Old Rome Part 6

Within the third princ.i.p.al concentric arcade the supports of the building take the form of ma.s.sive walls, radiating from the centre of the ellipse, and divided by elliptical corridors into three ranges. Between these ma.s.sive walls and in the corridors are the steps and pa.s.sages leading to the lower seats of the amphitheatre. The actual seats which were of marble have been all pilfered for the benefit of the Roman palaces and churches of the feudal ages, but we can still make out with tolerable certainty the five princ.i.p.al divisions into which they were separated. The lowest of these, called the podium, was a platform raised twelve or fifteen feet above the arena, upon which were placed the chairs of the higher magistrates and dignitaries. This was protected by railings and nets full of spikes, and sometimes also by trenches, called euripi, and horizontal bars of wood or iron which turned freely round, and thus afforded no hold to the paws of a wild animal.

Above the podium were four different orders of seats, divided by belts of upright masonry from each other. The first of these consisted of about twenty rows of seats, and was appropriated to the knights and tribunes, and other state officers. The upper row of this set was probably at a height of about ten feet above the top of the arches of the lowest story.

The next ranges of seats between the second and third belt were appropriated to Roman citizens in general, and held the greatest number of spectators.

The wall dividing these seats from the next set was very high, and contained, besides the vomitoria or entrance doors, a number of windows for the purpose of lighting the corridors and pa.s.sages. A considerable part of this wall is still extant upon the side towards the Esquiline Hill. Above it ran the third set of seats, occupied by the lower cla.s.ses of the people, and above this again, and separated from it by a very low wall without vomitoria, was the fourth group of seats, immediately under the windows of the uppermost story, and covered by a portico which ran round the whole top of the building.[71] The traces of this uppermost row of seats and of the colonnade which supported the portico may still be seen on the side towards the Esquiline Hill.

The seats in this part seem to have been partly appropriated to women, partly to the lower cla.s.ses. On the roof of the portico stood the workmen whose business it was to manage the awnings, and to move them as the sun or rain required. The number of seats in the whole amphitheatre is said to have been 87,000, and a considerable number, in addition to these, could stand in the pa.s.sages between the seats at the entrances of the vomitoria, and in other vacant places, so that the whole number which the building, when filled from top to bottom, could hold, was probably not less than 90,000.

The exterior arcade of the building diminishes in thickness towards the top, in order to render it more stable, and while the Doric and Ionic columns of the first and second stories stand out from the wall by nearly three-quarters of their circ.u.mference, the third row of Corinthian columns projects less, and the uppermost row are merely pilasters.

Much discussion has been raised on the question of the awnings or _velaria_ required for so large a s.p.a.ce. It is impossible of course, in the absence of any distinct contemporaneous description, to discover the exact mode of suspension adopted. Venuti supposes that a net of cords constructed like a spider's web, with both radiating and concentric ropes, was suspended over the amphitheatre, and that by pulleys arranged over this the vela were drawn across any part which happened to be exposed to the sun. By means of pulleys attached to this network of rope, the little boys mentioned by Juvenal as caught up to the awnings may have been drawn up. The ropes and pulleys, we are told by Lampridius, were managed by sailors. In rough and windy weather the awnings could not always be drawn, and umbrellas coloured according to the favourite's colours, or large broad-brimmed hats called causiae or birri, were then used. Martial has written some amusing epigrams, showing how jealously the seats appropriated to any particular privileged order were reserved. He gives the names of Lectius and Ocea.n.u.s to the boxkeepers of his time, who chased intruders from the seats to which they were not ent.i.tled. And he describes with great humour the attempts of a certain Nanneius to smuggle himself into a better place than he was ent.i.tled to. The pickpockets of Martial's time also frequented the amphitheatre.

The anxiety of the public to attend the shows was so great that they occupied the free seats in the amphitheatre before dawn in the morning, and gave fees to the officials to keep places for them, when any favourite gladiator or bestiarius was announced to perform. The shows lasted whole days, and hence various contrivances for keeping the spectators in good humour, and filling up the intervals between the combats. Seneca tells us of the meridiani, a cla.s.s of slaves who were kept on purpose to fill up the midday leisure hours with sham fights, and ludicrous pranks played upon the bodies of those killed or half killed in the previous fights. The air was cooled with immense jets of water projected from the centre of the arena, or from holes in the statues, and scented with fragrant essences, among which extract of saffron mixed with wine seems to have been the most popular.

