Chapter IX: (a) the Via Appia and the Alban Hills (2)

The building now called Scuola di Cicerone is not far from the ruins of the western gate of Tusculum. The ground floor is apparently about 270 feet in length and 100 in depth, but the upper parts of the buildings have now completely disappeared. The materials were of brick and reticulated work, similar to that now found in the gardens of Sallust at Rome, and generally considered as belonging to the last age of the Republic or the early Empire. The ground floor had a cryptoporticus along its whole length, and above this on the first floor was probably an open portico with a colonnade. Eight large rooms opened out behind the cryptoporticus, in the second of which are the remains of some stairs, and at the back of the eighth a recess. At the ends of the cryptoporticus are the remains of some more rooms. There are no signs of decoration on any of the walls, and therefore this lowest story of the building is supposed to have been used as a storehouse for corn and farm produce.

There is, however, no evidence whatever to connect these ruins with Cicero’s Villa. The only indication we have of its site is given by the Scholiast on Horace, who speaks of it as situated near Tusculum on the upper slopes of the hill.[145]

[Sidenote: Villa of Gabinius.]

This will agree either with the ruins just described or with those found in 1741 under the modern Villa Rufinella, which is a little way lower down the western slope. That Cicero’s Villa was upon the upper part of the hill is confirmed by his own statement that it was so near that of the consul Gabinius, that at the time of Cicero’s exile, not only the furniture but the trees in his garden were transferred to the Villa of Gabinius, and we also find that this latter villa was upon the upper part of the hill. Nibby accordingly places the Villa of Gabinius on the site of the modern Villa Falconieri close to the Rufinella.

Several particulars about his villa are mentioned by Cicero himself. It contained two rooms called gymnasia, to the upper of which he gave the name of Lyceum, and which contained his library. The lower gymnasium was called the Academy in honour of Plato.

The Lyceum seems to have been used in the morning, and the Academia in the afternoon, as being more sheltered from the heat of the sun.

The Hermathena, a double-headed bust of Hermes and Athena, mentioned in the letters to Atticus, was probably placed in the Lyceum, for the phrase he uses there seems to refer to Apollo as the patron of the gymnasium, in which it was placed. There were also some Hermæ of Pentelic marble, bronze busts, and Megarian statues placed in the gymnasia, and Atticus had a general commission to buy up anything which he might think suitable for these rooms.

Another part of the villa was called the atriolum. Nibby has shown from one of the letters to Quintus that the atriolum of a villa was a small courtyard surrounded with bedchambers and offices. The Tusculan atriolum was decorated with stucco reliefs on the walls, like those in the tombs on the Latin Road.

(C) GABII AND PRÆNESTE.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Atta.]

[Sidenote: Villa Gordiana.]

The road to Gabii and Præneste leaves Rome at the Porta Maggiore. The most conspicuous ruin, which it passes at about one mile from the walls of Rome, is a very large circular sepulchral monument more than a hundred feet in diameter, to which the name of Quintus Atta has been attached. Beyond this, at a distance of two miles and a half from Rome, we come to the remains of a vast villa, which has been identified with that spoken of by Julius Capitolinus in his history of the Gordian family. That historian says that their “country house was situated on the road to Præneste, and was remarkable for the magnificence of a portico with four ranges of columns, fifty of which were of Carystian, fifty of Claudian, fifty of Synnadan and fifty of Numidian marble. There were also three basilicas in it, each of a hundred feet in length, and other buildings of corresponding size, in particular some Thermæ more magnificent than any others in the world except those at Rome.” The ruins of this great imperial villa extend for nearly a mile along the road, consisting chiefly of some huge reservoirs for water, two spacious halls belonging to the Thermæ, a round temple or Heroon, and a stadium surrounded with arcades. The style of construction in most of these is the irregular brickwork with thick layers of mortar which is known to be characteristic of the third century. Gordian III. was killed in A.D. 244. The great reservoirs are close to the road, two on the left and two on the right-hand side, beyond the depression in which the stream called Acqua Bollicante runs, where the ground rises towards the hill of Torre de’ Schiavi. Some of them appear to be of an earlier date than the reigns of the Gordians, and are referred by Nibby to the Antonine epoch. The brickwork of these last is more regular, and they contain a good deal of reticulated work and layers of squared tufa stones. The two large halls which belonged to the Thermæ are to the east of the reservoirs. One of them was a spacious octagonal building with round windows. It was occupied as a fortress or watch-tower in the middle ages, and has been repaired in the style called Saracenesca. In the walls of this may be seen the earliest instances of a mode of construction afterwards, as in the Circus of Maxentius, very common, the introduction of jars of terra-cotta in the walls to make the work lighter. The interior is ornamented with niches alternately square and circular headed, and retaining some of their ancient stucco decorations.

The other hall of the Thermæ stands not far off, and is circular with a domed roof.

The Heroon, or circular temple, of which mention has been made, is similar to that near the Circus of Maxentius. The diameter of this is fifty-six feet, and it was lighted by four large round windows. The front was turned towards the road according to the rule laid down by the architect Vitruvius. Underneath, there is a crypt supported by a massive round pillar, and containing six niches. In this, Nibby thinks that the ashes of the dead were placed, as their statues were in the temple above, and that the building was the Heroon of the reigning family. In the middle ages this Heroon was used as a church, and some of the paintings then introduced are still visible on the interior walls. Not far from the Heroon are the ruins of the arcades which surrounded the stadium and bounded the domain of the villa on the east side.

