WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA ^^ANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA BY RODOLFO LANCIANI • ♦ AUTHOR OF " ANCIENT ROME IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVER- /\\Ay^i'^^ lES," "pagan and CHRISTIAN ROME," " NEW TALES OF ' OLD ROME," "the RUINS AND EXCAVATIONS OF ANCIENT ROME," " THE GOLDEN DAYS OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ROME," ETC. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED lonHon CONSTABLE & CO. Limited BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1909 V COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY RODOLFO LANCIANI AND HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS I. The Land of Saturn ..... 1 II. The Land of Horace ..... 74 HI. The Land of Hadrian ..... 127 IV. The Land of Gregory the Great . . 188 V. The Land of Cicero . . . . . 247 VI. The Land of Pliny the Younger and the Land of Nero . . . . . . 302 Appendix ....... . 365 Index . . . . . . . . 371 213531 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FULL-PAGE PLATES The Roman Campagna (Map) Frontispiece The Alban Volcanic Range seen from the Villa quintiliorum . . 2 The Wilderness by which Rome is surrounded . .17 A Glimpse of the Pine Forest of Castel Fusano . 21 From a photograph by Miss Dora Bulwer. The Sarcophagus found in the Via Collatina, June, 1908 .27 Our Lady of the Fever, in the Crypts of St. Peter's 53 The Citharcede Apollo found in the Villa of Voconius POLLIO 57 A Wayside Shrine (Iconetta) near Subiaco . . .63 The Castle of the Caetani near Metella's Tomb . 69 The Small Waterfalls 77 View from the Terrace of Cynthia's Villa at Sant' Antonio 89 The Coat of Arms of the d'Este on the Balustrade of THE Upper Terrace . 109 One of Ligorio's Fountains in the Hall of the Palace COPIED FROM the AnTIQUE 115 The best existing Portrait Bust of Hadrian . . 133 Showing the beard worn for the first time by a Roman Emperor. The So-Called Marine Theatre, with the Channel, inclosing the round island 137 One of the Giant Cypresses planted by Count Giuseppe Fede in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century 143 Ancient Olive Trees in the Land of Gregory the Great 146 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Specimen of the Reticulated Style of Masonry used BY Hadrian in the Structures of the Villa . , .151 A View of the Royal City of Palmyra . . . 155 The Statue of Antinous discovered by Gavin Hamilton AT Palestrina in THE Year 1795 . . . .181 A Ruined Aqueduct in the Land of Gregory the Great 191 From a photograph by the Cav. U. Tambroni. The Statue of St. Gregory by Nicolo Cordieri, a Pupil OF Michelangelo 197 General View of Modern Palestrina covering Site of Temple of Fortune 228 The Temple of Fortune. Detail. Interior . . 233 A Section of the Mosaic Floor on a Larger Scale . 244^ The best known Likeness of Cicero at about Thirty- Five Years of Age 255 The Miracle of the Column 269 One of Domenichino's frescoes at Grottaferrata. The Shrine on the Flaminian Road .... 277 Marking the spot at which the head of St. Andrew was received by Pope Pius II from the hands of Cardinal Bessarion. A Fish Pond in the Tusculan Villa of Bishop Rufini (now Falconieri) ........ 286 A Shady Walk in the Lucullean Gardens (Villa Conti- Torlonia) 289 The Stream of the Aqua Crabra ..... 295 Which once watered the lower meadows of Cicero's estate. Remains of the Roman Cottage discovered by Queen Elena at Laurentum 319 Plaster Cast of Queen Elena's Discobolus . . . 325 Completed by the addition of the arm from Florence, the head from the Louvre, and the feet from the British Museum. Portrait Head of Nero at about Twenty . . . 343 Showing him a healthy and cheerful youth. One of Niobe's Daughters struck to Death by Diana's Arrow 355 The Mysterious Greek Maiden from Antium . . 359 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Tellen^e, one of the Ruined Early Cities of Latium 5 Picturesque Remains of Aqueducts in the Valle degli Arci 7 Smaller Mouth of the Tiber at Fiumicino . . .11 Graves of Early Latins, probably of the Founders of Rome, discovered in the Forum . . . .15 A Comparison between the Ancient and Modern Con- ditions OF THE CaMPAGNA 23 The Gate by which the Pcenine Pass Road left AOSTA . 32 Pont St. Martin, one of the Roman Bridges in the Val d' Aosta 36 A Hostelry in the Roman Caaipagna . . . .41 A Glimpse of the Lake of Bracciano . . . .44 The Prehistoric Springs at St. Moritz . . .49 One of the Watch-Towers of the Caetani on the Appian Way 67 Valley of the Rivus Albanus near Decimo (from a photo- graph by A. Vochieri) 71 Portrait Head of Horace in a Medallion of the Third Century 80 The Peristyle of the Temple of Hercules, where Augustus administered Justice . . . .81 The Middle Terrace of the Villa of M^cenas on the Carciano Road (from a photograph by Dr. Thomas Ashby) 83 Fragment of a Frieze with the Cryptic Signatures of Saurus and Batrachus 85 The Bust of Anacreon discovered by the Author in the Gardens of C^sar in 1884 . . . . .87 The Lower Terrace of the Villa of M^cenas (from a photograph by Miss Dora Bulwer) . . . .92 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Ancient Vessel for Hot Drinks found near Terracina. Side View (from an unpublished drawing in the posses- sion of the author) ....... 95 Ancient Vessel for Hot Drinks found near Terracina. Sectional View . 96 Vestiges of one of the Reception Rooms in Cynthia's Villa (from a photograph by Dr. Thomas Ashby) . 100 Petronia Musa 103 The High Street of Medieval Tivoli .... 106 LiGORio's Group of Rome and its Founders, the Frontis- piece TO HIS Relief Plan of the City, in the Villa d'Este 113 Hackert's View of Horace's Farm 123 Portrait Bust of the Empress Plotina, the Wife of Trajan (showing the extraordinary headdress worn by the ladies of the Ulpian and iElian families). . . . 131 The Falling Horse from a Quadriga discovered in the Vale of Tempe and transformed into a Group of QUINTUS CURTIUS LEAPING INTO THE ChASM . . 140 A Corner of the Stadium in Hadrian's Villa . .142 A Hall near the Greek and Latin Libraries, excavated BY THE Author in 1885 149 Map of the Hill of S. Stefano (showing respective sites of the villas of Hadrian, Zenobia, Maecenas, Lollia Paulina, and of the Vibii Varii) 159 The Tiburtine Hills (a view over which Queen Zenobia must have gazed for years from the terrace of her villa- prison) 163 A View of the Doric Court, Hadrian's Villa . . 165 A Dedication to INIalakibelos, written in Palmyrene (discovered in the Trastevere, and now in the Capitoline Museum) 168 The Remains of the Temple of the Sun opposite the QuiRiNAL Palace (from an engraving by Giovannoli made in the time of Paul V) . 171 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi The finding of the Triangular Altar in the Chapel of Jupiter Heliopolitanus on the Janiculum . .173 A MORE DETAILED ViEW OF THE TRIANGULAR AlTAR BEFORE THE Trap Door marked A, B, C, D was lifted . 175 What was found in the Hiding-Place . . . .177 The Antinous of Antonianus, discovered at Torre del Padiglione 185 The Church of S. Maria di Vulturella (from a sketch by Giovanni Fontana) ....... 200 The Consecration of the Church of the Vulturella by Pope Sylvester I, with the Apparition of the Stag (from a rude carving in wood preserved in the church) . 203 The Ampiglione Valley (with Ceciliano in the distance, the mountain of Santa Sigola on the right, the mediaeval castle of Ampiglione on the left) ...... 206 A Family Group of the Conti (from the original picture now in the Conti-Torlonia villa at Frascati) .... 209 The Porta Nevola, on the Road to the Villa Catena (from a photograph by Miss Dora Bulwer) . . . 210 Avenue of Cypresses, Villa Catena .... 214 The Approach to the Villa Catena .... 216 The Ruined Church of the Fraticelli on the Monte Sant' Angelo above Poli 220 Polygonal Wali^ built afier the Pelasgic Occupation of Pr.eneste 225 Front of the Lower Terrace of the Sanctuary (twelve hundred feet long) 232 An Altar found within the Temple of Fortune . 237 Plan of Oracle 239 General Outline of the Mosaic Floor in the Apse of the Temple 241 Map of the District of Tusculum (comprising Cicero's villa at the Colle delle Ginestre, as well as the most impor- tant ancient and modern ones in the territory of Frascati and Grottaferrata) 249 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Rustic Gate of a Tusculan Villa (Falconieri) . . 260 A View of the Villa Platform excavated 1741-46, WHERE the Tile inscribed with Cicero's Name was found 263 The Name of Cicero stamped on the Bricks used in the building of his Villa at Tusculum . . 264 The Gateway of the Groti aferrata Abbey fortified by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere about 1485 . 275 Portrait of Cardinal Bessarion in the Cloister of SS. Apostoli 282 A View of the Villa Quintiliorum, now Mondra- GONE 284 The Mausoleum of Lucullus, now called the Torrone DI MiCARA . . . 293 The Three Typical Trees of a Tusculan Villa (the pine, the cypress, and the ilex) ...... 300 A View of the Pine Forest near Laurentum . . 308 Inscription of Gamekeepers and other Marbles dis- covered BY Queen Elena in the Excavations of the Vicus August ANUS Laurentum 310 The Hamlet of Torre Paterna (once a hunting lodge of Roman emperors in the forest of Laurentum; later a watch-tower against the Algerian pirates ; at present used for the royal kennels in connection with the preserves of Castel Porziano) 313 Plan of the Roman Cottage discovered by Queen Elena on the Coast of Laurentum. (The Discobolus was found near its pedestal at the place marked G) . 317 The Discobolus found by Queen Elena at Laurentum IN A Fragmentary State 322 Plaster Cast of Queen Elena's Discobolus (with the addition of the right arm now in the Buonarotti Museum at Florence and of the Lancellotti head, a cast of which has been found in Paris) .... . . 323 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii Fragments of Statuary discovered in Pliny's Baths AT THE Vicus Augustanus (from photographs by Gino Ferrari 329 Half Wild Buffaloes sporting in the Waters of the River Numicius near Aphrodisium (La Fossa) . .331 The Sulphur Springs of the Aqu.e Caldan^ on the VoLsciAN Coast Five Miles West of Antium . 333 Part of an Architectural Relief ..... 335 The Dionysiac Herma by Boethus of Chalcedon . 335 Eros as a Lamp-Stand (before and after the process of cleansing ; recovered from the wreck of a Greek ship on the coast of Numidia) 337 The Great Earthworks raised by the Volscians for the Defence of Antium on the Land Side , . . 339 The Great Ditch excavated by the Rutuli for the Defence of Ardea on the Land Side . . . 341 Portrait Head of Nero at about Twenty-Six (showing effects of excesses and dissipation) 347 One of Niobe's Sons, from Nero's Villa at Sublaqueum (Museo Nazionale alle Terme) . . . . .351 One of the Daughters of Niobe, from Nero's Villa at SuBLAQUEUxM (Vatican Museum) 357 The Mysterious Greek Maiden from Antium (details of head) . . . 363 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA CHAPTER I THE LAND OF SATURN Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, Magna virum.^ WHEN the shepherds who had just founded Rome on the Hill of Pales used to assemble on the twenty-third day of February for the celebration of the Terminalia^ at- the sixth milestone of the road to Laurentum, on the frontier of their kingdom towards the sea, — a kingdom ten miles in diameter, — could they have foreseen that the same frontier would soon reach the limits of the known world ? that the Terminalia, instead of being celebrated any longer on the banks of the nameless stream^ which divided their fields from the territory of Laurentum, would be observed, in times to come, on the banks of the Tigris, of the Dnieper, of the Rhine, of the Clyde, and of the Nile ? that they would soon be made to exchange their pastoral rod for the sceptre of kings, and become lead- ers of men instead of leaders of flocks ? Historians and ethnographers have tried in vain to * "Hail, land of fecundity, land of Saturn, mother of great men!" ^ A festival in honor of the god Terminus, who presided over bounda- ries and guaranteed the rights of property. He was represented by a stone or post stuck into the ground on the boundary between two adjoining fields. ^ Now called "il Fosso di Acquacetosa." 2 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA solve this problem of the miraculous growth of Rome from so humble an origin. Of what stuff were those shep- herds made ? Where did they get their strength of body, their vigor of mind, their wisdom, their prudence, their magnificent manhood, which made it possible for them to achieve such feats in times of peace and in times of war? Livy seems to think that the greatness of Rome was due to the quality and properties of the land on which it was built, and by which it was surrounded. "Not without reason," he says, "did gods and men choose this site for Rome : healthy hills, a river equally adapted for inland and maritime trade, the sea not too distant ... a site in the centre of the Peninsula, made, as it were, on purpose to allow Rome to become the greatest city in the world." No wonder, therefore, that the Roman Campagna — the cradle of that mighty race — should have become, since the Renaissance of classic studies, an object of investigation for all those who feel the attraction of his- torical and ethnological problems. The first of these problems relates to the passage of Livy just quoted concerning the wholesomeness of the site of Rome, or at least of the hills upon which it was principally built. Were the seven hills and the surrounding district (ager Romanus) immune from malaria in the first stages of Roman history, or was that sacred soil already tainted with the germs to which millions of men have owed a premature death in the course of twenty- seven centu- ries ? Specialists differ on this point. Brocchi, the author of that delightful book, "Stato fisico del suolo di Roma,"^ does not doubt for an instant that Rome was. 1 Printed by De Romanis in 1820. ..^^mmm: JKmm;^mm^m^^ Grottaferrata Mons Albanus Marino THE ALBAN VOLCANIC RANGE SE Pascolare di Castello Castelgandolfo FROM THE VILLA QUINTILIORUM THE LAND OF SATURN 3 founded on land already stricken by malaria, while W. H. Jones, the latest writer on the subject, ^ thinks that the scourge became endemic only about 200 b. c, the germs having been imported from Africa by the Carthaginians of Hannibal. I am myself inclined to favor Brocchi's theory, because the first records appear in Roman literature about the epoch mentioned by Dr. Jones, not as records of a new experience, but as an account of a state of things which had prevailed from immemorial times. No doubt the founders of Rome were a strong and wholesome race ; no doubt their heavy woollen togas made them proof against the bite of the anopheles, and against chills generated by the sudden changes of temperature so common in the Campagna; and no doubt mosquitoes found less chance to propa- gate and spread while volcanic agencies were still active and powerful emanations purified the air. Geologists have shown that the eruptions of Monte Pila, the last crater of the Alban range, must have lasted two or three centuries after the foundation of Rome. Livy, who drew his information from the Pontifical Archives, dating probably as far back as the reign of Numa, speaks so often and so exactly of showers of ashes, and of " roarings of the earth," that it is impossible to deny the facts. The burial-fields of Alba Longa on the slopes of Monte Cucco and Monte Crescenzio were found in 1817, buried under three eruptions, one of pozzolana, one of lapillo, and one of peperino. Rome itself was surrounded by thermal springs, for which the northwest section of the Campus Martins, bordering on the Tiber, was especially conspicuous. Heavy vapors hung over the pool of the * La malaria, un fattore trascurato nella storia di Greda e di Roma, trans- lated from the English by Dr. Francesco Genovese. Naples, Deteken, 1908. 4 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Tarentum ^ fed by hot sulphur springs, and tongues of flame were seen issuing from the cracks of the earth. Hence the name campus ignifer — the fiery field — given to the place, and the popular belief in its connection with the infernal realms. Of the same nature were the Aquae Lautulse, which formed another pool near the Senate house in the Argiletum. The Forum itself was connected by tradition with earthquakes and chasms, and other telluric disturbances ; ^ and Livy relates how in the year 213 b. c. a powerful jet of water burst from the top of the "street of Insteius," in consequence of which that lane (corresponding to the present Via di Sant' Agata de' Goti) was transformed into a rushing torrent. I need not insist on the fact that as long as the Alban volcanoes remained active, life prospered within their sphere of influence, on the Campagna side as well as on the side of the Pontine district, as far as the Island (promontory) of. Circe. According to a tradition related by Pliny (iii, 59) , there were in prehistoric times no less than twenty-three towns thriving in that now deserted plain ; and on the Campagna side of the volcanoes colo- nists from Alba Longa had founded permanent settle- ments in places which, at a later time, became hotbeds of malaria. Speaking of Fidense, Tellense, Collatia, Antemnse, etc., the writers of the Augustan age attest that no vestige was left of them : periere sine vestigio I We may gather from these facts the belief that malaria ^ Discovered by the author in 1885. See Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, p. 446. ^ Dr. Breislak, in a memoir on the "Physical Topography of Rome," quoted by Brocchi, p.. 110, contends that the depression of the Forum, surrounded by the Palatine, Cselian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, and Capitoline, was originally a volcanic crater. THE LAND OF SATURN 5 existed in a mild form at the time of the foundation of the thirty colonies of Alba Longa ; ^ that its virulence increased after the extinction of volcanic life in Latium ; and that at the beginning of the second century before Christ it had become endemic, causing a great diminu- tion in the physical and moral energies of the Roman race. The earliest hints about intermittent fever in Roman Tellense, one of the ruined early cities of Latium literature are to be found in Plautus' " Curculio" (i, 17) : " Did the fever leave you yesterday or the day before ?" and in Terence's "Hecyra" (iii, ii, 22) : "What is thy case? Fever. Quotidian.^ So they say." Cato, "DeRe Rustica" (157), distinctly mentions as symptoms of the ague "a black bile and a turgid liver." Pliny (vii, 50) says that the excitement of fighting a successful battle against the Allobrogi and the Arverni on the banks of ^ Luigi Canina, "Sulle trenta colonie Albane," in Atti Accademiad' Ar- cheologia, March, 1839. 6 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the Isere, in the year 21 B. c, freed the Roman general, Q. Fabius Maximus, from the quartan fever. But the nearest approach to the modern theory of infection through the microbes of ague is to be found in Varro's "De Be Rustica," where he contends that in marshy districts "prosper insects so infinitesimal in size that no human eye can detect their presence." These micro- organisms entering the human system by inhalation generate "difficult cases." According to Priscianus, the tertian and quartan fevers were supposed to be the daughters of Saturn. "The Romans," he says, "have dedicated altars to Fever, because the intermittent ones Saturni filias esse affirmavit antiquitas'' ; and when we consider that the Campagna itself was called the " Land of Saturn," we wonder whether this traditional connec- tion between the Land, the Fever, and the old Italian God of Agriculture was not something more real and tangible, to the ancients, than a poetical fancy. The sanitation of the city and of the Campagna, on a large scale, was undertaken towards the end of the Republic, and continued by Augustus and his successors. The means employed to secure satisfactory results were the draining of stagnant waters ; a rational system of sewers; the substitution of spring water for that of pol- luted wells, the water being carried down from moun- tain sources by fourteen aqueducts, 339 miles in ag- gregate length ; the paving and multiplication of roads ; the sanitary equipment of human dwellings even when intended for laborers and farm-hands ; the invention of columbaria as places of burial, and the substitution of cremation for interment; and lastly the organization of medical help. The results were astonishing. Pliny says that Lauren tum was more delightful in summer than in winter; while in modern times the place was THE LAND OF SATURN Picturesque remains of aqueducts in the Valle degli Arci quoted until a few years ago ^ as one of the most danger- ous on the coast. Antoninus Pius and M. Aurelius preferred their villa at Lorium (La Bottaccia, near Cas- tel di Guido) to all other imperial suburban residences, and the correspondence with Fronto proves their pre- sence there in midsummer. The same can be said of Hadrian's villa below Tivoli, of the Villa Quintiliorum on the Appian Way, of that of Lucius Verus on the Via Clodia at Acqua Traversa, etc. The Campagna must have looked in those happy days like a great park, studded with villages, farms, cottages, lordly residences, temples, fountains, and tombs. ^ The present generation has once more conquered the evil : Rome has become the best drained, the best watered, the healthiest capital of Europe, London per- ^ The draining of the Pantano di Lauro, near Pliny's villa, was under- taken by H. M. King Victor Emmanuel in 1907, as part of the scheme for the hydraulic sanitation of the royal shooting farm of Castel Porziano. 2 See Ancient Rome, chs. iii and x; also Ruins and Excavations, p. 7. 8 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA haps excepted ; and cases of malaria, even near the former lagoons of Ostia, Ardea, Vaccarese, and Campo Salino, have diminished in number and in virulence. Ostia, the population of which, from the beginning of July to the end of September, v^as reduced to three fever- stricken caretakers, has now become a pleasant rendez- vous for Sunday excursionists. Wire nettings against the insidious anopheles have done more for the peasantry of the Maremma than the taking up by the State of the preparation and sale of quinine. The name Campagna is applied to the gently undu- lating plain, forty miles long and thirty wide, inclosed by the Sabatino-Ciminian belt of craters on the north, the fore-Apennines on the east, the Alban Hills on the south, watered and drained by the Tiber, on the banks of which Rome sits at an equal distance from the moun- tains and the sea. The Campagna is therefore a modern, arbitrary topographical formation made up of three sections: the Etruscan, between the coast and the Tiber; the Sabine, between the Tiber and the Anio ; and the Latin, between the left banks of these two rivers and the coast. It is an amplification, as it were, of the old ager Romanus, the metropolitan territory, the limits of which, as we have just seen, did not exceed at the time of the kings a radius of five or six miles from the Palatine. The same metropolitan territory now covers a surface of 487,600 acres, ^ equal to about 762 square miles, with a population of seven hundred thousand people. Leaving aside the narrow belt of cultivated land, gardens, orchards, and vineyards which surrounds the inhabited centres (Rome, Isola Farnese, Fiumicino, ^ The territory within the municipal jurisdiction of Rome measures exactly 457,000 acres. . THE LAND OF SATURN 9 Ostia, etc.), all the rest is divided into about two hun- dred farms or tenute, the surface of which varies from a minimum of 126 acres (Pedica di Castel di Leva) to a maximum of 15,000 (Tenuta di Campomorto) . ^ The Campagna is, so to speak, a comparatively re- cent land. In the tertiary period, the waves of the sea lashed the foot of the limestone mountains at Cameria, Tibur, and Prseneste, forming a bay, out of the depths of which the hills of Sant' Angelo, Poggio Cesi, and Monticelli ^ rose as an archipelago of white peaks. With the advent of the quaternary epoch two groups of vol- canoes emerged at the two ends of the bay, — the Saba- tine on the north, the Alban on the south, — belching forth such masses of eruptive matter that the bottom of the sea began to rise until it became a swampy ledge of coast skirting the base of the limestone mountains. The subsequent changes, which have given to the Campagna its present furrowed aspect, are the exclu- sive work of water agencies, especially of the two mighty streams now represented by the Tiber and the Anio. The first, 7000 feet wide and 130 deep, emptied itself into the sea between Ponte Galera and Dragoncello, eight or nine miles inland from its present mouth. At the end of the quaternary period, when men first ap- peared in these lands, the Tiber had diminished almost ^ The largest farms of the Campagna are Vaccarese, of the RospigHosi, 7549 acres; Ostia, of the Aldobrandini, 8763; Castel di Guido, of the Fal- conieri, 10, 61*^; Conca, of Signor Mazzoleni, 12,937; Campomorto, of the same, 15,021. King Victor Emmanuel's shooting farm of Castel Porziano covers an area of 19,135 acres, part of which is crown or state property, part is leased from the Chigi. ^ Sant' Angelo in Capoccia has been identified with Medullia, and Monticelli with Corniculum, by Gell and Nibby. It is a pure matter of conjecture. 10 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA to its present size and volume ; and yet, in spite of this diminution it retains enough of its erosive power to carry down to the sea every year eight million and a half tons of sand and mud, a volume of over four million cubic yards. No wonder, then, that the line of the coast should advance westward at a considerable rate. When King Ancus Marcius founded Ostia as a harbor for Rome, Ficana, the oldest human settlement near the bar of the river, was already 5500 yards inland. Ostia itself stands now 7000 yards from the shore ; the Torre san Michele, built in 1567 by Michelangelo, stands 2200 yards; the Torre Clementina, at Fiumicino, built in 1773, "in ipso maris Supercilio," 800 yards. The average advance of the coast at the Ostia mouth is thirty feet, at the Fiumicino mouth ten feet, per year. This formation of the Roman Campagna by the com- bined action of land and water powers, as well as its general outline and its boundaries, can be best studied from the Monte Mario, ^ which advances like a bold promontory into the valley of the Tiber, one mile north of St. Peter's. The whole plain stretches at our feet, framed in purple mountains of exquisite outline : Rocca Romana, 1987 feet, Monte Calvi, 1787 feet, Monte Virginio, 1782 feet, on the north; Monte Gennaro, 4187 feet, Monte Guadagnolo, 4019 feet, and the citadel of Prseneste, on the east ; Monte Cavo, 3000 feet, and the Punta delle Faette, 3135 feet, on the south. The highest peaks visible from our point of vantage are the Monte Terminillo above Rieti, 7302 feet high, and ^ The Monte Mario, the highest point within the metropolitan district, — the Mons Vaticanus of ancient writers, — 480 feet above the sea, is not accessible to ordinary visitors, having been selected as the basis for the military defence of Rome. Permits are sometimes granted by the Minister of War. THE LAND OF SATURN 11 the Monte Velino, above the Lake of Fucino, 8207 feet. They usually keep their shining coat of snow till the middle of May. From what has just been said, it is evident that only three geological formations can be traced in the Cam- pagna, — the tertiary or argillaceous, the volcanic, and the quaternary or diluvial. I mention these particulars because each one has a distinct bearing and signification in the history and archaeology of the Campagna. From Smaller mouth of the Tiber at Fiumicino the argillaceous deposits of the Vatican district the world- famous Roman bricks and tiles have been made and exported to every harbor of the Mediterranean for the last twenty-three centuries. From the volcanic strata come tufa and pozzolana and peperino, materials with 12 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA which every student of Roman archaeology has become famihar; and from the quaternary deposits comes tra- vertine, the material dearest to Roman architects from the time when it was first used, two centuries before Christ, to our own days. The present generation, for reasons that may be connected with political influences, but have nothing in common with art and good taste, is trying to banish travertine from practical use and to substitute a new stone, which by its unfitness to take the stain of ages — that indescribable hue of dried leaves so appreciated by artists — will injure greatly the harmonious tone of the Roman landscape. The Vatican ridge, culminating in the Monte Mario, is covered with pliocene marls abounding in marine fossils ; other traces of Neptunian agencies have been found and described, in other sections of the land. To explain the state of things, Antonio Nibby, the leader of modern explorers of the Campagna, used to quote the evidence of Straton of Lampsacus, the "Naturalist," who flourished about 289 b. c. as successor of Theo- phrastus in the leadership of the Peripatetic School. Straton contended that at one time the Black and the Caspian seas and the sea of Aral formed but one ocean, two thousand miles long and six hundred wide ; that its level having been raised to a great height by the inflow of the three powerful streams (the Danube, the Volga, and the Amoor) draining half the continents of Europe and Asia, the ocean had burst its barriers and discharged itself into the much lower basin of the Mediterranean, through the gaps of the Bosporus and the Hellespont ; and that the evidence of this cataclysm was yet to be seen all round the shores of the Mediter- ranean, even two or three hundred stadia inland. The level of the latter sea having been raised in its turn many THE LAND OF SATURN 13 hundred feet, the flood forced its way into the Atlantic through the gap of the Pillars of Hercules. Straton's theory, warmly supported by Strabo (i, 3), has been taken up in more recent times by Dureau de la Malle in his "Geographic physique de la Mer Noire," by Gosselin in his "Commentaries and Notes" to Strabo's translation, and, of course, by Sir William Gell, Nibby's patron and associate in the exploration of the Campagna. The evidence collected by these learned writers seems to leave no doubt that, wdthin the recollection of man, an earthquake or a volcanic out- burst, or the pressure of the Euxine Sea, had cut open a channel through the Cyaneae Islands and the Thracian isthmus once connecting Europe with Asia, creating an immense flood, the same that Greek writers indicate by the name of Deucalion's deluge. The Chronicle of Paros fixes its date 1529 years before Christ, which is the approximate epoch of the first Hellenic migrations into Italy. Modern science is less confiding in matters of tradition ; and although the theory of Deucalion's deluge would help us to explain certain anomalies in the geological constitution of the Campagna, and although such men as Newton, Taylor, Prideaux, Selden, and Corsini have not hesitated to accept it as an indis- putable fact, I shall only remark that the first eastern immigration to our lands, led by (Enotrus, took place about the time indicated, viz., fifteen centuries before the Christian era. According to ancient annalists, the first men to ap- pear and settle on the newly made swampy plains of the Campagna were the Siculi, semi-savage tribesmen of the neolithic epoch, whose tribal centre was perhaps at the falls of the Anio, on the site of the Pelasgian Tibur. 14 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Two or three generations after the flood the Siculi were overwhelmed by the joint forces of the Aborigines and the Pelasgians, and chased towards the south. The seat of the Aborigines had been up to that time the val- ley of the Velino at Reate; their capital, Lista; their chief villages, Cutiliae, Trebula, Orvinium. The Pelas- gians had advanced by slow stages from the south, marking their progress by polygonal structures, and finally selecting the Cicolano district for their tribal centre. Pelasgians and Aborigines had already at- tained the bronze stage of civilization. They occupied one by one the sites vacated by the Siculi (Antemnse, Tellense, Ficulnea, Tibur, etc.), who, driven southward from land to land, found at last a permanent refuge in the island which still bears their name, Sicily. The rule of the two mixed races on the Campagna lasted undisturbed for about three centuries, to the time of the Trojan war. At this time, that is to say at the transition period from the age of bronze to the age of iron, a new race appears on the stage of the Campagna, a race destined to conquer the world. Who were the Latins ? Where did they come from ? What influence did the fresh immi- grations of Greek refugees at the mouth of the Tiber, led by Evander the Arcadian, and by ^Eneas, have over their destinies and civilization and early career ? Desjardins says that the Latin race was the hybrid out- come of the intercourse between the Siculi, Aborigines, Pelasgians, Arcadians, and Trojans. "C'est a cette nation Latine, melange de Sicules, d'Aborigenes, de Pelasges, et de Troyens, et ay ant pour capitale et pour centre politique et religieux la ville d'Albe, que je donne le nom de Latins." This is not quite satisfactory, yet we have, at present, no better theory to offer. THE LAND OF SATURN 15 According to tradition, Alba Longa was founded by Ascanius, son of J^neas, thirty years after the landing of the Trojans at the mouth of the Tiber (Laurentum) , and 1230 years before our era. Dionysius says that the population of this new kingdom of Alba was essentially Graves of early Latins, probably of the founders of Rome, discovered in the Forum of eastern origin, — Phrygians, Arcadians, Pelasgians, — in a rude stage of civilization, especially as regards the manufacture of pottery. The statement of the historian is confirmed by the discoveries made since 1817 in the prehistoric cemeteries of the Alban district, at Monte Cucco, Monte Crescenzio, Marino, and Grottaf errata. It seems, therefore, that we old Latins owe our existence, 16 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA as a race and as a nation, to a foreign invasion (by sea) ' of the Campagna, and to the joining of the conquerors and the conquered in a confederacy, the meeting-place of which was at the Caput Aquae Ferentinse. A visit to this wooded glen, now called the Parco di Colonna, which winds its way into the heart of the Alban craters a little below Marino,^ cannot fail to impress the classical stu- dent as well as the artist and the poet. In following the path by the brook toward its springs, our thoughts wander back to the tragic fate of Turnus Herdonius, the chieftain of Aricia, drowned at the springs them- selves by order of Tarquinius Superbus, — his head being held down with a grating and a heap of stones upon it, — and also to the great meeting of the con- federates which led to the battle of Lake Regillus. The Caput Aquse Ferentinae is still rising in a clear volume at the base of a great mass of rock crowned with ever- greens, and there are rustic, moss-grown seats around, which seem to invite the visitor to rest in solitude, and to recall the events of the past.^ At the time of its greatest prosperity it was impos- sible to determine how far the metropolitan district ex- tended into the Campagna. There were three zones or belts of buildings : the inner one, within the old walls of the Kings, being called that of the continentia cedificia, because its public and private edifices touched and crowded each other in a limited space (21,239 tenement houses and 749 patrician dwellings in an area of only 3000 ^ The keys of the Parco can be obtained at the Colonna Palace, Marino, from the agent of the duke. The entrance gate is at the south end of the village, on the left of the viaduct over which the highroad to Castel Gan- dolfo crosses the Aqua Ferentina. ^ See The Golden Days of the Renaissance, p. 196. OFTHE UNJVERSITY OF THE LAND OF SATURN 19 acres). The second, between the walls of the Kings and the line of the Octroi,^ with houses and edifices standing on their own ground (25,061 tenement houses and 953 patrician palaces in 4000 acres), was that of the expa- tiantia tecta. The third or outer belt of gardens, villas, cottages, suburban hostelries, small farms, and scattered habitations was called the extrema tectorum, and ex- tended as far as the third milestone outside the Servian gates. We may, therefore, take it for granted that the metropolitan district, with its odd milHon people, ex- panded from the Milvian bridge on the north to the tomb of Metella on the south, from the Villa Gordiano- rum (Torre de Schiavi) on the east to the gardens of Csesar towards the setting sun. The district, oval in shape, measured, therefore, seven miles on its greater diameter, six on the less, and these, strange to say, are the exact limits marked by the latest Piano Regolatore for the extension of the city in the next twenty-five years. We should be greatly mistaken, however, in supposing that life and bustle and traffic and cultivation stopped outright beyond those limits, as happens now. Rome was not cut off in old times from the neighboring cities of Veii, Momentum, Tibur, Prseneste, Tusculum, and Bovillse by a stretch of desert ; farms and vineyards and villas linked the greater and smaller centres into one great park teeming with life. The only sections of the Campagna which make an exception to this rule are those crossed by the trans tiberine roads, the Vitellia, the two Aurelise, and the Cornelia leading to the Etrus- can Maremma. I have crossed these lonesome lands over and over again to gather materials for my archae- ological map, and I have found none ; or, to be more ^ The line of the Octroi is identical with that of the walls built about 27*2 A. D. by the Emperor Aurelian. W WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA exact, I have found but few oases in the wilderness, one perhaps in an area of ten square miles. This state of things proves that the Etruscan section of the Cam- pagna, between the Tiber and the sea, was covered with forests, the haunt of the deer and the wild boar, rem- nants of which are still to be seen in the farms of Casetta di Mattei, Malnome, Vaccarese, etc. Pliny has left us a graphic description of the ancient Maremma, which he was obliged to cross on his way to Laurentum. "The aspect of the country is not monotonous, because the road sometimes runs through ancient forests, some- times through meadows and pasture land where grow and prosper herds of horses and oxen, and flocks of sheep, which, driven from the mountains by the early frosts, come to winter in the tepid Campagna." Any one of my readers who has followed in Pliny's foot- steps to Ostia, Castel Fusano, or Pratica di Mare can vouch for the accuracy of his description. As regards the Sabine and Latin park-like sections of the Campagna, between Rome and the mountains, we have only to compare their archaeological survey with the up-to-date maps of the Istituto Geografico Militare to gauge at once the immense difference be- tween its former and its present condition. Let us choose, for instance, the ground crossed by the Via Latina between the seventh and eleventh milestones, where the lonesome wayfarer of to-day hears no sound of human voices, no singing of birds, and looks in vain for shade or shelter, or for a draught of water to quench his thirst. In ancient times the same length of road skirted four thriving villages, and a dozen or more country houses of the patricians. The first village was discovered and excavated in 1865 by Giuseppe Gagliardi near the Osteria del Curato. Its classic name is unknown. OF THE THE LAND OF SATURN 23 The second, called "Respublica Decimiensium " (from its location near the tenth milestone), was found in 1885 in the Vigna Senni atCiampino. The third, called "Vicus Angusculanus," was explored by the author A comparison between the ancient (Hi) and modern (D) conditions of the Campagna three years ago in the Vigna Gentilini ; the fourth was found by Abeken in 1840 at the head of the beautiful Valle Marciana. Besides these four centres of life, there were a villa of the Licinii Murena at Morena, that of Vicinius Opimianus at Ciampino, that of the 24 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA lavolenii at Borghetto, an estate of Trajan's sister in the Valle Marciana, a temple dedicated to Septimius Severus at Bagnara ; noble mausolea lining the four miles of road; a pagan sanctuary and place of pilgrimage in the Vigna Giusti ; a Christian basilica and catacombs in the Vigna Gentilini, and fountains and pleasant shade and hostelries for the comfort of man and beast. The most conspicuous ruins of the Campagna are those of water-reservoirs and tombs, because their inner shell or core being built in rubble- work or in con- crete, they have better withstood the ravages of time, and they have escaped the cupidity of mediaeval and modern stone-cutters and lime-burners. The aque- ducts, also, for .reasons which I have explained in another work, have been spared to a certain extent, to form the most characteristic feature of our suburban landscape. These channels, borne for miles upon triumphal arches at a prodigious height, would still be in working order but for Pope Sixtus V and for the Hospital of San Sal- vatore at Laterano ; the Pope built his Aquedotto Felice with the materials of the Marcian, while the trustees of the hospital, wjienever they found themselves in need of funds, would put up at auction one, two, or three arcades of the Claudian, which unfortunately crossed their farm of Arco Travertino on the Via Latina. In their archives (vol. iv, p. 5) I have found documents of the sale of a monumental arch over which the Claudian spanned the highroad ; and again the sale of four piers to a Bartolomeo Vitali, of two to the brothers Guidotti, and so on.* The fate of the tombs and mausolea which lined the highroads has been well described by Francesco Fico- * Lanciani, / comentarii di Frontino, p. 149. THE LAND OF SATURN 25 roni, a seventeenth century antiquary and excavator of no classic culture, but a keen observer of facts and gath- erer of archaeological evidence. Roman family vaults, he remarks,^ contained a funeral banqueting-hall, level with the road, and a crypt below, where the ashes w^re kept in urns, or the bodies laid to rest in sarcophagi. The former standing above ground, within easy reach of the passer-by, must have been stripped of their marbles and bronzes at a very early period. The custom of burning the marbles of abandoned tombs for lime became so common in the fourth century that the Emperors had to enact capital punishment as a penalty for the offence. In 349, sixty-one years before the first barbarian inroad of Alaric, the Emperor Constans substituted a heavy fine for capital punishment, so great was the number of those who had deserved it! These provisions may have saved from spoliation the tombs more exposed to view; but those standing back from the highroads, screened by trees or by the undulations of the ground, probably disappeared faster than ever. The underground rooms, or hypogsea, suffered less damage, and many escaped discovery altogether. Search was made in them for jewelry and gold; but the cinerary urns and the sarcophagi were left undis- turbed. This is the reason why so many beautiful crypts are brought to light at no rare intervals in the Campagna, notwithstanding the active search made for them in past centuries. In truth, such precautions were taken to conceal the way of entrance that their rediscovery is mostly due to chance. The secret pas- sage leading to the grave of Csecilia Metella was found by accident in 1540, by a stone-cutter engaged in wrench- ing away some blocks of travertine. A similar discovery ^ Francesco Ficoroni, La holla d' oro dei fanciulli romani. Part ll. 26 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA took place under Alexander VII (1655-67) in connec- tion with the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, the entrance to which was so artfully concealed that it could only be located by the hollow sound of the stones with which it had been blocked. Ficoroni has offered an ingenious suggestion in regard to the engraved gems or cameos which are found in such numbers in the Campagna. After stating that out of ninety- two sepulchral chambers, excavated by him in the Vigna Moroni near the Appian Gate, between 1705 and 1709, only one had not been searched before, he adds : " My workmen, sifting the earth which filled these columbaria, or the passages between them, found a great many cameos and valuable stones, broken or in- dented round the edge. These cameos are constantly picked up in vineyards and orchards, which extend over ancient cemeteries, and as they still show traces of the glue by means of which they were fastened into their sockets, they must have been thrown away as a use- less incumbrance by those who were seeking for metal alone." The latest discovery connected with the intentional concealment of rich graves took place in June of last year (1908), at the first milestone of the Via CoUa- tina, where the new freight station of Rome is being erected. Here a mass of concrete was found, and inside of it a recess lined with bricks, and inside the recess, in the core of the concrete, one of the most beautiful sarcophagi I have ever seen, a masterpiece of Hadrian's golden age. It contained the skeleton of a full-grown man, a perfume goblet, and a silver penny of the time of Titus. Judging from the scenes represented on the front of the coffin, the buried man must have served on the staff of Trajan in one or more of his Dacian THE LAND OF SATURN 29 campaigns, and attained great distinction. What most impresses the beholder of this splendid work is the har- monious distribution of the groups, the exquisite care of details, so artfully concealed that it does not inter- fere with the general effect of the composition, and the clever way in which the national characteristics of the conquerors and the conquered are rendered: the Ro- mans with clear-cut, refined features and slender figures, the Dacians with unkempt hair and beard, and power- ful, heavy frames. The sarcophagus is now exhibited in the Museo Nazionale alle Terme. I must now discuss a question strictly connected with the history and fate of the Campagna, that of the summer villas of the wealthy and the fashionable. There cannot be any doubt that the sunny slope of Tus- culum. Alba, Tibur, and Prseneste did offer admirable sites for the erection of villas and cottages ; but it is equally certain that, owing to their proximity to Rome and to their small height above the sea, these sites did not give the careworn citizens sufficient change of air to recuperate, and gather fresh strength for future labors. Why, then, do Roman villas and summer residences crowd in such numbers on the very boundary line of the Campagna, in which the germs of malaria were always lurking, when their owners — masters of the Roman world — could choose more attractive and healthier sites on the Campanian and Tyrrhenian coast, on the Riviera, on the Italian or Swiss lakes, on the Alps, and among the watering-places of Savoy, of the Pyrenees, and of the Rhine ? The answer is easily given. Travelling in ancient times was so uncomfortable and so dangerous, from want of mail service, of postal and telegraphic arrange- 30 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA merits, and of hotel accommodation, from brigandage and from the steepness of mountain roads, that private famihes, no matter how wealthy and how much imbued with the spirit of the tourist, shrank from undertaking long and tedious journeys unless impelled by duty, or on an official mission. No comparison, therefore, of the summer residence of the wealthy and fashionable can be established between ancient and modern times ; and I do not think that the Romans in general, unless they were millionaires, debated, at the return of the hot season, whether they would give preference to a British, Gallic, German, or Helvetic watering-place, because of the dis- tance and hardship of travel. Used as we are to fly through the Alps in a transcontinental express, we hardly realize what it meant for a Roman family to cross from Clavenna (Chiavenna) to the Curia Rhsetorum (Coire) by the Septimer and Splligen passes, or from Augusta Prsetoria (Aosta) to Octodurus (Martigny) by the Great St. Bernard. I mention these two passes, not because they were the principal and the most popular lines of communication between Italy and the northern pro- vinces of the empire, but because they are personally and archseologically better known to me. But what is known about them may be equally applied to the Mons Matrona (Montgenevre), to the Cremonis Jugum (Cra- mont), to the Mons Adula (St. Gothard), or to the many passes of the Rhsetian and Carnian Alps. In the Ro- mansch district, for instance, the population not only speaks the language of which the first elements were sown among them when Drusus the Senior crossed for the first time the Maloia and the Engadine, but retains the names that were given to roads, peaks, and passes by the first Roman conquerors; such as the ''bad road" (mala via, Maloia), the "wintry road" (hibernina, Ber- THE LAND OF SATURN 31 nina), the "white road" (Albula), the ''high village" (Vicus Sopranus), the "head of the lake" (Summus lacus, Samolaco), the "mills" (MoHns), the pass of Jul (Julier), the pass of Septimius (Septimer), and so forth. But for the study of a typical Roman transalpine road the Jugum Poeninum or Great St. Bernard stands fore- most on account of the excavations and researches made at its various stations, hospices, and refuges by Promis, de Loges, Auber, Castelfranco, von Duhn, de la Blan- chere, de Saulcy, Desjardins, and Ferrero, from whose writings I have collected the following information.^ The ancient road, on leaving Aosta by the north gate, followed the line of the modern one to Endracinum (Etroubles or St. Remy), and thence ascended the Italian slope of the pass in zigzags of straight stretches of two or three hundred feet each. It was not protected from avalanches or snowdrifts, but was lined at short intervals with "case cantoniere" or help-stations, one of which has been found at the Cantine de Fontintes, two kilo- metres below the summit on the Italian side, another at Le Fond de la Combe on the Swiss side. A milestone marked XXIV is still extant at Bourg St. Pierre, the mileage being reckoned from Aosta to Martigny, where the Alpine road fell into the one leading from Briga to Viviscus (Vevey). On nearing the summit of the pass the road is entirely cut out of the live rock, with a mini- * Carlo Prorais, Le antichita di Aosta, Turin, 1862; de Loges, Essai historique sur le Mont St. Bernard, 1789; Auber, La vallee d'Aoste, Paris, 1860; Castelfranco, Notizie degli scavi, a. 1891, p. 75; von Duhn, Memorie Accad. di Torino, a. 1891, vol. xli, p. 386; de la Blanchere, Melanges de VEcole Francaise deRome, a. 1887, vol. vii, p. 244; de Pauley, Revue archeol.y nouvelle serie, vol. iii, p. 454; Desjardins, Gaule romaine, vol. i, p. 70; Ferrero, Notizie degli scavi, 1883-1904; Corpus Inscript. Lat, vol. v, p. 761. 