Chapter VIII: The Aventine and Cælian Hills

[Sidenote: The Servian walls.]

Before the end of the regal period there was an enlargement of the limits of the city in which the Aventine and Cælian were comprehended. Dionysius, Livy, and Aurelius Victor all relate that Tarquinius Priscus undertook the building of a new stone wall for the defence of the whole of the new quarters of the city, but that he did not live to finish it. The design was carried out by Servius Tullius, who also constructed the enormous agger called by his name, and still partly remaining at the back of the Esquiline, Viminal and Quirinal Hills. Before this great work was accomplished we must suppose that each suburb, as it grew out of the original settlement, was defended by a new piece of fortification, but these fortifications were, as Dionysius describes them, only temporary and hastily erected for the nonce. The expressions of Livy and Aurelius would lead us also to the conclusion that they were not of stone, but probably were entrenchments of earth. Rome then became the capital of Latium; she had lately united all her citizens, the Montani, the Collini, and the other freeholders living within the districts of Servius by a complete military organisation, and her powers were directed by a form of government which has always proved best calculated for the production of great public works. A new stone wall was accordingly planned on a vast scale, and the drainage of the low-lying parts of the city was effected about the same time by colossal sewers. The king having the whole control of the finances of the state could appropriate large sums of money for works of public utility, and could also doubtless command the labour of immense gangs of workmen. The Servian walls and the Cloacæ of Rome are to be looked upon as the parallels in the History of Rome to the pyramids of Egypt, the walls of Babylon, and of Mycenæ and Tiryns. They point to a time of concentrated power and unresisting obedience, when the will of one man could direct the whole resources of the community to the accomplishment of a comprehensive design.

With the exception of a small portion which has been discovered in the depression between the north-western and south-eastern parts of the Aventine, another portion upon the Servian Agger, and a few remnants on the Quirinal in the Barberini and Colonna Gardens,[113] no remnants of the Servian walls are now to be seen, and we have to infer their probable extent from the nature of the ground, the rough estimate given by Dionysius of the space which they enclose, and the positions of the gates as described by various ancient authors. It may be safely concluded that, wherever it was possible, advantage would be taken of the sides of the hills, and the wall would be made to run along their edges. Thus the course of the wall on the outer side of the Capitoline, Quirinal, Esquiline and north-eastern part of the Aventine can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, and the agger serves as a guide along the back of the Viminal and Quirinal. The principal difficulty lies in the portions between the Capitoline and Aventine along the river bank, in the space to the south of the Cælian, and at the Hill of S. Saba and S. Balbina, where there is but little indication in the nature of the ground to guide us.

In the time of Dionysius, who died about B.C. 10, the Servian Wall was already so much covered with buildings of various kinds, that he speaks of it as difficult to trace, and therefore, naturally enough, we find at the present day that nearly the whole has disappeared under heaps of rubbish. The portion brought to light in 1855 under the south-eastern slope of the Aventine was accidentally discovered by digging in the vineyards not far from the Porta S. Paolo, for the purpose of clearing the ground from masses of brickwork. This portion, some of which has since been covered with earth again, was 104 feet in length, 50 feet high, and 12 broad. The breadth shows the great solidity and strength of the construction. The original height was probably greater, as Mr. Braun remarks, and a parapet was placed upon the top. Some parts of this ruin are covered with reticulated work, and on others great masses of masonry have been placed which belonged to dwelling-houses. Mr. J. H. Parker has since been able to clear this fragment of wall, thus doing a very great service to Roman Archæology. No monumental antiquities have been found in these excavations earlier than the imperial times. A stamp bearing an inscription was discovered near one of the more modern arches, and dates from the reign of Trajan.

At the time when these walls were built, the stone generally used for such purposes was the hard tufa. The greater part of the Cloaca Maxima, and the remnants of these Servian walls, are composed of this material. It is hewn into long rectangular blocks, which are placed (in builders’ phrase alternately headers and stretchers) sometimes across and sometimes along the line of the wall, in order to gain greater strength. No cement is used, but the stones are carefully fitted together and regularly shaped.

It must here be observed that the rectangular shape and horizontal position of the blocks in this stonework by no means disprove its high antiquity. It is true that the so-called Pelasgian walls are built in a totally different style, for the stones in them are polygonal. But this difference of shape in the stones arises from a difference in the material. All the so-called Pelasgian walls in Italy are built of a stone which naturally breaks into polygonal masses; but tufa stone is found in the quarry in horizontal layers, and is most easily cut into a rectangular shape. The inference sometimes drawn from horizontally laid masonry that it indicates a more advanced state of art than polygonal cannot be relied upon as certain. The arch in this ruin is of a later date and may have been an embrasure for a catapult.[114]

[Sidenote: Porta Capena.]