[Sidenote: Torre Pignatara.]

In this district, but along the ancient Via Labicana which runs in the direction of Frascati, stands the conspicuous tower now called Torre Pignatara from its construction with pigne or earthen pots. It surmounts a large circular hall and a catacomb to which the titles of S. Helena’s Mausoleum and the Chapels of SS. Peter and Marcellinus have been given, but the real history of the building is unknown.

[Sidenote: Ponte di Nono.]

At the ninth milestone on the road to Palestrina, where the road crosses a small brook, is a magnificent monument of ancient Roman architecture, consisting of an arched viaduct built of peperino and tufa blocks. The length of this viaduct is 105 yards, and the highest of the seven arches about fifty feet. The blocks of stone used are in some cases ten feet in length, and they are firmly fitted together without any kind of cement. This viaduct is now called Ponte di Nono.[146] The ancient roadway of polygonal fragments of basalt still remains, but the parapet on each side has been destroyed.

[Sidenote: Gabii.]

At a distance of about three miles beyond the Ponte di Nono are the ruins of Gabii on the edge of the lake called Lago di Pantano in the district of Castiglione. Numerous traces of the ancient city are still visible. It occupied a long strip of ground extending from the sepulchral mound on the right of the road near the outlet of the lake to the tower of Castiglione. Nibby thinks that this tower stands on the spot formerly occupied by the citadel of Gabii, the original stronghold founded according to the legend by a colony from Alba. In the year 1792 extensive excavations were made on the site by Prince Marcantonio Borghese at the suggestion of Mr. Hamilton a Scotch painter, and a quantity of sculptures and inscriptions now in the Louvre at Paris were discovered. The principal ruins now remaining are those of the cella of a temple built of the famous lapis Gabinus, and some steps in a semicircular form, probably the remains of a theatre. The temple is generally supposed to have been that of Juno alluded to by Virgil.

The form of this temple was almost identical with that at Aricia. The interior of the cella was twenty-seven feet wide and forty-five feet long. It had columns of the Doric order in front and at the sides, but none at the back. The walls of the chamber at the back were here, as at Aricia, prolonged on each side, so as to close the side porticoes at the back. The surrounding area was about fifty-four feet in breadth at the sides, but in front a space of only eight feet was left open, in consequence of the position of the theatre, which abutted closely upon the temple. On the eastern side of the cella are traces of the rooms where the priests in charge of the temple lived.

The shape of the forum can only be partially made out. From the plan published in the ‘Monumenti Gabinoborghesiani,’ it appears that it was a rectangular quadrilateral space, traversed by the Via Prænestina at the southern end, and that it was surrounded with a portico of Doric columns except at the end along which the Via Prænestina was carried. It was believed at the time when the excavations were made that the Curia and Augusteum could be distinguished among the surrounding buildings, but this seems now to be very doubtful. In the centre stood the statue of Titus Flavius Ælianus, the patron of the borough town. The pedestal of this statue with its inscription was found in situ in 1792.

“The stone of Gabii quarried near the lake and the product of its extinct volcano, is used in many of the Roman buildings and especially in the building called the tabularium at the head of the Forum Romanum. It is a hard species of peperino, of a brownish-grey colour, which when exposed to the air becomes paler than the common peperino of Albano. It resists the action of fire, and is a compound of volcanic ashes mixed with small fragments of black, brown, and reddish lava, scales of mica, and bits of Apennine limestone.”[147]

The city of Gabii lost its independence soon after the beginning of the Republican era of Rome. It was restored as a colony of veterans by Sylla, but sank into obscurity, and became almost proverbial for its desolate condition in the Augustan era. It afterwards recovered its prosperity in some degree by means of the celebrity of its cold baths, and in the time of Hadrian was patronised by the Emperor, who built an aqueduct and a Curia Ælia there. The inscriptions found on the spot belong chiefly to the Antonine era, and the busts of Severus and Geta also found there show that in the first part of the third century Gabii was still a flourishing borough town.

[Sidenote: Labicum.]

The most conspicuous outlying hill of the volcanic district not far from Gabii is that of La Colonna, about three miles below Rocca Priora. It stands apart from the rest of the range, and is easily seen from Rome. From Strabo’s description of the site of Labicum there can be but little doubt that this hill must be considered to be the place to which he refers in his account of the Via Labicana. “That road,” he says, “begins at the Esquiline Gate, at which the Prænestine Road also leaves the city, and leaving both this latter and the Esquiline plain on the left, proceeds for more than a hundred and twenty stadia (fifteen and a half Roman miles) till it reaches Labicum, an old, dismantled city, lying on a mount. The road leaves it and Tusculum on the right, and ends at the station called ad Pictas, where it joins the Latin Road.” There are no ancient ruins now on the spot. In Strabo’s time it was apparently ruined and deserted, and at an earlier date Cicero says that it was difficult to find any inhabitant to represent Labicum at the Feriæ Latinæ. It seems probable, therefore, that it suffered severely in the civil wars of Sylla and Marius, and did not recover itself until the establishment of an imperial villa there gave it some importance.