32 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA mum width of eleven feet six inches. The Roman hospice (Mansio in summo Pcenino) stood a quarter of a mile to the south of the present one, and comprised a temple to the god of the mountain, a hospice for travellers, stables and watering-troughs, and storehouses for fuel and provisions. The location of the temple of Jupiter Poeninus (from the Celtic "pen or hen, *' summit"), facing almost due north, answers precisely to the precept of Vitruvius The gate by which the Pcenine Pass road left Aosta (iv, 5), " When a house of the gods is raised on a public road, place it so that travellers may see their images and pay homage to them in going by." The mansio or hospice was likewise built of stone, with an elaborate system of hypocausts and flues for the distribution of heat through the guest-rooms. The THE LAND OF SATURN 33 roof, made of tiles from the limekilns of the Val d' Aosta, had projecting eaves in the old Swiss style. From the study of the fifty votive brass tablets, of the five hundred Gaulish coins, of the seven hundred Roman medals, of the marks and stamps of votive pottery and utensils discovered in the excavations, and exhibited now in the museum of the worthy followers of St. Ber- nard de Menthon, archaeologists have been led to adopt the following conclusions. The pass was but little used in prehistoric ages, only a few objects of the age of bronze having been found at Lyddes in the Val d' Entremont, and none on the sum- mit. The great mass of votive offerings must be assigned to the Gaulish tribesmen who first established a perma- nent line of communication across the Alps at the time when Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome. This primitive path, full of untold perils, was transformed into a regular post road soon after the foundation of Augusta Prsetoria, and the conquest of the Val d' Aosta, inhabited by the Salassi, about 25 b. c. When the Roman roadmakers first emerged on the "plan de Joux" at the top of the pass, they found it already sacred to the awe- inspiring god of the mountain. A pinnacle of rock, emerging from the border of a small basin of drinkable water, had been roughly squared, and cut into steps, on which the weary traveller would lay his offering, a button, or an agraffe from his coat, a bead from his chaplet, a wristband, a ring, a drinking goblet, or a coin or two. Peddlers and workmen were satisfied with the production of half a coin; and we have also the touching instance of a Helvetian who left, as a token of gratitude for a safe journey, his own razor, of a make peculiar to the savages dwelling in the Rhine- land. 34 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The fifty-odd Roman tablets already discovered con- tain no illustrious names, only those of petty officers on their way to join the frontier legions, of clerks following in the train of provincial magistrates, or of Swiss or Italian tradesmen. A tablet found in 1892 enables us to reconstruct the scene of a Helvetian slave-dealer (Hel- vetius mango) answering to the name of Carassounus (he must have come from the Jura, where such a name was popular), who, before attempting the perilous jour- ney, promises the gods an acknowledgment of their help, should he succeed in leading his slaves safely across the snowy barrier. As regards the Montgenevre, the most popular trans- alpine route in classic times, a comparison between the old and the present time-tables proves that the mail- coach service between Italy and Gallia Narbonensis, via the valleys of the Dora and the Durance, was practi- cally the same, and divided into the same number of relays : — Turin Augusta Taurinorum Avigliana Ocelum Susa Segusio Exilles . Summitas Italici Clivi Oulx Ad Martis Cesanne Gesoeonem Montgenevre Ad Matronce verticem Brian9on Brigantium Casse-Rom Roma Embrun .Ebrodunum But if the road was the same, the difficulties of the journey for ordinary travellers were infinitely greater, considering that the use of the official mail service was a privilege granted by the head of the state to compara- THE LAND OF SATURN S5 lively few. In this respect the Roman postal organiza- tion did not differ from the one adopted in Persia, which enabled the rulers of that immense kingdom to hold the reins of government well in hand. Herodotus describes the royal road which ran from Sardis, on the Lydian coast, to Susa, a distance of 765 miles. It was divided into 111 sections or horse-runs by a correspond- ing number of halting places, at an average distance of seven miles from each other. There were guidebooks and time-tables for the convenience of travellers, with a description of the king's road and its caravansaries, one composed by Baeto, another by Amyntas. The title of these ancient Bradshaws — much more instructive than the Roman Itineraria — was ol ^TaOfioC, the " post-re- lays." A traveller proceeding at leisure and with his own means of locomotion, at the rate of thirty miles a day, could cover the distance between the Mgesm Sea and the capital in about twenty-five days; but the king's mes- sengers, relaying one another at stated intervals, would travel four times as fast, and bring a dispatch from the governor of Lydia to the palace in six or seven days. In Rome, also, the right of making use of the mail service was granted personally by the Emperor and occasionally by the consul, by the prefect of the Praeto- rians, or by the governor of a province. The warrants or diplomata for this purpose were drafted in the imperial cabinet by an officer a diplomatibus, and there they re- ceived the Emperor's own seal and signature. According to Suetonius, the warrants of Augustus bore the impres- sion of a sphinx. The tendency of his successors was to restrict the privilege to as few persons as possible, and each provincial governor was held responsible for any partiality shown in dispensing this favor. At all events, the permits became null and void after a fixed date, or 36 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA on the death of the emperor whose seal and signature they bore. The same rules must have been followed in connection with the maritime post, the central office for which was at the harbor of Ostia. The mail boats employed in this service (naves vagce, naves tabellarice) were so well shaped, so well manned, and could carry so much can- vas, that imperial messengers and dispatches could Pont St. Martin, one of the Roman bridges in the Val d' Aosta reach Alexandria in eleven days, the Straits of Gibraltar in seven, the Straits of Messina in five, the coast of Spain in four, the coast of Provence in three, the coast of Africa in two. Even less accessible to the ordinary public were the opportunities of corresponding by letter or by telegraph. Here, also, we find the transmission of mails by post to be an imperial privilege granted to few, while private per- sons were obliged to trust their correspondence to their own letter-carriers, named lahellarii, or to wait for the THE LAND OF SATURN 37 chance of a friend or an acquaintance undertaking a journey in the direction in which the letter was to be sent. In the second century of the empire, private com- panies were organized for the transmission of letters along the great trunk roads. I suppose that the officials of the cursus publicus, or postmasters, must have had a share in the business ; and considering that at each man- sio, or post-halt, there was a cab-stand for local traffic on the branch roads, it was easy for the letter to reach its destination, even in out-of-the-way places, in a com- paratively short time. Telegraphing seems to have been reserved for military purposes. Such a simple, obvious, and ready means of notifying friends that danger is impending or that relief is coming must have been hit upon in the earliest stages of civilization of the human race; but the first written statement occurs in the magnificent simile of the Iliad (18, 203-214), where the '* bright sheen from Achilles' head" flashing "up to the upper air" is compared to ** beacon fires blazing forth from a beleaguered island- home." The Jews maintained a regular line of signal stations between Jerusalem and Babylonia, to an- nounce the appearance of the new moon, as described in the Talmud,^ until the Samaritans lighted counter mock-fires, when the communication had to be sent by messenger. We have absolute evidence that the ancients could telegraph not only the simplest kind of intelli- gence by a prearranged code, but words and sentences as well. For instance, while the Lacedaemonian fleet of fifty-three men-of-war was lying off the southern end of the island of Corcyra in 427 b. c, a telegram to the ad- * Translated by Barclay (1878), p. 151. I have derived my informa- tion from Augustus C. Merriam's excellent paper, Telegraphing among the AyicientSy published by the Archaeological Institute of America, 1879. 38 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA miral from Cape Leucas, forty-five miles distant, warned him that an Athenian fleet of sixty triremes was sailing up the coast. The best telegraph system, invented by Cleoxenus and Democlitus and perfected by the historian Polybius, spelled out the words one by one, but its working was a little complicated and its sphere of action restricted to a distance of ten miles. Operator and receiver, in this case, were each provided with a board containing the letters of the alphabet in five lines, — A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y z and with a dioptra or stenoscope, to distinguish the right and the left of the operating station. One, two, five torches raised on the left, a light flashed or a flag raised one, two, five times on the same side, indicated the num- ber of the line: the same signs shown on the right in- dicated the number of the letter in each line. Suppose the w^ord roma was to be telegraphed: the operator would send first four flashes on the left, two on the right; then three on the left, four on the right, and so forth. The want of hotel accommodation made it almost im- possible for families and individuals who did not belong to the oflScial world to travel abroad. They could avail themselves only of ignoble wayside hostelries, such as the one described by Horace ('* Satires," i, 5), where he gives an account of his journey from Rome to Brundu- sium. Built for speculation, very likely by the local postmasters, they were either let to a landlord or man- aged by slaves. Where the traflfic was greatest, for in- THE LAND OF SATURN 39 stance on the Appian Way, there were several inns in the same neighborhood. Tres Tabernse, "the Three Taverns," was the name given to the station at the thirty-second milestone, where the meeting of Paul and the converts from Rome took place in the year 61, as described in Acts xxviii, 15. The next one, at the forty- first milestone (Forum Appii), is described by Horace as "differtum cauponibus," swarming with hostelries, as were the Tabernse Csediciae and the Caudi Cauponae, farther along the same highroad. The sprightly Vir- gilian cojpa (hostess) shows us in a very modern fashion the competition between rival establishments, and the advertiser's art in full operation. I suppose the compe- tition must have been started by pride rather than by a spirit of gain, because the diversoria were extremely cheap. Polybius says (ii, 15) that in Cisalpine Gaul there were no items in the bill, but a single charge of half an as (about two cents). He speaks, of course, of the late Republican period. For the early Empire we have a standard record in the well-known relief of Iser- nia,^ which represents a hostess reckoning with a parting guest. The dialogue between them is given verbatim, and the charges are : for bread and a pint of wine one as (four cents), for meat two asses, for the mule's prov- ender two asses, and eight asses for another item for which we refer the curious to the inscription itself. They were noisy, riotous dens, fit only for the lowest class of muleteers, and for peddlers and laborers, where scenes of altercation and blows occurred perhaps as often as they do at the present day in a suburban osteria. In a wine shop discovered at Pompeii in 1877 there are four such scenes painted on a band of plaster, above the podium or wainscoting of the front room. ^ Mommsen, Inscr. NeapoL, n. 5078. 40 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. The first on the left represents a young man kissing a woman, outrageously dressed in yellow garments. She says: nolo! cvm mvrtal ... "I don't want to be kissed; go to your My r talis." The second panel repre- sents the same girl talking to Myrtalis. They both point their fingers at a third female, bringing in a great wine jar and a glass and mumbling the words: qvi vvlt SVMAT . OCEANE VENi . BiBE ! — an invitation to bibu- lous customers. The third scene represents two gamblers seated, with a board on their knees, on which several latrunculi are seen, disposed in rows of different colors, yellow, black, and white. One is just throwing the dice, and says: exsi, *'I won." The other answers, pointing to the dice: non tria . dvas est, "You score two, not three." The men are fighting in the fourth scene; one says, "I did not throw two, but three, and I have the game "; the other answers, " You . . .! I have won." At this moment the landlord appears, and, pushing both drunkards into the street, says, iTis foras . rixatis, *'Go out to quarrel." Another source of annoyance and even of personal danger to travellers lay in the unsettled state of public security. There were regular associations of outlaws and banditti scouring the Campagna, the Ciminian dis- trict, the Pontine marshes, and the Maremma. The crossing of the forest near Cumse, called the Silva Gal- linaria, and of the Silva Alsietina on the Via Cassia, was considered so dangerous that private travellers were obliged to place themselves under the protection of police patrols, or of the escort accompanying govern- ment officials. Even the short journey from Rome to Tibur was at times unsafe. I have related in *' Ancient Rome," p. 211, how a brigand chief, Felix Bulla by name, held Central Italy at ransom for two years, scour- THE LAND OF SATURN 41 ing it from sea to sea, at the head of six hundred follow- ers, and how a schoolmaster, Julius Timotheus, having gone for a walk on the Via Campana, was attacked by highwaymen and murdered with seven of his young pupils. No wonder, then, that the majority of citizens should have felt satisfied with the possession of a summer place within easy distance from the capital, a distance which they could cover in an amazingly short time, by reason of the swiftness of their African ponies, the lightness of their pony-carts (birotce, biroccini), and the excellence of the suburban roads. We must remember that up to the time of Pius IX the Roman middle classes were satisfied with a country house on the Monti Parioli, or on the Monte Mario, and looked with envy at the privi- leged ones able to spend the summer on the Tusculan A hostelry in the Roman Campagna 42 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA and Tiburtine hills or at the shore of Antium. Had not modern means of travel been brought into play, this time-honored custom would probably still prevail. The custom dates at least from the time of Plautus (about 200 B. c), who ridicules the poor parasites con- demned to live for four months of the year upon their wits, on account of the absence of their patrons. Statins writes to Marcellus at the approach of summer : *'The city is already deserted; some have escaped to Prseneste; some to the cool forests of Diana, others to Algidum, Tibur, and Tusculum. Where have you given yourself a change from city life?" This question put to the wealthy Marcellus must be understood in this sense: "Which of your many country seats have you chosen to give you shelter for the time being ?" because, as a rule, patricians and financiers could ramble from seacoast to mountains, from a watering-place to a shoot- ing-lodge, without leaving their own domains. The Quin- tilii, for instance, owned a magnificent estate at the sixth milestone of the Appian Way and another at the four- teenth milestone of the road to Tusculum (the Villa Mondragone) ; the poet Flavins Claudianus had one at Marino, one at Ardea; Lucullus, one in the plain, one on the hills, one on the sea; "le prince des orateurs . . . Ciceron . . . ayant ete eleve aux plus hautes dignites de la Republique, batit, ou acquit, un si grand nombre de maisons de Campagne, qu'on en compte jusqu'a dix- neuf " (Chaupy). Centronius had no rivals for extrava- gance as a builder of villas. The same spirit prevailed in Rome at the time of the Renaissance, and the names of Cardinals Alessandro Farnese, Giovanni Ricci di Montepulciano, and Scipione Borghese will be con- nected forever by artists and histori-ans with the crea- tion of ** formal" or ** terrace" gardens, the type of THE LAND OF SATURN 43 which is happily coming back into favor. When Prince Marcantonio Borghese died in 1886, the family estate comprised fifteen or twenty villas, of which three were at Frascati and three between Anzio and Nettuno. As regards the estimation in which the various dis- tricts of the Campagna were held, the territory of Tus- culum from Bovillae (Le Frattocchie) to Labicum (La Colonna) takes the place of honor. It is the most con- gested section of Latium, numbering about ten villas to the square mile. Tibur comes in the second place, with its magnificent array of summer residences extending from the foot of the Lucretilis by Marcellina to ^fulse and Gericomio, and far away into the mountains towards Varia and Saxula. Prseneste — the "sestivae Romanorum deliciae" of Horace — shared with Tibur the favor of the fashionable clientele, because the for- ests which clothed its hills and dales, the abundance of springs and fountains, and its location on the watershed between the land of the Volscians and the land of the Latins made it an ideal summer residence, especially after Tiberius happened to recover from a mortal illness while residing in the imperial villa, the ruins of which are still to oe seen near the suburban church of the Madonna dell' Aquila. Augustus " was equally fond of sheltering himself from the cares of state and from official life in the Bay of Naples or on one of the Campanian islands. Of the country seats near Rome he loved the best Lanuvium, Prseneste, and Tibur, to which places he would be car- ried in a lectica in the cool of the evening, and so gently that sometimes he would spend two nights in covering those few miles." Horace manifests his partiality in the following order: the Sabine mountain-farm, the frigid Prseneste, the easy-lying Tibur, the sea-watered Baise. 44 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Some of these classic villa-centres are still in favor — Tusculum, for instance, Antium, and Tibur. Others, like Pra^neste and Lanuvium, have lost caste and gone A glimpse of the Lake of Bracciano out of fashion. Others still, like Albano and Genzano, have risen above their rather humble condition in old times ; a change for which I cannot give any explanation except that the slopes of Alba were set apart exclusively for the wine-growing industry, and those of Cynthianum THE LAND OF SATURN 45 were entirely overgrown with forests sacred 'to Diana Nemorensis. The Romans did not care for lakes. Only one villa is to be found on the shores of that of Bracciano, on the bold promontory of San Liberato, from which such a comprehensive view of the lake is obtained. It belonged to a Mettia Hedonea, and it teaches us the fact that the ancients had the habit of giving names to their coun- try residences, just as we do now. Mettia's was called "Pausilypon" because its position reminded owner and guests of the celebrated hill between Naples and Puteoli, from which a similar view over a blue sheet of water could be obtained. It may also have received that name in its literal sense of irava-iXvirov, or "softener of sorrow." The same remarks hold good for the great lakes of the north, Verbanus (Maggiore), Larius (Como), Benacus (Garda), Sebinus (Iseo), etc. The Greco-Celtic names of so many villages like Nesso, Lierna, Brienno, Dervio on Lake Larius, and Angera, Ispra, Suna, Lesa, Intra on Lake Verbanus, prove that those delightful shores were as densely inhabited in old times as they are now; but if we except the ruins of a villa at Sermione attrib- uted to Catullus, no other evidence exists to show that the Romans appreciated as it deserved the northern lake district. In fact, they knew so little about it that Virgil describes the Lake of Como as the largest (maxi- mus) of all, and omits all notice of the real Maggiore; and the Lake of Lugano (Ceresius) is not noticed by any writer earlier than the sixth century after Christ. As regards height above the sea-level, the ancients did not care for the extremes which we indulge in, in these days of cable railways, the altitude of their summer places ranging only between one and two thousand feet. 46 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The three highest Roman villas within the limit of the region over which the reader and I are wandering at present are Trajan's at the Arcinazzo Pass, between Subiaco and Guarcino (2755 feet), the Anician on the Vulturella, now called Santa Sigola (2772 feet), and a third, probably of the Antistian family, near Rocca di Papa (2310 feet). This last is associated with my first archaeological excursion in the Campagna, made many years ago with the late Commendatore de Rossi, to take account of certain finds which a local millionaire pea- sant, Locatelli by name, had made in the woodlands east of the village. We must not suppose, however, that the field of sum- mer resort was absolutely restricted to the hills of Latium or to the bays and islands of Campania. Etruria and the Tuscan archipelago were also sought, although in a minor degree on account of the dread of the Maremma, the obnoxious effluvia of which, borne on the ponente or sea-wind, from time to time reached even the inland hill towns. The great partiality which we mid-Italians feel for the Apennino Pistoiese and its glorious summer resorts was undoubtedly shared by the ancients, as is shown by the survival of so many classic names, such as Gavinana (Fundus Gabinianus), Cutigliano (F. Cutili- anus). Pons Petri, Popilio, Vico-Pancellorum, etc. We must also bear in mind that the patricians were extensive landowners, in Italy as well as in northern Africa, and that they were bound to visit their estates from time to time and watch over the doings of their stewards. In the last place, we have proof that in certain cases the choice of a country residence was determined by a love of sport. Why should the Domitian family, for instance, have purchased the two lonely islands of Igilium (Isola del Giglio) and Dianium (Giannutri), THE LAND OF SATURN 47 off Cape Argentario, and lavished a fortune in cover- ing acre after acre with buildings of great splendor ? Certainly not to try experiments in cultivation upon those barren rocks, as the brothers Oswald and Walter Adami of Leghorn have done in our own time with scanty success. The Domitii purchased the islands for the same reason that has induced our King Victor Emmanuel III to lease Oglasa (Monte Cristo) for a number of years, viz., sport. The rocky pinnacles with their shrubbery of dwarf pines, myrtle, laurel, and arbutus have been from immemorial times — probably since the first wreck of a Tyrian or Phoenician vessel — the favorite haunts of the wild goat. And where King Victor Emmanuel owns but a humble cottage, with poor shelter for a small yacht, the Domitii had raised an immense palace, the description of which as given by Onofrio Boni, Dempster, Giulii, and Pellegrini fills us with wonder at the power and lavishness of a Roman nobleman. The study of the marks impressed on the building materials excavated in 1900 at Giannutri proves, among other chronological and historical details, that every brick and tile used in the structure (and there must have been hundreds of thousands) was im- ported by sea from the harbor of Rome ; that the villa was begun under the Flavian dynasty and completed about the time of Hadrian (about A. d. 80-120); that the bricks and tiles were made in the Domitian kilns of the Vatican district, the most famous and extensive kilns in the world. The island seems to have been abandoned at the time of Constantine, but, like its neighbor, the Isola del Giglio, it was chosen as a tem- porary harbor of refuge by many Roman refugees at the time of the sack of Alaric in 410, as described by Rutilius Numatianus (i, 325). The Tuscan fiefs of 48 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the Domitii, comprising the two islands, the Monte Argentario, and the adjoining Maremma (Cosanum littus), having become crown property in the middle ages, were given by Charlemagne to the monks of the Trefontane in 805, together with Ansidonia, Porto Ercole, and Orbetello ; and the memory of this donation has been preserved to the present day in the geographical frescoes painted on the arched entrance to that ancient abbey. The craze for a thermal cure of some kind was char- acteristic of the Roman people, and the faith which they reposed in the healing powers of mineral springs has its first historical exemplification in the cure of Volesus the Sabine at the springs of Tarentum, in the Campus Martins, as related by Valerius Maximus. Near every mineral source of the Campagna, of Latium, of Italy, of northwestern Europe, and of the British Islands, traces have been discovered of the dwelling of former generations, and of their worship of the local deity from whom the medicinal virtue of the waters was thought to emanate. Where now gay crowds assemble to be treated for more or less imaginary ailments, the prehistoric man, the Roman conqueror, the mediaeval knight found relief in ages gone by, speedy and effica- cious in proportion to the depth and tenacity of their faith. The oldest thermal establishment in Italy known to me was discovered not long ago near Bertinoro, on the Via ^Emilia, a town still known for its magnesia waters. When the first Euganeans settled among the foothills of the Apennines and discovered the Bertinoro springs, almost level with the marshy valley where their huts had been raised on palisades, their first thought was to THE LAND OF SATURN 49 isolate and raise them to a higher level, so as to make them ready for use. For this purpose they hollowed out the trunk of a tree, stood it upright, and forced the lower end of this novel tube into the crack in the rock from which the water issued, thus raising its level by twelve feet. The soil around this rude arrangement has been found to contain many hundred votive offerings, mostly in the shape of clay vessels moulded by hand and baked in an open fire. The same system seems to have been followed by the prehistoric discoverers of the waters of St. Moritz, to raise their level above the swamps of the upper end of the lake, where the Neues Stahlbad now stands. They first built an outer caisson of trunks of fir trees, fastened at the joints or corners in the same way that the Swiss dwellers in high valleys fasten the timber frames of their huts, by means of mortises and wooden pegs. It was proba- bly meant as a pro- tection of the orifice of the spring against The prehistoric springs at St. IVIoritz landslides, or ice or snow. The inner caisson was made of roughly cut planks, fastened in the same primitive fashion, as the use of nails was not known to the Engadiners of that remote period. Then to make the two wooden tubes water-tight, and capable of carrying the level of the waters to the prescribed mark above that of the swamp, the intervening space was filled with compressed clay. This singular arrangement dates from the bronze age. OUTER CAISSON OF TREE TRUNKS A TRUNKS OF TREES, HOLLOWED 50 WANDERINGS IN THE ROISIAN CAMPAGNA The Fons Aponi (Bagni d' Abano) was likewise in favor with the men of the age of bronze at the time when the Euganean hills rose like rocky islands out of the Venetian lagoon. Here, also, we find the small clay vessels, together with other more elaborate products of that age. I have already described in "Ancient Rome," p. 46, how in cleaning the well of the Aquae Apollinares at Vicarello, in the year 1852, the workmen came across a layer of brass and silver coins of the fourth century after Christ, underneath which lay in chronological order and at ever-increasing depth strata of imperial coins and votive silver cups, of republican silver pennies, of ces grave signatum, — the earliest kind of Roman currency, — and lastly of shapeless fragments of copper (ces rude) which were used in the first market transactions, about the time of the foundation of Rome. Lowest of all was a layer of flint implements, arrowheads, hatchets, and knives offered to the sacred spring by the half-savage people who first settled on the shores of the lake of Bracciano in the age of stone. Pliny the Naturalist shows a preference for two groups of springs those fed by the underground fires of the Phlsegrean fields and those bubbling out of the foothills of the Pyrenees. At Baiae ailing humanity could find help in sulphur, alum, salt, nitric, bituminous, or acid waters; also in hot vapor baths of such power that they were made use of for heating and cooking pur- poses, especially the Aquse Posidianae, so named from Posidius, a freedman of Claudius, who had first made them popular. There were special cures for eye dis- eases at Puteoli and Gabii, for women's complaints at Sinuessa, for gallstones at Stabia and Teanum, for wounds and sores at the Aquae Albulae, and for nerves at THE LAND OF SATURN 51 Cutilise in Sabina. There were also excellent antilithic springs in Syria near Mount Taurus, in Phrygia near the river Gallus, and in Ethiopia at the Red Springs. One point we must bear in mind, as essential in the history of hydrotherapy: mineral springs were far more powerful and efficient in Roman times than they are now. The decrease in power can be measured within given limits by comparing the thin modern deposits with the ancient, which have encrusted or altogether choked pipes, reservoirs, and even bath-tubs. Inscriptions discovered in watering-places beyond the Alps prove that they must have been held in great favor by the Roman generals, officers, judges, col- lectors, and civil service men who happened to be stationed in transalpine provinces; also by the local army contractors, tradesmen, and landowners, to whom contact with their conquerors had opened the ways of civilization. At all events, the waters of Baden-Baden (Aquae Aurelise) and Wiesbaden (Pontes Matthiaci) were as popular in the German territory as those of Bath (Aquae Solis) in Great Britain, of Bourbonne-les- Bains (A. Bormonis), Dax (A. Tarbellicae) , Vichy (A. Calidae), Bagneres de Bigorre (Vicus Aquensis) in Gaul, of Aix-les-Bains (A. Gratianae) in Savoy, and of Acqui (A. Statyellae) in northern Italy. These famous spas were not inferior in comfort or luxury to their modern representatives ; artistically and aestheti- cally they were vastly superior. When we look at the shabby bath-house of the Aquae Albulae on the road to Tivoli, representing what young Italy has been able to accomplish towards the resur- rection of the famous springs, and compare it with the thermae built by Agrippa half a mile to the north of the present station, at a place called the Bagni della 52 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Regina, we have reason indeed to deplore our lack of means and taste. Imagine a thermal establishment surrounded by three lakes (of the Isole Natanti, the Co- lonnelle, and San Giovanni) of mysterious depth and of turquoise hue, with colonnades of verde antico, marble and mosaic floors, basins of gilt bronze or precious marble, statues, busts, gardens, fountains, a shrine dedi- cated Albvlis Sanctissimis, another to Cybele, the whole group surrounded and shaded by the wood sacred to the health-restoring nymphs. The transformation of the classic Campagna into the present waste began with the first barbarian incursions. This chapter in the history of the land of Saturn is too well known to require detailed notice. The cutting of the aqueducts and the abandonment of the drainage and road system were among the chief factors in this change for the worse. Malaria, which had been kept at bay for five centuries by sheer determination and the ingenuity of Roman farmers and villa-builders, again took pos- session of the doomed land, and the few survivors, help- less in their desolation, raised their hands to heaven, as their ancestors had done in the early days of Rome, and built a chapel to "Our Lady of the Fever," which became one of the most popular in Rome. And yet, notwithstanding these and other obvious reasons which can be brought forward to explain the desolation of the land, there are many points in its history which remain obscure. Had the former excavators of the suburban villas and farms been able or willing to read the book of the past with an eye to the stratigraphy of ruins, we should now have plenty of material and ample evidence at hand to start on our investigation of the truth; but they had only one aim, to gather marketable works of art OUR LADY OF THE FEVER, IN THE CRYPTS OF ST. PETER'S VHV OF THE LAND OF SATURN 55 and objects of value, with no consideration whatever for the archa3ological interest of the search. We know abso- lutely nothing of the fate of the Villa Quintiliorum, of that of " Sette Bassi," or of Hadrian's Tiburtinum, although every inch of their surface has been explored during the last four hundred years. The following in- stance shows what can be gained in knowledge of past events by a diligent inspection of the archaeological strata. The villa of Q. Voconius Pollio, on the road to Marino, at a place called II Sassone, was excavated at my suggestion by the last of Roman dilettanti, Luigi Boccanera, in the spring of 1884. Former excavators, overseers, and reporters would have deemed it sufficient to record the finding of eighteen statues and busts, of innumerable columns and capitals, friezes, mosaic floors, inscriptions, altars, lamps, coins, etc. To us, the way these objects were lying, the quality of the rubbish in which they were imbedded, the dates and names in- scribed on bricks, tiles, and water pipes, and the chro- nology of coins told the following tale. The villa, originally of modest size and sober decora- tion, had been built or purchased by a member of the Voconian family in the Augustan age. It was rebuilt and doubled in extent, in the time of Hadrian, by Q. Voconius Pollio, who was a man of great consid- eration and an extensive landowner in Calabria, and had probably made his fortune in Egypt, where he had become a worshipper of Isis. In the time of Severus Alexander the villa was purchased or inherited by a Prifernius Pseto, after a disaster of some kind, earth- quake or waterspout or fire, by which all the statuary had suffered considerable damage. After the first raid of the barbarians in 410, local peasants took possession 56 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA of the villa, as res nullius, and managed to live in the deserted halls by filling up their openings, windows and doors, with mud walls. One of these halls, of basilical type, was then turned into a chapel, and the necessity of preventing the apse of this chapel from falling hav- ing arisen, the supporting buttresses were entirely built with pieces of statuary imbedded in cement; among them were a Victory, a Silenus, a Faun, a Silvanus, a Cupid, an Eagle, five marble candelabra, and a great number of marble heads, arms, and legs. Before the collapse of the roof a wanderer, probably a Jewish hawker, collected in one of the rooms all the plate glass from windows and skylights, some of the sheets being still framed in grooves of gilt metal. Evidently the roof was the first to collapse, not in consequence of fire or accident of any kind, but out of sheer decrepitude of the trusses; and at that late period (the fifth century after Christ) some of the statues were still standing on their pedestals, an Apollo, a Hercules, and a heroic figure in the reception room, a Paris in the dining hall, a Marsyas in the northern garden, etc. When these statues fell, there were already three feet of rubbish collected on the marble or mosaic floors. The telltale strata of this rub- bish not having been disturbed by previous excavators, from the day the roof had caved in to the spring of 1884, we were able to gather from their study all these interesting details. One of the most irritating problems in this subject of the extinction of life in the Campagna is that concern- ing the fate of Ostia, a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, a city of wealthy merchants in whose hands the trade of the Mediterranean was concentrated. Ostia did not die a sudden death, like the Vesuvian cities; it was not taken by storm and destroyed at one stroke by barbarian THE CITHARCEDE APOLLO FOUND IN THE VILLA OF VOCONIUS POLLIO THE LAND OF SATURN 59 hosts, like Concordia Sagittaria ; it was not buried under its own pall of ruins and never disturbed in its rest; Ostia died a lingering death, by starvation, inanition, consumption, decrepitude, pillaged at leisure by foreign and domestic marauders, open to all treasure-seekers, and only exposed to such ravages of nature as came from the periodical floods of the Tiber and from the growth of shrubs and trees over its mounds. Such being the case, we ought to have found Ostia a city of bare walls, stripped of every movable fixture, not to speak of works of art and objects of value. Nothing of the kind has hap- pened. Some of its houses and public buildings look as if they had been deserted by their inhabitants and custodians only yesterday, and their works of art left intact. In the excavations of 1858 led by Visconti, a house was discovered in the "Strada delle Pistrine," ^ in the lararium of which some fifty bronze and silver stat- uettes of domestic gods were lying partly on the steps of the altar, partly on the floor. In 1856 gold rings, cameos, and other objects of value were found in the columbaria lining the Via Severiana. My first experi- ence in treasure-trove at Ostia dates from May 14, 1867. I was then learning from my friend Visconti — the last representative of a noble dynasty of archaeologists — the gentle art of excavating, and I happened to be present when the overseer brought the tidings that a great find was imminent. He had seen a bronze hand and a marble head brought to light in the "sacred field of Cybele." We rushed to the spot in time to witness the resur- rection of the (bronze) Venus Clotho and the (marble) Atys, of which two masterpieces I have given a repro- duction in " New Tales," pp. 189 and 191. These and other finds of valuables in open spaces, like the sacred * The Street of Bakeries. 60 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA field of Cybele, the Strada delle Pistrine, and the Via Severiana, have never been satisfactorily accounted for. Another reason for the present denudation of the Cam- pagna — where one can travel for miles on the roads to Prseneste, Labicum, and Tusculum without coming on a single tree — is to be found in the very love which the Roman peasants felt and in the worship they professed towards their sacred woods and towards the clusters of trees which overshadowed the country shrines at the crossroads. They knew that their agricultural prosper- ity was so dependent on the protection of the Latin groves that, to save them from the greed of unscrupu- lous speculators, with whose doings Juvenal's " Satires " have made us acquainted, they had placed them under the protection of the sylvan gods. On local anniversary gatherings at crossroads shrines these simple tillers of the soil would deck oaks and pines with gay-colored ribbons, and hang lamps upon their boughs, and pour libations over their roots. One who attempts in our days to cross the wilderness of Fiorano on the Appian Way, or of Capobianco on the Nomentana, finds it diffi- cult to believe that in ages gone by these very solitudes could have resounded with the joyful mirth of the pea- santry; and yet of those meetings, festivities, and games we possess records engraved on stone discovered in both places. Principal among these records are the Meno- logia Rustica or farmers' calendars, of which we have two editions, one called Colotiana because it was first seen about 1550 in the garden of Giovanni Colocci, the other Vallensis because one of the Delia Valle collectors of antiques had found the stone (used as an altar in a church near the mausoleum of Augustus). The first cal- endar is divided into four columns, each containing three THE LAND OF SATURN 61 months, the other into three columns of four months each. 1 choose the month of May as an example: — Name of month .... May Number of days .... xxxi Date of Nonse the seventh Length of days fourteen and a half hours Length of nights . . . nine and a half hours Sign of Zodiac the Bull Protecting god Apollo Farming operations . weeding the wheat fields shearing washing the wool taming of heifers hay harvesting lustration of the fields Special feasts in honor of Mercury and Flora If we consider the tenacity of country folk in cherish- ing traditional practices, especially if connected with material interests, we cannot wonder at the fact that tree-worship should have long survived the evangeliza- tion of the land. When the church became omnipotent, and the Campagna for the greater part church property, its line of conduct seems to have been inspired by the fiery words of Deuteronomy xii, 3, "And ye shall over- throw their altars, and break their pillars, and hum their groves with fire, '^ words which occur also in vii, 5. These were echoed in the fourth and fifth centuries by Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Augustine. In the Theodosian code, tree-worship is considered almost as a crime of state. A country priest guilty of leniency towards the offenders was punished with forty days' fasting on bread and water.^ The first thought of St. ^ Migne, Patrol. Lot., Ivi, 891. 62 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Benedict in taking possession of Monte Cassino was the burning of the forests once sacred to Apollo; and Prudentius does not hesitate to call the tools of destruc- tion used by the Christians the ''avenging axes," — Arbor cadit ultrici succisa bipenni ! Tree-worship, however, had taken such root in the Campagna and in its surrounding districts that the church was compelled to try other methods than brute force to put an end to the time-honored superstition. These were the substitution of St. Silvanus or St. Sylves- ter for the pagan sylvan gods (Silvanus, Apollo, Diana) ; the multiplication of churches bearing their names, on the tops of forest-clad mountains where pagan temples had stood ; and the substitution of shrines sacred to the Virgin Mary for the old altars at the crossings of the country lanes. Traces of this evolution still abound in the Campagna, and the name icona or iconetta, still given to country shrines by the peasants of Monticelli, Tivoli, Subiaco, and Nettuno, proves that it must have been accom- plished in the sixth century, when Byzantine Greek had becorne the language mostly in favor with churchmen. If my reader will refer to the map of Rome published by Bufalini in 1551, which contains also a strip of the land outside the walls, he will be surprised at the great num- ber of these suburban chapels, of which some were left standing in the days of my youth. Those that are to be seen in the Campagna have, alas, so little connection with trees, shade, and rest that when I touched the same subject in " New Tales," p. 114, 1 was obliged to borrow my illustration of an iconetta from a land from which trees have not been banished — the Riviera by Santa Margherita. The one here reproduced is to be seen on A WAYSIDE SHRINE (ICONETTA) NEAR SUBIACO OFTH ^WIVERS/TV I V OF ' JJ THE LAND OF SATURN 65 the lane to the Sacro Speco, above Subiaco. Churches of St. Sylvester yet crown the tops of Soracte, Vulturella, Artemisio, and Monte Compatri; the same saint is in- voked to-day by Sicilian shepherds, to drive away wolves, just as the early settlers on the Palatine used to invoke Faun the Lupercus for the same reason. The peasants of Lastra a Signa near Florence hold in veneration an oak, believed to have grown out of the staff of the blessed Johanna, just as the cornelian tree near the steps of Cacius on the Palatine was considered to have grown out of the spear of Romulus. The great number of shrines dedicated to the Madonna of the Oak, Madonna of the Laurel, Madonna of the Pine, which are to be foun L in Rome itself and in central Italy, are actual witnesses to the early Christianization of the land.^ Another characteristic of the land, which cannot fail to impress the wayfarer, is the great number of towers and fortified farmhouses, witnesses of an age of unrest and insecurity in which the holding of property in the Cam- pagna depended more on brute force than on hereditary rights. Twenty-one farms are still named castelli, or castellacci, or castiglioni, from their battlemented walls, and forty-one are named torri; the most perfect speci- mens of the first class being the Castelli dei Caetani and dei Savelli on the Appian Way, the CastelF Arcione on the road to Tivoli, the Borghetto on the Via Latina, and the Castel di Leva on the Via Satricana. Some of the towers still reach a great height, like the Torre Fiscale (a reproduction of which is given in "Ancient Rome," * On the evolution of tree-worship, and on the fate of the sacred woods in Rome and the Campagna, consult Stara-Tedde, "Ricerche sulla Evolu- zione del culto degli alberi," in Bull. Arch. Comunale, a. 1907, fasc. i-iii. m WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA p. 277) and the Torre Castellaccia west of the lake of Turnus ; others, like the Torre Sapicuza and the Torrac- cio near Morena, are still surrounded by outer fortified inclosures. The most picturesque in my opinion is the Torre Tre Teste, on the road to Prseneste, a favorite meeting-place for the foxhounds in the winter season. These castellacci and torri bring to our recollection another point of interest in the history of the Campagna, the attempt made by certain popes to restore it to life and prosperity after the retreat of the last plunderers, the Langobards of Aistulph, in 755, and the Saracens from Africa in 846. Their plan was to create a ring of fortified villages at an average distance of twelve miles from the walls of the city, which, while forming an intrenched camp around it, would answer at the same time as so many centres of colonization. These centres were called domus cultGB, and for a certain number of years an- swered their purpose well enough. When, after the in- road of the Saracens in 846, Pope Leo IV determined to fortify the Vatican district — the Leonine city or burgh of to-day — the colonists of the domus cultce were called upon to take a share in the work. Two inscriptions now affixed to the arch which spans the Via Angelica com- memorate the event. One says, "In the time of our Lord the Pope Leo IV the Militia Saltisina [a colony on the road to Ardea, fifteen miles from the gate] built these two towers and the wall between them"; the other, "In the time of our Lord the Pope Leo IV the Militia Ca- pracorum [a colony founded by Hadrian I near the ruins of Veii, on the site of the present farm of Santa Cornelia] built this tower and the wall which connects it with the next." Both Saltisinum and Capracorum must have been populous and prosperous colonies, and yet no trace of them has survived the ravages of time. THE LAND OF SATURN 67 The flora of the Campagna is not rich nor varied, but many districts claim a specialty of their own. Violets are particularly abundant in Hadrian's villa and in the woodlands of Veii and Collatia ; blue and purple anem- ones in the neighborhood of the Aquse Albulse; jonquils on the right-hand side of the road to Ostia near the farmhouse of Torre di Valle; cyclamens in the territory of Alba; and narcissi of great fragrance in the Campi d' Annibale, above Rocca di Papa. Primroses flourish in One of the watch-towers of the Caetani on the Appian Way only two places, — near the Ponte Lupo above Gallicano and at a certain bend of the valley of the Cremera. These beds, the existence of which was formerly known to few, have been, alas, found out by the vagabond flower sellers of Rome, in whose path follow destruction and annihilation. Forests also offer certain specialties; and, as in ancient Rome the Aventine was known for 68 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA its laurel trees, the Cselian for its dwarf oaks, the Oppian for its beeches, so the Alban hills were (and are at present) known for their groves of w^ild chestnuts and hazel trees, the Maremma for its pines, the Valle delF Inferno and the uplands of the Via Clodia for their cork- oaks, and the Sabine hills for their beeches. The most exquisite districts of the Campagna, from an Anglo- Saxon point of appreciation, where magnificent oaks and elms, fresh green meadows, luxuriant cattle, running brooks, and a variety of wild flowers unite to give the landscape a parklike aspect, are the valley of the Arrone near Boccea and the valley of the Rivus Albanus near Decimo.^ When Alessandro Sebastiani, the author of the " Viaggio a Tivoli," crossed the Monte Gennaro by the Vena-scritta and the Scarpellata, in the summer of 1825, he was able to make up a list of ninety-nine varieties of plants growing there, among which were Atropa bella- donna, Digitalis lutea, Gentiana cruciata, Polygala, Ve- ratrum, and Mercurialis. The same specialist in his " Florae Romanse Prodromus" enumerates two hundred and sixty plants growing in the joints of the stones of the Coliseum. The fauna, I am sorry to confess, can be studied only in the zoological museum connected with the University of Rome. The ludicrous criminal clemency of Italian game laws, the negligence of the authorities in exacting * Decimo stands, as its name implies, at the tenth milestone of the road to Lavinium (Pratica di mare), a quarter of a mile beyond the gate of King Victor Emmanuel's shooting farm of Castel Porziano. Boccea can be reached in an hour by motor, leaving by the Porta Cavallegeri and follow- ing first the Aurelia Nova for two miles, and then the Cornelia (Strada di Boccea) for ten. Boccea (fundus Buxeti, Buxetum) has been lately made known by Signor Leopoldo Silli, the author of Boccea e le sue memorie, published in 1907. THE LAND OF SATURN 71 Valley of the Rivus Albanus near Decimo. (From a photograph by A. Vochieri) obedience even to them, the cheapness of a shooting license, which can be purchased by the poorest peasants, have destroyed animal life in the Campagna, except in the royal preserves of Castel Porziano. Nothing is left to shoot but birds of passage at given seasons of the year, and even then it is a matter of carnage and de- struction, not of sport. The only breed of animals which seems to be flourishing and which constitutes the only real danger the explorer has to face nowadays are the shepherd's dogs. The church of the Divino Amore at Castel di Leva, on the Via Satricana, bears testimony to this state of things. It appears that in the year 1740 a missionary priest, having lost his way in that neigh- borhood, spied the roof of a house when he was almost spent in body and mind. At the same time a number of the farm dogs sprang upon him, tearing his coat to pieces while he was appealing in his distress to a figure 72 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA of the Virgin Mary painted on a wall close by. Help came at last from the farm, and the present church was erected as a memorial of the missioner's miraculous escape. If other wayfarers who had similar experiences had followed this priest's example, the Campagna would contain more churches and shrines than Rome itself. As a conclusion to this opening chapter I beg to be allowed to quote the following words from Sir Archibald Geikie's article in the '* Monthly Review" of 1904: » "The Campagna possesses a singular fascination, which has been often and enthusiastically described. The end- less and exquisite variety of form and color presented by the plain and its boundary of distant mountains, together with the changing effects of weather and season on such a groundwork, would of themselves furnish ample subjects for admiration. But the influence of this natural beauty is vastly enhanced by the strange and solemn loneliness of a scene which living man seems to have almost utterly forsaken, leaving behind him only memories of a storied past, which are awakened at every turn by roofless walls, mouldering ruins of mediae- val towers, fragments of imperial aqueducts, decayed substructures of ancient villas, and the grass-grown cities whose names are forever linked with the early struggles of Rome. European travel offers few more instructive experiences than may be gained by wandering at will over that rolling sward, carpeted with spring flowers, but silent save for the song of the lark overhead and the rustle of the breeze among the weeds below : where the mountainous walls of the Sabine chain from Soracte round to the Alban hills gleam under the soft Italian sky with the iridescence of an opal, and where the imagination, attuned to the human association of * Page 292. THE LAND OF SATURN 73 the landscape, recalls with eager interest some of the incidents in the marvellous succession of historical events that have been transacted here. If, besides being keenly alive to all the ordinary sources of attraction, the visitor can look below the surface, he may gain a vast increase to his interest in the ground by finding there intelligible memorials of prehistoric scenes, and learning from them by what slow steps the platform was framed on which Rome rose and flourished and fell." CHAPTER II THE LAND OF HORACE TIBUR, in the opinion of Horace, was the most attractive spot on earth. ** Please the Gods," he says, *'that Tibur, this ancient seat of the Ar- gseans, may become the shelter of my old age. when, exhausted by travels over land and sea and by the labors of war, I shall seek a place of rest." And again he asks his friend Fuscus Aristius, *'Do you know a happier and more beautiful place than Tibur, where the winters are mild, and where the zephyrs moderate the warmth of summer days .?" ''Nine times he men- tions it, nearly always with a caressing epithet. It is green Tibur, dew-fed Tibur, Tibur never arid, leisurely Tibur, breezy Tibur, Tibur sloping to the sun. He bids his friend Varus plant vines in the moist soil of his own patrimony there ; prays that when the sands of his life run slow he may end there his days, where the headlong Anio leaps over the brim of the precipice, where the olive groves cast their shade, where the orchards are saturated with shifting streams." The Rev. Dr. W. Tuck well, from whose " Horace " ^ I have borrowed these lines, quotes in his turn the following verses from a poem written, says tradition, in one night by R. C. Sewell of Magdalen College, for the Newdigate prize of 1825: — ^ Horace, by Rev. W. Tuckwell, M. A., in Bell's Miniature Series, London, 1905. THE LAND OF HORACE 75 **The dark pine waves on Tibur's classic steep; From rock to rock the headlong waters leap, Tossing their foam on high, till leaf and flower Glitter like emeralds in the sparkling shower. Lovely — but lovelier from the charms that glow Where Latium spreads her purple vales below; The olive, smiling on the sunny hill. The golden orchard and the ductile rill. The spring clear-bubbling in its rocky fount, The moss-grown cave, the Naiad's fabled haunt. And, far as eye can strain, yon shadowy dome. The glory of the earth, eternal Rome." To these noble lines, written by one who had never seen Tivoli, I must add a quotation from another poet, Delille, who, having seen it at the beginning of the last century, addresses the following words to the river, over whose falls oscillates the rainbow, the mystic sign of peace, the symbol of the restfulness of the old Argsean colony : — **0 Fleuve ... Toi dont le nom chante par un humble affranchi Vient braver, grace a lui, le temps qu'il a franchi ! Toi qui vis sur tes bords les oppresseur du monde Errer, et demander du sommeil a ton onde; Tibulle soupirer les delices du coeur, Scipion dedaigner les fasceaux du licteur, Cesar finir son triomphe au fond de tes retraites, Mecene y mendier de la gloire au poetes, Brutus rever le crime et Caton la vertu: Dans tes cent-mille voix, Fleuve, que me dis-tu? M'apportes-tu des sons de la lyre d'Horace.?" The texts of all the praises bestowed on Tibur by ancient poets were engraved in the seventeenth century on the lintels of doors and windows of the Palazzo Cesi (now Massimi), near the Porta Santacroce, at the sugges- tion of Cardinal Bernardino Spada, who, surrounded. 