta di Roma suUa gimstra del Tevere, Rome, 1884; and Boma sotterrauea, Uluttraz, delta clonca ma»ima, 1885. — Codex Ixxv. 68, in the King's Library, B. M., p. 16. — Theodor Schreiber, Btrichtt der sacks. GtstlUckaft der Wui.f 1885, p. 78. — Kodolfo Lanciani, Ancient B<me, p. 54.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Fig, IS. — The Latiiiu uuHied to the QuHt-RooTDi o( Uie Villa Adriwu.
X. The QirARRiKs from which Rohk was Btii-T. —The materials used in Roman conBtmctiona are the lapu ruber (tufa); the laph Alhanua (peperino) ; the laph dabinus (aperone) ; the lapia TiburiiiiuK (travertiiio) ; the silex (Kelce); and bricks and tiles of varioiw kinds. Tlie cement was composed of pozzolans (0.67) and time (U.33). Ini)iort«d marhleR came into fa-shion towards tlie end of the Republic, and became soon after the pride an<l glory of Rome.
A. TvFA (lapis ruber). — The only material which the first builderH of Rome found at hand was the volcanic conglomerate called tufa. The quality of the stone used in those early days was far from perfect. The walla of the I'nlatine hill and of the Cjipitoline citadel were built of material quarried on the spot — a mixture of charred pumice-stones and reddish volcanic sand. The quarries of the Palatine will be described in the proper place. Those used for the fortifications of the Capitol were located at the foot of the hilt towanls the Argiletum, and were so im[)ortant as to give their name, LaiUumia, to the neighboring district. It is probable that the prison called Tullianum, from a jet of water, lullus, which sprang from the rock, was ori^nally a portion of ttiis quarry. The tufa blocks employed by Servius
THE QUARRIES 33
ToUius for the building of the city walls, and of the agger, ap- pear to be of three qualities — yellowish, reddish, and gray ; the first, soft and easily broken up, seems to have been quarried from the Little Aventine, near the church of S. Saba. The galleries of this quarry, much disfigured by mediaeval and modern use, can be followed to a considerable 4^stauce, although the collapsing of the vaults makes it dangerous to visit them. I have entered these recesses only twice, with the late Mr. J. H. Parker, while trying to rediscover the channel of the Aqua Appia, first seen and described by Raffaello Fabretti about 1675. I am not able to say where Servius found the reddish tufa (Cervara?). The quarries of the third quality were, or rather one of them was, discovered on February 7, 1872, in the Vigna Querini, outside the Porta S. Lorenzo, near the first milestone of the Vicolo di Valle Cupa. It was a surface quarry, comprising ^\q trenches 16 feet wide, 9 feet deep. Some of the blocks, already squared, were lying on the floor of the trenches, others were detached on two or three Hides only, the size of others was simply traced on the rock by vertical or horizontal lines. (See illustration in Bull. arch, com., 1888, pis. i., ii., figs. 3-6.) This tufa, better known by the name of cappel- laccio, is very bad. The only buildings in which it was used, besides the inner wall of the Servian agger, are the platform of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in the gardens of the German Embassy, and the puticuli in the burial-grounds of the £squi- line. Its use must have been given up before the end of the period of the Kings, in consequence of the discovery of better quarries on the right bank of the Tiber, at the foot of the hills now called Monte Verde. A description of these last, still in use, can be found in the —
.VerfiaV der/li Scan', 1886, p. 454; 1888, p. 136; 1889, pp. 71 and 243. — Bull, arrk. com., 1892, p. ^S». — MHtheiiunyen, 1891, p. 149.
They cover a space about one mile in length and a quarter of a mile wide on each side of the valley of Pozzo Pantaleo. In fact, this valley, which runs from the Via Portuensis towards the lake of the Villa Pamphili, seems to be artificial ; I mean, produced by the extraction of the rock by millions of cubic metres in the course of twenty-four centuries. If the work of the ancient quarrymen could be freed from the loose material which conceals it from view, we should possess within a few minutes' drive from the Porta Portese a reproduction of the famous mines of El Ma- sarah, with l>eds of rock cut into steps and terraces, with roads
34 GENERAL INFORMATION
and lanes, shafts, inclines, underground passages, and outlets for the discharge of rain-water. The cuttings on either side show two strata of tufa : the upper, 8 metres thick, is a very hard as)i-col- ored rock resembling in texture the pudding-stone ; the lower, of a light red color and less compact, is fractured by seams and veins, so that it cannot be obtained in large blocks ; and as the purpose of the Romans was to obtain cubes from 3 to 5 feet long, as shown by a few left on the spot, they used the lower or reddish stone only to make prisms for reticulated masonry. The galleries of the quarry vary in size from 10 to 20 feet, and their floor is lev- eled so as to conduct the rain-water to one central outlet, running towards the brook of Pozzo Pantaldo. When a quarry had given out, its galleries were filled up with the refuse of the neighboring ones — chips left over after the squaring of the blocks ; so that, in many cases, the color and texture of the chips do not correspond with those of the quarry in which they are found. This layer of refuse, transformed by time into humus, and worked upon by hu- man and atmospheric forces, has given the valley a diiferent aspect, so that it looks as if it were the work not of quarrymen, but of nature. Some of the abandoned galleries were transformed into tombs and columbaria. One raised by Aurelius Niketa to his daughter iElianetis contains the following inscription : Fossor, vide ne fodias ! Deus magnus oculos habet. Vide, et tu Jilios hahes. Which means, *\Quarryman, do not approach this tomb: the great God watches thee ; remember that thou also hast children." These words prove that tombs and quarries were contemporary and not very far apart.
Tufa may be found used in many existing monuments of an- cient Rome, such as the drains of tlie middle and southern basin of the left bank, the channels and arches of the Marcia and Anio vetus, the Servian walls, the temples of Fortuna Virilis, of Her- cules Magnus Gustos, the Rostra, the embankment of the Tiber, etc. The largest and most magnificent quarries in the suburban district are the so-called Grotte della Cei'vara. No words can convey an idea of their size and of the regularity of their plan. They seem to he. the work of a fanciful architect who has hewn out of the rock halls and galleries, courts and vestibules, and imi- tated the forms of an Assyrian palace. The quarries of La Cer- vara, at the fifth milestone of the Via Collatina, are described by Stral>o'(lib. v.).
B. Peperino (lapis Albanus). — For the study of the peperino mines, which contain a stone special to the Alban district, formed
THE QUARRIES 35
bj the action of hot water on gray volcanic cinders, the reader should follow on foot the line of the new Albano railway, from the place called n Sassone to the town of Marino. Many of the valleys in this district, now made beautiful by vineyards and oliveyards, owe their existence to the pickaxe of the Roman stonecutter, like the valley of Pozzo Pantal^o. The most curious sight is a dolmen or isolated rock 10 metres high, left in the centre of one of the quarries to certify the thickness of the bed of rock excavated. In fact, the whole district is very interesting both to the archaeologist and to the paysagiste. The mines of Ma- rino, still worked in the neighborhood of the railway station, would count, like the Grotte della Cervara, among the wonders of the Campagna, were they known to the student a« they deserve to be.
If the discovery of a piece of ^^ ses grave signatum " in a seam of peperino near the Ponte di S. Gennaro, between Civita Lavinia and Velletri, could be proved true (by the exhibition not of the piece alone, but of its mould on the rock itself, which has not been done yet), the stone would appear to be of modern formation.
The principal Roman buildings in which the lapis Albanus has been used are : the Claudian aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima, the temples of Antoninus and Faustina, of Cybele, of the £ventus Bonus, of Neptune, the inclosure wall of the Forum Augustum, Forum Transitorium, and Forum Pacis, the Porticus Argonauta- rum, Porticus Pompeii, the Ustrinum of the Appian Way, etc. The sarcophagus of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican museum, and the tomb of the Tibicines in the Museo Municipale al Celio are also of this stone.
C. Travkrtino (lapis Tiburtinus). — Quarried in the plains of Tivoli at places now called Le Caprine, Casal Bernini, and H Barco. This last was reopened after an interval of many centuries by Count G. Brazza, brother of the African explorer. Lost in the wilderness and overgrown w^ith shrubs, it had not been examined, I believe, since the visit of Brocchi. It can be reached by stop- ping at the station of the Aquae Albuls, on the Tivoli line, and following the ancient road which led to the works. This road, twice as wide as the Appian Way, is flanked by substructures, and is not paved, but macadamized. Parallel with it runs an aqueduct which supplied the works with motive power, derived probably from the sulphur springs. There are also remains of tombs, one of which, octagonal in shape, serves as a foundation to the farm- house del Barco.
The most remarkable monument of the whole group is the
.A
36 GENERAL INFORMATION
Koman quarry froui which five and a half million cubic metres of travertine have been extracted, as proved by the measurement of the hollow space between the two opposite vertical sides. That this is the most important ancient quarry of travertine, and the largest one used by the Romans, is proved, in the first place, by its immense size. The sides show a frontage of more than two and a half kilometres; the surface amounts to 500,000 square metres. The sides are quite perpendicular, and have the peculiar- ity of projecting buttresses, at an angle of 90°. Some of these buttresses are isolated on three sides, and still preserve the grooves, more or less deep, by means of which they could be separated from the solid mass ; these grooves vary in depth from 50 centimetres to 2 metres, and look fresh and shai*p, as if the quarry had been abandoned only a short time ago. The second argument is furnished by the indirect traces of the work of man, which show that the excavation must at least be many centuries old. In order to keep the bottom of the works clean and free for the movement of the carts, for the action of the cranes, and for the manoeuvres of the workmen, the chips, or useless product of the squaring of the blocks, were transported to a great distance, as far as the banks of the Anio, and there piled up to a great height. This is the origin of that chain of hills which runs parallel to tlie river, and of whose artificial formation no one, as far as I know, had the least suspicion. One of these hills, visible from every point of the neighboring district, from Hadrian*s villa as well as from the Sulphur Baths, is elliptical in shai)e, 22 metres high, 00 metres long, and 65 metres wide. It can with reason }>e compared with our Testaccio. It is easy to imagine how immense must have been the number of blocks cut from the Cava del Barco during the period of the formation of this hill alone. Another proof of the antiquity of the quarry, and of its abandonment from Imperial times down to our own day, is given by this fact. The Aqua? Albulaj, the most copious sulphur springs of central Italy, collected into canals by the Romans and subjected to a scientific hydraulic regime, were allowed free play from the first barbaric invasion up to the sixteenth century, when Cardinal Ippolito d' Este gathered them again into the channel which takes its name from him, and which is in use at the present day. In this long period of abandonment it seems that the prin- cipal branch of the wandei'ing waters directed its course towards the Cava del Barco, leaping from the rim of the north vertical side into the chasm below. This fall of water, saturated with
THE QUARRIES 37
carbonate and sulphate of lime, and lasting for many centuries, pro- duced the following elTect. The north wall was concealed under a bard chalky incrustation, and transformed into a slope with an inclination of 4-j° or 50°. This stratum of recent formation is, on an averse, 8 metres wide at the base, and only a few centi- metres at the top. Stonecutters in the quarry are now ohliged to remove this crust before reaching the ancient walls of travertine, which still preserve the traces of the blows of the Roman pickaxe. At the bottom of the quarry we meet with atiother phenomenon. The stratum of chips which covers it has been cemented and pasted over by chalky sediments, forming beds and layers of a hard breccia resembling the pudding-stone. The southern walls of the quarry, on the contrary, are free from incrustations, as they have never been in contact with the sulphur water.