The situation of no gate in the Servian Avails can be determined so completely as that of the Porta Capena. We know that part of the Aqua Marcia passed over it, whence it was called the dripping gate (Madida Capena) by Martial and Juvenal. It was therefore in the valley below the Cælian Hill, and we should, judging from the form of the ground, naturally place it where the hill, on which S. Balbina stands, approaches the Cælian most nearly. A striking confirmation of this conjecture has been discovered. The first milestone on the Appian Road was found in 1584 in the first vineyard beyond the present Porta S. Sebastiano--the Vigna Naro--and, measuring back one mile from it, we come exactly to this spot. This milestone is now placed on the steps leading up to the Capitoline Museum. Milestones and horse-blocks were erected on all the great roads by Caius Gracchus before the milliarium aureum was put up in the Forum by Augustus, and it is probable that the distances were always measured from the gates. Mr. Parker carried on excavations for some time to find the exact position of the Porta Capena, and he discovered some of the piers of the aqueduct which passed over the gate in the garden of the Convent of S. Gregorio. These excavations have unfortunately been more or less filled up again.

[Sidenote: Monte Testaccio.]

Near the Porta S. Paolo, between the Aventine and the river, stands the hill called Monte Testaccio from its being composed almost entirely of potsherds mixed with rubbish. The hill is 150 feet high, and one-third of a mile in circumference. Many conjectures have been hazarded about its origin, which still, however, remains a mystery.

The hypothesis which has gained most credit rests upon a passage in Tacitus, in which that historian, after giving an account of the Neronian fire, proceeds to say that Nero intended to have the rubbish carried to the Ostian marshes, and, therefore, gave orders that the corn-ships, after discharging their freight at the Emporium, should take a load of rubbish on their return to Ostia. This explanation appears satisfactory until the peculiar composition of the hill is examined. Nearly the whole mass consists of pieces of broken earthenware, and is not such as we should expect the rubbish left after a fire to be. The absence of bricks may perhaps be explained by the supposition that they were saved in order to be used a second time; but the immense quantity of potsherds still remains to be accounted for. Further, it is said that a coin of Gallienus has been found in such a position on the smaller portion of the hill as to leave no doubt that the accumulation of that part could not have been anterior to Gallienus. A medal of Constantine has also been found in the interior of the larger portion. Bunsen’s explanation that the hill is composed of the rubbish cleared away by Honorius when he restored the walls of Aurelian, and other ingenious hypotheses of the same kind, do not sufficiently account for the peculiar composition of the hill.

M. Reifferscheid, in a paper communicated to the Roman Archæological Institute, has propounded the most natural and proper solution of the problem.[115] He observes that it is not necessary to go farther than the magazines of the neighbouring Emporium for an explanation of this immense mass of potsherds. Every kind of provisions brought to Rome in ancient times was stored in earthenware jars, not only wine, but corn, oil, and other articles of commerce. A fire, therefore, which consumed any part of the Emporium would leave rubbish composed in great part of fragments of earthen jars (dolia); and, since many such fires must have taken place in the course of ages, and immense quantities of earthen jars must have been broken in the process of unloading, it does not seem at all impossible that so large an accumulation of matter should have taken place. At Alexandria and at Cairo similar heaps of potsherds are to be seen outside the walls, and their extent, though less, as might be expected, than that at Rome, is such as to create astonishment in the traveller’s mind when he sees them for the first time. An attempt has been made by M. Reifferscheid to determine the earliest date at which we can suppose this gradual deposition of potsherds to have taken place, but the data upon which he builds his conclusion, that the accumulation forming the Monte Testaccio first began to be deposited in the time of the decay of the Empire, about the third century, are not by any means such as to produce conviction.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Cestius.]