[Sidenote: Præneste.]

Beyond La Colonna, the ancient Labicum, by far the most important place on the Æquian frontier was the strong fortress-town of Præneste, now Palestrina, which commands the passage from Latium into the valley of the Sacco. Præneste is placed on one of the projecting spurs of the mountainous district which intervenes between the Anio and the Sacco. Standing, as the city does, more than 2100 feet above the sea level, it forms a very conspicuous object in the view from the hills of Rome.

After its eventful history as the great border fortress of Latium, we can only wonder that it has been found possible to restore the ancient plan of Præneste with tolerable accuracy, as has been done by Nibby and other archæologists. The modern town, an agglomeration of filthy narrow alleys, occupies little more than the space on which stood the great Temple of Fortune and its approaches. Nearly a mile distant from this, on the summit of the hill, stood the citadel united with the town by two long walls of polygonal masonry, traces of which are still to be seen, though they do not rise to any height above the ground. The site of the citadel is now occupied by a wretched little suburb called Borgo di S. Pietro, and by a ruined mediæval castle of the Colonnas built in the style called opera Saracenesca. On the side towards the town the walls of the citadel are still easily traced, and present admirable examples of polygonal structure, rising in some places to a considerable height. On the other side, where the steepness of the hill made artificial defences less necessary, the walls have almost disappeared.

The original fortifications of the city may be followed from the Porta del Sole, where the ancient polygonal masonry is visible. “In this part of the walls,” says Nibby, “are some towers of opus incertum, standing between the Porta delle Monache and the Porta Portella. Near the latter gate the polygonal wall is nearly fifteen feet in height, and on one great block may be read in very ancient letters the words PED. XXX. After having surrounded the summit of the hill of S. Pietro, the wall descends to the Porta S. Martino, where it was strengthened at the time of the Punic wars with additions of quadrilateral structure, and where an ancient gate now closed may be seen. From this point the wall proceeds in a nearly straight line in the direction of the upper garden of the Barberini Palace and the Via di S. Girolamo towards the Porta del Sole. This circuit of about three miles in length was intersected at different points by at least three other lines of fortifications above the Contrada della Cortina, and hence perhaps the city bore the name of ‘many crowns,’ given it by Strabo, forming, as it were, four separate inclosures, besides the various terraces of the great temple, which could almost be regarded as so many divisions of the town.”[148]

The original foundation of the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia at Præneste is lost in obscurity; but the ancient polygonal substructions which support it show that it was a very large temple even in early times.

Cicero in his description of the Prænestine lots, calls it a splendid and ancient temple, and Valerius Maximus speaks of it as the most celebrated oracle of Latium at the end of the first Punic war.

The original extent of the temple appears to have included only that part of the lower town, which lies between the modern streets of the Corso and the Borgo, and the ancient city principally lay on the side towards the citadel. But after Sylla had rebuilt the temple, its precincts reached as far downwards as the modern Contrada degli Arconi, and upwards to the Contrada Scacciato behind the baronial palace. The whole of this space was filled with a gradually ascending series of flights of marble stairs and terraces, arranged in a pyramidal form, at the summit of which stood the tholus or round temple of the goddess, 450 feet above the lowest terrace. The base of this pyramidal approach was 1275 feet broad, and the upper terraces gradually diminished in width. The temple faced the south, like those of Diana at Aricia, of Juno at Gabii and Lanuvium, and of Jupiter Capitolinus at Rome. The modes of construction found in the ruins are referred by Nibby to four different epochs--the polyhedral stonework of the primitive temple, which was incorporated in the buildings of the new; the squared stonework of the time of the Punic wars; the structures composed of smaller polygonal stones erected by Sylla; and the brickwork of the imperial times. There were five principal terraces or platforms rising one above the other. Nibby calls these the terrace of the cisterns, the terrace of the halls, the central terrace, the terrace of the recesses, and the terrace of the hemicycle. In front of the lowest terrace was a large open space on which the boundary of the sacred precincts was marked out by stone landmarks, some of which have been found on the spot. This open area was on the right of the Contrada degli Arconi, which takes its name from the arches still remaining. The sides of the area were bordered by two immense reservoirs. One of these is still entirely preserved, but the other is filled with rubbish. On the side of the open area towards the hill were twenty-nine arches, five of which in the centre projected, forming a kind of portico with fountains in niches, while the other twenty-four completed the sides towards the reservoirs. The style of these arches seems to indicate that they were built by Sylla as an addition to the older temple precincts. One arch on the left hand, and all the twelve on the right, still remain intact. They were probably used as rooms for the slaves belonging to the temple.

[Sidenote: Reservoirs.]

