Old Rome Part 17

[Sidenote: Divus Rediculus.]

The brick building called the Temple of the Divus Rediculus stands half a mile to the left of the road at the second milestone in the Caffarella valley. The legend which connects it with Hannibal's march on Rome is altogether unworthy of credit,[129] and it is plain that the building, which had no rows of surrounding columns, but is constructed with Corinthian pilasters, had two stories, and cannot therefore have been a temple. Professor Reber considers that it was a chapel tomb similar to that to be seen further on the road at S. Urbano, near the Tomb of Caecilia Metella.

[Sidenote: Grotto of Egeria.]

The Grotto of Egeria, as it is called, lies in the valley of the Almo about half a mile above the building just mentioned. It is an arched nymphaeum of brick, at the back of which a plentiful stream of clear water issues. The mutilated statue of the nymph still remains, but no other parts of the decorations. There is little doubt that it was the nymphaeum of some suburban villa.

[Sidenote: Temple of Bacchus or Honos.]

On the hill above it stands the Church of S. Urbano, probably an ancient tomb in the shape of a chapel. It is commonly called the Temple of Bacchus from the discovery under it of an altar of Dionysus with a Greek inscription. But this altar seems to have been moved here from some other spot. The building is in the form which has a projecting porch with four Corinthian columns and capitals. These are now built up into the modern wall. The whole, except the entablature and columns, is of brickwork of the Antonine era, as appears from the stamps of the bricks. The triple frieze, forming a kind of attica between the architrave and cornice, seems to contradict the notion that this was a temple, though the great antiquary E. Q. Visconti considered that it was the Temple of Honour built by Marius outside the Porta Capena.[130] The interior is tolerably well preserved, and has a vaulted roof with coffers and reliefs in the form of trophies.

[Sidenote: The Circus of Maxentius and Temple of Romulus.]

On the left of the Appian Road, where it dips suddenly into a valley near the Church of S. Sebastian, lies a group of ruins, the princ.i.p.al of which consist of a circus, a building enclosed in a large square court, and some remains of rooms apparently belonging to an ancient villa. The walls of the circus are still in such preservation that they can be easily traced round the whole enclosure, and are in some parts nearly of the original height. They are built of rubble mixed with brickwork, and with jars of terra-cotta to lighten their weight, as in the case of the masonry in other walls of the same date. The towers at each side of the Carceres, or starting post, the curved line of Carceres themselves, and the spina, or central division line, can be easily traced. An inscription in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, found here in 1825, and now placed at the entrance to the ruins, seems to show the circus was built in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, who died before his father, A.D. 309. This is confirmed by a statement in one of the ancient chronicles published by Roncalli, in which it is said that Maxentius built a circus near the catacombs, evidently referring to the neighbouring catacombs of S.

Sebastian and others, and also by the style of masonry used in the circus.

The adjoining ruined temple, with its enclosing court, seems to belong to a somewhat earlier style of construction, but some reasons derived from the coins of Maxentius and Romulus have been given for supposing that it was the temple dedicated to Romulus after his apotheosis by his father.[131] The ruins are not sufficiently preserved to make it certain that the building was a temple, and there is nothing to contradict the hypothesis that it was a tomb. Nor is anything whatever known about the adjoining villa.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Caecilia Metella.]

On the end of the mound formed by the great lava stream which ages ago flowed down from the Alban Hills, and along the top of which the Via Appia runs from this point, stands the conspicuous Tomb of Caecilia Metella, the daughter of Metellus Creticus, and wife of Cra.s.sus, but whether of the Triumvir Cra.s.sus, or of the orator, or of some other less well known Cra.s.sus is uncertain. The inscription on the tomb is Caeciliae, Q. Cretici Filiae, Metellae Cra.s.si. The shape of the tomb is the same as that of the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and the Tomb of the Plautii at Tivoli; a cylindrical towerlike edifice, resting on a square base of concrete with ma.s.sive blocks of travertine. The upper part has been destroyed, and the marble casing stripped off, with the exception of a band of ox skulls and garlands which surrounds it, and some trophies carved in relief above the inscription. The roof was probably conical. Mediaeval battlements, erected by the Caetani family, who held it as a fortress in the 13th century, now crown the upper edge. The remains of their castle are still visible on each side of the road beyond the tomb.

