Full text of "Wanderings in the Roman campagna"

WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN
CAMPAGNA

THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

^^ANDERINGS IN THE
ROMAN CAMPAGNA

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

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

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

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

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

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, —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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<s) and the frog (/Sarpaxos) must be
considered as the disguised signatures of Saurus and
Batrachus, the favorite artists of Augustus, who in-
trusted to them the designing, carving, and erecting of

THE LAND OF HORACE

the temples of Jupiter and Juno in the portico of Octa-
via. Pliny says that as they were denied the privilege of
signing their works with their names, they hit upon the
device of carving among the flutings of the columns their
armoiries parlantes. These signs appear also in the
floral decoration of the Ara Pacis, another masterpiece
of the Augustan age. We
must therefore consider
their presence in the frieze
of this villa on the Carciano
road as an additional proof
that it dates from the same
period, and that plan and
decorations were proba-
bly intrusted by the prime
minister to his master's
favorite artists.

As regards the portrait
busts of eminent men, in-
scribed with their names,

it is true that they are occasionally found, single or in
couples, on the sites of old Roman gardens; but no-
where in such numbers and in such distinct iconogra-
phic sets as at Tibur. The first of these portrait galleries
was discovered at the end of the fifteenth century in
Hadrian's villa. Some of the hermse perished in the lime-
kilns ; nine were removed to a rural chapel of the Virgin
on the road to Tivoli, where they were described by
Martin Sieder in 1503; five more were discovered in 1550
by Giambattista Altoviti, son of Bindo the banker, and
sold to Pope Julius III, to be set up at the crossings of
the garden paths of the Villa Giulia outside the Porta
del Popolo. The second set was found in a district on
the right bank of the Anio, called "i Pesoni," among

Marcella Lanciani del.

Fragment of a frieze with the cryptic
signature of Saurus and Batrachus

86 \\^NDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

the remains of a villa supposed to have belonged to the
Calpurnii Pisones. The third is the one from Maecenas's
villa at Carciano, now exhibited in the Sala delle Muse
at the Vatican.

In Rome there were at least two iconographic sets, —
one in the gardens of the same statesman on the Esqui-
line (the Horti Mseceniani), and one in the Gardens of
Caesar on the Janiculum. I have myself been instru-
mental in recovering many hermse from both places,
such as the one bearing the name of Anacreon (AN AKPEQN
AYPIKOC) found in 1884 in a hall of basilical type
in the lower part of the Horti Caesaris, which had es-
caped discovery by former explorers, such as the Mar-
chese Vittori and the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in
the sixteenth century and Giambattista Guidi, the last
inspector of antiquities under Pius IX, in 1859. The
finding of the former is thus described by Flaminio
Vacca : ^ "In the vineyard of the Vettori, on the right
bank of the Tiber, outside and near the Porta Portese,
many statues and portrait heads of emperors and philo-
sophers have been found concealed purposely in two
crypts. Some of these hermse are to be seen in the Vet-
tori palace near the Pantheon; but the best part of the
set has been purchased for the Farnese museum."

The third consideration refers to the finding of the
Muses, which shows at once that the villa on the Car-
ciano road must have belonged to a patrician of great
wealth. Many citizens were able to purchase a statue or
two for their houses and gardens. We shall see in the
chapter on Lauren tum how the owner of "Queen Ele-
na's cottage" at that little seaside place was satisfied
with the possession of one, a marble copy of Myron's
bronze Discobolus, but only the few who had accumu-

^ Memor.y 96.

THE LAND OF HORACE

lated great fortunes could indulge in the luxury of pur-
chasing groups like those of the Muses, of the Niobids,
of the Gauls defeated by King Attains I, or of Orpheus

The bust of Anacreon discovered by the author in the Gardens of
Caesar in 1884

taming the wild beasts. The first numbered ten or eleven
subjects, if we add to the figures of the nine sisters those
of Apollo and of the horse Pegasus; the second, about
twenty-four, including Apollo, Diana, Niobe, fourteen
sons and daughters, with their tutors and governesses

88 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

and ponies. Consequently, whenever one or more Pieri-
des or Niobids are discovered in searching ancient sites,
we may be sure that we have to deal with the estate of
an emperor or of a wealthy patrician. Such was the
case at this villa on the Carciano road.

The rendezvous for this brilliant group of men of the
Augustan age was the cottage of Cynthia, located on
the right bank of the river on the Quintiliolo road, near
and under the suburban monastery of Sant' Antonio.
Her real name was Hostia ; her right to fame, the poems
of Pro per tins, whose mistress she appears to have been
for the space of five years ; her chief characteristic, ner-
vousness. Cynthia could not live in her town house on
the Esquiline for more than two or three weeks at a
time, rushing in her restlessness now to the Artemisium
at Nemi for the cold-water cure, now to Prseneste to
consult the oracle, now to Tusculum and Lanuvium for
a change of air, and now to Baise for the sake of its hot
springs. She used to fly from place to place in an esseda
drawn by Gaulish ponies, followed by a retinue of ser-
vants and dogs. This last precaution was considered
necessary because of the insecurity of the roads. Her
lover himself mentions the danger of the journey from
RometoTibur in ''Elegies," iii, 16. Having been once
summoned at sunset to join her in haste, he debates with
himself which is the lesser evil to face, — the wrath of
Cynthia at his not obeying the summons, or the risk
of meeting highwaymen, who at that time infested the
neighborhood of the sulphur springs (the Aquae Al-
bulse). Love conquers fear, and the poet, having safely
crossed the dangerous district, hails the familiar outline
of Cynthia's cottage just as the sun rises over the tem-
ple-crowned top of the iEfulse mountains.

Cynthia dearly loved her Tiburtine retreat, facing the

VIEW FROM THE TERRACE OF CYNTHIA'S VILLA AT SANT*

ANTONIO

THE LAND OF HORACE 91

falls of the Anio. Perhaps the sound of the rushing
waters, borne to her in the stillness of the night by the
mountain breeze, soothed her nerves and lulled her to
sleep. Equally renowned for ancient lineage, personal
attractions, and proficiency in the " castse Palladis artes,"
she is compared by Propertius to the Aganippides in
the art of singing, and to Corinna for literary accom-
plishments. No one gazing at her blue eyes, or listening
to her words of welcome, could escape her fascination.
Even society small-talk would become a dainty musical
phrase when uttered by her lips, and would call forth
pretty speeches in return. We can picture in imagina-
tion the hostess, exquisite of form and features, with the
lissomeness of a young girl, receiving her guests on the
terrace overlooking the precipice,, where bowls of roses
and bunches of violets made the air redolent with the
scent of May. Her next-door neighbors were Quintilius
Varus on one side and the poet Catullus on the other;
but her chief circle of acquaintances embraced every
villa owner who was not fettered by matrimonial ties.
Varus was not the general slain in the forest of Teuto-
burg, with the pick of the Roman army, but a kinsman,
a literary critic whose intimacy with Horace, Virgil, and
Catullus makes us believe that they also partook of
Cynthia's hospitality, whose garden gate they were
obliged to pass on their way to Quintiliolo. Her list of
visitors must have included also Maecenas, the prime
minister; Tibullus, wlio used to drive over from Pedum
(Gallicano); Cornelius Gallus, the conqueror of the
Soudan; P. Sulpicius Quirinius, the governor of Syria
at the time of the birth of the Saviour; not to mention
Catullus, whose villa is placed by the historians of
Tivoli on the site of Sant' Angelo di Piavola. Virgil and
Horace cannot have been brilliant companions. One

92 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

The lower terrace of the villa of Maecenas. (From a photograph by
Miss Dora Bulwer)

suffered from angina pectoris, the other from eyes *'lippi
et defluentes," so that Augustus, in whose suite they
occasionally travelled, used to say that he was followed
by sighs and tears. But the conversation on that garden
terrace certainly did not lack brightness and interest,
whether they were listening to the recital of Gallus's
exploits in the region of Khartoum, to the accounts of
the manners and superstitions of the Jews by Quirinius,
or to the latest ode written by Horace in praise of one of
the guests.

It is curious to note that the scanty accounts we possess
respecting the career of Gallus, himself a poet of no
mean genius, are to be found in Virgil, Proper tins, and
Ovid, all partakers of Cynthia's hospitality. Gallus was
of obscure ancestry; but neither modesty of birth nor
poverty of means prevented his entering the court circles

THE LAND OF HORACE 93

at last and gaining favor with the Emperor. In the
Egyptian campaign against Antony he distinguished
himself at the conquest and defence of the harbor of
Parsetonium, for which exploits he was rewarded with
the first governorship of the conquered land of the Nile.
This great stroke of fortune and this great proof of
imperial good will seem to have turned his head. He
talked too much and too loud of himself to please his
benefactor; and Ovid^ accuses him of uttering trea-
sonable speeches under the influence of drink. Then
followed his expedition against the rebellious cities of
Heroopolis and Thebes, in which he indulged in acts of
wanton cruelty and robbery. Valerius Largus, formerly
his confidential friend, denounced him to Augustus, by
whom Gallus was forbidden to enter the imperial pal-
ace. Gallus could not endure the disgrace, and killed
himself with his sword, much to the regret of Augustus,
who had certainly not foreseen such a denouement.
That Gallus ten years before, at least, was neither a
violent nor a dishonest man, is shown by the wording of
the dedication of Virgil's tenth eclogue to him. It is true
that the apology of Gallus, contained in the latter part
of this eclogue, was changed by Virgil, in obedience to an
imperial command, into the Fable of Aristseus; but this
circumstance ^ proves less the guilt of Gallus than that
the recollection of his end was painful to Augustus.
The site of the villa at Tibur, where Lycoris and Gallus
passed so many happy summers, is not known.