The two reservoirs, as may be seen by the brickwork of which they consist, were added after Sylla’s time. They served to collect and keep the water which flowed from the fountains of the upper terraces, and to distribute it to those parts of the city which lay below the temple. The western reservoir, which can still be seen, is one of the most remarkable of such edifices now extant. It is 320 feet in length and 100 in width, and is divided internally into ten compartments, in the same manner as the Sette Sale at Rome, each communicating with the next to it by three apertures, and each lighted by two openings in the roof covered with circular well-mouths of stone. The interior walls of this reservoir are covered with the finest cement. On the exterior to the south, the walls are decorated with niches, one of which, with a square head, was intended to contain the inscription stating the names and titles of the builder of the reservoir.[149] The brickwork, which is similar to that of the Prætorian camp at Rome, and the fact that an inscription dated A.D. 18, when Tiberius was consul-designate for the third time, has been found near, seem to point to Tiberius as the builder. On the western side there are no niches, but a doorway, with a stair leading down to the bottom of the reservoir, and ornamented with two brick half-columns of the Doric order.

[Sidenote: Terrace of cisterns.]

From the area between the reservoirs just described, two staircases built by Sylla ascended to the level of the first principal terrace 1275 feet in breadth, containing two large basins for water, of rectangular shape, each 250 feet by 90 in size. They were intended for the purpose of the ceremonial ablutions commanded by the religious rites of the temple. That on the western side can still be seen in the Barberini garden, though it is now filled with rubbish. The rim or edging of these basins was of white mosaic.

[Sidenote: Terrace of halls.]

Above this terrace two flights of stairs conducted to the next principal esplanade, which was of the same length as the first, but narrower. At the back of this esplanade, against the side of the hill, stood two magnificent halls, with an open area between them. The eastern hall is now entirely destroyed, but that on the western side, now serving as the kitchen of the modern seminario, is partly preserved. The front, which may be seen near the cathedral in the Piazza Tonda, was decorated with four Corinthian half-columns, the capitals of which still remain in their original position. The interior had seven recesses on each side, separated by half-columns and pilasters, and probably intended for statues. In front of the side recesses ran a low wall or podium, ornamented with triglyphs like a Doric frieze. These decorations are executed in a style which Nibby considers equal to that of any of the ancient Doric buildings now extant. At the end of the hall there was a large rectangular recess, with niches for statues. In the easternmost of these recesses was found the celebrated Prænestine mosaic, now in the Barberini Palace at Palestrina. The rest of the floor was composed of white mosaic work. Between the fronts of the two halls ran a row of columns, three of which still stand in their original positions in the wall of one of the chapels near the cathedral, and at the back of the area between them was a corridor with nine windows, some of which may still be seen in the court of the seminario.

[Sidenote: Central terrace.]

Above the terrace of the halls rose the central grand terrace, supported by a great wall of polygonal masonry, which at the point called the Rifolta still stands at its full height. This terrace is now occupied by the Contrada del Borgo. On the eastern side it reached to the wall of the city, where the ancient gate, now closed, near the Porta Portella, stands. Two lofty arches stood, one at each end of the back of this terrace, containing fountains and statues.

It was upon this level, according to Nibby, that the original temple stood, before the alterations made by Sylla.

[Sidenote: Terrace of Recesses.]

The whole of the two uppermost terraces were the work of the great dictator. They were supported by walls of opus incertum, and the lower of them contained two large semicircular recesses, for the accommodation of the persons who came to consult the oracle. Hence it may be called the terrace of the recesses. The eastern recess is still remaining under the name of the Grotta Petrelli. It is supported in the interior by four Corinthian columns, and the roof preserves the traces of decorative designs in bronze. It is probable that the chamber in the centre, between the two recesses, was the spot where, as Cicero narrates, the mysterious Prænestine lots were originally discovered by Numerius Suffucius, and where the statue of Fortuna, mentioned by him, stood. On each side of the recesses were arched chambers, probably appropriated to the priests of the temple and the interpreters of the lots.

[Sidenote: Terrace of Hemicycle.]

Above the terrace of the recesses, rose that of the Hemicycle. This was divided into two parts, the lower consisting of a great rectangular sacrificial court, with porticoes surrounding it, and the upper, of a semicircular recess, somewhat similar to those which existed in the fora of the emperors at Rome, having at the back of it a smaller raised terrace on which stood the actual ædes, or shrine of the goddess Fortune. This must have been the place where, according to the legend as told by Cicero, the olive-tree which yielded honey grew, from which the casket was made for the Prænestine lots.

Fragments of an inscription which are still visible on the frieze, surmounting two arched chambers under the hemicycle, seem to show that this part was rebuilt by the civic officials and the municipality, but at what period is not discoverable. No traces are now left of this part of the building except the ground-plan of the hemicycle, which may be traced in front of the Barberini Palace, and a few columns belonging to the portico of the great square court. These stand in the public prison, and the house of the sacristan of S. Rosalia.[150]

The ancient town extended to a considerable distance beyond the precincts of the temple. Outside the Porta S. Francesco of the modern town, at about the distance of half a mile, are two huge reservoirs, similar to those described as placed at the foot of the Temple of Fortune; and in the Contrada degli Arconi is the cistern of an aqueduct. This, with other ruins near it, belonged to that part of the town founded by Sylla, which extended to a distance of a mile and a half from the lowest terrace of the great temple.

The forum of the city lay between the western reservoir of the temple, and the churches of S. Lucia and S. Madonna dell’ Aquila. This is inferred from numerous inscriptions, and some commemorative pillars and altars found there. The Prænestine Registers of Verrius Flaccus were found in the Contrada delle Quadrelle, a mile and a half from this spot. They may, however, as Nibby suggests, have been moved from the forum, where we should naturally expect to find them.