Near the Monte Testaccio, and close to the Porta S. Paolo, stands a pyramidal monument, measuring about 97 feet on each side, and 120 feet in height. It is placed upon a square basement of travertine, and the rest of the building is of rubble, with a casing of white marble. It is built into the Aurelian Wall, no pains having been taken to avoid the injury which this might cause to the building. It has, however, suffered but little from this except in appearance. The ancient entrance, which was probably on the north-east side, has been walled up. No trace is now to be seen of it, and the present entrance on the north-west was made in 1663. The interior consists of a small plastered chamber 16 feet long by 13, and 12 feet high, the corners of which are ornamented with paintings of winged genii. No coffin or sarcophagus was found when the tomb was opened, but the inscription on the outside gives the name of C. Cestius, the son of L. Cestius, of the Publilian tribe, as the person who was buried in it. It further appears that this C. Cestius had been Prætor and Tribune of the commons, and one of the seven epulones who superintended the sacrificial banquets to the gods. The date of his burial has been discovered by means of two marble pedestals containing inscriptions which were found near the pyramid. On one of these the foot of a colossal bronze statue is still fixed. They show that C. Cestius’s death took place in the time of M. Agrippa, and, therefore, of the Emperor Augustus, and that the statues were erected from the proceeds of the sale of some costly robes of cloth of gold (attalica), which Cestius had by his will ordered to be buried with him. Such burial being forbidden by law, the robes were sold and the statues erected from the proceeds by order of his heirs. They probably stood at the corners of the pyramid. Two fluted Doric pillars, the fragments of which were found near the spot, have now been placed at these corners. Cestius may possibly have been the same person who is mentioned by Cicero as a Roman knight.

[Sidenote: Baths of Caracalla.]

To the south-east of the hills of S. Saba and S. Balbina, between the Aurelian walls and the Via Appia, lie the most colossal ruins in Rome, covering a space each side of which measures more than a thousand feet. It is certain, from the arrangement of these buildings, that they were destined for public baths; and as tradition and the catalogue of the twelfth region both assign the name of the Thermæ Antoninianæ to them, and the style of the masonry is that of the Antonine era, we may feel satisfied that they belonged to the baths mentioned by Cassiodorus and Hieronymus as already partially built by Caracalla in the year A.D. 216, and finished by Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus.[116]

This enormous mass of building consisted of a central oblong block, containing all the halls and chambers appropriated more immediately to the baths, and a surrounding court, the sides of which were formed by gymnasia and other places of amusement, and the area of which was laid out in gardens, with shrubberies, ornamental colonnades, and fountains. A similar arrangement is found in the Thermæ of Titus and Diocletian.

The central block of buildings contained four immense halls and a rotunda, around which numerous smaller rooms were grouped. The first of these large halls (a) was entered from the north-eastern side by two wide doorways. Rows of niches for sculpture broke the broad inner surfaces of its walls, and it communicated with the chambers on each side by open passages filled with columns of splendid marble and granite. The floor formed an immense basin shaped hollow, showing that the purpose for which it was used was that of a cold swimming-bath. The steps by which the bathers descended into it have been found at the two shorter sides, and on both sides are chambers for dressing and undressing.

In the centre of the group of buildings is another hall (b) of nearly the same dimensions as the cold bath, with large recesses at both ends. The floor of this was paved with the richest marbles. The four lateral circular recesses formed hot baths, and were fitted with steps and seats of various kinds for bathers. In the recesses at the ends stood two enormous porphyry basins, one of which is now preserved in the Museum at Naples. This hall was probably the tepidarium and had a very lofty roof supported by eight granite pillars of colossal size, and by a network of brazen or copper rods. One of the pillars was given to Duke Cosmo I. by Pius IV., and stands in the Piazza di Trinità in Florence. The smaller chambers (c) (d) (e), at the western and southern angles of the tepidarium, contained the apparatus for heating water.

These chambers, the purpose of which is unknown, separate the tepidarium from the rotunda (f). The position of this latter and its shape would seem to indicate that it was a laconicum or hot-air room, but the state of the ruins is at present such as to preclude any positive assertion as to its purpose.

On each side of the above-mentioned three chambers is a similar range of halls. The south-eastern wing (g), being the most perfect, serves as the better guide to the arrangement of this part of the building. We pass through two chambers (h) (i) containing fine mosaic pavement, and then reach a large long hall (g), which apparently consisted of three aisles and two semicircular tribunes, divided from each other by rows of columns, somewhat in the manner of a basilica. A considerable portion of the mosaics on the floor of this hall have been laid bare and may be seen amongst the ruins of the roof and upper part. In the larger tribune was discovered the great mosaic pavement of the Athletes, now preserved in the Lateran Museum, whence it has been inferred that this side hall as well as the corresponding one on the north-west side were used as gymnasia or ball courts (sphæristeria), with galleries for spectators. The purpose of the rooms situated on each side of the rotunda is not known, but it has been conjectured that they were additional tepidaria, since even the magnificent central tepidarium is hardly large enough to furnish the accommodation spoken of by Olympiodorus, who stated that there were 1600 marble seats for bathers in the Antonine Baths.[117]

There were numerous chambers in the upper stories in and about these large halls, to which the staircases led, one of which has been restored. These were perhaps used as libraries, picture galleries, and museums of curiosities.