[Sidenote: Roma Vecchia, Villa of Seneca.]

After pa.s.sing the third milestone, the Appian Road is fringed with ruins of innumerable tombs, and here and there the relics of a suburban villa.

Scarcely any of these can have names attached to them with any certainty.

The spot is now called Roma Vecchia, and the Campus sacer Horatiorum, the Fossa Cluilia, and the Villa Quintiliana Commodi lay here. The suburban villa in which Seneca committed suicide by opening his veins was at the fourth milestone, as we learn from Tacitus, and near this was found in 1824, by Nibby, a marble slab with the name of Granius, a military tribune. A tribune of this name was employed by Nero to compel Seneca to kill himself, but whether the stone refers to him or not is of course doubtful.

[Sidenote: Tomb of Atticus.]

At the fifth milestone on the right hand of the road is a round ma.s.s of ruins with a rectangular chamber inside, which has been supposed to be the tomb mentioned by Cornelius Nepos, as the burial place of Atticus, Cicero's friend. Near this is the great platform of peperino blocks which are thought to have been used as a burning place (ustrina) for the bodies interred at the sides of the road.

[Sidenote: Villa Quintiliana.]

On the left hand, a little way beyond the fifth milestone, the remains of the Villa Quintiliana of Commodus begin, and reach along the side of the road for at least half a mile, extending also towards the left into the adjoining fields as far as the edge of the great lava current, on the top of which the Via Appia is here carried. The whole of this s.p.a.ce, nearly two miles in circ.u.mference, is covered with fragments of costly marbles, of sculpture, and bits of mosaic, showing that it was covered with handsomely decorated buildings. The style of construction, says Nibby, belongs to three different epochs. The buildings nearest to the Appian Road, comprising the great reservoir, on the foundation of which the farmhouse of S. Maria Nuova is built, are of brickwork and reticulated work of the time of Hadrian, the great ma.s.s of the ruins which lies on the left towards the new road to Albano, exhibits workmans.h.i.+p of the Antonine era, and amongst them have been found numerous fragments of sculpture, also belonging to the reigns of the Antonines. The third style of building is that called opera mista by the Italian antiquarians, which prevailed in the Constantinian times, at the beginning of the fourth century. The buildings of the Antonines have been repaired and overlaid in many places by this later work. The stamps of most of the bricks found here belong to the reigns of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus, and were made chiefly in the imperial brickyards. Thus the date of the princ.i.p.al parts of the building is decided, and it is seen that the villa was most probably an imperial villa. But all doubt on this point was completely cleared away by the discovery in 1828, of a number of large leaden pipes bearing the inscription, II. QUINTILIORUM CONDINI ET MAXIMI, from which it became evident that the villa was the same place which Vopiscus and Dion Ca.s.sius mention as the property of the Quintilii, consuls in the year A.D.

151, under Antoninus Pius, and victims of the spite of Commodus in A.D.

182.[132] Commodus seized their property, and the villa became one of his favourite residences. The great extent of the ruins explains the circ.u.mstance related by Herodian, that the emperor, being in the back part of the villa, could not hear the shouts of the infuriated mob on the Appian Road, who were demanding the life of Cleander.[133]

The ruins which extend along the side of the road, are plainly fragments of a kind of vestibule or grand entrance to the imperial villa. They consist of a nymphaeum or grand fountain, and a row of chambers intended for slaves' lodgings. The fountain is supplied with water by an aqueduct, the arches of which can be seen at the seventh milestone, where it leaves the lava rocks, and crosses the country towards Marino, at a higher level than even the Aqua Claudia. This nymphaeum and aqueduct are built of opera mista, which shows that they are probably the work of the Constantinian Age.

The princ.i.p.al ma.s.s of the villa itself stood nearly half a mile from the old Appian Road, on the edge of the rocks of basaltic lava. Between them and the road the s.p.a.ce was occupied by gardens and ornamental summer-houses and ponds. Nibby describes the chief ruins as having belonged to a richly ornamented fountain, and a suite of bathing-rooms of great grandeur.