(D) OSTIA AND PORTO.

[Sidenote: Ostia.]

Ostia is fifteen miles distant from the Porta di S. Paolo of Rome. The site of the old town is plainly discernible by the hillocks of rubbish with which it is covered, and the ruined brick walls which protrude here and there.

On approaching from the modern village, which is half a mile nearer Rome than the ruins of the old town, we pass between lines of tombs on each side of the road, similar to those which have been excavated at Pompeii. The tombs are very closely packed together, and of different sizes and shapes. On the left-hand side, two sarcophagi remain, with the names of Sex. Carminius Parthenopæus Eq., and T. Flavius Verus Eq., and a terra-cotta inscription on the tomb of Flavia Cæcilia, priestess of Isis at Ostia.[151]

At the end of this street of tombs, the gate of the city has been laid bare, and its foundations can be easily traced together with those of a guard-house on the left-hand side, having a rude tabula lusoria marked on the pavement, where the soldiers whiled away their time at some game resembling skittles.

The street which is then entered passes between the ruins of private houses, without anything more remarkable about them than a few common mosaic pavements and two fountains. The principal public buildings which have been excavated, are, I. The house of the priests of Mithras, in which a well-preserved altar still stands with the inscription:

C CAELIVS . HERMAEROS
ANTISTES . HVIVS . LOCI
FECIT

II. The Thermæ, consisting of a large court, and several smaller side rooms for vapour-baths, with mosaic pavements of various designs. These baths may possibly be the lavacrum Ostiense of Antoninus Pius. The stamps on the bricks are said to be of the Antonine era.

III. A large rectangular brick edifice with three windows on each side. In the interior are the remains of ornamental niches, Corinthian capitals, and a marble cornice. The walls have rivets upon them, by which it appears that they were covered with a marble casing, and the magnificent block of African marble which serves as the threshold shows that the building was of a costly description. Traces have been found of a front chamber with a portico of grey granite columns. Whether this was a temple or not is uncertain, but it has been supposed that the arrangements in the interior would agree with such a supposition. The masonry may be assigned to the age of Trajan or Hadrian. The name of Vulcan has been usually given to this temple, which was at one end of the ancient forum. Many excavations have been made here within the last ten years, and some valuable works of art have been discovered, and numerous stores and shops of various kinds have been uncovered.

IV. The ruins of a theatre supposed by Nibby to be that mentioned in the Acta Martyrum, near which S. Quiriacus and S. Maximus, and S. Archelaus, and a number of others were martyred. It is built partly of yellow and red brickwork, and partly of opus reticulatum, and apparently belongs to the restorations and additions made by Hadrian to the city.

V. The ruins of an extensive building, probably an emporium, on the bank of the river near Torre Bovacciano. In this place a great number of works of art were discovered by Fagan in 1797, showing the magnificent decorations with which the building was ornamented; and several inscriptions with the names of Severus and Caracalla found here are given by Nibby.[152]

[Sidenote: Grove of the Arval College.]

Fiumicino at the present mouth of the Tiber, and Porto which stands at the site of the ports formed by Claudius and Trajan, may be reached from Rome by steamer down the river, or by carriage. The road which leads to Fiumicino and Porto leaves the city walls at the Porta Portese, and at about the fifth milestone reaches the celebrated grove of the Dea Dia, where the worship of the great collegiate priesthood of the Fratres Arvales was carried on. The railway to Civita Vecchia crosses the road at this spot, to which the modern names of the Monte delle Piche and the Vigna Ceccarelli are given. Discoveries of inscriptions had been made here since the year 1570, but no formal collection of them was made until the publication of Marini’s great work in 1785. No effective investigations were, however, carried on until April 1868. The remains of a Christian cemetery were then disinterred on the slope of the hill above the Vigna Ceccarelli, where many of the marble tablets upon which the Arval Brothers had inscribed their records were found to have been used in the graves in lieu of coffins and as gravestones. One tomb was covered with a slab containing the records of the year A.D. 155, and numerous fragments of inscriptions were found scattered in all directions. The cemetery was ascertained to have been adjacent to an oratory founded by Pope Damasus (A.D. 1048), and a subterranean catacomb was found to have been formed, which is mentioned in the Acta Martyrum as the Cemeterium Generosæ. The inscriptions obtained from this spot refer chiefly to the year A.D. 90, but some fragments belonging to the years 38, 87, and 59 were also found.

These inscriptions are of great interest both archæologically, as containing authentic particulars about the worship of the Arval Brothers, and the places at Rome or elsewhere in which it was held, and also historically, since many of them give the titles of eminent persons, or fix the dates of consuls and other ministers of state, and enable us thereby to correct and compare the statements of Tacitus and Suetonius with those of Dion Cassius. Many points of mythology are also illustrated by the mention of the divinities whom the college worshipped in their ritual.