The whole north-eastern side of the court which surrounded these central halls consists of ranges of rooms built of brick and opening outwards. Many of these are still standing, and the traces of an upper story are to be seen over some of them (j, j). Different opinions have been held as to their use. Some writers think that they were offices and rooms for the slaves belonging to the establishment, others that they were separate baths for women. The principal entrance to the enclosure was in the centre of this side of the court.

On the north-western side of the court the remains can be traced of a large shallow tribune in the shape of a segment of a circle and surrounded by a vaulted corridor or cloister (k). Within this were three large apartments, probably used as lecture and conversation rooms. The rest of this side has entirely disappeared, as has also the opposite south-eastern side with the exception of one of the large apartments. These two sides of the court probably correspond in the same way as the wings of the central building.

The fourth side of the court was occupied by an immense reservoir of water divided into numerous compartments (l), in front of which was the cavea of a stadium (m), and on each side two large halls, possibly used as dressing-rooms and gymnasia (n, n).

The reservoir was supplied with water by a branch aqueduct from the Aqua Marcia.

The numerous magnificent works of art, sculptures, bronzes, lamps, cameos, and coins, which have from time to time been discovered in these ruins, are now dispersed through the museums of Italy. Some of the larger sculptures, including the Hercules of Glykon and the group called the Toro Farnese are in the Naples Museum, and two large porphyry fountain-basins are in the Piazza Farnese at Rome.

Some excavations have been lately made in the Vigna Guidi, a vineyard on the south-east side of the Court of these Thermæ. The ruins of a large house have been found which had been demolished and covered with earth, to make room for the Thermæ. Nothing is known of the history of this house, but various conjectures have been hazarded, taken from the catalogues of the Regionaries.

The vast Necropolis of Rome stretched along both sides of the Appian Road from the Porta Capena nearly as far as the Alban Hills.

[Sidenote: Tomb of the Cornelian Scipios.]

Conspicuous among these burial-places is the tomb which remained in possession of the great family of the Cornelian Scipios for nearly four centuries.[118] The entrance to this is near the gate of one of the vineyards, on the north-east side of the Appian Road, about two hundred and fifty yards from the Porta S. Sebastiano. The tomb itself consists of a number of passages roughly hewn in the tufa stone, as the catacombs are, without any apparent plan of arrangement. Unfortunately, the original state of the catacomb has been so altered by the substructions which have been found necessary to support the roof that it can hardly be recognised at the present day, and the sarcophagi and inscriptions have been removed, and placed for greater security in the Vatican Museum. Those now seen in situ are modern copies. Anciently there were two entrances, one from the Via Appia, and the other from the road which here unites the Via Appia and Via Latina. The present entrance has been cut for the convenience of access from the Appian Road.

[Sidenote: Columbaria.]

The catacomb of the Scipios differs from most of the other burial places which surround it, on account of the retention by the gens Cornelia of the old Latin custom of burying in coffins, instead of burning the corpse of the deceased. Most of the burying places on the Monte d’Oro are arranged in the manner called a columbarium by the Romans, from the resemblance of the niches in it to the holes in a pigeon-house.[119] Four of these columbaria have been excavated in the Vigna Codini, near the Porta S. Sebastiano, and are now to be seen in almost perfect preservation. They consist of a square pit roofed over, and entered by a staircase. The roof is supported by a massive square central column, and the whole of the sides of the pit and of the central column are pierced with semicircular niches, containing earthenware jars filled with ashes. In one of the columbaria in the Vigna Codini there is room for 900 jars. Most of the names which are inscribed above each niche upon a marble tablet are those of imperial freedmen, or servants of great families or public officers, and other persons of the middle class of life, and are therefore of little historical interest. The ashes of some few of a somewhat higher grade, are placed in small marble sarcophagi or urns, but no persons of distinguished rank appear to have been buried in this way. There are, however, few places in Rome where the ordinary manners and customs of the ancient Romans are more vividly placed before the eye than here, and the very insignificance of some of the details exhibited is somewhat striking. In one corner we find the ashes of a lady’s maid attached to one of the imperial princesses; in another, those of the royal barber; and in another, a favourite lapdog has been admitted to take his place among his mistress’s other faithful servants.