One s.p.a.cious saloon, the walls of which form a picturesque ruin, as seen from the new post road to Albano, stands on the edge of the rising ground, and commands a magnificent view of the whole of the Alban and Sabine Hills and the city of Rome. Near this was a small theatre, from which the cipollino columns of the entrance to the Tordinone Theatre in Rome were taken.

An immense quant.i.ty of valuable sculpture, now in the Roman museums and palaces, was discovered by excavations here in 1787 and 1792. Among these sculptures was a splendid statue of Euterpe, now in the Galleria dei Candelabri, a tiger now in the Hall of Animals; and the busts of Lucius Verus, Diocletian, and Epicurus, Socrates, the Isis and Antinous in the Vatican, with numerous Sileni, Fauns, and Nereids.

[Sidenote: Casale Rotondo.]

Between the sixth and seventh milestones from the Porta Capena there is a large round ruin 300 feet in diameter, called Casale Rotondo, now supporting a house and olive orchard upon the top. The fragments of sculpture found here have been arranged on the face of a wall, close to the pile of ruins. The name Cotta was found on an inscription belonging to this, and hence it has been supposed to be the tomb of the gens Aurelia, who bore the surname of Cotta. On the left are the arches of the aqueduct which supplied the Villa of Commodus.

At the eighth milestone there was a Temple of Hercules erected by Domitian. Martial mentions this temple in several pa.s.sages. There are considerable remains of a tetra-style temple on the right hand of the road, consisting of columns of Alban peperino; but this, which was once supposed to be the Temple of Hercules, is now said to have contained an altar to Silva.n.u.s.

[Sidenote: Bovillae.]

The Villa and Farm of Persius the poet is said by his biographer to have been near the eighth milestone. At the ninth stood the Tomb of Gallienus, and perhaps the ruins there belong to his suburbanum. At the tenth milestone, the Rivus Alba.n.u.s, formerly the Aqua Terentina, is crossed; and at the eleventh, the road begins to ascend the slope towards Albano. At the twelfth, the circuit of the walls of the ancient town of Bovillae is approached. Dionysius says that Bovillae was situated where the hill before reaching Albano first begins to be steep, and this answers to the position of the modern Osteria delle Frattocchie. The ruins which are now generally held to be those of Bovillae lie on the cross road, called Strada di Nettuno, a little way above Frattocchie.[134] They consist of a small theatre built of brickwork and opus reticulatum, and a somewhat larger circus, the enclosure of which and the carceres are still pretty well preserved. The town did not lie close to the road. It was founded by a colony from Alba Longa, and was a flouris.h.i.+ng place until Coriola.n.u.s destroyed it. For centuries afterwards we find but little notice taken of it. In Cicero's time it was a very insignificant village, and had it not been immortalised by the a.s.sa.s.sination of Clodius there, which led to such important results, it could hardly excite any interest in later times.[135]

The honour of being the native place of the gens Julia gave it some artificial importance in the imperial times. Tiberius is mentioned by Tacitus as erecting a sacrarium of the Julian family and a statue of Augustus there, and founding Circensian games in honour of the gens Julia.

Some inscriptions found on the spot show the town still existed in the 2nd century A.D. It is now occupied by plots of land laid out as gardens. The Villa of Clodius, Cicero's enemy, appears to have been at or near the thirteenth milestone from Rome, close to the left side of the Appian Road, between Bovillae and the modern Albano. It was raised on immense substructions, the arches of which were capable of concealing a thousand men, and Cicero declares that Clodius had not respected even the confines of the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris or the sacred groves of Alba.[136] The ruins which lie under Castel Gandolfo, on the left side of the road towards the Porta Romana of Albano, may have formed part of the substruction of which Cicero speaks. The estate of Clodius pa.s.sed after his death, when the family of the Claudii Pulcri became extinct, into the hands of the Claudii Nerones, from whom Tiberius inherited it, and thus it became imperial property.

[Sidenote: Villa of Pompey.]

The Villa of Pompey was between that of Clodius and Aricia, and therefore occupied the site of the present town of Albano. Nibby thinks that the walls of reticulated work in the Villa Doria belonged to Pompey's house, and that the great tomb, near the Roman gate of Albano was Pompey's burial place. Plutarch states that Pompey was buried at his Alban villa. The tomb, with five truncated cones, usually called the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, has also been called the Tomb of Pompey. It is more probably an imitation of the old Etruscan tombs executed at a later time. After the death of that great general, the estate became the property of Dolabella, and subsequently of Antony, who held it till the battle of Actium, when Augustus took possession of it. After the adoption of Tiberius, it was united with the Clodian grounds, and thus formed the nucleus of the Albanum Caesarum.