An instance of the value of these inscriptions in determining the relative accuracy of Dion and Suetonius is afforded by the inscription belonging to the year A.D. 39, which gives us some historical facts about the reign of Caius, a portion of Roman history rendered difficult and obscure by the loss of the central books of the Annals of Tacitus. Suetonius states that the title of Augusta was conferred on Antonia by Claudius, whereas Dion on the contrary attributes the conference of this title to Caius. The inscription decides the question in favour of the account of Dion Cassius. Again, the date of the recognition of Caius by the Senate is fixed by the same inscription as having occurred on the 18th of March, and not on the 16th as recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius, nor the 26th, as Dion Cassius states. Many other interesting corrections or elucidations of the Latin historians will be found in Henzen’s learned treatises, or in his articles in the ‘Annali dell’ Instituto’ for 1867, and the ‘Hermes’ 1867. Besides the grove of the Arval College, which was an extensive wood, four buildings are mentioned in the Records--the Ædes Deæ Diæ, the Cesareum, the Tetrastylon and the Circus.

With regard to the position of these, Pellegrini is of opinion that the Circus was situated on the ridge of the hill on the western side of the Vigna Ceccarelli, in which place some remains apparently belonging to a circus have been found. Henzen leaves the site of the Circus undetermined, thinking that there is not sufficient evidence. The Tetrastylon and the Cesareum were supposed by Mommsen to have been names of the same building, but Henzen thinks that they are mentioned as separate places in the same inscription. The college feasts and meetings were held in one or other of these, which must therefore have been large enough to contain, besides the dining hall, an assembly-room, as the Brothers are said to have met there and to have sat in rows of seats. The Cesareum was a quadrangular building, as the form of the inscriptions which were attached to its walls seems to show, since they could not have been placed on a round surface. The temple of the Dea Dia stood upon a hill, for the priests are described as ascending in order to perform the sacrifices, and descending afterwards. Yet there are no vestiges of a building upon the top of the hill. Henzen therefore concludes that the ruins of the round building, upon which the modern Casa rustica in the Ceccarelli vineyard is placed, must have belonged to this Ædes. It was not decorated with columns but with Corinthian pilasters, and the inscriptions were affixed to the interior until the year 81, when it became necessary from want of space to place them on the pedestals of the columns.[153]

[Sidenote: Porto.]

Beyond the site of the Arval Chapel, the road passes by the relics of the papal palace of La Magliana, and then along a causeway six miles in length to Porto. The site of the ancient Portus Trajani on the right branch of the Tiber is now occupied by the town of Porto, mainly consisting of the cathedral, the Villa Pallavicini, and some farm buildings. The sea has here continuously receded for many centuries, and the river deposits of sand and marl have extended. Fiumicino at the present mouth of the river is two miles distant from Porto, and its site was entirely covered by the sea at the time when Claudius, and Trajan after him, constructed their new ports. The large marshy tract to the north of Porto marks the site of the port of Claudius. The hexagonal basin of Trajan lies between this marsh and the town of Porto.

It is not at all clear when the right arm of the Tiber, or rather the canal which now serves for communication between the sea and the Tiber proper, assumed its present shape. Inundations and occasional repairs and alterations have changed its course, and the constant retreat of the sea must have lengthened it considerably.

Nibby’s opinion is that, besides the large harbour, Claudius constructed an inner basin between the harbour and the old course of the river. Into this basin he cut a canal from the bend of the river near modern Ostia, and thus allowed the superfluous waters of the Tiber to escape through the harbour, and at the same time gained a supply of water for his docks. The inscription found in 1837, and now placed by the roadside near the Villa Pallavicini, alludes to this canal. The words of this inscription seem to show that the primary object of the canal was to supply the port with water, and that the advantage of preventing inundations at Rome was only secondary. Trajan probably enlarged and reconstructed the inner basin of Claudius, and surrounded it with the massive quays and warehouses, the ruins of which still remain. This inner basin is referred to by Juvenal.

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

[Sidenote: Ruins at Torre Paterno.]

Passing from Ostia along the sea coast through the woods of Castel Fusano to Torre Paterno, we find the ruins of a large villa, which have been supposed by some to belong to Pliny’s Laurentinum. But they are more probably the relics of an imperial villa mentioned by Herodian as the retreat to which Commodus withdrew, by the advice of his physicians, at the time of the great plague in Rome, in the year 187. The neighbourhood of Laurentum was recommended, says the historian, on account of its being cooler than Rome, and also because it was shaded with large woods of laurel and bay trees, the strong scent from which was supposed to counteract the influence of the deadly malaria which was devastating the capital.[155] The present ruins at Torre Paterno consist of brick walls in two styles, one of which Nibby refers to the age of Nero, and the other to the reign of Commodus or Severus. The central building, which contained the grand suite of rooms, is the only part where work of the first century, analogous to that of Nero’s buildings at Rome, is to be seen; the rest, says Nibby, is composed of various courtyards in the style of the Antonine era, which have been altered and partly concealed by later modern edifices. On one side of the ruins are two large cisterns, supplied by an aqueduct which comes from the Tenimento la Santola. The brickwork of this is apparently contemporaneous with other works which we know to have belonged to the age of Commodus or Severus as having very thin bricks and a great quantity of mortar. Near these reservoirs is an enclosed space which was probably a courtyard or garden of a rectangular shape. On the north side it has some ruins in the mode of construction called opus mixtum of the fourth century; and on the east is the principal part of the villa built of large and thick triangular bricks, with thin layers of mortar beautifully laid, and evidently of an early date. On the west there is a large dining-hall looking towards the sea, like that described in Pliny’s Laurentinum. Various other rooms and the foundations of a tower can be traced on the sites occupied by the modern guardhouse and the Chapel of S. Filippo.[156]

(E) TIBUR.

The Via Valeria or Tiburtina leading to Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, now leaves Rome at the Porta S. Lorenzo. Traces of the polygonal pavement of the old road can be seen at intervals along the modern road to Tivoli, especially between the eighth and ninth milestones, and here and there elsewhere. In the Basilica of S. Lorenzo, a mile from the gate, are many ancient fragments of architecture. The Ponte Mammolo, by which the Anio is crossed at three and a half miles from Rome, is modern and there are scarcely any relics of the old bridge. Here and there on the road are the naked cores of tombs, but nothing of any interest offers itself to an archæologist until the Aquæ Albulæ are reached. Some few remains of an ancient building, which may have belonged to the Thermæ here, have been discovered. They are now built into the walls of a modern farmhouse. These ruins may have belonged to the Thermæ of Agrippa, which Augustus frequented.

The ancient quarries of travertine mentioned by Strabo, whence the stone of the Coliseum came, lie on the right of the road beyond the Solfatara, and the modern quarries on the left. The road then crosses the Anio over an ancient bridge still called the Ponte Lucano, from Marcus Plautius Lucanus, a Tiburtine magistrate, whose memory is preserved in an inscription discovered upon the ancient fourteenth milestone on this road.

The bridge was originally composed of three travertine arches, of which the one next to the left bank remains entire. The central arch has been restored with masonry of the sixth century, similar to that in the Ponte Nomentano and the Ponte Salario. The arch on the right bank was restored in the fifteenth century, and the whole bridge was repaired again about 1836. This bridge was broken down by Totila when he was encamped at Tibur, and Nibby thinks that he destroyed the middle arch, which was then restored by Narses.

[Sidenote: Tomb of the Plautian family.]

Just on the other side of the bridge is the tomb of the gens Plautia, well known from numerous paintings and photographs. It is very similar to that of Cæcilia Metella on the Appian Road, and to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, in its main features. A cylindrical tower of travertine, based on a square foundation, and capped with a cone, was the original design, but a mediæval tower built upon the top now disfigures it.

Two inscriptions placed in a projecting front with Ionic pilasters record the names of M. Plautius Silvanus, consul with Augustus in the year B.C. 2, and his son Ti. Plautius Silvanus, prefect of the city in A.D. 73. A third inscription, which is now destroyed, commemorated a P. Plautius Pulcher. The longer inscription is given with notes in Wilmann’s Inscr. Lat. No. 1145. The person whose memory it preserves was the pontifex who officiated at the rebuilding of the Capitoline Temple in A.D. 70, as recorded by Tacitus.

[Sidenote: Hadrian’s Villa.]

Beyond the Ponte Lucano to the right are the ruins of Hadrian’s great Tiburtine Villa. They occupy the slopes of a hill of volcanic tufa, which may be called an outlying part of Monte Affliano, extending for about three miles in a direction from south-east to north-west. The various levels afforded by the ground have been formed into terraces adapted to the buildings they were intended to support by means of substructions, which in some places are of vast solidity and gigantic height. “From these terraces,” says Nibby, “the views are most varied and picturesque. On one side the horizon is bounded by the pointed heights of the Montes Corniculani, and by the ridges of the Peschiatore, the Ripoli, and the Affliano, and on the other, the eye ranges over the gently undulating expanse of the Ager Romanus, from which rise the towers of the Eternal City; while beyond, the long streak of light reflected from the waters of the Etruscan and Laurentine Sea seems to encircle the whole with a silvery zone. The situation of the villa is open to the healthy breezes of the west wind, but is sheltered by the mountains from the fury of the north wind, the piercing chills of the north-east, and the unwholesome hot summer blasts of the south.”

The high ground on which the villa stands rises between two valleys, which may be called from their position the north and south valleys. They run down into the plain through which the Anio cuts its bed. The northern valley has been artificially altered, with the view of increasing its picturesque appearance, by cutting the sides so as form perpendicular cliffs of reddish stone. The tints of these rocks, the soft verdure of the plants and trees which grow luxuriantly upon them, the bright colours of the wild flowers scattered here and there, and the lovely hills which rise as a screen behind them, give this valley such a character of soothing and enchanting retirement and beauty, that it has been universally regarded as the spot to which the name of the Vale of Tempe was given by the emperor. The southern valley is less deep and bold, and from its monotonous and severe aspect it may perhaps have been the spot where Hadrian placed his imitation of the infernal regions.[157]

The brook which runs at the bottom of the northern valley (Fosso dell’ Acqua Ferrata) has received the name of the Peneius from antiquaries, and that in the southern valley is called Fosso di Risicoli by the modern inhabitants. These streams are now very scantily supplied with water, but in ancient times, when the villa was watered by a constant flow from its aqueducts, they must have been of considerable volume. The ruins, now overgrown with clumps of cypress and other trees, extend for a space of seven miles in circumference, and in the middle ages were known as Tivoli Vecchio, from a vague and unfounded idea that the ancient city of Tibur stood here. It has been remarked that the Coliseum is strikingly characteristic of the Flavian emperors who planned and executed it, and with equal truth it may be said that the Tiburtinum of Hadrian gives a marvellous picture of the many-sided genius of the great man who was at once the ruler of the whole known world and had travelled throughout his vast domains from Britain to the Euphrates, organising and controlling everywhere, and at the same time showing an appreciation of and value for literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, which was generally foreign to the Roman character. Hadrian constructed in his villa at Tibur a panorama of all the sights which had struck him most in his world-wide travels, in order that he might in this realm of enchantment, when no longer able to travel, have the sights and thoughts in which he had taken such pleasure, revived for his imagination to feed upon. Considering the size and magnificence of the place, which almost resembles a town in its vast extent, it is surprising that so few notices of it should be found among the Roman historians and biographers. Dion Cassius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphilinus, does not even mention it, and Spartianus and Aurelius Victor pass it over without such special remark as we should expect. As, however, a great part of the building consisted of the familiar Thermæ, stadia, theatres and gymnasium, which were constructed in every large Roman villa, they were perhaps not noticed, as matters of course, and only the peculiarities of the villa were recorded. After Hadrian’s return to Rome at the end of his last journey to the East in A.D. 135, he resigned the care of the empire to Lucius Ælius Verus and retired to this villa, which had probably been built during his absence, and may have been begun in 125 when he returned to Rome from his first journey, and finished during the last three years of his life from 135 to 138.

This opinion as to the date at which the villa was built is confirmed by the stamps found on the bricks, which range from the year 123 to the year A.D. 137, and that the ruins belong to Hadrian’s villa is sufficiently attested by universal tradition, and by the number of statues of Antinous, and other works of art found here unquestionably belonging to the reign of Hadrian.

The ruins contain specimens of almost every kind of construction. The most ancient part is a wall of opus incertum, composed of small polygonal fragments of tufa, which stands near the Casino Fede. This wall is probably a remnant of some older villa rustica or farmhouse which occupied the site before Hadrian’s time, and may have belonged to the gens Ælia. It apparently belongs to the first half of the first century B.C. The most common mode of construction is opus reticulatum, with squares of tawny coloured tufa cut in the valley adjoining and bonded at the corners with blocks of the same rock, or with red bricks. In those parts of the buildings, which require great durability from being exposed to the action of water, brickwork is used throughout. The Greek theatre and parts of the academy are built of small squared blocks of tufa, or in some cases of irregular fragments of tufa resembling the later opera Saracenesca. These are sometimes strengthened with bands of reticulated work. In most cases the outer covering of the walls has been removed, especially where it consisted of marble slabs. Some of the stucco ornaments are still very beautiful and well preserved.

Each part of the buildings is complete in itself, but they do not seem to have been arranged on any general plan, and now that the roads which conducted from one part to another have disappeared, they present a confused mass which requires some careful attention to unravel. I have been obliged to confine myself to a very general and cursory account of each main feature. To notice every detail would be far beyond the compass of this book. In Ligorio’s plan 334 different parts of the villa are marked and separately described, and he spent a year in his investigation of the ruins.

Spartianus gives us the names of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Tempe and the Inferi as the parts of the villa made by Hadrian in imitation of their foreign originals. To these Ligorio has added the name Cynosarges found upon a brick stamp. The sites of the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Academy, Tempe, and the Inferi may be said to be ascertained with tolerable certainty, but those of the Lyceum and Prytaneum have not been discovered.

The other names given by antiquarians to the different buildings are generally founded upon some definite evidence drawn from their shape and situation, and are probably upon the whole fairly applicable. They are the Theatres, the Palæstra, the Nymphæum, the Library, the Imperial Palace, the Hospitals, the Stadium, the Camp, and the Thermæ.

Proceeding from north to south, the ruins may be divided, for the convenience of description, into ten grand groups--A, the Palæstra, including the Greek and Latin Theatres and the Nymphæum; B, the Pœcile; C, the Guards’ Barracks; D, the Library; E, the Imperial Palace; F, the Stadium; G, the Thermæ; H, the Canopus; I, the Academy, including the third theatre or Odeum; K, the Inferi. In giving these general divisions, some attempt is made to represent the parts of the villa as they were in Hadrian’s time. The ruins are in such different states of preservation--some being entirely destroyed and the ground-plan barely traceable, while others are almost entire--that their real relative importance is completely obscured. The modern alleys and walks also create much confusion, and render the recognition of the ancient arrangement much more difficult.

The ancient grand entrance to the grounds was at the north-western end of the ruins, on the road towards Tibur, about a quarter of a mile beyond the Ponte Lucano. It seems to have consisted of two large pedestals of white marble, between which the carriage-road passed, and which were pierced with arched passages for the footways on each side. One of these is still traceable in the Vigna Gentili, and has the remains of a bas-relief upon it, while the other has been destroyed, and its corresponding bas-relief placed in the Villa Albani at Rome. This gateway has been imitated by the architect of the gateway at the old Villa Borghese. It is erroneously called a tomb by Piranesi and Ligorio (see Piranesi, Ant. Rom. tom. ii. tav. 39.)