The _arena_ of the Coliseum was originally about 250 feet in length, and 150 feet in breadth. It seems now much larger on account of the removal of the wall of the podium. The attention which has been drawn to the arena during the last few years by the re-opening of the hypogaea, or subterranean pa.s.sages, renders it necessary to allude to the subject of these hypogaea, and to estimate how far the recent excavations have thrown new light upon the history and construction of the great amphitheatre.

When the French occupied Rome, and it was incorporated into their empire in the four years preceding the Battle of Waterloo, the French Government carried out considerable excavations in the arena of the Coliseum, and besides clearing the podium and the chambers annexed to it, they opened the cryptoporticus which runs underground towards the Caelian Hill, and also discovered the pa.s.sages beneath the arena which have been now excavated again.

A great controversy was raised at that time as to the real level of the original arena between several of the archaeological professors and antiquarians of Rome. The same controversy has now been again revived, and the same questions as to the probable date of the underground constructions have been again raised, but with as little hope as ever of arriving at a satisfactory solution. The truth seems to be that, as in most amphitheatres, these hypogaea were constructed at the very first erection of the Coliseum, but have been altered, neglected, filled up, and again cleared out many times during the eventful history of the building, and that it has now become impossible to trace the various stages of such destructions and restorations. As often as the drains which were intended to carry off the water became choked and failed to act, these lower chambers and pa.s.sages were filled with water and rendered useless.

The French excavations conducted till the early part of this century, 1810-1814, showed the general character of the chambers and pa.s.sages under the arena. They consist of one central pa.s.sage which extends under the arena from end to end in the line of the major axis of the ellipse.

Parallel to this there are four narrower rectilineal pa.s.sages on each side connected with each other by archways and surrounding these are three curved pa.s.sages following the elliptical curves of the sides of the amphitheatre. The material of which these walls were originally built was great blocks of travertine similar to those in the surrounding construction of the amphitheatre, but they have been patched and propped in many places with tufa stones and brick, and now present a strange miscellaneous ma.s.s of masonry. These underground pa.s.sages are similar to those found under the arena at Pozzuoli and Capua. It would seem that they must have been necessary, in addition to the chambers under the staircases of the building, for keeping wild beasts in large numbers, or for marshalling and arranging the long processions which were sometimes exhibited in the arena, or for other unusual exhibitions requiring more room for preparation than could be otherwise afforded. In the amphitheatre at Verona the pa.s.sages under the arena seem to have served the purpose of drains, as they are much less extensive than those under the Coliseum, and are apparently connected with the channels which conducted the rain-water from the upper part. The same is the case with those at Pola in Istria, but at Pozzuoli and at Capua the hypogaea are of a similar character to those in the Coliseum, and were evidently used in connection with the exhibitions on the arena.

The excavations of 1810-14 do not seem to have been carried deep enough to show the floor of the hypogaea, and among the princ.i.p.al new objects of antiquarian interest discovered by the recent operations have been some large blocks of travertine sunk in the floor of the pa.s.sages, and pierced in their centre with large round holes. These holes have evidently been the sockets into which upright posts of some kind were fixed. In some of these sockets a metal lining still remains, and in one of them the remains of a wooden post are said to have been found. Many conjectures as to the purpose of these sockets have been hazarded. They have been imagined to be the points on which revolving doors turned, or the holes into which posts for chaining wild beasts were fixed, or the capstans for the purpose of winding the ropes attached to stage machines. The explanation which appears to me to be the most probable is that they were used for the erection of temporary wooden posts in the same way in which at the present time such movable posts are used in some of the doorways of large houses in Rome, to divide the doorway temporarily into two distinct pa.s.sages, by attaching a rope to the posts. When long processions had to be marched across the arena it would be necessary, if they were marshalled below, to have the course of the entering processionists and of those returning kept apart by some such device as that of a rope stretched between posts of this kind.

A large wooden framework has been found in the central pa.s.sage, blackened by long exposure to the water. This seems to have been a contrivance for making an inclined plane on which heavy machines could be dragged up from below.

Another discovery which has been made is that of two cryptoportici, one of which extends towards the Esquiline and the Thermae of t.i.tus, and the other opens out from under the eastern end of the longer axis of the Coliseum. A few graffiti of interest representing gladiatorial figures, and some fragments of inscriptions relating to restorations of the building, or to the munificence of those who indulged the public with amphitheatrical exhibitions, have also been found.