The system now followed in quarrying the blocks is the same as that which prevailed in old times. The foreman ascertains
Fl;. 16. — Tbe Quuriu of Tninrtliis, Cmn dal Barco.
the weak point of the rocky mass, and the vertical or horizontal line of the seams, and directs his men to place steel wedges along the weak line, and hammer them simultaneously, the movement being timed to the rhrthm of a song. This illustration, from a photograph which I took in December, 1803, explains the process
38 GENERAL INFORMATION
better than any description could do. The large block in the foreground has already been detached on four sides, and the men are busy placing the steel wedges on the weak seam at the bottom. I need not say that as many men are required to hammer as there are wedges. Sometimes the task is accomplished at the first stroke, sometimes it requires half an hour's work.
D. SiLEX (selce). — Used for rubble-work in small fragments, and for paving streets and roads in larger pieces of pentagonal shape. The stone was quarried from four lava streams which had flowed from the Alban volcanoes in the direction of Rome (Capo di Bove, Acqua Acetosa, Borghetto, and Monte Falcone), and from one stream of the Sabatine range (S. Maria di Galera). The working of the quarries, the cutting and shaping of the paving- stones, the laying in and repairing of pavements, was intrusted to a large body of trained men, organized in companies and di- rected by government officials.* The material was kept in store in a great state building named Castra Silicariorum, which may have served also as barracks for the Silicarii. The institution is still flourishing under the name of " Magazzino dei Selci." The present works occupy a large tract of land north of the Protestant cemetery in the plains of Testaccio.
Pumice-stone was used occasionally by Roman masons to dimin- ish the weight and lateral pressure of great vaulted ceilings, as in the baths of Caracalla.
Literature. — The introductory chapters of Middleton*« Remains of An- dent Rome (2d ed. 1892), dealing: with the site and genera! features of the city, with the materials of which it is huilt, and with the methods of construction, are the best ever written on the subject. The author shows himself a special- ist of unrivaled know^ledgc. So thoroughly has he mastered the technicalities of ancient masonry and stonework that he makes clear and almost agreeable a subject which students have usually avoided as dry and difficult to understand. An abridged memoir on the same subject, issued by the same author, is to be found in vol. xli. of the Archaohgia^ 1888: "On the Chief Methods of Con- struction used in Ancient Rome."
Compare also, Giovanni Brocchi, Dello tttnto fnco del molo di Roma, 1820, p. 109; Antonio Nibbv, Dei materiali impregati nelle fahbriche di Romn^delU coMrfiziuni, e dello stile Cm Roma antica, vol. i. p. 234); Faustino Corsi, DtlU pietre antichey Rome, 1845, pp. 11-76.
XL Bricks. — There are three collections of brick-stamps in Rome : one, of little value, in the Kircherian museum ; the second
1 The procurator ad sihcef, or procurator filicum ciarum sacra urbis, subject to the authority of the Minister of Public Works. (See Corpus Intcriptionumy vi. 1598; and Orelli-Henzen, n. 6519.)
BRICK8 39
in the last room of the Vatican Library, past the " Nozze aldo- brandine;" the third and best in the Museo Municipale al Celio. This last contains over a thousand specimens, and a unique set of the products of Roman kilns. In fact, the first hall of the Museo is set apart exclusively for the study of ancient building and decorative materials.
Roman bricks were square, oblong, triangular, or round, the latter being iised only to build columns in the Pompeian style. The square species comprises the teffulre bipedales, of 0.59 metre x 0.59; the leguUe sesquipedales, of 0.45 metre X 0.45; and the laterculi bessaleSj used in hypocausts, of 0.22 metre X 0.22. Arches were built of a variety of the bipedales, of the same length, but only 0.22 in width, and slightly wedged. The triangular bricks were obtained by cutting diagonally a tegula bessalis with a wooden rule or a string before it was put into the kiln. The largest bricks discovered in my time measure 1.05 metre in length. They were set into an arch of one of the great stairs leading to the avenue or boulevard, established in Imperial times on the top of the agger of Sendus (railway station).
Roman bricks are very often stamped with a seal, the legend of which contains the names of the owner and manager of the kilns, of the maker of the tile, of the merchant intrusted with the Jiale of the products, and of the consuls under whose term of office the bricks were made. These indications are not necessarily found all in one seal.
The most important of them is the consular date, because it helps the student to determine, within certain limits, the date of the building it«elf . The rule, however, is far from being absolute, and before fixing the date of a Roman structure from that of its brick stamps one must take into consideration many other points of circumstantial evidence.
When we examine, for instance, the grain warehouses at Ostia, or Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, and find that their walls have never undergone repairs, that their masonry is characteristic of the first quarter of the second century, that their bricks bear the dates of Hadrian's age and no others, we may rest assured that the stamps speak the truth. Their evidence is, in such a case, conclusive. But if the bricks are variously dated, or bear the names of various kilns, and not of one or two only, then their value as an evidence of the date of a building is diminished, if not lost altogether.
The following case, derived from personal experience, will ex- plain the point. Professor Jordan, in a remarkable speech deliv-
40 GENERAL INFORMATION
ered on April 25, 1884, at the German Institute, attributed the house of the Vestals to the age of Hadrian, because he had found a stamp of Domitius TuUus (a. d. 59-95) on the south wing of the atrium ; three of Cn. Domitius Clemens (111-123) in the stairs leading to the first floor ; two of Rutilius Lupus (110-122) in one of the cells of the first floor ; and so on.^ Yet there was no doubt in ray mind that the building was renewed from the foundation, and on a different plan, by Septimius Severus and Julia Domna, and that Hadrian had nothing to do with it. I was able to prove the case so clearly * that Jordan's theory was abandoned, and my contention as to the date was adopted. The presence of bricks of Hadrian's time can be easily explained. When Severus undertook the reconstruction of the house of the Vestals and of the whole adjoining quarter, which had been devastated by the fire of Corn- modus, he began by leveling to the ground the remains of the buildings which had partly withstood the violence of the flames. The materials so saved were put aside and used in the reconstruc- tion of the Atrium Vestae.
The circular seals have often a symbol in the centre — a figure of a god or a goddess, a leaf, a fruit, etc. Sometimes the symbol has a phonetic value. Thus we find the image of the wolf im- pressed on the tiles of M. Rutilius Lupus ; of the wild boar on those of Flavius Aper ; of the eagle on those of Aquilia Sozomena ; the wreath (ore^cb^) on those of C. Julius Stephanus, etc.
The name of the building for which the bricks were destined appears only in three seals : Castris Prcetorisy " for the praetorian camp; " Partus Augustiy "for the Claudian harlwr at Ostia; " and PortuH Traianiy " for the harbor of Civitavecchia."
Brick-kilns were called Jiglincey their sections or workshops offirinfe. The kilns were named either after their owner, A cilia- ncB, Fulvianw, etc. ; from their being situated in a district. Sola" renseSy de via Aurelia, etc.; or from the street on which they were placed, a Pila altOy ah Euripo, ad Alercurium feiicem. It is possi- ble, however, that some fanciful name might have been selected without any reference to the owner or to the site of the works. The sheds under which the materials were kept ready for sale or for shipment were called horrea and partus respectively.
The legends sometimes show curious mistakes of spelling : opup for opus ; phig(\insR) for^5r(linae) ; pradia for prcedia, etc.
The bricks, again, occasionally bear curious signs, such as foot- marks of chickens, dogs, or pigs, which stepped over them whOe 1 See Bull. Inst., 1884, p. 92. » 7Wrf., p. 145.
BRICKS ' 41
still fresh, impressions of coins and medals, words or sentences scratched with a* nail, etc. A bricklayer, who had perhaps seen better times in his youth, wrote on a tegula bipedalis the first verse of the ^neid, " Arma virumque cano," etc.
Names of murdered £mperors were sometimes struck off the stamp, like that of Commodus in No. 541, b (Corpus Inscriptio- num, XV. 1). After the murder of Geta, the seal avggg • nnn, which meant "of our three Emperors, Severus, Caracalla, and Geta," was changed into AVGG//iNN/// by the erasure of the third 0 and of the third N.
Antiquarians have discussed the question whether the seals were cast in metal or carved in hard wood, or whether they were made up of movable types, incased in a metal frame. The fact that letters upside down are not uncommon (like sacgkssi for svccESSi) has been adduced to prove that the types were movar ble; but, on the other hand, we have specimens of seals cast bodily in lead or bronze, such as those found in the Tiber in 1879 (Visconti, Bull. arch, com., 1879, pp. 197, 212). There is a stamp (No. 1440, a) in which the name of the consul balbin has been changed into that of brttio (Brittio) so imperfectly that both can be read at the same time. In another (No. 68, d) the letter s in the name ravsi, omitted by the engraver of the
s seal, has been added so, T'RAVi. This expedient shows that the
missing letter could not have been wedged into its proper place. We must discredit, however, the idea that movable types were not known to the ancients. Albert Dumont (Inscriptions cdra- miques de Grece, pp. 46 and 395) brings strong evidence in favor of it ; and A. Milchhoefer (Ann. Inst., 1879, p. 90) has traced the use of such types in an Etruscan sarcophagus.
The great manufacturing centre of Roman bricks was the dis- trict between the viae Triumphalis, Cornelia, and the two Aureliae, now called the Monti della Creta, which includes the southern slopes of the Vatican ridge and the northern of the Janiculum. Here also, as at Pozzo Pantaldo, the traces of the work of man are simply gigantic. The valleys del Gelsomino, delle Fornaci, del Vicolo delle Cave, della Balduina, and a section of the Val d' Inferno, are not the work of nature, but the result of excava- tions for " creta figulina," which began 2300 years ago, and have never been interrupted since. A walk through the Monti della Creta will teach the student many interesting things. The best point of obflervation is a bluff between the Vicolo della Cave and
42 ' GENERAL INFORMATION
the Vicolo del Gelsomino, marked with the word " Ruderi " and with the altitude of 75 metres, in the military map of the suburbs. The bluff rises 37 metres above the floor of the brick-kilns of the Gelsomino.
There were other important establishments in the plains of the Til)er (Prati di Castello, Monti della Creta beyond S. Paolo) and of the Anio (Ponte Salario, Civitas Figlina), to which the alluvial marls furnished the " materia prima."