[Sidenote: Albanum Caesarum.]

Augustus and some of the early emperors found the Albanum a convenient halting-place on their journeys to the south, but it was in the time of Domitian that the place was extended so much as to contain a military camp, enormous reservoirs of water, thermae, a theatre, an amphitheatre, and a circular temple. It is called Arx Albana by Juvenal, Tacitus and Martial.

The plan of the camp can still be traced. It resembled that of the Praetorian camp at Rome, in being a quadrangular s.p.a.ce rounded off at the corners. The two longer sides extend from the Church of S. Paolo at Albano to the round Temple, now the Church of S. Maria. One of the shorter sides was parallel to the Appian Road, and the other ran near the Church of S.

Paolo. There were four terraces or levels in the camp rising towards the hill behind. The Porta Dec.u.mana was in the north-eastern side, and the Porta Praetoria on the south-western. The great reservoirs for water stand on the northern side near S. Paolo, and the thermae towards the south-east on the opposite side of the Appian Road. At the western corner is the round building usually called the Temple of Minerva, and supposed to be that alluded to by Suetonius as annually visited by Domitian. This round building is in good preservation, but its purpose cannot be determined with certainty. Nibby says that the ancient mosaic pavement still remains at a depth of six feet below the present surface. The amphitheatre is situated between the Church of S. Paolo and that of the Capuchin Convent.

It is princ.i.p.ally constructed of opus quadratum, but the interior parts are of a mixed masonry, consisting of bricks and fragments of the local stone. This amphitheatre is supposed to have been the scene of the feats performed by Domitian, in killing with his own hand hundreds of wild beasts with arrows and javelins, and also of the degradation of Acilius Glabrio, who was forced, according to Juvenal, by Domitian to join him in these sports of the arena.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of the ALBAN HILLS & GABII]

Between Castel Gandolfo and Albano four magnificent terraces, rising one above the other, were traced by Cav. Rosa as forming part of the Albanum Caesarum, and in the Villa Barberini there is a considerable part of a cryptoporticus, ornamented with stucco reliefs, which probably stands over the old substructions of the Villa Clodi.[137] On the side towards the lake there were open balconies for viewing the mock naval engagements; and near the entrance of the Barberini Villa the ruins of a theatre have been discovered. It appears probable from the numerous ruins found upon the edge of the lake that the whole of it was surrounded with quays and tiers of stone seats, and chapels of Nymphs, making it resemble a gigantic natural naumachia, or sheet of water for sham naval fights. These ruins may possibly, however, have belonged to separate private villas placed at different points round the water.

To the south of Albano, in the grounds of the Villa Doria, there are the ruins of an extensive Roman villa. Whether this was a part of the Albanum Caesarum or not, is uncertain. Some of the bricks bear the stamps of Domitian, others those of the third consuls.h.i.+p of Servia.n.u.s (A.D. 134), Hadrian's brother-in-law, others of Commodus.[138]

[Sidenote: Lago Albano or Di Castello.]

The Alban lake belongs to the water system of the Tiber, and has most of its outlets on the western side. It has been supposed that a subterranean communication exists between this lake and that of Nemi, but Nibby a.s.serts that this is impossible, as the level of the lake of Nemi is higher than that of the Alban lake. The circ.u.mference of this sheet of water is more than six miles, and it is nearly elliptical in shape. The story of the sudden rise of its waters in the sixth year of the siege of Veii is well known, and the response of the Delphic oracle as given in Livy.

Cicero gives a distinct account of the drainage of the lake. "We are told, he says, by the Annalists, that during the siege of Veii, when the Alban lake had risen to an unusual height, a Veientine n.o.ble fled to Rome as a deserter, and declared that it was written in the books of fate which were kept at Veii, that Veii could not be taken, so long as the lake was overflowing its banks, and that if the lake were tapped, and flowed into the sea by its own channel and stream, it would be fatal to the Roman nation, but that if the water were so discharged as to make it impossible for it to reach the sea, then the Romans would be victorious. In consequence of this our ancestors contrived that admirable plan for drawing off and dispersing the water of the lake."