The mode in which the naval contests mentioned by Dion as having been exhibited in the Coliseum were conducted, cannot be stated with any certainty. They were given by t.i.tus at the dedication of the building and probably before its completion, so that the s.p.a.ce now occupied by the hypogaea may then have been filled with water previously to the construction of the dividing walls.

Perhaps no building of ancient Rome is so strikingly characteristic of the builder, and the age in which he lived as the Flavian amphitheatre.

Vespasian is described by historians, and represented on coins, and in extant sculptures, as a thick-set, square-shouldered man, with a short neck, small eyes, strongly marked but coa.r.s.e features wearing an expression of effort. He cared little for the elegancies of life, and was plebeian in his tastes, and regardless of appearances, but set a high value on manliness and obstinate, unflinching endurance.

During his reign the prevalent feeling in the Roman nation was that of a worn-out and repentant prodigal. Sick of the frivolity and wanton debauchery of the Neronian age, yet unable to return to the ascetic simplicity of primitive times, men adored, for want of a better idol, the blunt honesty and coa.r.s.e strength of the Flavians. What if their emperor wished that his courtiers should smell of garlic rather than of perfumery, if in his contempt for speculative genius he dubbed the agitating philosophers of his day "barking curs."[72] Yet he stood before them as a proof that the stern old vigour of the national character was not yet extinct, and that the profligate effeminacy of the previous generation had not yet rotted the Roman character to its core. The same ma.s.sive power of endurance, yet ponderous and vulgar character, belongs to the architecture of the Coliseum. It exhibits a neglect, almost a contempt for elegance of proportion. The upper tiers are as heavy and solid as the lower. Its arcades are ma.s.sive, practical, built to last for ages; the full, elaborate details of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, in which an artistic eye usually finds so much pleasure, are merely hinted at as superfluous.

Doubtless as we now see it, the ruin is far more effective than the complete building can ever have been. For when complete the appearance of the Coliseum must have been heavy and oppressive. The enormous unrelieved, flat surface of the upper wall must have seemed ready to topple over or to crush the arcade below. But now that earthquakes and barbarous hands have made such ghastly rents in its sides, the outline has become more varied, and the base more proportioned to the superstructure, so that although we can still recognise the flavour of a somewhat vulgar and material age, yet all that would have offended the eye has been removed, and the historical memories which cl.u.s.ter around its walls, of mighty emperors and blood-thirsty mobs, of screams of death or triumph, of gorgeous pageants and heroic martyrdoms, combine to render the Coliseum in its decay the most imposing ruin in the whole world.

Two architectural merits have been pointed out in the Coliseum, the impression of height and size conveyed by the tiers of arches rising one above another, and the graceful curves produced by the continuous lines of the entablatures as they cross the building. But what the Roman emperor under whose auspices this great building was raised would doubtless have valued more than any elegancies of design which could have been pointed out to him, is the perfect adaptation of the structure to its purposes.

After the great catastrophe at Fidenae where 20,000 persons were injured or killed by the breaking down of a wooden amphitheatre, solidity and safety were the princ.i.p.al requisites. Free ingress and egress for crowds of spectators, as well as for any great personages who might attend, was indispensable. A glance at the plan of the Coliseum will show how admirably each of these objects was attained. The extraordinary solidity of the building removed all possibility of the failure of any part to bear whatever weight might be heaped upon it, and the entrances, galleries and vomitoria were by the oval form of the building rendered so numerous that each seat in the whole cavea was accessible at once and without difficulty. A system of carefully arranged barriers in the pa.s.sages would effectually prevent confusion and excessive crowding.

In endeavouring to adorn the great amphitheatre of the metropolis more richly than those of the provinces its architect defeated his own object.

Some of the provincial amphitheatres, as that of Capua, though in other respects like the Coliseum, show a simpler and therefore more natural exterior. When the Doric order is retained in all the tiers, it harmonises far better with the rude strength of such an edifice than the Corinthian and Ionic orders of the Coliseum. At Verona and Pola a still further improvement is made by the rustication of the exterior. At Nismes, on the other hand, the faults of the Coliseum are aggravated by breaking the entablatures, and introducing pediments over each front; and in the small Amphitheatrum Castrense at Rome, where the Corinthian order is executed in brick, a lamentable ill.u.s.tration of Roman want of taste is exhibited.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONS OPPIUS. After Palladio and Canina.]