76 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA like Maecenas, by the leading men of letters of his age, used to repair to the *' groves of Tiburnus " at the return of each summer, until his death in 1661. Guidebooks describe, and local ciceroni point out to the unsuspecting stranger, the site and the remains of the villas of Cassius, Brutus, Horace, and Maecenas, the first two on the Carciano road, near and under the casino of the Irish College, the third at Le Ferriere, above the Cascatelle or smaller waterfalls, the fourth at Sant' Antonio, on the road to Quintiliolo. There is no evidence to justify such statements, but so far as the presence and social intercourse of those great men at Tibur are concerned, tradition is right. We know from Cicero^ that Marcus Junius the elder had left to his son, Caesar's murderer, an estate at Privernum, one at Alba, and one at Tibur, which, however, the heir was compelled to sell under stress of circumstances. The residence on these hills of his fellow-conspirator, Caius Cassius Longinus, is also a probability, if not a certainty, considering that he had married Junia Tertia or Ter- tulla, the half-sister of Brutus, and that as a member of the same extreme political party he must have followed his kinsman to Tibur, to hatch the plot against the dictator in the privacy and seclusion of their adjoining villas. 2 Horace was the son of a former slave of the Horatian family, an honest and thrifty fellow, who had been granted freedom, and, having acquired a sufficient com- * De Oratore, ii, 55. ^ Local topographers lay great stress on the mention of a '* fundus Cassianu^ [farm of the Cassian family] outside the gate to Rome" which occurs in a document of a. d. 945, also on the name of the road leading to it, taking Carciano as a corruption of Cassiano. The evidence is not conclusive. THE SMALL WATERFALLS OF -TH^ UNIVERSnv OF THE LAND OF HORACE 79 petency in his native town of Venosa, nursed but one ambition, — that his freeborn son should have a higher career in life. In this he did not differ from the Italian peasant of the present day, v^ho pinches himself to starvation that the firstborn of the family may enter the university and become a professional man. So the elder Horace dressed the lad in a style above his station in life, and, instead of sending him to the village school, carried him to Rome, where he could be educated with sons of knights and senators. "Twice in his old age Horace alludes rather disparagingly to his school-days in Rome; he was taught, he says, out of a Latin trans- lation from Homer, and his master, a retired soldier, Orbilius by name, was fond of the rod. ... As the young Englishman, on leaving college, goes to Oxford or Cambridge, so the young Roman went forth to Athens; and there we find Horace at about nineteen years of age, learning Greek and attending the schools of the philosophers ; . . . and there an influence entered into his life which helped to mould his character, but nearly wrecked his fortunes. Brutus, immediately after Caesar's murder, was at Athens, residing, as we should say, in his old university, and drawing to himself the passionate admiration of its most brilliant undergrad- uates; among whom were the younger Cicero and Horace." ^ When Brutus quitted Athens, after a time, to take command of the army raised against Antony, he carried Horace in his company, with the rank of military tribune. In this capacity he took his share in the disastrous rout at Philippi, which followed on Brutus's death, and returned to Rome humbled and with clipped wings. His father being dead, and his property having been ^ Abridged from Tuckwell's Horace. 80 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA confiscated, he had to begin Hfe again at twenty-four, first as a clerk in a pubUc office, later as a writer of verses. We cannot help admiring his pluck under such adversity. No man is ever laid on the shelf by Fate ; he has to reach success by sheer force of determination. Horace's first compositions were personal lampoons written for money and to order; still they attracted quick notice from connoisseurs such as Varius and Virgil, who introduced the rising bard to Maecenas. Maecenas's patronage of emi- nent men was due to policy as well as to inclination. Himself a cultured literary critic, fore- seeing the full-winged flight of writers still half-fledged, — the "iEneid " in Virgil's " Ec- logues," the " Odes " in Hor- ace's " Epodes," — he would not only gather round his board the men whom we know to have been his equals, but he saw also and utilized for himself and for his master the social influence which a rising popular poet might wield. To Horace, then, now twenty-seven years old, these imposing doors were opened. The first interview was unsatisfactory, the young poet being tongue-tied and stammering, the great man reserved and haughty; they parted mutually dissatisfied. Nine months later, however, Maecenas sent for him again, received him formally among his friends, and about three years later presented him with a country house and farm amongst the Sabine hills, a few miles to the east of Tibur, to which the reader and I will make a pleasant pilgrimage in due course of time. We must not suppose that the Portrait head of Horace in a me- dallion of the third century THE LAND OF HORACE 81 friendship of the beady-eyed lyrist was sought by the great of the land for his own sake; they were civil to him mostly in the hope of securing the dedication of a poem, by means of which their names would pass to posterity. And their wishes were evidently complied with, for nearly all the owners of villas at Tibur appear to advantage in one or more of the poet's lyrics, writ- ten, I suppose, as an acknowledgment of their gracious hospitality. Lollius, Antonius, Censorinus, Munatius, The peristyle of the Temple of Hercules, where Augustus administered justice Varus, Gallus, and not a few gay ladies have thus gained immortality in exchange for civilities shown to the son of an ex-slave of Venosa. These, then, were the personages whose assembly at Tibur made it the fashionable resort of the Augustan age. They were joined at times by the Emperor himself. 82 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA to whom treatment at the Aquae Albulse for neurasthenia had been suggested by the court physician, Antonius Musa. Suetonius, from whom we gather these particu- lars, adds that the Emperor, while undergoing the treatment at Tibur, would occasionally sit in the peri- style of the temple of Hercules and administer justice to the peasantry. To perpetuate the memory of these events a society was formed among the Tiburtines, called the Herculanii Augustales, for the joint worship of the deified emperor and of the "santo protettore" of their city. This society flourished for many centuries, and its doings can be followed with the help of records engraved on marble, collected by Dessau in volume xiv of the " Corpus. Inscr. Latinarum." Augustus did not possess a roof of his own on the banks of the Anio, but partook of the hospitality of some of his courtiers and friends. Here, again, we have no evidence to prove that his prime minister, Maecenas, owned a villa, except local tradition, which, however, couples the name of the statesman with the wrong place. What has been called since immemorial times "la villa di Mecenate," viz., the gigantic substructures above the Cascatelle or smaller waterfalls, we all know now to have formed part of the sanctuary of Hercules. But I believe tradition to be correct as far as the existence of a villa of Maecenas is concerned, and I agree with Maurice Albert ^ in identifying it with the so-called villa of Brutus, the second on the Carciano road on the western slope of Monte Ripoli. The number and value of the works of art which this villa has yielded from time to time, the beauty of its location, the view it commands as far as the sea, and a certain similarity of construction with the '*Horti Maecenatiani " on the Esquiline, favor ^ De vUlis Tiburtinis prindpe Augtisto, Paris, Thorin, 1883. THE LAND OF HORACE 83 Albert's theory. There are three terraces, now shaded by ancient oHves, the highest of which lies 195 metres above the sea, the lowest 179 metres. Great walls of reticulated masonry support the esplanades, once laid out in gardens with fountains and fish ponds, with paths lined by low walls of evergreens crossing each other at The middle terrace of the villa of Maecenas on the Carciano road. (From a photograph by Dr. Thomas Ashby) right angles, and with portrait busts of notable men set up at their crossings in the shape of hermse. The ac- count of the discoveries made in this villa in the time of Pius VI and Pius VII reads like a romance. I have in my library a manuscript volume of the correspondence that passed in the years 1772-1775 between Giuseppe Matthias, the owner of the place, Domenico de An- gelis, the excavator, and Giovanni Battista Visconti, the Pope's director of antiquities, which contains a mass 84 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA of unpublished details. The museum of statuary was discovered in the middle terrace. There was an Apollo Citharhoedus surrounded by seven (out of nine) Muses, a Bacchus lying on a panther's skin, a Pallas Athena, a Hygeia, a figure of Hypnos (Sleep), a group of a Silenus and a Bacchante, hermse of Antisthenes, Bias, Periander, and ^schines, and headless hermse in- scribed with the names of Pittacus, Solon, Cleobulus, Thales, Anacreon, Cabrias, Pisistratus, Lycurgus, Pin- dar, Architas, Hermarcus, and Diogenes. The whole collection was purchased by Pius VI for the sum of five thousand scudi — one twentieth of their present value — and exhibited in the Sala delle Muse, built expressly from the designs of Antonini and painted by Raphael Mengs. The Bacchic group alone was purchased by an outsider, the banker Jenkins, for six hundred scudi, and resold to an English collector for four thousand. A second search made by Pius VI, in 1780, led to the finding of an eighth Muse, Urania, of some statues of Egyptian style in black marble, of a crocodile in touch- stone, of a fragment of a frieze with a lizard and a frog creeping or leaping among acanthus leaves, and of two mutilated hermae inscribed with the names of Phidias and Bacchylides. A last herma of Plato came to light from the lowest terrace in the year 1846. There are three observations to be made apropos of this splendid set of discoveries. One refers to the lizard and the frog sculptured on the frieze of the middle ter- race ; the second to the portrait gallery of eminent men ; the third to the group of the Muses. The lizard (cravpo OF GREGORY THE GREAT THE LAND OF HADRIAN 147 the year 1556, when a first census was taken, 75,000 were growing within the municipal jurisdiction ; 103,045 were numbered in 1739; 126,000 in 1845, 150,000 at the present day. The trees live on a belt of the limestone formation, from five hundred to one thousand feet above sea-level. The line above which olive-growing would not prove remunerative can be seen even from Rome, the dark hue of the grove describing a perfectly hori- zontal line against the white ground of the rocks. Nat- uralists have distinguished seventeen varieties of trees and berries. The most impressive section of the grove lies in the direction of Gericomio; it contains worthy rivals of the Albero Bello; one especially, near the "voltata delle Carrozze,'* forming a mass of green a hundred and twenty feet in circumference. The Tibur- tine chroniclers assign to it an age of seventeen hun- dred years, which is obviously an exaggeration ; but I have no doubt that this veteran has seen more history than many of the monuments which form the pride of the city.^ The year 1769 marks the beginning of the excava- tions by the Scotch painter Gavin Hamilton. Having been informed by a peasant of the existence of certain objects of value at the bottom of the Pantanello, — a pool or swamp in the lowest part of the Vale of Tempe, — Hamilton, first drawing off the water by means of a drain, found imbedded in mud "a prodigious number of fragments of statuary, heads, hands, and feet, also vases, bas-reliefs, candelabra, figures of animals, columns of giallo alabaster and of colored breccia, not to mention capitals, bases, pedestals, friezes, and broken columns which were left where he found them." ^ The search ^ See also the trees in the double-page illustration here given. ^ Piranesi. 148 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA was taken up again in 1780 by the brothers Giambattista and Francesco Piranesi, in partnership with the owner of the pond. The best works of art from the Pantanello have been illustrated by that celebrated engraver in the volume entitled " Vasi e Candelabri." The excavations above described, and a few subse- quent ones made in the last century without special suc- cess, have yielded two hundred and seventy-one works of art, including statues, busts, reliefs, mosaic pictures, candelabra, vases, and fountains, a catalogue of which was published by Winnefeld in 1895/ These works un- fortunately have been scattered to the four winds, and the student wishing to acquaint himself personally with the artistic decoration of the villa, and with the evolu- tion of sculpture in the best period of the Greco-Roman school, must undertake a pilgrimage through every coun- try in Europe, including Italy (the Vatican, Capitoline, National, Borghese, and Albani museums), France (the Louvre), England (the British Museum and Lans- downe House), Prussia (the Antiquarium, Berlin), Swe- den (Stockholm), Saxony (Dresden), and Russia (St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk). I have said that the largest and best section of the villa was purchased about the year 1730 by Count Fede, to whose plantations of pines and cypresses the place owes its present picturesqueness. In 1803 it was bought by Pius VII for his nephew, Braschi-Onesti, whom he had endowed with a dukedom. Pietro Rosa, who was appointed superintendent of antiquities for the province of Rome at the revolution of 1870, acquired for the state the Braschi property as well as the olive grove of Roc- cabruna, and began a systematic excavation. The work was carried on from year to year until 1890, resulting in ^ Die Villa des Hadrian bei Tivoli, Berlin, Reimer, 1895, pp. 150-168. THE LAND OF HADRIAN 149 A hall near the Greek and Latin libraries, excavated by the author in 1885 the laying bare of the most important buildings, except the Canopus, the Thermae, and the Stadium, which still lie buried under their cover of earth. Since 1890, how- ever, the villa has been practically abandoned, and it will soon be deprived of the harmonious combination of picturesqueness and archaeological interest unless a change takes place in the policy of the administration. I shall not accompany the visitor in his inspection of the single ruins; they are still beautiful, apart from their classic name and purpose, and they are so exquisitely set in their frame of green that archaeological information about them seems out of place. The information is sup- plied, at all events, by guidebooks, the latest of which is accompanied by an excellent map, from the survey made in 1906 by the Royal School of Engineers.^ In beginning * La villa Adriana, Guida e descrizione compilatadal Prof. R. Lanciani, 150 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA his walk the visitor will do well to remember, first, that Hadrian's original structures are all of opus reticulatum, made of prisms of reddish tufa quarried in the Vale of Tempe; secondly, that the apparent confusion in the grouping of the various edifices arises from the fact that the connecting links between them, such as paths, gar- dens, terraces, canals, lawns, have disappeared; thirdly, that the feeling of lonesomeness which the visitor expe- riences in his solitary rambling grows from the fact that no flower beds brighten his eye, and no sound of rush- ing water reaches his ear; and besides, an olive grove is naturally a lonesome assemblage of trees. My final advice to the reader is never to attempt to visit Tibur and the villa in the same day ; he would not be able to enjoy either one or the other.' To the student of Roman imperial history, roaming about this land, the recollection of Zenobia's life, as a dispossessed queen and as a prisoner of state, inspires feelings of pity and admiration; and the proximity of her place of confinement to Hadrian's villa links her name to that of the Emperor, notwithstanding the long inter- val of time between the rule of one and the capture and confinement of the other "in Tibur ti non longe ab Ha- drian! palatio." This unfortunate mistress of beautiful Palmyra, widow of Odenathus murdered in a. d. 266, regent in the interest of her sons Herennianus and Timolaus, not con pianta rilevata dagli allievi della scuola degli ingegneri sotto la dire- zione dei professor! Reina e Barbieri. Rome, 1906. ' The less irrational itinerary in the labyrinth of ruins leads the visitor first to the Greek theatre and the Nymphseum, and then to the Pcecile, Cento Camerelle, Sala de' Filosofi, Teatro Marittimo, Stadio, Terme, Ca- nopo, Palazzo Imperiale, Biblioteche, Ospitali, and Valle di Tempe. '<' J^l 1 ™ ■:-..' **^^ ^c^l^^H W#:-:|| '^ j^ ■ • -— 4 ". ■"m pE'-^'- :^' '' « 1 -?^ M^^^ •f^ 1 ...a^ ^^^1 '-■ p# i t>'^^^^^^H ^2. r^J ■J ♦ mm ^^1 ■;^fa^"^*4' ■ .^ r '■}■- THE LAND OF HADRIAN 153 satisfied with the independence granted to her people by Gallienus, plotted to bring within the bounds of her sway the whole of the Roman provinces of the East, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor. It seems that this am- bitious scheme had been formed by her literary and political adviser, Cassius Longinus, whose masterly knowledge in every branch of learning had won for him the titles of " a living library," " a walking museum," and the "greatest philosopher" of his age. However, if it was through his influence that Zenobia was led to throw off her allegiance to the empire, the indulgence shown by Aurelian to the queen did not extend to the minister. He was made to pay for the mistake with his life. The meeting of the vanquished princess and the vic- torious Emperor must have thrjlleS even such veteran officers of the staff as were allowed* to witness the inter- view. She is described as a lady of "incredible" beauty (venustatis incredibilis), with an aquiline profile, eyes shining like living coals, brown complexion, and teeth so brilliant in their whiteness as to resemble a row of pearls. She could be gracious or stern, liberal or cau- tious in financial matters, according to circumstances; abstemious as a rule, she could drink toasts freely with the army oflScers ; used to a vehicle, she could walk three or four miles at the head of the troops attired in military array. Conversant with the Palmyrene, Syrian, Egyp- tian, and Greek languages, she understood also the of- ficial one of the empire, without being able to speak it. As a queen she loved to be dressed "in the style of Dido the Carthaginian," riding an Arab thoroughbred with the pompous show of an Eastern potentate. As regards her morals, I can only quote the expression of her bio- grapher : she was intensely chaste. Aurelian, I regret to say, did not spare the captive 154 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA heroine the shame of a public exhibition on the day of his triumph, the mise-en-scene of which had been most ungenerously planned. Bound wrists, feet, and neck with chains of gold, she was compelled to wear such loads of jewelry (gemmce ingentes) that she actually staggered under their weight. The latter part of Zeno- bia's life was spent in the manner of a Roman matron bent on the education of her children in the privacy of a country residence, which is described as being located in the "district of Tibur" near "Hadrian's palace," at a place called "Conchae." The villa was still known and pointed out as Zenobia's at the time of Constantine. The memory of these events has lasted to the present day. As the traveller through Rumania is reminded at every step of the presence of Trajan, the father-of-the- land, the hero of a thousand legends, so the rambler through the territory of Tibur is made to remember the fate of Zenobia in various ways which, although lacking authenticity, strike a thoughtful mind none the less. The remains of the thermae at the Sulphur Springs are still called the "Bagni della Regina"; the alleged re- mains of her villa are pointed out everywhere, in the "piani di Conche" near the railway station of Monti- celli, on the hills of Santo Stefano, etc. Even certain luscious products of Tiburtine vineyards, the famous pizzutelli, are considered a gift imported from the East by the queen. Unfortunately this kind of grape is mentioned two centuries before by Pliny the Elder under the name of "uva municipalis." I have taken pains to ascertain whether it is possible, after the lapse of so many centuries, to identify the villa made illustrious by the residence of Zenobia, and this is the result of my investigations. The name Conche occurs in two deeds, of Novem- THE LAND OF HADRIAN 157 ber 7, 1580, and July 26, 1585, in connection with the sale of certain lands, near the Bagni della Regina, made by the brothers Lentuli of Tivoli to the Dominicans of la Minerva at Rome. It seems that the fancy of local antiquaries was struck not so much by the name of Conche as by the discovery made by Prince Federico Cesi, among the same ruins, of gold and silver orna- ments belonging to a lady's toilet. The lady was iden- tified at once by their fervid fancy with one of Zenobia's daughters; and the tale, handed down from Kircher to Cabral and Del Re, from Marzi to Bulgarini, has found its way even into current literature. The truth is that the ruins of Conche, as well as the neighboring ones of the Casale di Sant' Antonio and Colle Ferro, are two miles distant from Hadrian's villa, and therefore cannot pertain to a residence described as "contiguous" to it. I believe that the place must be looked for on the hills of Santo Stefano, near and above the imperial country seat, on the upper section of the same ridge which is bordered by the Vale of Tempe on the north (Valle Pussiana) and by the Vale of Ponte Terra on the south. Here, on a plateau five hundred feet above the sea, commanding an unlimited view over mountains and plain, are, or rather were, the vestiges of a magnificent residence, indeed so magnificent that since the time of Ligorio it has always been considered as forming part of the imperial estate and, therefore, included in its plan by Ligorio himself, Contini, Pira- nesi, Canina, and Penna. I say were because the noble remains have been well-nigh obliterated. When I first explored the hills of Santo Stefano under the guidance of the late Pietro Rosa, they were towering in good preservation high above the clusters of genista with which the plateau was clothed. We had no difficulty 158 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA in recognizing the wings and sections of the group to which the fanciful names of Prytanseum, Gymnasium, Palestra, Academia, Temple of Diana and Venus, and Tower of Timon had been attributed by the pioneer archaeologists of the sixteenth century. I remember particularly our descent into a noble cryptoporticus, running round the sides of a quadrangle, on the walls of which Contini and Piranesi had written a record of their survey. This crypt, lighted by forty skylights opening in the intercolumniations of the peristyle above, and affording in the hot hours of the day a cool promenade 554 feet long, showed here and there traces of good paintings and stucco work. Contini's memorandum, written in charcoal, said: " In the year of our Lord 1634, the eleventh of Pope Urban VIII, in obedience to Car- dinal Francesco Barberini's commands, I, Francesco Contini of Rome, sparing no labor, have taken the plan of Hadrian's villa from its extant ruins so greatly dam- aged by time and men." Piranesi has scrawled in red chalk the following sentence: "Giovanni Battista Pira- nesi has drawn over again these ruins, trying to make out their plan, which is an almost impossible under- taking. These words were written by him in the thirty- fifth year of his age." It may interest the student of art to know that the white walls of this crypt are by no means the only album upon which architects and painters have signed their names, from the dawn of the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century. I have found several of these historical sheets: one at the uppermost turn of the spiral stairs of Trajan's Column; a second in the Lateran Baptistery; a third in the mausoleum of Con- stantina (S. Costanza), and a fourth in the cryptopor- ticus of Hadrian's villa, which runs around three sides THE LAND OF HADRIAN 159 of the Frigidarium of the Thermae. Many precious autographs have been destroyed, or rendered illegible, by ignorant and vulgar tourists, but it is still easy to make out the names of about thirty early explorers of Map of the hill of S. Stefano, showing respective sites of the villas of Hadrian, Zenobia, Maecenas, Lollia Paulina, and of the Vibii Varii the artistic charms of the villa, such as Henricus Bloe- maert Ultratrajectensis, 1627; David Kloker, 1627; Hen- ricus Corvinus Batavus, 1603; Mets, 1538 . . . Maler; Robertus Willers Londinensis, 1647; A. de Holmale, 1603; Carolus Albin, Parisiensis, 1641 ; Jacques Legrand peintre Fran9ois des Nations, 1662. 160 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Since my first visit to the hills of Santo Stefano the tentacles of civilization have caught in their grip even these out-of-the-way lands, and many vestiges of the past have been obliterated, not so much by the spade or the plough as by the greed of the peasants to obtain materials for the building of their farmhouses free of expense. It seems that there were not one but two great villas adjoining that of Hadrian, both being acces- sible by an independent road from Tibur. This pic- turesque lane, as shown in the map (p. 159), branches off the Strada Romana at the place called " il Regresso," and skirting the ruins of the so-called villa of Brutus ^nd of the Troianello, crosses the Vale of Tempe (Valle Pussiana) at the Chalybeate Springs (the Acqua Fer- rata), and leads to two groups of ruins, the nearest on the Colle Rosa, the farthest near the ruined church of Santo Stefano. This last belonged to the Vibian family, and more particularly to Vibius Varus, who, being governor of Cilicia under Hadrian, may have been in- duced by reason of his intimacy with the Emperor to follow his example and to build his country seat almost under the shade of the same trees. As regards the other villa at the Colle Rosa, the remains of which, hidden by luxuriant vegetation, I discovered on May 5, 1908, it belonged to the Lollian family, as shown by the inscrip- tion of a marble cippus, which the owner of the vineyard had dug out of the ground a few days before. This exquisite gravestone had been erected to the memory of a freedwoman, Lollia Eutyche, by her master, M. Lol- lius, whom I believe to be the consul b. c. 21, the governor of Gaul in 16, the tutor of Caius Caesar, and a suicide in a. d. 21. To him Horace addressed the ninth Ode of the fourth book, and to his eldest son and namesake the second and eighteenth Epistles of the THE LAND OF HADRIAN 161 first book. The most brilliant representative of this family, however, was LoUia Paulina, heiress to the immense wealth of which her grandfather had robbed the provinces of the East, the divorced wife of C. Memmius Regulus, empress with Caligula in 39 a. d., divorced again after a few months, again candidate for the imperial throne after the murder of Messalina. Lollia is not unknown to my readers. In '* Ancient Rome," p. 104, 1 have quoted the words of Pliny the Elder concerning her doubtful taste in the matter of personal attire. '*! have seen the lady at evening par- ties with her hair dressed in emeralds and pearls; in fact, she wore emeralds and pearls as earrings, neck- laces, breastplate, bracelets, and also as simple trim- ming of her robe, to such excess that the value of the whole set was estimated at forty million sesterces" ($1,600,000). The competition between the professional beauties, Lollia and Agrippina, for the hand of the Emperor Claudius, in a. d. 50, ended in disaster for the former. She was first banished, then put to death in a remote island, and her property was confiscated. I believe that the Villa Lolliorum, forming as it were an annex to Hadrian's, as part of the imperial domain, is the one chosen by Aurelian as the place of con- finement for Zenobia ; and I must acknowledge that no better selection could have been made under the cir- cumstances. The whole countryside by the Acqua Fer- rata and the Colle Rosa is picturesque in the extreme, well timbered, well watered, restful, soothing, tonic to the soul and the body. Here, in the same house where Paulina had appeared among her guests laden with such valuable jewels, the banished queen must have beheld with horror her own set of gems which she had been compelled to wear on the day of her disgrace and 162 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA humiliation, while chained with chains of gold to the chariot of the slayer of Palmyra. The student exploring these silent glades, where the spirits of dead heroes and heroines seem to be hovering among the crumbling remains of their former palaces, cannot help recalling Addison's lines : — " Poetic scenes encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground; For here so oft the Muse her harp has strung That not a mountain rears its head unsung; Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows, And every stream in heav'nly murmurs flows." Zenobia was not the first captive sovereign to whom Tibur had been assigned as a retreat. The name of '* Villa di Siface" is still given to some ruins on the left of the Via Valeria, one mile outside the Porta Sant' Angelo, in memory of the fate of the Numidian King Syphax, the ruler of Cirta, the husband of Sopho- nisba, the foe of Scipio, Lselius, and Masinissa, the undaunted patriot who fought to the last against the invaders of his native soil. It has been suggested that the second Punic War, in which these valiant leaders so distinguished themselves, had been brought about not so much by the rivalry between Carthage and Rome as by the jealousy between the two Numidian kings on account of Sophonisba. In fact, Masinissa's desertion of the Carthaginians and his alliance with the Roman invaders seems to have been actuated by resentment against Hasdrubal, who had broken a solemn pledge by giving his beautiful daughter in marriage to Masi- nissa's rival, Syphax, King of Cirta. When this royal city fell into the hands of the allied forces, and Sopho- nisba was left at the mercy of her former lover, such was the power of her charms that he forgave the past and THE LAND OF HADRIAN 163 The Tiburtine hills, a view over which Queen Zenobia must have gazed for years from the terrace of her villa-prison laid himself at her feet. The nuptials were celebrated without delay, but Scipio, fearful of the political con- sequences of such an alliance, refused to sanction it. Unable to resist this command, the Numidian king spared Sophonisba the horrors of captivity by sending her a bowl of poison, which she drank without hesitation. Syphax, sent to Rome as a prisoner of state under the charge of Laelius, was relegated to Tibur, where a timely 164 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA death saved him from the ignominy of appearing in Seipio's triumph. I need not say that the identifica- tion of the Villa di Siface at the first milestone of the Via Valeria is purely conjectural; and that the name **i Reali," which the district bears in old maps, has nothing in common with "royalty," but is an obvious corruption of the name ''Oriali," proper to one of the suburbs of Tibur. In studying the residences assigned to royalty in the hill towns of Latium, we must distinguish those of honored guests of the state from those of hostages and prisoners en 'parole. Royal guests were received in Rome with extraordinary honors. When King Prusias of Bithynia visited the me- tropolis in B. c. 166, a deputation from the Senate wel- comed him outside the gates, escorted him to a mansion hired for the occasion, and ordered that no less a person- age than L. Cornelius Scipio, praetor, should act as guide and escort to him during his visit. The same cordial reception was tendered to King Ptolemy of Egypt, when, banished from his country in 57 b. c, he came to seek the help of the Republic; to King Ariobarzanes of Cap- padocia, to King Nicomedes of Bithynia, and other such Eastern rulers, each of whom left in Rome a memento of his visit and a token of his gratitude, in the shape of a work of art in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. When Cleopatra and her brother-husband came to visit Csesar in b. c. 44, the dictator offered them hospi- tality in his own house on the Sacra Via. The result of this intimacy was the birth of a child to whom the tell- tale name of Csesarion was given, and the presentation of valuable gifts to the departing queen. The reception tendered by Nero to King Tyridates of Armenia, in a. d. 66, is described by Dion Cassius in the THE LAND OF HADRIAN . 165 sixth chapter of the sixty- third book: "There was a feast given in the theatre of Pompey, for the celebration of which the whole building was gilded. Hence the name of the ' Golden Day/ by which the occurrence is recorded to the present time. The awning stretched over the seats of the [17,580] spectators was woven of purple, with an embroidery in the centre representing A view of the Doric Court, Hadrian's villa Nero driving the chariot of the sun, the whole surface being dotted with stars of gold." In 1899 I found in the Vigna Serventi, on the Via Labicana, a much humbler souvenir of a regal visit to Rome, the funeral tablet of a butler or valet to King Samsiceramus of Emesa. In this " Romanization " of a difficult Eastern name we can easily detect the original form of Schamschigeram, which in the Palmyrene Ian- 166 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA guage means '* the Sun hath generated him." This chief- tain belonged to a dynasty which had first come in contact with the Roman at the time of Pompey the Great. His name must have sounded queer to Roman ears; it certainly stirred a sense of humor in Cicero, who in a confidential letter to Atticus (b. c. 59) calls Pompey "our Samsigeramus." In 1904 another tombstone, inscribed with the name of Tyche, a maid to Julia, daughter of King Tigranes I of Armenia, was discovered in the Faliscan district by Vignanello. This young princess must have been held for reasons of state at Faleria, where she built the shrine to Cybele mentioned in " Corpus Inscriptionum," vol. xi, n. 3080. The burial ground provided for foreign men of dis- tinction who died in Rome as guests or prisoners was located on the left bank of the Tiber, near the Milvian bridge. Here the grave of Abgar, son of Praat, sheik of the Osrhoenes, was found in May, 1724; and here also another tablet was seen in the sixteenth century, in- scribed as follows: "In memory of Ziah Tiat, daughter of Dakah, wife of Piepor, King of the Costoboci," a powerful barbaric race living in Bessarabia, near the land of the Alans. Zenobia's presence in our country was attended by other momentous results, among which the popularity gained by her own national god, the Sun of Palmyra, over the Roman Sun-Apollo, deserves special notice. The worship of the first, as practised in Syria, was not unknown to the Romans, tainted as they had been with foreign superstitions long before the time of Aurelian. An active propagandism in the garrison cities and har- bors of the East had been exercised since the days of THE LAND OF HADRIAN 167 Pompey the Great by the votaries of Baal, Sabazius, Rhea, Atys-Menotyrannus, Mithras, Jupiter Dolichene, Isis, and Serapis, to make proselytes among the legion- aries and among the crews of the war vessels stationed at Alexandria and at other ports of the Phoenician and Lycian seas. These simple folk, returning home at the expiration of their military service, would form societies, bound by mystery and secrecy, for the practice of grew- some ceremonies in underground dens, which bore the name of spelea in case of a Mithriac brotherhood, or of megara when used for Isiac initiations. And we must not forget that the law allowed to foreign colonies ample freedom to worship their Oeol TrarpcooL in their own way, under the care of their consuls or irpo^evoi, who were invested at the same time with sacerdotal and commer- cial functions. Three fanatics had made themselves conspicuous in Rome long before Zenobia's advent, as apostles of East- ern creeds — C. Julius Anicetus, Ti. Julius Balbillus, and M. Antonius Gaionas. This last meddler, owing to certain discoveries made on the Janiculum while I am writing this chapter, has become the hero of the day and the most-talked-of personage in archaeological circles, as we shall presently see. Through their joint efforts, and through the influential support of other sectarians, a public place of worship for the Palmyrene gods had been erected on the outskirts of the city, at the foot of the Gardens of Caesar, on the right of the road to Porto, and on the site of the Vigna Bonelli, where the new railway station for the Maremma lines now stands. It was not a temple in the Roman sense of the word, but an assem- blage of meeting and committee rooms, chapels, shrines, fountains, porticoes, including even a stage for theatrical performances. Here C. Julius Anicetus, who must have 168 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA been a person of neat proclivities, had a marble tablet put up at the entrance door, inscribed with the following caution: "C. Julius Anicetus, by order of the Sun, begs that none entering these premises should write on the walls or scratch or soil the plastering." Here a great number of altars with dedications in Latin and Palmy- rene had been erected to gods whose names must have sounded strange to Roman ears, — Baal, Belos, Aglibe- los, Malakibelos, Alagabalos, and the like. And what must people used to the dignified grace of the classic A dedication to Malakibelos, written in Palmyrene, discovered in the Trastevere, and now in the Capitoline Museum ^ epigraphic style have thought of dedications written in such uncouth spelling as the one here reproduced ? ^ The other ardent sectarian, Ti. Julius Balbillus, be- trays his Syrian origin by the radical of his name (Baalbillus), a name which occurs in more than twenty inscriptions, mostly discovered in the Trastevere. He is pointed out in these as a priest of the sun Alagabalos, as a great favorite among his co-religionaries, to whom even ^ Compare Corpus Inscr., vol. vi, n. 710. ^ This dedication, engraved on an altar discovered about 1485 on the site of the sanctuary just described, has been translated by Gildemeister as follows: " This altar has been erected by Tiberius Claudius Felix, and other Palmyrenes, to Malakibelos and the Gods of Tadmor." THE LAND OF HADRIAN 169 statues were raised in token of his zeal/ and as having finished his career about the beginning of the third cen- tury after Christ, in the time of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. But the most important document concern- ing his family and relations, and his connection with the royal house of Palmyra, is the legend of the pedestal of a statue discovered at S. Callisto in the Trastevere by Rycquius. It says: '*[This statue is dedicated] to Lucia Septimia Balbilla Patabiniana Tyria Nepotilla Odcena- thiana, daughter of a patrician house, by her nurse, Aurelia Publiana Elfridia."^ It appears from this dis- play of names that the girl Balbilla (probably the grand- daughter of Julia Balbilla, former lady-in-waiting to the Empress Sabina, whom she followed in her journey up the Nile, and with whom she signed her name on the pedestal of the Colossus of Memnon) had also a touch of royal Palmyrene blood in her veins, having been named Lucia Septimia in memory of Zenobia, and Odcena- thiana in memory of her murdered king. These con- jectures are strengthened by the evidence of the so-called Trebellius Pollio in chapter twenty-seven of the life of the Thirty Tyrants. '* Aurelian," he says, "has been accused of the murder of Zenobia's sons Herennianus and Timolaus. But it is almost certain that both died a natural death, because the descendants of Zenobia are still flourishing to this day [fourth century] among the Roman nobility." ^ The events just related and the outburst of fanati- cism in favor of the gods of Syria and Palmyra must have given concern to the college of pontiffs, trustees as ^ Compare Corpus Inscr. LaL, vol. vi, n. 708, 1027, 2129, 2130, 2269, 2270, and Kaibel, Inscr. Grcecoe, n. 962, 969, 970-972. ^ Compare Corpus Inscr., vol. vi, n. 1516. ^ Compare Sallet, Die Fursten von Palmyra, Berlin, 1866. 170 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA they were of the rehgious interests of the capital. Aure- lian himself, the indirect cause of the trouble, thought it expedient to interfere by raising a temple to the "offi- cial" Sun of Rome, on the same Quirinal hill on which it had been worshipped from time immemorial at the "Pulvinar Solis," a shrine which must have stood where the group of the Horse Tamers now stands. This tem- ple, described as the "most magnificent" in Rome, was also meant to give the people an impression of the mag- nitude of Eastern architecture, especially as regards the size of the marble blocks used in the structure. The one now lying in the upper terrace of the Villa Colonna, which measures nine hundred cubic feet and weighs a hundred tons, had been raised to the level of the pedi- ment, a hundred feet above the floor of the temple! A discovery, made in the year 1870, of several Palmyrene memoranda written in charcoal or red chalk on the plastering of one of the crypts of the temple, connects its origin and its fate with the beautiful Queen of the East, Zenobia, who, from the terrace of her house on the hills of Santo Stefano, could see the chariot of the Roman god glistening in the morning sun from the pedi- ment of the temple raised by Aurelian to commemorate her own defeat. I must now introduce to my reader the third member of the Syrian brotherhood, M. Antonius Gaionas, whose name has been made popular again in Rome by the discoveries made on the Janiculum on Saturday, Febru- ary 6th, of the present year. The beginning of this bright incident in the history of urban excavations goes back to the summer of 1906, when Mr. George Wurts, the present owner of the Villa Crescenzi-Ottoboni-Sciarra, was laying the foundations of a new gardener's house near the lower gate opening THE LAND OF HADRIAN 171 on the Viale Glorioso. Among the many marbles with Greek and Latin inscriptions brought to Hght on this occasion there were -a votive altar to the Syrian god Adados; another to Jupiter Maleciabrudes, the local god of the Syrian town of Jabruda; a third to Jupiter Keraunios, or Fulgurator, and to the Nymphs Furrinse; and lastly a Greek metric inscription concerning cer- tain works accomplished by a devotee named Gaionas (the Aramaic for *' the magnificent"). This enterprising ,1?^/ 'V-ri,msS^JK4aJ^M,^Cm*9c^!^hiiJ^- The remains of the Temple of the bun opiX).sile llie Quiriiial palace. (From an engraving by Giovannoli made in the time of Paul V) representative of Eastern superstitions in Rome was already known to us, like Balbillus, from other records, published both in the '* Corpus Inscr. Latin." and in Kaibel's " Inscr. Grsecse." In these he gives himself great airs, and the unheard-of titles of " deipnokrites " and **cistiber" or "cistiber Augustorum." He was cer- tainly a busybody, always on the alert to catch the opportunities of the moment, and to make himself con- spicuous whenever circumstances permitted. When in 172 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the year 176 the spiral column was raised in the Cam- pus Martins to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in com- memoration of his successful campaigns against the Marcomanni and the Sarmati, what should Gaionas do but erect a diminutive column of his own, with a pom- pous inscription in praise of the same deeds of his sovereign. The texts discovered by Mr. Wurts in 1906 proved: first, that the lower section of the old Villa Sciarra, where the gardener's cottage has just been erected, marks the site of the sacred grove of Furrina, where Caius Gracchus was put to death by his own attend- ant in B. c. 121, while the bodies of his three thousand partisans were thrown into the Tiber, which runs just at the foot of the slope; secondly, that the existence in the same grove of several springs, held in religious re- spect, brought about in imperial times the evolution of the old local goddess Furrina into a group of aquatic Nymphs of the same name; ^ lastly, that at the time of the Antonines a section of the sacred grove, and one, at least, of the springs, became the property of the Syrian colony (or of one of the Syrian colonies) in Rome, which was given leave to build a national chapel and to set up a fountain for the use of its attendants. Starting from these facts. Professor Paul Gauckler — .whose archaeological work as Curator of Antiquities in Tunisia stands in no need of my praises — took up the subject with a view to a thorough search of the ground, and, overcoming various difficulties, in high and low quarters, he has, with the assistance of Messrs. George ^ Cicero (Nat. Deor., iii, 18) calls the scene of Gracchus's murder the grove of the Furies, but those Attic deities do not appear to have been naturalized at Rome; and we may infer from Varro that Furrina was some indigenous goddess. THE LAND OF HADRIAN 173 Nicole and Gaston Darien, and the sanction of the owner of the ground, the Marchese Medici del Vascello, carried out his plan with perfect success. In the first place, the spring made into a canal by Gaionas for the benefit of his fellow-worshippers has been again brought into play. It gives an output of a hundred and forty cubic metres per day, and, being of excellent quality, represents to the owner of the land an L W wm-^ * fS The finding of the triangular altar in the chapel of Jupiter Heliopolitanus on the Janiculum additional capital of a hundred thousand francs. The basin of Carystian marble (cipollino oscuro) into which the water once fell, discovered accidentally in 1902, was sold to the antiquary Simonetti for two thousand seven hundred francs, and still belongs to his collection. In the second place, it has been made clear that the original sanctuary, built by Gaionas towards the end 174 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA of the second century, must have come to grief — or been abandoned — a hundred and fifty years later, on account of its unfavorable position at the bottom of a ravine, and another must have been built at a higher level, with the negligence and the poverty of materials characteristic of the fourth century. The walls of this later sanctuary have no foundations, and are built with chips of tufa and bad cement ; but the plan of the structure itself is remarkable. It comprises a central assembly room of considerable dimensions, facing the east, with a triangular base in the middle, and a square altar in the apse, over which a mutilated marble statue was lying, probably of a Jupiter Heliopolitanus or of a Romanized Baal. The assembly room is surrounded by five or six chapels, in the plan of which, as well as in other structural details, the triangular shape pre- vails. In one of these recesses, at the eastern end of the group, another triangular altar of large dimensions was discovered on February 6, 1909, with a rim or raised border, as if to prevent a liquid substance from spread- ing over it and dripping on the pavement. It seems, in the third place, that towards the middle of the fourth century the worshippers in this Syrian chapel must have joined forces with the worshippers of Mithras, who were then engaged in a war a outrance against the overpowering Christian influence; and that they must have had to face the same decree of suppression issued by Gracchus, prefect of the city, in 377, which put an end to the practice of foreign superstition in Rome. To such an incident in the history of the Syrian Transtiberine congregation Professor Gauckler attrib- utes the fact that the beautiful statues of gods discov- ered at the present time within the precincts of the sanctuary had been studiously concealed two feet below THE LAND OF HADRIAN 175 the floor. One, absolutely perfect, represents a young Bacchus with the usual attributes, and with the head and hands heavily gilded. Perhaps the figure was dressed in rich Eastern clothing, like some of our pop- ular saints in Italian villages. The other is an exquisite A more detailed view of the triangular altar before the trap door marked A, B, C, D was lifted image of a young Isis, which I believe to be an original Egyptian work worthy of having come out of one of the studios of the Saitic school; while others consider it an imitative work of the time of Hadrian. The statue (cut 176 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA in black basalt) must have been knocked off its altar or pedestal by a heavy blow on the forehead, disfiguring the nose and the lips, and breaking the body into five or six pieces, which, however, were piously collected by some one and buried in the apse of one of the smaller chapels. I believe not one is missing. The finds described in the preceding paragraphs, in- teresting as they are from the archaeological point of view, have been almost cast into oblivion by those which have revealed to us some of the secrets of the place. In the "sancta sanctorum" of the main chapel, within the high altar and right under the feet of the Jupiter- Baal, a hiding-place has been detected, about one foot square, lined with plaster, in which part of a human skull of an adult was concealed. There were no traces of jaws or teeth or incinerated bones, nor of goblets, medals, jewelry, and other such funeral KeufjajXia. The section of the skull appears to have been neatly cut, to fit the size of the hole which was to guard the secret of its existence for nearly sixteen centuries. As we cannot for obvious reasons consider this relic an os resectum, a remnant of the incineration of the body. Professor Gauckler has advanced the conjecture that we may have in this piece of skull the evidence of a human sacrifice "of consecration," so frequent in the rites of Semitic religions. The place of honor given to it in the Trans- tiberine sanctuary shows how valuable it was in the eyes of the initiated, at whose expense the sanctuary had been rebuilt. This would be, then, the first evidence of a human holocaust ever found in Rome. The victim, im- molated according to the ancient rites, by virtue of the sacrifice would chain the god, as it were, to the relics, thus insuring his actual presence wherever they were THE LAND OF HADRIAN 177 preserved. We must remember, apropos of this theory, that when the Mithrseum of Alexandria was suppressed by the Emperor Cons tan tins in 361, a party of Christian invaders discovered in a secret passage human bones, which were shown to the populace as a proof that human sacrifices had been perpetrated in that den of iniquities. Another secret has been found buried in the core of What was found in the hiding-place the triangular altar at the eastern end of the building. It seems that on the consecration day a symbolic image of the presiding god, or of one of the presiding gods, was buried in a hiding-place identical in shape with the one described above, and sealed with a "tegula bipedalis'% lined with cement around the rim. Lying at the bottom of the cache, with feet turned towards the west, viz., towards the high altar, was a bronze figure of a Mithras Leontokephalos (?), wound, as usual, in the coils of a 178 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA snake, whose head bends forward above that of the god. The interrogation mark in such matter-of-fact ques- tions is easily explained. On the day of the consecra- tion, before the hiding-place was sealed, in which the snake and its symbolic victim were to lie forever, mystic food was provided for the reptile, and five hen's eggs were deposited, one at each coil. I do not know how these eggs came to be broken ; the fact is that their yolk, mixed with dust and lime, has stained and encrusted the figure so that it is impossible to make out its features, and the material in which it is cast or moulded or chiselled, unless it is lifted from its couch and examined in the proper light. This has not been done yet, be- cause there is a probability that the altar and its contents may be removed bodily to the Museo Nazionale, where the proper investigation can be made in more favorable circumstances than in the open air. I have found the following point of comparison in the "memoirs" of Flaminio Vacca, the genial archaeological chronicler of the time of Sixtus V. He describes how a secret place of worship, the door of which had been walled up, was found in the vineyard of Orazio Muti opposite the church of San Vitale, just at the point where the Via Venezia now branches off from the Via Na- zionale ; and says that, the wall having been demolished, the explorers saw a human figure with the head of a lion, round whose body a serpent was wound in coils, with the head above that of the monster-god. There were many clay lamps around the plinth of the statue, with the "becco" or point turned towards it. I can vouch for the accuracy of Vacca's statement, because the cave was entered again in 1869, when Monsignor de Merode, Secretary for War to Pope Pius IX, was tracing the present Via Nazionale along the northern THE LAND OF HADRIAN 179 slope of the Viminal. It was undoubtedly a Mithrseum in which the god was worshipped — as on the Janicu- lum — as Leontokephalos. The door must have been walled up by the devotees at the time of the last perse- cution of Gracchus (a. d. 377). Another name, and an equally popular one, is con- nected with Hadrian's villa. Antinous, that youth of extraordinary beauty, that most perfect specimen of manhood to be found in ancient statuary, born at Claudiopolis in Bithynia, became at an early age the favorite of Hadrian and a companion of his travels. In the year 122, while the imperial galley sailing on the Nile was abreast of the city of Besa in the Heptanomis, the favorite fell overboard and was drowned. His death has been considered by grave historians not as the outcome of an accident, but as an act of suicide h6tn melancholy, occasioned by the belief that the sacrifice of his life would avert evil from the Emperor. The grief of the latter knew no bounds; it is called "feminine" by the biographer. The dead youth was enrolled amongst the gods. Besa, where the sad ev>ent took place, was rebuilt in new splendor under the name of Antinoopolis, and made the capital of the Antinoite Nomos or province; temples were erected to him at Mantinea and at Lanu- vium ; clubs and collegia were named after him, like that of the "cultores Dianae et Antinoi" at Civita Lavinia,^ and regular feast-days were established at Athens, Ar- gos, Mantinea, and Claudiopolis. The representations of his likeness in statues, busts, and bas-reliefs are innu- merable. The one reproduced on page 165, discovered by Gavin Hamilton in 1795 at Palestrina, reaches the same degree of perfection, among full-sized statues that * Compare Corpus Inscr., vol. xiv, p. 196, n. 2112. 