Quirinius, whose name has been made famous
through the Christian world by the lines in Luke ii
(" and it came to pass in those days that there went out
a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should

1 TrisL, 2, 445.

^ Related by Donatus, Vita Virgil., x, 39.

94 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Quiri-
nius was governor of Syria"), had his villa outside the
Porta Romana, on the road to Ponte Lucano, where an
inscription describing his military and political career
was discovered in 1764. Luke confuses the universal
census — the mensuratio totius orhis — taken by Agrippa's
command in the year 29-28 b. c, with the special census
of Palestine taken by Quirinius in a. d. 5. This famous
member of the Tiburtine coterie had been married to
iEmilia Lepida, whom he divorced in the year 1.
Twenty years later he brought another accusation
against her, and this revengeful conduct caused great
disaffection among his friends. He died in a. d. 21.

The reader who is not conversant with ancient man-
ners and customs may be curious to know whether in
Roman fashionable circles there were any social func-
tions corresponding to our afternoon tea and card par-
ties. The query seems almost vulgar and irreverent, in
view of the proper dignity of an archaeological book.
However, as Forsyth has already remarked, '* We are too
apt to clothe the ancients in buckram, and view them,
as it were, through a magnifying glass, so that they loom
before us in the dim distance in almost colossal propor-
tions. But we forget that they were men very much like
ourselves, and accustomed to talk and act like ordinary
mortals. Pascal says, with as much truth as wit, * On ne
s'imagine d'ordinaire Platon et Aristote qu'avec des
grandes robes, et comme des personnages toujours
graves et serieux. C'etaient d'honnetes gens, qui riaient
comme les autres avec leurs amis; et quand ils ont fait
leur lois et leurs traites de politique, 9'a ete en se jouant
et pour se divertir.'" ^ It is curious and interesting to

* W. Fors3rth, HortensiuSy London, Murray, 1849, p. viii.

THE LAND OF HORACE

trace the similarity in matters of every-day practice be-
tween ancient and modern times, and often we seem,
while studying the classics, to be reading what might
have happened yesterday. Nothing tends so forcibly as
this to make us realize the past and live among the
ancients.

First, then, as to refreshments at fashionable gatherings.
I have in my collection an unpublished (?) drawing of a
samovar discovered not
far from Terracina, so
elegant in shape and so
rich in material, that far
from belonging to a com-
mon thermopoliuvi,^ it
must have come straight
from the boudoir of a
lady of rank. The drink
brewed in such vessels
was called calda or ca-
lida, and consisted of
hot water flavored with
spices or aromatic herbs,
like our tilia or camomile
infusions. Wine was of-
ten served with it, but
separately, so as to leave
the guests the choice of
manipulating the mix-
ture to suit their taste or

the season. The heating apparatus was named aenum,
and the vessel in which the hot water was kept au-
thepsa. Boettiger says on this subject, "It is quite
credible that the ancients had something to match our
* A common shop where hot drinks could be obtained.

Ancient vessel for hot drinks found near
Terracina. Side view. (From an un-
published drawing in the possession of
the author)

96 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

tea or coffee services " ; ^ and reproduces from the " Museo
Borbonico," iii, 63, the shape of the bronze samovar of
Pompeii, one of the most elegant specimens of its kind.
The one here represented, discovered near Terracina, is
now, I believe, in the possession of the king of Den-
mark.

We know what Horace's scale of appreciation was on
the subject of a well-furnished cellar. The choicest of

all Italian wines, ac-
cording to his taste, was
the Csecuban, from the
poplar - trained vines
grown in the swamps
of Amyclse in Campa-
nia. Heady and gener-
ous and reserved for
great banquets, it re-
quired a long seasoning,
hence the expression
'* stored still in our
grandsire's bins," used
in Odes iii, 27, and i,
37. It was beyond the
poet's means, and he
could feast on it only at
Maecenas's table or on
board his galley. Next
came the Formian and Falernian, grown on the south-
ern slopes of the hills dividing Campania from Latium
— fierce, rough, fiery wines, which he recommends mix-
ing with the milder brands from Chios or Surrentum,
or sweetening and diluting with honey from Mount
Hymettus. The lowest in his estimation was the Alban,

^ Sabina, ii, 35.

Ancient vessel for hot drinks found near
Terracina. Sectional view

THE LAND OF HORACE 97

which he used as '*vin de table." The Emperor him-
self — supposing he had honored with his presence the
gatherings at Tibur — would have checked any con-
vivial merriment with his abstemiousness. As his bio-
grapher certifies, he would have accepted from his
hostess only **a slice of bread dipped in cold water, or
a slice of cucumber, or the heart of a lettuce, or an
unripe apple." *

Social games were pursued not only as a recreation
but also with the hope of gain. Those of hazard had
become a pernicious mania, to which the happiness
and fortunes of many were sacrificed. In other and
more innocent games success depended on the skill of
the players. The most popular and dangerous was the
throwing of dice (alea). Juvenal says that enormous
sums were lost in this kind of play. It was considered
more or less illicit, and persons who allowed gambling
in their houses could not lodge legal complaints even in
case of violence and robbery. But the law was trans-
gressed in private, even in the imperial palace, some
of the emperors being passionately devoted to games
of chance, like Claudius, who wrote a manual on the
subject.

Here, again, supposing Augustus to have been a vis-
itor at Cynthia's villa, we know what line of conduct he
would have followed if challenged to take a share in
social games. Suetonius says that he never made a pre-
tence to dislike those of chance; on the contrary, he
played openly and simply for the pleasure of it, to the
end of his life, not only at the lawful time of the Satur-
nalia, but on every feast day. His correspondence with
Tiberius abounds in interesting details, especially about
the making of a pool among players and about his per-

^ Suetonius, Octav.t 77.

98 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

sonal profits and losses. Of profits there were none, be-
cause of his kindness and generosity towards the guests,
as shown by this fragment of a letter to his adopted son :
**We had a pleasant quinquatrus [the school holidays,
March 19-23], playing every day and making the dice
room hot. Thy brother was loudly in despair, although
his losses were not heavy. I lost myself twenty thou-
sand sesterces [$800], which is not exactly true, because,
had I not made good the losses of some of the guests,
I should have won fifty thousand [$2000]." In his
old age he became fond also of playing a species of
lottery with prizes consisting of objects of value, curios-
ities, surprises, etc., which he provided himself. Some-
times he obliged his guests to bid for a picture of which
only the back could be seen; sometimes he would him-
self write the labels to be drawn by the guests, which
insured them the possession of the most varied objects,
such as *' robes, silver, gold, sponges, rare coins and
medals, scissors, pictures, curling irons, hoes or rakes of
the kind used by bakers in stirring the ashes of the oven,
and sheets of hair-cloth." These lotteries were drawn
especially at the time of the Saturnalia, the classic car-
nival, the beginning of which had just been fixed by
Augustus at the seventeenth day of December.

If we add to these pleasant distractions a game of ten-
nis, we have exhausted, I believe, the subject of social
games in the days when Cynthia's terrace was crowded
with villa-builders of the Augustan age. Tennis was
not played then under our own rules, nor with the help
of rackets; it was more a mild gymnastic exercise than
sport. There can be no doubt that tennis players in
Greece and Rome, while indulging in a game of ball,
had in view the training of their bodies for health,
vigor, and grace of movement rather than anything

THE LAND OF HORACE 99

else; and that the sight of a game played on a patrician
court (sphceristerium) must have created the same
charming impression on bystanders that the wandering
Ulysses felt at the sight of Nausicaa playing with her
attendant maidens, and dancing in measured time while
the ball was tossed from one to another. Without enter-
ing into particulars, which can easily be gathered from
archaeological manuals and dictionaries, it is enough for
my purpose of giving a finishing touch to the scenes en-
acted in Cynthia's garden, to mention these few points/
Ordinary balls (pilce), made of cloth, were stuffed with
horse-hair, while the tennis balls (folles) were inflated
with air. Light glass balls came into fashion at the end
of the second century, through the astounding perform-
ances of Ursus Togatus in the tennis courts of the Baths
of Agrippa, Nero, Titus, and Trajan. The game was
played with soft gloves, and was but a display of grace,
agility, and skill, as described in Ursus's celebrated
eulogy.^ The quarters or lappets of tennis balls were
often colored, and great care was taken to have the com-
messurce or seams carefully joined together. Courts were
paved with a wooden floor upon which the base and the
middle lines were marked when the sphoeromachia was
played ; no lines being needed, as nearly as I can judge,
for the trigon or triangular game. Men of all ages
could indulge in tennis '* without loss of dignity." Augus-
tus took exercise with hard and soft balls until he grew
too old for anything but the litter or a gentle walk.
Vespasian attributed the excellent health which he en-
joyed to the end of his life to his daily use of the sphceris-
terium. The well-known line of Horace ^ seems to refer

* Compare Luigi Tocco, Ricerche sidV antichita del giuoco delta palla,
Rome, 1869.