Roman bricks were exported to all the shores of the Mediter- ranean : they have been found in the Riviera, on the coasts of Venetia, of Narbonensis, of Spain and Africa, and in the island of Sardinia. One brick from Syria (No. 2415) and two from the gulf of Genoa (Nos. 2412, 2413) have been picked up in Rome, but they must have been transported here incidentally by ships in ballast.
The brick-making business must have been very remunerative, if we judge from the rank and wealth of many personages who had an interest in it. Many names of Emperors appear in brick- stamps, and even more of Empresses and princesses of the Imperial family. (See index to de Rossi's Iscrizioni doliari, pp. 525, 527.)
Literature. — Gaetano Marini, hcrizioni doliari pvhlicate dal atmm. G. B. de liosin, cori annotazumi di Enrico I)re»seL Rome, 1884. — Dcsceniet, Mar- ques de briques relatives a une partit de la yens Domitia (Bibl. des Ecoles fr. d'Ath^nes et de Rome, vol. xv. p. 2); and Inscriptions doliatres, — (.'. Ludovico Vimonti, On Brick Stamps (in Parker's Archwology of Rome, vol. or part iv. p. 41. London, 187H). — Ilcinrich Dressel, Alcttne osservazioniintomo at boUi dei mattoni urbani (in Bull. Inst., 1885, p. 98). — Untersuchunt/en fiber diet Knmolof/te der Zier/elstempelj 1886. — Corpus fnscriptionum LatinarurHf vol. XV. 1. Berlin, 1891. — (iio. Battinta Lugari, tSopra /* eta di alcuni bolli di Jiffuline (in Bull. arch, com., 1895, p. 60).
XII. Marblks. — It would not be consistent with the spirit of this present work to enter, even superficially, on the question of Roman marbles. From the topographical point of view (marble wharves, warehouses, and sheds, places of sale, offices of adminis- tration, artists* studios, and stonecutters' shops) it will be illus- trated in Book IV. § vii. I refer the reader, in the mean time, to the following standard works : —
Faustino Corsi, Delle pietre antiche, 3d ed., Rome, 1845. — The Rev. H. W. Pullcn, Handbook of Ancient Roman Marbles, lx>ndon, Murray, 1894. — Luigi Bruzza, Iscriziotu dti marmi (in Annal. Inst., 1870, p. 106).
The perusal of these three volumes must go hand in hand with the study of the marbles which they describe, so as to enable the student to tell them apart. For this purpose splendid coUec-
MARBLES 43
tions have been placed at our disposal : one at Oxford, which numbers 1000 tablets ; one in the geological museum in Jermyn Street, London ; a third in the University of the Sapienza in Rome, consisting of 600 large and about 1000 smaller slabs. The best of all is the set bequeathed by Baron Ravenstein to the mu- seum of the Porte de Hal, Brussels. It contains 764 specimens, which were arranged and catalogued by Tommaso and Francesco Belli. The variety and richness of Soman marbles may be estimated from the fact that there are 43 qualities of bigio, and 151 of alabaster. The rarest marbles known are the breccia d' Egitto, the breccia di Villa Adriana and the breccia di Villa Casali. There are specimens of these exhibited in the first hall of the Museo Municipale al Celio. The churches of S. Maria in Aracoeli, della Minerva, and della Vittoria, and the Capella Bor- ghesiana in S. Maria Maggiore, are noted for their wealth in rare marbles.
XIII. Mrthods OF Construction. — For this subject also I must refer the student to the works quoted on page 38. The Ro- mans have built in opus quadratumj incertuniy reiiculaium^ later itium, lateritiihreticulatum, and in concrete. An excellent set of photo- types explaining these various styles of masonry can be found in vol. i. part ii. of Parker's " ArchsBology of Rome," Oxford, London, 1874 : The Historical Construction of Walls,
The following rules are useful to the student for determining the age of a Roman building : —
1. In Rome there are no traces of the so-called Pelasgic or polygonal style of masonry.^ The oldest remains, like the walls of the Palatine and of the Capitol, are built in opus quadratum in the Etruscan style, with the blocks of tufa placed lengthwise in one tier and crosswise in the next. This rule was followed through the Republican period. I know of very few exceptions : one is the great wall upon which the Constantinian basilica of 8. Clement is built, where the blocks are all placed lengthwise.
In Imperial times the exception becomes the rule. The in- closure walls of the Forum Augustum, of the Forum Transi- torium, etc., and the cellse of many temples, show the blocks placed in one direction only.
The opus quadratum was given up (except in case of restorsr tions) in the third century after Christ, and imitations in plaster £
were substituted for it. The facade of the Senate-house, rebuilt by
1 Rodolfo Fonteanive, Avamidetti Ciclopici ntlla prorincia di Roma. Rome, SciolU, 1887.
44 GENERAL INFORMATION
Diocletian, the Thernife of Coiistantiiie, and his Basilica Nova, the Thermie of Diocletian, and parts of the Sessorian palace, were plastered in tliia style. (See plates, Nos. 2, 26, 30, etc., in Stefano du Perac's " Veiittgi deir antichit^ di RotDa"and " Atti Lincei," an. 1»83, vol. xi. serie iii. pi. 3.)
2. The opas incerfum, of which Fig. 17 gives a specimen from the Porticus Emilia, ITS B. c, marks a transition from the polygonal to the reticulated work. The Romans must liave im-
Ft|r- 17- — Tb« Optu Ipcertom.
ported it from Tibur, wliere it was in (trent favor. Besides the Portirus itlmilia.then- arp (or were in 1H72) other remains built in this style under the cliff of the Viniinal, opposite S. Vitale. Pho- tographs of Wit-m are given l.y Parker in " Archaeology of Rome," vol. i. 1S74. Cimalni'liiin -if Walh. pi. vi. 2. The opns iiicertuni was Riven up alwiiit tlie time of Snlla, and replaced by the opus reticLilatum, made of regular tufa prisniN in imitation of network. There are three kinds of opns reticHlatnm: in the oldest the
METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION 45
prisms are small, and the intersecting lines of the network slightly irregular; it marks the infancy of the new style. A specimen may be found on the Palatine, on the left-hand side of the path which ascends from the foot of the Scalae Caci to the Temple of Jupiter Propugnator.
In the second stage the prisms become larger, and the cross lines of the network perfectly straight, while the angles of the walls are strengthened with rectangular pieces of tufa resembling large bricks. The house of Germanicus on the Palatine is the best specimen of this style, which seems to have lasted until the time of Trajan.
The last period, from Trajan to the first Antonines, marks a decided improvement in the solidity of the work. The angles and arches are built of bricks, and the wall itself is strengthened by horizontal bands of the same material (Fig. 18). The network, therefore, does not cover the whole face of the wall, but is divided into panels from four to five feet high. At the end of the second century the opus reticulatum was given up altogether. I have never discovered what its advantages were. It did not contribute certainly to the solidity of the building, and it den^anded more skill and time from the mason than the brickwork. In the last place, its elegance and beauty were generally concealed by a coat- ing of plaster. Yet builders and architects like Trajan and Ha- drian preferred it to any other kind of masonry. The extensive warehouses of Ostia, the substructures of the Thermae Traianae, Hadrian's villa near Tibur, the inner harbor and docks at Porto, and a hundred contemporary edifices, are built in this style. (See Fig. 18, p. 46.)
3. 0pm lateritium. — The fundamental ride for the chronology of brick structures is this : the thinner the bed of cement be- tween the layers of bricks, the older the structure. In other words, in the opus lateritium of the golden age the bricks are so close together that the line of cement is hardly visible ; while at the end of the third century the layer of cement is even thicker than the line of bricks. The rule is obviously subject to excep- tions, especially when the brick facing was destined to be seen and not to be plastered over. In such cases we are apt to find excellent specimens of brick " cortina," even in times of decadence.
The most perfect specimens of brickwork in Rome are some portions of the Praetorian camp (the Porta Decumana, Porta Princi- palis Sinistra), the Amphitheatrum Castrense, and the Arcus Xe- roniani on tlie Cselian. The decline in the style can be followed
46 GENERAL INFORMATION
almost year by year from the time of the Flayians to that of CoiistaDtine. I suggest as representatives of periods, more tlian years, the Domus Augustana for the time of Doniitian; the so- called " baths of Titus" for the time of Trajan; the Pantheon and the spiral staircase of the Mausoleum for that of Hadrian ; the Villa Quinctiliorum for that of Conimodus; the Thermee An- toninianee for that of Caracalla ; the substructures of the Temple of the Sun in the Villa Colonna for that of Aureliaii ; the Baths of Diocletian, the Basilica Nova, the Senate-house, for the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. I'hese types of construction are carefully illustrated in vol. i. of Parker's " Archieology of Rome."
n^. IS. — Tlic Opui
I have said that when the brickwork was int«nded to remain exposed to view, and not to lie concealed by jtlaster, it \x always more perfect than we should exi>ect from the general style pre- vailing at the time.
The best period for ornamental brick-can'ing in three shades of color — yellow, red, and brown ^includes the second half of the second century and the iM'ginning of the third. The tomb attri- buted to Aiinia Regilla (Pagan and Christian Home, |i. 2{ll), the tombs of the Via i.atina, the door of the Kxcubitorinm Vigilum at the .Moute de' Fioi-i, Trastevere (Ancient Rome, p. i*l), the
AQUEDUCTS 47
door of the Catacombs of Prseteztatus, the temple at S. Urbano alia Caffarella (Pagan and Christian Kome, p. 294) are the best specimens of this kind of work.
There is another peculiarity of the opus lateritium which may help the student to determine the age of an edifice in doubtful cases. The brick facing of a wall is sometimes interrupted by parallel horizontal lines of tegulse bipedales of a different hue, from three to six feet apart. These lines appear for the first time, I believe, in the Pantheon and in the spiral staircase of Hadrian's tomb, and are most conspicuous in the buildings of the time of Severus and Caracalla.
XIV. Aqueducts. — One of the praises bestowed by Cicero on the founder of the city is locum eligit fonttbus abundantem, *^ he selected a district very rich in springs." A glance at the plan (Fig. 1) will at once prove the accuracy of the statement. Twenty- three springs have been described within the walls, several of which are still in existence ; others have disappeared owing to the increase of modern soil. *' For four hundred and forty-one [442] years," says Frontinus (i. 4), " the Romans contented themselves with such water as they could get from the Tiber, from wells, and from springs. Some of these springs are still held in great venera- tion on account of their health-restoring qualities, like the spring of the Camoenae, that of Apollo, and that of Juturna."
The springs of the Camoenae were just outside the Porta Capena, in the slope of the Caelian, behind the church of S. Gregorio, and under the wall of the Villa Mattel. The remains of the temple de«cril)ed by Juvenal (Sat., iii. 11) were discovered and delineated by Pirro Ligorio about 1560.