180 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the Albani portrait, found in Hadrian's villa in 1735, claims among bas-reliefs. In the Palestrina replica, An- tinous is represented as Dionysus with the ivy wreath, the pine cone on the forehead, and the mystic cista on the plinth. The head, Helbig remarks,^ "suggests the half-sensuous, half-gloomy mystic nature of the Bithy- nian, who probably had a neat complexion with dark eyes and blue-black hair." Emil Braun^ considers '*this portrait of the wonderfully constituted youth — who has attained a greater personal celebrity than almost any other personage of pagan antiquity — as the most faith- ful and complete we possess. Every feature of the face is given with a sharpness proving that the master com- missioned to execute so splendid a monument had con- fined himself strictly to the truth of nature. He has at the same time succeeded in expressing that magic power which exercised so mysterious an influence, not merely upon Hadrian, but on all his contemporaries. ... In the total absence of satisfactory information as to the relation between Antinous and Hadrian, the numerous monuments raised with unfeigned enthusiasm to cele- brate the memory of the former are of inestimable value." The same archaeologist, speaking of the colos- sal bust (n. 545 in the Rotunda of the Vatican), which is represented as growing out of the calyx of a lotus flower, in a species of metempsychosis, remarks how "the rounded outlines of the Bithynian, the slightly curled hair, and the lovely trace of melancholy are not without originality in this thousand-times-repeated por- trait. As regards the calyx of the flower, introduced below the bust (sic), it probably refers to the flower named after Antinous, in which the soul of the youth, * Guide to the Collections of Antiquities in Rome, ed. 1895, p. 209, n. 295. ' Ruins and Museums of Rome, p. 436, n. 1. THE STATUE OF ANTINOUS DISCOVERED BY GAVIN HAMILTON AT PALESTRINA IN THE YEAR 1795 THE LAND OF HADRIAN 183 so early called away, was supposed still to continue to exist." We have in Rome a monument inscribed with his name, placed in a popular and conspicuous position; but its connection with Antinous being expressed in hieroglyphics, it has become known only to few. I refer to the obelisk, discovered in 1570 by the brothers Curzio and Marcello Saccoccia in the circus of the Varian Gar- dens beyond Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which was removed by Bernini to the Barberini palace at the time of Urban VIII. President de Brosses and five other gentlemen from Burgundy asked leave from Pope Clement XII to erect it at their expense in front of S. Luigi di Francesi. This scheme luckily failed, but the wanderings of the pillar did not end then. Princess Cornelia Barberini presented it to Clement XIV, who caused it to be removed to the Vatican ; Pius VI thought of placing it first in the Piazza di Monte Citorio, and again on top of the tower of the Porta Pia, so that an observer standing at the crossing of the Quattro Fontane could see four obelisks, at the end of the four streets. Valadier and Pius VII set it up at last in the central avenue of the Passeggiata del Pincio. The hier- oglyphic legends which it bears, written in the over- mannered style of Hadrian's age, sing the deification of the drowned favorite in various ways, and reveal a circumstance of thrilling interest: Antinous was buried in Rome in Hadrian's mausoleum! " Antinous welcher dort ist, welcher ruht in dieser Statte, die in Grenzfelde der Herrin des Genusses Hrome liegt." From these words ^ we gather that the obelisk now on the Pincian Hill must have been raised by Hadrian on the spina ^ Translated by Dr. A. Herman in Mittheil. des Archaeol. Inst, Roemische AhtheiL, 1896, p. 119. 184 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA of his circus adjoining the mausoleum, and that one of the Varian family, probably Helagabalus, must have removed it to his own racing-ground by the Via Labi- cana. His example was followed not many years later by Maxentius, who removed Domitian's obelisk from the Stadium (Piazza Navona) to the circus near Metella's grave on the Appian Way. Pope Innocent X in 1651 and Pope Pius VII in 1822 set matters right once more, the first by bringing back (unconsciously) the monolith to its old location, the other by setting up Antinous' needle *'in Grenzfelde der Herrin des Genusses Hrome," in full view of Hadrian's mausoleum. In my experience of Roman and suburban excava- tion, I have come in contact with this exquisite type of manhood at least a dozen times: once, I remember, in the woodland of Isola Farnese, where a laborer had just struck with his plough the left shoulder of a bust. I helped to disengage it from the earth, and shall never forget the sight of that lovely face suddenly appearing amidst such desolate surroundings and looking at us two with a melancholy expression, as if we had dis- turbed the peace of his grave. I remember also how, in the year 1886, while the foundations of the Banca d' Italia were being laid at the corner of the Via de Serpen ti and the Via Nazionale, a full-sized portrait statue, under the attributes of Bac- chus, was found standing upright in the studio of a mediaeval sculptor. He had probably discovered it among the ruins of the villa of L. Funisulanius Vetto- nianus, at the eighth milestone of the Via Nomentana, on the banks of the stream of Marco Simone, and had it removed to his workshop, so that he might feast his eyes on the beautiful subject and derive artistic inspira- tions from it. That such was the case, and that even THE LAND OF HADRIAN 185 the stolid mediseval artists were struck by the exquisite harmony of the form of Antinous, is proved by the fact that the figure of the Baptist from the ciborium of San Matteo in Merulana, now preserved in the cloister of St. John the Lateran, is modelled ad vivum from an Antinous. The latest discovery in connection with this subject was made on the farm of Torre del Padiglione, an estate of eight thousand acres, which the "Societa Italiana de' Beni Rustici" has just purchased from the ducal house of the Massimo. This farm is crossed by two highroads, one leading from Lanu- vium to Antium, the other from Rome to Satricum. Near their junction, on a knoll which rises some thirty or thirty-five feet above the level of the plain, among the remains of an ancient farmhouse, the bas-relief reproduced on this page was brought to light in October, 1907. The discovery came about by accident, while work- men were digging the earth to plant a vineyard on the southern slope of the knoll. The bas-relief lay face downward on a bed of loose earth, which seemed to The Antinous of Antonianus, discovered at Torre del Padiglione 186 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA have been sifted on purpose to receive and shelter the sculpture. It is not possible that it should have fallen into that position by accident on the occasion of a fire or of an earthquake. It must have been carried to the spot, outside the boundary of the house, and hidden with a purpose, at the time of the first barbarian incur- sions, by the servants of the house itself. We must not forget that Torre del Padiglione once formed part of the fertile territory of Lanuvium, as favorite a place for summer residence as Tusculum itself, where Antinous and Silvanus had been elected patron saints of the em- ployees of the aristocratic villas, as I shall have occasion to mention again at length in the next chapter. The portrait is carved in Pentelic marble, and it is as fresh and perfect as if it had just emerged from the workshop. The god-hero is represented as a young peasant attending to the vintage, the only sign of his apotheosis being a wreath of pine leaves, and the altar with the pine cone. The artist's conception was obvi- ously to represent an Antinous-Silvanus. • This artist, this producer of a panel deserving to be placed beside the Palestrina statue, the Mondragone bust, and the Albani bas-relief, has signed his name on the altar: *'This is the work of Antonianus from Aphrodisias." These words mean that he belonged to that brother- hood of Greco-Roman sculptors which had opened a studio and a workshop on the Esquiline near the Sette Sale, discovered (and illustrated by Visconti) in 1878. For us, however, the appearance of this divine youth at the Torre del Padiglione, until lately a malarious and deserted spot, bordering on the Pontine district, almost out of reach of civilization, means something more: we take it as an omen of success in the struggle of the present generation against the two great evils of the THE LAND OF HADRIAN 187 Campagna, unhealthiness and depopulation. Surely it cannot be a trick of fate that on the day when workmen had been directed to that knoll to try an experiment in vine growing, Antinous should appear in the garb of a sylvan god, attending to the vintage, with bunches of luscious grapes hanging in profusion from his own vines. CHAPTER IV THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT NO other section of the Campagna can bear com- parison with the Land of Gregory the Great as regards the association of natural beauty with historical interest. Canons four hundred feet deep, like that of the Forme Rotte, over the yawning depths of which aqueducts were once carried by great spans of masonry; glens, like the Valle dell' Acqua Rossa, where the genista incloses, in a frame of gold, fields of violets and primroses ; chasms, like the one of San Giovanni in Camporaccio, resembling a leafy amphitheatre sunk in the earth; dolomitic crags, like the Vulturella, with a fall of two thousand feet; colossal bridges, like the Ponte Lupo, carrying across the ravine of the Valle dei Morti four aqueducts, a carriage road, and a footpath, as perfect as if they were the work of living man; vil- lages, like Guadagnolo, perching at the height of 4019 feet above the sea; others, like San Gregorio, Casape, or Poli, nestling in the shade of their old baronial cas- tles; Roman roads, like the Contrevio, winding up the hillsides, and none the worse for the wear of two thou- sand years; mediaeval fortifications, like the Rocchetta, Sant' Angelo, or Castel Faustiniano, raised on platforms of the megalithic age; ancient churches, like that of Sant' Angelo in Arcese, standing, on the remains of famous heathen sanctuaries; villas, like Gericomio or the Catena, in which the memories of bygone Roman conquerors are linked with those of modern makers of history; olive THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 189 groves, shady byways, clusters of ancient ilexes, luxu- riant vineyards, golden grain fields and fragrant mead- ows, — each of these landmarks, taken by itself, would make any countryside conspicuous; taken together they make of the Land of Gregory the gem of the Campagna. Gregory was born of Gordianus the Senator and of Sylvia, in their ancestral home on the Cselian, facing the palace of the Caesars, at the corner of the Via Trium- phalis (Via di S. Gregorio) and the Clivus Scauri (Via dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo), on the site of the church since dedicated to his name. The date of his birth is unknown. We gather, however, from his writings that about the middle of the sixth century he was of sufficient age to remember the horrors of the siege of 549 — the second which Rome underwent at the hands of King Totila. De Rossi has proved in the first volume of "In- scriptiones Christianse" that his family was a branch of the Anicii, the noblest amongst the nobles, and that he counted amongst his ancestors Pope Felix IIL Two of his aunts, Tarsilla and iEmiliana, as well as his parents, are registered among the saints of the church. His election in 590 took place among calamities unprece- dented in the annals of the city. A winter of incessant rains and raging storms had caused the rivers to overflow their banks, turning the valleys of the Po, the Arno, and the Tiber into lakes or marshes. The Tiber in particu- lar rose to such heights, and broke through the walls of the city (between the Flaminian gate and the postern of St. Martin) with such fury, that the classic edifices of the Campus Martins, temples, baths, theatres were over- thrown, as well as the granaries at the foot of the Aven- tine, where great quantities of wheat had been stored for the support of the refugees from all parts of the Peninsula. And while the people were thus left to stare famine in 190 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the face, and to live in silt and mud, the bubonic, or inguinary, plague, imported from Constantinople by a Byzantine grain ship trading at the Schola Grseca,^ broke out, first in the quarters adjoining the river, later even in the usually healthy heights of the Esquiline and the Cselian. Gregory of Tours has left a detailed account of the outbreak, and the Pope himself more than once mentioned it in the "Dialogues," so that all through the middle ages the people spoke of it as of an event never to be forgotten. One of the first victims was Gregory's predecessor, Pelagius II. He died on February 5, 590, and was buried with due solemnity in St. Peter's, a fact which shows how much sanitary precautions were dis- regarded at that time. From that day men fell a prey to the plague by thousands, many cities, among them the Portus Augusti, losing the whole of their population. Earthly remedies failing to stamp out the contagion, the Romans did what the Milanese are said to have done, in Manzoni's '* Promessi Sposi," at the outbreak of 1630: they urged their pastor to start a great procession of penitence. Divided according to sex, age, and station in life, they moved from seven starting points towards the Basilica Liberiana; the clergy from SS. Cosma e Dami- ano, religious communities from SS. Gervasio e Protasio,^ nuns from SS. Pietro e Marcellino, children from SS. Giovanni e Paolo, widows from S. Eufemia, married women from S. Clemente, men from S. Stefano Rotondo. The results of this congestion of people, more or less tainted with the germs of the contagion, are easily fore- seen. In the space of one hour eighty members of the entourage of the Pope fell to mark with their corpses ^ The Byzantine Exchange and Chamber of Commerce near the Church of S. Maria in Cosmedin. ' Now called S. Vitale. H a <■ Q 3 THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 193 the path of the procession. The fact that the goal of this litania septiformis ^ was the Esquiline basilica of S. Maria Maggiore shows how groundless is the tradition concerning the apparition of the angel sheathing his sword, on the summit of Hadrian's mausoleum, to an- nounce that the wrath of God would claim no more victims. The tradition is far more recent than the events to which it refers, and owes its origin to a shrine of Michael the Archangel erected at an unknown date, on the highest platform of the mausoleum, where the image of the deified Emperor had once stood. Records of this "annee terrible" are still extant in Rome. Leaving aside the bronze figure of the archan- gel, from which the Castle of Sant' Angelo is named, there is an inscription in the church of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura describing how that edifice had been repaired by Pelagius II *'gladios hostiles inter et iras" (amid the clangor of swords and onslaughts from the enemy). The enemy at that time were the Langobards, who had invaded Italy by the Predil Pass in the Alps of Carnia, and shown no mercy to the defenceless populations. Of uncouth and fearsome aspect, and imbued with a hatred of whatever bore or had borne a Roman name or a connection with Rome, these German worshippers of Odin swept over the Peninsula like the scourge of God, fire, blood, and the stillness of death marking their ad- vance. These are not conventional phrases such as are com- monly used on the subject of a barbarian inroad; they are the very words which Gregory wrote in *' Dialogue" iii, 38: *'As the unsheathed sword strikes the neck of the victim, so fell upon us the fury of the Langobards. As thick as the ears of corn on a fruitful field, our fellow- ^ Litany, in the sense of procession, 194 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA citizens have been trampled upon, and crushed and laid prone on the ground. Cities have ceased to exist; our castles have been dismantled, our monasteries violated, our farms destroyed ; our churches are but a smouldering heap of ruins. We live in the wilderness, where beasts occupy the former haunts of men." The coming "finis mundi" had already been predicted by Pelagius II in his " Admonestation " to the dissenting patriarch of Aquileia, Elias. No wonder that the lower classes, deci- mated at the same time by famine and wars, by inunda- tions, fires, and earthquakes, shared the belief. In such dire straits the figure of Gregory, coming to the rescue of his fellow-citizens from a humble monastic cell of the Cselian, appears radiant in a halo of glory. His attempt to evade by flight the election to the vacant see having been frustrated, the reluctant cenobite was crowned in St. Peter's on September 3, 590. Judging from his personal appearance no one seemed less quali- fied for the task of saving the country from annihilation. He was small of size and so emaciated from vigils and ill-health that most of the time he was obliged to recline on his couch, hanging between life and death. His voice was so feeble that his homilies were usually read by an assistant. In a letter addressed to Rusticana the Patri- cian he mentions without the least complaint how acute dyspepsia had made of him a living skeleton and how gout had crippled him to immobility. And yet this cripple, who believed in the approaching end of the world, stood his ground unflinchingly to the last, saved Rome and Italy, and found time to link his name to such institutions as the Schola Cantorum, which still sur- vives in the "Gregorian Chant"; the Regula Pastor alls ^ which became for the episcopate and the clergy what the Rules of St. Benedict were for monastic orders; the THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 195 Sacramentarium, from which the present missal of the Catholic Church is derived; and the evangelization of the British Isles. When we come to think that the ancestral home of this great man on the Cselian still lies unexplored under and near the present church, and that it would be an easy undertaking to excavate and make it accessible, as has been done for the house of John and Paul on the opposite side of the street, for that of his mother Sylvia at San Saba on the Aventine, and for that of S. Csecilia in the Trastevere, we wonder at our own indifference in the face of such problems. A committee was formed, to be sure, for this purpose in 1891, under the presidency of Cardinal Manning, titular of the church, of which the mayor of Rome, the late Comm. de Rossi, the Rev. Dr. Grisar, and myself were members. The necessary funds had already been collected, and the last arrangements perfected, when the unwarranted opposition and chau- vinism of certain government officials caused the col- lapse of the scheme. Were we to take it up again under the present enlightened administration, I am sure that no difficulties would be raised against its accomplish- ment. Among the chances offered by the exploration of the palace, there is one sufficient by itself to justify any expenditure or labor — the chance of bringing to light the portrait of Gregory described by John the Deacon. The Pope himself had presented his former fellow- monks with this touching memento, that they might not forget their happy common life while he was adminis- tering the church from the pontifical palace. It was in the shape of a clypeus or medallion set into a plaster frame, in which he appeared clad in priestly robes, standing, with the book of the Gospels in his left hand, while the right was raised in the act of blessing. His 196 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIMAN CAMPAGNA features were of the true patrician type, marked by an aquiline nose, broad, low forehead, projecting chin, and small, flashing eyes. The connection between Gregory the Great and the lands we are visiting in this chapter is established by the fact of his having disposed of them in favor of his brother monks. He must therefore have inherited these vast possessions from his ancestors, the Anicii. The original act of donation is lost, but we have in its stead a papyrus of Pope John XIV, dated a. d. 984, confirm- ing the deed. It begins with the words, '*! offer to thee, abbot of the monastery ad Clivum Scauri, the estate in which stands the church of St. Gregory within the New Castle [the present village of San Gregorio], another called Casacorvuli [the present village of Casape], and the farms named *Hope,' *the Hundred Acres,' etc., adjoining each other, with their buildings, ancient ruins, and columns, all located in the territory of Tibur, about twenty-four miles from Rome." The same provisions are made as regards the group of hills known by the name of Vulturella crowned by the church of St. Mary (the present sanctuary of the Men- torella), a group which has a history of its own, not un- worthy of our attention. Athanasius Kircher, one of the most genial archaeological blunderers of the seventeenth century, relates how, in the year 1661, having started from Tivoli to make the ascent of the Vulturella, he found himself at noon in a "wilderness full of horror," where crags seemed to strike the skies and precipices to " plunge into hell " ; and while the awfulness of such sur- roundings held him spellbound, he spied through a gap what appeared to be the roofless shell of a human habi- tation. On closer inspection he found himself entering a deserted church of great antiquity, and full of inter- THE .STATUE OF bT. (JliEGUKY BY NICOLO CORDIERI, A PUPIL OF MICHELANGELO THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 199 esting remains. There were patches of frescoes on the walls, with quaint figures of saints, and bits of stone copings such as the school of the Cosmati used to carve at the beginning of the thirteenth century. On the altar, screened by a railing rusty with age, stood a carven image of the Virgin and Child, green with mould, whose expression was that of sorrow and reproach at her pre- sent environments. From fragmentary inscriptions of uncouth spelling, Kircher gathered how fate had led him to a sanctuary once a famous goal for pilgrimages, marking the spot where Christ appeared to Placidus, a leader of the Roman armies and a martyr for the faith. On reaching the village of Guadagnolo, Kircher spoke of his find to the local priest, who was conversant with the history and traditions of his native mountains, and with the help of the Conti and of some pious vil- lagers they undertook the restoration of the sanctuary, which became again and still remains a centre of reli- gious meetings for people many miles around. The account of the conversion and fate of Placidus Eustachius, as given by hagiographists, is a tissue of the most absurd and impossible circumstances that the fancy of a religious story-teller could produce. But as, wandering through these lovely mountains, the student of the past meets at every step memorials of the hero; as the story is corroborated to a certain extent by ma- terial details which can be seen at the present day; and as Placidus Eustachius is the recognized head of the Conti dynasty, which has ruled over this district ever since the time of Innocent III (1198-1216), I hope the reader will not object to listening to the version of the story given by Kircher in Part I of his '* Historia Eusta- chio-Mariana," published in Rome by Varesi in 1665. 200 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA THE LEGEND OF EUSTACHIUS At the time of the Emperor Trajan and of Pope Anacletus, there lived a gallant general, Placidus by name, who, having distinguished himself in the Dacian and Jewish wars, and shared in the Emperor's triumph, was granted a leave of absence and retired to rest in his The church of S. Maria di Vulturella. (From a sketch by Giovanni Fontana) properties on the Vulturella range, together with his wife Traiana and his two sons. One morning, upon learning from his gamekeeper that a herd of stags had been seen on the edge of the neighboring forest, he outdistanced his followers in the excitement of the chase, until he found his progress barred by a ledge of rock; and while planning how to overcome this obstacle, he heard a voice from above saying: "O Placidus, why do you persecute me ?" and THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 201 beheld at the same time the Lord's face, surrounded by a halo of glory, between the antlers of the stag he had been pursuing. "O Lord," was Placidus' answer, "tell me who you are, and what you expect of me ?" "Go back to Rome," was the heavenly command; "inquire for a Christian priest named Johan; be bap- tized with your wife and your sons ; then return to these mountains to learn what 1 wish you to do and suffer for me." Placidus obeyed implicitly; the parents were baptized by Johan, exchanging their names for those of Eusta- chius and Theopista, the sons for those of Agapitus and Theopistus; and the castle of Vulturella was trans- formed into a species of monastery. However, the era of peace did not last long for the converts. First an outbreak of plague carried away every servant and laborer till the four neophytes remained the only living creatures for miles around. They decided, therefore, to undertake a pilgrimage of expiation to the East, but the captain of the ship on which they were crossing to Egypt conceived such an ardent love for Theopista that he refused to part with her upon reaching land; thus Eustachius and his sons were left alone upon a barren shore, watching the sails disappear below the horizon. Eustachius, carrying the boys in his arms, started for an exploration along the shore, but his progress was soon checked by a stream which he found impossible to ford with his double burden ; so, leaving Theopistus on the bank, he carried Agapitus over to the opposite shore, and had just reached the middle of the stream on his way back when he beheld a lion on one side, and a wolf on the other, seize the children and disappear with their prey into the bushes among the sand hills. 202 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Left wifeless and childless, Eustachius wandered far- ther along the coast till, weary and footsore, he reached a village named Badisus, where a kind and honest landowner gave him food and shelter, and employment on his farm. There Eustachius lived for many years, beloved by every one, as manager of the estate. One eventful day, however, having been identified, by means of a scar on his neck, by two officers, Achatius and Antiochus, whom Trajan had sent to Egypt in quest of the missing general, Eustachius bowed to the imperial will, and was received triumphally at Rome by the court, the senate, and the people, and reinstated as commander-in-chief of the Roman armies by Hadrian, who in the mean time had succeeded to the throne. Then followed another campaign in the East, in the course of which the general's attention was arrested one day by the appearance of a couple of fine, stalwart youths, who were engaged to act as guides for the sol- diers. Seated by the camp-fire, these two young men were giving an account of their strange fortunes since the far-off hour in their childhood when they had been delivered from the jaws of a lion and a wolf; and a woman clothed in rags, who at that moment happened to bring some provisions into the camp, overheard the story. She pieced the names and dates and details to- gether, and was convinced that the commander was her long-lost husband, the young giants her sons ; in her humble attire, she waited her turn among the crowd of audience-seekers, and, once admitted to Placidus' pre- sence, she knelt at his feet, and poured forth the tale of her own adventures from the moment of her abduction, through her long years of honest labor on a farm, till the moment when her family had thus been marvel- lously restored to her. THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 203 Tahuljt 'J'yPVJ- aiui ncd'.:.-:n^ £:cU/ia Tji^fi^''^ £.Aach\im!T aJJ^hitftt^FapcI/mta fii The consecration of the church of the Vulturella by Pope Sylvester I, with the apparition of the stag. (From a rude carving in wood preserved in the church) There were rejoicings all over the frontier and in the Roman camp and stations ; there was another triumphal return to Rome, in which Theopista and the young men attracted as much attention as the barbarian kings who followed the victor's chariot; and Hadrian made Eustachius his partner in the government of the world. However, matters came to an unexpected crisis. The Emperor having asked his favorite why he had so con- spicuously absented himself from the thanksgiving sac- rifices offered to the gods, and having been frankly told of the latter's conversion to Christianity, the whole family was sentenced ad feras, to be devoured by wild beasts. The legend naturally tells us that the wild beasts refused to comply with the Emperor's wishes, much to 204 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the astonishment and regret of the great multitudes assembled in the Coliseum. So the victims were placed inside the bull of Phalaris: but when the executioners went to open the trap-door to collect the ashes of the four victims, they found their bodies intact, as though they were merely sleeping the sleep of the just. The beautiful mountain-castle on the Vulturella, the birthplace of the hero of this story, where his first years of married life were spent in happiness and in pursuit of the manly sports of mountaineering and hunting, was discovered and excavated in the year 1744 by the peasants of San Gregorio, on a spur of the range over- looking the valley and the site of Empulum. The ruins are still called Santa Sigola,a corruption of Sylvia, whose name, as I have already remarked, is often linked in local tradition to that of Placidus, on account of their kinship and their common descent from the Anicii. The plan and description of the excavations of 1744 can be found in Alberto Cassio's valuable book, the title of which — characteristic of the verbosity of the eighteenth century writers — runs as follows: "Historical Memo- ries of the Life of Santa Sylvia, a Roman matron, mother of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, with an illustration of her lands and possessions in Latium, crossed by the four aqueducts which carried to Rome the distant waters of the Marcia, the Claudia, and the two Anieni, lands and possessions which once belonged to the glorious martyr Saint Eustachius, who owned a villa with baths (on the Vulturella) discovered in the year 1744: the present work dedicated to his Eminence the Cardinal Neri Cor- sini, titular of the church of Sant' Eustachio in Rome, 1755." What most impresses the reader of Cassio's ac- count is the pride which ancient villa-builders took in THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 205 defying impossibilities. Here was a villa built on a shoulder of rock nearly three thousand feet above the sea, among virgin forests, accessible only by devious paths and mule tracks, beautified and ornamented on such a lavish scale as to cast into the shade many of the best mansions of Tusculum and Tibur : porticoes of Ori- ental columns, exquisite mosaic floors, swimming ponds lined with marble, walls decorated with gilt stucco- reliefs and frescoed panels, apartments furnished with warming apparatus, terraces from the parapet of which the eye looks down into the Valle Empolitana, two thousand feet below, and ranges over the hills of Castel Madama and Saracinesco, as far as the Apennines of Cervara and Gerano, shining with a fresh coat of snow.^ In the middle ages a monastery was founded within the roofless halls of the villa by the followers of St. Bene- dict. The congregation lingered in this wilderness for a number of years, until the end of the fourteenth century (a. d. 1386), when the few survivors were deprived of their shelter by a conflagration which turned the old hospice into a heap of ashes. Such was the violence of the flames, and such was the haste of the wretched monks to escape, that nothing was saved, not even the utensils of the refectory nor the provisions of the larder. Cassio describes the finding of a quantity of spoons and knives, of a mass of toasted beans, and of the granary with its earthen jars still full of wheat. ^ (April 6, 1909.) The ruins of Santa Sigola were so maltreated by the peasantry in 1744, deceived in their expectations of finding the body of the holy woman, that it is hardly worth while climbing 272!2 feet to see them in their present crumbling state. They can be reached by a direct steep ascent of two hours from the Osteria d' Ampiglione (on the Ceciliano road) or by a longer and easier path from the village of San Gregorio, by the Costa del Lago and the Monte Pagliaro. 206 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The memory of Eustachius in Rome still survives in a church built in the eighth century over the remains of the Thermae of Severus Alexander. It is mentioned in the "Liber Pontificalis " in the lives of Leo III (795) and Gregory IV (827). It was very rich in productions of The Ampiglione Valley with Ceciliano in the distance, the mountain of Santa Sigola on the right, the mediaeval castle of Ampiglione on the left. The path leading to the ruins of the villa of Eustachius is distinctly visible in the illustration mediaeval art before its hideous modernization by An- tonio Canevari at the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury. The main door had been carved in marble by one of the Cosmati school, at the expense of a Johannes; the tabernacle at the expense of Ottonello, believed to be the son of Ramone, Count of Tusculum and Lord of Algidum; while two of the columns of the nave bore the inscription : " Erected at the expense of the Lady Ste- phania for the salvation of her soul and of the souls of her THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 207 husband and children." Another inscription engraved on the alabaster urn which supported the high altar says : "Here lie in the peace of God the bodies of the holy martyrs Eustachius, Theopista, and their sons Agapitus and Theopistus. I, Pope Coelestinus III . . . have seen with my eyes and touched with my hands their relics, and have inclosed them in this urn together with an ancient epitaph mentioning their names." The tradi- tional symbol of the cross between the antlers of a stag still towers as a pinnacle above the pediment of the facade. But it is time to return to the land of St. Gregory, and to the powerful race which has ruled over it since the middle ages. Sixtus V was right in reckoning the Conti as one of the four oldest and noblest families of Italy (Colonna, Orsini, Caetani, Conti), although their claim to descend from the Anicii must be accepted cum grano salis. Ac- cording to the professional pedigree-makers of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, the Anicii must have been the most prolific race in Rome, having given birth to the Conti, the Pierleoni, the Frangipane, and the imperial House of Hapsburg. Johan Sigfried of Breslau, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Zweithal, wrote in 1613 two ponderous volumes, "Arbor Aniciana, sen genealogia Austrise principum," to prove the case in favor of the Hapsburgs. His point of view, as regards the Conti, is shared by Marco Dionigi and Nicola Ratti in their respective works, '* Genealogia di Casa Conti," 1669, and "Istoria della famiglia Sforza," 1795. What- ever we may think of these futile attempts to carry back the family history into the classic ages, the fact remains that the Conti have numbered among their ancestors 208 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA thirteen popes (whose aggregate pontificates cover a space of 118 years), three antipopes, forty cardinals, a queen of Antioch and Tripoli (Luciana Conti, wife of Boemond V), seven prefects of Rome, five senators, and thirteen leaders of armies, all valiant and worthy cheva- liers, like the Torquato Conti and his son Innocenzo, who so distinguished themselves in the defence of Prague against the Swedes. Such a pedigree ought to satisfy the pride and ambition of any family, without bringing the Anicii into it; yet it cannot be denied that as far back as the thirteenth century the Conti claimed a relationship with Saints Gregory and Eustache, their cardinals choos- ing the '*titulus Sancti Eustachii" in preference to all others, and their popes the name of Gregory. Even to-day Sylvia is the favorite name with the women of the land, and the annual gathering at La Mentorella is the most popular festival of the year. The beginning of the "temporal power" of the Conti dates, as usual, from the election of one of them to the Papacy. Innocent III may have been over-indulgent towards his kinsmen, and may have distributed too freely the gifts of the Papacy amongst them, but most certainly he ranks among the greatest and noblest men that ever sat in the chair of St. Peter. From whatever point of view we consider him, the catholic of Hurter, Bosquet, or Moroni, or the independent of Gregorovius, he rises like a giant as a man, as a pope, as a crusader, as a re- former, as a victorious antagonist of King Philip Augus- tus of France, of Emperor Otho IV of Germany, of King John of England, of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, of King Pedro II of Aragon. He sustained the suzerainty of the Papacy over Sicily; settled feuds and controver- sies in Aragon, Hungary, Poland, Norway, and Dal- matia; recognized the orders of St. Francis and St. THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 209 wmT^gm^, . ^1 ^^\ * ^ f^^f^ m^ 1 mBS^^^^jk 1 ■ 'I ';#' *^^' ^ yi *ft fc^ * ,1^1' 'IPfe "' HBi^JSfli^fl 1 A family group of the Conti. (From the original picture now in the Conti-Torlonia villa at Frascati) Dominic; annulled the Magna Charta (1215), and sent out the crusade which established the Latin rule at Con- stantinople. Whenever I am in Perugia, where he died July 17, 1216, 1 never fail to pay homage to his mem- ory, regretting that he must share his modest resting- place with two outsiders, Urban IV and Martin IV. 210 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The foundation of the duchy of Poli — a state in a state, as it were, with civic and criminal jurisdiction, a local body of gens d'armes, a ducal flag, and other such tokens of independence — dates from the sixth of Octo- ber of the year 1208, when Richard Conti, brother of the The Porta Nevola, on the road to the Villa Catena (From a photograph by Miss Dora Bulwer) Pope, was made lord and baron of Poli, Guadagnolo, Saracinesco, Anticoli, and Castel Faustiniano, viz., of the same extensive lands which their former owner, Gregory the Great, had given partly to the monks of Subiaco, partly to the monks of the Clivus Scauri. The Emperor Frederic II allowed the family to make use of the aquila THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 211 scacchiata as a coat of arms, the S. P. Q. R. to have it on a campo rosso (on a red field). The honorable and honored career of the Conti lasted for over six centuries, their last representative, Michelangelo, having died in 1818, when the historical duchy became the property of a self-made man, Giovanni Torlonia, the great-grand- father of the present owner, Duke Leopoldo, under whose enlightened care the Villa Catena has been at least saved from utter destruction. The Villa Catena lies on a ridge connecting Poli with the Colle Faustiniano, at the foot of Monte Sant' Angelo, a landmark easily recognized from Rome itself by the remains of the mediaeval castle that crowns its summit. The beauty of the site did not pass unnoticed in Roman times, as is shown by the remains of baths, mosaic pave- ments, and water reservoirs brought to light from time to time within the boundaries of the park. The road which leads to it from Rome — a branch of the ancient Prsenestina — was made again fit for travelling by the last Conti Pope, Innocent XIII, in 1723. The gate of the villa stands almost exactly at the twenty-fifth mile- stone from the Porta Maggiore. No records have been kept of its foundation; it certainly existed in a rudimen- tary form, probably as a home farm belonging to the ducal palace, at the time of Leo X, who dated from it in 1516 a bull investing the sons and heirs of his host, Stefano Conti, with the office of "maestro del sacro ospizio apostolico," the same that is now held by the Ruspoli family. About fifty years after the visit of Leo X, Torquato Conti, a veteran of many wars, spurred to competition by the many villa-builders of his own rank in life who about that time were planning or laying out the won- ders of Caprarola, Bagnaia, Bomarzo, Tivoli, Frascati, 212 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA and Formello, began the transformation of the home farm into a pleasure-ground, in which, strange to say, the leading part was left to nature's own design. At least the place shows at present less artificiality than any other contemporary pleasure-ground. His adviser on these matters was the same poet and artist, Anni- bale Caro, whom we shall soon meet at Frascati as the builder of the Cara villa. They must have met in the salons of the Farnese palace, where Annibale was a constant visitor while Torquato was paying his court to his future duchess, Violante Farnese. In a letter dated June 6, 1563, Annibale urges his patron of Poli to hasten the works of the aqueduct, otherwise "the foun- tains and lakes, ponds and waterfalls and jets already designed" would remain lifeless. "The deer-park," he adds, " the rabbit-warrens, the dovecots, the woods, and the garden terraces already laid out or built are but common features of a villa. What we are in need of to make a sensation on this line are extravagances to cast into the shade even the Boschetto of Messer Vicino." This refers to the eccentric country seat which Vicino Orsini, who had seen service under the same flag with Torquato, was building at that time at Bomarzo, the ancient Polimartium, a village of southern Etruria now belonging to the Borghese. Caro suggests also for the Villa Catena a Flemish windmill, a ventilating or cool- ing apparatus made of wet sheets of canvas, an island in the lake made in imitation of the one just discov- ered in the baths of Caracalla,^ and lastly a hydraulic * Described by Flaminio Vacca in Mem., 23. It was a great block of marble, very much mutilated, representing an island on the surface of which were left the footprints of several human figures. A ship laden with passengers appeared to be steering for the island. This curious piece was probably placed in the middle of the frigidarium or swimming pond. THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 213 organ, destined in his mind to create more stir than the " belle Franceschine," who were to be seen in the Low Countries striking the hour-bells. Fortunately, these plans of doubtful taste were not carried into execution, Torquato Conti having once more joined the imperial army, and so the Villa Catena was left to depend for its beauty on two of Nature's greatest gifts, abundance of water and wealth of vegetation. Violante Farnese, in the mean time, devoted herself to the building of a church on the outskirts of the villa, under the name of the Madonna della Pieta. The altar- piece, a marble group of the Virgin and the Redeemer, is the work of Adriano Schirati, a successful imitator of Michelangelo. Lotario II, the confidential messenger of Pope Clem- ent VIII to the Emperor Rudolf II, and other courts of Germany and Italy, for the conclusion of an alli- ance against the Turks, has also left a souvenir of his love for Poli, as described in the following inscrip- tion set up in the chapel of the ducal palace: "In the year of our Lord 1618. Behold on the left of this altar the mosaic image of Pope Innocent III, in the act of listening to the dove which alighted on his shoulder on the day of his coronation, once set up in the tribune of St. Peter's. The other, on the right, is the portrait of Pope Gregory IX, once set up in the fa9ade of the same church. They were given to Lotario Conti as family relics, the first by Clement VIII in the year 1596, the other by Paul V in 1605." The last event to be chronicled in connection with the Villa Catena is the visit paid to it in the spring of 1723 by the last pope of the Conti family. Innocent XIII. A papal progress through the Campagna in those days was a widely different affair from the matter-of-fact occur- 214 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA rences of our age. Hundreds of thousands were spent to make the display of loyalty fit the occasion; books were written and prints issued which help us to recon- struct the wonderful scenes. From this point of view the journey of Innocent XIII to Poll and that of Innocent i^ IL i 1 T f 4 ff f r T 4 ^v« i '^'-'^T^^K^^K/j^tt/jm M ^H ■^ ^^^^^^^^^^^gg^^^^^^^B Avenue of cypresses, Villa Catena XII to Porto d' Anzio in 1697 have become quite his- torical. The first is described in a work published by Chracas in Rome in 1723; the second is illustrated in a copper-plate engraved by Alessandro Specchi from the designs of the architect Tommaso Mattei, who had been instructed by the Borghese family to prepare suitable THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 215 lodgings for the Pope and his escort and retinue, while breaking their journey for the night, in the Borghese farmhouse of Carroceto. A small river was diverted from its course for the watering of horses and beasts of burden ; caves were dug in the rock for the storage of wine, ice, and meat; stables were built to accommodate 430 horses, also slaughter-houses for oxen, calves, and pigs, barracks for the German Guards, a church for the celebration of the mass, coach-houses for fifty travelling carriages, while all the heirlooms and art treasures of Borghese had been ransacked to beautify the apartments of the pontifical guest and his attending cardinals. Innocent XIII left Rome by the Porta Maggiore on. the morning of April 26, and, having halted at the forti- fied farm of Lunghezza for the midday meal, a guest of the Strozzi, reached the boundaries of Poli at sunset. Here his brother Lotario, at the head of a company of cavaliers dressed in purple and gold, offered him the keys of the town, saying that from immemorial times the Conti had kept them faithfully for the Holy See. To this loyal speech the Pope answered, expressing the hope that he would be able to keep them for many years to come. Then guns and mortars were fired, bells rung, and shouts of welcome rose from the peasantry, who had collected at the Villa Catena from every part of the ter- ritory. As Innocent XIII entered the gates of the villa, the happy retreat of his early days, his sedan chair was surrounded by eighteen cardinals, the ambassadors of Spain, France, Malta, and Bologna, three representa- tives of the Roman noblesse, — Carlo Albani, Lorenzo Giustiniani, and Sforza Cesarini, — a retinue of dig- nitaries of the Apostolic household, and a company of Swiss Guards. We may judge of the cost and cares of such a reception from the facts that pope, cardinals. 216 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA ambassadors, noblemen, prelates, and officers were housed in palatial residences built for the occasion; that the Swiss Guards and a company of ducal men-at- arms were quartered in wooden barracks; that stables were erected for two hundred horses, mess-rooms for The approach to the Villa Catena the train of servants, and shops where the peasantry could find refreshments. And if we consider, further- more, that the visit of the Pope lasted twelve days, that the park was lighted every night with myriads of Vene- tian lanterns, that orchestras and bands were kept play- ing from sunrise to sunset, we marvel at the ability of the host to stand the strain, social as well as financial, and we feel that the name of the duke's agent, Giuseppe Stefanoni, who planned and carried out every detail of the reception, ought to have been recorded in the inscrip- tion which commemorates the event to the present day/ * The inscription, in a frame of gilt bronze, was set up again in the THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 217 Another point of interest in this charming district is the storm-beaten, weather-worn, wind-swept ruin of a church on the summit of the Colle degli Astinelli, or Colle Sant' Angelo, in which the last stand of the hereti- cal Fraticelli against the church was made under the pro- tection of the Conti. The ruins can be easily reached by carriage from Tivoli to San Gregorio and Casape; thence on foot by a mountain path, which leads past a polygonal platform and a water-reservoir of a later age to a plateau crowned by the remains of a mediaeval for- tified village and of the church of the Fraticelli, now turned into a meteorological observatory. The origin of the sect variously called Fraticelli, Beghini, Bisocchi, Frati della vita povera, and Frati deir Opinione is altogether obscure. It first appeared in Apulia about 1294, when a number of zealots, influenced by the ideas of poverty of the Franciscans, formed themselves into a brotherhood under the lead- ership of Pietro da Macerata and Pietro da Fossom- brone and adopted extravagant ascetic habits, which soon degenerated into license and opposition to the Papacy. They went so far in these directions as to have community of wives and a pope of their own. To escape punishment at the hands of Boniface VIII the Fraticelli migrated to Sicily with their chief, Pedro Gio- vanni Oliva da Sirignano. Clement V in the council of Vienna, held in 1311, anathematized the memory of Oliva, whose bones were burned at the stake together with the ex-votos with which his grave had been cov- ered. Even so severe an act of repression did not mark the end of the heresy. front of the casino in 1840 by Marino Torlonia, the father of the present owner. It says, ' ' In memory of the welcome and happy visit of Innocent XIII, Lotario Conti, April 26, 1723." 218 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Another branch, led by Hermann of Pangilupo and Wilhelmina of Bohemia, revived the customs of the old Gnostics, under the protection of Louis the Bavarian, and it was by their aid that the Franciscan brother, Pietro da Corbara, was elected antipope in 1320. The branch which flourished in the duchy of Poli, with their headquarters on Monte Sant' Angelo, origi- nated in 1421 and was known by the name of Fraticelli deir Opinione. They were given shelter and protection by Duke Stefano Conti, and they succumbed with him in the trial instituted by Pope Paul II in 1466. Con- sidering their crimes against morality and against the church, they were leniently dealt with. Some were ban- ished for a period of seven years, some sent to jail; Stefano himself was imprisoned for life in the castle of Sant' Angelo, after having bequeathed the duchy of Poli and Guadagnolo to his sons. Rome is full of memorials of this glorious family, from the Torre de' Conti erected by Nicholas I in 858 and rebuilt in 1216 by Innocent III to the modern Piazza Poli, so named because the ducal palace of the lords of Poli and Guadagnolo stood on that square; the same palace that now forms the background and the frame to the Fountain of Trevi. The Torre de' Conti, built on the remains of an ancient temple in the so-called baronial style of archi- tecture of the thirteenth century, with brick facing and thin high buttresses, has been proclaimed by Petrarch "turris toto orbe unica" (unique in all the world). It formed part of a castellated inclosure, the keep of which is still to be seen in the Torre delle Milizie, erected by another Conti pope, Gregory IX, on the nearest height of the Quirinal. In the Torre de' Conti we THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 219 find one of the few existing records of the earthquake of 1349, the worst ever experienced in Rome. The first warnings of the impending commotion of the earth were felt on September 7; then came the fatal shock, fol- lowed at intervals by lighter ones for days and weeks. Matteo Villani mentions only the belfry and the narthex of St. Paul's outside the Walls as having been over- thrown on the first day; but Petrarch speaks of the col- lapse of many ancient edifices, — *'so much admired by strangers, so much despised by the Romans," — many churches, many baronial towers, such as the one of the Conti, and of the partial ruin of the basilicas of St. Peter, St. John the Lateran, and St. Paul. We can point out four, at least, of the *' many edifices" alluded to by Laura's lover : the spiral column of Marcus Aurelius, the basilica of Constantine, certain monuments on the Sacra Via, and the Flavian amphitheatre. Before Domenico Fontana, the confidential architect of Sixtus V, undertook in 1589 the restoration of the *'columna centenaria divi Marci," ^ its state was preca- rious in consequence of a twist it had received at about two thirds of its height, the effects of which appear in all the views of the pillar taken in the sixteenth century. In fact, there were two centres of disintegration, — a smaller one which extended from the sixth to the eighth coil of the spiral band of bas-reliefs, and another reaching from the thirteenth to the sixteenth. These lacerations cannot have been produced by a crushing pressure from above, nor by strokes of lightning, nor — as some have suggested — by mediaeval displays of fire- * So named because exactly one hundred feet high (without the ped- estal). The cracks produced by the earthquake appear most evident in Duperac's thirty-fourth plate, also in Lafreri's beautiful panoramic view of Rome, p. 55, line 200, of Ehrle's catalogue. 