^ Corpus Inscr. Lat., vol. vi, part ii, n. 9797. ^ SatireSy i, 5.

100 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA

to a scene actually enacted on the court of the Tiburtine
hostess. Maecenas having expressed his wish to start a
game, Horace and Virgil decline to take a hand in it,
one on the plea of sore eyes, the other of asthma. Com-
menting on this passage, Galen, the prince of the med-
ical school at the time of the Antonines, remarks that

Vestiges of one of the reception rooms in Cynthia's villa. (From a photograph by

Dr. Thomas Ashby)

those who indulge in excessive gymnastic exercises be-
come, "like the Litse of Homer, lame, wrinkled, cross-
eyed," while those who play judiciously at ball escape
such afflictions.

It would certainly afford great satisfaction to the
visitor to know, beyond any shade of doubt, that the
remains to be seen under the church and monastery of
Sant' Antonio are those of Cynthia's villa ; so that, sitting

THE LAND OF HORACE 101

on the garden terrace below the church, — as I have so
often done as the guest of the late owner, John Searle,
Esq., — he could almost hear again the conversation
of those wise men and feel the charms of their gracious
hostess. But in the present state of our knowledge no
such identification is possible. Local antiquaries, in
fact, have connected Cynthia's name, not with Sant'
Antonio, but with another group of ruins to be seen
(not without difficulty) on the left of the lane descending
from Quintiliolo to the Ponte dell' Acquoria. These
ruins were excavated for the first time in 1778, and
again in 1819. Among the many discoveries, one would
have proved of absorbing interest if proper attention
had been paid to it. Fea^ the Pope's commissario
delle antichita, describes it as follows:^ "A life-sized
female draped statue in a sitting posture, resembling a
Muse; of good workmanship and preservation. . . .
The head, which has been found close to the body,
and which was made to fit on the shoulders by means
of a socket, is the work of an inferior hand, and of dif-
ferent marble. It is undoubtedly a portrait head of a
portrait statue." I have done my best to find where
this statue was removed in 1819, and where it may be
at present, but without result. Two sitting Fauns in
the act of pouring water into a basin of a fountain, dis-
covered at the same time, were purchased for the Vatican
Museum; but no mention is made in the records of the
trustees of the fate of the sitting lady resembling a
Muse, which may have been a portrait statue of Cynthia
herself.

There is, however, a bust in the Borghese Museum
which recalls her image most vividly. It is a portrait
of a lady, endowed with the same divine gifts of poetry
* Varieta, p. 166, n. xx.

102 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

and loveliness, and named Petronia Musa. I wonder
whether the name Musa was given her at her birth, as
an omen of her future career, or after she had given
evidence of a poetical spirit. At all events, the poetess,
besides her connection with the aristocratic family of
the Petronii, must have risen to great fame, for the
memorial now in the Borghese Museum was put up, not
by relatives, but by friends and admirers, as explained
in the Greek epitaph, which says : *' In this grave, erected
by subscription [or set up in a public place] lies the blue-
eyed Musa, the nightingale suddenly struck dumb. . . .
Oh, dear Musa, may the earth be light to thee ! ^ What
evil power has taken away from us our siren ? Who
has deprived us of our little singing bird ? In one night
she breathed her last and her body was dissolved.
Musa, thou art gone! Thine eyes sparkle no more; thy
lips are sealed forever. No trace is left of thy beauty or
of thy learning."

This touching epitaph gives no biographical details;
in fact, we do not know where it was exhumed, whether
in Rome or in one of the Borghese estates. When
Manilli wrote his description of the Villa Pinciana for
the Jubilee of 1650, the gravestone stood as a pedes-
tal to a statue of Ceres in one of the avenues; it was
transferred to the casino only after the Napoleonic
spoliations, to fill a gap in the entrance hall. The
**basketwise" style of dressing the hair, which we no-
tice in Musa's portrait, came into fashion in the time
of Trajan ; and we may argue from this detail that she

^ A graceful French adaptation of the classic sit tihi terra levis was writ-
ten by Alexandre Dumas for the grave of Olga Wassiliewna, a girl of
twenty who died at Derbent in Tartary in 1833 : —

O terre de la mort ne pese pas sur elle:
Elle a si peu pese sur celle des vivants!

THE LAND OF HORACE

103

must have flourished about a century after the death
of Cynthia.

This charming representative of the society of the
Augustan age had intrusted the safe keeping of her
own grave to her lover Pro per tins. If we can believe
local traditions, the grave is still in existence; it is a
square massive structure, bare of all ornaments, on
the left border of the path descending from Quintiliolo
to the river. The name of "sepolcro di Cinzia" may
be only a fanciful creation of the Renaissance antiqua-
rians; but it is not the writer of this book who will

Tetronia Musa

104 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

dispute the accuracy of the statement; it fits too well
the memorials of the past.

Illustrious women showed partiality for Tivoli even
in the middle ages and in the Renaissance. Perhaps
they found an inducement for gracing with their presence
the old Argsean colony in the popular belief that its
climate was good for the complexion. Tibur was the
only place known to the ancients where ivory was not
discolored or blackened by age; in fact, old ivory used
to be stored in the temple of Hercules that it might
regain its original whiteness. Martial informs us that
Lycoris, who was a brunette, cleared her skin wonder-
fully by spending a season at the waterfalls of the Anio.

Quite different were the reasons which impelled Mar-
guerite of Austria to visit Tivoli in 1540. This hand-
some daughter of the Emperor Charles V, popularly
known as Madama d' Austria, whom the assassination of
Duke Alessandro de' Medici had left a widow at an early
age, had entered Rome in triumph on November 3, 1538,
as the affianced wife of Duke Ottavio Farnese, nephew of
the reigning Pope. I have already described in " Golden
Days," pp. 115-119, how her name is connected forever
with such historic buildings as the Palazzo Madama,
now the meeting-place of the Italian Senate, and with
such masterpieces of ancient and contemporary art as
the *'tazza Farnese," now in the Naples museum, and
the Villa Madama on the slopes of the Monte Mario.
In the neighborhood of Tivoli her name is still popular,
on account of her connection with the ancient city of
Empulum,^ the "Castrum Sancti Angeli" of the middle

^ I was able to identify the site of Castel Madama with that of Empu-
lum in the spring of the present year, after an archaeological exploration
of its territory which lasted three months.

THE LAND OF HORACE 105

ages, which she received as a dowry from the estate of
the Medicis after the murder of Alessandro. After the
conclusion of the Flemish wars, in which her second hus-
band, Ottavio Farnese, had led the imperial armies to
victory, she lived in seclusion in this mountain strong-
hold, which retains to the present day the name of Castel
Madama. A beautiful and charming place it is, clean,
healthy, prosperous, commanding an exquisite view,
especially in the early months of the year, when the fore-
ground is steeped in a bluish haze from the budding of
the chestnut groves, while the mountains which frame
the landscape are still wrapped in their coat of snow.
Marguerite's first visit took place in 1540. At Tivoli she
was given hospitality in the Town House, while the local
noblesse tried to make her stay pleasant with hunting,
dancing, sports, and other demonstrations of loyalty;
and although her own suite was worthy her station in
life, — a daughter of an emperor and a niece of a pope,
— still the Tiburtine ladies, the Leonino, the Sebastiani,
the Bulgarini, the Lolli, the Tobaldi, and others, fully
held their own. A contemporary chronicler describes
these ladies as dressing and moving ''a la Romana,"
wearing robes of velvet, satin, brocade, damask, and
"ermisino," with neck, wrists, and waistbands studded
with pearls. They wore also Spanish ruffles, hoods of
gold-cloth, perfumed gloves, and satin slippers, and in-
dulged freely in rouge and other cosmetics.

As regards the favor which Tivoli found with artists
and literary men from the early dawn of humanism, I
am sorry to acknowledge that it was due more to a spirit
of self-preservation than to admiration of ancient re-
cords or natural beauties. The hills by the Anio being
considered out of reach of the plague, which periodically
visited Rome at the rate of ten or twelve times in a cen-

106 WANDERINGS IN THE ROIVIAN CAMPAGNA

tury, it became customary for the frightened Quirites,
and for foreign residents, to take refuge in TivoH at the
first sign of an epidemic. I have related in another work ^
how the Tiburtines, annoyed at this dangerous mark of

The high street of mediaeval Tivoli

preference, and more than ordinarily frightened at the
outbreak of April, 1522, met the refugees at the Ponte
Lucano and chased them back to the stricken city with
spikes and cudgels, amidst shouts of ''Death to the
Romans!" This action, however, must be considered

^ The Golden Days of the Renaissance, p. 82.