Nothing is known of the springs of Apollo. Those of Juturna are described at length in Book II. p. 125. The celebrated foun- tain of Kgeria remained visible in the lower grounds of the Vigna Bettini (between the Via di S. Stefano Rotondo and the Via della Ferratella) until 1882, when the vigna was buried under an em- bankment 11 metres high; but although the nymphseum itself has disappeared, the waters still seem to find their way to another fountain lower down the valley of Kgeria. This graceful building of the Renaissance stands in the grounds of the Villa Mattel (von Hoffman), at the comer of the Via di Porta S. Sebastiano and delle Mole di S. Sisto, and the water which inundates its lower flocv has some medicinal power. Another famous spring, that of the Lupercal, has been identified with our Sorgente di S. Giorgio,
48
GENERAL INFORMATION
• •. "v . . .'!*■V■"^•*!ft*-■^*-"*■''^''^''^-• T""' '
■w-rt --»»'
which bubbles up in the very bed of the Cloaca Maxima, near the church.of that name. The identity is uncertain. The TuUia- num still flows in the lower crypt of the prison of that name ; the Aquae Fontinales in the Cortile di S. Felice, Salita della Dateria, and in the house No. 25 Salita del Grillo ; the Aqua Damasiana in the Cortile di S. Damaso of the Vatican palace, in the foun- tain modeled by Algardi by order of Innocent X. (1649); the Aqua Lancisiana in front of the Palazzo Salviati alia Lungara, where there is a basin with three jets, designed by Lancisi in the time of Clement XI. (1720).
The first aqueduct, that of the Aqua Appia, is the joint work of Ap- pius Claudius Caucus and C. Plautius Venox, cen- sors in 312 B. c. The first built the channel, the second discovered the springs 1153 metres northeast of the sixth and seventh milestones of the Via Collatina. They are still to be seen, much reduced in volume, at the bottom of some stone quarries near the farmhouse of La Rustica. The channel followed the Via Collatina, entered Rome ad Spem Veterem (Porta Maggiore), crossed the valley of the Piscina Publica (Via di Porta S. Sebastiano) close to the Porta Capena, and ended on the left bank of the Tiber at the foot of the Clivus Publicius (S. Anna, Via della Salara) ; length of channel, 16,445 metres ; vol- ume of water discharged in twenty-four hours, 115,303 cubic me- tres. The aqueduct of the Appia has been discovered thrice : by Fabretti, in the Vigna Santoro at the corner of the Via di Porta S. Paolo and the Vicolo di S. Balbina (an. 1667) ; by Parker in 1867, in the tufa quarries of S. Saba ; and by myself in 1888, imder the remains of the pahice of Annia Cornuficia Faustina in the Vigna Maciocchi, Via di Porta S. Paolo. It differs in shape from all other Roman aqueducts, as shown in Fig. 20.
Anio vetus. — The second aqueduct was begun in 272 b. <x by
Fig. 20. — The Channel of the Aqua Appia under the Ayentioe.
AQUEDUCTS 49
Manius Curias DentatuB, censor, and finished three years later by Fulvius Flaccus. The water was taken from the river Anio 850 metres above 8. Cosimato, on the road from Tivoli to Arsoli (Valeria). The course of the channel can be traced as far as Gallicano ; from Gallicano to Rome it is uncertain. It entered the city ad Spem Veterem, a little to the right of the Porta Maggiore, where Piranesi, Nibby, and myself have seen and delineated the remains of the substructio supra terram passuum ccxxi men- tioned by Frontinus (i. 6).^ From the Porta Maggiore to the Arch of Gallic nus (Porta Esquilina) the aqueduct can be followed step by step, haying been laid bare at least twenty times during the construction of the railway station and of the Esquiline quarter, liength of channel, 63,704 metres; volume of water discharged in twenty-four hours, 277,866 cubic metres. The Anio Vetus was set apart for the irrigating of gardens and for the flushing of drains.
Marcia. — In 144 b. c. the Senate, considering that the increase of the population had diminished the rate of distribution of water (from 530 to 430 litres per head), determined that the old aque- ducts of the Appia and the Anio should be repaired, and a new one built ; the appropriation for both works being 8,000,000 sesterces, or 1,760,000 lire.
The execution of the scheme was intrusted to Q. Marcius Rex. He selected a group of springs at the foot of the Monte della Pnigna, in the territory of Arsoli, 4437 metres to the right of the thirty-sixth milestone of the Via Valeria; and after many years of untiring efforts he succeeded in making a display of the water on the highest platform of the Capitol. Agrippa restored the aqueduct in 33 b. c. ; Augustus doubled the volume of the water in 5 B. c. by the addition of the Aqua Augusta; in a. d. 79 Titus riram aquce Marcia vetuMate dilapsum refecit et ar/uam quct in tiaru esse desierat reduxU (Corpus Inscriptionum, vi. 1246) ; in 196 Septimius Severus brought in a new supply for the use of his Therm« Severianae; in 212-213 Caracalla aquam Marciam x^ariis tanhux impeditam^ purgato fonte^ excisuf et perf oralis montihus^ odquisUo fonte novo Antoniniano, in urbem perducendam curavit (ibid. 1245), and built a branch aqueduct, four miles long, for the use of his baths ; in <)05-306 Diocletian did the same thing for his great thermse ; and, finally, Arcadius and Honorius devoted to the restoration of the aqueduct the money seized from Count Gildo, the African rebel.
* Piraneni, Antichitd^ vol. i. pi. 10. — Nlbby, Roma antica, vol. i. p. 339. — LancUni, Acqutdotti^ p. 50, pi. iv. fi^. 7.
50 GENERAL INFORMATIOK
The Marcia followed the right lumk of the Anio as for as S. Coaiiuato, and the left b» far as Tivoli, where it turns round the slope of the Monte Kijxili towarda S. Gericumio and Gallicano. Here Iregins a line of viaducts and bridgeH, the moat magnificent of any that can be found in the whole district of Rome. The course of the Marcia (and of her three companions, Anio Vetiis, Claudia, and Anio Noviis) being perpendicular to that of the valleys liy which this part of the land is thickly furrowed, and their level running halfway between the tkalicey and the summit of the intervening ridges, the engineers were obliged to alternate bridges and tunnels, some of which are still perfect.
A visit to these beautiful highlands will prove most satisfactory
Fl(. Zl.'PonMLopo.
to the student. Tt can be made in a day, from the station of Zagarolo on the Naples line, tlience by diligence to Gallicano, and on foot (guide necessary) to the ruins. The liridges are seven in number.
Pimle Ltipo, in the Valle dell" Acqua Rossa, for the transit of four waters, Marcia, Anio Vetus, Aiiio Noviis, and Claudia, be- sides a carriage-way and a bridle-patli. Originally it was built for the Anio Vetua alone, and its dimensions were 11.20 metres in height, ijl.in metres in length, 2.75 metres in thickness. After
AQUEDUCTS 51
the addition of the Marcia, side by side and above it, the struc- ture became 16.60 metres high, 88.90 metres long, 12 metres thick. I^astly, after the addition of the Claudia and Anio Noyus, it be- came 32 metres high, 155 metres long, 14 metres thick, without counting the buttresses, which are clearly visible in the illustra- tion opposite (Fig. 21). All ages, all styles of masonry are represented at Ponte Lupo, and in the four tunnels which con- verge towards it or radiate from it.
Ponti deir Inferno in the Valle dell' Inferno, for the transit of the Claudia and of the Anio Novus ; and
Ponti delle Forme Rotte, for the same, in the Valle del Fosso di S. Gregorio.
Ponte di S. PietrOy in the Valle delle Forme Rotte, for the transit of the Aqua Marcia.
Ponte di S. Giovanni^ in the same valley, for the transit of the Anio Vetus. The bridge was rebuilt by Augustus in reticulated work, and again repaired in brickwork by one of the late Emper- ors (first arch on the left).
From Gallicano to the sixth milestone of the Via Latina the Marcia runs underground ; from the sixth milestone to the Porta Maggiore, Porta S. Lorenzo, and to the present railway station it was borne on almost triumphal arcades, built of tufa with mould- ings of travertine. The same arcades were aftei-wards used to carry the Aqua Tepula and the Julia. The following photograph gives the section of the channel at a point where it emerges from the ground in the farm of Roma Vecchia. A. The channel of the Marcia. B. Remains of that of the Tepula above it. C. A buttress, probably of the time of Hadrian. D. Another, probably of the time of Severus. E. The channel of the Acqua Felice, built by Sixtus V. FF'. The arcades of the Claudia and of the Anio Novus.
The aqueduct reaches Rome at the Porta Maggiore (the meet- ing-point of ten waters, Appia, Appia Augusta, Anio Vetus, Marcia, Tepula, Julia, Claudia, Anio Novus, Alexandrina, Felice), and follows the line of the walls of Aurelian as far as the Porta S. Ix)renzo. The course beyond this gate is so complicated that I think it well to refer the student to sheets xvii. and xviii, of the ** Forma Urbis," in which all particulars are carefully mapped, rather than describe it here.
Aqua Tepxtla — Aqua Julia. — The veins, so named from their almost tepid temperature of 17° Cent., and now called Sor- genti dell' Aoqua Preziosa, were collected at the foot of the Alban
52 GEHEBAL INFORMATlOtl
hilla (Valle Marciana) in 125 b. c. by the ceiiaon Cn. Servilius Cfepio and L. Cassiiu Loiiginiis. For ninety-two years the Tepula reached Rome liy its own channel ; but in 33 b. c. Agrippa, after he had collected the springs of the Aqua Julia — higher up the same valley at a place now called "II Fontauile degli Squarcia- relli di Grottaf errata," which were much colder and purer, and double in volume — determined to mix the two and obtain a com-
Tig. 22. — The AqusducU tt Ronu Ttcchia.
pound water superior in quality to the Tepula, though eliglrtly in- ferior to the Julia. TUr Julia wii-s admitted accordingly into the channel of the Tepula at tlie tenth milesloiie of the Via Latina, and the amalgamation allowed to proceed for the space of four
AQUEDUCTS 53
miles. At the sixth milestone the compound water was again di- Tided in two conduits, proportioned to the volume of the springs (400 quinariae for the Tepula, and 1206 for the Julia). The tem- perature of the Tepula being 17° Cent., that of the Jidia 10°, aird their volumes 1 : 3, the mixture must have marked at the Piscina a temperature of about 12°, which is the best for drinking pur- poses. Length of channel for the Tepula, 17,745 metres ; for the Julia, 22,853 metres. Volume of the first, 28,115 cubic metres in twenty-four hours ; of the second, 76,195. Both were borne on the same arches which carried the Marcia.
Aqua Virgo. — The springs, located at the eighth milestone of the Via Latina, above the farmhouse of Salone in the Val del Ponte di Nona, were drawn into a canal by Agrippa, and reached the city on June 9, 19 b. c. Length of channel, 20,697 metres ; volume in twenty-four hours, 158,203 cubic metres.