The holes which are now so conspicuous in the travertine blocks of the exterior wall of the Coliseum were probably made in the middle ages to extract the iron clamps by which the stones were fastened together. Some antiquarians have however held that they are the holes in which the beams of the buildings which cl.u.s.tered round the Coliseum in mediaeval times were fixed. At the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the travertine blocks of the amphitheatre were used as a quarry from which to build palaces, and it is said that the Palazzo di Venezia, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Palazzo della Cancelleria were constructed of the stone robbed from hence. During part of the eleventh and twelfth centuries a castle of the powerful family of the Frangipani, which afterwards belonged to the Annibaldi stood in the walls of the Coliseum.

Later generations of n.o.bles and popes since the beginning of the nineteenth century have propped the building by b.u.t.tresses of brickwork, and have endeavoured to postpone the date foretold by two Anglo-Saxon pilgrims as that of the fall of Rome. "When the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall."[73]

[Sidenote: Aurea Domus of Nero. Baths of t.i.tus.]

The Coliseum was built by Vespasian in a depression between the Caelian and Esquiline Hills, which had been occupied by a large lake of ornamental water, called the Stagnum Neronis, used by Nero for aquarian entertainments and exhibitions. The vast palace known as the Domus Aurea Neronis extended along the side of the Esquiline on the north of the Coliseum. The Flavian emperors destroyed this palace, and t.i.tus built a new group of courts and chambers over the ruins. The relics of these buildings of t.i.tus are now remaining mingled with the substructures and lower parts of the Domus Aurea which they superseded. They are entered by a gateway on the road leading from the Coliseum to S. Pietro in Vincoli.

So far as we can draw any conclusion from the fragmentary and confused piles of ruins now left, and from the plan which Palladio sketched at a time when the remains of the palace had not so completely disappeared, it seems that this part of Nero's palace consisted of a long straight facade of buildings extending along the slope of the Esquiline from east to west in the direction marked on the plan (A-B). In front of this there seems to have been a projecting court surrounded by small chambers (C-D). A few of these still remain at the western end, and are used as a dwelling-house for the custode. Behind the above-mentioned facade were numerous rooms of various kinds, and courts surrounded with colonnades. One of these courts with its adjacent corridors and apartments is now partly accessible (E, F), but the greater part were filled in with rubbish when the baths of t.i.tus were built over them, and have never been entirely cleared. In the centre of this court the remains of a fountain-basin and a pedestal may be seen. The area is now traversed by parallel walls built by t.i.tus to serve as substructions to his Thermae. These are indicated on the plan by the dotted lines in black.

All the rooms in this part which are now accessible have arched roofs, and are covered with decorative paintings. Fortunately a great number of these have been preserved to us by artists who copied them before they were destroyed by damp and the soot of the cicerone's torch. At the present time scarcely enough remains to show the beauty and delicacy of the designs. The best preserved paintings are in the long north corridor, where is also an inscription ill.u.s.trating Persius, Sat. i. 113:

"Pinge duos angues: pueri, sacer est locus, extra Mejite."

The two snakes were symbolic of the Lares Compitales, and are common at Pompeii. Raphael adopted the same style of ornamentation as that preserved here in the Loggie of the Vatican. The rooms now shown, which contain a bath and other household apparatus, apparently belonged to a private house, and may either have formed a part of the Aurea Domus, or of some house built on its site at the time immediately following Nero's death.

The eleven rooms (F) which occupied the north side of the court (E) contain traces of wooden staircases leading to an upper story. The decorations and fittings of these appear to have been so inferior to those of the other rooms, that we must suppose them to have been occupied by the imperial slaves, or by the household troops. At the northern end of this row of chambers is a room with mosaic pavement at a considerably lower level than those surrounding it, and which must therefore have belonged to some building earlier in date than the Domus Aurea. It is sometimes called a part of the House of Maecenas, but there is no authority for this, and it is more probable that the House of Maecenas stood nearer to the Agger of Servius.

[Sidenote: Sette Sale.]

Another portion of the Domus Aurea is still visible at the SETTE SALE, a large brick building lying in a vineyard to the left of the Via delle Sette Sale. The purpose of this was plainly to serve as a reservoir for water, and it is shown to have belonged to the Domus Aurea, and not to the Thermae of t.i.tus, by the correspondence of its position with the ground-plan of the former. It may have been afterwards used in connection with the Thermae, and was possibly preserved with that view, while the rest of the palace was destroyed or buried. The peculiar construction of the interior, which is divided into nine compartments, communicating with each other by openings--not placed opposite to each other, but in a slanting direction across the building--is said to have been so arranged in order to prevent the heavy ma.s.s of water from bursting open the sides of the building. The group of the Laoc.o.o.n was found near the Sette Sale, and it is supposed that the state-rooms of t.i.tus may have contained that group of statues.

[Sidenote: Thermae or Baths of t.i.tus.]

Returning to the ruins of the Baths of t.i.tus near the Coliseum it may be observed that these Thermae were connected with the Coliseum by a portico, traces of which can still be seen on the north side of the amphitheatre.

The arrangement of the building corresponded in some degree to that of the Baths of Caracalla, consisting apparently of a large square court surrounded by various offices and places for recreation, in the centre of which stood a vast ma.s.s of building containing the bath-rooms. The sides of this court were not parallel to any lines of building in the Domus Aurea, and, therefore, in order to form a level area many new substructions had to be erected. This is plainly the case with the theatre (A), which occupied the centre of the side towards the Coliseum. In order to raise this to the level of the rest of the area, the nine huge arched chambers, which are now a most conspicuous part of the ruins, were erected, and one of the courtyards of the Domus Aurea was filled, as we have seen, with parallel walls of brickwork. On each side of the theatre there were probably gymnasia, libraries, or ball courts (B B). The central building was occupied with the frigidarium and tepidarium, and the other usual adjuncts of a large Roman bath (C C C).

The catalogue called the 'Curiosum urbis Romae' places not only the Baths of t.i.tus but also those of Trajan in the third region. The anonymous MS.

of Einsiedlen places Trajani Thermae near the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli; and Anastasius in his 'Life of Symmachus,' mentions them as near the Church of S. Martino. It is, therefore, abundantly proved that the Thermae of Trajan stood at the back of the Baths of t.i.tus, and it is here that we find them placed in the plan of Palladio. That they were distinct buildings seems clear from an inscription in which they are separately mentioned. A satisfactory explanation of the apparently strange fact that Trajan erected new and smaller Thermae near those of t.i.tus is given by one of the chronologers of the period, who speaks of the Baths of Trajan as intended for women, for whom there was no separate accommodation provided in those of t.i.tus. The scattered ruins to the north of the Baths of t.i.tus may have belonged to Trajan's Baths.

On the Esquiline Hill, besides the Baths of t.i.tus, the Domus Aurea, and the Sette Sale, we find four remarkable ruins, which are called the Trophies of Marius, the Arch of Gallienus, the Minerva Medica, and the Auditorium of Maecenas.

[Sidenote: Trophies of Marius.]

The ruin called the Trophies of Marius stands at the corner of the Via di S. Bibiana. It consists in the lower part of a number of small and curiously shaped compartments of brickwork, with openings at seven or eight different points. Underneath these, and now hidden under the level of the ground, is a large basin or tank, and above them the upper part of the building is formed by the remains of three niches, in which stood the marble trophies now placed upon the bal.u.s.trade of the steps of the Capitol. They were removed to the Capitol by Sixtus V. in the year 1585.

The name Trophies of Marius is an attempt to explain the more ancient name of Cimbrum, which we find attached to the ruin in the middle ages, by identifying the trophies with the Tropaea Marii mentioned by Suetonius as having been pulled down by Sulla and restored by Julius Caesar.[74] But although we must allow that there is some probability in the supposition that the Marian trophies may have occupied these niches, yet it is certain that the building itself was intended to serve another purpose, that of the castellum or princ.i.p.al reservoir of an aqueduct, with a public fountain in the form of a cascade in front. The basin which has been discovered under the building, and the peculiar shape of the complicated interior structure, can be best explained thus, and the remains of some part of the aqueduct itself may be seen at the back. It was at one time supposed that the Aqua Julia ended here but it is now generally acknowledged that the ruin belonged to the Aqua Alexandrina, and that the name Nymphaeum Alexandri, found in the catalogues of the fifth region, must be a.s.signed to it. The Alexandrine Aqueduct was built by Alexander Severus in the year A.D. 225. Water was brought to Rome by means of it from a spot near the Lake Regillus, and a portion is still visible on the left hand of the Via Labicana about two miles from Rome. The level of this aqueduct corresponds exactly with the building in question, and the style of brickwork and architecture are such as might belong to the third century.

It is possible, as Reber remarks, that Alexander Severus may have found the exact spot where the Trophies of Marius had been placed by Julius Caesar convenient for the castellum of his aqueduct, and have used the trophies to ornament the new building which he erected.

[Sidenote: Arch of Gallienus.]

Close to the Church of S. Vito, and spanning the Via di S. Vito, stands the Arch of Gallienus, erected by M. Aurelius Victor, prefect of Rome in A.D. 262, in honour of the Emperor Gallienus and Empress Salonina. It is constructed of travertine, and the ornamental work upon it is extremely simple, consisting only of pilasters crowned by roughly worked Corinthian capitals, and surmounted by an entablature of the commonest kind. Part of the bas.e.m.e.nt is buried under the present level of the soil, and from a sketch by San Gallo of its state in the fifteenth century there appears to have been a pediment above the entablature, and two smaller archways on each side. The inscription, which is now hardly legible, is cut upon the architrave and contains a flattering description of one of the most singularly accomplished and incapable emperors of Rome, of whom Gibbon says, "Gallienus was a master of several curious but useless sciences, a ready orator and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince."[75]

[Sidenote: Minerva Medica.]

In the grounds of the Villa Magnani, which are reached from the Via di S.

Bibiana, are two small Columbaria, one of which formerly contained inscriptions relating to the family of the Arruntii, and also one which belonged to Statilius Taurus, a n.o.bleman mentioned by Tacitus. This was decorated with scenes from the aeneid of Virgil, but these are nearly destroyed. In the same gardens, not far to the north-west of the Porta Maggiore, stands a lofty and picturesque ruin, comprising a central decagonal hall surrounded by four other apartments, the ground-plan of which has been preserved by San Gallo. The central hall contained nine deep niches, and the entrance pa.s.ses through the tenth side. Over the niches and the entrance archway are round-headed windows, and the roof was of vaulted brickwork. Traces still remain of stucco work and cement on the inner walls, from which it appears that they were covered with ornamental work and in some parts with marble.

Parts of the pavement, which was of porphyry, have also been found, and in the neighbourhood of the ruin a number of sculptures have been at various times discovered, among which are statues of Pomona, aesculapius, Adonis, Venus, Hercules, Antinous, some Luperci, and a Faun. The old topographers, Blondus Flavius and Lucius Faunus, give the name of Terme di Galuccio or Galuzze to the ruin, and this name has been ingeniously explained as referring to the Thermae or Basilica of Caius and Lucius. But there is no good foundation for this conjecture, or for the identification of the building with the Temple of Minerva Medica, mentioned in the Not.i.tia. The latter name was derived from the supposed discovery here of the Pallas Giustiniani, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. But another and more ancient account a.s.serts that the statue of Pallas was found near S. Maria sopra Minerva, and therefore the name of Minerva Medica cannot with any certainty be applied here.

Canina has proposed another explanation of the name Galuzze. He thinks that the ruins belonged to the Palatium Licinianum, which is mentioned by Anastasius, in his 'Life of Simplicius,' as near the Church of S. Bibiana.

This palace, he thinks, is identical with the Pleasure Gardens of Gallienus, who bore the name of Licinius, in which, according to Trebellius Pollio, he used to bathe and banquet with his courtiers. The name Galuzze is, therefore, according to Canina, derived from Gallieni Liciniaria, and the building may be supposed to have formed a part of the baths in Gallienus's pleasure grounds, resembling as it does in its construction the great rotunda of the Baths of Caracalla. The proximity of the Arch of Gallienus adds probability to this conjecture. The basin now standing in the ruin is not ancient, and therefore cannot be held to support this conjecture, but the brickwork and style of architecture are said by competent judges to be such as might have been erected at the time of the later Empire. The building called Minerva Medica by the Not.i.tia may have been near this spot, as some inscriptions here discovered show, but it most probably consisted only of a chapel of no great extent standing near the Via Praenestina.

The extensive alterations which have been carried on at Rome during the last few years in the district at the back of the Viminal and Esquiline Hills, where a new quarter of the city is being laid out, have disclosed a number of fragments of sculptures and inscriptions, a detailed account of which has been given from time to time in the _Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Munic.i.p.ale_, and in the letters of Mr. Hemans to the _Academy_. The most interesting relics bearing upon topographical questions are the inscription relating to the Macellum Liviae and Forum Esquilinum found near the Arch of Gallienus, and the supposed foundations of the Villa of Maecenas.

Most of the antiquarian and artistic relics lately discovered here have been deposited in the Capitoline Museum.