220 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA works for which the column was used as a frame, nor by a spirit of wanton destruction. Such cracks and such displacement of the great marble blocks can be accounted for only in one way, — by attributing them to a vortex- like movement of the earth. Fontana has described in a note-book, now preserved in the state Archives, the diffi- culties he had to overcome in setting the pillar straight by drawing back into their proper sockets the blocks that bulged forward, and by filling up the gaps with new blocks, which had to fit the sinuous band of bas- reliefs outside and the curve of the stairs inside. He The ruined church of the Fraticelli on the Monte Sant' Angelo above Poli was compelled to bind the whole column with steel bands, wound with hemp and wool, so as not to injure its surface, and to erect a strong scaffold to lift the blocks into place. And for this work he received a com- pensation of only three hundred and twenty-three scudi and a half! THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 221 The basilica of Constantine shows to the present day the effects of the earthquake. This great building, was still intact in the thirteenth century, as shown by certain Christian frescoes of that period discovered by Nibby in 1828 in the apse of the east transept. In the following century the collapse of the vaulted ceilings of the nave and west aisle brought the basilica to its present ruinous state. Here, again, we can prove that the collapse was caused by an earthquake shock. A block of masonry, weighing more than one hundred tons, fell from the north end of the east aisle on the pavement of the Forum Pacis, just at the feet of the marble plan of Rome, and fell entirely out of the perpendicular, as if an impact coming from the southeast had pushed it sideways. The fallen block is pierced by a spiral staircase, another section of which is still in situ at the top of the building. The date of the catastrophe — = the fourteenth century — is confirmed by another consideration. When the block fell, the pavement of the Forum Pacis was already cov- ered by a layer of rubbish ten feet thick. And here, also, as in the case of the Torre, we come upon the Conti. The area of the Forum is described as the "garden of Torquato Conti" in a document of 1558. Here, in the time of Pius IV, the fragments of the plan of the city engraved on marble under Severus and Caracalla were discovered by the architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio. Count Torquato made a present of them to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.^ The Coliseum, however, is the building, par excellence, ^ The Forum of Peace has another connection with the subject I am discussing at present. If we may beheve the evidence of the chroniclers of the sixth century, fearful "boati" (roarings of the earth) were heard in the Forum for seven days in the year 408, under the consulship of Bassus and Philippus. 222 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA on the face of which these disastrous contingencies have been registered one by one, from the time of the Flavians to that of Pope Clement XI. Few students have ever looked at the greatest of Roman amphitheatres from this point of view. I was led myself to investigate the subject from the perusal of the *' Excerpts from the Chronicle of Horosius," edited by De Rossi in the first volume of his "Bullettino Cristiano," pp. 17-23. There lived in the monastery of St. Gallen, in the year 849, an old recluse, who, having been extremely terrified by a ^'terrse motus maximus" of eleven days' duration, began to search in ancient chronicles for records of past disasters, and found in the one by Horo- sius enough horrors to satisfy the most morbid curi- osity: eclipses of the sun, comets, apparitions, massa- cres, famine, floods, eruptions, fires, barbarian inroads, and tremors of the earth, six of which (a. d. 408, 429, 443, 492, 501, and 502) proved the most disastrous of all. Now each of these tremors, having damaged the Coliseum, gave occasion for repairs, which are duly recorded by inscriptions, more or less modelled on the following formula: "Under the rule of our Lords Theo- dosius II and Valentinian III, I, Rufus Caecina Lam- padius, prefect of the City, have rebuilt the substructures of the arena, the podium, and the seats of the specta- tors." ^ This refers probably to the catastrophe of the year 429. The one in 443 must have proved even more destructive, considering that the two inscriptions men- tioning the repairs were each two hundred and forty feet long. The last document of the Roman period dates from the time of good King Theodoric, and from the year 508, when the prefect Basilius set up several marble pedestals, each inscribed with the legend, * Compare Corpus Inscr., vol. vi, n. 1763. THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 223 "Decius Marius Venantius Basilius, prefect, consul, etc., has reconstructed at his own cost the arena and the podium wrecked abominandi terrae motvs rvina." Notwithstanding these and other minor calamities, the effects of which are perhaps exaggerated in these flatter- ing inscriptions, the shell of the amphitheatre was prac- tically intact in the eighth century, when Bede wrote his proverb, '*Quamdiu stabit Coliseus stabit et Roma; quando cadet Coliseus cadet et Roma." When and how was it reduced to its present state ? By the earthquake of 1349, of which Petrarch was a witness, as shown by the fact that soon after we find the legates of Pope Urban V, the Frangipane, and the S. P. Q. R. quar- relling over the spoils of the fallen giant: "de faciendo tiburtina'' (to exploit the quarry of the Coliseum). It has taken 354 years and eleven generations of stone- cutters and lime-burners to exhaust it. A document of 1452 published by Eugene Miintz ^ certifies how one contractor alone could carry off two thousand five hun- dred and twenty-two cartloads of stone in the space of nine months. And when, at the close of the seventeenth century, the quarry began to show signs of exhaustion, another shock filled it up again with fresh material. This calamity took place on the third day of February of the year 1703, and it is the last that historians have to mention in connection with Rome. Francesco Valesio, a contemporary diarist, has left the following interesting memoranda of the event. "Friday, February 3, 1703, feast of the Purification — Pontifical ceremony in the Sixtine chapel — At 11.30 A. M., while His Holiness Clement XI was pronouncing the verse of the Litanies *ut nullis nos permittas per- turbationibus concuti ' [Save us from all perturbations], ^ In Revue Arch., September, 1876. 224 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA three shocks were felt, so violent that the whole audience ran out of the chapel, leaving the Pope alone on the episcopal chair, to pray for the cessation of the peril. I, Francesco Valesio, happened to be crossing at that hour the Piazza Navona, and beheld the Fontana de' Calderaj oscillate from east to west so that the water ran over the edge of the basin. I saw also the belfry of the church of Sant' Agostino and Bernini's obelisk on the Fontana de' Quattro Fiumi follow the undulatory heav- ing of the earth." In consideration of the fact that the disaster had not been attended by a loss of human life, Clement XI or- dered a thanksgiving service to be held in the church of S. Maria in Trastevere, to be followed by a procession of penance to St. Peter's ; but the venerable Pope's bad luck was made conspicuous once more, for the flood- gates of heaven opened upon the pageant as soon as it left the shelter of the church, and the outpouring did not cease until the procession reached the gates of the Vatican. The blocks of stone that fell from the Coliseum were granted by Clement XI to the contractor for the building of the Porto di Ripetta, that beautiful landing and moor- ing station on the upper reach of the river which the present generation has seen demolished to make room for the most unsesthetic of bridges in modern Rome, the Ponte Cavour. The contiguity of the land of Gregory the Great to the city of Prseneste, and the historical connection which bound land and city together, in classic times as well as in the middle ages, lead us to study another character- istic of the Campagna — that of its many oracles and places of pilgrimage. Starting from the oracle of Clitum- THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 225 Polygonal walls built after the Pelasgic occupation of Praeneste ntis on the borderland of Umbria, a credulous man, anxious to learn his fate, could appeal — provided his purse was well filled — to those of Feronia at Civitucula, Juno Sospita at Eretum, Juno Regina at Veii, Hercules Victor at Tibur, Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, For- tuna Equestris at Antium, Mater Matuta at Satricum, Juno Sospita at Lanuvium, Artemis Taurica at Nemi, Jupiter Latiaris on the Monte Cavo, Jupiter Anxur at Terracina, Vaticanus on the Monte Mario, and Aphro- dite at Ardea, besides many minor places, the sites of which are marked to the present day by heaps and mounds of votive terra-cottas. Competition must have been keen among all these impostors, and — judging from the meanness of the ex-votos — must have brought about a considerable reduction of income, unless the leaders joined in a syndicate, to retain their hold on the market. This abundance of oracles in the Campagna, which 226 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA makes it unique in comparison with other localities, confirms the truth of the tradition concerning the Pelas- gic origin of the Latin race. In the vast and complicated system of practical religion which prevailed in Greece and Italy, oracles took the place of honor. An oracle means a special locality supposed to have been chosen by a supernatural power, a god, a hero, or the spirit of the dead, from which they were ready to answer in more or less intelligible form the questions asked by their wor- shippers. The Pelasgians, whose migrations from their original abode in northern Greece to southern and cen- tral Italy can be traced from stage to stage by means of their polygonal style of masonry, were a race imbued with feelings of wonder and fear by the great features of nature — mountains, canons, rivers, lakes, forests, waterfalls, thermal springs, volcanoes — which they en- countered in their progress. They individualized the powers inherent in these, deprecated their anger, and believed that their will was ascertainable through subtle and undefined manifestations, especially through motion and sound. Places of impressive or fearsome aspect would therefore strike the Pelasgians as proper centres of religious mystery. The two most ancient and power- ful among the Greek oracles, Dodona and Delphi, were unquestionably due to the operation of these feelings. The region about Dodona, for instance, all crags and forests, is said to be the most stormy in Europe. The god was believed to give his answers through the rustling of the leaves of an oak which towered above all others in that part of the forest. The district was in the posses- sion of a tribe named Selli, whom Homer calls "Selli with unwashed feet, whose couch is on the bare ground," words which have been interpreted as meaning that those savage tribesmen used to lie prone on the ground while THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 227 listening to the play of the wind through the branches of the tree in the trunk of which Zeus was alleged to have chosen his abode. Under the influence of these feelings the Pelasgians chose the site of Prseneste for one of their settlements, attracted not so much by its commanding position on the main line of communication between the Tiber and the Liris, between Latium and Campania, as by certain features of nature which seemed to portend the presence of a god there. It even seems probable that the place was already occupied by a terraced village of the Siculi, whom I have described as the first inhabitants of Latium, before any foreign colonists landed on their coast or crossed their boundary mountains. Plautus names it among the cities of the barbarians, and Servius mentions a Herilus, a prince or leader of the Siculi, who defended Prseneste against the Aborigines or Latins. These events must have happened in the sixteenth century before the Christian era, and the oracle must have be- come popular long before the foundation of Rome. Cicero ^ gives the following traditional account of its origin : — **Numerius Suffucius, a citizen of birth and reputa- tion, was warned by frequent dreams to blast away a piece of rock which was to be found at a spot indicated to him. These dreams he related to many of his fellow- citizens, who laughed at him for his superstition. . . . The dreams, however, continued, and to commands there succeeded menaces. Numerius, much alarmed, at last complied, and, having broken the stone, found a number of wooden labels inscribed with mysterious lettering. The place where the find was made, now in- closed in the sanctuary, is held in great veneration, and * De Divinatione, ii, 41. 228 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA is marked by a statue of Fortune nursing the infants Jupiter and Juno in her arms. An olive tree, which grew near the cave, having given forth honey, it was cut away by order of the soothsayers, and from its wood a box was made, in which the fortune-telling lots have been kept ever since." This tradition must have been formed and spread among the worshippers to explain certain particulars of the origin and aspect of the place. The cave, the recess in which the olive box was kept and the lots were drawn, and the niche where the statue of the goddess was venerated as Primigenia (that is, as generatrix or nourisher of the gods), are still in a marvellous state of preservation. From a study of the part they played in the working of the establishment and in the deception of response-seekers, we come to this conclusion: that the oracle of Prseneste was one of the simplest, and as far removed from trickery and subterfuge as the nature and essence of such places would permit. This exception to the rule appears more remarkable if we consider the unscrupulous means adopted in other sanctuaries to take advantage of the credulity of appli- cants. The last of Italian classic writers, Antonio Bre- sciani (whom I knew in my youth), while shooting in the woods of Mizzole, near the Val Pantena, seven miles north of Verona, found himself approaching a rustic sanctuary, known to the woodsmen under the name of Santa Maria delle Stelle, perched on a spur of rock, the base of which plunged into a foaming torrent. While Bresciani was wondering at the wild and dismal aspect of the place, an old priest, in charge of the shrine, invited him to explore the mysteries of the oracular cave which opened under it, and which dated as far back as the coming of the CEneti or Euganei to the V— ...,.„^, GENERAL VIEW OF MODERN PALESTRIN. )VERING SITE OF TEMPLE OF FORTUNE THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 229 southern slopes of the Veronese Alps, — men of Pelasgic descent, who, having discovered this awe-inspiring glen, consecrated it to their gods under the name of Pan- theonia, from which the modern Val Pantena is said to be derived. The oracular cave, which no man of learning had en- tered since the days of Scipione Maffei, its first explorer, is connected with the crypt of Santa Maria delle S telle by means of a passage so low that the visitor is com- pelled to advance on his hands and knees. He hears at first a distant wail, as if a victim were moaning at the approach of its fate, and at the next bend of the tunnel the wail changes into thunder, as if a whole hecatomb were being slain in the cave beyond. All noise stops at the entrance to this cave, a round, rock-hewn hall with a niche for the statue of the god, facing the orifice of the channel. Bresciani could not find out the secrets of the place in all particulars, as he was not provided with ladders and torches; but having noticed a flue running upwards from the dome, and having tested the great acoustic power of the cave, he believes that the appli- cants were deceived in this way: In the first place, the wailing, moaning, and roaring, which are heard to the present day, are simply the effect of a waterfall, the sound of which strikes the sides of the passage, gently at first and then with increased power. Deafened by the sound, and chilled in mind and body, the applicant was made to kneel before the god and state his question. iVn accomplice concealed in a recess above the dome would slowly articulate ambiguous words of answer, which came down the flue in strange and mysterious tones. Impostures of the same nature were practised in other oracular sanctuaries, as in that of Hercules the great custodian, in Rome, w^here a child could enter the 230 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA hollow statue of the god by an opening in the back of the head, and give certain prearranged answers in un- canny and weird sounds, more like bellowing than speaking. In the sanctuary of Jupiter at Terracina, the responses were obtained in this way : The applicant was made to approach a pinnacle of live rock which rose in front of the temple and was pierced by a shaft or flue communicating with an underground chamber; and to place a handful of straw or dry leaves in the opening of the flue. The leaves were either sucked down and made to disappear, or blown up to be carried away by the wind; these opposite effects could easily be obtained by generating opposite currents in the flue, by lighting a fire in the crypt, or by any such simple device, easy to contrive in a spur of rock exposed to the full force of the wind. Commenting on the passage in the book of Daniel which speaks of the imposture of the priests of Baal, who could reenter the temple by a secret passage and eat the flesh of the victims, Fontenelle remarks: '*If these priests could eat undiscovered the share of the god, they could with equal facility speak in his place." ^ When the temple of ^Esculapius at Mgis was suppressed by order of Constantine, the hollow of the statue was found to contain human bones. The expressions used by Cicero and Macrobius in regard to the figures of the two Fortunes at Antium and Praeneste lead us to con- jecture that both statues must have been articulated, or at least capable of nodding or moving the eyes. When the image of Jupiter Arrimon was carried in procession in a gondola of gold, the itinerary was pointed out by the god himself nodding his head to the right or the left. * See the fifteenth chapter of Fontenelle's Histoire des oracles, entitled " Fourberies des oracles manifestement decouvertes." THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 231 The same account is given of the statue of Helios at Baalbek. Lucian in his treatise of the goddess Syria as- serts that he once saw the figure of Apollo leave the sacred couch on which it was carried in procession and fly in the air. We must not condemn too severely the credulity of the Pelasgic and Latin races, when we remember how fond the chosen people themselves were of consulting the oracle of Baal at Ekron. The desire to foresee events in life, and to read the future, is innate in man- kind. Fifty-six forms of divination, known and prac- tised by the ancients, are registered in archaeological manuals. In the beginning appeal was made in good faith to experience and to the practical judgment of the elders of a tribe, whose replies, based on their knowledge of men and things, were generally found to be true. Later, when the fame of some of these wise old men became known beyond the boundaries of their native place, imposture crept in, and oracles became a per- manent institution, the secret of their working being transmitted from father to son, from priest to priest. Needless to say, the responses, whichever way they were obtained, were subject to a charge, and a high one, by means of which popular sanctuaries, especially those of Lanuvium, Nemi, Tibur, and Prseneste, secured an almost fabulous revenue. When Octavius found him- self in financial straits at the time of the Civil War, '*he borrowed money from the temples, from the Capitoline at Rome, from those of Antium, of Lanuvium, of Nemus, and of Tibur, in which cities there are to-day the most abundant stores of consecrated money." ^ But we need not quote historical evidence when we have before our eyes the evidence of facts. ^ Appianus, Civil Wars, trans, by Professor Horace White, v, 24. 232 WANDERINGS IN THE RO^IAN CAMPAGNA Palestrina is an episcopal city of seven thousand inhabitants, built almost entirely within the precincts of the temple. Every house, church, convent, or villa rests on antique foundations. They rose. in steps and terraces up the slope of the mountain to a great height, the difference of level between the lower gate and the pinnacle of the upper rotunda being five hundred feet. Front of the lower terrace of the Sanctuary, twelve hundred feet long The lower terrace had a frontage of twelve hundred feet, and the whole establishment covered an area of about eighty acres. Such figures of length, breadth, and surface do not mean much by themselves ; but if we cover that space with structures of stone and marble exquisitely cut and carved; with colonnades of the cost- liest breccia, crowned with capitals of gilt metal; with hundreds of statues chiselled or cast by Greek artists; if we consider that the only mosaic floor yet exhumed THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNE. DETAIL. INTERIOR OF THE OF /FORN' THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 235 at Palestrina is the finest in the world, we may grasp the idea of the millions which must have been lavished upon and absorbed by the building and ornamenting of the great sanctuary. To be sure, comparisons with modern undertakings of the same nature may be mis- leading, because the value and the potentiality of money were altogether different in those days; yet I cannot help recalling the fact that the rebuilding of St. Peter's has cost the pontifical treasury about eight million pounds, and St. Peter's does not cover, annexes included, two thirds of the area of the temple of Fortune. Now every penny spent on that structure, from the time of Sulla to that of the Antonines, was drawn out of the purses of credulous pilgrims seeking to learn their fate by means of the celebrated sortes PrcenestincE. Judged by the few which have come down to us, the answers must have been eminently unsatisfactory. Livy mentions the following, given to a deputation from Rome at the time of the second Punic War (118-211 b. c): Mavorstelum suum concutit ("Mars shakes his spear"), which was interpreted as a warning of Hannibal's ad- vance on Lake Trasimene, while it referred more likely to the vibration of the hastse Martis in the seismogra- phic observatory of the Regia, as described in "New Tales," p. 78. A brass label discovered in 1876 near Abano (near the oracle of Aponus) contains the words : Est equos (sic) perpulcer, sed tu vehi non potes: "The horse is very handsome, but thou canst not ride it"; which seems to be lacking in common sense. The thought that fabulous sums of money could be extorted by means of such blatant impostures does not reflect credit on the intelligence and perspicacity of men ; and yet if we are unwilling to rely on the evi- dence of the great structures of Prseneste, Tibur, Lanu- 236 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA vium, and Nemi, we have other ways of reaching the same conclusion. One is to note the number and value of the ex-votos which are found to the present day near these sanctuaries, in seams and layers and hillocks of astonishing quantities, each one representing the offer- ing of one family rather than of one individual. At Veii, the periodical emptying of the halls, in which ex-votos were hung at first on the innumerable brass nails that studded the walls, has produced a slope of figured terra-cottas which almost reaches the bed of the Cremera, one hundred and ninety-eight feet below. This deposit was first discovered in the time of Alex- ander VII (1655-1667) by his nephew. Cardinal Chigi, together with the temple of the goddess. An eye-witness of these excavations describes the temple as a beautiful structure with fluted columns of the Ionic order, and a frieze carved in trophies and panoplies. The altar, "with figures of Etruscan type," was still in situ. The strata of ex-votos were so rich "that the whole of Rome was flooded with terra-cottas ... in such quantities as to make several hundred cartloads. There were also bronze figurines and sacred vessels and mirror-cases, which were stolen or destroyed. I have known of one workman breaking marvellous objects {cose insigni) into fragments, to melt them for knife handles." ^ The mine has been exploited for three and a half centuries with- out showing any trace of exhaustion. In the campaign of exploration which I directed in 1889 on the site of Veii, the property at that time of the late Empress of Brazil, I was able to make a rough estimate of its dimensions : two hundred and fifty feet in length, fifty in width, from three to four in depth; nearly forty- * Memoirs of Pietro Sante Bartoli, published by Carlo Fea, Miscel- lanea Antiquaria, vol. i. THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 237 four thousand cubic feet, left after many centuries of plunder ! Human nature has not changed with the lapse of centuries, and the craving for a revelation of the future An altar found within the Temple of Fortune by more or less superstitious means has not been sup- pressed by the evangelization of pagan lands. The sortes, having been almost forgotten towards the end of the empire, came again into fashion in Christian times. 238 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA As the Greeks made use of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the Romans of the iEneid, so did the Christians use the Bible and the Psalter, opening them at random, and taking the first line on which their eyes rested as an indi- cation of future occurrences. St. Augustine refers more than once to this formula of divination. Even the shape of the tablets was borrowed from heathenism, being cut in hard wood, or else in the form of biscuits, as described in the minutes of the council held at Auxerre in 578. They were called sortes sanctorum, just as the ancients were wont to speak of the sortes virgiliance or the sortes Prcenestince. Popular manuals explained their meaning, like the "Libro dei sogni" (Book of Dreams) of the present day. Council after council condemned the use of such books; but so natural is the trend of human nature towards the divination of future events, that the acts of one of these councils relate how the assembled bishops drew an omen or a forewarning from certain words of the Liturgic lesson of the day, and decided to mention the event in the official proceedings of the meeting. There are two centres of interest to be visited at Palestrina, — the lower, which includes the forum, the basilica, the solarium, the serarium, the temple where the responses were given, the cave in which the sortes were kept in the box of olive wood, and the secret pas- sage connecting the temple with the cave ; and the upper, comprising the round shrine and the baronial palace of the Barberini, in a hall of which the famous mosaic floor is now exhibited. The forum is represented by the modern piazza, the basilica by the cathedral church of S. Agapito. The sun-dial described by Varro and illustrated by Maruc- THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 239 chi ^ is engraved above the entrance door of the basilica. The serarium or treasury, in which the fees paid to the sortilegi were stored away in safes belonging to the municipality, was discovered in 1872. It is a vaulted crypt twenty-one feet deep, fourteen wide, opening on the forum, under the vestibule of the temple, a veritable Foro primiflvo Sun Dial Plan of oracle strong-room, doubly protected by its religious consecra- tion and by its walls of massive masonry. An inscrip- tion facing the door names the sedile M. Anicius and M. Mersieius as the builders of this serarium. The Templum Fortunse Primigenise, used until lately for a wine cellar and lumber room for the episcopal seminary, is one of the most perfect specimens of Italic architecture of Sulla's time to be found in central Italy. ^ Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi, 4 ; Marucchi, " Di un antichissimo orologio solare recentemente scoperto in Palestrina," in Annali Istitvto, 1884, p. 286. 240 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Its apse, hewn out of the live rock, has three recesses or niches, the purpose of which has been a subject of much controversy; its great interest, however, lies in the fact that within its walls the mosaic, now in the baronial palace, was discovered at the beginning of the seven- teenth century. Prince Federico Cesi, the founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, first described it in 1614. The earliest colored copy was made soon after, at the expense of the Cavaliere Cassiano dal Pozzo, whose invaluable collection of archaeological drawings was bequeathed to the British Museum by the late Sir Au- gustus Franks. Cardinal Andrea Peretti, Bishop of Palestrina in 1625-26, removed the floor to Rome, giving in exchange for it to the chapter of S. Agapito a few church vestments. In the mean time the princi- pality of Palestrina having been sold by Francesco Colonna, on January 16, 1630, to Carlo Barberini, brother of Pope Urban VIII, for the sum of seven hun- dred and seventy-five thousand scudi drawn out of the coffers of the Holy See, and another brother, Francesco, having been made cardinal-bishop, the Peretti were compelled to restore the mosaic to its ancient position, where it has remained undisturbed for 213 years. Having been removed once more to Rome in 1852 to be submitted to a fresh restoration, it is now very decently exhibited in the hall of the baronial residence, to which the exquisite remains of the upper temple (iEdes For- tunse) serve as foundations. There is scarcely any relic of ancient art which has been made the subject of so much learned controversy. Athanasius Kircher consid- ered it to represent the vicissitudes of fortune; Cardinal Polignac, the journey of Alexander to the oracle of Jupiter Ammon ; Cecconi and Volpi, events in the life of Sulla ; Montf aucon, a panoramic sketch of the course THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 241 of the Nile; Winckelmann, the meeting of Helen and Menelaus in Egypt; Chaupy, the shipping of wheat for the supply of Rome ; Barthelemy, the journey of Hadrian to Elephantina; and Fea, the conquest of Egypt by Augustus. The mosaic undoubtedly represents, in a sketchy way, scenes of the lower middle and upper valley of the Nile, enlivened with scenes of divination by means of the flight of birds, of the buzzing of bees, of the crawling General outline of the mosaic floor in the apse of the Temple of snakes, and of the pecking of fowls. But its most striking feature is the reproduction of twenty wild African beasts, with their names appended in Greek letters. Comparing the aspect and the names of these 242 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA animals with the account given of them by ^Ehanus in his zoological treatise, Hepl Zcocov ISlottjto^ (**De Animalium Natura"), and considering, furthermore, that the natu- ralist was a Prsenestinian by birth, probably a priest of the goddess, and that he lived and wrote at the time of Hadrian, which is the date of the mosaic, we are inclined to call it an illustration-plate of the naturalist's text, or at least a composition inspired either by him directly or by the perusal of his Hepl Zu^oiv. There is another mosaic of the same exquisite texture and coloring to be seen in the cave of the Fates (Antro delle Sorti), which tradition considers to have been exca- vated by Numerius Suffucius while searching for the labels. It was discovered in 1869 by a local antiquarian, and has only within the last two years been reunited to the main group of remains to which it belongs. The cave is irregular in shape, with three recesses; and its floor has been very much damaged, the cave itself having been used as a repository of quicklime. It represents the sur- face of the sea dotted with fish, among which is a creature with a pointed beak, peculiar to Egypt, from which a whole province was named. Egypt is also referred to in another detail of the scene, the Pharos or lighthouse of Alexandria, a conspicuous landmark at the lower right corner of the picture. According to the theory lately expounded by Marucchi, fortune-telling was practised in this way : The applicant having stated his question standing or kneeling in the apse before the image of the goddess, his message was transmitted by an accomplice to the sortilegus in charge of the olive-wood chest at the other end of the secret pas- sage. The answer, drawn at random from the mystic receptacle, was read to the seeker from an opening above the apse, the voice of the messenger being probably THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 243 altered and made mysterious and awesome by the acoustic arrangement of the place. Among the historical personages known to have stood on this mosaic floor in quest of a response, in the later period of the Empire, are Severus Alexander and Julian the Apostate. To the first, inquiring whether he should be able to escape from the machinations of his cousin Helagabalus, the answer was given from Virgil's JEneid (vi, 882) : Si qua fata aspera rumpas — tu Marcellus eris; which may have been interpreted by the inquirer in more than one sense — perhaps as a promise of a brilliant career, if the difficulties of the moment could be somehow overcome. As regards Julian the Apostate, he seems to have exerted himself so energetically in reviving the fortunes of Prseneste that a statue was raised to him in the forum, the pedestal of which was discovered in 1657.^ By the irony of fate, this ancient and venerable city, which, placed under the patronage of such a goddess, ought to have had a happy and peaceful life, stands fore- most amongst those that have suffered most. Whether pagan or Christian, whether seeking the help of Fortune or of St. Agapitus, whether republican, imperial, or pon- tifical, Prseneste has periodically suffered such disasters that we marvel at the vitality which is still keeping the place alive. In 197 b. c, a conspiracy having been started among the slaves, five hundred of them were executed in the public field. In 81 the death of young Marius having induced the Prsenestinians to surrender at discretion to Sulla, twelve thousand of them were put to death, the city was destroyed, and its territory given up to the enlargement and improvement of the sanc- tuary. In A. D. 1184 the mediaeval city was stormed and * Compare Cor'pvs Inscr, Lat.y vol. xiv, n. 2914. 244 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA burned by the people of Rome. In 1298 Teoderico Ranieri, Bishop of Pisa and lieutenant of Pope Boniface VIII, again levelled the city to the ground, and sprinkled its ruins with salt, while the few survivors were gathered round the church of the Madonna dell' Aquila, in the plain below, in a cluster of huts to which the name of Ci vitas Papalis was given. Worse even was the fate which the unfortunate city experienced in 1437 at the hands of the inexorable legate of Eugenius IV, the patriarch of Aquileia, Cardinal Gianvitello Vitelleschi, more cruel and vindictive than Sulla himself. To pun- ish the wretched citizens for their allegiance to the Co- lonna, whose cause they had embraced in the wars for independence against the papal power, Vitelleschi began his work of destruction on March 20, 1437, and for forty days pursued it so unmercifully that not even the grave of St. Agapitus and the cathedral church were spared, its bells, its doors, and its relics having been first removed to Corneto, the home of the Vitelleschi. Three years later, on April 2, 1440, Palestrina was revenged, the car- dinal having been strangled in the dungeons of Castel Sant' Angelo, by order of the same Pope Eugene IV whose legate he had been in the campaign against the Colonna. The anonymous author of the "Description of La- tium," who visited the city at the beginning of the nine- teenth century, after it had enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity under the rule of the Barberini, gives a very interesting account of the baronial palace and court, just before the Napoleonic law abolishing feudal rights brought about a new era in the history of the Cam- pagna. "The prince's power," he says, "is even now very little inferior to that of the sovereign; he has the right of life and death, and administers justice without A SECTION OF THE MOSA] <'<)R ON A LARGER SCALE THE LAND OF GREGORY THE GREAT 245 appeal. The prisons are beneath the palace. ... A regiment of infantry and one of cavalry compose the guard of the Prince of Palestrina, and Count Scutellari, his master of the horse, has the command of both. A major and a captain reside in the city, but these regi- ments are far from being complete." The author then describes the apartment of Cardinal Sciarra, brother of the prince, protected by "two small French cannon of the most curious workmanship''; the drawing-room, with "a state canopy of crimson and gold"; and the state bedchamber. '*The bed," he says, "which was that of Urban VIII, is an exact model of the high altar at St. Peter's; there are four twisted columns, the gild- ing of which must have been of great expense; but it is to be remembered that Urban reigned twenty-one years, and was not scrupulous in the matter of nepotism. The apartments of the prince and princess on the floor above . . . are separated by an open terrace, which is truly delightful for the view it enjoys. Here is a painting in fresco by Pietro da Cortona, which gives a complete idea of the ancient temple. ... In the sacristy [of the chapel of Santa Rosalia] beneath this terrace is a very valuable collection: fine vestments; relics richly set in silver; a jpieta engraved on rock crystal, set in silver with emeralds and other precious stones on a base of jasper; small cabinets of various sizes, etc. Five rooms compose the armory, which is kept in good order and contains many memorials of the bravery of the Sciarra Colonnas, such as arms taken from the Turks and Moors. . . . There is even a cuirass which belonged to a young lady of the family; the shape of it is very pretty, but there is a hole made by a musket ball so near the heart that it must certainly have occasioned the death of the fair Amazon." 246 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The visitor would look in vain now for these family relics, these exquisite works of art, these glorious me- morials of the past. The palace is deserted, the roof and the vaulted ceilings are no longer waterproof, and the family relics have been sold to Jews for one twentieth of their market value. CHAPTER V THE LAND OF CICERO AMONG the incidents of the evolution of human society in Latium none strikes the student as forcibly as the superposition of the Abbey of Grottaferrata on the Tusculanum of Cicero. I speak in a general sense, because it is not certain that the walls of reticulated masonry upon which the abbey rests are the same within which the orator held his "Tusculan" meetings, but for my purpose it is enough to take for granted that, as in ancient times Cicero's villa was the "attraction" of this district, so the Abbey of Grottafer- rata constitutes now its most conspicuous landmark. Abbot Giuseppe Cozza in his dissertation on this subject ^ — a subject dear to his brother monks Since the time when Cardinal Carlo Barberini had found within a stone's throw from their convent the villa of C. Julius Asper, rich in marbles of every description ^ — dwells on the many points of comparison between the two places. "Here where Cicero and his guests devoted their time to the study of Greek philosophers, the Greek disciples of Saint Basil have spent their vigils over the books of the holy Fathers. Here where Cicero and Lucullus had collected a library of standard works, which the hand of time has dispersed or destroyed, the Basilians had ^ Giuseppe Cozza-Luzzi, // Tuscvla^no di M. Tullio Cicerone, Rome, 1866. ^ Gio. Battista de Rossi, Ricerche archeologiche nel territorio TiLsculanOt Rome, Salviucci, 1874, p. 193. 248 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA formed another, so rich in manuscripts and palimpsests that — in spite of thefts and spoliations from ' commen- datarii ' and from popes — it yielded to Cardinals Mai and Pitra many astonishing finds in history and litera- ture. Here where the orator had collected a consider- able number of works of art, which have probably perished in a lime-kiln, the monks pride themselves on the possession of Domenichino's famous set of frescoes, of Annibale Carracci's altar-piece, of the mosaic picture of the twelve apostles, and of an archaeological museum. ' Ce -n'est pas sans charme que Ton entend resonner la langue de Platon et de saint Jean Chrysostome pres de la villa ou Ciceron avait reunie une precieuse collection de livres et de chefs-d'-oeuvre empruntes a la Grece.' " Towards the end of the Republic this section of the Tusculan Hills had become the "Lincoln's Inn Fields," the ** Lawyers' Corner" of the Campagna, so many members of the bar having bought property and built villas and cottages near the springs of the Aqua Julia, in order that they might discuss their cases and help one another with texts or advice before driving to town and appearing in court. By referring to the map on the opposite page this clustering of villas around that of Cicero — like planets round a central sun — will be made clear to the reader, better than by any description ; and he will understand how easy it was for those leading members of the bar to keep in contact, and exchange their views both on politics and on points of law. Thus in the case against Verres, Cicero appeared for the pro- secution and his neighbor Hortensius for the defence. On other occasions they were colleagues in the defence of Rabirius, charged with the murder of a tribune of the plebs; of Murena and Sulla, accused of bribery in MAP OF THE DISTRICT OF TUSCULUM Comprising Cicero's villa at the CoUe delle Ginestre, as well as the most important ancient and modem ones in the territory of Frascati and Qrottaf errata 250 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA canvassing for the consulship; of Flaccus and Sextius, and Scaurus and Milo, for other offences. Niebuhr says of them: *'At the time of Sulla's death, B. c. 78, Cicero was twenty-eight years old, and had already spoken several times and claimed great attention. Hortensius was older than he and not free from envy. . . . He had his share of all the depravities of his age, and it is an undoubted fact that he sold his own con- victions, a thing from which Cicero was altogether free." In reading the magnificent orations we find that Cicero counted more upon emotional effects than upon legal evidence. He was not a lawyer in the present sense of the term. The title of orator had a wider application among the Latins than with us. With us it means a public man excelling in eloquence, whereas the Latins applied the title to any one accustomed to address the people, either in popular assemblies or in the courts of law. A Roman advocate was not obliged to read law through many a long vigil before obtaining his first brief; he need not be recognized as a sound and able lawyer before entering the temple of Themis. The techni- calities of each case were discussed — previous to the calling of it by the bench — between the pleader and an expert at law, that is to say, "a professional deliverer of legal advice," such as Tiberius Coruncanius, consul in 281 B. c, the first public man known to have adopted this practice as a remunerative profession. The term advocate, at the time of Cicero, did not mean a pleader in the courts, but simply a friend and supporter of the accused, to whom he gave countenance by his presence at the trial. Thus in the case of L. Cornelius Balbus, accused of having illegally assumed Roman citizenship, acquittal was granted not so much from the effect of Cicero's speech as from the impression created on the THE LAND OF CICERO 251 jury by the presence of a deputation of fellow-citizens, men of the highest respectability, who had journeyed eighteen hundred and forty-one miles from Cadiz to avert, if possible, by their mute appeal, the calamity of a conviction. We have therefore two distinct sets of men connected with a Roman court, the ''patroni causarum," who, like Cicero, spoke for the prosecution or for the defence, and the " juris-consulti," chamber-counsel, who on the payment of a fee expounded to advice-seekers the doc- trines of the law and informed them of their rights and liabilities. These jurisconsults used to pace up and down the pavement of the Forum, just as the Scotch advocates have paced until recent times that of the Parliament House at Edinburgh, waiting for applica- tions; and under their peripatetic tuition young men of a judicial turn of mind prepared themselves to practise in courts. Thus Cicero is known to have attached himself to Scsevola, in whose family the profession of jurisconsult had been hereditary, and to have derived so much profit from the borrowed information that he could frame the legal part of the case in defence of Murena in the space of three days. This is the reason why knowledge of the law was considered by him only a secondary object in comparison with other qualifica- tions. In the majority of cases orators made appeal, not to the understanding but to the emotional feelings of the popular judges. A subtle mise-en-scene of the case was more essential to its successful ending than a rigid debate on points of law; jests were substitued for quotations from the code, and loose harangues for a plain statement of facts. Rhetoric and logic had not then, as with us, a distinct domain. The warm sun of the south quickened the sensibilities of both the speaker and 252 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA his audience, giving to the former leave to venture upon the boldest appeals without doing violence to decorum. Brutus, in his attempt to overthrow a dynasty, counted more on the exhibition of Lucretia's bleeding body in the Forum than on his fiery appeal for vengeance. The withdrawal of the plebs to the Sacred Hill was brought about by the appearance in the same place of a veteran imprisoned for debt, whose breast showed the marks of the beating he had endured at the instigation of the creditor. Manlius was acquitted because his trial hap- pened to take place in view of the Capitol, which he had saved from the Gauls. And when Cicero stood by Fonteius, accused of corrupt practices in the exercise of the prsetorship, he pointed out to the jury the sister of his client — a vestal virgin — clinging to him in pas- sionate embrace, and exclaimed, "Let it not be said hereafter that the eternal fire which has been preserved by the midnight care and watching of this priestess was extinguished by her tears." Sometimes, in cases of murder, a picture representing the foul deed was ex- hibited at the trial, that the eyes of the judges might rest on the hideous scene while their ears were listening to the cry of vengeance against the murderer. Quin- tilian, however, mentions one or two cases in which these attempts at dramatic effect resulted in ludicrous failure. For instance, Glyco Spiridion once, in the midst of an impassioned appeal, had a boy brought into court, apparently weeping for the loss of his parents; but on being asked why he cried so piteously, the urchin, badly tutored in his part, answered, "Because I have just been birched by the master." A rich and influential offender stood his trial attended by a great number of counsel. Scaurus, for instance, had secured the services of the six most eminent " patroni THE LAND OF CICERO 253 causarum" of the day, — Clodius Pulcher, Marcellus, Callidius, Messalla Niger, Hortensius, and Cicero. They divided the task by each taking a separate part of the charge, the whole case being afterwards summed up by the advocate who was thought likely to do it most effectually. This part of the duty — the peroration — generally devolved on Cicero, and if the written text of such perorations represents really the words uttered by him under the impulse of the moment, we must acknowledge that no one was better qualified to bring a case to a successful issue. He, however, strongly condemns the practice of allowing several counsel to speak upon the same side, because, not having followed closely the course of the long debate, they were apt to weary the court by going over the same ground which had been previously trodden by their colleagues. The Roman courts must have been grateful to Pompey, who in his third consulship (52 b. c.) made compulsory the use of the clepsydra in trials, by which the pleaders could time the duration of their speeches. It may please some of my readers of advanced views to know that in ancient Rome ladies were admitted to the bar, Hortensia, Amsesia Sentia, and Afrania stand- ing at the head of the list. Hortensia, the daughter of the orator and a brilliant speaker herself, rose to fame under the Triumvirate. Lepidus and Mark Antony hav- ing imposed a tax on Roman matrons, and no lawyer having come forward to defend their rights for fear of proscription, Hortensia championed her sex, and spoke so eloquently before the magistrates that the greater part of the tax was at once remitted. Cicero was apt to lose his presence of mind and en- danger the case of his client by his own nervousness. The day he rose to defend Milo against the charge of 254 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA having murdered Clodius, he was so affected by the immense multitude which thronged the Forum, and by the military precautions taken to insure order in case of a riot, that he showed himself utterly unequal to the occasion. It is true that the day was charged with perilous excitement; the shops were shut, house-doors barricaded; so that even the boldest orator might have trembled, seeing on every side the glitter of arms, and hearing the hoarse murmurs of the populace, only kept back by the spears of the soldiers from rushing into the inclosure of the Rostra. The speech which has been handed down to us as that which Cicero delivered on this great occasion is the most splendid of his orations, and it seems impossible that it should not have been successful ; but the truth is that we have it as it was composed, not as it was spoken ; for the orator lost his presence of mind, when he rose for the defence, and owing to the agitation under which he labored, he lost the case, and Milo was sentenced to banishment. When in his exile from Rome he after- wards read the speech which we possess and which his advocate intended to deliver, he exclaimed, '*If Cicero had spoken thus, I should not now be eating figs at Marseilles." Nineteen authors, whose names and writings are recorded in a footnote,^ have attempted to find the exact * Mattel, Memorie delV antico Tusculo, Rome, 1711; Sciommari, Badia di Grottaf errata, Rome, 1728; Volpi, Vetus Latium profanum, vol. viii, 1742; Zuzzeri, Antica villa scoperta sul Tusculo, Venice, 1746; Piacentini, Epitome grcecas palcBographice, Rome, 1743; Cardoni, De Tusculano Ciceronis, Rome, 1757; Capmartin de Chaupy, Maison d' Horace, vol. ii, p. 237; Canina, Tusculo, Rome, 1841; Kihhy, Analisi dei dintorni di Roma, second edition, 1848, vol. iii, p. 334; De Rossi, AnnalidalV Istituto, THE BEST KNOWN LIKENESS OF CICERO AT ABOUT THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OF AGE """%?3',., OF THE LAND OF CICERO 257 location of the orator's villa. I myself took up the prob- lem in 1884, and my conjecture that it must have stood on the Colle delle Ginestre, just above Grottaf errata, has been accepted by the highest authority on the to- pography of the "juga Telegoni,"^ Professor Grossi- Gondi, the genial author of the " Ville Tusculane."