THE LAND OF HORACE 107

exceptional, because Tivoli had been a kind hostess to
people in distress since the time when Poggio Brac-
ciolini, flying from the plague in the summer of 1424,
had claimed its hospitality. Ciriaco d' Ancona, the first
archaeological explorer, in 1432; Enea Silvio Piccolo-
mini (Pius II), the first learned tourist, in 1460; Sixtus
IV, the first pope to bring back into fashion the use of
Tivoli as a summer resort, in 1482; Fra Giocondo da
Verona, the first architect-antiquarian to study and draw
its antique remains; Antonio da Sangallo the younger,
who sketched its statues and friezes in September, 1539;
Michelangelo and Daniele da Vol terra, who had trans-
formed into a summer studio one of the halls of the so-
called Villa di Mecenate, stand at the head of the endless
list of modern artists, poets, archaeologists, historians,
philosophers, who followed classic traditions in regard to
Tivoli all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Tivoli, in fact, must be considered as the birthplace of
the "Corpus InscriptionumLatinarum," the greatest lit-
erary undertaking of modern times, having been for
years the rendezvous of that brilliant company of foreign
epigraphists — Metellus, Pigghe, Smet, Morillon, de
Romieu d' Aries, Sismondi — who collected the first mate-
rials for such a work. But the artist-archseologist of the
sixteenth century with whom the name of Tivoli is most
intimately associated is the designer of the Villa d'Este,
the excavator of Hadrian's villa, the trusted artistic
adviser of Pope Pius IV, Pirro Ligorio, who has left us
three manuscript books on the city and territory he
loved : the first dedicated to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, in
whom he had found his own Maecenas; the second to
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; the third to the Holy
Trinity. The literary activity of this gifted man strikes
us as prodigious. His archaeological dictionary and

108 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

cyclopaedia, conceived on an absolutely modern plan,
and illustrated with thousands of pen-and-ink drawings,
numbers twenty-two folio volumes which are now pre-
served in the royal archives at Turin. There are besides
eight more volumes in Turin, ten in Naples, one in the
Bodleian, one in the Bibliotheque Nationale, two in the
Vatican library. There is not a single excavation made in
Rome and in the Campagna between 1540, the approxi-
mate date of his arrival from Naples, and 1568, when
he left Rome forever to become the court antiquarian of
Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara, that he did not see with his
own eyes and describe. Unfortunately he was not born
to speak the truth ; he was a born impostor and forger,
so that it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to de-
cide whether his evidence, when unsupported by more
trustworthy witnesses, rests on any foundation of truth.
Some of his forgeries are so clumsy that no student could
be deceived by them ; others are so subtle and ingenious
•that men of such high standing as Ludovico Muratori
and Carlo Fea have accepted them as genuine.

I have myself found so much useful and honest infor-
mation in Ligorio's manuscript volumes, especially in the
Bodleian (the existence of which among the Canonici
set of manuscripts I first discovered in 1871 and made
public in the following year) and in the Parisian of the
Bibliotheque Nationale, that I cannot bring myself to
brand him with the stigma with which Famiano Nardini
has been branded by Becker, "homo natus ad confun-
denda et perturbanda omnia." At all events, it is not
at Tivoli, face to face with the Villa d'Este, Ligorio's
stupendous creation, that we can discuss his archaeologi-
cal forgeries. He appeals to us as the most genial artist
of his age in adapting classic architecture and classic
landscape-gardening to the requirements of his own time ;

:v. •' .-vy;.

THK COAT OF ARMS OF THE D'ESTE ON THE BALUSTRADE
OF THE UPPER TERRACE

JVBRARr
DIVERSITY J

^^ c

K^"^

THE LAND OF HORACE 111

and this specialty shines not only in this Tiburtine
residence of Cardinal Ippolito, but equally well in the
delicious casino of Pius IV in the Vatican gardens, in
the hemicycle of Belvedere, and even in the lesser works
the authorship of which has been traced to him.

Cardinal Ippolito is the second of the family in the
glorious dynasty of the Este cardinals, Ippolito the
elder (t 1520), Luigi (t 1586), Alessandro (t 1624), Ri-
naldo the elder (t 1672), and the younger Rinaldo
(t 1737). Born of Lucrezia Borgia, brother to Duke
Ercole II of Ferrara, educated at the court of Francis I,
elected cardinal in 1539, he returned to France in the
following year, carrying with him gold and silver plate
by Benvenuto Cellini, reproductions of ancient statues,
armor by Gianpietro Armaiuolo, portraits, ancient
medals, and a hunter with silver harness. His exquisite
taste made him at once the artistic adviser of the king;
Sebastian Serlio designed for him a palace at Fontaine-
bleau, while the marriage between the Due de Guise and
Anna d'Este, his niece, raised him almost to a royal posi-
tion. However, he was obliged to fly from France after
the murder of the duke, being himself in danger of death.
The reception he received in Rome from the austere and
inexorable Pius V made him seek peace and safety where
the great Roman statesmen of the Augustan age had
sought and found it before him. On receiving the com-
mission, Ligorio's first thought was to levy a contribu-
tion on Hadrian's villa and on that of Quintilius Varus,
taking from both places building materials, marbles,
columns, capitals, pavements, statues, bas-reliefs, and,
above all, artistic inspiration for his own work. He even
found time to take the plan of both places, which, com-
pared with the clumsy attempts of other contemporary

112 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

architects, gives him the leading place among the topo-
graphers of the sixteenth century/ These documents
having come under the notice of Cardinal Antonio
Barberini in 1634, his architect, Contini, was com-
missioned to bring up to date the plan of Hadrian's villa
and to have it engraved on a copper plate.

How the Villa d'Este must have looked at the time of
Cardinal Ippolito and of his immediate successor, Luigi,
it is easier to imagine than to describe. The inventory
of its collection of statuary, discovered in 1879 by Ber-
tolotti in the state archives, names eighty-three works
of statuary, twenty-five busts, seven figures of animals,
seven marble tazzas, three sarcophagi, and a sketch
plan of ancient Rome in full relief. No mention is made
of pictures, but the simple fact of Ippolito having given
away, to the nuns of the convent of Santa Chiara at
Tivoli, Raphael's picture of Michael the archangel,
proves that his gallery contained masterpieces to spare.

It is but natural that the Villa d'Este, from the
beauty of its site, the number and variety of its works
of art, the abundance of its rushing water, its thousand
fountains, its trout ponds, its groves of cypresses, ilexes,
and laurels, should have been given the place of highest
honor among the Italian creations of the same nature,
and that painters and engravers should have taken it
as a favorite subject for their canvases and copper-
plates. In the Lafreri collection of engravings, known

^ I have in my collection of prints and drawings several unpublished
plans by Ligorio, drawn on parchment, such as the designs for the com-
pletion of the Cortile di Belvedere, presented to Pius IV; the survey of
the joint harbors of Claudius and Trajan at Porto; a sketch of the mauso-
leum of Augustus, etc. Some of them will shortly be reproduced and illus-
trated by the prefect of the Vatican library, Father Ehrle, S. J., in his great
work on the pontifical palace.

THE LAND OF HORACE

113

by the name of ''Speculum Romanse magnificentise,"
there is a double sheet, printed in 1573 by the French
artist Etienne Duperac, at the request of the Emperor
Maximilian. Besides a dedication to Queen Catherine
Medici, mother of Charles IX, the sheet contains an
index of the principal fountains, which bore the names of
Thetis, iEsculapius, Hygeia, Arethusa, Flora, Pomona,

LIgorio's group of Rome and its founders, the frontispiece to his relief plan of
the city, in the Villa d'Este

and even of Venus Cloacina, not from antique statues
identified as such, but from giant figures, modelled in
stucco or hewn out of the travertine, with which the
fancy of Ligorio had peopled caves, grottoes, nym-
phseums, and waterfalls. Lafreri has also published a
plate of the fountain of the Sibyl, but the best work on
this charming subject is the volume printed in the first
quarter of the seventeenth century by De Rossi, under

114 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

the title, " Le fontane del giardino Es tense in Tivoli
disegnate et intagliate da Gianfrancesco Venturini."

Cardinal Ippolito died in 1572, and was succeeded in
the ownership of the villa and in the governorship of
Tivoli by his kinsmen and fellow princes of the church,
Luigi and Alessandro. After the death of the latter in
1624, villa and palace were despoiled of their valuable
contents. The antique marbles were partly sold, partly
transferred to Modena; a few found their way into the
Roman museums, such as the Eros bending the bow,
Psyche tormented by Eros, the Este Pallas, the resting
satyr, and the old woman holding a vase, presented to
the Capitoline Museum by Pope Benedict XIV in 1753.

Of the present condition of this once enchanted place,
of the way it is kept by its archducal owner, of the dim-
inution of its supply of water, of the periodical cutting
of its noble trees, of the dilapidation of its fountains and
stairs, of the loss of Ligorio's relief plan of Rome, I shall
not speak, for fear that Ippolito d'Este, who lies buried
in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore quite near his
beloved villa, should rise from his grave in wrath and
shame.

The example set by this gifted scion of the ducal
house of Ferrara found no imitators, for Gericomio, the
retreat built by his colleague in the Sacred College, Pro-
spero Santacroce, must be considered a farmhouse rather
than a villa ; but it stands in a glen so well wooded and
picturesque, it conveys such a soothing impression of
peace and independence from the outside world, and
brings back to the mind of the visitor so many interesting
recollections, that he will find himself amply repaid for
the fatigue of a rather long walk. Prospero Santacroce,
born in 1513 in the palace which still bears the family

ONE OF LIGORIO'S FOUNTAINS IN THE HALL OF THE
PALACE COPIED FROM THE ANTIQUE

THE LAND OF HORACE 117

name, deprived of his parents by the plague in the pon-
tificate of Clement VII, and of the greater part of his
inheritance by the sack of 1527, escaped to the Sabine
village of Toffia with four younger brothers and sisters,
where they were fed by the peasantry, not without self-
denial, because famine and the horrors of war had
raised the value of a bushel of wheat to twenty scudi.
Having obtained from Paul III the office of " consistorial
advocate," left vacant by the death of his uncle Pompilio,
Prospero began his diplomatic career as Secretary in
the Legation of Cardinal Farnese to Charles V, later was
papal nuncio to the Emperor Ferdinand I, Henry II of
France, Sebastian of Portugal, Philip II of Spain, and
Queen Catherine Medici, and was always successful in
his endeavors to bring about peace and good will among
the rulers of the earth. His fame, however, and the popu-
larity which his name still commands in Rome rest on
a different basis. He shares with Jean Nicot, French
ambassador to Lisbon, the glory of having made known
the herb discovered by Acozendez of Toledo in one of
the islands of the Caribbean Sea (Tobago), to which in
France was given the name of " Nicotine," or " du Grand
Prieur," or "de la Reine," — because Nicot had pre-
sented it first to the Great Prior of Lorraine, then to
Queen Catherine, — and in Italy that of "Erba Santa,"
or "Erba Santacroce," in acknowledgment of Cardinal
Prosperous initiative. For over three centuries Roman
tobacconists have used the coat of arms of the Santa-
croce — a white cross — as a sign over their shops.

By a remarkable chance, Tivoli was brought again
into relation with the merciful narcotic and its manu-
facture towards the middle of the eighteenth century,
when two of its citizens, Liborio and Giovanni Michilli,
having enriched themselves as holders of the state

118 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

monopoly, devoted their riches, one to the exploration
of Hadrian's villa, the other to the institution of a gal-
lery of pictures in his native city. Between 1739 and
1744 Liborio discovered four world-known master-
pieces, the Mercury Agoreus, the Flora, the Arpocras,
and an Egyptian god, which were purchased and pre-
sented to the Capitoline Museum by Pope Benedict XIV.
Giovanni, in his turn, secured at a considerable cost
four of Titian's canvases, representing the four Triumphs
of Petrarca, namely those of Fame, of Science, of Death,
and of Christ. All these works of art, the statues as
well as the pictures, were engraved on copper plates by
Frezza and Pomarede. A note appended to the proofs
in my possession states that, soon after the death of
the founder of the gallery, the Titians were sold to an
English officer, Isaac Jamineau ("Tabulae originales a
Titiano depictse iuris sunt, currente anno 1770, Isaaci
lamineau armigeri angli"). But let us tarry no longer
on our way to Gericomio.

Ten years before his death (1589) Cardinal Prospero
had purchased from Count Giordano Orsini a strip of
land, four miles east of Tivoli, on a sunny slope of the
iEfulse mountains, and on the gate of his new domain
he had caused the following lines of welcome to be en-
graved: —

HIC TIBI lAM LICEAT CVRIS PROCVL VRBE SOLVTO
DVCERE SOLLICITAE IVCVNDA OBLIVIA VITAE

No better words could have been chosen to express the
feeling of rest which seems to emanate from this place,
and no better name for it could have been found by
Cardinal Prospero than THPOKOMEION, the hospice or
the retreat for the aged, a name which it retains to the
present day. A medal was struck for the occasion in

THE LAND OF HORACE 119

1579, on the obverse of which there is a sketch of the
villa as it had been planned in the mind of the cardinal,
with a battlemented inctosure, a garden, a fish pond, a
grove, an aviary, and other such accompaniments ; but I
doubt whether the veteran diplomatist had time to carry
the plan into execution, as no trace of such structures is
left on the grounds. They were abandoned by the San-
tacroce soon after the death of the founder, sold to the
Conti dukes of Poli, and later on to the Barberini and
the Pic di Savoia. The present owner. Prince Salvatore
Brancaccio, has done much to improve the condition of
Gericomio, and — a happy exception to the rule prevail-
ing among Roman landowners — is taking excellent care
of his timber land, and exacts from his tenants absolute
respect for every shrub and tree growing within the
boundaries of the estate.

Gericomio stands on the remains of a Roman villa,
built in the reticulated style of the age of Hadrian, with
mosaic pavements in black and white, bathing apart-
ments, water tanks, and garden terraces. These ruins
were first excavated by Duke Lotario Conti, who, having
discovered among them a portrait head of Hadrian, con-
sidered them to have formed part of his Tiburtinum.
The claim of Gericomio to fame in the field of art rests,
however, on the finding of the Triton or marine cen-
taur made in the time of Pius VI on the boundary line of
the farm towards Sant' Angelo. This beautiful figure,
" especially well adapted to give an idea of the method
in which Scopas treated such marine beings," is now
exhibited in the Galleria delle Statue of the Vatican
Museum, n. 253. Its praises have been sung by Ennio
Quirino Visconti ^ and by Helbig.^

^ Museo Pio-Clementino, vol. i, n. xxxiv.
2 Guide, n. 189.

120 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

The excursion to Gericomio, descending to it by the
Carciano road, through the oHve forest, and returning
by the upper or San Gregorio road, — a circuit of eight
miles, — is particularly pleasing to the antiquarian,^ as
it leads him past the remains of thirteen ancient villas,
some of which date back from the age in which the
polygonal or Pelasgian style of masonry was still in
favor with the Tiburtine builders. The view from the
narrow neck or isthmus which divides the Valle Lon-
garina on the north from that of Gericomio on the south
is particularly attractive, as it sweeps all around from
the snow-capped limestone peaks of the Simbruines to
the sunny shores of Lavinium and Ostia.

Another attractive excursion, which will amply repay
the artist and the geologist for deviation from the beaten
track of tourists, is the one to Monte Calvo or Spaccato.
The gradient of the path leading to it from the Porta
Santacroce is so gentle that the summit of the moun-
tain (1722 feet) is reached in one hour without the least
exertion. The view over the giant Apennines of the
upper valley of the Anio is grand. The name Spaccato
is derived from two chasms or fissures which popular
fancy connects with the rending of the earth on the day
of the death of our Redeemer. The first crevice, run-
ning from southeast to west, is 99 feet long, 9 wide, and
464 deep. The other is less important. Their explora-
tion is difficult because they do not plunge vertically
into the heart of the mountain, but their sides bulge

^ Motor cars can reach Gericomio only by the upper or San Gregorio
road, diverging to the right of it at the turn of Colle Cerviano. The de-
scent round the southern slopes of the Cerviano is very steep, if not dan-
gerous. The lower Carciano road is out of repair and only fit for light
vehicles.

THE LAND OF HORACE 121

and hollow in and twist so that the use of ladders is well-
nigh impossible.

The excursion to Horace's Sabine farm, with which
we bring our study of the Tiburtine district to an end,
can be easily accomplished by motor from Rome in six
hours, from Tivoli in four, following the Via Valeria to
Vicovaro and San Comisato, and the Ustica valley to
Licenza.^ Let it be understood that the excursionist
expecting to see great ruins of the farm, and to feel the
impression of Horace's presence in this out-of-the-way
corner of the earth, is doomed to disappointment. The
ruins are insignificant: the spring of Bandusia runs al-
most dry; the Lucretilis is bare of its green mantle; only
the general landmarks with which the poet's words have
made us familiar can be singled out, — the valley, the
river, the vine-clad hills, the frowning peaks of the Gen-
naro group.

Two learned men of the second half of the eighteenth
century claim the honor of having first discovered the
true site of the farm, the French abbe, Bertrand Cap-
martin de Chaupy, and the Tiburtine lawyer, Domenico
de Sanctis. The first published between 1767 and 1769
three ponderous volumes under the title of " Decouverte
de la maison de campagne d'Horace," the second,
** Dissertazione sopra la villa d' Orazio," of which there
are three editions, dated respectively 1761, 1768, and
1784.^ De Sanctis accuses the abbe of having taken

^ Total distance from Rome, thirty-two miles, from Tivoli fourteen.
Licenza can also be visited in a day from Rome by railway to Mandela,
where a rickety postal conveyance awaits passengers for Licenza.

^ The first two volumes of the Decouverte were printed in 1767 by
Zempel, the third in 1769 by Komarek. They form an excellent topo-
graphical cyclopaedia of the Campagna, of Latium, of Campania, and

122 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

advantage of confidential remarks exchanged on the
subject; the abbe thrusts the accusation back on his
rival. Perhaps they are both right; they may have ar-
rived independently at the same conclusion; but evi-
dently they talked too much. Even to-day it is not easy
to see the right and the wrong in this batrachomy-
omachy of the eighteenth century. Gaston Boissier, for
instance, as it becomes a patriotic Frenchman, stands
for the loquacious abbe: *' Aujourd'hui on ne lui conteste
guere la gloire, dont il etait si fier, d'avoir decouvert^ la
maison de campagne d'Horace." I might say the same
for De Sanctis, but it is not fair to step over the boundary
line of th^ farm from which the poet demanded and ob-
tained peace, in a spirit of controversy and unreasonable
national pride. In any case, '*much will be pardoned to
Chaupy because he loved the Campagna so well." Like
his beloved hero, he wanted to end his days in a remote
corner of this land ; the selection of the corner, however,
as described on pp. 79, 80 of his third volume, does more
credit to his feelings than to his judgment, there being no
more lonesome, uncomfortable, out-of-the-way, and God-
forsaken spot than the Colle degli Arci above Corese,
which Chaupy had identified with the site of the ancient
city of Cures, the birthplace of Numa. "Une decou-
verte si certaine et en meme temps si importante pour
I'histoire Romaine, me causa une satisfaction si piquante,
que, le lieu se trouvant avoir une petite eglise [Santa
Maria degli Arci], avec une habitation et des terrains,
je pris tout de suite la resolution de me les faire ceder
. . . pour y faire une maison de campagne, que je vis
que je pourrois rendre interessante en Tornant des monu-

of Magna Graecia. De Sanctis's first edition was published in 1761 by
Salomoni, the second in 1768 by Barbiellini, the third at Ravenna in 1784
by Roveri

THE LAND OF HORACE

123

Hackert's view of Horace's farm

ments de la ville [Cures] que j'ai trouve." Like Mr.
Betteredge with his Robinson Crusoe, Capmartin pre-
tended to find in Horace predictions, warnings, explana-
tions of the occurrences of daily life as well as of great
political events and commotions of the world. He Hved
long enough to witness the outbreak of the French Revo-
lution, and showed no surprise at the bloody days of the
Terror, because Horace, in certain passages which he
was fond of explaining to his friends, had foretold that
precise event.

The abbe's publication created a stir even in artistic
circles. Landscape painters, following in his footsteps,
found new and fascinating subjects of study along the
banks of the Upper Anio and of its main tributary, the
Digentia. The celebrated artist-engraver, Georg Hack-
ert, with the help of his brother Philipp, produced an

124 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

exquisite album of eleven views of the district, dedicated
to Gustav III, king of Sweden, under the title, *' Carte
generale de la partie de la Sabine ou etoit situee la mai-
son de campagne d'Horace, suivie de dix vues des sites
de cette campagne et de ses environs nommes dans les
oeuvres d'Horace et relatives aux dissertations que M^.
TAbbe de Santis, M^ TAbbe Capmartin de Chaupy et
M^. de Ramsay ont public a ce sujet." The reader can
appreciate the beauty of Hackert's work from the speci-
men here reproduced. It represents the view which
Horace must have enjoyed whenever, sitting on the
banks of the noisy river, at the foot of the hill on which
the farm buildings stood, he turned his gaze north-
ward in the direction of Licenza and Civitella.

The road which leads from Tivoli to the goal of our
pilgrimage is practically the same old Via Valeria which
the poet was fond of following in the early hours of the
morning, on his way to Maecenas's villa. " As a bee darts
for the fields of Matinum, where the redolent thyme
grows, so I follow the banks of the Anio to feel the in-
spiration of the Muses." There is no doubt that these
venerable remains of bridges, of substruction-walls, of
stations, dating from the first opening of the road by M.
Valerius Maximus in 226 b. c, must have fallen under
his gaze over and over again ; and that he must have felt
the same sense of exhilaration that we feel when the
morning mountain breeze, filtering through the branches
of the oaks overhanging the road, seems to vivify mind
and body and inspire in us pleasanter and healthier
thoughts and a keener appreciation of the beauties of
the road. These beauties are many and varied, espe-
cially as we round the hill of Castel Madama, the
mediaeval castle of Sacco Muro, the Pelasgic walls of
Vicovaro, or the solitary cloisters of San Cosimato.

THE LAND OF HORACE 125

The property offered by Maecenas to Horace in con-
sideration of his poetical services ^ was of considerable
value. *'Part of it," says Dr. Tuckwell, "he let off to
five peasants on the metayage system; the rest he culti-
vated himself, employing eight slaves superintended by
a bailiff. The house, he tells us, was simple, with no
marble pillars or gilded cornices, but spacious enough to
receive and entertain a guest from town, and to welcome
occasionally his neighbors to a cheerful evening meal,
where the talk was clean and sensible, the fare beans and
bacon, garden stuff and chicory and mallows. Around
the villa was a garden not filled with flowers, of which
in one of his Odes (ii, xv, 6) he expresses a dislike as
unremunerative, but laid out in small parallelograms
of grass, edged with box and planted with clipped horn-
beam. The house was shaded from above by a grove of
ilexes and oaks; lower down were orchards of olives,
wild plum, cornels, apples. In the richer soil of the
valley he grew corn, whose harvests never failed him,
and had wedded vines to the elms. Against this last ex-
periment his bailiff grumbled, saying that the soil would
grow spice and pepper as soon as ripen grapes; but his
master persisted, and succeeded. Inviting Maecenas to
supper, he offers Sabine wine from his own estate (Odes,
I, XX, 1). . . . There he sauntered day by day, watched
his laborers, working sometimes, like Ruskin at Hink-
sey, awkwardly, to their amusement, with his own
hands ; strayed now and then into the lichened rocks and

^ Maecenas may have made the grant in the name of the Emperor as
well as his own. We owe to Augustus the fourth book of the Odes^ published
in the year 13 b. c, ten years after the appearance of books ii and iii.
This end was secured by intrusting to Horace the task of composing the
Century Hymn {Carmen Sceculare^ b. c. 17) and the song for the Vindeli-
cian victories of his kinsmen Tiberius and Drusus.

126 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

forest wilds beyond his farm, surprised there by a huge
wolf, who luckily fled from his presence (Odes, i, xxii, 9) ;
or — most enjoyable of all — lay beside the spring of
Bandusia with a book or a friend of either sex.

" Of the beauty oi his home he speaks always modestly;
its charm he is never weary of extolling, because it
yielded calm, tranquillity, repose, making, as Words-
worth says, the very thought of country life a thought
of refuge; and that was what, so long in populous city
pent, he longed to find and found. It was his home,
where he could possess his soul, could be self-centred
and serene. This, says Ruskin, is the true nature of
Home: it is the Place of Peace."

Note. I have purposely abstained from giving an account of the so-
called remains of the farm because it is not possible to identify them.
Even granted that the farmhouse should have been preserved during the
four centuries of the empire, in memory of the poet's sojourn in this valley
(of which fact we have no evidence), the remains attributed lo it by local
tradition are too faint and vague to repay the fatigue and the trouble of a
pilgrimage. They consist of a piece of mosaic pavement in black and
white, of geometrical pattern, the design of which is given by Hackert in
the first sheet of his album. Around this poor relic there are vestiges of
three terraces of a much later date than the Augustan era, and of such
magnificence that they could not possibly be reconciled with the idea of a
farm. These vestiges are to be seen on a spur of the Colle Rotondo (Lucre-
tilis .'') on the left of the road ascending to Licenza, five hundred yards
before reaching the first house. The plateau stands 1320 feet above the
sea. The names of many places in the neighborhood seem to recall those
of the Horatian age: gli Orasini or Oratini, given to a spring higher up on
the same spur of the mountain; la Rustica, given to a piece of land near
the " UsticcB cvhantis saxa," etc. Another group of ruins is marked, in
Hackert's bird's-eye view of the valley, with the name '* Ruines de Bains,"
much nearer the village of Roccagiovane; and here, a little above the
country church of Santa Maria delle Case, the late explorer of the Cam-
pagna, Pietro Rosa, places the site of the farm, in opposition to Sir William
Gell and Nibby, who favor Licenza and the identification suggested by
Chaupy.

CHAPTER III

THE LAND OF HADRIAN

HADRIAN'S biographers have left scarcely any
record of the construction of a villa at Tibur,
although it was considered the most magnifi-
cent in the world. Aurelius Victor ^ only says that
Hadrian, on his return from his first transcontinental
journey, in a. d. 125, having settled the affairs of the
empire and intrusted the cares of government to iElius
Caesar, ♦retired to his villa, where "ut beatis locupleti-
bus mos" — as is the custom with men favored by
fortune — he gave himself up to the building of pal-
aces, to the enlargement of his artistic collections, and
to luxurious and profligate habits. The author of the
" Vita " adds (chapter 26) that the august architect, to
perpetuate the remembrance of the places and edifices
which had impressed him most during his journeys, had
reproduced in the villa the Lyceum, the Academy, the
Pry tanseum, and the Pcecile from Athens ; the Canopus
from the old seaport of the Delta; the Lower Regions
from the fancies of the poets concerning the home of
future life; and even the Vale of Tempe, that jewel of
Thessalian landscape. To this list may be added a
Greek and a Latin theatre, an odeum, a stadium, a gym-
nasium, the Greek and Latin libraries, the imperial pal-
ace, the baths, and the quarters for guests and for the
body-guard. The remains of all these edifices can easily
be identified. The other names — Cynosargus, Pisianat-

* De CcBS., xiv.

128 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

teum, (Ecocorinthia, Heliocarainus, Natatorium, Tower
of Timon, etc. — which occur in the maps of Ligorio
and Piranesi are fanciful and undeserving considera-
tion.