Aqua Alsietina. — "I cannot conceive," says Frontinus (i. 11), "why such a wise prince as Augustus should have brought to Rome such a discreditable and unwholesome water as the Alsie- tina, unless it was for the use of the naumachia " (an oval pond 5.31 metres long, 854 metres wide, for naval sham fights). It was destined afterwards for the irrigation of the Transtiberine or- chards. Length of channel, 32,848 metres ; volume, 24,767 cubic metres per day. (See Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, p. 182.)
Aqua Clafdia. — None of the Roman a^jueducts are eulo- gized by Frontinus like the Claudian. He calls it " opus magni- ficentiiwime consummatum ; '* and after demonstrating in more than one way that the volume of the springs collected by Claudius amounted to 4607 quinariae, he says that there was a reserve of 1600 always ready.
The works, begun by Caligula in a. d. 38, lasted fourteen years, the water having reached Rome only on August 1, .52 (the birth- day of Claudius). The course of the aqueduct was first around the slopes of the Monte Ripoli, like that of the Marcia and of the Anio Vetus : Domitian shortened it by several miles by boring a tunnel 4950 metres long through the Monte Affiiano. (See An- cient Rome, p. 63.) Length of channel, 68,750 metres, of which 15,000 on arches; volume per day, 209,252 cubic metres. The Claudia was used for the Imperial table : a branch aqueduct, 2000 metres long, left the main channel ad Spem Veterem (Porta Mag- giore), and following the line of the Via Cjelimontana (Villa Wolkonsky), of the Campus Caelimontanus (Lateran), and of the street now called di S. Stefano Rotondo, reached the temple of
54 GENERAL INFORMATION
Claudius by the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and the Imperial palace by the church of S. Bonaventura. (See Book II. § xxv.)
Anio Nevus. — The Anio Novus, like the Vetus, was at first derived from the river of the same name at the forty-second mile- stone of the road to Subiaco, great precautions being taken for purifying the water by means of a piscina limaria. The works were begun by Caligula in a. d. 38, and completed by Claudius on August ly 52, on a most magnificent scale, some of the arches reaching the height of thirty-two metres above ground ; and there were eight miles of them. Yet, in spite of the purifying reser- voir, and of the clear springs of the Rivus Ilerculaneus (Fosso di Fioggio), which had been mixed with the water from the river, the Anio Novus was hardly ever drinkable. Whenever a shower fell on the Simbruine mountains, the water would get troubled and saturated with mud and carbonate of lime. Trajan improved its condition by carrying the head of the aqueduct higher up the valley, where Nero had created three artificial lakes for the adorn- ment of his Villa Sublacensis. These lakes served more efiiciently as piscina limarice, or *< purgatories," than the artificial basin of Caligula, nine miles below. The Anio Novus reached Rome in its own channel after a course of 86,964 metres, but for the last seven miles it ran on the same arches with the Aqua Claudia. The Anio Novus was the largest of all Roman aqueducts, dis- charging nearly three hundred thousand cubic metres per day.
There are two places in the suburbs of Rome where these marvelous arches of the Claudia and Anio Novus can be seen to advantage : one is the Torre Fiscale, three miles outside the Porta S. Giovanni on the Albano road (to be reached also from the Tavolato station, on the upper Albano railway) ; the other is the Vicolo del Mandrione, which leaves the Labicana one mile outside the Porta Maggiore and falls into the Tusculana at the place called Porta Furba. A walk through the Vicolo del Mandrione will make the student more familiar with the aqueducts of ancient Rome, their structure and management, their respective size and importance, than many books written on the subject. He must remember that the higher of the two lines of arches carried the Claudia and the Anio Novus, the lower carried tlie Marcia, Tepula, and Julia. The ugly channel of the Acqua Felice takes advantage of the remains of both ; the Alexandrina, Anio Vetus, and Appia run underground (see Fig. 23).
Aqua Traiana. — A rule was strictly followed under the Em- pire, that no one should be allowed to build and open thermse for
AQUEDl/CrS
e iitilesB a Hpecial eupply of water was secured at the se
time. The Aqua Virgo served for Agrippa's thermtfi and Eiiripim, the Alsietina for the nauinachia of Augustus ; Titus repaired and
56 GENERAL INFORMATION
increased the volume of the Marcia for the use of his baths, and so did Severus, Caracalla, and Diocletian. The construction of the Thermae Alexandrinse is contemporary with the canalization of the Aqua Alexandrina, etc. That of the Aqua Traiana seems to be also connected with the construction of the Thermae Surianse, which Trajan had built on the table-land of the Aventine in honor of his friend and supporter Licinius Sura. An inscription dis- covered in 1830 at la Conetta, on the Bracciano road (Corpus In- scriptionum, vi. 1260), and the medal (Cohen, Imper., ii. 49, n. 305) give the date of a. d. 109 for the completion of the aqueduct. Its sources were on the western shore of the Lago di Bracciano, along the chain of hills between Oriolo and Bassano. The va- rious branches met at a central reservoir near Vicarello, where the true aqueduct begins. It was 57,000 metres long, and discharged 118,127 cubic metres per day.
The Aqua Paola of the present day is not at all so good as the Traiana, since Paul V., the restorer of the aqueduct, mixed up the good springs with the inferior water of the lake.
The last water brought into Imperial Rome is the Aqua Alex- andrina. Its springs, at the foot of Monte Falcone, on the Via Praenestina, were collected in 226 by Severus Alexander, for the use of his baths. The aqueduct, most minutely described by Fabi-etti (De Aquis, dissert, i.), was about 22 kilometres long, and increased the daily supply of the city by 21,632 cubic metres. Its most conspicuous remains are to be seen in the Valle di Acqua Bollicante (Via Labicana).
The Roman waters were not equally good. In the scale of perfection the Marcia and the Claudia occupy the first place, the Virgo comes next, followed by the Appia, Julia, Traiana, Anio Novus, Alexandrina, Tepula, Anio Vetus, and Alsietina.
The Traiana reached Rome at the considerable height of 71.16 metres above the sea, the Anio Novus at 70.40, the Claudia at 67.40, the Julia at 63.73, the Tepula at 60.63, the Marcia at 58.63, the Anio Vetus at 48, the Alexandrina at about 43, the Virgo at 20, the Appia at 20 (?), the Alsietina, " omnium humilior" at 16.50.
At the time of Constantine there were in Rome 11 great thermap, 926 public baths, 1212 public fountains, 247 reservoirs, a ^^stagnum Affrippat" without speaking of private houses, of public and private gardens, of docks and warehouses, each well provided with water.
Some of the fountains were of monumental character, and rich in works of art. Agrippa, while aedile, decorated those existing
AQUEDUCTS 57
at the time with three hundred marble and bronze statues and four hundred columns. We know of one work of art only, — an " ^ffigi^» Hydrct " which he placed on the Servilian fountain " ad Serviliam lacum" The fountains of Prometheus, of the Shep- herds, of Orpheus, of Ganymede, of the Four Fish (Scari), of the Three Masks, etc., must have been so named from the statues and marbles with which they were decorated.
One only of the great fountains has escaped destruction, that popularly called " I Trofei di Mario," in the Piazza Vittorio Em- manuele on the Esquiline. Its ancient name is not known for certain : Lenormant has suggested that of Nymphseum Alexandri ; I prefer that of Lacus Orphei. Its mediaeval name was Cimbruni Marii, a recollection of the monument erected here in memory of the victory of the Campi Raudii ; while in the early Renaissance it was called " Le Oche Armate." The trophies which adorned it were removed to the Piazza del Campidoglio under Sixtus V.
Gio. Battista Piranesi, II Castello delV Acqua Giulia ; and Trofei di Ottaviano AnguMto. Rome: R. Calcografia. — Francois Lenonnaiit, Memoirt tar la verilabie designation du monument connu sous le nom de Trophies de Marius. (R^vue Nnmism., 1849.) — Rodolfo Lanciani, / comtntarii di Fron- tino, p. 173.
Supposing the inhabitants of Rome to have numbered, suburbs included, one million, there was a daily water supply of 1800 litres per head. In modern Rome, for a population of half a million, there are about 760 litres per head.
The volume of water which supplied Rome may be estimated by comparison with the Tiber, which discharges only 1,296,000 cubic metres per day, while the old aqueducts carried not less than 1,747,311 cubic metres.
LiTKBATURE. — Raphael Fabretti, De aquis et aqtueductibuf veteris Jiomte, Sd-ed. Rome, 1788. — Alberto Cassio, Corgo delle acque antiche. Rome, 1757-59. — Carlo Fea, 8tori(t delle acque di Roma, — John Henry Parker, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome. Oxford, London, 1876. — Alessandro Bettochi, Le acque e gli acquedotti di Roma antica e modema. (Monogratia della citta di Roma, vol. il. ch. xix. 1881.) — Rodolfo Lanciani, / comeniarii di Frontino intomo U acque e gli acquedotti, Rome, Salviucci, 1880.
An interesting collection of object** connected with the supph' and distribii- tioD of water in ancient Rome is exhibited in Hall No. VI. of the Museo Mnnicipale al Cello.
The following table concerning the Roman aqueducts may be useful to the student : —
/
58
GENERAL INFORMATION
^*
o
H 'A
M
<
'A
l-H
as H
U4
O
1-3
Oh
|
Level in Rome. |
20(?) 48.00 |
S s |
60.63 63.73 20.00 16.50 67.40 70.40 71.16 43.00 ? 40.00 • • • |
• B m 8 ■ r-i CO I'* o rH 53 CO • |
o X u Q O Jz: H Pf U^ O i2 Sh Oh U |
17.00 59.00 67.00 70-148 |
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Altitude of BpringB above Bea-level. |
30.00 c* 280.00 318.00 |
151.00 350.00 24.00 209.00 320.00 400.00 c* 300.00 c* 65.00 • • • ■ • • |
24.00 65.00 200-160 318.00 |
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Length of Volume per day Courae. in Cubic Metres. |
Metres. 16,444.60 115,303.50 63,704.50 277,865.60 |
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28,115.10 76,19510 158,202.70 24,766.60 209,252.20 299,346.80 118,126.80 21,632.80 (?) 26,440.80 (?) 95,749.30 (?) • |
20,546.00 155,271,20 32,592.60 , 21.032.80 51,851.90 80,870.40 53,649.00 121.305.60 |
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17,745.40 22,853.60 20,696.60 32,847.80 68,750.50 86,964.00 57,700.00 22,000.00 6,000.00 1,500.00 |
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PiusV Sixtus v., Felice Perett Paul V Societii deir aequa Mar |
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312 B. c. 272-269 |
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1570, Aug. 16 1587, June 15 1611 1870, Sept. 18 |
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Appia Anio Vetus |
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Tepula . Julia AlMetina . Claudia . Anio Xovus Traiana . Alcxandriua . Marcia Severia Marcia Antonir Marcia Jo via . |
Vergine . Felice Paola Marcia-pia |
I
THE WALLS 59
XV. MuRi USBis (the Walls). — Rome has been fortified seven times, with seven lines of walls : by the first King, by Servius Tullius, by Aurelian, by Honorius, by Leo IV., by Urban VIII., and by the Italian government.