[Sidenote: Arch of Drusus.]

Not far from these columbaria, and close to the Porta S. Sebastiano, the Via Appia is spanned by a half ruinous archway, of which little but the core remains, the marble casing having long been torn off. It was probably originally ornamented with eight columns, two only of which now remain standing on the side next the modern gateway. These have shafts of Numidian marble (giallo antico), and composite capitals with Corinthian bases.

Upon the top of this arch is a brick ruin apparently belonging to the Middle Ages, as the style of building is similar to that called opera saracenica by the Italians. It was probably a part of a fortified tower, placed upon the arch, resembling that which formerly surmounted the Arch of Titus.

On each side of the arch are some remains of the branch aqueduct, which brought water from the Aqua Marcia to the Baths of Caracalla, and it is natural to conclude that this arch carried the aqueduct over the Via Appia, and was built by Caracalla for that purpose. The costly nature of the materials used has, however, induced most topographers to reject this explanation, and to assume that the arch is one of the three mentioned by the Notitia in the first region, as built in honour respectively of Drusus, Trajan, and Verus. The composite capitals seem to point to the earliest date of these three, and as the building bears a resemblance to a representation of the Arch of Drusus, which has been discovered upon a coin,[120] the arch has been thought identical with that erected to Drusus, the father of Claudius, mentioned by Suetonius.

[Sidenote: Sessorium and Amphitheatrum Castrense.]

Two ruins standing near the Basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme may be reckoned as belonging to the district of the Cælian Hill They are called by the topographers the Sessorium and the Amphitheatrum Castrense. The first of these consists of a ruin built of brick, containing a large semicircular apse with round-headed windows, from which two walls project. No excavations having been made in order to ascertain the further extent of the buildings, any opinion formed as to their purpose must necessarily be highly uncertain. The most probable conjecture which has been made is that they are the ruins of a tribunal called the Sessorium. Such a court of justice is mentioned by the Scholiast on Horace as situated on the Esquiline near the place where criminals and paupers were buried. Further notices of the same name as applied to an edifice in the neighbourhood of the Basilica of S. Croce are to be found in Anastasius’s Life of S. Silvester, and in a fragmentary history of certain passages in the Life of Theodoric, printed at the end of the work of Ammianus Marcellinus. Theodoric is there said to have ordered a criminal to be beheaded in palatio quod appellatur Sessorium, using the same phrase which Anastasius also employs.

The authors of the Beschreibung Roms supposed that this ruin was the Nymphæum Alexandri of the Notitia, but this has been disproved by Becker, who shows that the Nymphæum was near the Villa Altieri.

The opinion that it was the Temple of Spes Vetus, which Frontinus places near the commencement of the branch aqueduct of Nero, is more likely to be correct, but the shape of the building, so far as it is at present known, does not agree with such a supposition. The ruins are commonly known by the name of the Temple of Venus and Cupid, a name which was given to them from the discovery of a statue near them representing a female figure. But it is a fatal objection to this that the name of the Roman matron (Sallustia) whose statue was supposed to be that of Venus, has been discovered to be engraved upon the pedestal. The statue may be seen in the Museo Pio Clementino.

[Sidenote: Amphitheatrum Castrense.]

On the other side of the Basilica, and forming a part of the Aurelian wall, is a portion of an amphitheatre. The interior, now used as a garden, may be seen by entering the door on the right hand of the basilica. The larger axis of the amphitheatre was apparently about one hundred and ten yards, and the shorter eighty-five or thereabouts. It is entirely constructed of brick, even to the Corinthian capitals which ornament the exterior, and the workmanship shows it to belong to the best age of Roman architectural art. The second tier of arches has almost entirely disappeared, and of the lowest tier only those are left which are built into the city wall. But to suppose, as Becker does, that it was not an amphitheatre, but the vivarium, where the wild beasts used in the games were kept, seems out of the question. The only difficulty is to determine what the special history and purpose of the building, manifestly an amphitheatre, placed so far from the populous parts of the city, was. The Notitia here comes to our aid, for it records the existence of an amphitheatrum castrense in the fifth region; and there can be little doubt that we have here the remains of the amphitheatre built for the entertainment of the prætorian troops quartered in a fortified camp beyond the Porta S. Lorenzo. Aurelian made use of the outer side of the building as a part of his walls, and it is most probable that when Constantine pulled down the inner portion of the prætorian camp, he also destroyed the greater part of this amphitheatre.

[Sidenote: House of the Laterani.]

In consequence of the sinking of part of the wall which supports the apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, excavations became necessary in the year 1876 which disclosed the foundations of some ancient buildings between the baptistery and the Via della Ferratella, and of some others under the apse itself. These were carefully examined, and it became evident that they belonged to the extended ruins of a large villa, probably that called the House of the Laterani, which was occupied and enlarged by the emperors of the second and third centuries, and finally given by Constantine to the Bishop of Rome. The House of Verus, also mentioned by Julius Capitolinus, was probably on this site.

[Sidenote: Claudian Aqueduct.]

Not far from the Sessorium, and springing out of the angle of the wall close to the Porta Maggiore, a series of lofty arches begins which extends throughout the whole length of the Cælian Hill. This is a branch aqueduct of the Aqua Claudia, built by Nero to supply the Cælian and Aventine Hills at a higher level than the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Julia, on which they had previously depended for their supply. It passed over the road leading from the Porta Maggiore to the Basilica of S. Croce, and thence ran along the higher ground through the vineyards of the Scala Santa, whence it skirted the Via di S. Stefano, and, at the Arch of Dolabella, was divided into three branches, one of which crossed the valley to the Palatine, the second ran towards the edge of the hill over the Coliseum, and a third towards the Porta Capena.

[Sidenote: Arch of Dolabella.]

The arch of Dolabella stands a little to the north-west of the Piazza della Navicella, and spans the road leading down from thence into the valley between the Cælian and Palatine, formerly called the Clivus Scauri. The archway consists of a single arch of travertine, without any ornamentation, but carrying an inscription to the effect that Publius Cornelius Dolabella, when consul, and Caius Julius Silanus, when Flamen Martialis, erected the arch by order of the Senate. The consulship of this Dolabella falls in the reign of Augustus A.D. 10, and therefore the arch can originally have had no connection with the Neronian aqueduct. It is possible, however, as Becker and Reber suggest, that the arch may have been originally built to carry the Aqua Marcia and Julia, which, as we know from Frontinus, supplied the Cælian before the building of the Neronian branch of the Aqua Claudia.[121] On one side the Arch of Dolabella is still completely hidden by the brickwork of the Neronian arches, and the other side was probably covered in a similar manner until after 1670, as we find no mention of this arch in Donatus, who could not have omitted to notice it in his description of the Neronian aqueduct had it been visible in his time.

[Sidenote: Navicella.]

The marble representation of a ship, which stands now in the Piazza della Navicella and gives its name to the place, was probably a votive offering to Jupiter Redux, and there may be some connection between these and the Castra Peregrinorum, as having perhaps been the place where the troops employed on foreign service were quartered. An inscription seems to allude to this connection between the Temple of Jupiter Redux and the camp.

[Sidenote: Houses on the Cælian.]

In the time of the empire many palaces of the richer classes stood upon the Cælian. Among them we have distinct mention of the houses of Claudius Centumalus, which was visible from the Arx, of Mamurra, and of Annius Verus, in which Marcus Aurelius was born. Tetricus also, the unsuccessful rival of Aurelian, built a magnificent residence on the Cælian, in which, on his readmission to the emperor’s favour, he entertained Aurelian.

[Sidenote: Palace of Commodus.]

It seems probable, as Bunsen has conjectured, that the Vectilian Palace in which Commodus lived, occupied the part of the Cælian next to the Coliseum. The ruins there consist of arches of travertine, forming a rectangular space upon the northern end of the hill. They are massively constructed, so as to bear a great superincumbent weight, and would be in every way suitable for the terraces of a large imperial villa such as Commodus may have built, when, as Lampridius tells us, he removed from the Palatine, where he found himself unable to sleep, to the house of Vectilius on the Cælian. He was afterwards murdered there. The position may have pleased him from its immediate vicinity to the Coliseum, where he was so fond of superintending the exhibitions, and displaying his own skill in killing wild animals. The story that he had an underground passage made from his villa to the Coliseum is also a strong confirmation of the conjecture of Bunsen, and some additional probability is given to it by the course of the branch aqueduct which leads from the Arch of Dolabella in the direction of this garden, and would certainly be required to supply the luxuries of a large Roman palace.