I have never been able to understand why Hadrian,
familiar as he was with the best-known views in the
empire, a lover of mountains, and an accomplished
artist, should have chosen for his retreat a tract of
country bately three hundred feet above the sea-level,
with no commanding view, hot in summer, chilly in
winter, damp in other seasons, within the reach of
malaria, when he might have followed the example of
Trajan, who had built his shooting lodge on the Arci-
nazzo Pass, at the altitude of 2755 feet, or of Nero,
who had transformed a wild gorge of the Simbruine
mountains at Subiaco into a beautiful park with an
artificial lake, winding for a mile through the over-
hanging cliffs. Some have suggested that the ^lians
did own a family estate on this hill, and in proof of
this surmise point to certain walls of **opus incertum"
(a style of masonry given up about the Augustan age)
which may still be seen near the Casino Fede. But
Hadrian's ancestors came from Spain, and their home-
stead was at Italica, the old Seville, the birthplace of
Trajan, of Silius Italicus, and later of Theodosius.
Others have attributed the choice to the neighborhood
of the Sulphur Springs, of which the Emperor may have
been in need. All this, however, does not justify the
selection of a site which was at that time commanded
by a hundred private villas, all healthily and pleasantly
situated on the slopes of the Catillus and of the hill of
^fulse, from the terraces of which the eye gazed over
the Campagna as far as Rome, and beyond it to the sea.
The consular dates impressed on the bricks and roof

THE LAND OF HADRIAN 129

tiles show that the Tiburtinum Hadriani was begun in
A. D. 125, and that the work lasted the whole of the
ten years the Emperor was abroad. After his return in
136 he retired to his new possession^ and continued to
beautify it with new buildings, masterpieces of painting
and sculpture, and water-works, until he was struck by
fatal illness, and removed to Baise, where he died on
the tenth of July in the year 136. This many-gifted
man — architect, painter, engineer, landscape gardener,
mathematician, strategist, sportsman, jurist, moun-
taineer, poet, linguist, erudite, explorer, statesman,
leader of armies, and ruler of men — had been born in
Rome, on January 25, a. d. 77, in a house of the twelfth
ward. Piscina Publica, which became in due course of
time a historical building and was shown to tourists
under the name of "Privata Hadriani." His father,
^lius Afer, hailed from Italica, and his mother, Domitia
Paulina, from Cadiz. How a Spanish family of good
standing in its native country happened to keep house
in Rome is easily explained by the fact that Maryllinus,
Hadrian's grandfather, had been made a senator of the
empire by his kinsman Trajan, and that iElia Paulina,
Hadrian's sister, had married another resident in the
capital, L. Julius Ursus Servianus, thrice consul, whose
portrait bust, made at the expense of his intendant,
Crescens, has found its way into the Duke of Welling-
ton's house in London. Considering the remarkable
place which these Spaniards have gained in history, as
well as in the field of art, and considering, furthermore,
that the complicated relationship between the various
members makes it difficult for the reader to remember
their individual position in the family line, I trust that
the following genealogical sketch will not be considered
out of place.

130 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

^lius Maryllinus, senator

iElius Afer married to Domitia Paulina their cousins

I M. Ulpius Traianus and Ulpia Marciana

' Matidia

i I . I

iElia Paulina married to Servianus iElius Hadrianus married to Sabina

None of these ladies, Sabina excepted, could be called
a Spanish beauty. Judging from their likenesses as
expressed in busts, gems, medals, and portrait statues,
their best claim to feminine attention rested on their
extraordinary headdress, an audacious and complicated
affair, the possibility of which can only be explained by
admitting the use of a frame of wire. Their manners
and their conversation must also have betrayed their
"provincialism." When young Hadrian was charged
for the first time by his imperial cousin to deliver a
message to the Senate, his pronunciation of Latin
struck the Conscript Fathers as so curious that they
could not help laughing in his face. The iElians and
the Ulpians, however, were a stern race, not to be
daunted by such contretemps. Instead of resenting the
impertinence of the Senate, the young man took occasion
from it to get rid of his native accent, and succeeded so
admirably in his task that, as the biographer says, he
mastered the niceties of Latin eloquence '* usque ad
summam peritiam et fecundiam." Greek letters, too,
attracted him to such a degree that at fifteen he was
already known among his fellow students at Italica
under the nickname of Grseculus. We may also notice
among his national peculiarities that he was the first
Roman emperor to wear a beard. As regards his ac-
tivity and restless mood, it is enough to note that in the
few years which elapsed between his recall from Ital-
ica and his adoption by Trajan he travelled through

THE LAND OF HADRIAN 131

Moesia, as commander of the second legion Adjutrix;
Upper Germany, as bearer of the congratulations of the
army to Trajan on his adoption by Nerva; Dacia,

Portrait bust of the Empress Plotina, the wife of Trajan,
showing the extraordinary headdress worn by the ladies
of the Ulpian and -^Uan families

as commander of the first legion Minervia; Parthia, as
leader of the campaign against Chosroes; Pannonia
and Syria, as governor. It was in this last province that
on August 11, 118, he received the news of Trajan's
death at Tarsus, and of his own consequent accession to

132 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

the throne. Seven years later we find him established
on the hills of Santo Stefano, to superintend the con-
struction of his favorite villa.

The later history of this place is not known. The
discovery of a bust of Antoninus Pius in 1883, in the
great hall of the larger palace, and of busts or heads
of Faustina the Elder (the bust in the Rotunda of the
Vatican, No. 541), Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and
Elagabalus, made in the year 1770 in the Pantanello,
show that the villa was occupied by the successors of
Hadrian, at all events till the first quarter of the third
century. But we can reach an even later date. The
biographer of the Thirty Tyrants, c. 30, says that Ze-
nobia was banished by Aurelian into the territory of
Tivoli, in a place '*not far from Hadrian's palace";
words which prove that the villa had not lost its name,
and was kept up in good condition at the time of Con-
stantine. This is confirmed by the following observation.
While the sculptures of the villa are all contemporary
with the golden age of Greek-Roman art character-
istic of Hadrian's reign, and show no trace of later
restorations (a proof of the care which was taken of the
crown property), the buildings and their architectural
ornamentations show evidence of having been largely
restored towards the end of the third or the beginning
of the fourth century. A case in point can be found in
the so-called Marine Theatre, the most enigmatical
structure of the villa, the aspect of which can be better
understood from the illustration on p. 137 than from any
description in words. It is a circular colonnade of the
Ionic order, opening on a canal fifteen feet wide and four
deep, lined with slabs of Carrara marble. The canal in
its turn incloses a round island, covered with buildings
so complicated in their plan as to baffle description.

THE BEST EXISTING PORTRAIT BUST OF HADRIAN
Showing the beard worn for the first time by a Roman Emperor

THE LAND OF HADRIAN 135

In two different places at the bottom of the canal traces
can be seen of a mechanical contrivance which revolved
on pivots or hinges fixed on the side of the island, while
the outer end ran on wheels in a groove describing a
quarter of a circle. Antiquarians have connected these
remains with sluices for the regulation of the water in
the canal ; but this explanation is not satisfactory. It is
simply a case of a font tournant, by the manoeuvring of
which communication with the island could be opened
or closed at will. These facts have led me to consider
the island as a place in which the Emperor could find
absolute seclusion; and as his favorite occupation was
painting and modelling in clay, I have no doubt that he
used the island as a studio. About the end of the third
century, when the memory of the imperial artist who
had cherished the white marble island above all other
retreats of the villa had faded away, the revolving
bridge was abandoned, and a permanent one, of rough
masonry, was substituted in its place. I may also re-
mark that brick stamps with the well-known seal of the
kilns of Diocletian and Constantine were found in the
excavations of 1878.

It has been said that Constantine began to despoil
the villa in order to remove the pictures and statues to
his new capital; that Totila took up his quarters there
in 544, with his horde of barbarian plunderers, and that
in the eighth century Aistulf the Langobard did the
same. It has also been suggested that Hadrian's villa
supplied the marbles and columns for the churches
and houses of Tivoli, and that the statues, friezes, and
reliefs were smashed to pieces and thrown into the
lime-kilns.

All this is simply a matter of conjecture, except as re-
gards the lime-kilns, about which there is unfortunately

136 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

no room for doubt. It is certain that by the time of the
visit of Pius II in 1461 the site was almost in its present
condition. "Everything is made shapeless by age,"
he observes; "ivy covers those walls which formerly
were hung with historical tapestries and draperies
worked in gold; thorns and brambles fill the courts
where tribunes clothed in purple sat in council, and
serpents live in the chambers of queens; so transient is
the nature of human things." ^

The villa was constantly and shamefiilly plundered
from the time of Alexander VI (1492-1503) till the
middle of last century. Any one wishing to know the
number and nature of the sculptures found almost year
by year, and now dispersed all over Europe, should
consult Agostino Penna's " Viaggio pittorico della Villa
Adriana " and Hermann Winnefeld's '*Die Villa des Ha-
drian bei Tivoli." The most successful excavations were
obviously those of the sixteenth century. These were
made in an almost virgin soil. Alexander VI is said to
have discovered in the Odeum the group of the Nine
Muses now in Madrid;^ Cardinal Alessandro Farnese
a frieze with cupids riding on dolphins, in the Round
Island (1535); Cardinal Ippolito d'Este many hundred
works of art in the Xystus, the imperial palace, and the
thermae (1550-1572); Cardinal Gianvincenzo Caraffa a
Diana, an Atalanta, and a Fortune, in the imperial
palace (1540); Cardinal Marcello Cervini a marble
frieze, in the home garden (1550); and Marcantonio

^ Commentaries, ed. 1584, p. 251.