The literature on this point of Roman history and topography is very copious. The works in which the subject is treated from a general point o| view are —
Antonio Nibby, Le mura di Rotna^ disegnate da Sir W. Gell. 1820. — Ste- fmno Piale, Six Memoirs, reprinted from the Atti delta jwnt. Accademia rom. d* Artkeologia. 1820-^35. — Adolf Becker, De RomtB veierU muris atque portis. Leip««ic, 1842. — Kodolfo Lanciani, Le mura e le parte di Servto (in Annal. Inst., 1871, p. 40) ; and Bull. arch, com., 1876, pp. 24, 121 (1888, p. 12). — Heinrich Jordan, Topoyraphle^ vol. i. p. 200, Beschreibung der servlanischen Mauer ; p. »40, die aureliauiscbe Mauer. — Cesare Quarenghi, Le mura di Roma. Borne, 1882.
XVI. MuRUS RoMULi (Walls of the Palatine). It is probable that the Alban colonists of the "hill of Pales," protected by marshes and cliffs, contented themselves with raising a palisade and cutting a ditch at the only weak point of their natural for- tress, viz. across the neck of the Velia. After coming in contact with tlieir more advanced neighbors, like the inhabitants of the turrigera: Antetnna;, they thought it more expedient to follow their example, and wall in and fortify their village, which was at the same time the fold of their cattle.
The text most frequently quoted in reference to the Mums Romuli is that of Tacitus (Ann., xii. 24), according to which the furrow ploughed by the hero — the sulctis primigenius — started from a point in the Forum Boarium, marked in later times by the bronze Bull of Myron ; and followed the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine as far as the altar of Consus, the valley between tlie Palatine and the Cjelian as far as the Curiie Veteres, the east slope of the hill as far as the Sacellum Larum. The same historian savs that the Ai*a Maxima of Hercules was included within the fur- row, and Dionysius states that Vesta's temple was outside it. The furrow followed the foot of the cliffs or slopes of the Palatine, its course being marked with stone cippi. Others affirm that the city of Romulus was square (TtTpdywyos — Roma Quadrata). The truth is that neither the walls nor the pomerium of Romulus can be said to make a square ; that a line drawn from beyond the Ara Maxima to the Ara Consi cannot be said to go " along the foot of the cliffs of the Palatine'* (per ima mantis Palatini); that the valley in th(^e days was covered with water, deep enough to be navi-
60 GENERAL INFORMATION
gated by canoes, so that neither a furrow could be ploughed through it, nor stone cippi set up to mark the line of the furrow. Moreover, the same marshes extended on the southeast side as far as the Curia) Veteres, on the northwest as far as the Temple of Vesta ; and the shape of the Palatine walls was rather trapezoid, like that of a terramara of the valley of the Po, than square like an Etruscan templum ; while, lastly, the name of Roma Quadrata did not belong to the city on the hill, but to the altar described in ** Pagan and Christian Rome," p. 70, which stood in front of the Temple of Apollo.
There is manifestly a chronological error in speaking of places and things, not as they were in the earliest days of Rome, but as they ap|)eared after the draining of the marshes. A confusion is also to be observed in ancient and modern writers with regard to the line of the walls and the line of the pomerium marked by stone cippi. The two are almost independent, and wide apart. Tlie existing remains of the walls, at the west corner of the hill, are 220 metres distant from the site of the Ara Maxima, which was itself within the pomerium. The walls of Romulus have been discovered in six places, marked A, B, C, D, E, F in the annexed map. They will be described in Book II. § viii.
XVII. Other Walls of the Kingly Period. — Although we find in classic texts mention of what may have been fortifica- tions, independent of those on the Palatine, — like the Murus Ter- reus Carinarum, the Capitolium Vetus, and the anc or citadel on the Aracoeli summit of the Capitoline hill, — yet there is but one existing relic which can possibly be considered as such : a frag- ment of a wall in a garden, Via dell* Arco di Settimio, No. 1. It is identical in material and style of masonry with the walls of the Palatine.
Liter ATURK.— Stefano Piale, Del secondo recinto di Romafatto da Numa. e dtllf arff/tunte detfli altri re. Rome, 1833. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Annalt Intti- tuiOj 1871, p. 42. — Arthur Scheiner, Au* Roms Fruhezeit. (Mittheil., 1855, p. 160.)
XVIII. The Walls of Servius Tullius. — In the eulogy of Bartolomeo Borghesi the late Comm. de Rossi remarks justly that we know more on some points of Roman history, institutions, religion, etc., than the ancients did. The same thing may be re- |)eated as regards some points of Roman topography. Dionysius, for instance, savs that the walls of Servius Tullius had become 8u<r€^p«Toi ^ in the Augustan age, on account of the structures of
1 Difficult t<) trace.
THE WALLS OF SERVtVS TULLWS 61
enrj description, public and priT&te, whicti liad been built against, across, and above them. Owing to discoveries made since ISfiO we can trace the line of the Servian walls and of the agger, describe its structure, and locate
its gates more exactly than Dio- SBCtion OP WALLS
DjKios could have done.
The walla run against the face of the cliffs (of the Capitoline, Quirinal, Oppian, Ctelian, and Aventine) at two thirds of their height above the plain, and cross the intervening valleys at their
They are built of blocks of tu&L, exactly 2 feet high (0.59 metre), placed alternately lengthwise and crosswise, the tnfa being of an inferior quality ng, ^g,
snd yellowish gray in color.
The thickness of the wall varies from 2 to 3^ metres ; the maii- muni height yet discovered is 12.98 metres (Vigna Torlonia, Aven- tine. Fig. 29). The blocks are not cemented, at least not in the original structure. I have only once found traces of lime, in a joint of one of the buttresses (corner of Via Volturno and (iaeta) ; but, as a rule, the use of cohesive substances seems to have been unknown to or despised by the engineers of Servius. The blocks which form the face of the wall are well squared, and lit into each other so that the joints are rendered almost invisible, but they are irregularly cut inside. On the A'^entine, however, and especially in the space between the church of S. Saba and that of n Priorato di Malta, the walls, instead of resting against the live rock of the cliffs or the earth of the slopes, have an inside lin- ing of concrete, the thickness of which equals or exceeds that of the opus quadralum itself. This part of the fortifications is not original, but seems to have been rebuilt or strengthened by Cam i 11ns.
Across the valleys or tablelands the system of defense varies ■■together. There is a ditch, and an embankment made with the earth excavated from the ditch. The embankment is supported on the outer side by a strong wall, fortified with buttresses, while on the inner side it slopes down at an incline of !l.'i° or 40°. .Sometimes tliere is a second supporting wall on the inner side.
62 GENERAL INFORMATION
weaker and much lower than the outer one. Two roads run par- allel with the fortification y one at the foot of the inner wall, one on the outer edge of the ditch. This system of defense was called an agger.
Topographical books state that in the circuit of the Servian city there was but one agger, between the Colline and the Esqui- line gates ; but recent discoveries prove that all weak points of the circuit were fortified in that way. We have found the agger in the higher part of the Ksquiline, near the Palazzo Field, Via Merulana ; on the Smaller Aventine, near S. Saba ; and on the Quiri- nal, by the Piazza di Magnanapoli, etc. Yet there is no denying that the one l)etween the Colline and Esquiline gates, for strength, size, elevation, and length, is the agger par excellence j from which a street (subager) and a promenade (nunc licet aggere in aprico spatiari) were named in classic times, and a whole district (Mons Superagius) in the Middle Ages.
I shall point out to the reader now which of the remains of this
SECTION OF AGGBR s-ao
'//
.''-■"^:7///>, ■'
Fig. 26.
venerable fortification deserve a visit, and which are the sites of its historical gates. (See map of Walls.) First, as to the river- front, Livy (ii. 10) and Dionysius (v. 28) distinctly assert that the bank was uiiprot4?ct4'd, l)ecause the river itself, with its wide bed and swift current, was considered to afford a sufficient protection. Yet there is no portion of the whole circuit of the Servian city at which the fortifications are more evident or better preserved than at the river-front. I made designs of every fragment of them before the construction of the modern quays, and I do not think there is a break of .')0 metres l>etween the two extreme points (marked approximately by the Pons Fabricius and the Pons Sub-
THE WALLS OF SERVIUS TULLIUS 63
Uciiu). The constructiou is the same everywhere : a foundation- wall about 2 metres high above low-water mark, forming a step or a lauding 3 metres wide, and a wall 6 metres high aupportiug the bauk. i have fouud traces of cement in the upjter layers of stones, as well as traces of an inuer liniug of concrete. Both may pertain to later restoratioiu.
The walls left the river halfway between the cliurches of S. Maria Egiziaca aud S. Nicola iu Carcei'e, and reached the rocks of the Capitol at the Via delta Biifula. Three gates opened in this ithort tract : the Flumentana by the river (Via della Fiuraara. destroyed 1882), the Triumphalis (Via delta Bocca della Veritk), «ud the Carmentalis (Via delta Bufola). Consult —
Adolf BMker, /)< mo™, p. 81. — Kmil Braun, .W'>tiBiB»fi(. /inf., 1854, p. 78, Uv. X. — AlsHsanJiT) IK.nati, I>, vrbr H«ma, p. 79,
The Capitoline was strongly fortified on the side facing the Campus MartiuH. Itemains of the wall can )>e Keen on the edge of the rock which supports the Caffarelli palace (1) ; on the ascent to the Piazza <]f I Campidoglio, called "La satitadelle tre Pile" (II); and in the substructures of the nionument to Victor Emmanuel (III). They intersected the A'ia di Marforio between Nos. 81" and HI", where the Porta Ratumena must be located. The direc- tion of the Via Flaniinia, which issued from this gat«, is marked by the tomb of C. Poplicius BibuluN on one side, and the so-called tomb of the Claudii on ttie other.
From the Porta Katuniena to the Porta Fontinalis, under the Palazzo Autonetli, Piazza AIagnana|>oli, the walls must have l>een destroyed by Trajan when he ont away the spur of the Quirinat to make room for his forum. The Porta Fontinalis is tlie only one left standing in the whole circuit (IV). Otlier r
64 GENERAL INFORMATION
to be seen in the beautiful Villa Colonna (V), upon which rest those of the Temple of the Sun ; others under the Villa Spithoever, Via delle Finanze (VI). Two gates opened in this ^act : the Sanqualisy the approximate site of which is shown by the tomb of the Sempronii, discovered in 1866 near the top of the Salita della Dataria ; and the Porta Salutaris, under the Palazzo Craw- shay, Via delle Quattro Fontane. The agger began at the junc- tion of the Via di Porta Salaria with the Via venti Settembre, crossed the Treasury buildings, the Via Voltumo, the railway station, the Piazza Fanti, the Via Carlo Alberto, and ended near the conservatory of the gardens of Maecenas in the Via Merulana. It was almost intact before the construction of the new quarters and of the railway station ; now there are scanty remains to be seen (VII) in the Piazza del Maccao ; in the goods station, Via di Porta S. Lorenzo (VUI) ; in the gardens of the Acquario Romano (IX) ; and in the Via Carlo Alberto (X). The Porta CoUina, dis- covered in 1873 at the junction of the Via Goito and the Via venti Settembre, was destroyed for the erection of the northeast pavilion of the Treasury buildings. (See map in " Ancient Rome," p. 145.) Traces of the Porta Viminalis are visible in the goods station, while the Porta Esquilina is represented by the arch of Gallienus, Via di S. Vito.
The annexed cut (Fig. 28) represents an excavation made in 1877 at the foot of the agger to determine the breadth and depth of the great ditch. It seems that when the agger itself was transformed into a public walk, the ditch was filled up, and turned into build- ing lots. Traces of a private house can be seen at the bottom of the trench.
Beyond the last fragment visible in the Via Merulana (XI) we lose sight of the fortifications, although their course and the site of the gates Querquetulana, CaBlimontana, and a third near the Piazza della Navicella, can be distinctly traced from discoveries made in times gone by.
The famous Porta Capena, which marks the beginning of the Appian Way, seems to have been discovered twice : by Orazio Orlandi in the latter part of last century ; and by Mr. J. H. Parker in 1867, in the slope of the Csslian, behind the apse of S. Gregorio. Parker gives a view of his excavation in Plate xviii. of the " Aque- ducts of Ancient Rome " (London, Murray, 1876). The site of the gate can be determined to-day by means of a remarkable fragment of the walla (XII) visible in the wine-cellar of the Osteria della Porta Capena, in the gardens of S. Gregorio, Via di Porta S. Seba8tiano, No. 1.
THE WALLS OF SERVTUS TULLIUS 65
On the other side of the valley the walls appear again, in front and under the old abbey of S. Balbina, now a house of refuge for
ng. 28.— TtasDlUholtbc AgKWo'^'^"^
women (XIII) ; at a comer of the Via di S. Saba and the Via di Porta S. Paolo (XIV) ; on the Via di Porta S. Paolo itself, where
66 GENERAL INFORMATION
the road bifurcates, one arm descending towards the gate, the other towards the Monte Testaccio (XV). This is the finest ruin of all, because it shows the restorations of the time of Camillus resting on the original structure of Servius. Fig. 29 represents the present state of the ruin, but more than half of it is concealed by the accumulation of modern soil. I had the good fortune to see it completely exposed to view in 1868, when I made the draw- ing a facsimile of which is here given.
There is another fragment to he seen in the adjoining Vigna Maccarani-Torlonia (XVI), some stones of w^hich were removed by Padre Secchi, the astronomer, to the Observatory of the Col- legio Romano, to serve as a pedestal for the great Merz equatorial. The walls api)ear again against the cliff of the Aventine, at the Arco di S. Lazzaro, Via di Marmorata (XVII) ; and lastly, under the convent of S. Sabina, where they were laid bare in 1856 (XVIII). There is absolutely no trace of Servian fortifications on the opposite or Transtil)erine side of tlie river.
Four gates opened in the walls between the Porta Capena and the Tiber : the Na»via, on the Via Aventina, from which issued the Via Ardeatina; the Rudusculana, on the Via di Porta S. Paolo, from which issued the Via Ostiensis ; the N avails, on the Via di S. Maria Aventinese ; and tlio Trigemina, on the Via di Marmorata.
Many stones built into the original wall of Servius are marked with signs or letters, which have given rise to much speculation. Consult —
Liiigi Bnizza, Sopra % sef/ni incigi nei mnggi delle mura^ etc. (Annali Inst., 1876, pis. i, k.) — Hoiiirich .Jordan, Topogrnphie, vol. i. p. 250, pis. 1,2.— Otto Richter, Fthr antike Sttininflzziichtn, 1885.
LiTKRATURK. — Adolf Rpokrr, I)e Rovrue ntt-rh muru atque porth, p. 81: and Topographic, p. 92. — ThomaM Dver, IliMonj of the City of Rome, p. 47. — R. Bergaii, />*> Htfrittifpinrf Rom.^ (lurch Tanpiinius Pri»cus vrul Serrtus TuUiuy. (i<)ttin^<Mi, 1867. — Rod<»lfo Ijiiu-iani, Sullr mura e porte tli Serrio (in Ann. Tnst., 1871, p. 40) ; and Bttll. nrvh. cow., 1876, pj). 24. 121.— HeiDrich Jordan, Topoyraphic, vol. i. i>, 200. — Otto Riohter, Die Befeftigunij dts Janirulum.
XIX. Walls of Aurf.lian and Probus, a. d. 272. — AVe have no account of the construction of the walls of Aurelian. We only know, in a genenil way, tliat the Emperor was comi^elled to fortify the capital by the barbarian inva^^ion of a. d. 271, in tlie course of which the enemy had reached the banks of the Metaurus; that, during the respite between the Marcomannic and the Pal-
11
{
WALLS OF SF.RVirS
68 GENERAL INFORMATION
myrene campaigns, he inclosed the city muris quam validissimu, and that the great undertaking, begun in 272, was finished by Probus about seven years later.
The circuit of the walls, which I have measured inch by inch for the construction of the " Forma Urbis," measures 18,837 metres. The strip of land occupied by these fortifications is 19 metres wide : five of which are taken by the inner " chemin de ronde^" four by the walls themselves, ten by the outside road ; 358,000 square metres were consequently expropriated by Aurelian ; and, as the land was thickly covered with villas, houses, gardens, and tombs, the cost of purchase must have been considerable. At 20 lire the square metre it would reach 7,000,000 lire.
The walls consist of a solid foundation of concrete from 3.50 to 4 metres thick, faced with triangular bricks ; of a covered way with loopholes on the outside, and a gallery or arcade in the inner side ; and a terrace or balcony above, lined with battlements (Fig. 30). There are towers at an interval of 100 Roman feet (29.7d metres), projecting from four to five metres. Each tower contains a staircase giving access to the lower corridor and to the terrace above. According to the survey made by Ammou, after the restoration of the walls by Arcadius and Honorius in 403, there were 381 towers in all, exclusive of those of the mausoleum of Hadrian (Hadrianium), which had been converted into a teie du pont, to prevent the approach of the enemy from the Via Tri- umphalis and the Prata Neronis. Of these 381 towers only one has come down to us in a perfect state — the sixth to the left of the Porta Salaria. We can judge from its elegance and good construction that the builders of the walls had tried to disfigure the monumental city as little as possible ; we can judge also how much damage the walls must have suffered in the course of cen- turies, to be reduced to their present state of decay !
These noble walls, which have so often saved the city from pillage and destruction, on the face of which our history is written almost year by year, and so carefully preserved even in the darkest period of the Middle Ages, are now doomed to disappear. State and city have with equal promptness declined to undergo the expense of keeping them in repair. A section of them, 70 metres long, between the Porta S. Giovanni and S. Croce in Gerusalemme, fell in 1803. The only measure taken was a warning given to passers-by that another portion would soon share the same fate.
The volume of mason rj^ employed in the construction of the walls is estimated at 1,033,000 cubic metres. The cost at the present
r
WALLS OF ADRELIAN AND PROBUS
mf. 30. — Tbe Connd Wn; of the Willi of AimliMi, Ti(u CiiHli.
were the price of labor and the cost ot building-materials in liis day. As a rale the walls are buitt with the spoils of the edifices
70 GENERAL INFORMATION
which stood on their line and were demolished to clear the space ; only the surface and the arches are coated with bricks made for the occasion. Two recent discoveries illustrate this point ; they also bear evidence to the hurry with which the work was done, and therefore to the greatness of the peril fi'om which Rome had escaped.^
A piece of the walls was cut away in November, 1884, between the third and the fourth tower on tlie right of the Porta S. Lorenzo, for the opening of the new Viale del Camposanto. An older construction had been embedded there in the thickness of the masonry, viz., a garden wall incrusted with shells, enamel, and pumice-stones, with niches worked in a rough kind of mosaic, and crowned by a cornice covered with sheets of lead. When Aurelian's engineers met with this obstacle, they did not lose time in demolishing it, but embedded it in their own masonry. So far, this is not remarkable ; but what remains inexplicable is that the statues were not removed from their niches.
We have found them one by one in their original places, and they are not the work of an ordinary chisel, but delicate pieces of GraBco-Roman sculpture, so much so that Professor Petersen has not disdained to give illustrations of them in the ** Bull. arch, com.," vol. xvii., a. 1889, p. 17, tav. 1, 2. The statues and the whole front of the garden wall were not damaged by the new construction be- cause the engineers had taken care to protect them with a coating of clay. Traces of this nymphacum are still to l)e seen on the left of the new Barriera di S. Lorenzo. The second discovery was made in February, 18.92, on the line of the Via Montebello, between the garden of the English Embassy and the Prajtorian Camp. Here a private house of the first century stood on the line of the walls. One would have exi)ected the house to be leveled to the ground, and the walls raised on the space left free by the demolition ; but the engineers, in their haste, satisfied themselves with filling up the space between the sides of each room, leaving intact mosaic pavements, marble stairs, lintels, thresholds, and frescoes. This done, as soon as their own masonry was sufficiently hardened, they
1 The victory of Aurullan on the bankfl of the Metaurus must have been so decisive that the whole Empire rejoiced at it. It is recorded even in the forniiihit of contemporary gaminf]c.tables {tabula luxorioi). One of these, discovered in 1892 in the catacombs of Priscilla, contains the words, " hostes • victos * Italia * ^audet * ludite * Komani;" another, discovered ahnost at the same time, in the cemetery of S. Eucharius at Treves, says, 'S^'irtas * imperi * hostes * vincti * ludant * Romani."
WALLS OF AURELTAN AND PR0BU8 71
shaved off, as it were, whatever projected on either side, and went on with their work.
We come now to an important, and altogether new, point of research. For what cause, and from what military, technical, or financial reasons, was this special course of the walls selected ? and why were some important districts of the city left out, others included which contained nothing but tombs? The answer is easily given. The course selected was that of the octroi, which followed closely that of the pomerium, or in other words, the line of separation between the city proper {continentia cedijicia) and the suburbs (expcUiantia tectd). Much has been written about the octroi line by —
Theodor Bfommsen, Btrichte d. sdchs. Ge««^/<cA., 1850, p. 309. — Gio. Battixta de RoMsi, Archaeid. Amtigerj 1856, p. 147 ; and PUtnte di Rorna^ eh. vii. p. 46. — Cnrpui Inscr.y vol. vi. n. 1016, a, 6, c. — Ephtmtrit Epigr^ vol. iv.p. 276. — Bodolfo Lanciani, Bull, arch, com,^ vol. xx., 1892, p. 93.