^ Leaving Frascati by the road to Marino, and follow- ing it for one mile past the gate of the Villa Cavalletti, if we turn first to the right by the old Via Latina, and then take the first lane on the left, it will lead us easily and unmistakably to the Colle delle Ginestre. The lane affords as pleasant a walk as the wandering student of ancient life could wish, past vineyards and olive yards and fruit farms, and treading at every step on some remains of the past. Nowhere does there exist within an hour's distance from the gates of a great capital a district like the Tusculanum where the air is more salubrious, the site more smiling, the waters more abundant, the woods more shady, the vineyards more luxuriant, the fruit more luscious, the enjoyment of a simple life more keen, and the view over land and sea, 1873, p. 208, and Bvllettino Archeol. Crist, 1872, p. 106; Rocchi, La Badia di Grottaferrata, Rome, 1874; Lanciani, Bidlettino MunicipalCy a. 1884, p. 192; Tommasetti, Via Latina, Rome, 1886, p. 139; Seghetti, Tusculo e Frascati ; Bahr, " Tusculum," in Jahrbiicher des Pddagogiums in Magde- burg ; O. E. Schmidt, "Cicero's Villen," in Neue Jahrbuch fiir klassische Alterthum Geschichte, vol. iii, 1899; Grossi-Gondi, La villeggiatura Tus- culana di Cicerone, Rome, 1905. * " The hills of Telegonus," the alleged son of Ulysses and Circe, and founder of Tusculum. Hence the expressions "Telegoni moenia, Telegoni muri, Telegoni jugera, Circaea moenia," in constant use with the poets. To him a statue was raised in the forum of Tusculum, the pedestal of which was discovered by Prince Lucien Bonaparte in the time of Pius VII. It has since been placed in the vestibule of the Villa RuflSnella. * Rome, 1901, vol. i. 258 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA over lakes and mountains, more restful and pleasing. Parini sang of this district : — " Qua vaghezza mi guida Di visitare i vostri colli ameni, Queste vostre feconde acque correnti. Tra voi, beate genti, Fama e nel Lazio che natura arnica Tutti raccolga i beni Che coir altre divide." In the immense space at our feet, from the range of the Apennines upon which snow shines sometimes even in the heart of summer to the line of the sea, from the foam of which Aphrodite was born, the eye roams over cornfields and pastures and meadows, with glens wind- ing like green streams towards the coast, and long lines of mausoleums and aqueducts converging towards the gates of the city. "Tusculum, Albe et Algide . . . se trouvent tous trois dans un canton qui merite la mention la plus particuliere. C'est un corps isole de montagnes douze milles a I'orient de Rome. La reunion ainsi que la qualite de tout ce qu'on peut desirer de la part de la Nature fait son premier prix. Hants sommets, vallees delicieuses, coteaux rians, champs fertiles, bois majestu- eux, lacs merveilleux, eaux agreables, tout cela non seule- ment s'y trouve, mais le compose. Un second merite plus touchant encore que le premier, c'est que le bon air et Tagreable frais, banni de toute la plaine d'alentour . . . semblent s'y etre refugies, et y avoir etabli leur regne." ^ No wonder that the ancients should have shown partiality for these hills. Cicero loved the Tusculanum above his other earthly possessions, and always refers to it in terms of endearment, such as ol/co? <^tXo9, and the like. He wrote once from Lucrinum that, whenever he ^ Chaupy, ii, 7. THE LAND OF CICERO 259 happened to be walking out of the grounds for the sake of exercise, his footsteps would always carry him unin- tentionally in the direction of Tusculum. About sixty letters are dated from the villa of his choice, where he must have resided almost without interruption in the years 46 and 45 b. c, which were those of Csesar's victories at Thapsus and Munda, and of Cato's death. Here he places the scene of the disputations *'De Divinatione" with his brother Quintus; here he wrote the treatise " De Oratione" and the lost one, "De Gloria"; here, at the suggestion of Sallust, he began to shape into a new form the books *'De Republica," and here were debated the "Tusculan questions" concerning the problem of hap- piness. Brutus, Varro, Lucceius, Sallust, Tyro, Atticus, Hirtius, and Dolabella claimed in turn his hospitality, and whenever host and guests, engaged in peripatetic controversies, found themselves in need of a rare edition, the doors of the library of the Lucullean villa were most liberally thrown open to them. The first mention of a Tusculan property occurs in letter i, 5, to Atticus, dated 63 b. c. According to Pliny, Cicero had purchased it from Sulla's estate, in proof of which statement the naturalist mentions a fresco re- presenting a gallant deed of the dictator in the Marsic war, which could still be seen painted on the wall of the house (in Vespasian's time). Cicero, however, mentions as his predecessors in the ownership of the place a Catu- lus and a Vettius. It was a dwelling of modest size; in fact, whenever he writes about it he uses the diminutive form, which is at the same time a form of endearment : a porticula (small veranda), a tecta amhulatiuncula (small covered walk), an atriolum (small court), and so on. Yet, notwithstanding their modesty of size, these coun- try houses were of great value, and commanded a high 260 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA price in the market. An indemnity of half a million sesterces (twenty thousand dollars) for damages was granted to Cicero himself after his return from banish- ment, which sum, he writes to Atticus (letter 350), did A rustic gate of a Tusculan villa (Falconieri) not represent two thirds of his actual losses. In another letter to Atticus (591) a certain Pilius is said to have pur- chased five eighths of an acre at the exorbitant price of one hundred and fifteen thousand sesterces (four thou- sand six hundred dollars). To the value of land we must obviously add that of the works of art with which the THE LAND OF CICERO 261 house was replenished; of the columns and friezes of its courts ; of the exotic plants and marble fountains of the gardens ; of the marble and bronze groups, and other such luxuries, the passion for which, unknown to the stern republicans of the previous age, had become con- tagious in Cicero's time. We are informed that, besides the house with its suitable accommodation for guests, the villa contained a lyceum and an academy, connected by paths running through walls of evergreens, the fa- vorite haunts of the orator's friends. The masterpiece of his collections seems to have been a Hermathena, which Atticus had purchased in Greece. *' Thy Herma- thena," Cicero writes in a letter of acknowledgment, "gives me intense satisfaction, and I have placed it so advantageously in the gymnasium that the whole edifice looks, as it were, an *HXtou dvddrjfxa.'' Other statues had been purchased at Megara for the sum of two hundred and forty thousand sesterces (nine thou- sand six hundred dollars), and nearly the whole library at Athens. This last apartment contained bronze hermse of eminent men, on shafts of Pentelic marble; a Her- meracles, and a figure of Mars, which seemed quite out of place in such a room; and a group of Maenads, which also had been bought much against Cicero's will by Fabius Gallus. The Muses, he complains, would have been much more welcome companions in a "shrine of learning." Here he wrote his epistles, the oldest of which, concerning the Tusculanum, dates from 63 b. c, the latest (remaining) from 39, a period of twenty-four years. By his first wife, Terentia, Cicero had two children, — a daughter Tullia, or Tulliola, whose death in 45 caused him the most acute distress, and a son Marcus, who survived the proscription, and died a rallie of the new 262 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA regime. I have spoken in " Pagan and Christian Rome " (p. 300) of the alleged discovery made on April 16, 1485, of Tulliola's exquisitely preserved body, at the sixth milestone of the Appian Way, near the gate of the Villa Quintiliorum. Besides the fact that the body was that of a young and tender maiden, while Tulliola is known to have died in childbirth at the age of thirty-two, we know that Cicero's daughter was laid to rest in the family estate, on the banks of the Crabra stream. And rest indeed she needed after such a career in life ! Born in 78, she first married, at the age of fifteen, Calpurnius Piso Frugi, whom she lost during her father's banish- ment. At twenty-two she was married again, to Furius Crassipes, a young man of rank and large property, whom she soon divorced for unknown reasons. At twenty-eight she wedded a third husband, P. Cornelius Dolabella, a thorough profligate. On the 19th of May, 49, she was delivered of a premature child, who died soon afterwards, and at the beginning of 45 a son was born. As soon as she was suflSciently recovered to stand the fatigues of a journey, she accompanied her father to Tusculum, where she died in February, in the full splen- dor of her womanhood. It seems as if the privilege of gazing at her tomb from the window of his chamber, or from the terrace of the garden, must have made the Tusculanum even dearer to the sorrowing father. Letters 146 and 153-155, written to Quintus between 59 and 54 b. c, supply other particulars. We learn from them that Cicero was in the habit of rising before the break of day, and of setting himself at once to work with the help of a lamp, which Quintus had purchased at Samos ; that on the third day of January his birthday was celebrated, Varro, Atticus, Sallust, Papirius, Pseto, Tyro, and Brutus gathering round his table; that his son THE LAND OF CICERO 263 ^^BB^^P^^oR^H^Bkj riHp N ^^^^^ 4 t, -'^•r-rh-i^7^gf^fjjgj0gki>^.-<,-. -- ..,"1. - _ J Wv» ' 1 "^ -1 a? ^ iiiji I .w--J»i»iiJ - il oii,^ .^ >:— ««^. . .—m-.^*^ ^.— -- - ~~^-^ llfill A view of the \ill;i platform excavated 1741-46, where the tile inscribed with Cicero's name was found Marcus, although of extravagant and dissipated habits, did not object occasionally to sharing with his father the quiet of the villa ; and that he counted among his neigh- bors Gabinius, Lucullus, Hortensius, and Crassus, in whose gardens the discussion '*De Oratore" had taken place. But the happy and peaceful days were soon to be over: at the close of the summer of 43 Cicero received the first warnings of the collapse of his political aspira- tions and of the downfall of his party. Mark Antony, whom he had attacked with unmeasured violence in his Philippic oration, having become a member of the Triumvirate on November 27, 43 b. c, Cicero's name was at once included in the list of the proscribed. He must have left the villa at night so as to reach Antium before messengers from Rome would have made his escape impossible. Driven by stress of weather to 264 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Circeii, he succeeded in reaching his own villa at Formise; but on trying to reach the shore again he was overtaken by Antony's emissaries, whose instructions were to cut off his head and his hands, and make a public exhibition of the gruesome relics at the Rostra. Cicero perished on the 7th of December, 43, in the sixty- fourth year of his life. The ruins seen at the extreme point of the Colle delle Ginestre, just where the path which we have been fol- lowing begins its abrupt descent to Grottaferrata, are of no consequence whatever, — two walls of reticulated masonry, and nothing more! If my belief in their identity could be made acceptable to those in power — and this end could be attained only after a diligent search of the site — those two walls would become a na- tional monument and the goal of a pious and reverent pilgrimage by all lovers of eloquence and masterly statesmanship. There is but one genuine relic of ^^^^^^ Cicero's house left to us, — a ^"' "• '^-^^'^^^^^^L. fra2:ment of a tile inscribed r IVm^I l^J^f -| ^ ^™ "^^ name, m tvli, dis- \ 5^n| W^l'^ covered by Zuzzeri in the ^^'^ excavations of 1741-46, and The name of Cicero (M[arci] ^^^ preserved in the Kirch- TVL[i]i) stamped on the eriau Muscum at the Collegio bricks used in the building of Romauo. That scal docs not his villa at lusculum • 'f. i i i signify that the orator owned brick-kilns in the territory of Tusculum, the produce of which he would sell to builders ; it means that the bricks and tiles stamped with that name were made for Cicero's villa; in other words, that Cicero had secured from a local kiln a certain supply of building materials "made to order." The bricks used in the structure of Caesar's THE LAND OF CICERO ^65 villa on the lake of Nemi are likewise labelled with the name caisar, and nobody suspects the dictator of having entered into a brickmaking speculation. As re- gards the objection suggested, arising from the fact of the discovery having been made at a considerable dis- tance from the Colle delle Ginestre, we must not forget that the villa was pillaged and damaged by the partisans of Gabinius so rapaciously that even the trees were transplanted from one place to another. Cicero, as we have just seen, died in 43 b. c. Who knows through how many hands the property may have passed from the year 43 to the downfall of the Empire ? Even the name of its famous owner must have been forgotten with the lapse of time, because in a district in which so many classic names still survive no mention of a Tullianum occurs in mediaeval or Renaissance documents. It appears that at the end of the first cen- tury A. D. the villa was owned by (Ti. Catius) Silius Italicus, the bard of the Punic wars. Pliny speaks of him as an eccentric person on the subject of country residences, purchasing one after another, especially if connected with names of poets and orators, and getting tired of them as soon as a new playground was offered for sale. Silius had shown a taste for poetry and eloquence from his boyhood, taking Virgil and Cicero for models; he acquired prominence, however, and honors and wealth, more as a barrister than as a poet, his "Punica" being a dull metrical translation of Livy and Polybius rather than an inspired poem. He seems to have spent the last part of his life, while in the grip of an incurable disease, in an ex-Ciceronian villa,^ where he starved himself to death in the year 100, and in the seventy- fifth of his life. But where did the sad event occur — ' " Silius . . . jugera facundi qui Ciceronis habes.'* Martial, xi, 49, 2. 266 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA in the orator's Campanian estate near Baise, or in the Tusculanum? A discovery made in 1882 at Fontana Candida, near Frascati, tells in favor of the latter place. It concerns a funeral tablet put up at the expense of a collegium salutare, in memory of Crescens, a freedman of Silius Italicus, and very likely steward of his estate, which we know to have been bequeathed by the poet to his son and namesake Silius. The mention of this collegium salutare, the head- quarters of which were at Lanuvium, is not without in- terest for the study of social life among the fashionable landowners on the Alban Hills. It was an association formed among the lower employees of the villas for the purpose of guaranteeing a decent funeral service to its members. One of the articles of its statutes, the text of which, engraved on marble, was discovered at Civita Lavinia in 1816,^ provides that if the death of a member should take place within a radius of twenty miles from Lanuvium, full honors were to be paid to his memory; if beyond that limit, the association would only be repre- sented at the funeral by a deputation of three members. Fontana Candida is within the statute distance, and therefore we may safely assume that Crescens, the care- taker of the poet's villa, was buried with full honors. From what has been stated in the preceding pages it is evident that the Abbey of Grottaferrata has no claim to link the fate of Cicero's Tusculanum with its own. The eight fluted columns of Parian marble in the nave of the chapel — which Cardinal Guadagni shamefully inclosed in a brick sheaf in 1754 — were found about 1020 by St. Nilus of Rossano, the builder of the abbey, perhaps in the ruins of the ancient edifice upon which ' See Corpus Inscrip. Lot., vol. xiv, n. 2112. THE LAND OF CICERO 267 the abbey actually stands, not certainly on the Colle delle Ginestre. It seems that in the year 1004, John XVIII being Pope, the holy hermit Nilus, driven away from Calabria by the invasion of the Saracens, found hospi- tality at the court of Gregory I, Count of Tusculum, who first granted him the use of a church of Sant' Agata in the Valle della Molara, and later the posses- sion of the ruined villa at the springs of the Acqua Julia, the walls of which can be seen to the present day within the fortified inclosure of the monastery. These incidents in the life of its founder — his meeting of the Emperor Otho III at Gaeta, his curing of the demoniac boy with oil taken from the lamp of the Virgin, his praying for the cessation of a storm, etc. — have been made immor- tal by Domenichino in the set of frescoes of the chapel which he painted in his twenty-ninth year by order of Odoardo Farnese, on the recommendation of his master, Annibale Carracci. The one which claims most atten- tion from our point of view represents the saint miracu- lously sustaining one of the columns from Cicero's villa from falling to the ground and killing or maiming the masons. It is said that when Cardinal Mai saw this fresco for the first time he improvised the following distich : — " Dive ! brevi lapsam cohibes quam voce columnam Haud Cicero immenso sisteret eloquio." ^ When it was once admitted, against every law of prob- ability, that the fluted pillars were relics of the Tuscu- lanum, imagination added new details. A marble disk found in the garden of the monastery, and now in the Villa Pamphili, was identified with the rpaTre^dc^o/jo? ^ " O Saint ! the column which thou stop'st in its fall, by one word of command, could not have been sustained by the immense eloquence of Cicero himself." 268 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA mentioned by Cicero in a letter to Gallus, and a double- headed bust, now also in the Pamphili collection, with the Hermathena, mentioned in a letter to Atticus. False inscriptions were produced, among them a ludicrous one in which the names of Julius Caesar and Cicero are coupled against all rules of chronology and common sense/ Had those fanciful writers of history, Mattel, Sciom- mari, and Cozza, known or suspected that Grottaferrata had yielded up at the end of the fifteenth century the finest statue, or what has been considered until lately the finest, in the world, I have no doubt they would have credited Cicero with its possession. I refer to the Belve- dere Apollo, discovered, not at Antium, as a popular tradition contends,^ but within the jurisdiction of the abbot of Grottaferrata while that office was held by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, afterwards Pope Julius 11.^ This is by no means the only masterpiece of which the place can boast. When the Emperor Frederick II withdrew his camp from this territory in 1242, on his way to the south, he took away to Nocera two bronze statues, one of a man, one of a cow, probably a replica of Myron's masterpiece. Cardinal Carlo Barberini in 1678 and Cardinal Melchior de Polignac in 1730 discovered eleven statues of various members of the Julii Aspri family; a Muse of colossal size, with eyeballs of pre- cious stones and eyelashes of copper; a Faustina; the * Compare Cozza, II Tuscidano, p. 65, who believes it to have been found in the seventeenth century near the eleventh milestone of the Via Latina. ^ "The tradition is, however, a late one. It appears for the first time in Miehele Mercati's Metallotheca (p. 361), printed in 1541. Compare Michaelis, Geschichte des Statiienhofes . . . Belvedere, p. 10, and Helbig's Guide, first edition, vol. i, n. 160. OFTHc \ UNIVERSITY OF THE LAND OF CICERO 271 figure of a slave; another of a youth carrying a deer in his arms ; and many pedestals inscribed with eulogies of the Julians. The archaeological quality of the district is suggested in Domenichino's picture, here reproduced, by the sarcophagus at the right corner of the foreground, which three stalwart masons are pushing away on rollers. Had all these relics been collected and preserved on the spot, the Grottaferrata museum would have ranked among the richest in Europe. The modest attempt made lately by the worthy Basil ians to start one makes us feel more keenly the losses of the past and the rapacity of the cardinal abbots, who treated as personal property, and carried away to their own private palaces in Rome, whatever the district placed under their temporary ju- risdiction produced in the way of antiques. And there were eighty-two such abbots from the death of St. Nilus in 1005 to that of Cardinal Ercole Consalvi in 1824.' The source of the great wealth and of the extensive earthly possessions of the abbey is easily found in the fact that the abbey was the favorite halting-place of kings and emperors bent on pillaging and burning Rome, or trying to save her from pillagers and incendiaries. Under its roof Robert the Norman, Henry IV, Fred- erick I, Frederick II, and the Duke of Calabria had found shelter and good cheer, and had paid their debt of gratitude in territorial grants. Thus the abbey be- came in time almost a state within a state, with bailiffs and justices of the peace residing at Castiglione, S. Ce- sario, Castelgandolfo, Albano, Aricia, Velletri, Ninfa, Terracina, Gaeta, and Rufrano. With an income of one * This illustrious statesman, the last of the cardinal abbots, died in a room on the first floor, on January 24, 1824, in the presence of the Pope's envoy. Cardinal Castiglioni (afterwards Pius VIII), and of the French am- bassador, the Duke of Laval de Montmorency. 272 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA hundred thousand scudi a year (one thousand for each monk) they were able to come to the rescue of the S. P. Q. R. itself on more than one occasion. The Bar- berini abbots have taken care to put an end to this antimonastic state of things by appropriating every pos- session of their proteges, — books, manuscripts, statues, pictures, precious vestments, and landed property. A visit to Grottaf errata is most attractive. Even the name of the place — the Iron Crypt — is mysterious. It appears for the first time in 1037. The learned monks have suggested its derivation from a railing inclosing a rustic chapel of the Madonna, from imaginary bar- racks of the first Legion Ferrata, from the iron-works at the waterfall of the Acqua Julia, or from the iron doors of the Iconostasis. None of these conjectures is satisfactory. But on stepping over the threshold of the sanctuary let us leave behind even historical con- troversy; peace and contentment are the only feelings which must be allowed to move our souls within these ancient cloisters. The Greek words of welcome en- graved over the door of the church express the same sentiment: **0 thou who enterest the house of God, leave behind thee all solicitous cares, so that thou mayst face thy Judge in peace!" How soothing these words must have sounded to many seeking admittance under St. Nilus's roof, after having shaken off the dust of the wicked city: **0 thou who comest to this sanctuary, leave behind thee all solicitous cares!" It is true that modern swift means of locomotion have disturbed the solitude of which the villa-builders and the cenobites were so jealous; but by a mercy of fate the Colle delle Ginestre and the gardens of the abbey are still free from any annoying contact. And if, while sitting on the THE LAND OF CICERO 273 remains of Cicero's home, or under the shade of the grove planted by St. Nilus, the faint echo of the engi- neer's whistle reaches our ear, we feel tempted to repeat in their blunt selfishness the verses of the poet: — " Suave, mari magno turbantibus sequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ! " ^ The best evidence of the influence that these charming retreats exercise on superior minds is to be found in Domenichino's experience. His home life was a hell, and yet, once within the shelter of the abbey, he could forget his sorrows so far as to be able to paint a whole set of masterpieces, showing a perfect balance of mind. Poor Domenichino ! He was fated to marry, about 1620, a woman from Bologna, Marsabilia by name, suflficiently good-looking, but of a fearsome temper and of a queer turn of mind. The most odious of her notions was that of denying a proper amount of food to her own children, in the hope of bringing them up gentle and delicate. Two young sons had already died from such inhuman treatment, when Domenichino, for once asserting his authority, took the third child under his own care, — a dear girl, who outlived him and gave him great com- fort in his misfortunes. These came to a climax in 1649, while he was painting the chapel of the Spanish viceroy in Naples, with the advent of two brothers of Marsabilia ('*maligni, insolentissimi, e facinorosi"), who succeeded in driving him to a premature grave, and in getting the lion's share of the inheritance, valued at twenty thou- sand scudi. Many other masterpieces besides Domenichino's owe their existence to the invigorating influences of a ' " It is sweet, when on the great sea the winds trouble its waters, to behold from land another's deep distress." (Munro.) 274 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMx\N CAMPAGNA Tusculan villa. Nowhere have men of letters found themselves in a more industrious mood; nowhere have they been able to dismiss more effectually from their minds the worries of professional and the intrigues of political life. So much did the ancients value the sooth- ing effects of rustic life — Nature's most active and mer- ciful drug — that the verb secedere was used with the double meaning of retiring into the country and of find- ing rest in a peaceful death. An inscription which I copied at Nettuno many years ago said, "L. Fabius Octavianus in agellulis meis secessV ^ Another, en- graved on a sarcophagus formerly in the church of the Aracoeli, in 'which father, mother, and daughter had been entombed, expresses the same feeling: ''Secus in sarcofago [sic] in hortulis nostris secessimus !'' This bringing into comparison the two restful withdrawals, the temporary and the eternal, the earthly and the elysian, gives a delicate touch of pathos to both epitaphs. • This happy state of things has not undergone serious change with the lapse of time. Each monastery, each villa, each cottage of the region, seems to be connected with the production of some literary or artistic work, from Cardinal Bessarion, the founder of the Greek Renaissance studies in the Grottaferrata Abbey, to Cardinal Wiseman, who wrote "Fabiola" under the pergola of the English College at Monteporzio; from Annibale Caro, who translated the ^Eneid in the grove of the villa of Lucullus, to Biondi and Canina, who gathered materials for their illustrations of Tusculum while residing at La Ruffinella. Above the gate of the cottage now inclosed in the Villa Piccolomini-Lancellotti, where Cardinal Cesare * " I, Lucius Fabius Octavianus, have retired into this little possession of mine." THE LAND OF CICERO 275 Baronio spent forty seasons in writing the ** Annali della Chiesa," the following inscription has been engraved, in which the verb secedere is again most happily used: The gateway of the Grottaferrata Abbey fortified by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere about 1485 CAESAR CARD. BARONIVS ANNALIBVS ECCLESIAE PERTEXENDIS HIC SECEDERE SOLITVS LOCVM MO- NVMENTO DiGNVM FECIT. Were similar inscriptions to be aflfixed to every house or garden gate in the territory of Frascati or Grottaferrata where illustrious men have 276 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA resided during the last four centuries, the whole country- side would become a Pantheon. 1 shall mention only two names as representatives of their respective social state, those of Cardinal Bessarion among the early humanists, and Annibale Caro among the poets of the golden age. Johannes Bessarion of Trebizond, Bishop of Nicsea, came to Italy in 1438 as theological adviser of the phan- tom-emperor Constantine Palseologue, at the council convened at Ferrara by Pope Eugene IV for the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches. As a supporter of the Church of Rome, and as a newly elected member of the Sacred College, he found himself involved at once in every clerico-political intrigue of that troublesome period, such as the conspiracy of Stefano Porcari, the conflict with Frederick III, and the schism of Basle. At the con- clave of 1455, following the death of the great Nicho- las V, he was on the point of receiving a majority of the votes, when a ludicrous allusion by Cardinal Alain of Brittany to his long, flowing beard, typical of Eastern prelates, turned the election in favor of the Spaniard Callixtus III. His name is connected with two gems of art, — the shrine of St. Andrew the Apostle, on the Fla- minian road, and the presbyterial house adjoining the church of S. Cesario on the Via Appia. According to a popular legend, Andrew the Apostle having been crucified at Patras, his head was severed from the body and left at the place of execution, while the body, after many wanderings, found a place of rest at Amalfi. When the Turks invaded Morea in 1459, and Thomas, the last of the Palseologues, sought safety in flight, the head, offered to Pope Pius II, was re- moved to the fortress of Narni and intrusted to the care of Bessarion. Of its transfer to Rome in April, 1462, of THE SHRINE ON THE FLAMINIAN ROAD Marking the spot at which the head of St. Andrew was received by Pope Pius II from the hands of Cardinal Bessarion THE LAND OF CICERO 279 the marvellous mise-en-scene for its triumphal reception arranged by the humanist Pope, and of the part played in it by Bessarion, it is unnecessary to speak after the brilliant account given by Gregorovius in volume vii of his '* Geschichte." A memorial of this event is to be found in a shrine still standing on the right of the Flaminian road, not far from the Milvian bridge. It has the shape of a canopy supported by four alabaster columns, shel- tering the statue of the saint, a work of Varrone and Nicolao of Florence, mentioned by Vasari in his life of Antonio Filarete. It marks the exact spot where the skull was handed to the Pope by Bessarion and where the speech was delivered which Gregorovius compares, not without reason, to the one uttered by Cola di Rienzo. The presbyterial house attached to the church of S. Cesario is a graceful building of the Renaissance, un- known not only to guidebooks but to artists as well as to historians of Rome. Bessarion kept open court in his palace at SS. Apos- toli (now an army and navy club), which became a seminary of classic studies for the leaders of the Renais- sance. Andronicus Callixtus, Constantine Lascaris, Gaza, Biondo, Cardinal Platina, Cardinal Cusa, Peuer- bach, the father of modern astronomy, and Johan Re- giomontanus, the translator of the "Almagest," were among the favorite guests. Bessarion himself was a bib- liomaniac, and many of the Greek manuscripts on the possession of which we pride ourselves were purchased by him from Greek refugees. The Grottaferrata library at that time had suffered great losses from ignorance and neglect. Ambrogio Tra- versari, who examined its contents in 1432, found many volumes eaten by vermin or spoiled by mould. Better days, however, came with the appointment of Bessarion 280 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA to the *'commandership" of the abbey, made by Pius II on August 28, 1462. The subsequent ten years of his tenure of office are marked with letters of gold in the chronicles of the monastery. He raised the moral stand- ard of his fellow monks, rebuilt their church, and took such good care of the library that even to-day, after four and a half centuries of further neglect, pleasant surprises await the bibliophiles; witness the discovery made by Cozza in July, 1875, of a precious codex of Strabo. The report of the cardinal's reforms must have reached Pius II, who visited Grottaferrata on May 30, 1463, to acquaint himself with the improved state of affairs. In the diary of the journey written by his mas- ter of ceremonies, the place is described as standing above Cicero's villa, between the villas of Lucullus and Marius. *'IIere dwell Greek monks with flowing beards who on the eve of Epiphany bless the water of the basin placed in the vestibule of the church, where it is kept for a whole year (!) to be drunk, drop by drop, by people suffering from the ague." Bessarion died at Ravenna on the 18th of November, 1472, having bequeathed his library of six hundred man- uscript volumes to the republic of Venice. It was valued at thirty thousand florins. Three inscriptions keep his name before us, — the one which he composed for his own grave; a second put up by him at S. Marcello in memory of a dear friend. Cardinal Juan Carvajal; and a third with an account of his career, put up in 1682 by Gian Battista Beltrami, a professor in the University of Rome, on the wall of the corridor connecting the church of SS. Apostoli with the palace once inhabited by Bessarion himself. His ashes must have been profaned or thrown into the common charnel-house at the time the church underwent its appalling transformation under Clement THE LAND OF CICERO 281 XI, with the complicity of his architect, Carlo Fontana. "No pen could describe," I quote the expression of Vin- cenzo Forcella,^ '*the acts of vandalism perpetrated on this occasion; they reduce almost to insignificance the fate suffered for a similar reason by the churches of La Minerva, S. Marcello, S. Nicolao in Carcere, and S. Francesco a Ripa." Bessarion had left the most minute directions for his burial in the right-hand corner of the chapel of SS. Michael and Euphemia. No vestiges are left either of the chapel or of the grave, save the original epitaph in Greek and Latin dictated by the cardinal himself. The best tribute of honor to his memory is to be found in Father Rocchi's "La Badia di Grottaf er- rata";^ he says that Bessarion was the last of the good commendatarii. The fourteen successors, from Giuli- ano della Rovere to Carlo Rezzonico, mostly nephews of popes,^ turned the revenues of the abbey to their private advantage, and, in the matter of antiquities and works of art, laid hands on every object which could be con- veniently removed to their private galleries in Rome. The first event in the chronicle of the new life and the new period of prosperity of these hills is the rebuilding of Frascati, undertaken by Paul III in 1538 and completed in 1546, under the direction of his factotum, Meleghino, and from the plan of Bartolomeo Baronino.* Included ^ Inscrizioni delle chiese di Roma, vol. ii, p. 219. » Rome, 1904, p. 37. ' Giuliano, nephew of Sixtus IV; Innocenzo del Monte, of Julius III; Alexander Farnese, of Paul III; Francesco Barberini, of Urban VIII; Giannantonio Guadagni, of Clement XII; Carlo Rezzonico, of Clement XIII, etc. * Concerning these two coadjutors of Pope Farnese in his works of em- bellishment and sanitation of Rome and Frascati, see The Golden Days of the Renaissance, pp. 165, 172. 282 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Portrait of Cardinal Bessarion in the cloister of SS. Apostoli in the scheme of the works were the construction of a castle where the *'governatore della citta di Tusculano" could reside in ordinary times, and the Popes on the occasion of their summer visits ; the construction of the city walls; the opening of two public squares and of a network of straight and well-drained streets crossing one another at right angles. If we remember that the whole THE LAND OF CICERO 283 city of Frascati is built over the remains of an ancient villa of immense size, we cannot wonder at the archaeo- logical results of Paul Ill's undertaking. Aldovrandi saw in the Farnese collection at Rome '* a most beautiful trophy with heads of gorgons, harpies, and lions; another group of military emblems in porphyry; a candelabrum standing on a triangular base with groups of Winged Victories in bold relief; . . . and all these marbles were found at Frascati. " The anonymous author of the manuscript volume in the Bishop's library marked 14, 1, 11, speaks also of "alcune statue di molta considera- tione" discovered under the Cherubini house, within the same belt of classic ruins. What were these ruins, and to whom among the classic summer residents of their district can we ascribe their ownership.^ The answer can be given without fear of mistake since the recent studies of Grossi-Gondi. Frascati represents the central palace and the headquarters of the imperial estate, many thousand acres in extent, which had been formed in the first two centuries after Christ by joining in one pro- perty several villas originally belonging to the Passienii, the Sulpicii, the Quintilii, the Cocceii, and the Emperor Tiberius. It extended eastward from the present town to the Barco Borghese and northward to the region of Cocceiano, Prataporcia, and Campitelli. The palace formed a parallelogram one thousand feet long and eight hundred wide, divided into two platforms, the higher of which is called in mediaeval documents Viva- rium, the lower Balnearia, Bagnara, the first from its water-reservoirs, the second from its vestiges of baths. Passienus Crispus, the founder of the estate, twice consul, owner of a fortune valued at two hundred mil- lions of sesterces, or eight million dollars, was a great lover of nature, as I have had occasion to mention in 284 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA chapter III, p. 146. Unfortunately he loved also Agrip- pina the younger, and this was the cause of his downfall. Agrippina was an unwise mother-in-law. She became so obnoxious to Poppsea, whose influence over Nero increased every day, and to Nero himself, who sided with his young wife, that an estrangement took place. Nero would avoid her presence and deny speech to her ; and Agrippina would show her resentment by leaving the court and brooding over her lost power, sometimes in her Vatican gardens, sometimes at Tusculum in the villa of Passienus, to whom the dowager Empress had bound A view of the Villa Quintiliorum, now Mondragone herself by a morganatic marriage, the second in her adventurous career. The wealth of Passienus was the cause of his death ; he bequeathed it to his august wife, and she secured possession of it without waiting for the natural course of events, by removing the obstacle THE LAND OF CICERO 285 which stood in her way. For this we have the evidence of Suetonius, "he was done to death by the treachery of Agrippina, whom he had made heiress to his immense estate. " The villa, therefore, became Agrippina's about 48 A. D. Six years later, by the death of Claudius, her third husband, the villa and the two hundred millions became the property of Nero. Written evidence of these tragic events and of these transmissions of property was found at Frascati in 1854, 1876, and 1891. The name of the meddlesome mother-in-law has been read on the water-pipe supplying the bath,^ and that of her son on another conduit discovered in 1891 in about the same place ;^ while a memorial of the residence of her third husband at the villa is to be found in the gravestone of the freedwoman Claudia Primigenia, discovered under the Senni palace at the Porta Romana in 1860. To this original nucleus several adjoining properties were added from time to time, such as the one which Agrippina and Nero had jointly inherited from Tiberius, the imposing remains of which are seen from the rail- way carriage, on the left of the last curve before reaching Frascati. The place is now called Cocciano. Here a water-pipe was found in 1892 inscribed Tiberii CcBsaris et lulice Augustce. Here Tiberius lingered the last days of his life, leaving Cocciano on his journey to Capri only to die at Cape Misenum. Here he was cared for by Antonia the elder, mother of Germanicus, the same matron who had given him the first warning about the plot of Sejanus. Statues of both were discovered near the theatre of Tusculum in the excavations of 1839 by the Queen of Sardinia. What became of this imperial property in subsequent times is not known. The fact ^ Compare Corpus Inscr., vol. xiv, n. 2659. ^ Bull. arch, com., vol. xxii, a. 1904, p. 122. 286 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA that a "massa Tusculana" is not mentioned in the list of territories granted by Constantine to the See of Rome leads us to suppose that the domain must have been sold in plots to private owners between the time of Severus (when the villa is mentioned for the last time) and the end of the third century, when the great reli- gious and political evolution of the Empire took place, and the church gradually came into possession of the imperial lands. The rebuilding of Frascati by Pope Paul III in 1538- 46 secured once more for the Tusculan hills the place of honor among the summer residences of the prelates and noblemen of the Curia, each of them taking care to choose the remains of an ancient villa for the site of his new one, so as to avoid the cost of building fresh foun- dations. This superposition of the sixteenth-century villas on the classic ones is the fundamental point in the study of the topography of this attractive district. If we spread before our eyes the panoramic view of the Frascati country-seats, as they appeared at the time of Paul V, designed and engraved by Matthew Greuter in 1620, and substitute in imagination for the indifferent architecture of the modern palaces the classic outline of their predecessors, and for their gray, sombre color the harmonious polychromy of a Pompeian house, we may obtain a satisfactory impression of the old aspect of the hillside. The pioneer of villa-builders in the first half of the sixteenth century was Alessandro Rufini, Bishop of Melfi, a man of archaeological tastes and an ardent col- lector of every inscription, or altar, or urn which bore the name of Rufinus or Rufina. As usual with the collectors of that period, whose means were not equal to their am- bition, the bishop found himself frequently in monetary A FISH POND IN THE TUSCULAN VI U )1 BISHOP RUFINI (NOW FALCONIERI) I THE LAND OF CICERO 287 straits and obliged to part with some of his treasures. Thus, in the year 1562, when he had become sponsor for the safe rebuilding of the Ponte di Santa Maria, and the contractors had failed to accomplish it, he met his liabilities to the city magistrates by paying 640 scudi outright and the balance of 1360 scudi in works of art, the two colossal statues of Julius Caesar and an admiral which are to be seen on either side of the entrance door to the Conservatori Palace. The Villa Rufina at Fras- cati is better known under the name of Falconieri, from the family which rebuilt and enlarged it at the end of the seventeenth century after the designs of Borromini. Some years ago it had the misfortune to fall into the hands of certain Trappist monks, who tried to turn its best attractions into money, cutting down even its finest trees. The villa has now found a kind and generous protector in Emperor William of Germany, to whom the property has been offered as a gift by a loyal subject, Herr Mendelssohn. The example set by Bishop Rufini was followed by Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, the builder of the Villa An- gelina-Borghese (1562); by Annibale Caro, the builder of the Caravilla (1563); by Cardinal Marco Sitico Al- temps, the builder of Mondragone (1572); by Guido Ferrerio, Cardinal of Vercelli, the restorer of the Ruffi- nella (1578) ; by Cardinal Ottavio Acquaviva, the builder of the Villa Montalto (1590); by Clement VIII and Pietro Aldobrandini, the builder of the Villa Belvedere (1592-1604); by Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni, the builder of the Villa Muti (1596), and by Giacomo Boncompagni, nephew of Gregory XIII, the builder of the Villa Sora. Annibale Caro, a most genial master of the Italian language, whose speech is like music, whose words are 288 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA like jewels, the translator of the iEneid and of the idyl of Longus the Sophist, whose name has already been men- tioned in this volume (p. 193) in connection with the laying out of the Villa Catena, purchased in 1563 part of the villa of Lucullus near the gate of the present Villa Conti-Torlonia. This acquisition he made partly from a desire to please his protector, Cardinal Ranuccio Far- nese, a great lover of Frascati, partly with a view to leaving behind the worries of city life and the intrigues of the Curia. It was altogether a modest place, but so full of peace and freedom from the *' prof anum vulgus" that the poet gave it the name of Cara villa. Neither Cardinal Ranuccio, however, nor Caro long enjoyed their villas, — one the Angelina, the other the Cara- villa, — as the first died at Parma in 1565, and the sec- ond at Rome in the following year. How different the modest garden of the poet must have looked from the country-seat of Lucullus, among the ruins of which it nestled. We know that the impression created by the latter on the visitor was that of an offensive display of wealth rather than of taste; and the vastness of its build- ings gave rise to the criticism that there was more space for sweeping than for gardening in the Lucullean estate. The number and value of the works of art, however, and the contents of the library redeemed such defects in the eye of the connoisseur. Moreover, Lucullus was a charm- ing host, endowed with the gift of repartee. Having once been asked by Pompey why he had incurred so great an expense for a villa facing the north and there- fore available only in summer, "Do you take me," he answered, "for a more stupid being than the stork, that I should not know how and when to change residence with the change of the seasons ?'' The translator of the iEneid was a successful explorer -,-• ■"- .-^ ''^■ A SHADY WALK IN THE LUCULLEAN GARDENS (VILLA CONTI-TORLONIA) THE LAND OF CICERO 291 of antiquities. A contemporary artist, Flaminio Vacca, relates in his "Memoirs" how **a block of masonry that stood in the farmer's way having been levelled to the ground in the vineyard of Annibale Caro outside the Porta San Giovanni, the portrait heads of the twelve Caesars were found imbedded in the masonry, together with a sarcophagus on the front of which were sculp- tured the Labors of Hercules, and with many pieces of statuary of Greek workmanship. I do not remember what was done with the heads and busts ; the sarcopha- gus, however, was purchased by Monsignor Visconti, and removed to Nuvolara, an estate he owned on the left bank of the Po." Annibale mentions other finds at Frascati in a letter dated September 14, 1565. "My ambition at present is to escape from Rome as often as I can, and to live in retirement in a small cottage I am constructing at Frascati, on a site once belonging to Lucullus, as I have been able to make sure from monu- ments upon which his name is engraved." He refers to the discovery, among the ruins of the old palace, of a water-pipe inscribed with the name L. lvcvl . . . This was not the only treasure gathered from the ruins. In the month of February, 1575, the poet's heir, Ottavio, offered for sale to the city council a collection of statues, valde pulcherrimoB, which had evidently been unearthed at Frascati. The Caravilla was embodied at a later period in the beautiful villa which passed through the hands of Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, Bishop of Como; of the reckless nephew of Paul V, Cardinal Scipione Borghese; of the Altemps, Ludovisi, Conti, and Sforza- Cesarini; and is now nobly taken care of by Duke Leopoldo Torlonia. Traces of the reticulated walls of the house, which once echoed with the voices of the conqueror of Bithynia, of Cato and Cicero, can be seen 292 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA level with the ground on either side of the avenue, a view of which is given on p. 151. Lucullus was buried in his own estate, but the shape- less mass of concrete shown to tourists as his grave, near the gate of the Villa Piccolomini-Lancellotti (from which the municipality of Frascati has named the adjoining street, to give it a dash of archaeological interest), has no right to bear the name. Lucullus was laid to rest by his brother Licinius in a noble mausoleum on the Via Tus- culana, at the place called Torrone di Micara, one mile due west of Frascati; built in the shape of a tumulus, in the style prevailing towards the Augustan age. Larger and more imposing than the contemporary mausolea of Lucilia Polla on the Via Salaria, of Passienus Crispus in the Vigna Cavalieri on the Aventine, and of an unknown personage in the Vigna della Certosa on the Via Labi- cana, the Torrone di Micara measures 100 feet in diam- eter and 29 in height to the top of the cornice. The cone of earth once covered with evergreens has disappeared, and in its place we see, as at Metella's grave, vestiges of mediaeval fortifications, and a battlemented parapet, which Nibby assigns to the end of the fifteenth cen- tury. The three sepulchral chambers where the ashes of the Licinii were formerly kept are now used as an oil cellar. The Torrone can be reached from Frascati in less than an hour, following the Strada Romana as far as the Villa Borsari and the lane to the left to Colle Papa. The Villa Liciniorum must have remained in the possession of the family for many years, because a grave- stone of the second century after Christ, bearing the name of two freedmen Licinii, has been found near the western boundary of the estate in the direction of the Villa Muti. THE LAND OF CICERO 293 I have just mentioned, among the illustrious men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who successively owned the site of the villa, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the most reckless and spendthrift prelate of his age. Born in 1576, of the sister of the future Pope Paul V and of Prospero Caffarelli, cardinal at twenty-nine, two months after his uncle had taken possession of St. Peter's The Mausoleum of LucuUus, now called the Torrone di Micara chair, the sudden possession of unlimited wealth from bishoprics, abbacies, and sinecures must have hurried him into the path of extravagance. When we come to think that for the sake of a single statue, and a very immodest one,^ he undertook to rebuild at his own cost the fa9ade of Santa Maria della Vittoria, while he was already engaged in such expensive undertakings as the Villa Pinciana-Borghese, the churches of S. Francesca Romana and S. Gregorio al Celio, the Caffarelli chapel at La Minerva, and the palazzo which still bears his ^ The Borghese Hermaphrodite, now in the Louvre. 294 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA name, what he was able to accomplish at Frascati seems almost insignificant. He began by purchasing the Villa Angelina from the heirs of Ranuccio Farnese, the Mondragone from Giovannangelo Altemps, the Cara- villa (Conti), from the heirs of Tolomeo Gallio, the Mondragoncino from Ferdinando Taverna (the terrible prosecutor of Beatrice Cenci), and the Montalto from Ottavio Acquaviva, without his greed or his changing moods being satisfied. The Acquaviva cost him 58,600 scudi, the Taverna 28,000, the Mondragone 300,000, be- sides the outlay of 19,913 scudi for the water-works of the Caravilla alone. To the purchase-money we must add the value of the thousand works of art, classic or contem- porary, with which his palaces and gardens were filled. Guidebooks of the eighteenth century describe as still extant in his private apartment at Mondragone pictures by Raphael, Zuccari, Domenichino, Caraffa, Guido, Mi- chelangelo, Diirer, Cav. d' Arpino, and Lanfranco. One more interesting figure of a cardinal I shall in- troduce to the reader before bringing this chapter to a close, that of the last of the villa-builders at Fras- cati. In Domenico Passionei — born at Fossombrone in 1682, archseologist, diplomatist, linguist, and man of the world. Archbishop of Ephesus, Papal Nuncio to the Low Countries, Baden, Switzerland, and Vienna (where he brought into the fold of the church the Prince of Wurtemberg and Ekkart the historian), founder of the church of St. Edwige in Berlin, official orator at the funeral of Prince Eugene of Savoy, a cardinal in 1738 — we find embodied the most perfect type of the gentle- manly prelate of the eighteenth century. When, tired of court life, he devoted himself to the enjoyment of the literary and artistic treasures collected in Rome and H O H en W OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE LAND OF CICERO 297 abroad, he could not find a happier retreat than the one offered by the Tusculan hills; but why he should have applied to the recluses of Camaldoli for a piece of land within their cloistral bounds, when he might have chosen a site much better timbered and watered, easier of access, and commanding a better view, has never been satisfactorily explained. His application was accepted by the startled cenobites, not without much grinding of teeth and forebodings of trouble. The Camaldulese hermitage, offered to the disciples of St. Romuald by Pope Paul V after his purchase of Mondragone, occupies the site of a Roman villa on the shoulder of the hill which descends due north from Tusculum in the direction of Matidia's villa at Le Cappellette. Here the white-robed and white-bearded anchorites lived in separate cells, remote from all inter- course with mankind and meeting their fellow hermits only in the dead of the night, whenever the tolling of the bell interrupted their slumbers at the most impos- sible hours. No wonder that Cardinal Passionei's advent should have taken them by surprise and distressed them beyond endurance. Having built a number of cells in Camaldulese style, only larger and more commodious, one to be used as a library, a second as a picture gallery, a third as a cabinet of prints, a fourth as a cabinet of coins, gems, ivories, and bronzes, he built for his per- sonal use a cottage in a garden laid out in classic style, with edges of box and myrtle inclosing flower-beds or sheltering rustic seats. The outside walls of the cottage and of the cells were encrusted with about eight hundred Greek and Latin, pagan and Christian inscriptions and bas-reliefs, a catalogue of which was published at Lucca in 1763.^ ^ The catalogue is the work of Michelangelo Monsacrati, a canon of 298 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA Here the peace of the hermitage was disturbed at all seasons of the year and at all hours of the day by worldly sounds of carriages and cavalcades and sedan-chair par- ties, the noisy occupants of the neighboring villas all claiming hospitality from Passionei, who knew how to offer it en grand seigneur. Popes, kings, and the fairest patrician ladies headed his visiting list. All these de- tails have been transmitted to us by one of the cardinal's guests. Pier Leone Ghezzi, the caricaturist, and the most complete specimen of an eighteenth-century parasite to be found in contemporary chronicles. A jolly poet, artist, and maker of toasts, loquacious, a worshipper of rank and fashion. Pier Leone Ghezzi is rather in favor w^ith us on account of the magnificent journal of daily archaeological discoveries which he kept for a number of years in a set of (at least) thirty folio volumes profusely illustrated with drawings in chiaroscuro. The set was not kept intact after his death. Twenty-six volumes went to the Vatican Library through the Ottoboni legacy; one to the Corsini by purchase; one is in my possession. The volume, however, which has brought Ghezzi's name back to my memory because it contains the diary of his summer residence at Camaldoli in 1741-43, was pur- chased by James Byres at the sale of the Albani collec- tion for sixty scudi, and sold to Charles Townley, from whom it passed to the British Museum.