^ This group was first removed to the Belvedere Garden in the Vati-
can; then to the museum of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio di Carpi on the Quirinal.
It was purchased at a later period by Queen (Christina of Sweden, who com-
missioned the sculptor Ercole Ferrata to restore the missing parts; and in
1689 by Duke Livio Odescalchi, whose heirs sold it to King Philip V of
Spain.

t— 1

m
o

;?;
I— (

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THE LAND OF HADRIAN 139

Palosi, a magistrate of great repute at the time of Pope
Paul III, a fragmentary group of horses on the western
slope of the Vale of Tempe. Ulisse Aldovrandi, the
antiquarian from Bologna who examined this find in
1551, after one of the horses had been almost completely
put together again, calls it "a most beautiful steed, in
high relief, which seems to stumble and fall forward —
lavoro meraviglioso e degno/' The illustration on p. 140
shows what the seventeenth century restorers were ca-
pable of doing with the poor animal. The falling horse
from a decorative quadriga has become a Quintus Cur-
tius leaping into the chasm, one of the most admired
seventeenth-century impostures of the salone in the
Borghese Museum.

Under the pontificate of Urban VIII, in the year 1630,
the Bulgarini family, who had purchased from the heirs
of Bindo Altoviti the site of the Odeum and of the
Academy, discovered certain marble candelabra and
figures of gods and heroes. The same family — known
for having first turned the noblest and richest halls of the
Villa d'Este into granaries — damaged the Odeum in
1738 to such an extent as to rouse the wrath of Cardinal
Silvio Valenti, to whom the care of the antiquarian de-
partment was at that time intrusted. Giuseppe Pannini,
the architect, was sent to report, which he did in a splen-
did form by means of three descriptive plates (engraved
by Fidanza), rich in particulars interesting to both archi-
tect and archaeologist, because, granted that this building
was an odeum, we are able to determine from its plan
that of another building of the same name, erected in
Rome near the Stadium (Piazza Navona) by Domitian.
The reason for the erection of these last named spectacu-
lar places, the Stadium and the Odeum, must be sought
in the contemporary institution of the Agon Cajpitolinus,

140 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

a musical, poetical, and athletic competition, which was
to be contested by champions from every land of the
empire on each fifth year, counting from December 14,
86 A. D. The musical section included, besides singing

The falling horse from a quadriga discovered in the Vale of
Tempe and transformed into a group of Quintus Curtius
leaping into the chasm

and playing, the art of verse-making and improvisation.
In the third section there was also a race for girls in the
Stadium, a most interesting spectacle, if, as we feel in-
clined to imagine, it took place, in the time of Hadrian,

THE LAND OF HADRIAN 141

in the stadium of the villa, under the shade of its great
trees. The Bulgarini were not punished for the spolia-
tion of the Odeum. Perhaps Cardinal Valenti thought
they had already suffered sufficient chastisement in
1736. It came about in this way.

In the winter of 1736-37 Monsignor Alessandro Furi-
etti, a young prelate from Bergamo, fond of antiquarian
research, had obtained from the Bulgarini the right of
excavating their property, not on the usual basis of a
division of the spoils in halves, but on the payment of a
modest fee once for all. Chance favored him, and before
the season was over he had secured three masterpieces —
the ** Mosaic of the Doves," a perfect copy of the original
by Sosus of Pergamus, described by Pliny (xxxvi, 26), and
the two Centaurs of bigio morato, the work of two emi-
nent artists from Aphrodisias, Aristeus and Papias. It
is said that these rich finds strained the relations between
Furietti and Pope Benedict XIV, who, in his eagerness
to enrich the newly founded Capitoline Museum, had
perhaps anticipated the possibility of a gift from the
ambitious prelate. The fact is that so long as Benedict
ruled in the Vatican Furietti did not obtain his promo-
tion to cardinalship to which he was otherwise entitled.
Clement XIII, who gave him the much-coveted purple
hat on September 24, 1759, scored no better success.
The Centaurs of Aristeus and Papias and the Doves of
Sosus remained in the Furietti house until the death of
their discoverer, when they were finally purchased from
the heirs for the sum of sixteen thousand scudi and
placed in the Capitoline Museum.

To come back to the chronological description of dis-
coveries in the villa, I must mention those made in the
time of Innocent X (1644-1655) by a stone-cutter named
Baratta, who dug out, among other curiosities, a stair-

142 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA

case having steps of alabaster and side walls ornamented
with panels of tarsia-work in a metal frame.

The name of Count Giuseppe Fede is the one most
often mentioned in connection with the fate of the villa

A corner of the stadium in Hadrian's villa

in the eighteenth century. Having purchased the north-
ern section of it, which extends from the present en-
trance gate to the Canopus, he explored in a desultory
way the Greek theatre, the Nymphseum, and the Pales-

ONi: OF THE GIANT CYPRESSES PLANTED BY COUNT GIUSEPPE
FEDE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

THE LAND OF HADRIAN 145

tra, bringing to light many famous marbles such as the
two female hermse (n. 537 and 538 in the Rotunda of
the Vatican Museum) which are supposed to personify
Tragedy and Comedy; a group of Cupid and Psyche,
and the Satyr in rosso antico, with eyes of colored
glass, now in the "Gabinetto delle maschere," n. 432.
But the best title of the Fede family to the gratitude of
all friends of Hadrian's villa lies in their having planted
along the boundary line of their estate, and on either
side of the central avenue, a double row of cypresses,
the most magnificent specimens in Italy. It seems to us
who love the villa above all other sites of the district of
Tibur, that were it to lose this noble crown of ever-
greens, all our interest in it would die out. And this is
not an idle fear; such misdeeds have been committed in
these last years against trees in Rome and the Cam-
pagna, that even the improbable may be expected to
happen in this line. In the twenty years during which
Hadrian's villa was under my care, such pains were
taken to keep the olive grove in a wholesome condition
that we could almost cover the expense of repairs and
excavations with the proceeds of the crop. I remember
especially a venerable old giant, the pride of the Oliveto
di Roccabruna (which represents now what in Hadri-
an's time were the gardens of the Academy), known
under the name of "I'Albero Bello," which would yield
in good seasons as much as ten ordinary trees,^ and we
loved the grove so that, having once to decide whether
it would not be expedient to cut down a young tree
which prevented us from laying bare a mosaic floor near
the *'Cortile delle Biblioteche," we gave up the search

* Bulgarini mentions a crop of nine hundred and twenty litres of ripe
berries, equal to twenty-six bushels. Notizie intorno la citta di Tivoli,
Rome, Zampi, 1848.

146 WANDERINGS IN THE ROMxiN CAMPAGNA

rather than disturb the sapling dear to Minerva. Alas!
such neglect of the '* green mantle" of the villa has been
shown in late years that many hundred trees have been
allowed to die in the treacherous embrace of the ivy
which is sucking their life out, or by the drying up of
the roots for want of proper tilling. The Albero Bello
is still in a fair condition; and looking at its noble
crown of boughs, bending under the weight of the juicy
berries, we recall the anecdote told by Pliny the Elder
(xvi, 91) of a curious case of tree-worship : "There is
a hill named Corne, not far from the city of Tusculum,
crowned by a cluster of beeches, sacred to Diana from
immemorial times. One of the trees, the healthiest and
largest, has been venerated in our own times by Pas-
sienus Crispus, husband of Agrippina the elder, step-
father of Nero, twice consul, orator, who used to kiss
and embrace its trunk, and lie under its shade and pour
libations over its roots. The tree beloved by Passienus
can be identified by its proximity to an ilex, thirty-four
feet in girth, from the roots of which spring ten trunks,
each forming a tree of extraordinary size. This ilex is
a forest in itself."

The period of the naturalization of the olive on the
slopes of the Catillus and on the banks of the Anio
cannot be determined; the species was perhaps im-
ported by the Pelasgians. In Roman times, however,
olive plantations cannot have been extensive, consider-
ing that the sunny slopes over which they now spread
and prosper were at that time occupied by gardens and
pleasure grounds. With the abandonment and destruc-
tion of the villas the oil-making industry gained ground.
In a document of the year 945, published by Bruzza in
his " Regesto Tiburtino," several olive yards are regis-
tered among the rural properties of the bishopric. In

ANCIENT OLIVE TREES IN THE

NJ> 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.

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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

wm-^

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.

a
<■

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^, .

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1 mBS^^^^jk

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HBi^JSfli^fl

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

T f 4

T 4

^v«

'^'-'^T^^K^^K/j^tt/jm

■^

^^^^^^^^^^^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

/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',.,

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

^^^^^

t, -'^•r-rh-i^7^gf^fjjgj0gki>^.-<,-. -- ..,"1. - _ J

Wv» '

"^ -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

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)

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

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

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

■

-..■..■•

^^^> ^'

M ^

_____

==;<*<"

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.

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

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

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.

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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

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