It was marked by stone cippi, five of which have l)een descril)ed by epigraphists. The first was found, at the time of Andrea Fulvio, on the landing-place of the Tiber, under the Aventine. It bore this inscription : —
QVICQVID VSVARIVM INVEHITVR ANSARIVM NON DEBET,
which proves that duties were levied also on some kind of mer- chandise and provisions which came by water. The other four belong to the reorganization of the octroi made by M. Aurelius and Commodus about the year a. d. 175, and they are all inscribed with the same regulations : " These terminal stones have been set up, in consequence of the quarrels which often arise between the importers and the tax-receivers, to show which is the exact line of the octroi according to the ancient custom."
The place of discovery of the first stone is uncertain ; the second was found near the Porta Salaria ; the third near the Porta Flami- nia ; the fourth near the Porta Asinaria. They stood, therefore, on the very line followed a century later by Aurelian's walls. Now it is evident that whoever establishes a financial barrier round an open city must try to take advantage of every existing natural or artificial obstacle to prevent smuggling and fraud. Another obvious pre- caution is to reduce to a minimum the number of ot)enings, so as to save the exp»ense of a large staff of officers. Between two open- ings, viz., between tw^o toll-houses, they must have raised palisades, stone walls, hedges, or excavated ditches, unless the obstacles offered by the undulations of the ground or by public edifices
72 GENERAL INFORMATION
afforded sufficient protection against smuggling. This was exactly the case with Rome, where one sixth of the whole octroi line had been found ready-made by the substructure of the Horti Aciliani on the Pincian (550 metres) ; by the inclosure wall of the Horti Sal- lustiani (1200 metres), and of the Prajtorian Camp (1050 metres) ; by the arcades of the Marcian (800 metres) and of the Claudian aqueducts (475 metres) ; and lastly, by the Amphitheatrum Caa- trense (100 metres). The octroi line, therefore, of the time of M. Aurelius and Com modus comprised an inclosure built on the prin- ciples of financial strategy, with first-class gates and custom-houses on the main roads and river landings, and with posterns and small pickets on the smaller lanes and landings of ferry-boats. From such financial fortifications to the walls of Aurelian the step is very short. Aurelian simply changed into a strong bulwark the octroi inclosure, respecting its gates, posterns, and ferries.
Refekencks. — Adolf Becker, De muris atque portU. Leipsic, 1842. — Antonio Nibby and William Gell, Lt mura di Roma, 1820. — Euf^ene Miintz, Les arts a la cour des Papes, passim. — G. Battista de Rossi, Bull. arch, critt., serie v., anno ii., 1891, p. 35. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Le mura di Aureliano t di Probo: Bull. arch, com., xx. p. 87.
The late John Henry Parker prepared illustrations of the walls of Aurelian by numerous drawings and photographs, the first by Cicconetti, the second by Lucchetti. The collection of drawings belongs now to the Commissione Arch, comunale di Roma ; the negatives of the photographic collection were de- stroyed bv fire in Julv, 1893.
XX. RESTORATroN OF THE Walls BY HoNORius. — The re- storation of Ihe walls by Arcadius and Ilonorius was commenced, according to Claudianus, " audito rumore Gretarum," from the fear of an advance of the Goths under Alaric, and was completed in January, 402, under the dii'ection of Stilicho. The great under- taking was celebrated by several inscriptions engraCved alx>ve the gates, of which three only have survived destruction: those of the portaj Tiburtina, Praeiiestina, and Portuensis. (See Corpus Inscrii>- tionum, vol. vi. n. 1188-90.)
These inscriptions speak of "instauratos urbi a?terna3 moros portas ac turres, egestis immensis ruderibus," Macrobius Longini- anus l>eiug the prefect of the city. The catastroplie, however, was not avoided, but deferred. Alaric crossed the Alps from Illyria towards the end of 402, and showed himself before the walls of Milan, while Ilonorius was intrenching himself at Ravenna. Stilicho, by a miracle of energy and bravery, collected an army, reached the Goths at PoUenzo, and defeated them in the spring of
RESTORATION OF THE WALLS BY HONORWS 73
403. The victory was celebrated by Honorius in the following year, with the last triumph witnessed in Rome, the last spark of a noble light about to vanish forever. The pageant mai'ched along the walls just restored, and ended at the triumphal arch raised to the glory of the £mperor and his associates —
QVOD GETARVM NATIONKM IN OMNE AEVVM DOCVERE EXTINGVI.*
Six years later, on August 24, 410, Alaric and the Getarum Natio entered Rome by the Porta Salaria !
Without entering into particulars concerning this restoration of the walls and gates, I shall only dwell a moment on the tale it tells about the fate of Rome at the beginning of the fifth century. Stilicho and Honorius found the walls almost buried under a mass of rubbish and refuse (immensa rudera) ; and as they had neither time nor means to clear the rubbish away they leveled it on the spot, and raised at once the level of that strip of city land from nine to thirteen feet. The thresholds of the portae Flaminia, Tiburtina, Pnenestina, Ostiensis of Honorius are as much as this above those of the time of Aurelian. And what destructions were accomplished for the sake of providing materials ! It is enough to quote the instance of the Porta Appia, the bastions of which were rebuilt of solid marble, from the celebrated Temple of Mars which stood outside the gate.
XXI. Gates op Aurelian and Honorius. — The gates of the city of Rome have seen more historical events during the 1624 years of their existence than any other monuments of the ancient world. Considering that even the volume of Grell and Nibby is far from being exhaustive on this point of historical topography, I could hardly enter into the subject myself. The student will find detailed information in the works mentioned below.
Starting from the left bank of the Tiber, above the Ponte Mar- gherita, we must mention, first, the corner tower of great strength, which was considered by the Romans to be haunted by the ghost of Nero : tM umbra Neronig diu mansitavit. Later it was called Lo TruUo.
C. Ludovico Viscontl, Bull. arch, com., 1877, p. 195. — Rodolfo Lanciani, Forma UrbU, pi. 1. — Constantino Corvisieri, Architfio Socieia stoiHa patriae vol. i. p. 92, n. 1.
Between the river and the Porta Flaminia (del Poiwlo) there
1 See Corpus Inscriptionum, vol. vi. n. 1196. The inscription of the arch refers also to the victory gained by Stilicho over Radagalsus in 406.
74 GENERAL INFORMATION
was a beautiful tomb, upon which the third tower left of the gate is planted.
Ludwig Urlichs, Codex topogr.^ p. 243. — BuU. arch. com,y 1891, p. 140.
The Porta Flamiuia of Honorius, flanked by two round towers, was discovered in 1877 during the demolition of the two square bastions of Sixtus lY.
C. Ludovico Yisconti, Bull, arch, com.^ 1877, p. 209. — Constantino Corvi- sieri, Archivio Societa sloria patria^ vol. i. p. 79, n. 1. — Pasquale Adinolfi, Roma ntlV eta di tnezzo, vol. i. p. 81. — Giuseppe Tommasetti, Archivio Societa storia patjHa^ vol. vi. p. 173.
Behind the apse of S. Maria del Popolo the walls reach the northeast corner of the Pincian hill, the substructures of which, built by the Acilii Glabriones, were so gigantic in size and height that no extra works of defense were added to them by Aurelian. At the opposite or northeast corner of the hill we find the ^* muro torto," a piece of the substructure which is inclined outwards at an angle of six or seven degrees. Procopius (Goth., i. 23) de- scribes it exactly as we see it now. In the Middle Ages women of ill fame were buried at the foot of the inclined wall, and in more modern times men and women who died impenitent.
The Porta Pinciana, originally a modest postern, was tran.s- formed into its present shape by Belisarius. It opens on the Via Sal aria vet us, which took the name of Pincia or Pinciana at the end of the fourth century. This gate will always get a share of the interest we feel for the gallant defender of Rome in 537. The Goths of Vitiges were encamped on the Monti Parioli, watching the Porta Pinciana ; and on the site of the Villa Albani, watching the Porta Salaria. The best feat of the siege was the sally made by Belisarius, in the course of which the barbarians were driven back as far as the Anio. The Byzantine leader rode a white charger named *dKtw by Procopius, and Balan by the Goths ; but in spite of prodigies of valor, his men began to waver, and he was obliged to retreat. The garrison of the Porta Pinciana, not recognizing the leader, covered as he was with dust and blood, obliged the retreating party to face the enemy again and drive them away from the walls. Belisarius at last entered the gate amidst frantic cheering, and his name was given to the gate itself (Porta Belisaria) in memory of the eventful day.
From the Pinciana to the Salaria the walls of Aurelian are in splendid preservation. A tower, the sixth before reaching the Sa- laria, is the only perfect one in the whole circuit. The Porta
GATES OF AURELIAN AND HONORIUS 76
Salaria of Honorius, injured by the bombardment of September 20, 1870, was rebuilt in the present form by Vespignani. The duooveries made on this occasion are described by —
C. Lndovico Yiscontl, Il/anciullo Q. Sulpicio Matiimo. Rome, 1871. — Wil- helm Henzen, Sepolcri atUichi rinvenuti alia porta Salaria (in Bull. Inst., 1871, p. d8.) — Giovanni Ciofi, Intcript. , , . Q. Sulpicii Maximi, Rome, 1871. — J. H. Parker, Tombs in and near RomCy Oxford, 1877, pi. 10. — Ro- dolfo Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Romt^ p. 280.
The Porta Pia, a work of 1561, by Matteo da Castello, stands 75 metres to the left of the ancient gate of the time of Honorius. It was first called Nomentana, and later on, Porta S. Agnetis and Porta della Donna. Its two round towers are built, as usual, over classic tombs. The one on the right was excavated in 1827 by Zamboni. It belonged to Quintus Haterius, called by Tacitus ** $enez fosdissimce adulationis"
After passing two posterns in the portion of the walls which surround the garden of the English Embassy, we meet with the Praetorian camp, described in Book IV. ; and, on the other side of it, with the. Porta Chiusa, which gave access to the Vivarium or imperial menagerie, where wild beasts were kept in readiness for the games of the amphitheatre. The walls on this part of the city have been largely restored with blocks of stone, from the inclosure wall of the Vivarium.
The Porta S. Lorenzo, spanning the Via Tiburtina, was one of the most remarkable before 1869, when Pius IX. caused it to be demolished, to make use of the stones of which it was built for the foundations of the Colonna del Concilio on the Janiculum. Tlie gate was double : the outside arch, dating from the time of Augustus, carried the Marcia, Tepula, and Julia over the road; the inside formed part of the fortifications. Fig. 31 (preceding page), from a photograph taken in 1868, shows the rise in the level of the city from the time of Augustus to that of Honorius, as the threshold of the gate of the fourth century is on the same level with the spring of the arch of Augustus.
Between the Porta Tiburtina (S. Lorenzo) and t