^ It is full of in- teresting anecdotes and scraps of gossip; for instance, that a bronze coin of Trajan, found in a trench for the the Lateran. Benedetto Passionei, heir to the estate, having found it yet unpublished among the papers of his uncle, did not scruple to have it printed in his own name. ^ The archaeological memoirs of Ghezzi have been published by my- self in Bull. arch, comunale di Roma, 1882, p. 205, 1893, p. 165, and by Schreiber in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Saxony for April 23, 1892. THE LAND OF CICERO 299 water supply of the Romitorio, was taken possession of by Fra Vitale, the gatekeeper ; that the sarcophagus into which the water fell at the head of the fish pond, for- merly in the Giardino della Pigna at the Vatican, had been presented to the cardinal by Benedict XIV; that another piece of statuary, found near the ** Croce di Tusculo," had fallen into the hands of Fra Bonifacio, a lay brother in the service of Passionei. *' His eminence," the diarist says, "must have spent at least forty thou- sand scudi in this retreat of Camaldoli. It is so beau- tiful that the whole of Rome is anxious to visit it; few crowned heads can boast of a Buen Retiro equal to this one in absolute perfection; . . . but the cardinal is the only man of taste to be found in the sacred college." Worse troubles were in store for the monks in the au- tumn of 1741. Pope Benedict XIV was to be the guest of the Romitorio on October 16th, and James the Pre- tender on the 19th. The first came from Castelgan- dolfo, escorted by a squadron of cuirassiers; the other from Frascati, escorted by the young Princesses Bor- ghese and Pallavicini, '* alone without damsels." Ghezzi gloats over the Pantagruelic recollections of these days. " I have seen," he says, " iced mixtures of all flavors, and fruits, and douceurs, and Burgundy and Frontignan dis- tributed even to the cavalry escort of the Pope!" Passionei, whose biography has been written by Gal- letti and Le Beau,^ died at seventy-nine on July 5, 1761, and died in trouble, his end having been hastened by regret at having to countersign, in his oflficial capacity of Secretario dei Brevi, but against his conscience, the brief condemning the "Exposition de la doctrine chretienne" ^ Pierluigi Galletti, Memorie del Card. D. Passionei, Rome, 1762; Le Beau, Elogio storico, Rome, 1763; Du Four, Tribvt academique, AvignoD, 1760; Cancellieri, Lettera sopra il Tarantismo, p. 133. 300 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA The three typical trees of a Tusculan villa, the pine, the cypress, and the ilex of the Jansenist Mezenguy. It is commonly asserted that as soon as Passionei had been laid to rest in his grave at S. Bernardo alle Terme, the hermitage was pil- laged and stripped of all its contents by the heirs, so that in a few days' time the newest and brightest gem was wrenched from the diadem of villas which crowned the "New Tusculum." I believe the monks to have lent a most willing hand to the heirs. The author of the "Description of Latium" says: *' About a mile from Mondragone is a convent of Camaldolesi. . . . These anchorites usually fix their residence on high hills, remote from all intercourse with mankind, and this situation appears to be perfectly congenial to their in- clinations; but they were greatly annoyed by the late Cardinal Passionei, who built a hermitage near them ; it is said to have been very romantic and full of inscrip- tions, but scarcely any vestige of it remains, as the friars THE LAND OF CICERO 301 took pains to destroy it, from a fear that their medita- tions might again be disturbed by a powerful neighbor." Our visit to Tusculum ends in a way particularly in- teresting to the Anglo-Saxon reader. On the summit of the acropolis built by Telegonus the parricide, centuries before the birth of Rome, and raised still higher on a pyramid of stones, stands a lofty cross erected some fifty years ago by the students of the English college while spending the summer at Monteporzio. Accepta- ble and edifying to the neighborhood was this simple act of faith, which was chosen as a subject for a poem by Canon Alessi of Frascati (*'La Croce sul Tusculo"). And it was from this spot, commanding a view of the mountains that are the advanced guard of the Apen- nines, of the sea in which the sun sets as in a golden bath, and of the City of the Seven Hills lying in dignified seclusion by the river side, that an English successor of Bessarion, Baronio, and Passionei drew his inspiration for the best descriptive pages of "Fabiola," one of the few novels the archaeological accuracy of which defies criticism. The book was written by Cardinal Wiseman mainly under the pergola of the English summer-house at Monteporzio,^ "beneath whose vines," he says, **the Tusculan questions of generations have been discussed, and gleesome chat has whiled away the dozy hours of afternoon sultriness." It is true that Rome had fur- nished to Wiseman the more solid materials used in the construction of his work, but for the tints of his pictures and for any representations of nature it was on the sweet memories of summer among the Tusculan hills that the writer had to draw. ^ Compare Wiseman, A Few Flowers from the Roman Campagna, London, 1861. CHAPTER VI THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER AND THE LAND OF NERO PLINY the Younger ranks next to Cicero in popularity as a writer, although it is not clear to many what his claims to such a high stand- ing are based upon. Born in 61 or 62 at Como, the son of L. Csecilius Cilo and Plinia, sister to Pliny the Elder, — admiral of the fleet, whose name and gallant death are so closely connected with the eruption of Vesuvius in A. D. 79, — he was adopted by his uncle, and given the composite name of Caius Plinius Csecilius Secundus. The Plinii belonged to the equestrian rank, and born as they were on the shores of the most beautiful sheet of water in Italy, they had chosen a naval career, like so many Comaschi of the present day. The admiral's adopted son, however, having preferred to enter the civil service, which alone could open to him the doors of the Senate house, we find him a quaestor in 91, praetor in or about 93, consul in 100, conservator of the Tiber in 105, and governor of Bithynia in 111 or 112. From a study of the inscriptions describing his career (collected by Mommsen in "Hermes," 1868) which mention the gov- ernorship as the last event in his cursus honorum, we argue that he must have died in that far-away province or soon after his return to the capital, leaving no male issue from the three ladies he had wedded in succession.^ Compare Raoul Pessoneaux's preface to the Lettres de Pline le jeune, Paris, Charpentier, 1886; M. Froment, Annales de la Faculte de Bordeaux, THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 303 Pliny was a clever barrister, a gentlemanly corre- spondent, and a great lover of nature; yet his claim to immortality rests on a number of letters, of no special consequence, which have by accident escaped the wreck of time. Had some of his orations come down to us, perhaps our estimation of his worth might have been different. He practised as a rule before the Court of the Centumviri in the Basilica Julia, or else at the bar of the Senate house, whenever the impeachment of a member happened to be on the order of the day. It is said that his defence of Attia Viriola in the Basilica Julia, and of Julius Bassus in the Curia, were worthy of Cicero him- self ; but to judge from the only specimen we have of his oratorical powers — the panegyric on Trajan — we must pronounce him a mannered, obsequious, pretentious speaker. It is only fair, however, to acknowledge that that bombastic eulogy is not the one spoken in the Senate house, but a version revised at home, and rather spoiled by a superabundance of antitheses, hyperboles, and meta- phors. Pliny had also attempted to scale Parnassus. A tragedy which he composed at fourteen, some elegies and epigrams, and a book of hendecasyllables which he wrote at forty-one have luckily been lost. They must have ranked in value with those of Augurinus, of which we have a specimen in letter iv, 27; at all events, they vastly pleased his third wife, Calpurnia, who set them to music and sang them, although Pliny himself declared that the lady had never taken a lesson in the art of Erato. There are ten books of Pliny's epistles. The first nine, published in his lifetime, are of private charac- ter; the last book, published by his heirs, contains the official correspondence exchanged with Trajan on affairs vol. iii, n. 2; Bender, Pline (Tapres ses lettres, Tubingen, 1873; Lagergren, De vita et elocutione Plinii junioris, Upsala, 1872. 304 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA concerning the administration of Bithynia. It would be absurd to compare these letters with Cicero's. The latter constitute a historical document of inestimable value; Pliny's are a charming contribution to the study of social and literary life under the rule of the ''best of princes." They were written with a view to their publication and therefore lack spontaneity; but their writer is never commonplace or a gossip; he is a thor- ough man of the world, kind in the extreme, refined, and of sound judgment in literary or social affairs. The tenth book does no credit to Pliny's adminis- trative powers. He seems bent on putting the patience of his master, Trajan, to a sore test, plying him with questions concerning the most pettifogging local affairs, — whether a statue can be removed from the Forum to the Baths, or a corpse from one grave to another; or whether bail can be allowed to certain offenders. Trajan, on the other hand, never loses his equanimity: the governor, who shirks the least responsibility, is always addressed by him as Secunde carissime, or mi Secunde I but he betrays his inner appreciation of the case by answering almost in monosyllables. On this point letters xli of the governor and xlii of the emperor are typical. In the first Pliny enlarges on the grandeur and usefulness of a scheme for joining Lake Sophon, east of Nicomedia, with the river Sangarius, and in- directly with the sea, by means of a navigable canal. He says that a forgotten king must have attempted the work, judging from certain traces of dams and ditches which he had noticed in studying the ground. The question was whether the lake lay high enough above the level of the sea that its waters might be drawn into the canal. Would the emperor be willing to trust a pre- liminary investigation to a surveyor or to an engineer ? THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 305 — and so on, with touches here and there of official adula- tion. Trajan's answer consists of forty-five words. " We may be willing to consider thy scheme. The danger is that, a water-way once opened, the whole lake might empty itself into the sea. Ask Calpurnius Macer to send thee an expert." The best trait of Pliny's character was his generosity. His influence in the Senate house, his credit at court, his time, and his purse were always at the disposal of friends in need. To Metellinus Crispus, for whom he had ob- tained a captaincy in one of the legions, Pliny supplied the funds for his equipment; to Romatius Firmus, a fel- low-citizen from Como, the means of entering the eques- trian order; to Artemidorus, a philosopher banished from Rome, his travelling expenses; to the poet Martial, the cost of a journey to his native country ; to the daughter of Quintilian, a considerable part of her mar- riage settlement. Again, we find him giving up a farm- house to his aged nurse, that she might end her days in peace, or tearing to pieces the deeds showing the liabili- ties incurred by his cousin Calvina. These and other per- sonal gifts varied from a minimum of fifty to a maximum of three hundred thousand sesterces (from two thousand to twelve thousand dollars); but to his native town of Como he bequeathed a library valued at one million sesterces (forty thousand dollars) and a further sum of half a million for the higher education of boys and girls. Such liberalities are the more conspicuous if we re- member that Pliny was not a wealthy man. He himself speaks of his modest means in letter iv, 2, modest at least in comparison w ith the average wealth of a Senator ; but he made up the deficiency by leading as simple a life as was consistent with his social status and connec- tion with the court. 306 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA He owned three estates, — one at Como, one at Citta di Castello, one on the coast of Laurentum, which he de- scribes with loving care in letter xvii of the second book. Archaeologists have transformed Pliny's den at Lauren- tum into an immense structure fit for an emperor or for a financial magnate. Canina, for instance, assigns to it a frontage of 250 feet, a depth of 156, and a total area, outbuildings included, of 550,000 square feet ; ^ and yet Pliny himself speaks of his Laurentinum as being of no importance whatever.^ *'Hail," he says, "has ruined the crop in my farm at Tifernum Tiber inum [Citta di Castello]. From my tenants at Como I hear of better prospects, but of low market prices. My Laurentinum alone seems to be right, but what do I own there ? A cottage and a garden surrounded by sands!" I am, I believe, the only living archaeologist who can claim the privilege of having entered Pliny's house and walked over its floors and beheld its aspect, during the excavations made in 1906 to gather materials for the macadamizing of a new royal road. There cannot be any uncertainty about its site. Pliny himself points it out, with due precision, when he writes: "I can get the necessaries of life from the nearest village, from which I am separated by only one villa. " The village, called the Vicus Augustanus Laurentum, was discovered by King Victor Emmanuel in 1874, and its Forum and its Curia are still traceable through the undergrowth. West of it, in the direction of Ostia, there are two villa- mounds, the nearer being the intermediate one men- tioned in Pliny's letter, the farther his own. Its site is marked by a cluster of old ilexes, named the Palombara, because it was a favorite spot for shooting wild pigeons * Luigi Canina, Edifizii di Roma anticay vol. vi, plate cxv. ' Epistles, book iv, n. 6. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 307 (palombacci) whenever the Sacchetti or the Chigi were staying at Castel Fusano. Nothing was found in 1906 but bare walls, a fact which stands to reason if we con- sider that the mound had been searched thrice before, in 1713 by Marcello Sacchetti, in 1802 and 1819 by Agostino Chigi. ^ We must remember, besides, that not a brick nor a stone of the original structure may have been left in situ. From the time of Trajan, when Pliny dwelt at Laurentum, to the first barbarian invasions, who knows how often the property changed hands and underwent repairs or even reconstruction ? The same thing must be said of the intermediate villa, considered by some to have belonged to Hortensius the orator. Varro describes a banquet to which he had been invited by the celebrated lawyer. *' Within the walled inclos- ure of five hundred acres rises a sand hill, on the top of which the meal was served. To please his guests, Hortensius summoned the attendance of Orpheus [a hired musician], who appeared clad in a long robe, with a lyre in his hands; but instead of the lyre he sounded the huntsman's horn, and the appeal was answered by such a number of wild boars and deer that we thought to have been suddenly transferred to the Circus on the day of a hunting performance. " To reach his cottage from Rome, Pliny had the choice of four roads, — the Ostiensis, the Laurentina, the Lavi- niatis, and a cross lane through the Ager Solonius (Cas- tel Porziano). These four were connected and made equally serviceable to him by the Via Severiana, which ran parallel with the shore. 1 have followed each of these lines of communication, by special permission of His Majesty the King, to whom the territory of Lauren- ^ Particulars about these excavations are to be found in Pietro Marquez's Delia villa di Plinio il giovane and in Fea's Viaggio ad Ostia. 308 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA A view of the pine forest near Laurentum turn belongs ; and the results of my labors have been made known to students in a memoir published by the Reale Accademia dei Lincei in 1903,* amply illustrated with maps and diagrams. The path from Ostia and Castel Fusano to Pliny's villa at La Palombara, and thence to the Vicus Augustanu& and Laurentum (Torre Paterna), runs through the pine forest planted by the Sacchetti in the seventeenth century, the area of which has been trebled since it was joined to the royal shooting preserves in 1875. Many thousand pines are planted every year and great care is taken to keep the older ones in a healthy state. The pavement of the Via Sever iana is seen at rare intervals, flanked on * " Le antichita del territorio Laurentino nella reale Tenuta di Castel Porziano," in Monumenti antichi, vol. xiii, 1903, pp. 134-198. A second paper on the same subject was published in vol. xvi, 1906, pp. 262-274.. A third is now in press. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 309 the side toward the sea by mounds representing villas, cottages, or bath-houses, the remains of which are bur- ied in sand or concealed by the undergrowth. I have counted nine groups of ruins west of Lauren turn; seven- teen between Laurentum and Ardea; fourteen between Antium and Astura; and I speak only of those which can be noticed without difficulty either from the path or from the shore, — perhaps one fourth of the original number. The fascination of this green wilderness can- not be expressed in words. The forest, in which the *'amans littora pinus" towers above all other sylvan giants, offers certain recesses so shady and mysterious that they charm the eye and gladden the soul. Some- times their stillness is broken by the inrush of wild boars, or deer, or gazelles, which, after staring a moment in surprise at the intruder, disappear into their leafy haunts. Louis Petit-Radel, Canon of Conserans, who explored these forests in 1796, in quest of specimens for the botanical garden which he was arranging in the cloisters of San Pietro in Vinculis, mentions twenty species of underwood, among them myrtle, rosemary, juniper, laurel, terebinth, erica, viburnum, and two spe- cies of daphne. When all these are blossoming with the advent of spring, their mixed perfume, borne on the land breeze, reaches the coasting craft at a considerable distance from the shore. There is no doubt that when ^Eneas first sailed along this coast its decoration of evergreens must have appeared the same. It was only in the Augustan age that a change of scene took place, owing to the trans- formation of the deserted Laurentum into an imperial hunting estate. It was already known, from the grave- stone of a freedman of Claudius, — Speculator .by name, head keeper of the crown domains in the Bay of 310 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA Gaeta and ^procurator Laurento ad elephantos,^ — that a section of the estate was set apart for the breeding of elephants; and from the *' Liber Pontificalis " it was known that another section was given up to the breeding of peacocks. The knowledge, however, that the exten- sive forests of Castel Porziano and Castel Fusano were used in classic times for absolutely the same purpose as ^ > ■ .h ^ -..■..■• ^^^> ^' vj M ^ i& ^M SL _____ J Cl =^ ==;<*<" Inscription of gamekeepers and other marbles discovered by Queen Elena in the excavations of the Vicus Augustanus Laurentum at present, and that they were watched by a body of gamekeepers similar to the one which to-day wears the King's gray uniform, has been obtained only within the last few weeks, by means of an inscription discovered * Compare Corpus Inscr. Lat, vol. vi, Part II, n. 8583. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 311 at the Vicus Augustanus by our Gracious Queen, — model sovereign, model mother, model wife, model sister of charity, whose name no Italian can mention without feelings of devotion and gratitude. It is an exquisite trait of the Royal Lady's character that she should seek diversion from the cares of her exalted sta- tion in the exploration of the ancient mounds in the land of Pliny the Younger. This exploration has not been taken up as a pastime, nor for the attraction that the chance of the unexpected offers to ordinary minds; it is carried on methodically, scientifically, with a given pur- pose, every object of interest being at once transferred to the Museo Nazionale alle Terme, to increase the col- lections of the Sala Laurentina. The inscription found at the Vicus Augustanus describes how a certain Aglaus, president of the guild of imperial gamekeepers (colle- gium saltuariorum), had offered to his fellow workers a set of portrait busts of their sovereigns {imagines dominorum nostrorum), to be set up either in the schola or meeting-room of the guild, or else in the local Augus- teum, remains of which are still extant in the forum of the village. Mention of these saltuarii occurs so seldom in Latin epigraphy that a certain amount of doubt was still entertained as to the exact meaning of the word, whether they were woodkeepers (guardaboschi or saltari, as they are still called in the Venetian provinces) or gamekeepers (guardacaccie). A mosaic picture discovered in 1878 in a bath-house erected by Pompeianus at the springs of Hammam Grus, two miles east of Oued Atmenia, on the road from Constantine (Cirta) to Setif (Sitifis), shows a body of saltuarii engaged in their professional business, a stag-hunt arranged by their patron Pompei- anus for a few friends. The guests, mounted on Arab 312 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA hunters, seem to be driving three stags into the septum venationis with the help of two dogs, Castus and Fidelis, and of three gamekeepers, Daunus, Diaz, and Liber/ It seems that the free life of the forest must have made these men long lived, if we may judge from the ripe age of eighty-five reached by Eutyches, saltuarius of a pre- serve near Nueeria Alfaterna.^ By comparing the former with the present state of Laurentum we can better appreciate the skill with which the ancients were endowed for turning waste lands into an "earthly paradise." Where we behold a lonesome house, the Torre Paterna, used for the royal kennels in the hunting season and left in desolation for six months of the year, — a house six miles distant from the nearest human habitation, — the Romans had created a Margate full of life and gayety, connected with the capital by four excellent roads, and with the neigh- boring resorts (Ostia, Vicus Augustanus, Lavinium, Ardea, Invicastrum, Antium) by the Via Severiana. The latter ran along the shore between villas and cot- tages on the side toward the sea and the edge of the for- est on the land side ; and where we now must quench our thirst with water from wells dug in the sand, an imperial aqueduct many miles long brought a substan- tial supply of water for public and private use. There is more history condensed within the walls of this solitary house than within those of many a great city. We can trace it twenty-eight centuries back to the day when the Laurentines beheld a strange fleet sailing * Compare PouUe, Annates de Constantine, a. 1878, p. 431; id., Les Bains de Pompeianus, Constantine, 1879; Corpus Inscr. Lat., vol. viii, Part II, n. 10889-10891. ^ Corpus Inscr. Lat, vol. x, n. 1085. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 313 westward along their beach in quest of a haven, and wondered whether it was manned by friends or foes. Rome had not yet come into existence, and the Lauren- tines could not foresee that its foundation would be the The hamlet of Torre Paterna, once a hunting lodge of Roman emperors in the forest of Laurentum; later a watch-tower against the Algerian pirates; at present used for the royal kennels in connection with the preserves of Castel Porziano result of the welcome they gave to the pilgrims led by ^neas. The name of the village, Laurentum, has been con- nected with that of the mythical Acca Larentia, whereas it owes its origin to the laurel groves by which it was surrounded. For the same reason we find in Rome itself two aristocratic parishes of the Aventine named Laure- tum Majus and Lauretum Minus. Whenever electricity was felt in the air the Emperor Vitellius sought shelter in the Laurentine forest, because the trees were con- sidered to be non-conductors. At the outbreak of the fearful plague of 189 a. d. Commodus was isolated at 314 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Laurentum by the court physicians, because the power- ful and wholesome scent of the trees would keep the air free from contamination. The laurels disappeared long ago, but a reminder of these events has lasted to the present day in the name Pantan di Lauro given to a marsh ^ adjoining the Torre Paterna on the east side. From its alliance with the new-comers and from the marriage of Lavinia, daughter of the King of Alba, with ^neas, Laurentum was given the name of '* Second Troy," and became the cradle of the Roman people. But by the foundation of Lavinium — now Pratica di Mare — on a healthy hill, only five miles distant, and by the transfer thither of the sacred tokens of the Common- wealth, the Penates, which iEneas had carried away with him from the mother country, Laurentum lost su- premacy, prestige, and population. Towards the end of the Republic the site of the deserted village was occupied by a farmhouse, which Augustus purchased and trans- formed into an imperial seaside residence; and we are told that the wife of the caretaker, having given birth to five children at one time, and having lost her life in the ordeal, was honored by Augustus with a beautiful memorial set up on the Via Laurentina. At the time of Constantine the property was transferred to the churches of the Saviour and of the Holy Cross. ^ What became of it in the middle ages is not known. The forest spread across the Via Severiana, over to the strip of land once occupied by gardens; the pines and ilexes thrust their roots into the pavement of the road and the fallen ^ This venerable landmark will be removed in the course of the coming winter and the water drained, in obedience to the laws for the sanitation of the Campagna, of which King Victor Emmanuel is the strictest upholder. ^ The Lateran and the Hierusalem, now called Sante Croce in Geru- salemme. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 315 masonry of the villas; the sea receded; sand dunes rose where palaces had stood. Then came the inroads of the barbarians from Algiers, like the one of May 5, 1588, in which the whole population of Pratica di Mare was carried away in chains, — thirty-nine men, twenty-eight women, and thirty-five laborers from the Marche, whose names are recorded in the annals of the Compagnia del Gonfalone. In consequence of these sudden inroads the coast of the Pope's states from Corneto to Terracina was lined with thirty-eight watch-towers, from the tops of which scouts could watch the sea by day and by night and give warning of the approach of any suspicious sail by firing a gun or tolling a bell or lighting a beacon. Some of the towers on this part of the coast are still in existence, like the Torre Vajanica and the Keep of Pratica di Mare; but the one built by Marcantonio Colonna^ on the ruins of the Augustan villa at Laurentum, and named Torre Paterna in memory of his father Ascanio, was dismantled by the shots of a British sloop-of-war in the year 1812. British guns have sometimes bombarded queer places; but it seems hardly possible that they should have brought havoc and destruction upon this inoffensive and unobtrusive home of iEneas, which had won a prominent place in history eight or nine centuries before the crossing of the Channel by Julius Csesar made known to the Romans the name and the existence of Londinium. In the spring of 1906, while hunting at Castel Porziano, Queen Elena caused one of the mounds — the fourth to the east of Laurentum — to be explored under her * Another tower built by the same Marcantonio near Antium was given the name of Torre Materna, in memory of his mother, Giovannad' Aragona. I 316 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA personal care. The attempt was rewarded with the dis- covery, the first in my experience, of a cottage of modest size and fit for a family of modest means, such as are to be found by the hundred in the outskirts of our large cities and in our watering-places. Having followed almost day by day the progress of the excavations, I was enabled to reconstruct the past of this charming little house, and to gather from the reconstruction an idea of the life led by its classic owners, placed as they were between the sea where the mullus swam in shoals and the forest teeming with game. The lodge had a frontage of 67 feet and a depth of 74 feet. It was entered from the Via Severiana by a porch supported by eight marble columns, and from the sea by three small flights of stairs leading to three French windows, the middle of which belonged to the sitting-room, the side ones to bedrooms connected with dressing-rooms. On either side of the French windows, on marble pedestals, stood vases for flowering shrubs, such as the oleander, pomegranate, and lemon. There were two more bedrooms within the cottage, a dining- room, a veranda, and a bath-room. In its compact- ness and its sense of comfort, as well as its proximity to Laurentum and to the sea, this "villino" may be taken as an illustration of the one owned by Pliny on the same road and on the same shore. Queen Elena's cottage — as it will henceforth be known in archaeological manuals — was rebuilt in the year 142 A. D. on the site of an older one, by a person of good taste and modest means, probably by an official of the court of Antoninus Pius, who was at that time the ruler of the Empire. Whoever this person was, he showed himself to be a clever builder and a clever landscape gardener, judging from the graceful pattern of the mosaic THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER LATO VERSO LA VIA SEVERIANA 317 GIARDINO SUL MARE J i : 1 ^ Plan of the Roman cottage discovered by Queen Elena on the coast of Lauren- turn. The Discobolus was found near its pedestal at the place marked G and marble floors, and from the picturesque arrange- ment of the three staircases descending to the garden and the sea. The lodge was fit to be inhabited at all seasons of the year, owing to the simple and eflficient 318 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA precautions taken by its designer to have it thoroughly warmed and ventilated. The heating was done by means of a furnace, placed under the bath-room or calidarium, which a slave could light and keep going from the outside, through an underground passage which opened on the kitchen garden, the hot air being forced through the hypocausts of the apartment with the aid of flues opening on the roof. The house was one-storied, no traces of stairs having been noticed any- where. Kitchen, pantry, larder, laundry, sleeping-rooms for servants and slaves, and other such appendages of a dwellinghouse, must have been in an outbuilding, traces of which have been noticed on the side of the highroad. I must mention, in the last place, that there were no folding doors to insure the privacy of the rooms, but only heavy curtains, kept rigid by means of tassels, the cores of which were made of pear-shaped lumps of baked clay. Several of these weights were found lying on the marble thresholds of the various apartments. It is clear, therefore, that they were not used for a weaver's loom, nor for fishermen's nets, as is generally the case with such objects. I apologize to the reader for mentioning so many details, but, as I have already remarked, the finding of a Roman cottage in which we twentieth-century people could dwell in ease and comfort is such a novel thing that I consider it a duty to make it known outside pro- fessional circles, in the hope that some wealthy amateur may be persuaded to reproduce it in its integrity, so as to give young students and young architects an object lesson in rational cottage building. The statue of the Discobolus here represented was discovered in the early morning of April 24, 1909, OF Tup OF THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 321 lying in pieces near its own pedestal at the foot of the side garden stairs. When I arrived on the spot about the hour of noon, all hope of recovering the missing head had already been given up. Detached from the body at the moment of its fall, it must have shared the fate of so many other heads, which were rounded into the shape of balls to be used in the game of boccie, or else used as weights for scales, with the help of iron rings fixed in the top. As a rule seventy-five statues in a hundred are found headless, and likewise seventy-five heads are found without bodies. The statue unearthed on April 24 is a copy, and a very excellent one, of the Disk-thrower of Myron, a subject in great favor with the Romans. Three other replicas were already known. The first is the celebrated '* Discobolo Lancellotti," discovered in the Lamian gar- dens on the Esquiline by the Marchesa Barbara Massimi di Palombara on January 14, 1781, and now preserved in the Lancellotti palace under lock and key, so that no student has been able to examine it. Such an idiosyn- crasy is the more surprising when we remember that kindness and generosity to others has always been characteristic of the Roman aristocracy. The second replica, now in the Sala della Biga, n. 618, was found by Count Giuseppe Fede in 1791 near the so-called Nymphseum of Hadrian's villa, stolen by Napoleon, and brought back to Rome after the peace of 1815. The third, a torso, belonged to the French sculptor, Etienne Monnot, in whose studio it was transformed into a Dying Warrior and then sold to the Capitoline Museum. Helbig considers Monnot's torso the most admirable of all and the one which comes nearest to the perfection of Myron's original. Ill luck seems to have followed these Discoboli; they all have met with unfair treatment. In 322 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA the restoration of the Fede replica made by Albacini the poise of the head is decidedly wrong. A fourth The Discobolus found by Queen Elena at Laurentum in a fragmentary state Discobolus, found by Gavin Hamilton in 1781, was restored as a Diomedes stealing the Palladium; and a fifth, of the Uffizi, was transformed first into an En- dymion, later into a son of Niobe. No such fate has THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 323 befallen the one discovered at Laurentum; no restora- tion of the original marble has been attempted; but side Plaster cast of Queen Elena's Discobolus, with the addition of the right arm now in the Buonarroti Museum at Florence and of the Lancellotti head, a cast of which has been found in Paris by side with it a complete plaster cast has been placed, each of the missing limbs having been carefully chosen from other replicas, and adapted to the fractures or joints of the marble. The right arm, holding the disk, 324 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA was found in the Galleria Buonarroti in Florence, and it fits the torso of Laurentum so exactly as to give rise to the question whether it is not the original one found by the Del Nero, Lords of Castel Porziano, when they first excavated Queen Elena's cottage. The head was cast from a mould in the Louvre, the feet from the Disco- bolus of the British Museum. Professor G. E. Rizzo, the author of this remarkable reconstruction, has given an interesting account of it in "Bullettino d' Arte, " vol. i, 1907. A third campaign of exploration, made in the spring of the present year, disclosed a curious fact, — that the Romans objected to bathing in the open sea, or at least that they preferred to bathe in sea water warmed arti- ficially in the piscina of an establishment, where more comfort could be found than on the unsheltered beach. This is the only explanation we can give of the fact that the whole coast from the Vicus Augustanus to Lauren- tum, and even beyond in the direction of Ardea, is lined with these bath-houses, a few of modest size and capa- ble of accommodating only two or three dozen clients; others so vast in their plan, so rich in their decoration, that they appear like city structures, ready to receive great crowds of bathers. Pliny speaks of this curious state of affairs on the coast of Laurentum in his letter to Gallus. The description which he gives is so true, and is substantiated so clearly by the discoveries of the last three campaigns, that it is necessary to quote it in extenso. "Nothing is wanting to make the Lauren- tinum perfect but spring water, although one is always sure to find drinkable water a few inches below the level of the sands, fresh enough in spite of the proxim- ity of the sea. The forests on the other side of the road supply me with fuel, and Ostia with all the necessaries PLASTER CAST OF QUEEN ELENA'S DISCOBOLUS Completed by the addition of the arm from Florence, the head from the Louvre, and the feet from the British Mwseum OF -HE UNIVERs/Ty OF THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 327 of life. However, for a man of simple habits the nearest village [the Vicus Augustanus] is equally useful ; it con- tains among other commodities three public baths, of which I avail myself whenever I happen tor reach the villa unexpected and I have no time to wait for the furnace to be lighted. The whole coast is lined with villas, some adjoining one another, some separated by gardens. Seen from the water it looks like a city many miles long." The largest and best of the three baths of which Pliny was an occasional patron has just been excavated, and although it appears to have been repaired and slightly altered in the second and third centuries, its main halls and basins date from before the age of Pliny. Here we have, therefore, a building which has echoed with his voice and beheld his presence, pavements which have been trodden by his feet, marble benches on which he has sat, and basins and piscinae in which he has bathed. Had Her Majesty the Queen been the first to enter this beautiful building, many more details could have been made clear, and many works of art could have been recovered from its richly decorated halls. Unfortunately these thermae have given shelter to a mediaeval colony of farmers or wood-cutters, and they must have burned into lime whatever pieces of marble fell into their hands. The illustrations on p. 329 represent some of the few bits of statuary which have escaped the kiln, and upon which the eye of Pliny may have rested while he was waiting for his bath. The journey from Laurentum to Antium by Lavi- nium (Pratica di Mare), Ardea, Aphrodisium (Campo Jemini), Invicastrum (L' Incastro), and the sulphur springs (caldanae) is equally delightful whether you per- 328 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA form it riding a half-wild Maremma pony along the Via Severiana, or hugging the shore in a boat. I have done it in both ways, more than once, while camping out at the Foce dell' Incastro with a sportsman friend. No pen of an enthusiast can describe in a befitting manner the beauty of the old kingdom of Turnus, especially that section of it now broken up into the farm lands of Fossignano, Buonriposo, and La Cogna. The valley of the Fosso della Moletta, which forms the highway between the station of Carrocceto on the Anzio line and the coast, is as beautiful and well timbered and watered as an English park, stocked with untamed cattle ; and it is archseologically interesting, as the track leads the wanderer past the sites of Longula, conquered by the consul Postumius Auruncus, b. c. 493, and the famous mediaeval castle of Veprosa (Castrum Nave), once owned by the monks of S. Alessio on the Aventine, and later by the Frangipane, the Annibaldi, and the Cesarini. I remember once leaving the hospitable hut of my friend at the break of day in company with the late Dr. Nevin, bent on a ride to Torre Caldana, where a boat was waiting to convey us to Anzio. Never had the breath of the wilderness felt more refreshing or its spirit seemed more inspiring than at that early hour of the morning when the first rays of sunshine filtering through the foliage, heavy with drops of dew, warmed the blood " like a draught of generous wine." The Via Severiana, the track of which we were following eastward through the woodlands of Torre San Lorenzo and Torre Sant' Anastasia, is too much overgrown by sylvan vegetation to offer archaeological attraction, save where its pave- ment has been left undisturbed here and there by mod- ern road-menders. It appears worn into deep ruts by the passage of vehicles, proof of the intensity of travel THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 329 and traffic which in times gone by enlivened this now silent coast. The grooves, as in the British Watling Street, are a little more than four feet six and a half inches apart. '* The wheel marks in Pompeii are exactly this distance from one to another, and this is the gauge of English railways." This assertion of Dr. Bruce in his ** Handbook of the Roman Wall " is not quite exact, for the standard gauge is four feet eight and one half Fragments of statuary discovered in Pliny's Baths at the Vicus Augustanus (From photographs by Gino Ferrari) inches ; but it comes near enough the mark to give weight to the conjecture that the gauge of English railways was determined by the mean width of the wheel tracks of the chariots and forage carts which frequented the camps of the Roman wall. The forests which fringe the coast between Ostia and 330 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA Terracina, east of the mouth of the Tiber, and from Porto to Palo westward, until lately were considered as highly beneficial to Rome. Hence their name of " Boschi sacri del Lazio, " and hence the vigilant care with which the government of the Popes watched over their welfare. This popular belief in the anti-malarious properties of the Boschi sacri is thus upheld by an English lover of the Campagna at the beginning of last century: "As most of the winds blow at no considerable height, and pass the woods of Ariano, La Fajola, Astura, Nettuno^ Ostia, and Monterano, they leave on their passage a great portion of the noxious exhalations and malignant vapors and become much more pure before they arrive at Rome. . . . On this account, though, as is well known, the cypress, oak, chestnut, and some other trees exhale vapors which are not esteemed salubrious (!), there are many plants, shrubs, and trees, native of this soil, which contribute greatly by their effluvia to the purification of the atmosphere, and even those above mentioned inter- cept and absorb much of the mephitic air, on account of their high and thick foliage. " ^ The same author thus speaks of the winds and breezes prevailing on- this coast: "For a considerable part of the year the pre-^ dominating winds are the Sirocco and the Tramontana ; the first oppressive and relaxing, the other delicious ta people of good health. Its elastic quality animates all nature and clears the sky from every cloud and vapor, and brings the minutest and farthest details of the land- scape into clear relief; but in winter it is rather danger- ous. Saliceti, the physician to Pope Pius VI, used to say, 'Scirocco e un amico noioso; tramontana e nemica micidiale.' The ponente or west wind, which rises about 10 or 11 A. M. in the late spring and summer months, and ^ Description o/Latiuviy p. 5. THE LAND OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 331 dies away towards sunset, deserves the character it had amongst the ancient poets. Their Zephyrs and Fa- vonian breezes have lost none of their charms, and it requires the pen of a Virgil or Tibullus to describe the beauty of the climate when it is predominant, wafting Half wild buffaloes sporting in the waters of the river Numicius near Aphrodisium (La Fossa) as it does out of its dewy wings the scent of the sea and the perfumes of aromatic meadows." The promontory of Torre Caldana, where we were to leave our ponies and set sail for Antium, is supposed to have once belonged to Maecenas, who erected a statue of Augustus at a shrine by the sulphur springs. The whole promontory is strewn with antique marbles and terra- cottas, mostly vessels used for the distillation and puri- fication of sulphur; but I have found also seams of 332 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA votive objects which prove the popularity of these springs from the time of the Roman conquest of Antium to the abandonment of the coast stations in the sixth century of the Christian era. The water of the Cal- danse, which, as the name implies, must once have been warm, was brought to the imperial thermse at Antium by means of an aqueduct, remains of which have been found along the coast by local antiquarians. Owing to the erosion of the coast, some of the springs, once well inland and overshadowed by the forest, now bubble out of the sandy floor of the sea, at a consid- erable distance from the shore, a phenomenon by no means strange in these volcanic regions, and which brings to our memory a curious incident connected with Cicero's life at Pozzuoli. The villa stood so close to the east end of Lake Lucrinus that, while writing the *' Academica, " the orator could see through the Cyzicene window the fish sporting in its clear waters. It is related that on the 7th of December of the year 46 b. c, at the very moment of the murder of Cicero at Formise, hot springs burst out in that part of the gardens which came nearest to the shore; and these springs, having been found beneficial for affections of the eye, became cele- brated under the name of Aquae Ciceronianse. The site of the villa was occupied in the middle ages by a hamlet called Tripergola. Here the kings of Anjou built a shooting lodge, the royal kennels, and a bathing establishment capable of accommodating thirty patients, the Aquae Ciceronianae having retained through the lapse of so many centuries their healing virtue against ophthalmia. All these interesting and pleasant memo- rials and landmarks were destined to disappear on the 29th of September of the year 1538. The dawn of that fatal day was marked by an outburst of geysers ; twelve THE LAND OF NERO 333 The sulphur springs of the Aquae Caldanae on the Volscian coast five miles west of Antium hours later the Monte Nuovo was formed, a cone 456 feet high, in the centre of which we can still behold the eruptive flue, inclosed by masses of pumice stone, trachyte, and tufa. After a delightful rest at Torre Caldana we set sail for Cape Antium (La Punta dell' Arco Muto), the dim outline of which appeared in the morning haze five miles to the east. This part of the coast is higher and more picturesque than the sandy beaches of Laurentum and Lavinium, the clay and sandstone cliffs being fringed with clusters of arbutus and myrtle, and each headland being crowned with the remains of a villa. Impelled by a gentle breeze our boat ran eastward through waters as clear as crystal, showing every detail of the uneven bottom thirty feet below. So perfect was 334 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA their transparency that we were able to test for the first time the accuracy of the tradition current among the local fishermen, about the existence of art treasures' atong this shallow shbre. The treasures are not great; at least we saw only a number of columns of white mar- ble half buried in a patch of sand, amongst quivering masses of weed, coral, and sea lilies, which seemed to rise ahead of the prow and touch the keel and then sink slowly astern in the boat's soundless wake. It is prob- able that those caverns of swaying submarine vegeta- tion, in the recesses of which shoals of fish, frightened by our approaching shadow, were seeking shelter, con- tain works of a higher value. There is a popular tradition that the villas on the coast between Ardea and Astura were built by the Romans out at sea, because the remains of their foun- dations are actually seen at some distance from the shore. The tradition is wrong, save in two or three cases. As a rule, all the villas of the Latin and Volscian coast were built on the edges of cliffs and headlands of clay and sandstone, which cannot withstand the action of the waves unless protected at the base by artificial means, such as blocks of concrete, palisades, and the like. And these means of defence must be kept in a state of efficiency, because the least negligence might bring serious disaster to the building above. Cliffs and headlands have been washed away since the inroads of pirates and barbarians made the villa owners abandon the coast and seek refuge within the walls of the city; but great masses of masonry lying at the bottom of the sea still mark the site of the old palaces, sometimes within a stone's throw of the shore, sometimes at a distance of six hundred feet, as is the case with certain blocks seen under favorable circumstances of light and THE LAND OF NERO 335 sea due west of the pro- montory deir Arco Scuro. There is no doubt that what the fishermen say about lost treasures is true, and that, if proper search could be made, many works of art would be recovered. In fact, my earl iest Part of an architectural relief ^ recollection of Antium is connected with the finding of seventeen bronze coins and a piece of gold chain in the narrow ledge of sand under Nero's palace. Be- tween March and June of last year (1908) four columns were raised from the bottom of Nero's harbor, near the rock named Lo Sconciglio, one of which was thirteen feet long and in a perfect state. In the time of Pope Benedict XIII (1724-1730) the bronze vase of Mith- ridates, now in the Palazzo dei Conser- vatori, was likewise rescued from the bottom of the sea. This beautiful speci- men of chaste Greek workmanship has an inscription around the rim in punc- tured characters, stating that it was a present from Mithridates Eupator, the sixth and most famous King of Pontus of that name, to a gymnasium of the Eupatorides. Where such a gymna- ^ Objects recovered from the wreck of a Greek ship on the coast of Numidia. The Dionysiac Her- ma by Boethus of Chalcedon ^ 336 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA sium was placed it is impossible to say ; probably, as John Ward has suggested, in the island of Delos,^ whence a Roman governor or a Roman merchant must have re- moved it about Nero's time. The finding of this relic in the most fashionable seaside resort of imperial times cannot fail to bring back the recollection of one of the most anxious periods which the Roman Commonwealth was fated to pass through. I refer to the campaign of 88 B. c, in which Mithridates drove Ariobarzanes out of Cappadocia, and Nicomedes out of Bithynia, both being allies of the Romans, and forced the Romans themselves out of the province of Asia. During the winter of that memorable year orders were issued by him to all the cities of Asia for the massacre at a given hour of every Italian who was to be found within their walls. So hateful had the conquerors rendered them- selves to the natives, that eighty thousand of them are said to have perished in these "Sicilian Vespers" of 88 B. c. I wonder if the removal of Mithridates' vase from the gymnasium of the Eupatorides to the one erected by Nero at Antium was intentional, or simply an issue of chance. It is said that the blocks of Greek marble out of which the sphinxes decorating the hemi- cycles of the present Piazza del Popolo were carved in the time of Pius VII, were discovered together with the bronze vase. The possibilities in this line of submarine research are indeed unlimited, because wherever ancient vessels have sunk in a moderate depth of water their cargoes may still be found intact, or but little damaged. Such was the case with the wine ship discovered at Astura, of which I have spoken in "Ancient Rome," p. 253. ^ Compare Corpus Inscr. Grcec, 2278, and Homolle, Bulletin de corres- pondance Hellenique, vol. viii, p. 103. THE LAND OF NERO 337 It probably belonged to the class of the *'Sorrentini," which even now ply between the Bay of Naples and the mouth of the Tiber, laden with the heavy wine of Foria d' Ischia. Its hulk was filled with amphorae cemented into a coralliferous mass, from which only a few specimens could be detached unbroken. Such also was the case with the Greek ship laden with works of Eros as a laiiip-staiul, before and after tlie process of cleansing; recovered from the wreck of a Greek ship on tlie coast of Numidia art in bronze and marble, found in the month of De- cember, 1908, opposite the harbor of Mahdia on the coast of Tunisia, between Sousa and Sfax. A man diving for sponges was brought to the surface in a state of abject terror, having beheld forms of sleeping giants on the deck of a mysterious craft. The legend grew and was spread abroad, and reached the ears of the 338 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA conservators of Tunisian antiquities. The "sleeping giants" were raised to the surface, and the ship was subjected to a careful investigation. It measured about ninety feet in length and twenty-five in breadth, and must have been wrecked some eighteen hundred years ago, with its cargo of bronzes and marbles destined for a public building of some African colony, or the villa of a wealthy colonist. There was a bronze statue of Eros, said to be a replica of a work of Praxiteles; an- other of the same subject designed for a lamp-stand; and also a herma or pillar ending with the head of Dio- nysus. This last work bore the signature of the artist Boethus of Chalcedon, who flourished in the second century before Christ. It is my firm belief that in the course of the dredging operations which will shortly be undertaken at Anzio, to restore Nero's harbor to its former state, many objects of value will be brought to the surface, to give evidence of Nero's liberality towards his native place. Antium, the head city and chief port of the clan of the Volscians, came into conflict with Rome as early as the age of Coriolanus. The great earthworks erected by the natives on the land side, in preparation for the impending struggle for independence and freedom of trade which was in store for them, are still perfect. They consist of a ditch or artificial valley 150 feet wide, 50 feet deep, and nearly two miles long, which furnished material for an embankment on the inner side, with flanking walls of stone in the neighborhood of the gates. The view from the top of this embankment, at its highest point near the Lanuvine gate, extends over land and sea as far as the Alban and Volscian mountains to the east, and the promontory of Circe and the island of THE LAND OF NERO The great earthworks raised by the Volscians for the defence of Antium on the land side Pontia to the south and west. Similar earthworks have been described at Satricum (Le Ferriere di Conca), at Ardea, and in Rome itself, where the /055a and the agger of Servius Tullius made the city impregnable at the most dangerous part of its defensive lines. The arti- ficial glen encircling Antium, now overgrown with clusters of myrtle, tamarisk, and genista, affords as enticing a walk as the student of prehistoric civiliza- tion could wish to find along this coast. The knolls which rise on the right of the path have been the scene of many a gallant struggle, but the Volscians, being physically at least an inferior race, were doomed to succumb. Antium was captured by Camillus and C. Msenius Nepos in 337 b. c, and the rostra of their ships were hung in the Forum. After a period of depopulation of nearly three cen- turies, the mildness of its climate, the beauty of its 340 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA scenery, and the fecundity of its soil began to be ap- preciated by the Roman villa-builders of the Augustan age. Atticus, Cicero, Lucullus, Maecenas, Brutus, and Cassius, the pioneers of Roman fashionable emigration, dotted the coast with exquisite structures, the remains of which are still to be seen in the bend of the bay near Nettuno. Antium, however, is essentially a city of Nero. Here he was born on December 15, a. d. 37; here the news was brought to him of the outbreak of the fire of July, 65 ; here he led Poppsea Sabina to be confined ubi ipse generatus erat, and here the child, born in the palace by the sea in the winter of 61, was taken away from her parents when only four months old. The grief of the citizens knew no bounds; the Senate came in a body from Rome to offer their condolences, and passed a resolution for the erection of a memorial, which must have vied in magnificence with that of the Gens Julia at Bovillse. Nero is still the popular hero, and the subject of many legends in the folk-lore of Antium. Nowhere does one feel more disposed to forgive his mis- deeds and to admit extenuating circumstances than in this city, which he beautified and cherished above all other imperial residences. Nowhere can one better appreciate his worth as an artist and as an engineer. The following considerations may give an additional interest to the visit which none of my readers should omit to pay to lovely Anzio. During the long period in which I have taken an active interest in antiquarian research some two thou- sand pieces of sculpture have been dug out of the soil of Rome and the Campagna, including statues, busts, heads, bas-reliefs, friezes, and sarcophagi. Busts and portrait heads are Roman works of Imperial times; THE LAND OF NERO 341 statues and bas-reliefs are but reproductions of lost Greek originals, the existence of which would otherwise have been known only from the descriptions of Pliny and Pausanias. Their discovery is always welcome, be- cause, no matter how defective the replica may be, we can gather from it some conception of the original type created by Phidias, Praxiteles, Scopas, Lysippus, Poly- cletus, and other such masters of the golden age. What The great ditch excavated by the Rutuli for the defence of Ardea on the land side should we know, for instance, about the Apoxyomenos of Lysippus were it not for the accidental finding of a marble copy in the year 1849 near the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere ? The same considerations apply to the Hermes of Polycletus, a copy of which has just been discovered in the foundations of a private house near the Ponte Margherita ; to the Amazon of the same master, a copy of which, found in the Villa Aldobrandini 342 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA at Frascati, is now exhibited in the Braccio Nuovo at the Vatican; to the Dionysus of Euphranor, whose replica I discovered in 1881 in Hadrian's villa; and to scores of other subjects which are daily unearthed from the archaeological strata of our land. Where, then, have the original Greek masterpieces vanished, which Roman conquerors and Roman em- perors are known to have removed by the thousand from Magna Grsecia, Sicily, Greece, and Asia Minor, and to have carried home as spoils of war, or else by theft or by purchase ? There is no exaggeration in say- ing that, at the beginning of the third century after Christ, Rome contained more works of the great masters than could be seen on the shores of the ^gean Sea. Each of the Roman temples, forums, basilicas, baths, palaces, and villas was a museum in itself. Two hundred and sixty-one pieces of sculpture or pictures in mosaic have already been dug out from Hadrian's villa. Gio- vanni Antonio Riccy published in 1802 a list of one hun- dred and twenty works of art excavated in the imperial domain of Roma Vecchia.