From this pa.s.sage it would seem likely that the whole object of the drainage of the lake was to obtain a constant supply of water for the irrigation of the Campagna. In another pa.s.sage Cicero states his opinion still more clearly, that the work was really undertaken for the benefit of suburban agriculture. "The Veientine prophecy that if the water of the Alban lake rose above its margin and flowed into the sea, Rome would perish; but that if it were checked, Veii would be taken, in consequence of which the Alban water was diverted, was intended to benefit the suburban farms, and not to secure the safety of Rome." What appears strange, is that it should have been necessary to appeal to a superst.i.tious motive in the case of a people evidently so far advanced in civilization as to be capable of carrying out an engineering work of such difficulty in a single year.[139]

[Sidenote: Emissarium of the Alban lake.]

The tunnel which still carries off the superfluous water of the lake is cut through solid peperino and occasional ma.s.ses of still harder basaltic lava. It is more than a mile and a half in length, from seven to ten feet in height, and never less than four feet in breadth. The height of the edge of the lake basin above the level of its water at the part which is pierced by the tunnel is 430 feet. Three vertical shafts are still discoverable, by which a draft of air was created and the rubbish was removed, and one slanting shaft for the entrance and exit of the miners.

The rock was cut with a chisel an inch wide, as may be seen from the marks left upon the sides of the tunnel.

At the points where the water enters and leaves the tunnel, considerable pains have been taken to regulate the flow. The channel of stonework at the mouth is placed in a slanting direction so as to break the force of the rush of water. At the end of this first channel is a cross wall with openings, protected by gratings to catch the leaves and floating rubbish.

Behind this is a reservoir, similar to the cisterns in use in the Roman aqueducts, allowing the mud to settle before the water entered the tunnel.

Next to the tunnel itself there is a closed building to protect the ca.n.a.l from the fall of rocks and stones, and the actual entrance into the rock is faced with a ma.s.sive portal of wedge-shaped blocks of stone. The water in this enclosure is now used by the fishermen of the lake as a receptacle for keeping fish, and is for this purpose provided with sluices. Hirt thinks that these arrangements at the mouth are very ancient.[140] Others ascribe them to the imperial era.

The point where the tunnel emerges from the mountain on the west of Castel Savelli, nearly a mile from Albano, is called Le Mole. The water was there received in a long troughlike reservoir arched over with a stone vaulted roof. From this it ran through five smaller openings into five separate channels, and was so dispersed into the fields for irrigation. At the present time the whole stream is united, and after pa.s.sing the road to Anzio, thirteen miles from Rome, takes the name of Rio d'Albano, receives the brook from the valley of Apiolae, and joining the Acqua Acetosa and Cornacciola crosses the Ostian way near Tor di Valle, three miles and a half from Rome, and then discharges itself into the Tiber.

It is the opinion of some archaeologists that the Romans brought engineers from Greece to superintend the Alban tunnel. This supposition, however, is not necessary. If the Italian engineers could construct the Cloaca Maxima they would be fully equal to the task of tapping the Alban lake.

The physical conformation of Central Italy compelled its inhabitants to turn their attention at an early period to the construction of drains and other hydraulic works. Considerable artificial channels were rendered necessary in order to regulate the flow of the Arno and Tiber in the neighbourhood of Chiusi. In southern Etruria, the district now known as the pestilent Maremma, could only have been rendered healthy by systematic artificial drainage. The sites of Populonia, Saturnia, Cosa, Veii, and Caere were thus rendered habitable and fertile, and a great part of Latium Maritimum, the Pomptine marshes, and the tract about Suessa Pometia must have been artificially and skilfully drained at the time of the greatest prosperity of those places. Many of the ancient cities of Central Italy had tunnels bored underneath their streets which served as thoroughfares connecting the different parts of the city, or as secret pa.s.sages leading out into the country. Such tunnels are found at Praeneste and Alba Fucensis. An account of the attempted escape of Marius from Praeneste, by means of the tunnels, is given by Velleius. The catacombs show that the same genius for tunnelling operations existed at a later time among the Italians of the empire.