^ Their number has since doubled. In 1884 Luigi Boccanera found, in a couple of days, seventeen statues and busts in the peristyle of Voconius Pollio's villa at Marino. This as regards quantity. As far as quality is concerned, I can only say that if one Roman temple alone could be reconstructed, with its artistic contents, it would cast into the shade any museum of the present day. But where have all these treasures gone.^ How is it that we must consider our- selves lucky if we discover one Greek original among a thousand Roman copies ? The answer to this query ^ " Deir antico Pago Lemonio," in Oggi Roma Vecchia, Rome, Ful- goni, 1802, ch. xii, p. 109. V^^^^^^^^^^^^Kkfy'" iH^I 1^^^^^^^/^ ^^'^H I^^^^^^^H^B, j^ ^^^^Qj^^ i"" ^^M ^>^^^^^H I^^^^K^I^: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^■T *1^'^ ' H ^^^^^^^^^^B m ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^H I^^^^^^^^BBKB*!!^^^'' > ' ,"''--''4ilMWlHIH|ipi PORTRAIT HEAD OF NERO AT ABOUT TWENTY Showing him a healthy and cheerful youth OF THE OF ' FORNIX THE LAND OF NERO 345 cannot be easily given. The fact that the majority of statues imported from Greece were cast in bronze may explain their disappearance to a certain extent, because metal excited the greed of the barbarians more than any other spoils of war. From a description of Rome written A. D. 546, by Zacharias, a Byzantine historian. Bishop of Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, we gather that, to- wards the middle of the sixth century of our era, there were still left standing in public places 3890 works of art in bronze — one third as many as were still kept, at that time, in private palaces, gardens, and villas. Of this immense collection only eleven specimens have come down to us. But there were marble originals as well, which the barbarians despised and left uninjured. It has been said that they must have perished in mediaeval lime-kilns. No doubt they did, and by the thousand; but why should mediaeval lime-burners take special pleasure in destroying originals in preference to Roman copies ? This is the problem the solution of which has yet to be found. Here let me state one fact which redeems to a certain extent the memory of Nero, the lover of Antium: the fact is that, whenever excavations have been made in grounds known to have belonged to him, some genuine work of a Greek master has been sure to come to light; in other words, the only chance we have left of discov- ering lost masterpieces is to follow in the footsteps of Nero, and search every building or site that is known to have been inhabited by him, whether the Golden House at Rome, or the hunting-box at Sublaqueum, or the sea palace at Antium. Nero seems to have been possessed of a double nature, one half of which was kind, generous, poetic, artistic, musical, while the other was utterly depraved. Nothing 346 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIMAN CAMPAGNA could show better this contrast in his personality than a comparison between these two portrait busts, the first taken soon after his accession to the throne, while still guiltless of dissipation, the other after a few years of shocking depravity. The account given by Suetonius of the first period of his career is quite charming. The youth appears to have been devoted, body and soul, to sport and art, rather than to the ruling of the Empire. He instituted a competition for the championship of the world in music, in athletics, and in horsemanship, to be held every fifth year ; he made recitals popular, display- ing his own talents in that line, not only before the court assembly, but also in Pompey's theatre, before seventeen thousand spectators, representing all classes of citizens. Suetonius mentions also a naumachia in which the crews of the imperial galleys fought against new and wonder- ful sea monsters; experiments made with an aeroplane or flying machine, which cost the life of the inventor, who was disguised as Icarus ; the enacting ad vivum of the most daring mythological scenes ; a novel race in the circus, in which camels harnessed to the quadrigce took the place of horses. In these sportive meetings Nero gained favor with the assembly by throwing among the ranks of the senators, of the patricians, and of the equestrians, as well as among the populace, handfuls of missilia, that is to say, of ivory labels inscribed with a number, corresponding to a prize to which the holder of the tessera was entitled. The prizes included grain, clothing, objects of gold and silver, gems, pearls, pic- tures, bronzes, hunters and chargers, slaves, houses, wild animals tamed into pets, farms and wheat lands, yachts, and whole islands. When the wicked side of Nero's personality began to make itself manifest, the courtiers remembered the THE LAND OF NERO 347 prophecy uttered by his own father, Domitius Aheno- barbus, on the day of his birth: "Do not rejoice," he had said to them; **for what can be born of Agrippina and myself but a vicious offspring destined to do great evil to mankind ?" And yet even in the worst moments Portrait head of Nero at about twenty-six, showing effects of excesses and dissipation of his career Nero remained an artist and a builder without rivals, despising anything short of perfection, and never attempting a work of public utility unless fraught with difficulties which would certainly have 348 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA deterred a less daring schemer. If we recollect that in the short period of his reign he rebuilt the greater part of the city, with his own Golden House as a centre; that he doubled its water-supply, provided it with a swimming-pond as large as a lake, free bathing accom- modations and two great sea harbors ; that he attempted to establish an inland water-way between Naples and Rome; that he succeeded in opening the Corinthian Canal ; that he laid out an Alpine park among the crags of Subiaco, and a sea garden at Antium; and that he enriched these places with the choicest chef d'ceuvres of Greek art, — I believe we are justified in regarding these as extenuating circumstances. I have already described the Golden House in "An- cient Rome," p. 124, and the artificial lake in "Ruins and Excavations," p. 369. The harbor of Rome (Por- tus Augusti), begun by Claudius and completed by Nero, inclosed an area of 170 acres, sheltered by jetties and a breakwater, with a depth of sixteen feet and a quay frontage of 2600 yards. The harbor of Antium, built for the use of the Imperial galleys during the stay of the court at that seaside resort, is still practically in use, although much damaged and disfigured in the time of Pope Innocent XII (1691-1700). The piers with which he sheltered the harbor are still extant, as fine examples of hydraulic architecture as can be found on the shores of the Mediterranean. They are still en- cased in their original frames or cradles of stout oak beams, which have hardened to the consistency of iron. The piers are 4300 feet long and thirty wide, and reach a depth of forty. The ship canal between the bay of Naples and Rome is thus described by Suetonius: "Nero began also a THE LAND OF NERO 349 water-way between the lake of Avernus and the Tiber, so that ships might go from one place to the other with- out putting to sea: one hundred and sixty miles in length, and wide enough to allow the sailing of two quinqueremes abreast. For carrying on this and other schemes, he ordered that prisoners and convicts from all parts of the Empire should be brought into Italy, and that even those deserving capital punishment should be made to work on these undertakings." Tacitus gives fuller particulars: "The designers and directors of his works were Severus and Celer, whose genius and ambition led them to attempt things impos- sible by their nature, and thus to waste the treasure of the prince. They had, in addition, undertaken to make a navigable canal from Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber, to be carried along a barren shore and through moun- tains which lie across the line, and where no water is found except in the Pontine district. The rest is rock or dry soil. Even had the project been practicable, the labor would have been intolerable, giving no adequate results. But Nero as a lover of the impossible was at the greatest pains to perforate the mountains nearest to Avernus, and to this day there remain traces of the abortive scheme." Tacitus refers obviously to the tunnel bored in the direction of Licola, known locally as the Grotta di Pace, from the Spaniard Pedro da Paz, who first found and explored it in 1507, while shooting on the northern shores of Lake Avernus. A deep cutting, not unlike that of the Culebra on the Panama Canal, was begun at the same time through the ridge of Amyclse, near the bay of Gaeta, where the Csecuban, the king of Italian wines, was grown. Nero ruined this prosperous district forever, and on the tables of the Roman aristocracy the 850 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA place of the lost Csecuban was thenceforth taken by another brand, the Setinian, grown on the border of the Pontine marshes, near the present village of Sezze. From this brief sketch of Nero's engineering feats the reader must already have gathered that he was not only a daring and reckless builder and a bold defier of natural difficulties, but an artist as well. Compare, for instance, the piers inclosing his harbors of Ostia and Antium with the jetties and breakwaters of our own times, — clumsy, massive structures, with only hydraulic cranes, coal-tips, or grain elevators to break the mono- tony of the line, and old guns for the mooring of ships. In Nero's work we find the mooring-rings cut in marble or cast in bronze in the shape of a lion's mouth or of a Medusa's head, and the mooring-posts formed by ex- quisitely carved granite pillars, on the surface of which inscriptions in praise of the Emperor were engraved. We enter our docks. through an iron gate; the ancients entered through a triumphal arch, such as the one still standing on the eastern pier of the port of Ancona. The view of the harbor of Ostia, with its colossal statues, its triumphal bronze chariots drawn by four bronze elephants, its lighthouse two hundred feet high, built in imitation of the Pharos at Alexandria, its groups of bronze Tritons turning on pivots so as to indicate the direction of the wind, its watch-towers or semaphores, from which the approach of incoming vessels was an- nounced, and other such particulars, can be studied in two contemporary records, — the sarcophagus of Philocyrius, now in the vestibule of the Vaccari palace, 37 Via del Tritone, and a bas-relief in the Torlonia Museum, of which I have given a reproduction in "Ancient Rome," p. 247. Where, however, Nero's artistic soul reveals itself THE LAND OF NERO 351 most forcibly is in the arrangement of his sylvan retreat at Subiaeo. Roman villa-builders, as a rule, showed an One of Niobe's sons, from Nero's villa at Sublaqueum (Museo Nazionale alle Terme) absolute disregard of natural beauty. Stiffness and con- ventionality were their characteristics. No tree or shrub was allowed to grow in its own way, the shears of the gardeners being always ready to force it into 352 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA absurd shapes. The paths were shut in by walls of box or laurel, with windows, doors, and niches imitating the architecture of palaces. Nero, first and last among the Roman rulers, conceived the notion of the English park. He selected a wild gorge of the Apennines above Subiaco, through which the river Anio forced its way, leaping by three graceful falls into the valley below. By damming it thrice with dams two hundred feet high, he created three mountain lakes, in the manner of the Virginia Water at Windsor, the upper one being over a mile long. The lakes were shadowed by oaks and beeches and overhanging rocks, in the interstices of which grew arborescent ferns. Two fishing lodges, one on either side of the glen, were connected by a bridge spanning the abyss at a prodigious height. One of these lodges, discovered in my presence in 1886, under the monastery of St. Benedict, makes us wonder at its sim- plicity. But what perfection in that simplicity! What exquisite wall-paintings, mosaic pavements, and marble incrustrations ! We found in the course of the excava- tion only one marble statue; but this statue was the first original Greek masterpiece with which I came in contact in my experience as an archaeological explorer. It represents one of the sons of Niobe, struck in the back by the arrow of Apollo, falling on his left knee, and raising his arms as if to shield himself from an- other deadly missile. This beautiful figure did not stand alone, but formed part of a vast composition, of twenty or twenty-four, including Niobe, her husband, her sons and daughters with their tutors and governesses, grouped in a picturesque scene, like the compositions one sees in the chapels of the Sacro Monte at Varallo or at Varese. As I have already remarked in Chapter IV, none but THE LAND OF NERO 353 a millionaire or an emperor could have indulged in the luxury of securing a replica of these vast compositions ; and yet Nero's at Subiaco is by no means the only one known to have existed in or near Rome. It seems that the prototype of all was the one modelled by Scopas (or Praxiteles) for the Sarpedonium of Cilicia, which C. Sosius, the friend of Mark Antony, — I do not know whether by honest or foul means, — took possession of and removed to the temple of Apollo in Rome. No trace has ever been found of this original group: either the remains of the temple have never yet been exca- vated, or else the group must have been removed to a forum or a bath or a basilica after the closing of temples ordered by Valentinian in 391. Leaving out of con- sideration stray pieces which are to be seen scattered in the Colonna Palace, in the Villa Albani, and at Verona, Vienna, Dresden, etc., there were in Rome at least four representations of the myth, — the one just mentioned, the second in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, the third in the Lamian gardens, the fourth in the gardens of Sallust. This last has become quite lately the most celebrated of all, from the finding of one of the un- fortunate daughters under the present dining-room of the house where I live and where I am writing these lines. The discovery took place under the following cir- cumstances. On the morning of June 4th the director of the work on the house then in course of construction notified me of the finding of a crypt, or underground corridor, thirty-five feet below the level of the ground, undoubt- edly connected with the imperial casino of the gardens of Sallust, remains of which are still to be seen in the Piazza Sallustiana. Remembering that in former years other crypts of the same structure, and lying at the same 354 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA depth under the houses bordering on the same piazza, had been found to contain works of sculpture, hidden on purpose as if to shield them from an impending danger, I warned the overseer to use the greatest care in clear- ing away the crypt, lest the works of statuary probably buried in its depths might be damaged. Four or five mornings later the masterpiece shown in the accom- panying illustration was exhumed from its hiding-place. I need not expatiate on its artistic and archaeological value, nor discuss the place which the unfortunate girl occupied in the group. It is sufficient to remark that this is the eleventh or twelfth figure from the same com- position which has come to light ex abditis locis within the bounds of the gardens of Sallust. Pietro Sante Bar- toli, the antiquarian of Pope Innocent X, states in his " Memoirs" that while Father Luke Wading was laying the foundations of the fa9ade of S. Isidoro on the Pin- cian he found five statues buried in a crypt, which were purchased by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the pro- tector of his order. Six or seven more statues were found likewise concealed under the house No. 3 Piazza Sal- lustiana in October, 1886, two of which, from the set of the Niobids, now belong to the Jacobsen Museum in Copenhagen. Pirro Ligorio describes "a number of statues, life-size, in bold relief, belonging to the story of Niobe and her daughters shot by Diana and Apollo," as found in the sixteenth century within a few feet of the hiding-place of the last Niobids. There can be no doubt concerning the danger from which the keepers of the gardens of Sallust tried to save its works of statuary. Compare Procopius, "Vandals," I, 2, where he describes the storming of the Porta Salaria and the destruction by fire of the Casino by the barbarians of Alaric on August 10, 410. ONE OF NIOBE'S DAUGHTERS STRUCK TO DEATH BY DIANA'S ARROW OF The UNIVERSITY OF WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA 357 The falling youth, now in the Museo Nazionale alle Terme, is not the only specimen of the group placed by One of the duu^^hlers of Xiohc, iVoiu Wro's villa at Sublaqueum (Vatican IMuseum) Nero in his villa at Sublaqueum. One of his sisters, now in the Museo Chiaramonti, was found in the same place in the time of Pope Paul III. Both statues, once standing on the same mass of rock, were most carefully detached from it in the time of Nero, who probably 358 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA wanted to place them one by one in a symmetrical line against a triangular background of evergreen, imitating the shape of a pediment. This process of separation from the socket originally shared by the whole group of boys and girls, is quite noticeable in the plinth of the youth (p. 351), where the right foot has been made to rest on a projecting bracket because a larger piece could not be cut away from the rock without damaging the nearest figure. A discovery of the same nature, but of higher value, was made in the spring of 1878 in Nero's villa at Antium. Part of the cliff on the edge of which the palace stood having collapsed after a great gale, a statue was found lying in shallow water at the foot of its original niche and pedestal. An interesting legal case arose between Prince Pietro Aldobrandini, the owner of the cliff and niche and of the pedestal from which the statue had been wrenched by the fury of the storm, and the Italian government, the owner of the shallow inlet in which the statue was found lying. Judgment was given in favor of the prince, whose heirs have just given up the statue to the nation for the handsome consideration of six hundred thou- sand francs ($120,000), six times as much as the price at which it could have been purchased in 1878. It re- presents the draped figure of a maiden holding a plate in her left hand and looking intently at its contents. She has been named the Maiden of Mystery because archaeologists are as ignorant to-day of her origin, authorship, name, and place in the history of Greek art as they were thirty years ago, when she first emerged from the foam of the sea. I have just paid her another visit (June 15th) in com- pany with two leaders of the Italian and German classic schools. I have listened to their arguments and subtle THE MYSTERIOUS GREEK MAIDEN FROM ANTIUM THE LAND OF NERO 361 controversy, and I have left Antium more fascinated than ever by the " bella incognita, " but no nearer to the knowledge of the truth. She is not a mystery, but a tangle of mysteries. Must we consider her lovely face a portrait from nature, or is it simply due to the fancy of the artist ? The twig which lies on the plate, is it from a laurel or an olive branch ? Is she taking it up from the plate or laying it down upon it ? The roll of thick stuff near the rim of the plate, is it a sacrificial band, or a scroll of parchment, or a strap of leather.? The little claws which are seen near the twig, do they belong to a pet animal, or are they the feet of a candelabrum or of an incense box (acerra) ? What impression did the artist try to convey by treating her tunic and her shawl in such a peculiar style ? That the shawl was made of wool and the tunic of plaited raw silk ? Is the marble out of which she is carved Parian or Hymettian ? To which epoch and to which school must such a work be assigned ? No definite answer has been given to these queries ; no subject more shrouded in mystery has ever perplexed the student. Nameless the maiden will enter the gates of the Museo Nazionale, and nameless she will remain in spite of all the attempts on our part to wrest her secrets from her. One point, however, seems certain : she looks, or she has been made intentionally to look, untidy ; her hair is not dressed ; her shawl has just been thrown carelessly on her shoulders; her shoes look more like slippers than sandals. Such a slovenly appearance, certainly intentional, has given rise to the following conjecture: that she may be a "penitent" girl, chosen by her tribe or by her fellow-citizens to appease the wrath of the gods and to avert with her offerings and prayers an impending calamity. If this is the case, it is 362 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA a pity that we cannot better identify the objects which the girl has gathered on her plate as a propitiatory offering to the gods. These brief reflections, coupled with those just offered on the subject of the youth from Subiaco, make us wonder at Nero's sagacity in chosing such specimens of Greek art for the ornamentation of his residences as were destined to challenge and defy the keenness of modern science, and to escape recognition as the maiden from Antium appears to have done. With this hurried visit to the remains of beautiful Antium we have come to the end of our first journey through the Campagna. I say first journey because many centres of interest such as Lanuvium, Ostia, Alba- num, Veii, Astura, Nomentum, Fidense, Gabii, Aricia, having been passed over for want of space, it is possible that — should the present volume prove acceptable to the reader — the subject might be continued in another. The author of the "Description of Latium" remarks that "however satisfactory and complete may be the account given by different authors of the city of Rome and its more immediate environs, little (in comparison) has been said on a subject grateful to the classic scholar no less than to the painter and antiquary." These lines were written in 1805; but they appear no less true a century later. Since the publication of the "Descrip- tion," many works have been written, by Gell, Nibby, Burn, Ashby, Tommasetti; they deal with the archaeo- logical or topographical side of the subject, but none with the feelings of quiet contentment with which the Campagna rewards its explorer. "Here the mind is never depressed by the weight of the atmosphere, nor the faculties benumbed by the chilling blasts which, in THE LAND OF NERO many other countries, destroy every comfort of existence. Vigorous and cheerful old age is here fully capable of enjoying the social hour and the pleasures which tem- perance and moderation allow; and though life may not The Mysterious Greek Maiden from Antium (Details of head) be prolonged in these climates beyond the usual limits (as is the case with the province of Perugia), it certainly glides more smoothly, and is freed from those minute cares, and tiresome precautions, which, in many other parts of Europe, render old age a burden, and interrupt APPENDIX AS we have considered the Campagna as " the Land of Hor- ace," it may interest the reader to hear what the poet himself has to say concerning it. The second Ode of the Book of Epodes piits into the mouth of the rich usurer, Alfius, a glow- ing description of the charm of country life upon the Campagna. We do not know the actual occasion of the Ode, but nothing seems more likely, as one writer suggests, than that there was a report that the usurer was about to buy a country-place and retire from busi- ness, and that on the strength of the rumor the poem was written. The present translation has been specially made by Prof. John Morris Moore. THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY LIFE (Beatus ille) Alfius^ the usurer, sings the praises of a country life, but shortly after returns to his old trade Happy the man who, far from traffic loud. Content, as folks of old. To own and plough the fields his father plough'd. Lives free from lender's gold ! For him no ruthless war-trump sounds alarms, No sea terrific roars : He shuns the Forum, and the gilded arms Above the rich man's doors; And rather to some lofty poplar tree To wed the vine proceeds. Or else his erring flocks he stays to see Go bleating o'er the meads; Or prunes and grafts his plants with hand secure. Their vigor to renew. 368 APPENDIX Or presses honey into vessels pure, Or shears the shivering ewe. And when blithe Autumn, beaming o'er the land With mellow fruit is seen, What joy his grafted pears, with careful hand. And purple grapes to glean ! With these, Priapus, welcome offerings, he Thine aid propitiates; These tributes. Sire Sylvanus, unto thee. The guardian of his gates. Ofttimes beneath an aged oak he '11 rest. Oft on a grassy height, Where waters, bounding from the rocky crest. Plunge madly out of sight; Or lightly sleep where birds, in leafy nook. Repeat their plaintive tale. To the sweet concert of the babbling brook. Meandering through the dale. But when his tempests thund'ring Jove prepares, And calls the winter back. The savage boar towards the ready snares He drives with eager pack; Or greedy thrushes lures to hidden nets. That treach'rous staves support, Or gins for timid hares and cranes he sets. The guerdon of his sport. Who for such joys would not desert the lair Where broils and lewdness meet ? — What if a partner chaste the dwelling share, And tend the children sweet? One like the Sabine wife, or sunburnt spouse To lithe Apulian dear. APPENDIX 369 Who fills the sacred hearth with crackling boughs, Her weary mate to cheer, And milks the captur'd ewe, and taps the cask With sweet new vintage fraught, And 'mid the viands sets the welcome flask, To flavor food unbought. Not Lake Lucrinus' oysters, not the host Of turbot, dainty feast, That howling storms compel towards our coast, With scar-fish from the East; Not Afric's, nor Ionia's fowl, for me, If that I but obtain A berry from the luscious olive tree, Or sorrel from the plain ; Or wholesome mallows,^ or the lamb dispatch'd In festive sacrifice To Terminus, or kid adroitly snatch'd From lurking wolf's device. While thus I banquet, let me view my flocks Skip homeward fatly fed. Or, with the plough revers'd, the weary ox Draw nigh with drooping head. Then, at the well-spread table, let my slaves, Whose number is my pride. Enjoy the simple food that hunger craves. The glistening hearth beside. These said, the lender Alfius swears he'll sum His gains, and farming start : Thus pass the Ides, but, when the Kalends come, Fresh bonds are in the mart. * Still eaten as a salad in some country places in Italy. 368 APPENDIX Or presses honey into vessels pure. Or shears the shivering ewe. And when bhthe Autumn, beaming o'er the land With mellow fruit is seen. What joy his grafted pears, with careful hand, And purple grapes to glean ! With these, Priapus, welcome offerings, he Thine aid propitiates; These tributes. Sire Sylvanus, unto thee, The guardian of his gates. Ofttimes beneath an aged oak he'll rest, Oft on a grassy height, Where waters, bounding from the rocky crest. Plunge madly out of sight; Or lightly sleep where birds, in leafy nook. Repeat their plaintive tale. To the sweet concert of the babbling brook. Meandering through the dale. But when his tempests thund'ring Jove prepares, And calls the winter back. The savage boar towards the ready snares He drives with eager pack; Or greedy thrushes lures to hidden nets. That treach'rous staves support. Or gins for timid hares and cranes he sets. The guerdon of his sport. Who for such joys would not desert the lair Where broils and lewdness meet ? — What if a partner chaste the dwelling share. And tend the children sweet? One like the Sabine wife, or sunburnt spouse To lithe Apulian dear. APPENDIX 369 Who fills the sacred hearth with crackling boughs, Her weary mate to cheer, And milks the captur'd ewe, and taps the cask With sweet new vintage fraught. And 'mid the viands sets the welcome flask, To flavor food unbought. Not Lake Lucrinus' oysters, not the host Of turbot, dainty feast, That howling storms compel towards our coast. With scar-fish from the East; Not Afric's, nor Ionia's fowl, for me. If that I but obtain A berry from the luscious olive tree. Or sorrel from the plain ; Or wholesome mallows,^ or the lamb dispatch'd In festive sacrifice To Terminus, or kid adroitly snatch'd From lurking wolf's device. While thus I banquet, let me view my flocks Skip homeward fatly fed, Or, with the plough revers'd, the weary ox Draw nigh with drooping head. Then, at the well-spread table, let my slaves. Whose number is my pride. Enjoy the simple food that hunger craves. The glistening hearth beside. These said, the lender Alfius swears he'll sum His gains, and farming start: Thus pass the Ides, but, when the Kalends come, Fresh bonds are in the mart. ^ Still eaten as a salad in some country places in Italy. INDEX Aborigines, the, in the Campagna, 14. Addison, Joseph, quoted, 162. Advocates in ancient times. See Law- yers. iElian family, the, 128-130. Africa, estates in, 46. Agon Capitolinus, 139-141. Agrippina, 284, 285. Alba Longa, 15. Albert, Maurice, on Maecenas's villa, 82. Aldovrandi, Ulisse, on group of horses from Hadrian's villa, 139. Alpine roads, 30-34. Ancona, Ciriaco d', at Tivoli, 107. Anicetus, C. Julius, sectarian, 167, 168. Anicii, the, 207-209. Anio, the part it has played in forming the Campagna, 9, 10. Antinous, 179-187. Antium, conflict of, with Rome, 339 ; associations of, with Nero, 340 ; villa of Nero at, 345, 357-362 ; harbor of, 348 ; Maiden of Mystery found at, 357-362. Antium, Cape, 333-335. Anzio. See Antium. Aquae Albulee, 50, 51. Aquse Apollinares, 50. Aquae Ciceronianae, 333. Aquae Posidianae, 50. Aqueducts of the Campagna, 6, 7, 24. Argentario, Monte, 48. Astinelli, Colle degli, church on, 217. Astura, sunken ship discovered at, 336. Augustus, at Tibur, 81, 82 ; his abste- miousness, 97 ; his fondness for gaming, 97, 98. Aurelian, and Zenobia, 153, 154 ; raises temple to the Sun of Rome, 170. Aurelius, Marcus, spiral column of, injured by earthquake, 219, 220. Aurelius Victor on Hadrian, 127. Autographs of architects and painters on ruins, 158, 159. Balbillus, Ti. Julius, sectarian, 167, 168, 169. Ball-playing in ancient times, 98-100. Banditti in ancient times, 40, 41. Baronio, Cardinal Cesare, 274. Bartoli, Pietro Sante, on sanctuary at Veii, 236. Bathing in the open sea, Romans ob- jected to, 324. Baths, 48-52, 324. Beghini. See Fraticelli. Belvedere Apollo found in Abbey of Grottaferrata, 268. Bertinoro, springs of, 48, 49. Bessarion, Cardinal, 274, 276-281. Biondi, 274. Bisocchi. See Fraticelli. Boccea, 68 n. Borghese, Marcantonio, his estate, 43. Borghese, Cardinal Scipione, 293, 294. "Boschi sacri del Lazio," 330. Bracciano, Lake of, 45. Bracciolini, Poggio, at Tivoli, 107. Braun, Emil, on representations of Antinous, 180. Breislak, Dr., on the Roman Forum, 4n. Bresciani, Antonio, investigated oracu- lar cave, 228, 229. Brocchi on malaria in the Campagna, 2,3. Bruce, Dr., on the wheel marks in Pompeii and the gauge of English railways, 329. 372 INDEX Brutus, villa of, at Tibur, 76. Bulgarini family plundered Hadrian's villa, 139. Csecilia Metella, grave of, 25. Caesarion, son of Caesar and Cleopatra, 164. Cains Cestius, Pyramid of, 26. Calendars, 60, 61. Calvo, Monte, attractive excursion to, 120. Camaldoli, hermitage of, 297-301. Cameos found in the Campagna, 26. Campagna, the wholesomeness of, in early times, 2-6 ; inhabited in pre- historic times, 4 ; called the " Land of Saturn," 6 ; sanitation of, towards the end of the Republic, 6, 7 ; its appearance in early imperial times, 6 ; its extent, 8, 9 ; its formation, 9- 11 ; three geological formations traced in, 11, 12 ; early inhabitants of, 13-16 ; what part of, included in the ancient metropolitan district, 16-24 ; comparison of the ancient and modern conditions of, 19-24 ruins of, 24-29 ; villas in, 29, 42-48 causes of the denudation of, 52-60 tree- worship in, 60-65, 146; watch- towers in, 65, 66 ; attempt of popes to restore, 66 ; flora of, 67, 68 ; fauna of, 68, 71 ; Sir Archibald Geikie on, 71-73 ; land of Horace, 74-126; land of Hadrian, 127-187; land of Gregory the Great, 188-246 ; land of Cicero, 247-301 ; land of Pliny the younger, 302-333 ; land of Nero, 333-364 ; amount of sculpture dug out of, 340 ; the " Description of Latium " on, 362-364. Canina, 274. Caput Aquae Ferentinae, 16. Caraffa, Cardinal Oliviero, 364. Cara villa, villa of Annibale Caro, 288-292. Caro, Annibale, adviser of Torquato Conti in laying out villa, 212 ; his villa, 274, 288 ; translated the ^neid, 274; a successful explorer of antiquities, 291. Cassio, Alberto, his account of excava- tions at Villa Santa Sigola, 204, 205. Cassius, villa of, at Tibur, 76. Castel Madama, identification of site of, 104 n. Castel Porziano, 7 n., 9 n. Castellacci in the Campagna, 65, 66. Catena, Villa, 211-216. Cato on the fever, 5. Catullus, villa of, 91. Chaupy, Capmartin de, on Cicero's villas, 42 ; claimed to have discov- ered the site of Horace's Sabine farm, 121-123 ; identified site of Cures, 122 ; on the Tusculan district, 258. Cicero, number of his villas, 42 ; on the origin of Praeneste, 227, 228 ; site of his Tusculan villa, 247, 248, 254, 257 ; his Tusculan villa the centre of a cluster of lawyers' villas, 248 ; not a lawyer in the present sense of the term, 250 ; in defence of Fonteius, 252 ; in defence of Milo, 253, 254 ; his love for his Tusculan villa, 258, 259 ; his Tusculan villa small, but of great value, 259-261 ; his children, 261, 262 ; his habits and death, 263, 264 ; tile inscribed with his name, 264 ; his Tusculan villa in the hands of Silius Italicus, 265. Cicero, Marcus, son of the orator, 261, 263. Claudian aqueduct, 24. Claudianus, Flavius, his villas, 42. Cleopatra at Rome, 164. Cocciano, present name of imperial estate at Frascati, 285. Coliseum injured by earthquakes, 221-224. Collegium salutare, 266. Como, Lake of, 45. Conche, 154, 157. Constantine, basilica of, injured by earthquake, 221. INDEX 373 Conti, the, pedigree of, 207-209. In- nocent 111,208, 209, 213; career of, 210,211; Torquato, 211-213 ; Villa Catena, 211-216 ; Innocent XIII, 213-216 ; last stand of the Fraticelli against the church under the pro- tection of, 217 ; Torre de', 218 ; connection of, with Forum Pacis,221. Contini, Francesco, 157, 158. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Tivoli the birthplace of, 107. Cozza, Abbot Giuseppe, on the site of Cicero's Tusculanum, 247, 248. Cures, site of, 122. Cynthia, villa of, 88-92, 100, 101 ; her grave, 103. Decimo, 68, 68 n. Delille on Tibur, 75. " Description of Latium," on Pales- trina, 244, 245 ; on the hermitage of Cardinal Passionei and the monks of Camaldolesi, 300 ; on the forests and the winds of the Laurentian coast, 330, 331 ; on the city of Rome, 362; on the Campagna, 362-364. Dice, use of, in ancient times, 97, 98. Dion Cassius, his description of the welcome given to King Tyridates at Rome, 164, 165. Dionigi, Marco, 207. Discobolus, statue of, found in Queen Elena's cottage, 320-324 ; other statues of, 320, 321. Dodona, 226. Domenichino, 273. Domitii, estates of the, 46-48. Drinks, in ancient times, 95-97. Dureau de la Malle supports Straton's theory of a flood, 13. Earthquakes, effects of, in Campagna, 219-224. Elena, Queen of Italy, inscription dis- covered at the Vicus Augustanus by, 311 ; tribute to, 311 ; her cottage, 315-318 ; statue of the Discobolus discovered at, 318-324. Empulum, site of Castel Madama, 104, 105. Este, Cardinal Ippolito d', 107, 111 ; death of, 114. Este, Villa d', 107, 108, 111-114. Eustachius, legend of, 200-204 ; home of, on the Vulturella, 204, 205 ; his burial place, 206, 207. Ex-votosy 236. Falconieri, 287. Farnese, Violante, builds church of Madonna della Pietk, 213. Fauna of the Campagna, 68, 71. Fede, Count Giuseppe, connection of, with Hadrian's villa, 142, 145. Fever, the, in Roman literature, 5, 6. Ficana, 10. Ficoroni, Francesco, on the tombs and mausolea of the Campagna, 24, 25. Fiumicino, 10. Flood, Straton's theory of, 12, 13 ; caused by the Tiber, 189. Flora of the Campagna, 67, 68. Fons Aponi, 50. Fontana, Domenico, restores the spiral column of Marcus Aurelius, 219, 220. Forests, along the coast, west and east of the mouth of the Tiber, 329, 330. Forsyth, W., quoted, 94. Fortunse Primigenise, Templum, 239- 242. Fortune-telling, method of, in ancient times, 242. Forum, Roman, a volcanic crater, 4, 4n. Forum Appii, 39. Forum Pacis, 221. Frascati, rebuilt by Paul III, 281, 286 ; represents the central palace and headquarters of the imperial estate, 283 ; Villa Rufina at, 287. Fraticelli, the, 217, 218. Furietti, Alessandro, his discoveries in Hadrian's villa, 141. S74 INDEX Gaionas, M. Antonius, sectarian, 167, 170-173. Galen, on gymnastics, 100. Gallus, Cornelius, 91-93. Gambling in ancient times, 97, 98. Gamekeepers in ancient times, 310- 312. Games, social, in ancient times, 97. Gauckler, Professor Paul, 172-177. Geikie, Sir Archibald, on the Cam- pagna, 71-73. Gericomio, farmhouse called, 114-120. Ghezzi, Pier Leone, his writings, 298, 299. Giannutri, island, 46, 47. Giglio, Isola del, 46, 47. Ginestre, Colle delle, site of Cicero's Tusculan villa, 257. Gosselin supports Straton's theory of a flood, 13. Gracchus, Cains, discovery of the place of his death, 172. Great St. Bernard, the, 31-34. Greek works of art, loss of, 341- 343. Gregory the Great, land of, gem of the Campagna, 188, 189 ; birth, 189 at the time of the plague, 190-194 physical characteristics of, 194 crowned, 194 ; his home on the Cse- lian hill unexplored, 195 ; disposed of possessions in favor of brother monks, 196. Grottaferrata, Abbey of, near Cicero's Tusculan villa, 247 ; not on the site of Cicero's villa, 266-268 ; relics of, 268, 271 ; wealth of, 271 ; name of, 272; charm of, 272, 273 ; connected with literary and artistic work, 274- 276 ; connection of Cardinal Bessa- rion with, 274, 276-281. Groups of statues, 86-88. Hackert, Georg, his views in the neigh- borhood of Horace's farm, 123, 124. Hadrian, his ancestry, 129, 130 ; his career, 130-131. Villa of, portrait gallery in, 85 ; ex- cavated by Ligorio, 107; plan of, taken by Ligorio, 111 ; places re- produced in, 127 ; site of, 128; kept in good condition to time of Constantine, 132, 135 ; uncertain when it began to be despoiled, 135, 136 ; plundered from time of Alex- ander VI to middle of last century, 136 ; plundered by the Bulgarini family, 139 ; excavated by Furietti, 141 ; finds made by Baratta at, 141 ; under Count Fede, 142, 145 ; under Lanciani's care, 145 ; excavations of Hamilton and the brothers Pira- nesi, 147, 148 ; excavations of the nineteenth century, 148, 149 ; pres- ent condition of, 149, 150. Hamilton, Gavin, his excavations in Hadrian's villa, 147. Helbig on statue of Antinous, 180. Herculanii Augustales, 82. Herodotus on the royal road from Sar- dis to Susa, 35. Horace, on inns, 38, 39; on Tibur, 74 ; life of, 76-81 ; had sore eyes, 92 ; on wines, 96 ; his Sabine farm, 121- 126 ; translation of second Epode, 367-369. Horosius, Excerpts from the Chronicle of, 222. Hortensia pleaded before the magis- trates, 253. Hortensius, 248, 250, 253. Horti Mseceniani, 86. Hostelries. See Inns. Hotels. See Inns. Human sacrifice, trace of, discovered at Rome, 176 ; at Alexandria, 177. Iconetta, 62. Iconographic sets, 85, 86. Innocent III, Pope, 209. Innocent XII, journey of, to Porto d' Anzio, 214, 215. Innocent XIII, journey of, to Poli, 213-216. Inns in ancient times, 38-41. Inundation caused by the Tiber, 189. INDEX 375 Jones, W. H., on malaria in the Cain- pagna, 3. Jugum Pceninum. See Great St. Ber- nard. Julian the Apostate at Prseneste, 243. Kireher, Athanasius, and the Vultur- ella, 196, 199 ; his account of Eus- tachius, 200-204. Lafreri on the Villa d' Este, 112, 113. Lakes, Romans did not care for, 45. Langobards, invasion of, 193, 194. Latins, the, their origin, 14-16. Laurentian villa of Pliny, 306-308. Laurentum, origin of the name, 313; history of, 314, 315 ; cottage dis- covered near, 315-318 ; journey from, to Antium, 327-331. Lawyers in ancient times, 250-254. Ligorio, Pirro, designer of the Villa d' Este, 107, 108, 111, 113 ; an im- postor and forger, 108 ; the most genial artist of his age, 108 ; un- published plans of, 112 n. Livy, on the site of Rome, 2 ; on vol- canic disturbances at and near Rome, 3,4. Lizard and Frog design, 84, 85. Lollia Paulina, 161. Lolliorum, Villa, 161. Lollius, Marcus, 160. Longinus, Cassius, 153. Lotario II, 213. Lucretius, quoted, 273. Lucullus, owner of three villas, 42 ; part of one of his villas bought by Annibale Caro, 288 ; as a host, 288 ; mausoleum of, 292. Lugano, Lake of, 45. Madama, Castel, identification of site of, 104 n. Madama d'Austria. See Marguerite of Austria. Madama palace, 104 Madama villa, 104. Madonna della Pietk, 213. Maecenas, villa of, 76, 82-84 ; and Horace, 80. Maiden of Mystery discovered in Ne- ro's villa at Antium, 357-362. Mails in ancient times, 35-37. Malaria in the Campagna, 2-5. Marcian aqueduct, 24. Maremma, the, in ancient times, 20, 46, 48. Marguerite of Austria, 104, 105. Mario, Monte, 10. Marucchi on fortune-telling, 242. Mausolea of the Campagna, 24-29. Mettia Hedonea, her villa, 46. Michelangelo at Tivoli, 107. Michilli, Liborio and Giovanni, 117, 118. Milo, Cicero in defence of, 253, 254. Mithrseum, at Alexandria, 177 ; at Rome, found by Flaminio Vacca, 178, 179. Mithras Leontokephalos, figure of, 177-179. Mithridates, vase of, 335, 336 ; mas- sacre ordered by, 336. Montgenevre, the, 34. Moore, Professor John Morris, his translation of Horace's second Epode, 367-369. Musa, Petronia, 102. Nero, his connection with Antium, 340, 341 ; possessed of a double nature, 345-348 ; his ship canal from Naples to Rome, 348, 349 ; an artist, 350- 352, 362. Nibby, Antonio, on marine fossils in the Monte Mario, 12, 13. Nicot, Jean, 117. Niebuhr on Cicero and Hortensius, 250. Niobe, group, found at Subiaco, 352 ; other statues of, 353, 354. Obelisk, monument to Antinous, 183. Olive groves, 145-147. Oracles, 224-238. Orators, ancient, 250-254. 376 INDEX Ostia, the healthiness of, 8 ; now 7000 yards from the shore, 10 ; its death, 56-60. Palestrina. See Prseneste. Palmyra, gods of, worshipped at Rome, 166-169. Pantano di Lauro, draining of the, 7n. Papal Progress, 213-216. Parco di Colonna, 16. Parini on the Tusculan district, 258. Pascal, quoted, 94. Passes. See Roads. Passienus Crispus, founder of the es- tate at Frascati, 283-285. Passionei, Domenico, 294-298. " Pausilypon," villa of Mettia Hedonea, 45. Pelasgians, in the Campagna, 14 ; and oracles, 226, 227. Piazza Poli, 218. Piccolomiui, Enea Silvio (Pius II), at Tivoli, 107. Pila, Monte, eruptions of, 3. Piranesi, brothers, their excavations in the villa of Hadrian, 148 ; their survey of Conche, 157, 158. Placidus. See Eustachius. Plague at Rome, 190. Plautus, reference to the fever in, 5 ; on parasites, 42. Pliny the Elder, on towns in the Pon- tine district, 4 ; mentions the fever, 5, 6 ; on springs, 50 ; on Saurus and Batrachus, 85 ; on tree-worship, 146 ; on Lollia Paulina, 161. Pliny the Younger, on Laurentum in summer and in winter, 6 ; on the Maremma, 20 ; his career, 302, 303 ; his letters, 303; his generosity, 305 ; his villas, 306-308 ; road to his Laurentian villa, 308, 309 ; on bath- ing, 324, 327. Poli, duchy of, foundation, 210. Poli, Piazza, 218. Pollio, Quintus Voconius, villa of, 55, 56. Polybius, and a telegraph system, 38 ; on charges at inns, 39. Pompeii, scenes painted in a wine shop discovered at, 39, 40. Pontine district, inhabited in prehis- toric times, 4. Portrait busts, 85, 86. Porziano, Castel, 7 n., 9 n. Postal organization in ancient times, 34-36. Prseneste, favorite place for villas, 43, 44 ; seat of oracle, 227, 235, 238- 246. Priscianus on the fever, 6. Propertius and Cynthia, 88. Prusias, King of Bithynia, welcomed at Rome, 164. Quintilii, estates of the, 42. Quirinius, P. Sulpicius, 91, 93, 94. Ratti, Nicola, on pedigree of the Conti, 207. : Reservoirs, 24. Respublica Decimiensium, 23. Roads, transalpine, 30-34, Rocchi, Father, on Bessarion, 281. Romansch district, names in, 30. Rome, wholesomeness of the site of, in early times, 2-6 ; sanitation of, towards the end of the republic, 6 ; the healthiest capital of Europe, 7, 8 ; size and population of, at present, 8 ; extent of the district of, in an- cient times, 16-24 ; calamities of the year 590 at, 189-193; memorials of the Conti family at, 218. Rossi, de, on the Villa d'Este, 113. Rufina, Villa, 286, 287. Rufini, Alessandro, Bishop of Melfi, 286, 287. Sacrifice, human, traces of, discovered at Rome, 176 ; at Alexandria, 177. St. Moritz, springs of, 49. St. Nilus of Rossano, founder of the Abbey of Grottaf errata, 266, 267. St. Silvanus, 62. INDEX 377 St. Sylvester, 62, 65. Sallust, gardens of, finds in, 353, 354. Saltuarii, 311. Samovars in ancient times, 95. Sanctis, Domenico de, claimed to have discovered the site of Horace's Sa- bine farm, 121, 122. Sangallo, Antonio da, the younger, at Tivoli, 107. Sanitation of Rome and the Campagna 6-8. Sant' Angelo, Colle, church on, 217, 218. Santacroce, Prosper©, career of, 114- 117 ; and the Villa Gericomio, 118, 119. Santa Maria delle Stelle, sanctuary, 228, 229. S. Maria di Vulturella, 196. Santa Sigola, Villa, 204, 205. Santo Stefano, hills of, villas on, 157, 158, 160, 161. Sarcophagi in the Campagna, 25-29. Saturn, Land of, the Campagna called, 6. Saurus and Batrachus, 84, 85. Schirati, Adriano, 213. Secedere, meaning of the word, 274, 275. Severiana, Via, 307, 308, 312, 314, 328, 329. Severus, Alexander, at Prseneste, 243. Ships, sunken, discovered, 337, 338. Shrines, country, 64, 65. Siculi, the, in the Campagna, 13, 14. Siegfried, Johan, of Breslau, 207. Silius Italicus owned Cicero's Tusculan villa, 265, 266. Sixtus IV, Pope, at Tivoli, 107. Sophonisba, 162, 163. Sortes, 235, 237, 238. Spaccato, 120. Spas in ancient times, 48-52, 331-333. Springs, 48-52, 331-333. Statins, letter of, to Marcellus, 42. Statue groups, 86-88. Straton of Lampsacus, his theory of a flood, 12, 13. Subiaco, Nero's villa at, 351, 352. Sublaqueum. See Subiaco. Submarine research, 335-338. Suetonius, on Augustus and his physi- cian, Antonius Musa, 82 ; on Augus- tus's habits, 97 ; his account of Nero, 346 ; and of Nero's ship canal, 348, 349. Sun of Palmyra, spread of worship of, at Rome, 166. Sun-god of Rome, 166, 170. Syphax, 162-164. Syria, gods of, worshipped at Rome, 166-179. Syrian chapel, site of, discovered at Rome, 170-179. Tacitus on Nero's canal, 349. Tarentum, pool of, 4. Telegraphing in ancient times, 37, 38. Tellenge, 4, 5. Tennis in ancient times, 98-100. Terence, reference to the fever in, 5. Terminalia, the, 1. Thermal establishments, 48-52. Tiber, the part it has played in form^ ing the Campagna, 9-11. Tibur, favorite place for villas, 43, 44 ; Horace on, 74 ; the Rev. Dr. Tuck- well on, 74, 75 ; Delille on, 75 ; villa of Brutus at, 76 ; villa of Cassius at, 76 ; Horace's farm at, 121-126. See Tivoli. Tivoli, climate of, 104 ; connection of Marguerite of Austria with, 104, 105 ; resort of artists and literary men, 105-107 ; Villa d'Este at, 107- 114; Villa Gericomio near, 118-120. See Tibur. Tobacco made known in Europe, 117. Tombs of the Campagna, 24-29. Torre Caldana, 331, 332. Torre de' Conti, 218. Torrone di Micara, 292. Towers. See Watch towers. Trajan and Pliny, 303-305. Travelling in ancient times, inconven- iences of, 29-41. 378 INDEX Tree-worship, 60-65, 146. Tres Tabernse, 39. Tuck well, the Rev. Dr. W., on Tibur, 74, 75 ; on Horace, 79 ; on Horace's farm, 125. Tullia, daughter of Cicero, 261, 262. Tunisia, sunken ship discovered off the coast of, 337, 338. Tusculan villa of Cicero, site of, 247, 248, 254, 257, 258; Cicero's love for, 258, 259 ; small, but of great value, 259-261 ; tile of, inscribed with Ci- cero's name, 264 ; in hands of Si- lius Italicus, 265. Tusculum, favorite site of villas, 43, 44. Tyridates, King of Armenia, welcomed at Rome, 164, 165. Vacca, Flaminio, on the finding of por- trait heads, 86 ; his discovery of a Mithrseum, 178 ; on finds in Caro's villa, 291. Valerio, Francesco, his account of earthquake of 1703, 223, 224. Varro, on the fever, 6 ; on a banquet of Hortensius, 307. Varus, Quintilius, 91 ; his villa, plan of, taken by Ligorio, 111. Vaticanus, Mons, 10 n. Veii, sanctuary at, 236. Verona, Giocondo da, at Tivoli, 107. Via Collatina, tomb discovered on, 26, 29. Via Latina in ancient and in modern times, 20-24. Vibius Varus, 160. Vicarello, well of the Aquae Apolli- nares at, 50. Vicus Angusculanus, 23. Vicus Augustanus Laurentium, 306- 308, 311. Villa, of Brutus, 76 ; of Cassius, 76 ; Catena, 211-216 ; of Catullus, 91 ; of Cicero, Tusculan, 247-265 ; of Cynthia, 88-93, 100, 101 ; d' Este, 107,108, 112-114; Gericomio, 118- 120 ; Hadrian's, 85, 111, 127-150 ; of Horace, 76, 121-126; Lolliorum, 161 ; of LucuUus, 288-294; Madama, 104 ; of Maecenas, 76, 82, 86 ; of Nero, at Antium, 345, 357-362 ; of Nero, at Subiaco, 351-352 ; of Pliny, 306-308 ; of Quintus Voconius Pollio, 55-56 ; of P. Sulpicius Qui- rinius, 94 ; Rufina, 287 ; di Siface, 162-164 ; Santa Sigola, 204, 205 ; of Varus, 111 ; of Zenobia, 150- 162. Villas, in the Campagna, 29, 42 ; fa- vorite sites for, 43-48. Virgil, on Lake of Como, 45 ; suffered from angina pectoris, 91, 92 ; his tenth eclogue, dedicated to Gallus, 93. Vitruvius on temples placed on pub- lic roads, 32. Volcanoes near the Campagna, 3, 4. Volterra, Daniele da, at Tivoli, 107. Vulturella, history of, 196, 199 ; Villa Santa Sigola on, 204, 205. Watch-towers, 65, 66. Water-reservoirs, 24. Wines, 96. Wiseman, Cardinal, his Fabiola, 274, 301. Wurts, George, 170. Zacharias, historian, 345. Zenobia, her career, 150-154; reminis- cences of her in the Tibur land, 154 ; her villa, 154-162. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WIJLL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE: SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. SEP 23 1933 SFP ?!3 1933 SEP .24 1933 16 im oj» SEP 25 1933 1\ M/^Rll'67-5- APH 15 i9;^a LOAN DEPT. 27kn'49nW 151969 R ^-AM^ ■?! '.""'i L- RECD LD MAY? iq S7 LD 21-100»i-7,'33 ^^ ' 7 D UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY