V. THE VELABRUM AND THE GHETTO…

V. THE VELABRUM AND THE GHETTO

S. Teodoro--Sta. Anastasia--Circus Maximus--S. Giorgio in Velabro--Arch of Septimius Severus--Arch of Janus--Cloaca-Maxima--Sta. Maria in Cosmedin--Temple of Vesta--Temple of Fortuna Virilis--House of Rienzi--Ponte-Rotto--Ponte Sublicio--S. Nicolo in Carcere--Theatre of Marcellus--Portico of Octavia--Pescheria--Jewish Synagogue--Palazzo Cenci--Fontana Tartarughe--Palazzo Mattei--Palazzo Caetani--Sta. Caterina dei Funari--Sta. Maria Campitelli--Palazzo Margana--Convent of the Tor de' Specchi.

The second turn on the right of the Roman Forum is the Via dei Fienili, formerly the Vicus Tuscus, so called from the Etruscan colony established there after the drying up of the marsh which occupied that site in the earliest periods of Roman history. During the empire, this street, leading from the Forum to the Circus Maximus, was one of the most important. Martial speaks of its silk-mercers; from an inscription on a tomb we know that the fashionable tailors were to be found there; and the perfumers' shops were of such abundance as to give to part of the street the name of Vicus Thurarius. At its entrance was the statue of the Etruscan god, Vertumnus, the patron of the quarter.[74] This was the street by which the processions of the Circensian games passed from the Forum to the Circus Maximus. In one of the Verrine Orations, an accusation brought by Cicero against the patrician Verres, was that from avaricious motives he had paved even this street--used for processions of the Circus--in such a manner that he would not venture to use it himself.[75]

All this valley was once a stagnant marsh, left by inundations of the Tiber, for in early times the river often overflowed the whole valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline hills, and even reached as far as the foot of the Quirinal, where the Goat's Pool, at which Romulus disappeared, is supposed to have formed part of the same swamp. Ovid, in describing the processions of the games, speaks of the willows and rushes which once covered this ground, and the marshy places which one could not pass over except with bare feet:

"Qua Velabra solent in Circum ducere pompas, Nil præter salices crassaque canna fuit, Sæpe suburbanas rediens conviva per undas Cantat, et ad nautas ebria verba jacit. Nondum conveniens diversis iste figuris Nomen ab averso ceperat amne deus. Hic quoque lucus erat juncis et arundine densus, Et pede velato non adeunda palus. Stagna recesserunt, et aquas sua ripa coërcet: Siccaque nunc tellus. Mos tamen ille manet."

Fast. vi. 405.

We even know the price which was paid for being ferried across the Velabrum: "it was a quadrans, three times as much as one pays now for the boat at the Ripetta."[76] The creation of the Cloaca Maxima had probably done much towards draining, but some fragments of the marsh remained to a late period.

According to Varro the name of the Velabrum was derived from vehere, because of the boats which were employed to convey passengers from one hill to the other.[77] Others derive the name from vela, also in reference to the mode of transit, or, according to another idea, in reference to the awnings which were stretched across the street to shelter the processions,--though the name was in existence long before any processions were thought of.

It was the waters of the Velabrum which bore the cradle of Romulus and Remus from the Tiber, and deposited it under the famous fig-tree of the Palatine.

* * * * *

On the left of the Via dei Fienili (shut in by a railing, generally closed, but which will be opened on appealing to the sacristan next door) is the round Church of S. Teodoro. The origin of this building is unknown. It used to be called the temple of Romulus, on the very slight foundation that the famous bronze wolf, mentioned by Dionysius as existing in the temple of Romulus, was found near this spot. Dyer supposes that it may have been the Temple of Cybele; this, however, was upon, and not under, the Palatine. Be they what they may, the remains were dedicated as a Christian church by Adrian I., in the eighth century, and some well preserved mosaics in the tribune are of that time.

"It is curious to note in Rome how many a modern superstition has its root in an ancient one, and how tenaciously customs still cling to the old localities. On the Capitoline hill the bronze she-wolf was once worshipped as the wooden Bambino is now. It stood in the Temple of Romulus, and there the ancient Romans used to carry children to be cured of their diseases by touching it. On the supposed site of the temple now stands the church dedicated to S. Teodoro, or Santo Toto, as he is called in Rome. Though names must have changed and the temple has vanished, and church after church has here decayed and been rebuilt, the old superstition remains, and the common people at certain periods still bring their sick children to Santo Toto, that he may heal them with his touch."--Story's Roba di Roma.[78]

Further on the left, still under the shadow of the Palatine Hill, is the large Church of Sta. Anastasia, containing, beneath the altar, a beautiful statue of the martyred saint reclining on a faggot.

"Notwithstanding her beautiful Greek name, and her fame as one of the great saints of the Greek Calendar, Sta. Anastasia is represented as a noble Roman lady, who perished during the persecution of Diocletian. She was persecuted by her husband and family for openly professing the Christian faith, but being sustained by the eloquent exhortations of St. Chrysogonus, she passed triumphantly, receiving in due time the crown of martyrdom, being condemned to the flames. Chrysogonus was put to death with the sword and his body thrown into the sea.

"According to the best authorities, these two saints did not suffer in Rome, but in Illyria; yet in Rome we are assured that Anastasia, after her martyrdom, was buried by her friend Apollina in the garden of her house under the Palatine hill and close to the Circus Maximus. There stood the church, dedicated in the fourth century, and there it now stands. It was one of the principal churches in Rome in the time of St. Jerome, who, according to ancient tradition, celebrated mass at one of the altars, which is still regarded with peculiar veneration."--Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art.

It was the custom for the mediæval popes to celebrate their second mass of Christmas night in this church, for which reason Sta. Anastasia is still especially commemorated in that mass.

To the left of the high altar is the tomb of the learned Cardinal Mai, by the sculptor Benzoni, who owed everything to the kind interest with which this cardinal regarded him from childhood. The epitaph is remarkable. It is thus translated by Cardinal Wiseman:

"I, who my life in wakeful studies wore, Bergamo's son, named Angelo, here lie. The empyreal robe and crimson hat I bore, Rome gave. Thou giv'st me, Christ, th' empyreal sky. Awaiting Thee, long toil I could endure: So with Thee be my rest now, sweet, secure."

Through this church, also, we may enter some of the subterraneous chambers of the Palace of the Cæsars.

The valley near this, between the Palatine and the Aventine, was the site of the Circus Maximus, of which the last vestiges were destroyed in the time of Paul V. Its ground plan can, however, be identified, with the assistance of the small circus of Maxentius on the Via Appia, which still partially exists. It was intended for chariot-races and horse-races, and is said to have been first instituted by Tarquinius Priscus after his conquest of the Latin town of Apiolæ. It was a vast oblong, ending in a semicircle, and surrounded by three rows of seats, termed collectively cavea. In the centre of the area was the low wall called the spina, at each end of which were the metæ, or goals. Between the metæ were columns supporting the ova, egg-shaped balls, and Delphinæ, or dolphins, each seven in number, one of which was put up for each circuit made in the race. At the extremity of the Circus were the stalls for the horses and chariots called Carceres. This, the square end of the Circus, was termed oppidum, from its external resemblance to a town, with walls and towers. In the Circus Maximus, which was used for hunting wild beasts, Julius Cæsar made a canal, called Euripus,[79] ten feet wide, between the seats and the racecourse, to protect the spectators. The Ludi Circenses were first established by Romulus, to attract his Sabine neighbours, in order that he might supply his city with wives. The games were generally at the expense of the ædiles, and their cost was so great, that Cæsar was obliged to sell his Tiburtine villa, to defray those given during his ædileship. Perhaps the most magnificent games known were those in the reign of Carinus (Imp. A.D. 283), when the Circus was transformed into an artificial forest, in which hundreds of wild beasts and birds were slaughtered. At one time this Circus was capable of containing 385,000 persons.

At the western extremity of the Circus Maximus stood the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera (said to have been vowed by the Dictator Albus Postumius, at the battle of the Lake Regillus), dedicated by the Consul Sp. Cassius, B.C. 492.

"Quand le père de Cassius l'eut immolé de ses propres mains à l'avidité patricienne, il fit don du pécule de son fils--un fils n'avait que son pécule comme un esclave--à ce même temple de Cérès que Spurius Cassius avait consacré, et par une féroce ironie, mit au bas de la statue faite avec cet argent, et qu'il dédiait à la déesse: 'Don de la famille Cassia.'

"L'ironie était d'autant plus amère, que l'on vendait auprès du temple de Cérès ceux qui avaient offensé au tribun.

"Ce temple, mis particulièrement sous la surveillance des édiles et où ils avaient leurs archives, était le temple de la démocratie romaine. Le farouche patricien le choisit pour lui faire adresser par son fils mort au service de la démocratie un dérisoire hommage."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. ii. 416.

We must now retrace our steps for a short distance, and descend into a hollow on the left, which we have passed, between the churches of S. Teodoro and Sta. Anastasia.

Here an interesting group of buildings still stands to mark the site of the famous ox-market, Forum Boarium. In its centre a brazen bull, brought from Egina,[80] once commemorated the story of the oxen of Geryon, which Hercules left to pasture on this marshy site, and which were stolen hence by Cacus,--and is said by Ovid to have given a name to the locality:

"Pontibus et magno juncta est celeberrima Circo Area, quæ posito de bove nomen habet."

Fast. vi. 478.

The fact of this place being used as a market for oxen is mentioned by Livy.[81]

The Forum Boarium is associated with several deeds of cruelty. After the battle of Cannæ, a male and female Greek and a male and female Gaul were buried alive here;[82] and here the first fight of gladiators took place, being introduced by M. and D. Brutus, at the funeral of their father in B.C. 264.[83] Here the Vestal virgins buried the sacred utensils of their worship, at the spot called Doliola, when they fled from Rome after the battle of the Allia.[84]

Amongst the buildings which once existed in the Forum Boarium, but of which no trace remains, were the Temple of the Sabine deity Matuta, and the Temple of Fortune, both ascribed to Servius Tullius.

"Hac ibi luce ferunt Matutæ sacra parenti, Sceptiferas Servi templa dedisse manus."

Ovid, Fast. vi. 479.

"Lux eadem, Fortuna, tua est, auctorque, locusque, Sed superinjectis quis latet æde togis? Servius est: hoc constat enim----"

Fast. vi. 569.

The Temple of Fortune was rebuilt by Lucullus, and Dion Cassius mentions that the axle of Julius Cæsar's car broke down in front of it on occasion of one of his triumphs.[85] Another temple in this neighbourhood was that of Pudicitia Patricia, into which the noble ladies refused to admit Virginia, because she had espoused a plebeian consul[86] (see Chap. X.). Here, also, was the Temple of Hercules Victor, erected by Pompey.[87] The two earliest triumphal arches were built in this forum, being in honour of L. Stertinius, erected B.C. 196, after his victories in Spain.

The building which first attracts attention, among those now standing, is the Arch of Janus, the Sabine god. It has four equal sides and arches, turned to the four points of the compass, and forty-eight niches, probably intended for the reception of small statues. Bas-reliefs on the inverted blocks employed in the lower part of this edifice, show that they must have been removed from earlier buildings. This was probably used as a portico for shelter or business for those who trafficked in the Forum; there were many similar porticoes in ancient Rome.

On the left of the arch of Janus is a narrow alley, spanned by low brick arches, which leads first to the beautiful clear spring of the Aqua Argentina, which, according to some authorities, is the place where Castor and Pollux watered their horses after the battle of the Lake Regillus.

"Then on rode those strange horsemen, With slow and lordly pace; And none who saw their bearing Durst ask their name or race. On rode they to the Forum, While laurel boughs and flowers From house-tops and from windows, Fell on their crests in showers.

"When they drew nigh to Vesta, They vaulted down amain, And washed their horses in the well That springs by Vesta's fane. And straight again they mounted And rode to Vesta's door; Then, like a blast, away they passed, And no man saw them more."

Macaulay's Lays.

The alley is closed by an arch of the celebrated Cloaca Maxima, the famous drain formed by Tarquinius Priscus, fifth king of Rome, to dry the marshy land of the Velabrum.

"Infima urbis loca circa Forum, aliasque interjectas collibus convalles, quia ex planis locis haud facile evehebant aquas, cloacis a fastigio in Tiberim ductis siccat."--Livy, lib. i. c. 38.

The Cloaca extended from the Forum to the Tiber, and is still, after 2,400 years, used, during the latter part of its course, for the purpose for which it was originally intended, though Pliny was filled with wonder that, in his time, it had already withstood the earthquakes, inundations, and accidents of seven hundred years. Strabo tells that the tunnel of the Cloaca was of sufficient height to admit a waggon laden with hay, but this probably supposes the water at its lowest. Agrippa, who cleaned out the Cloaca, navigated its whole length in a boat. The mouth of the Cloaca, composed of three concentric courses of blocks of peperino, without cement, is visible on the river a little to the right of the temple of Vesta.

"Ces lieux ont encore un air et comme une odeur de marécage--quand on rôde aux approches de la nuit dans ce coin désert de Rome où fut placée la scène des premiers moments de son premier roi, on y retrouve, à présent mieux qu'au temps de Tite-Live, quelque chose de l'impression que ce lieu devait produire il y a vingt-cinq siècles, à l'époque où, selon la vieille tradition, le berceau de Romulus s'arrêta dans les boues du Vélabre, au pied du Palatin, près de l'antre Lupercal. Il faut s'écarter un peu de cet endroit, qui était au pied du versant occidental du Palatin, et faire quelques pas à droite pour aller chercher les traces du Vélabre là où les rues et les habitations modernes ne les ont pas entièrement effacées. En s'avançant vers la Cloaca Maxima, on rencontre un enfoncement où une vieille église, elle-même au dedans humide et moisie, rappelle par son nom, San Giorgio in Velabro, que le Vélabre a été là. On voit sourdre encore les eaux qui l'alimentaient sous une voûte sombre et froide, tapissée de mousses, de scolopendres et de grandes herbes frissonnant dans la nuit. Alentour, tout a un aspect triste et abandonné, abandonné comme le furent au bord du marais, suivant l'antique récit, les enfants dont on croit presque ouïr dans le crépuscule les vagissements. L'imagination n'a pas de peine à se représenter les arbres et les plantes aquatiques qui croissaient sur le bord de cet enfoncement que voilà, et à travers lesquelles la louve de la légende se glissait à cette heure pour venir boire à cette eau. Ces lieux sont assez peu fréquentés et assez silencieux pour qu'on se les figure comme ils étaient alors, alors qu'il n'y avait ici, comme dit Tite-Live, vrai cette fois, que des solitudes désertes: Vastæ tunc solitudines erant."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. i. 271.

The church with the picturesque campanile near the arch of Janus, is S. Giorgio in Velabro, founded in the fourth century, as the Basilica Sempronia, but repeatedly rebuilt. The architrave above its portico was that where Rienzi affixed his famous inscription, announcing the return to the Good Estate: "In breve tempo gli Romani torneranno al loro antico buono stato." The church is seldom open, except on its festival (Jan. 20), and during its station in Lent. The interior is in the basilica form, the long nave being lined by sixteen columns, of various sizes, and with strangely different capitals, showing that they have been plundered from ancient temples. The carving on some of the capitals is sharp and delicate. There is a rather handsome ancient baldacchino, with an old Greek picture let into its front, over the high altar. Beneath is preserved a fragment of the banner of St George. Some injured frescoes in the tribune replace mosaics which once existed here, and which were attributed to Giotto. In the centre is the Saviour, between the Virgin and St. Peter; on one side, St. George with the martyr's palm and the warrior's banner,--on the other, St. Sebastian, with an arrow. Several fragments of carving and inscriptions are built into the side walls. The pictures are poor and ugly which relate to the saint of the church, St. George (the patron of England and Germany), the knight of Cappadocia, who delivered the Princess Cleodolinda from the dragon.

"Among good specimens of thirteenth century architecture is the portico of S. Giorgio, with Ionic columns and horizontal architrave, on which is a gothic inscription, in quaint Leonine verse, informing us that the Cardinal (or Prior) Stephen, added this detail (probably the campanile also), to the ancient church--about the middle of the thirteenth century, as is supposed, though no date is given here; and in the midst of an age so alien to classic influences, a work in which classic feeling thus predominates, is remarkable."--Heman's Sacred Art.

Partly hidden by the portico of this church, is the beautiful miniature Arch of Septimius Severus, erected to the emperor, his wife Julia Pia, and his sons Caracalla and Geta, by the silversmiths (argentarii) who had their shops in the Forum Boarium on this very spot ("cujus loci qui invehent"). The part of the dedication relating to Geta (as in the larger arch of Septimius) was obliterated after his murder, and the words FORTISSIMO FELICISSIMOQUE PRINCIPI engraved in its place. The architecture and sculpture, part of which represents a sacrifice by the imperial family, prove the decadence of art at this period.

Proceeding in a direct line from the Arch of Janus, we reach the Church of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, on the site of a Temple of Ceres, dedicated by the consul Spurius Cassius, B.C. 493, and afterwards re-dedicated to Ceres and Proserpine, probably by Augustus, who had been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries in Greece. The church was built in the basilica form, in 782, by Adrian I., when the name Cosmedin, from the Greek κοσμος, is supposed to have been given, from the ornaments with which he adorned it It was intended for the use of the Greek exiles expelled from the East by the iconoclasts under Constantine Copronimus, and derived the epithet of Sta. Maria in Scuola Greca, from a "Schola" attached to it for their benefit. Another relic of the Greek colony which existed here is to be found in the name of the adjoining street, Via della Greca. In the middle ages the whole bank of the river near this was called Ripa Greca.

The interior of this church is of great interest. The nave is divided from the aisles by twelve ancient marble columns, of which two have especially curious antique capitals, and are evidently remains of the temple which once existed here. The choir is raised, as at S. Clemente. The pavement is of splendid Opus Alexandrinum (1120); the ambones are perfect; there is a curious crypt; the altar covers an ancient bason of red granite, and is shaded by a gothic canopy, supported by four Egyptian granite pillars; behind it is a fine episcopal throne, with lions, said to have been used by St. Augustine, an ancient Greek picture of the Virgin, and a graceful tabernacle of marble inlaid with mosaic, by Deodato Cosmati. In the sacristy is a very curious mosaic, one of the few relics preserved from the old St Peter's, A.D. 705. (There is another in S. Marco at Florence.) Crescimbeni, the founder and historian of the Arcadian Academy (d. 1728), is buried in this church, of which he was a canon. On St. Valentine's Day the skull of St. Valentine, crowned with roses, is exhibited here.

In the portico is the strange and huge mask of stone, which gives the name of Bocca della Verita to the neighbouring piazza. It was believed that if a witness, whose truthfulness was doubtful, were desired to place his hand in the mouth of this mask, he would be unable to withdraw it, if he were guilty of perjury.

"Cette Bouche-de-Vérité est une curieuse relique du moyen âge. Elle servait aux jugements de Dieu. Figurez-vous une meule de moulin qui ressemble, non pas à un visage humain, mais au visage de la lune: on y distingue des yeux, un nez et une bouche ouverte où l'accusé mettait la main pour prêter serment. Cette bouche mordait les menteurs; au moins la tradition l'assure. J'y ai introduit ma dextre en disant que le Ghetto était un lieu de délices, et je n'ai pas été mordu."--About, Rome Contemporaine.

On the other side of the portico is the tomb of Cardinal Alfanus, ob. 1150.

"The church was rebuilt under Calixtus II.; about A.D. 1128, by Alfanus, Roman Chancellor, whose marble sepulchre stands in the atrium, with his epitaph, along a cornice, giving him that most comprehensive title, 'an honest man,' vir probus. Some more than half-faded paintings, a Madonna and Child, angels, and two mitred heads, on the wall behind the canopy, give importance to this Chancellor's tomb. Though now disfigured exteriorly by a modern façade in the worst style, interiorly by a waggon-vault roof and heavy pilasters, this church is still one of the mediæval gems of Rome, and retains many olden details: the classic colonnades, probably left in their original place since the time of Adrian I.; and the fine campanile, one of the loftiest in Rome; also the sculptured doorway, the rich intarsio pavement, the high altar, the marble and mosaic-inlaid ambones, the marble episcopal throne, with supporting lions and a mosaic decoration above, &c.,--all of the twelfth century. But we have to regret the destruction of the ancient choir-screens, and (still more inexcusable) the white-washing of wall surfaces so as entirely to conceal the mediæval paintings which adorned them, conformably to that once almost universal practice of polychrome decoration in churches, prescribed even by law under Charlemagne. Ciampini (see his valuable history of this basilica) mentions the iron rods for curtains between the columns of the atrium, and those, still in their place, in the porch, with rings for suspending; also a small chapel with paintings, at one end of the atrium, designed for those penitents who were not allowed to worship within the sacred building--as such, an evidence of disciplinary observance, retained till the twelfth century. Over the portal are some tiny bas-reliefs, so placed along the inner side of the lintel that many might pass underneath without seeing them: in the centre, a hand blessing, with the Greek action, between two sheep, laterally; the four evangelistic emblems, and two doves, each pecking out of a vase, and one perched upon a dragon (more like a lizard), to signify the victory of the purified soul over mundane temptations."--Hemans' Christian Art.

Close to this church stood the Palace of Pope Gelasius II. (1118).

Opposite the church is a beautiful fountain, erected by one of the Medici, and beyond it the graceful round temple now called the Temple of Vesta, supposed by Canina to have been that of Mater Matuta, and by others to have been that of Hercules founded by Pompey. It is known to have existed in the time of Vespasian. It is very small, the circumference of the peristyle being only 156 feet, and that of the cella 26 feet,--the height of the surrounding Corinthian columns (originally twenty in number) 32 feet This temple was first dedicated as a church under the name of S. Stefano delle Carrozze; it is now called Sta. Maria del Sole.

This is not the Temple of Vesta (which was situated near the Church of Sta. Maria Liberatrice in the Forum) of which Horace wrote:--

"Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis Littore Etrusco violenter undis, Ire dejectum monumenta regum Templaque Vestæ."

Carm. i. 2.

The modern overhanging roof of the temple has been much objected to, as it replaces an entablature like that on the temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli; but artists admire the exquisite play of light and shade caused by its rugged tiles, and, finding it a perfect "subject," wish for no change.

"C'est auprès de la Bouche-de-Vérité, devant le petit temple de Vesta, que la justice romaine exécute un meurtrier sur cent. Quand j'arrivai sur la place, on n'y guillotinait personne; mais six cuisinières, dont une aussi belle que Junon, dansaient la tarantelle au son d'un tambour de basque. Malheureusement elles divinèrent ma qualité d'étranger, et elles se mirent à polker contre la mesure."--About.

Close to this--overhanging a little hollow way--is the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, built originally by Servius Tullius, but rebuilt during the republic, and, if the existing building is really republican, the most ancient temple remaining in Rome. It is surrounded by Ionic columns (one side being enclosed in other buildings), 28 feet high, clothed with hard stucco, and supporting an entablature adorned with figures of children, oxen, candelabra, &c. The Roman matrons had a great regard for this goddess, who was supposed to have the power of concealing their personal imperfections from the eyes of men. At the close of the tenth century this temple was consecrated to the Virgin, but has since been bestowed upon St. Mary of Egypt.

Hard by, is a picturesque end of building, laden with rich but incongruous sculpture, at one time called "The House of Pilate," but now known as the House of Rienzi. It derives its present name from a long inscription over a doorway, which tallies with the bombastic epithets assumed by "The Last of the Tribunes" in his pompous letter of Aug. 1, 1347, when, in his semi-madness, he summoned kings and emperors to appear before his judgment-seat. The inscription closes:--

"Primus de primis magnus Nicolaus ab imis, Erexit patrum decus ob renovare suorum. Stat patris Crescens matrisque Theodora nomen. Hoc culmen clarum caro de pignore gessit, Davidi tribuit qui pater exhibuit."

It is believed, from the inscription, that the house was fortified by Nicholas, son of Crescentius and Theodora, who gave it to David, his son; that the Crescentius alluded to was son of the famous patrician who headed the populace against Otho III.; and that, three centuries later, the house may have belonged to Cola di Rienzi, a name which is, in fact, only popular language for Niccola Crescenzo. It is, however, known that Rienzi was not born in this house, but in a narrow street behind S. Tommaso, in the Rione alla Regola, where his father Lorenzo kept an inn, and his mother, Maddalena, gained her daily bread as a washerwoman and water-carrier--so were the Crescenzi fallen!

Here is the entrance to a suspension-bridge, which joins the remaining arches of the Ponte Rotto, and leads to the Trastevere. On this site was the Pons Æmilius, begun, B.C. 180, by M. Æmilius Lepidus and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, and finished by P. Scipio Africanus and L. Mummius, the censors, in B.C. 142. Hence the body of the Emperor Heliogabalus was thrown into the Tiber. The bridge has been three times rebuilt by different popes, but two of its arches were finally carried away in an inundation of 1598, and have never since been replaced. The existing remains, which only date from the time of Julius III., are highly picturesque.

"Quand on a établi un pont en fil de fer, on lui a donné pour base les piles du Ponte-Rotto, élevé au moyen âge sur les fondements du Pons Palatinus, qui fut achevé sous la censure de Scipion l'Africain. Scipion l'Africain et un pont en fil de fer, voilà de ces contrastes qu'on ne trouve qu'à Rome."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 209.

From this bridge is the best view of the Isola Tiberina and its bridges, and hence, also, the Temple of Vesta is seen to great advantage. Just below is the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima.

"Quand du Ponte-Rotto on considère le triple cintre de l'ouverture par laquelle la Cloaca Maxima se déchargeait dans le Tibre, on a devant les yeux un monument qui rappelle beaucoup de grandeur et beaucoup d'oppression. Ce monument extraordinaire est une page importante de l'histoire romaine. Il est à la fois la suprême expression de la puissance des rois étrusques et le signe avant-coureur de leur chute. L'on croit voir l'arc triomphal de la royauté par où devait entrer la république."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. ii. 233.

In the bed of the river a little lower down may be seen, at low water, some massive fragments of masonry. Here stood the Pons Sublicius, the oldest bridge in Rome, built by Ancus Martius (B.C. 639), on which Horatius Cocles and his two companions "kept the bridge" against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsenna, till--

"Back darted Spurius Lartius; Herminius darted back: And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack. But when they turned their faces, And on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would have crossed once more.

"But with a crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops Was splashed the yellow foam."

Macaulay's Lays.

The name "Sublicius" came from the wooden beams of its construction, which enabled the Romans to cut it away. The bridge was rebuilt by Tiberius and again by Antoninus Pius, each time of beams, but upon stone piers, of which the present remains are fragments, the rest having been destroyed by an inundation in the time of Adrian I.

On the Trastevere bank, between these two bridges, half hidden in shrubs and ivy (but worth examination in a boat), are two gigantic Heads of Lions, to which in ancient times chains were fastened, and drawn across the river to prevent hostile vessels from passing.

Near this we enter the Via S. Giovanni Decollato, decorated with numerous heads of John the Baptist in the dish, let into the walls over the doors of the houses. The "Confraternità della Misericordia di S. Giovanni Decollato," founded in 1488, devote themselves to criminals condemned to death. They visit them in prison, accompany them to execution, receive their bodies, and offer masses for their souls in their little chapel. Vasari gives the highest praise to two pictures of Francesco Salviati in the Church of S. Giov. Decollato, "before which all Rome stood still in admiration,"--representing the appearance of the angel to Zacharias, and the meeting of the Virgin and Elizabeth.

On the left is the Hospital of Sta. Galla, commemorating the pious foundation of a Roman matron in the time of John I. (523--526), who attained such celebrity, that she is still commemorated in the Roman mass by the prayer--

"Almighty and merciful God, who didst adorn the blessed Galla with the virtue of a wonderful love towards thy poor; grant us, through her merits and prayers, to practise works of love, and to obtain Thy mercy, through the Lord, &c. Amen."

On, or very near this site, stood the Porta Carmentalis, which, with the temple beside it, commemorated Carmenta, the supposed mother of Evander, a Sabine prophetess, who is made by Ovid to predict the future grandeur of Rome.[88] Carmenta was especially invoked by women in childbirth. The Porta Carmentalis was reached from the Forum by the Vicus Jugarius. It was by this route that the Fabii went forth to meet their doom in the valley of the Crimera. The Porta had two gates--one for those who entered, the other for those who left it, so that in each case the passenger passed through the "Janus," as it was called, upon his right. After the massacre of the Fabii, the road by which they left the city was avoided, and the Janus Carmentalis on the right was closed, and called the Porta Scelerata.

"Carmentis portæ dextro via proxima Jano est Ire per hanc noli, quisquis es; omen habet."

Ovid, Fast. ii. 201.

Just beyond the Porta Carmentalis was the district called Tarentum, where there was a subterranean "Ara Ditis Patris et Proserpinæ."

We now reach (left) the Church of S. Nicolo in Carcere. It has a mean front, with an inscription in honour of one of the Aldobrandini family, and is only interesting as occupying the site of the three Temples of Juno Matuta, Piety(?), and Hope, which are believed to mark the site of the Forum Olitorium. The vaults beneath the church contain the massive substructions of these temples, and fragments of their columns.

The central temple is believed to be that of Piety, built by M. Acilius Glabrio, the duumvir, in B.C. 165 (though Pliny says that this temple was on the site afterwards occupied by the theatre of Marcellus), in fulfilment of a vow made by his father, a consul of the same name, on the day of his defeating the forces of Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, at Thermopylæ. Others endeavour to identify it with the temple built on the site of the Decemviral prisons, to keep up the recollection of the famous story, called the "Caritas Romana,"--of a woman condemned to die of hunger in prison being nourished by the milk of her own daughter. Pliny and Valerius Maximus tell the story as of a mother; Festus only speaks of a father;[89]--yet art and poetry have always followed the latter legend. A cell is shown, by torchlight, as the scene of this touching incident.

"There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing. Look again! Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight-- Two insulated phantoms of the brain: It is not so; I see them full and plain-- An old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar:--but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

"But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift:--it is her sire, To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No, he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river;--from that gentle side Drink, drink, and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

"The starry fable of the milky-way Has not thy story's purity; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds:--Oh, holiest nurse! No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe."

Childe Harold.

A memorial of this story of a prison is preserved in the name of the church--S. Nicolo in Carcere. It was probably owing to this legend that, in front of the Temple of Piety, was placed the Columna Lactaria, where infants were exposed, in the hope that some one would take pity upon and nurse them out of charity.

A wide opening out of the street near this, with a pretty fountain, is called the Piazza Montanara, and is one of the places where the country people collect and wait for hire.

"Le dimanche est le jour où les paysans arrivent à Rome. Ceux qui cherchent l'emploi de leurs bras viennent se louer aux marchands de campagne, c'est-à-dire aux fermiers. Ceux qui sont loués et qui travaillent hors des murs viennent faire leurs affaires et renouveler leurs provisions. Ils entrent en ville au petit jour après avoir marché une bonne partie de la nuit. Chaque famille amène un âne, qui porte le bagage. Hommes, femmes, et enfants, poussant leur âne devant eux, s'établissent dans un coin de la place Farnèse, ou de la place Montanara. Les boutiques voisines restent ouvertes jusqu'à midi, par un privilège spécial. On va, on vient, on achète, on s'accroupit dans les coins pour compter les pièces de cuivre. Cependant les ânes se reposent sur leurs quatre pieds au bord des fontaines. Les femmes, vêtues d'un corset en cuirasse, d'un tablier rouge, et d'une veste rayée, encadrent leur figure hâlée dans une draperie de linge très-blanc. Elles sont toutes à peindre sans exception: quand ce n'est pas pour la beauté de leurs traits, c'est pour l'élégance naïve de leurs attitudes. Les hommes ont le long manteau bleu de ciel et le chapeau pointu; là-dessous leurs habits de travail font merveille, quoique roussis par le temps et couleur de perdrix. Le costume n'est pas uniforme; on voit plus d'un manteau amadou rapiécé de bleu vif ou de rouge garance. Le chapeau de paille abonde en été. La chaussure est très-capricieuse; soulier, botte et sandale foulent successivement le pavé. Les déchaussés trouvent ici près de grandes et profondes boutiques où l'on vend des marchandises d'occasion. Il y a des souliers de tout cuir et de tout âge dans ces trésors de la chaussure; on y trouverait des cothurnes de l'an 500 de la république, en cherchant bien. Je viens de voir un pauvre diable qui essayait une paire de bottes à revers. Elles vont à ses jambes comme une plume à l'oreille d'un porc, et c'est plaisir de voir la grimace qu'il fait chaque fois qu'il pose le pied à terre. Mais le marchand le fortifie par de bonnes paroles: 'Ne crains rien,' lui dit-il, 'tu souffriras pendant cinq ou six jours, et puis tu n'y penseras plus.' Un autre marchand débite des clous à la livre: le chaland les enfonce lui-même dans ses semelles; il y a des bancs ad hoc. Le long des murs, cinq ou six chaises de paille servent de boutique à autant de barbiers en plein vent. Il en coute un sou pour abattre une barbe de huit jours. Le patient, barbouillé de savon, regarde le ciel d'un œil résigné; le barbier lui tire le nez, lui met les doigts dans la bouche, s'interrompt pour aiguiser le rasoir sur un cuir attaché au dossier de la chaise, ou pour écorner une galette noire qui pend au mur. Cependant l'opération est faite en un tour de main; le rasé se lève et sa place est prise. Il pourrait aller se laver à la fontaine, mais il trouve plus simple de s'essuyer du revers de sa manche.

"Les écrivains publics alternent avec les barbiers. On leur apporte les lettres qu'on a reçues; ils les lisent et font la réponse: total, trois sous. Dès qu'un paysan s'approche de la table pour dicter quelque-chose, cinq ou six curieux se réunissent officieusement autour de lui pour mieux entendre. Il y a une certaine bonhomie dans cette indiscrétion. Chacun place son mot, chacun donne un conseil: 'Tu devrais dire ceci.'--'Non; dis plutôt cela.'--'Laissez-le parler,' crie un troisième, 'il sait mieux que vous ce qu'il veut faire écrire.'

"Quelques voitures chargées de galettes d'orge et de maïs circulent au milieu de la foule. Un marchand de limonade, armé d'une pince de bois, écrase les citrons dans les verres. L'homme sobre boit à la fontaine en faisant un aqueduc des bords de son chapeau. Le gourmet achète des viandes d'occasion devant un petit étalage, où les rebuts de cuisine se vendent à la poignée. Pour un sou, le débitant remplit de bœuf haché et d'os de côtelettes un morceau de vieux journal; une pincée de sel ajoutée sur le tout pare agréablement la denrée. L'acheteur marchande, non sur le prix, qui est invariable, mais sur la quantité; il prend au tas quelques bribes de viande, et on le laisse faire; car rien ne se conclut à Rome sans marchander.

"Les ermites et les moines passent de groupe en groupe en quêtant pour les âmes du purgatoire. M'est avis que ces pauvres ouvriers font leur purgatoire en ce monde; et qu'il vaudrait mieux leur donner de l'argent que de leur en demander; ils donnent pourtant, et sans se faire tirer l'oreille.

"Quelquefois un beau parleur s'amuse à raconter une histoire; on fait cercle autour de lui, et à mesure que l'auditoire augmente il élève la voix. J'ai vu de ces conteurs qui avaient la physionomie bien fine et bien heureuse; mais je ne sais rien de charmant comme l'attention de leur public. Les peintres du quinzième siècle ont dû prendre à la place Montanara les disciples qu'ils groupaient autour du Christ."--About, Rome Contemporaine.

An opening on the left discloses the vast substructions of the Theatre of Marcellus. This huge edifice seems to have been projected by Julius Caesar, but he probably made little progress in it. It was actually erected by Augustus, and dedicated (c. 13 B.C.) in memory of the young nephew whom he married to his daughter Julia, and intended as his successor, but who was cut off by an early death. The theatre was capable of containing 20,000 spectators, and consisted of three tiers of arches, but the upper range has disappeared, and the lower is very imperfect. Still it is a grand remnant, and rises magnificently above the paltry houses which surround it. The perfect proportions of its Doric and Ionic columns served as models to Palladio.

"Le mur extérieur du portique demi-circulaire qui enveloppait les gradins offre encore à notre admiration deux étages d'arceaux et de colonnes doriques et ioniques d'une beauté presque grecque. L'étage supérieur, qui devait être corinthien, a disparu. Les fornices, ou voûtes du rez-de chaussée, sont habitées encore aujourd'hui comme elles l'étaient dans l'antiquité, mais plus honnêtement, par de pauvres gens qui vendent des ferrailles. Au-dessous des belles colonnes de l'enceinte extérieure, on a construit des maisons modernes dans lesquelles sont pratiquées des fenêtres, et à ces fenêtres du théâtre de Marcellus, on voit des pots à fleurs, ni plus ni moins qu à une mansarde de la rue Saint Denis; des chemises sèchent sur l'entablement; des cheminées surmontent la ruine romaine, et un grand tube se dessine à l'extrémité.

"Dans les jeux célébrés à l'occasion de la dédicace du théâtre de Marcellus, on vit pour la première fois un tigre apprivoisé, tigrim mansuefactum. Dans ce tigre le peuple romain pouvait contempler son image."--Ampère, Emp. i. 256.

In the middle ages this theatre was the fortress of the great family of Pierleoni, the rivals of the Frangipani, who occupied the Coliseum; their name is commemorated by the neighbouring street, Via Porta Leone. The constant warfare in which they were engaged with their neighbours did much to destroy the building, whose interior became reduced to a mass of ruins, forming a hill, upon which Baldassare Peruzzi (1526) built the Palazzo Savelli, of which the entrance, flanked by the two armorial bears of the family, may be seen in the street (Via Savelli) which leads to the Ponte Quattro Capi.

"Au dix-septième siècle, les Savelli exerçaient encore une jurisdiction féodale. Leur tribunal, aussi régulièrement constitué que pas un, s'appellait Corte Savella.[90] Ils avaient le droit d'arracher tous les ans un criminel à la peine de mort: droit de grâce, droit régalien reconnu par la monarchie absolue des papes. Les femmes de cette illustre famille ne sortaient point de leurs palais sinon dans un carosse bien fermé. Les Orsini et les Colonna se vantaient que pendant les siècles, aucun traité de paix n'avait été conclu entre les princes chrétiens, dans lequel ils n'eussent été nominativement compris."--About.

The palace has now passed to the family of Orsini-Gravina, who descended from a senator of A.D. 1200. The princes of Orsini and Colonna, in their quality as attendants on the throne (principi assistenti al soglio), take precedence of all other Roman nobles.

"Nicolovius will remember the Theatre of Marcellus, in which the Savelli family built a palace. My house is half of it. It has stood empty for a considerable time, because the drive into the courtyard (the interior of the ancient theatre) rises like the slope of a mountain upon the heaps of rubbish; although the road has been cut in a zig-zag, it is still a break-neck affair. There is another entrance from the Piazza Montanara, whence a flight of seventy-three steps leads up to the same story I have mentioned; the entrance-hall of which is on a level with the top of the carriage-way through the courtyard. The apartments in which we shall live are those over the colonnade of Ionic pillars forming the third story of the ancient theatre, and some, on a level with them, which have been built out like wings on the rubbish of the ruins. These enclose a little quadrangular garden, which is indeed very small, only about eighty or ninety feet long, and scarcely so broad, but so delightful! It contains three fountains--an abundance of flowers: there are orange-trees on the wall between the windows, and jessamine under them. We mean to plant a vine besides. From this story, you ascend forty steps, or more, higher, where I mean to have my own study, and there are most cheerful little rooms, from which you have a prospect over the whole country beyond the Tiber, Monte Mario, and St. Peter's, and can see over St. Pietro in Montorio, indeed almost as far as the Aventine. It would, I think, be possible besides to erect a loggia upon the roof (for which I shall save money from other things), that we may have a view over the Capitol, Forum, Palatine, Coliseum, and all the inhabited parts of the city."--Niebuhr's Letters.

Following the wall of the theatre, down a filthy street, we arrive at the picturesque group of ruins of the "Porticus Octaviæ," erected by Augustus, in honour of his sister (the unhappy wife of Antony), close to the theatre to which he had given the name of her son. The exact form of the building is known from the Pianta Capitolina,--that it was a parallelogram, surrounded by a double arcade of 270 columns, and enclosing the temples of Jupiter and Juno, built by the Greek architects, Batracus and Saurus.[91]

With regard to these temples, Pliny narrates a fact which reminds one of the story of the Madonna of Sta. Maria Nuova.[92] The porters having carelessly carried the statues of the gods to the wrong temples, it was imagined that they had done so from divine inspiration, and the people would not venture to remove them, so that the statues always remained where they had been placed, though their surroundings were utterly unsuitable.

The Portico of Octavia built by Augustus, occupied the site of an earlier portico--the Porticus Metelli--built by A. Cæcilius Metellus, after his triumph over Andriscus in Macedonia, in B.C. 146. Temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno existed also in this portico, one of them being the earliest temple built of marble in Rome. Before these temples Metellus placed the famous group of twenty-five bronze statues, which he had brought from Greece, executed by Lysippus for Alexander the Great, and representing that conqueror himself and twenty-four horsemen of his troop who had fallen at the Granicus.[93]

The existing fragment of the portico is the original entrance to the whole. The building had suffered from fire in the reign of Titus, and was restored by Septimius Severus, and of this time is the large brick arch on one side of the ruin.

"It was in this hall of Octavia that Titus and Vespasian celebrated their triumph over Israel with festive pomp and splendour. Among the Jewish spectators stood the historian Flavius Josephus, who was one of the followers and flatterers of Titus ... and to this base Jewish courtier we owe a description of the triumph."--Gregorovius, Wanderjahre in Italien.

Within the portico is the Church of S. Angelo in Pescheria. Here it was that Cola Rienzi summoned, at midnight--May 20, 1347--all good citizens to hold a meeting for the re-establishment of "the good estate;" here he kept the vigil of the Holy Ghost; and hence he went forth, bareheaded, in complete armour, accompanied by the papal legate, and attended by a vast multitude, to the Capitol, where he called upon the populace to ratify the Good Estate.

It is said that one of the causes which most incited the indignation of Rienzi against the assumption and pride of the Roman families, was the fact of their painting their arms on the ancient Roman buildings, and thus in a manner appropriating them to their own glory. Remains of coats of arms thus painted may be seen on the front wall of the Portico of Octavia. It was also on this very wall that Rienzi painted his famous allegorical picture. In this painting kings and men of the people were seen burning in a furnace, with a woman half consumed, who personified Rome,--and on the right was a church, whence issued a white-robed angel, bearing in one hand a naked sword, while with the other he plucked the woman from the flames. On the church tower were SS. Peter and Paul, crying to the angel, "Aquilo, aquilo, succurri a l'albergatrice nostra,"--and beyond this were represented falcons (typical of the Roman barons) falling from heaven into the flames, and a white dove bearing a wreath of olive, which it gave to a little bird (Rienzi), which was chased by the falcons. Beneath was inscribed: "I see the time of great justice, do thou await that time."

"Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shame-- The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy-- Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it be-- The forum's champion, and the people's chief-- Her newborn Numa thou--with reign, alas! too brief."

Childe Harold.

Through the brick arch of the Portico we enter upon the ancient Pescheria, with the marble fish-slabs of imperial times still remaining in use. It is a striking scene--the dark, many-storied houses almost meeting overhead and framing a narrow strip of deep blue sky,--below, the bright groups of figures and rich colouring of hanging cloths and drapery.

"C'est une des ruines les plus remarquables de Rome, et une de celles qui offrent ces contrastes piquants entre le passé et le présent, amusement perpétuel de l'imagination dans la ville des contrastes. Le portique d'Octavie est, aujourd'hui, le marché aux poissons. Les colonnes et le fronton s'élèvent au milieu de l'endroit le plus sale de Rome; leur effet n'en est pas moins pittoresque, il l'est peut-être davantage. Le lieu est fait pour une aquarelle, et quand un beau soleil éclaire les débris antiques, les vieux murs sombres de la rue étroite où la poisson se vend sur des tables de marbre blanc, et à travers laquelle des nattes sont tendues, on a, à côté du monument romain, le spectacle d'un marché du moyen âge, et un peu le souvenir d'un bazar d'Orient."--Ampère, Emp. i. 179.

"Who that has ever been to Rome does not remember Roman streets of an evening, when the day's work is done? They are all alive in a serene and homelike fashion. The old town tells its story. Low arches cluster with life--a life humble and stately, though rags hang from the citizens and the windows. You realize it as you pass them--their temples are in ruins, their rule is over--their colonies have revolted long centuries ago. Their gates and their columns have fallen like the trees of a forest, cut down by an invading civilization."--Miss Thackeray.

* * * * *

Here we are in the centre of the Jews' quarter--the famous Ghetto.

The name "Ghetto" is derived from the Hebrew word chat, broken, destroyed, shaven, cut down, cast off, abandoned (see the Hebrew in Isaiah xiv. 12; xv. 2; Jer. xlviii. 25, 27; Zech. xi. 10--14; &c.). The first Jewish slaves were brought to Rome by Pompey the Great, after he had taken Jerusalem, and forcibly entered the Holy of Holies. But for centuries after this they lived in Rome in wealth and honour, their princes Herod and Agrippa being received with royal distinction, and finding a home in the Palace of the Cæsars,--in which Berenice (or Veronica), the daughter of Agrippa, presided as the acknowledged mistress of Titus, who would willingly have made her empress of Rome. The chief Jewish settlement in imperial times was nearly on the site of their present abode, but they were not compelled to live here, and also had a large colony in the Trastevere; and when St. Peter was at Rome (if the Church tradition be true), he dwelt, with Aquila and Priscilla, on the slopes of the Aventine. Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius Cæsar treated the Jews with kindness, but under Caligula they already met with ill-treatment and contempt,--that emperor being especially irritated against them as the only nation which refused to yield him divine honours, and because they had successfully resisted the placing of his statue in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem. On the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, thousands of Jewish slaves were brought to Rome, and were employed on the building of the Coliseum. At the same time Vespasian, while allowing the Hebrews in Rome the free exercise of their religion, obliged them to pay the tax of half a skekel, formerly paid into the Temple treasury, to Jupiter Capitolinus,--and this custom is still kept up in the annual tribute paid by the Jews in the Camera Capitolina.

Under Domitian the Jews were banished from the city to the valley of Egeria, where they lived in a state of poverty and outlawry, which is described by Juvenal,[94] and occupied themselves with soothsaying, love-charms, magic-potions, and mysterious cures.[95]

During the reigns of the earlier popes, the Jews at Rome enjoyed a great amount of liberty, and the anti-pope Anacletus II. (ob. 1138) was even the grandson of a baptized Jew, whose family bore a leading part in Rome, as one of the great patrician houses. The clemency with which the Jews were regarded was, however, partly due to their skill as physicians,--and long after their persecutions had begun (as late as Martin V., 1417--31), the physician of the Vatican was a Jew. The first really bitter enemy of the Jews was Eugenius IV. (Gabriele Condolmiere, 1431--39), who forbade Christians to trade, to eat, or to dwell with them, and prohibited them from walking in the streets, from building new synagogues, or from occupying any public post. Paul II. (1468) increased their humiliation by compelling them to run races during the Carnival, as the horses run now, amidst the hoots of the populace. This custom continued for two hundred years. Sprenger's "Roma Nuova" of 1667, mentions that "the asses ran first, then the Jews--naked, with only a band round their loins--then the buffaloes, then the Barbary horses." It was Clement IX. (Rospigliosi), in 1668, who first permitted the Jews to pay a sum equivalent to 1500 francs annually instead of racing.

"On the first Saturday in Carnival, it was the custom for the heads of the Jews in Rome to appear as a deputation before the Conservators in the Capitol. Throwing themselves upon their knees, they offered a nosegay and twenty scudi with the request that this might be employed to ornament the balcony in which the Roman Senate sate in the Piazza del Popolo. In like manner they went to the senator, and, after the ancient custom, implored permission to remain in Rome. The senator placed his foot on their foreheads, ordered them to stand up, and replied in the accustomed formula, that Jews were not adopted in Rome, but allowed from compassion to remain there. This humiliation has now disappeared, but the Jews still go to the Capitol, on the first Saturday of Carnival, to offer their homage and tribute for the pallii of the horses, which they have to provide, in memory that now the horses amuse the people in their stead."--Gregorovius, Wanderjahre.

The Jews were first shut up within the walls of the Ghetto by the fanatical Dominican pope, Paul IV. (Gio. Pietro Caraffa, 1555--59), and commanded never to appear outside it, unless the men were in yellow hats, or the women in yellow veils. "For," says the Bull Cum Nimis,

"It is most absurd and unsuitable that the Jews, whose own crime has plunged them into everlasting slavery, under the plea that Christian magnanimity allows them, should presume to dwell and mix with Christians, not bearing any mark of distinction, and should have Christian servants, yea, even buy houses."

The Ghetto, or Vicus Judæorum, as it was at first called, was shut in by walls which reached from the Ponte Quattro Capi to the Piazza del Pianto, or "Place of Weeping," whose name bears witness to the grief of the people on the 26th July, 1556, when they were first forced into their prison-house.

"Those Jews who were shut up in the Ghetto were placed in possession of the dwellings of others. The houses in that quarter were the property of Romans, and some of them were inhabited by families of consideration, such as the Boccapaduli. When these removed they remained the proprietors and the Jews only tenants. But as they were to live for ever in these streets, it was necessary that the Jews should have a perpetual lease to defend them against a twofold danger,--negligence on the part of the owner to announce to his Jewish tenant when his possession expired, or bankruptcy if the owner raised his rent. Thus originated a law which established that the Romans should remain in possession of the dwellings let to the Jews, but that the latter should hold the houses in fee farm; that is, the expiration of the contract cannot be announced to a Jewish tenant, and so long as he pays the lawful rent, the rent can never be raised; the Jew at the same time may alter or enlarge his house as he chooses. This still existing privilege is called the Jus Gazzaga. By virtue of it a Jew is in hereditary possession of the lease, and can sell it to his relations or others, and to the present day it is a costly fortune to be in possession of a Jus Gazzaga, or a hereditary lease. Highly extolled is the Jewish maiden who brings her bridegroom such a dowry. Through this salutary law the Jew became possessed of a home, which to some extent he may call his own."--Gregorovius.

The Jews were kindly treated by Sixtus V. on the plea that they were "the family from whom Christ came," and he allowed them to practise many kinds of trades, and to have intercourse with Christians, and to build houses, libraries, and synagogues, but his mild laws were all repealed by Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini, 1592--1605), and under Clement XI. and Innocent XIII. all trade was forbidden them, except that in old-clothes, rags, and iron, "stracci feracci." To these Benedict XIV. (Lambertini) added trade in drapery, with which they are still largely occupied. Under Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni, 1572--85) the Jews were forced to hear a sermon every week in the church, first of S. Benedetto alla Regola, then in S. Angelo in Peschiera, and every Sabbath police-agents were sent into the Ghetto to drive men, women, and children into the church with scourges, and to lash them while there if they appeared to be inattentive.

"Now was come about Holy Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome, should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, undertrampled and bespitten upon beneath the feet of the guests; and a moving sight in truth this, of so many of the besotted, blind, restive, and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought--nay (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in'), haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace...."--Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.

Though what the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect:--

IX.

"Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee! It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me! It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist; Jew-brutes, with sweat and blood well spent To usher in worthily Christian Lent.

X.

'It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds. It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed. And it overflows, when, to even the odd, Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God."

R. B. Browning, Holy Cross Day.

This custom of compelling Jews to listen to Christian sermons was renewed by Leo XII., and was only abolished in the early years of Pius IX. The walls of the Ghetto also remained, and its gates were closed at night until the reign of the present pope, who removed the limits of the Ghetto, and revoked all the oppressive laws against the Jews. The humane feeling with which he regarded this hitherto oppressed race is said to have been first evinced,--when, on the occasion of his placing a liberal alms in the hand of a beggar, one of his attendants interposed, saying, "It is a Jew!" and the pope replied, "What does that matter, it is a man?"

"The present population of the Ghetto is estimated at 3800, a number out of all proportion, considering the small size of the Ghetto, which covers less space than the fifth part of any small town of 3000 inhabitants. The Jews are under the chief congregation of the Inquisition, and their especial magistrate for all civil and criminal processes is the Cardinal Vicar. The tribunal which governs them consists of the Cardinal Vicar, the Prelato Vicegerente, the Prelato Luogo-tenente Civile, and the Criminal Lieutenant. In police matters, the President of the Region of S. Angelo and Campitelli exercises the local police magistracy. The Jewish community has itself the right of regulating its internal order by the so-called Fattori del Ghetto, chosen every half-year. The common tribute of the Ghetto to the state, and to various religious bodies, amounts to about 13,000 francs."

Opposite the gate of the Ghetto near the Ponte Quattro Capi a converted Jew erected a church, which is still to be seen, with a painting of the Crucifixion on its outside wall (upon which every Jew must look as he comes out of the Ghetto), and underneath an inscription in large letters of Hebrew and Latin from Isaiah, lxv. 2:--"All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." The lower streets of the Ghetto, especially the Fiumara, which is nearest to the banks of the Tiber, are annually overflowed during the spring rains and melting of the mountain snows, which is productive of great misery and distress. Yet in spite of this, and of the teeming population crowded into its narrow alleys, the mortality was less here during the cholera than in any other part of Rome, and malaria is unknown here, a freedom from disease which may perhaps be attributed to the Jewish custom of whitewashing their dwellings at every festival. There is no Jewish hospital, and if the Jews go to an ordinary hospital, they must submit to a crucifix being hung over their beds. It is remarkable that the very centre of the Jewish settlement should be the Portico of Octavia, in which Vespasian and Titus celebrated their triumph after the fall of Jerusalem. Here and there in the narrow alleys the seven-branched candlestick may be seen carved on the house walls, a "yet living symbol of the Jewish religion."

Everything may be obtained in the Ghetto: precious stones, lace, furniture of all kinds, rich embroidery from Algiers and Constantinople, striped stuffs from Spain,--but all is concealed and under cover. "Cosa cercate," the Jew shopkeepers hiss at you as you thread their narrow alleys, and try to entice you into a bargain with them. The same article is often passed on by a mutual arrangement from shop to shop, and meets you wherever you go. On Friday evening all shops are shut, and bread is baked for the Sabbath, all merchandise is removed, and the men go to the synagogue, and wish each other "a good Sabbath," on their return.[96]

In the Piazza della Scuola are five schools under one roof--the Scuola del Tempio, Catilana, Castigliana, Siciliana, and the Scuola Nuova, "which show that the Roman Ghetto is divided into five districts or parishes, each of which represents a particular race, according to the prevailing nationality of the Jews, whose fathers have been either Roman-Jewish from ancient times, or have been brought hither from Spain and Sicily; the Temple-district is said above all others to assert its descent from the Jews of Titus." In the same piazza, is the chief synagogue, richly adorned with sculpture and gilding. On the external frieze are represented in stucco the seven-branched candlestick, David's harp, and Miriam's timbrel. The interior is highly picturesque and quaint, and is hung with curious tapestries on festas. The frieze which surrounds it represents the temple of Solomon with all its sacred vessels. A round window in the north wall, divided into twelve panes of coloured glass, is symbolical of the twelve tribes of Israel, and a type of the Urim and Thummim. "To the west is the round choir, a wooden desk for singers and precentors. Opposite, in the eastern wall, is the Holy of Holies, with projecting staves (as if for the carrying of the ark) resting on Corinthian columns. It is covered by a curtain, on which texts and various devices of roses and tasteful arabesques in the style of Solomon's temple are embroidered in gold. The seven-branched candlestick crowns the whole. In this Holy of Holies lies the sealed Pentateuch, a large parchment roll. This is borne in procession through the hall and exhibited from the desk towards all the points of the compass, whereat the Jews raise their arms and utter a cry."

"On entering the Ghetto, we see Israel before its tents, in full restless labour and activity. The people sit in their doorways, or outside in the streets, which receive hardly more light than the damp and gloomy chambers, and grub amid their old trumpery, or patch and sew diligently. It is inexpressible what a chaos of shreds and patches (called Cenci in Italian) is here accumulated. The whole world seems to be lying about in countless rags and scraps, as Jewish plunder. The fragments lie in heaps before the doors, they are of every kind and colour,--gold fringes, scraps of silk brocade, bits of velvet, red patches, blue patches, orange, yellow, black and white, torn, old, slashed and tattered pieces, large and small. I never saw such varied rubbish. The Jews might mend up all creation with it, and patch the whole world as gaily as harlequin's coat. There they sit and grub in their sea of rags, as though seeking for treasures, at least for a lost gold brocade. For they are as good antiquarians as any of those in Rome, who grovel amongst the ruins to bring to light the stump of a column, a fragment of a relief, an ancient inscription, a coin, or such matters. Each Hebrew Winckelmann in the Ghetto lays out his rags for sale with a certain pride, as does the dealer in marble fragments. The latter boasts a piece of giallo-antico, the Jew can match it with an excellent fragment of yellow silk; porphyry here is represented by a piece of dark red damask, verde-antico by a handsome patch of ancient green velvet. And there is neither jasper nor alabaster, black marble, or white, or parti-coloured, which the Ghetto antiquarian is not able to match. The history of every fashion from Herod the Great to the invention of paletôts, and of every mode of the highest as well as of the lower classes may be collected from these fragments, some of which are really historical, and may once have adorned the persons of Romulus, Scipio Africanus, Hannibal, Cornelia, Augustus, Charlemagne, Pericles, Cleopatra, Barbarossa, Gregory VII., Columbus, and so forth.

"Here sit the daughters of Zion on these heaps and sew all that is capable of being sewn. Great is their boasted skill in all work of mending, darning, and fine-drawing, and it is said that even the most formidable rent in any old drapery or garment whatsoever, becomes invisible under the hands of these Arachnes. It is chiefly in the Fiumara, the street lying lowest and nearest to the river, and in the street corners (one of which is called Argumille, i.e. of unleavened bread), that this business is carried on. I have often seen with a feeling of pain the pale, stooping, starving figures, laboriously plying the needle,--men as well as women, girls, and children. Misery stares forth from the tangled hair, and complains silently in the yellow-brown faces, and no beauty of feature recalls the countenance of Rachel, Leah, or Miriam,--only sometimes a glance from a deep-sunk, piercing black eye, that looks up from its needle and rags, and seems to say--'From the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed--she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity, because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest; all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger!"--Gregorovius, Wanderjahre.

The narrow street which is a continuation of the Pescheria, emerges upon the small square called Piazza della Giudecca. In the houses on the left may be seen some columns and part of an architrave, being the only visible remains of the Theatre of Balbus, erected by C. Cornelius Balbus, a general who triumphed in the time of Augustus, with the spoils taken from the Garamantes, a people of Africa. It was opened in the same year as the Theatre of Marcellus, and though very much smaller, was capable of containing as many as 11,600 spectators.

To the right, still partly on the site of the ancient theatre, and extending along one side of the Piazza delle Scuole, is the vast Palazzo Cenci, the ancient residence of the famous Cenci family (now represented by Count Cenci-Bolognetti), and the scene of many of the terrible crimes and tragedies which stain its annals.

"The Cenci Palace is of great extent: and, though in part modernized, there yet remains a vast and gloomy pile of feudal architecture in the same state as during the dreadful scenes which it once witnessed. The palace is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the quarter of the Jews, and from the upper windows you see the immense ruins of Mount Palatine, half hidden under the profuse undergrowth of trees. There is a court in one part of the palace supported by columns, and adorned with antique friezes of fine workmanship, and built up, after the Italian fashion, with balcony over balcony of open work. One of the gates of the palace, formed of immense stones, and leading through a passage dark and lofty, and opening into gloomy subterranean chambers, struck me particularly."--Shelley's Preface to "The Cenci."

Opposite the further entrance of the Palace, is the tiny Church of S. Tommaso del Cenci, founded 1113 by Cencio, bishop of Sabina; granted by Julius II. to Rocco Cenci;--and rebuilt in 1575 by the wicked Count Cenci.

"In 1585, Francesco Cenci was the head of the family, a man of passions so ungovernable and heart so depraved, that he hesitated at no species of crime. His first wife was a Princess Santa Croce, whom he is believed to have poisoned in order to marry the beautiful Lucrezia Petroni. His domestic cruelties to his children, especially to his three elder sons, Giacomo, Christoforo, and Rocco, were so terrible, that they petitioned the reigning Pope Clement VIII. to interfere in their behalf, but he abruptly dismissed them as rebels against the paternal authority; one daughter, Marguerita, alone escaped from her miserable home, being given in marriage by the pope to a Signor Gabrielli.

"The escape of this daughter made Francesco the more embittered against the remainder of his family. His youngest child, Beatrice, he immured in a solitary chamber, to which no one but himself was admitted, and where he constantly starved and beat her severely. When he received the news that his sons Christoforo and Rocco were assassinated in the neighbourhood of Rome by an unknown hand, he expressed the utmost joy, declaring that no money of his should purchase masses for the repose of their souls, and that he could have no peace until his wife and every child he had were in their graves.

"Lucrezia, believing that the monster whom she had espoused was possessed, in spite of his cruelty, by a criminal passion for his own daughter, attempted secretly to save her, by presenting a memorial to the pope imploring him to give her in marriage to a Signor Guerra, who had long been attached to her. But this petition was intercepted by Francesco, who then carried off Lucrezia and his two youngest children, Beatrice and Bernardo, to Petrella, a vast and desolate castle in the Apennines. Guerra, and Giacomo the eldest remaining brother of Beatrice, hired a band of banditti in the Sabine hills who were to attack the party on the way, and to carry off Francesco for a ransom, liberating the women;--but the rescue arrived too late.

"When they reached Petrella, Beatrice was incarcerated in a subterranean dungeon, where she was persuaded that her lover Guerra had been murdered, and was treated with such awful cruelty by her father, that, for a time, she was deprived of her reason. One day a servant, Marzio, whose betrothed had previously been seduced and murdered by Francesco, roused by the shrieks of Beatrice, burst into the room, and rushing upon his master dealt a terrible thrust with a dagger on his neck, exclaiming, 'I murder thee, assassin of thy own blood.' But Cenci arose uninjured, to the horror of Marzio, who imagined that only a demon could avert such a blow, and who was ignorant that he wore under his vestments, even in bed, a coat of mail which covered his entire body.

"At length Beatrice contrived to communicate with her brother Giacomo, who united with Guerra in hiring the services of Marzio and of Olympio, another servant, who was inspired with an equal thirst for vengeance upon Count Cenci. All felt that the death of Francesco was the only hope for his unhappy family. The assassins communicated with Lucrezia, who administered an opiate to her husband, and then stole from him some keys which enabled her after midnight to liberate Bernardo and Beatrice. The latter she found in a state of stupefaction, and vainly endeavoured to rouse her, signifying that the moment of escape had arrived. Beatrice showed no symptom of surprise at the announcement, or at the visit of her stepmother at that strange hour; she asked not how they had opened her door, or how her liberty had been acquired. When they were all assembled in the hall, Lucrezia told them the project, and asked their aid. Bernardo at first hesitated, but Lucrezia roused him by every argument she could urge and obtained his consent. Beatrice made no reply.

" ... Francesco Cenci was murdered in his sleep. Marzio placed a large nail or iron bolt on his right eye, which Olympio, with one blow of a hammer, drove straight into the brain. The deed thus accomplished, Marzio and Olympio wrapped the dead body in a sheet, and carried it to a small pavilion built at the end of a terrace-walk, overlooking an orchard. From this height they cast it down on an old gnarled elder-tree, in order that when the body should be found the next morning, it might appear that whilst walking on the terrace, the foot of the count had slipped, and that he had fallen head-foremost on one of the stunted branches of the tree, which, piercing through his eye to the brain, had caused his death. Returning to the hall, they received from Lucrezia a purse of gold; Marzio, carrying with him a valuable cloak trimmed with gold lace, turned towards Beatrice (who still stood leaning against the table), and saying, 'I shall keep this as a memorial of you,' departed with Olympio. The report of Francesco's death was not spread through the castle until the next morning. Lucrezia then rushed through the house uttering cries. In a day or two the funeral took place, and immediately after the family returned to Rome. Giacomo took possession of the Cenci palace, and Beatrice daily improved in health of body and mind.

"Soon, however, the suspicious circumstances of Count Cenci's death excited attention; the body was exhumed and examined, and the inhabitants of Petrella placed under arrest, when a washerwoman deposed to having received bloody sheets from one of the inhabitants of the castle--she thought from Beatrice--the day after the murder. On hearing this, the fear that he would turn against them, induced Signor Guerra to hire assassins to pursue Olympio, whom they despatched at Terni; but Marzio was arrested, and confessed the circumstances of the murder, though when confronted with Beatrice, he proclaimed her innocence of it, and declared her incapable of crime.

"Guerra made good his escape, but the whole Cenci family were thrown into prison and put to the torture. Giacomo, Bernardo, and Lucrezia, unable to endure the sufferings of the rack, confessed at once.

"Such, however, was not the case with the young and beautiful Beatrice. Full of spirit and courage, neither the persuasions nor threats of Moscati the judge could extort from her the smallest confession. She endured the torture of the cord with all the firmness which the purity of her heart inspired. The judge failed to extort from her lips a single word which could throw a shade over her innocence, and at length, believing it useless to pursue the torture further, he suspended the proceedings, and reported them to the pope. But Clement VIII, suspecting that the unwillingness of Moscati to believe Beatrice guilty was induced by her extreme beauty, only replied by consigning the prosecution to another judge, and Beatrice was left in the hands of Luciani, 'a man whose heart was a stranger to every feeling of humanity.' Upon her renewed protestations of innocence, he ordered the torture of the Vigilia.

"The torture of the Vigilia was as follows:--Upon a high joint-stool, the seat about a span large, and instead of being flat, cut in the form of pointed diamonds, the victim was seated: the legs were fastened together and without support; the hands bound behind the back, and with a running knot attached to a cord descending from the ceiling: the body was loosely attached to the back of the chair, cut also into angular points. A wretch stood near, pushing the victim from side to side, and now and then, by pulling the rope from the ceiling, gave the arms most painful jerks. In this horrible position the sufferer remained forty hours, the assistants being changed every fifth hour. At the expiration of this time, Beatrice was carried into the prison more dead than alive. The judge was annoyed at the account he received of the fortitude of Beatrice, and, in a rage, he exclaimed, 'Never shall it be said that a weak girl can escape from my hands, while not one of those condemned have been able to resist my power!'

"On the third day the examination was renewed, and Beatrice was condemned to the tortura capillorum. 'At a given signal, the satellites of the tribunal carried Beatrice under a rope suspended from the ceiling, and twisting into a cord her long and beautiful hair, they attached it, with diabolical art, to the rope, so that the whole body could by this means be raised from the ground. The frightful preparations over, and her protestations of innocence again disregarded, she was elevated from the ground by the hair of her head; at the same time was added another torture, consisting of a mesh of small cords twined about the fingers, twisting them nearly out of joint and dragging the hand almost from the bone of the arm. The wretched girl screamed with agony, while the judge stood by, commanding the suspended rope to be tightened, and raising the body by the hair from the ground gave it a sudden jerk, exhorting her to confess. She cried out in a convulsion for water, rolling her eyes in agony, and exclaiming, 'I am innocent.' The torture being repeated with still greater cruelty, and the fortitude of the young girl remaining unshaken, the judge, believing it impossible that a young female could resist such torments, concluded, with the superstition of the times, that she carried about with her some witchcraft; he ordered her to be examined, and finding no cause of suspicion, was about to have her hair cut off, when it was suggested the torment of the tortura capillorum could not then be renewed; her hair was again fastened to the rope, and for a whole hour she was subjected to such a succession of cruelties as the heart shrinks from narrating: but not a word escaped from her lips, that could compromise her innocence.

"In the mean time Lucrezia, Giacomo, and Bernardo were taken into the hall Erculeo, and in their presence a repetition of the torture was ordered, to so awful an extent, that she fainted and lay senseless. A new cruelty was devised--the taxilla,--her feet were bared, and to the soles was applied a block of heated wood, prepared in such a way as to retain the scorching heat; then did the unhappy girl utter piercing shrieks, and remained some minutes apparently dead. These accumulated tortures were repeated, until her relations, who were handcuffed lest they should render her any assistance, began to implore her with heart-rending tears and entreaties to yield. To this the judge mingled threats and the application of further torments, and enforced them with such rigour, that the victim shrieked in agony, and exclaimed, 'Oh! cease this martyrdom, and I will confess anything.'

"The tortures were at once suspended and restoratives applied, while her family on their knees implored Beatrice to adhere to her promise, urging that the unnatural cruelties of her father would be a just defence for the crime imputed to her, and that by agreeing to their deposition, she might give them a hope of common liberation. The unhappy girl replied, 'Be it as you wish. I am content to die if I can preserve you'--and to each interrogatory of the judge she replied, 'E vero,' until asked whether she did not urge the assassins to kill her father, and, on their refusal, propose to commit the crime herself, when she involuntarily exclaimed, 'Impossible, impossible! a tiger could not do it; how much less a daughter!' Threatened anew with the torture, she answered not, but, raising her eyes to Heaven, and moving her lips in prayer, she said, 'Oh my God, Thou knowest if this be true!' Thus did the judge force from Beatrice an assent to a deed at which her very nature revolted.

"Luciani hastened to the pope with the news that Beatrice had confessed. Clement VIII. was seized with one of those fits of anger to which he was subject, and exclaimed--'Let them all be immediately bound to the tails of wild horses, and dragged through the streets until life is extinct.' The horror evinced by all classes at this sentence induced him to grant a respite of twenty-five days, at the end of which a trial took place, and the advocate Farinacci boldly pleaded the defence of the prisoners. But while their fate was hanging in the balance, the Marchesa Santa-Croce was murdered by her own son, which caused Clement to order the immediate execution of the whole Cenci family, and the entreaties of their friends only induced him to spare the life of Bernardo, with the horrible proviso that he was to remain upon the scaffold and witness the execution of his relations.

" ... During the fearful and protracted transit to the scaffold, it was the custom of the satellites of the inquisition, at regular intervals, to tear from the body pieces of flesh with heated pincers, but in this instance the pope dispensed with this torture, but ordered that Giacomo should be beaten to death and then quartered. As the procession passed the piazza of the Palazzo Cenci, Giacomo, who had appeared resigned, became dreadfully agitated, and uttered heart-rending cries of, 'My children! my children!' The people shouted, 'Dogs, give him his children!' The procession was proceeding, when the multitude assumed such a threatening aspect, that two of the Compagnia dei Confortati thought themselves authorised to pause, the unhappy man imploring them in accents of despair, to suffer him once more to behold his children. The crowd became pacified on seeing Giacomo descend from the cart and conducted to the vestibule of his palace, where they brought to him his children and his wife. The latter fainted on the last step.

"The scene that followed was the most affecting and painful that the imagination can picture. His three children clung around his legs, uttering cries that rent the hearts of all present The unhappy man embraced them, telling them that in Bernardo they would find a father; then, fixing his eyes on his unconscious wife, he said, 'Let us go!' Reascending the cart, the procession stopped before the prison of the Corte Savella.

"Here Beatrice and Lucrezia appeared before the gates, conducted by the Confortati. They knelt down and prayed for some time before the crucifix, and then walked on foot behind the carriage. Lucrezia wore a robe of black, and a long black veil covered her head and shoulders; Beatrice in a dark robe and veil, a handkerchief of cloth of silver on her head, and slippers of white velvet, ornamented with crimson sandals and rosettes, followed.... Twice during the passage, an attempt was made to rescue Beatrice, but each failed, and she reached the chapel, where all the condemned were to receive the blessing of the Sacrament before execution.

"The first brought out to ascend the scaffold was Bernardo, who, according to the conditions of his reprieve, was to witness the death of his relatives. The poor boy, before he had reached the summit, fell down in a swoon, and was obliged to be supported to his seat of torture. Preceded by the standard and the brethren of the Misericordia, the executioner next entered the chapel to convey Lucrezia. Binding her hands behind her back, and removing the veil that covered her head and shoulders, he led her to the foot of the scaffold. Here she stopped, prayed devoutly, kissed the crucifix, and taking off her shoes, mounted the ladder barefoot. From confusion and terror, she with difficulty ascended, crying out, 'Oh, my God! oh, holy brethren, pray for my soul, oh, God, pardon me!' The principal executioner beckoned to her to place herself on the block; the unhappy woman, from her unwieldy figure, being unable to do so, some violence was used, the executioner raised his axe, and with one stroke severed the head from the body! Catching it by the hair, he exposed it, still quivering, to the gaze of the populace; then wrapping it in the veil, he laid it on a bier in the corner of the scaffold, the body falling into a coffin placed underneath. The violence used towards the sufferer had so excited the multitude, that a universal uproar commenced. Forty young men rushed forward to the chapel to rescue Beatrice, but were again defeated, after a short struggle....

"Meanwhile Beatrice, kneeling in the chapel absorbed in prayer, heeded not the uproar that surrounded her. She rose, as the standard appeared to precede her to the block, and with eagerness demanded, 'Is my mother then really dead?'--Answered in the affirmative, she prayed with fervour; then raising her voice, she said, 'Lord, thou hast called me, and I obey the summons willingly, as I hope for mercy!' Approaching her brother, she bade him farewell, and with a smile of love, said, 'Grieve not for me. We shall be happy in heaven, I have forgiven thee.' Giacomo fainted; his sister, turning round, said, 'Let us proceed!' The executioner appeared with a cord, but seemed afraid to fasten it round her body. She saw this, and with a sad smile said, 'Bind this body; but hasten to release the soul, which pants for immortality!'

"Scarcely had the victim arrived at the foot of the scaffold, when the square, filled with that vast multitude before so uproarious, suddenly assumed the silence of a desert. Each one bent forward to hear her speak; with every eye riveted on her, and lips apart, it seemed as if their very existence depended on any words she might utter. Beatrice ascended the stairs with a slow but firm step. In a moment she placed herself on the block, which had caused so much fear to Lucrezia. She did not allow the executioner to remove the veil, but laid it herself upon the table. In this dreadful situation she remained a few minutes, a universal cry of horror staying the arm of the executioner. But soon the head of his victim was held up separated from the trunk, which was violently agitated for a few seconds. The miserable Bernardo Cenci, forced to witness the fate of his sister, again swooned away; nor could he be restored to his senses for more than half an hour.

"Meanwhile the scaffold was made ready for the dreadful punishment destined for Giacomo. Having performed some religious ceremonies, he appeared dressed in a cloak and cap. Turning towards the people, he said in a clear voice, 'Although in the agonies of torture I accused my sister and brother of sharing in the crime for which I suffer, I accused them falsely. Now that I am about to render an account of my actions to God, I solemnly assert their entire innocence. Farewell, my friends. Oh, pray to God for me.'

"Saying these words, he knelt down; the executioner bound his legs to the block and bandaged his eyes. To particularise the details of this execution would be too dreadful; suffice it to say, he was beaten, beheaded, and quartered in the sight of that vast multitude, and by the side of a brother, who was sprinkled with his blood. All was now over.

"..... Near the statue of St. Paul, according to custom, were placed three biers, each with four lighted torches. In these were laid the bodies of the victims. A crown of flowers had been placed around the head of Beatrice, who seemed as though in sleep, so calm, so peaceful was that placid face, while a smile such as she wore in life still hovered on her lips. Many a tear was shed over that bier, many a flower was scattered around her, whose fate all mourned--whose innocence none questioned.

"On that night the bodies were interred. The corpse of Beatrice, clad in the dress she wore on the scaffold, was borne, covered with garlands of flowers, to the church of San Pietro in Montorio; and buried at the foot of the high altar, before Raffaelle's celebrated picture of the Transfiguration."[97]

Retracing our steps to the Piazza della Giudecca and turning left down a narrow alley, which is always busy with Jewish traffic, we reach the Piazza delle Tartarughe, so called from the tortoises which form part of the adornments of its lovely little fountain,--designed by Giacomo della Porta, the four figures of boys being by Taddeo Landini.

At this point we leave the Ghetto.

* * * * *

Forming one side of the Piazza delle Tartarughe is the Palazzo Costaguti, celebrated for its six splendid ceilings by great artists, viz.:--

1. Albani: Hercules wounding the Centaur Nessus. 2. Domenichino: Apollo in his car, Time discovering truth, &c., much injured. 3. Guercino: Rinaldo and Armida in a chariot drawn by dragons. 4. Cav. d'Arpino: Juno nursing Hercules, Venus and Cupids. 5. Lanfranco: Justice and Peace. 6. Romanelli: Arion saved by the dolphin.

In a corner of the piazza, is a well-known Lace-Shop, much frequented by English ladies, but great powers of bargaining are called for. Almost immediately behind this is one of the most picturesque mediæval courtyards in the city.

On the same line, at the end of the street, is the Palazzo Mattei, built by Carlo Maderno (1615) for Duke Asdrubal Mattei, on the site of the Circus of Flaminius. The small courtyard of this palace is well worth examining, and is one of the handsomest in Rome, being quite encrusted, as well as the staircase, with ancient bas-reliefs, busts, and other sculptures. It contained a gallery of pictures, the greater part of which have been dispersed. The rooms have frescoes by Pomerancio, Lanfranco, Pietro da Cortona, Domenichino, and Albani.

Behind this, facing the Via delle Botteghe Oscure, is the vast Palazzo Caëtani, now inhabited by the learned Don Michael-Angelo Caëtani (Duke of Sermoneta and Prince of Teano), whose family is one of the most distinguished in the mediæval history of Rome, and which gave Boniface VIII. to the church:

"Lo principe de' nuovi farisei."

Dante, Inferno, xxvii.

It claims descent from Anatolius, created Count of Gaieta by Pope Gregory II. in 730.

Close to the Palazzo Mattei is the Church of Sta. Caterina de' Funari, built by Giacomo della Porta, in 1563, adjoining a convent of Augustinian nuns. The streets in this quarter are interesting as bearing witness in their names to the existence of the Circus Flaminius, the especial circus of the plebs, which once occupied all the ground near this. The Via delle Botteghe Oscure, commemorates the dark shops which in mediæval times occupied the lower part of the circus, as they do now that of the Theatre of Marcellus. The Via dei Funari, the ropemakers who took advantage for their work of the light and open space which the interior of the deserted circus afforded. The remains of the circus existed to the sixteenth century.

Near this, turning right, is the Piazza di Campitelli, which contains the Church of S. Maria in Campitelli, built by Rinaldi for Alexander VII. in 1659, upon the site of an oratory erected by Sta. Galla in the time of John I. (523-6), in honour of an image of the Virgin, which one day miraculously appeared imploring her charity, in company with the twelve poor women to whom she was daily in the habit of giving alms. The oratory of Sta. Galla was called Sta. Maria in Portico, from the neighbouring portico of Octavia, a name which is sometimes applied to the present church. The miraculous mendicant image is now enshrined in gold and lapis-lazuli over the high altar. Other relics supposed to be preserved here are the bodies of Sta. Cyrica, Sta. Victoria, and Sta. Vincenza, and half that of Sta. Barbara! The second chapel on the right has a picture of the Descent of the Holy Ghost by Luca Giordano; in the first chapel on the left is the tomb of Prince Altieri, inscribed "Umbra," and that of his wife, Donna Laura di Carpegna, inscribed "Nihil;" they rest on lions of rosso-antico. In the right transept is the tomb, by Pettrich, of Cardinal Pacca, who lived in the Palazzo Pacca, on the opposite side of the square, and was the faithful friend of Pius VII. in his exile. The bas-relief on the tomb, of St. Peter delivered by the angel, is in allusion to the deliverance from the French captivity.

The name Campitelli is probably derived from Campusteli, because in this neighbourhood (see Ch. XIV.) was the Columna Bellica, from which when war was declared a dart was thrown into a plot of ground, representing the hostile territory,--perhaps the very site of this church.

In the street behind this, leading into the Via di Ara Cœli, are the remains of the ancient Palazzo Margana, with a very richly-sculptured gateway of c. 1350.

Opening from hence upon the left is the Via Tor de' Specchi, whose name commemorates the legend of Virgil as a necromancer, and of his magic tower lined with mirrors, in which all the secrets of the city were reflected and brought to light.

Here is the famous Convent of the Tor de' Specchi, founded by Sta. Francesca Romana, and open to the public during the octave of the anniversary of her death (following the 9th of March). At this time the pavements are strewn with box, the halls and galleries are bright with fresh flowers, and Swiss guards are posted at the different turnings, to facilitate the circulation of visitors. It is a beautiful specimen of a Roman convent. The first hall is painted with ancient frescoes, representing scenes in the life of the saint. Here, on a table, is the large bowl in which Sta. Francesca prepared ointment for the poor. Other relics are her veil, shoes, &c. Passing a number of open cloisters, cheerful with flowers and orange-trees, we reach the chapel, where sermons or rather lectures are delivered at the anniversary upon the story of Sta. Francesca's life, and where her embalmed body may be seen beneath the altar. A staircase seldom seen, but especially used by Francesca, is only ascended by the nuns upon their knees. It leads to her cell and a small chapel, black with age, and preserved as when she used them. The picturesque dress of the Oblate sisters who are everywhere visible, adds to the interest of the scene.

"It is no gloomy abode, the Convent of the Tor di Specchi, even in the eyes of those who cannot understand the happiness of a nun. It is such a place as one loves to see children in; where religion is combined with everything that pleases the eye and recreates the mind. The beautiful chapel; the garden with its magnificent orange-trees; the open galleries, with their fanciful decorations and scenic recesses, where a holy picture or figure takes you by surprise, and meets you at every turn; the light airy rooms, where religious prints and ornaments, with flowers, birds, and ingenious toys, testify that innocent enjoyments are encouraged and smiled upon; while from every window may be caught a glimpse of the Eternal City, a spire, a ruined wall,--something that speaks of Rome and its thousand charms.

"It was on the 21st of March, the festival of St. Benedict, that Francesca herself entered the convent, not as the foundress, but as a humble suppliant for admission. At the foot of the stairs, having taken off her customary black gown, her veil, and her shoes, and placed a cord around her neck, she knelt down, kissed the ground, and, shedding an abundance of tears, made her general confession aloud in the presence of all the Oblates; she described herself as a miserable sinner, a grievous offender against God, and asked permission to dwell amongst them as the meanest of their servants; and to learn from them to amend her life, and enter upon a holier course. The spiritual daughters of Francesca hastened to raise and embrace her; and clothing her with their habit, they led the way to the chapel, where they all returned thanks to God. While she remained there in prayer, Agnese de Lellis, the superioress, assembled the sisters in the chapter-room, and declared to them, that now their true mother and foundress had come amongst them, it would be absurd for her to remain in her present office; that Francesca was their guide, their head, and that into her hands she should instantly resign her authority. They all applauded her decision, and gathering around the Saint, announced to her their wishes. As was to be expected, Francesca strenuously refused to accede to this proposal, and pleaded her inability for the duties of a superioress. The Oblates had recourse to Don Giovanni, the confessor of Francesca, who began by entreating, and finally commanded her acceptance of the charge. His order she never resisted; and accordingly, on the 25th of March, she was duly elected to that office."--Lady Georgina Fullerton's Life of Sta. Francesca Romana.

"Sta. Francesca Romana is represented in the dress of a Benedictine nun, a black robe and a white hood or veil; and her proper attribute is an angel, who holds in his hand the book of the Office of the Virgin, open at the words, 'Tenuisti manum dexteram meam, et in voluntate tua deduxisti me, et cum gloria suscepisti me' (Ps. lxxiii. 23, 24); which attribute is derived from an incident thus narrated in the acts of her canonisation. Though unwearied in her devotions, yet if, during her prayers, she was called away by her husband on any domestic duty, she would close her book, saying that 'a wife and a mother, when called upon, must quit her God at the altar, and find him in her household affairs.' Now it happened once, that, in reciting the Office of Our Lady, she was called away four times just as she was beginning the same verse, and, returning the fifth time, she found that verse written upon the page in letters of golden light by the hand of her guardian angel."--Jameson's Sacred Art, p. 151.

Almost opposite the convent is the Via del Monte Tarpeio, a narrow alley, leading up to the foot of the Tarpeian rock, beneath the Palazzo Caffarelli, and one of the points at which the rock is best seen. This spot is believed to have been the site of the house of Spurius Mælius, who tried to ingratiate himself with the people, by buying up corn and distributing it in a year of scarcity (B.C. 440), but who was in consequence put to death by the patricians. His house was razed to the ground, and its site, being always kept vacant, went by the name of Æquimælium.[98]

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VI. THE PALATINE

The Story of the Hill--Orti Farnesiani--The Via Nova--Roma Quadrata--The Houses of the early Kings--Temple of Jupiter Stator--Palace of Augustus--Palace of Vespasian--Crypto-Porticus--Temple of Jupiter-Victor--The Lupercal and the Hut of Faustulus--Palace of Tiberius--Palace of Caligula--Clivus Victoriæ--Ruins of the Kingly Period--Altar of the Genius Loci--House of Hortensius--Septizonium of Severus--Palace of Domitian.

"The Palatine formed a trapezium of solid rock, two sides of which were about 300 yards in length, the others about 400: the area of its summit, to compare it with a familiar object, was nearly equal to the space between Pall-Mall and Piccadilly in London."[99]

The history of the Palatine is the history of the City of Rome. Here was the Roma Quadrata, the "oppidum," or fortress of the Pelasgi, of which the only remaining trace is the name Roma, signifying force. This is the fortress where the shepherd-king Evander is represented by Virgil as welcoming Æneas.

The Pelasgic fortress was enclosed by Romulus within the limits of this new city, which, "after the Etruscan fashion, he traced round the foot of the hill with a plough drawn by a bull and a heifer, the furrow being carefully made to fall inwards, and the heifer yoked to the near-side, to signify that strength and courage were required without, obedience and fertility within the city.... The locality thus enclosed was reserved for the temples of the gods and the residence of the ruling class, the class of patricians or burghers, as Niebuhr has taught us to entitle them, which predominated over the dependent commons, and only suffered them to crouch for security under the walls of Romulus. The Palatine was never occupied by the plebs. In the last age of the republic, long after the removal of this partition, or of the civil distinction between the great classes of the state, here was still the chosen site of the mansions of the highest nobility."[100]

In the time of the early kings the City of Rome was represented by the Palatine only. It was at first divided into two parts, one inhabited, and the other called Velia, and left for the grazing of cattle. It had two gates, the Porta Romana to the north, and the Porta Mugonia--so called from the lowing of the cattle--to the south, on the side of the Velia.

Augustus was born on the Palatine, and dwelt there in common with other patrician citizens in his youth. After he became emperor he still lived there, but simply, and in the house of Hortensius, till, on its destruction by fire, the people of Rome insisted upon building him a palace more worthy of their ruler. This building was the foundation-stone of "the Palace of the Cæsars," which in time overran the whole hill, and, under Nero, two of the neighbouring hills besides, and whose ruins are daily being disinterred and recognised, though much confusion still remains regarding their respective sites. In A.D. 663, part of the palace remained sufficiently perfect to be inhabited by the Emperor Constans, and its plan is believed to have been entire for a century after, but it never really recovered its sack by Genseric in A.D. 455, in which it was completely gutted, even of the commonest furniture; and as years passed on it became imbedded in the soil which has so marvellously enshrouded all the ancient buildings of Rome, so that till within the last ten years, only a few broken nameless walls were visible above ground.

"Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd On what were chambers, arch crush'd, columns strown In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steep'd In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd, Deeming it midnight:--Temples, baths, or halls? Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd From her research has been, that these are walls.-- Behold the Imperial Mount! 'Tis thus the mighty falls."

Byron, Childe Harold.

How different is this description to that of Claudian (de Sexto Consulat. Honorii).

"The Palatine, proud Rome's imperial seat, (An awful pile) stands venerably great: Thither the kingdoms and the nations come, In supplicating crowds to learn their doom: To Delphi less th' inquiring worlds repair, Nor does a greater god inhabit there: This sure the pompous mansion was design'd To please the mighty rulers of mankind; Inferior temples rise on either hand, And on the borders of the palace stand, While o'er the rest her head she proudly rears, And lodged amidst her guardian gods appears."

Addison's Translation.

After the middle of the sixteenth century a great part of the Palatine became the property of the Farnese family, latterly represented by the Neapolitan Bourbons, who sold the "Orti Farnesiani," in 1861, to the Emperor Napoleon III., for £10,000. Up to that time this part of the Palatine was a vast kitchen-garden, broken here and there by picturesque groups of ilex trees and fragments of mouldering wall. In one corner was a casino of the Farnese (still standing) adorned in fresco by some of the pupils of Raphael. This and all the later buildings in the "Orti," are marked with the Farnese fleur-de-lis, and on the principal staircase of the garden is some really grand distemper ornament of their time. Since 1861 extensive excavations have been carried on here under the superintendence of Signor Rosa, which have resulted in the discovery of the palaces of some of the earlier emperors, and the substructions of several temples. After the revolution of 1870 the French portion of the Palatine was sold by the Ex-Emperor Napoleon to the Roman municipal government.

In visiting the Palace of the Cæsars, it will naturally be asked how it is known that the different buildings are what they are described to be. In a great measure this has been ascertained from the descriptions of Tacitus and other historians,--but the greatest assistance of all has been obtained from the Tristia of Ovid, who, while in exile, consoles himself by recalling the different buildings of his native city, which he mentions in describing the route taken by his book, which he had persuaded a friend to convey to the imperial library. He supposes the book to enter the Palatine by the Clivus Victoriæ behind the Temple of Vesta, and follows its course, remarking the different objects it passed on the right or the left.

* * * * *

If we enter the palace by the Farnese gateway, on the right of the Campo-Vaccino, opposite SS. Cosmo e Damiano, we had better only ascend the first division of the staircase and then turn to the left. Passing along the lower ridge of the Palatine, afterwards occupied by many of the great patrician houses, whose sites we shall return to and examine in detail, we reach that corner of the garden which is nearest to the Arch of Titus. Here a paved road of large blocks of lava has lately been laid bare, and is identified beyond a doubt as part of the Via Nova, which led from the Porta Mugonia of the Palatine along the base of the hill to the Velabrum. In the reign of Augustus it appears to have been made to communicate also with the Forum.

"Qua Nova Romano nunc Via juncta Foro est."

Ovid, Fast. vi. 396.

At this point the road was called Summa Via Nova.

Near this spot must have been the site of the house where Octavius lived with his wife Afra, the niece of Julius Cæsar (daughter of his eldest sister Julia), and where their son, Octavius, afterwards the Emperor Augustus, was born. This house afterwards passed into the possession of C. Lætorius, a patrician; but after the death of Augustus, part of it was turned into a chapel, and consecrated to him. It was situated at the top of a staircase--"supra scalas annularias"[101]--which probably led to the Forum, and is spoken of as "ad capita bubula," perhaps from bulls' heads, with which it may have been decorated.

Here we find ourselves, owing to the excavations, in a deep hollow between the two divisions of the hill. On the left is the Velia, upon which, near the Porta Mugonia, the Sabine king, Ancus Martius, had his palace. When Ancus died, he was succeeded by an Etruscan stranger, Lucius Tarquinius, who took the name of Tarquinius Priscus. This king also lived upon the Velia,[102] with Tanaquil his queen, and here he was murdered in a popular rising, caused by the sons of his predecessor. Here his brave wife Tanaquil closed the doors, concealed the death of the king, harangued the people from the windows,[103] and so gained time till Servius Tullius was prepared to take the dead king's place and avenge his murder.[104]

Keeping to the valley, on our right are now some huge blocks of tufa, of great interest as part of the ancient Roma Quadrata, anterior to Romulus. Beyond this, also on the right, are foundations of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, built by Romulus, who vowed that he would found a temple to Jupiter under that name, if he would arrest the flight of his Roman followers in their conflict with the superior forces of the Sabines.[105]

"Inde petens dextram, porta est, ait, ista Palati; Hic Stator, hoc primum condita Roma loco est."

Ovid, Trist. iii. El. I.

"Tempus idem Stator ædis habet, quam Romulus olim Ante Palatini condidit ora jugi."

Ovid, Fast. vi. 793.

The temple of Jupiter Stator has an especial interest from its connection with the story of Cicero and Catiline.

"Cicéron rassembla le sénat dans le temple de Jupiter Stator. Le choix du lieu s'explique facilement; ce temple était près de la principale entrée du Palatin sur le Vélia, dominant, en cas d'émeute, le Forum, que Cicéron et les principaux sénateurs habitants du Palatin n'avaient pas à traverser comme s'il eût fallu se rendre à la Curie. D'ailleurs Jupiter Stator, qui avait arrêté les Sabines à la porte de Romulus, arrêterait ces nouveaux ennemis qui voulaient sa ruine. Là Cicéron prononça la première Catilinaire. Ce discours dut être en grande partie improvisé, car les événements aussi improvisaient. Cicéron ne savait si Catilina oserait se présenter devant le sénat; en le voyant entrer, il conçut son fameux exorde: 'Jusqu'à quand, Catilina, abuseras-tu de notre patience!'

"Malgré la garde volontaire de chevaliers qui avait accompagné Cicéron et qui se tenait à la porte du temple, Catilina y entra et salua tranquillement l'assemblée; nul ne lui rendit son salut, à son approche on s'écarta et les places restèrent vides autour de lui. Il écouta les foudroyantes apostrophes de Cicéron, qui, après l'avoir accablé des preuves de son crime, se bornait à lui dire: 'Sors de Rome. Va-t-en!'

"Catilina se leva et d'un air modeste pria le sénat de ne pas croire le consul avant qu'une enquête eût été faite. 'II n'est pas vraisemblable, ajouta-t-il, avec une hauteur toute aristocratique, qu'un patricien, lequel, aussi bien que ses ancêtres, a rendu quelques services à la république, ne puisse exister que par sa ruine, et qu'on ait besoin d'un étranger d'Arpinum pour la sauver.' Tant d'orgueil et d'impudence révoltèrent l'assemblée; on cria à Catilina: 'Tu es un ennemi de la patrie, un meurtrier.' Il sortit, réunit encore ses amis, leur recommanda de se débarasser de Cicéron, prit avec lui un aigle d'argent qui avait appartenu à une légion de Marius, et à minuit quitta Rome et partit par la voie Aurélia pour aller rejoindre son armée."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iv. 445.

Nearly opposite the foundations of Jupiter Stator, on the left,--are some remains considered to be those of the Porta Palatii.

The valley is now blocked by a vast mass of building which entirely closes it. This is the palace of Augustus, built in the valley between the Velia and the other eminence of the Palatine, which Rosa, contrary to other opinions, identifies with the Germale. The division of the Palatine thus named, was reckoned as one of "the seven hills" of ancient Rome. Its name was thought to be derived from Germani, owing to Romulus and Remus being found in its vicinity.[106]

The Palace of Augustus was begun soon after the battle of Actium, and gradually increased in size, till the whole valley was blocked up by it, and its roofs became level with the hill-sides. Part of the ground which it covered had previously been occupied by the villa of Catiline.[107] Here Suetonius says that Augustus occupied the same bed-room for forty years. Before the entrance of the palace it was ordained by the Senate, B.C. 26, that two bay-trees should be planted, in remembrance of the citizens he had preserved, while an oak wreath was placed above the gate in commemoration of his victories.

"Singula dum miror, video fulgentibus armis Conspicuos postes, tectaque digna deo. An Jovis hæc, dixi, domus est? Quod ut esse putarem, Augurium menti querna corona dabat. Cujus ut accepi dominum, non fallimur, inquam: Et magni rerum est hanc Jovis esse domum. Cur tamen apposita velatur janua lauro? Cingit et Augustas arbor opaca fores?"

Ovid, Trist. i. 33.

"State Palatinæ laurus; prætextaque quercu Stet domus; æternos tres habet una deos."

Fast. iv. 953.

It was before the gate of this palace that Augustus upon one day in every year sate as a beggar, receiving alms from the passers-by, in obedience to a vision that he should thus appease Nemesis.

Upon the top of this building of Augustus, Vespasian built his palace in A.D. 70, not only using the walls of the older palace as a support for his own, but filling the chambers of the earlier building entirely up with earth, so that they became a solid massive foundation. The ruins which we visit are thus for the most part those of the palace of Vespasian, but from one of its halls we can descend into rooms underneath excavated from the palace of Augustus. The three projecting rostra which we now see in front of the palace are restorations by Signor Rosa.

The palace on the Palatine was not the place where the emperors generally lived. They resided at their villas, and came into the town to the Palace of the Cæsars for the transaction of public business. Thus this palace was, as it were, the St. James's of Rome. The fatigue and annoyance of a public arrival every morning, amid the crowd of clients who always waited upon the imperial footsteps, was naturally very great, and to obviate this the emperors made use of a subterranean passage which ran round the whole building, and by which they were enabled to arrive unobserved, and not to present themselves in public till their appearance upon the rostra in front of the building to receive the morning salutations of their people.

If we ascend a winding path to the right, to the garden which now covers the greater part of the hill Germale, we shall find a staircase which descends on the left to join this passage, following which, we will ascend, with the emperor, into his palace.

The passage, called Crypto-Porticus, is still quite perfect, and retains a great part of its mosaic pavements and much of its inlaid ceilings, from which the gilt mosaic has been picked out, but the pattern is still traceable. The passage was lighted from above. It was by this route that St. Laurence was led up for trial in the basilica, of the palace. Turning to the left, we again emerge upon the upper level.

The emperor here reached the palace, but as he did not yet wish to appear in public, he turned to the left by the private passage called Fauces, which still remains, running behind the main halls of the building. Here he was received by the different members of the imperial family, much as Napoleon III. was received by Princesses Mathilde, Clotilde, and the Murats, in a private apartment at the Tuileries, before entering the ball-room. Hence, passing across the end of the basilica, the emperor reached the portico in front of the palace, looking down upon the hollow space where were the Temple of Jupiter Stator and the other buildings connected with the early history of the Roman state. Here the whole Court received him and escorted him to the central rostra, where he had his public reception from the people assembled below, and whence perhaps he addressed to them a few words of morning salutation in return. The attendants meanwhile defiled on either side to the lower terraced elevation, which still remains.

This ceremony being gone through, the emperor returned as he came, to the basilica, for the transaction of business.

The name Basilica means "King's House." It was the ancient Law Court. It usually had a portico, was oblong in form, and ended in an apse for ornament. The Christians adopted it for their places of worship because it was the largest type of building then known. They also adopted the names of the different parts of the pagan basilica, as the Confessional, from the Confession, the bar of justice at which the criminal was placed,--the Tribune, from the Tribunal of the Judge, &c. A chapel and sacristy added on either side produced the form of the cross. The Basilica here is of great width. A leg of the emperor's chair actually remains in situ upon the tribunal, and part of the richly wrought bar of the Confession still exists. This was the bar at which St. Laurence and many other Christian martyrs were judged. The basilica in the palace of the Cæsars was also the scene of the trial of Valerius Asiaticus in the time of Claudius (see Chap. II.), when the Empress Messalina, who was seated near the emperor upon the tribunal, was so overcome by the touching eloquence of the innocent man, that she was obliged to leave the hall to conceal her emotion,--but characteristically whispered as she went out, that the accused must nevertheless on no account be suffered to escape with his life,[108]--that she might take possession of his Pincian Garden, which was as Naboth's Vineyard in her eyes. An account is extant which describes how it was necessary to increase the width of the seat upon the tribunal at this period, in consequence of a change in the fashion of dress among the Roman ladies.

This basilica, though perhaps not then itself in existence, will always have peculiar interest as showing the form and character of that earlier basilica in the Palace of the Cæsars, in which St. Paul was tried before Nero. But it is quite possible that it may be the same actual basilica itself,--and that the palace of Nero which overran the whole of the hill, may have had its basilica on this site, where it was preserved by Vespasian in his later and more contracted palace.

"The appeals from the provinces in civil causes were heard, not by the emperor himself, but by his delegates, who were persons of consular rank: Augustus had appointed one such delegate to hear appeals from each province respectively. But criminal appeals appear generally to have been heard by the emperor in person, assisted by his council of assessors. Tiberius and Claudius had usually sat for this purpose in the Forum; but Nero, after the example of Augustus, heard these causes in the imperial palace, whose ruins still crown the Palatine. Here, at one end of a splendid hall,[109] lined with the precious marbles of Egypt and of Libya, we must imagine Cæsar seated in the midst of his assessors. These councillors, twenty in number, were men of the highest rank and greatest influence. Among them were the two consuls and selected representatives of each of the other great magistracies of Rome. The remainder consisted of senators chosen by lot. Over this distinguished bench of judges presided the representatives of the most powerful monarchy which has ever existed,--the absolute ruler of the whole civilised world.

"Before the tribunal of the blood-stained adulterer Nero, Paul was brought in fetters, under the custody of his military guard. The prosecutors and their witnesses were called forward, to support their accusation; for although the subject-matter for decision was contained in the written depositions forwarded from Judæa by Festus, yet the Roman law required the personal presence of the accusers and the witnesses, whenever it could be obtained. We already know the charges brought against the Apostle. He was accused of disturbing the Jews in the exercise of their worship, which was secured to them by law; of desecrating their Temple; and, above all, of violating the public peace of the empire by perpetual agitation, as the ringleader of a new and factious sect. This charge was the most serious in the view of a Roman statesman; for the crime alleged amounted to majestas, or treason against the commonwealth, and was punishable with death.

"These accusations were supported by the emissaries of the Sanhedrim, and probably by the testimony of witnesses from Judæa, Ephesus, Corinth, and the other scenes of Paul's activity.... When the parties on both sides had been heard, and the witnesses all examined, the judgment of the court was taken. Each of the assessors gave his opinion in writing to the emperor, who never discussed the judgment with his assessors, as had been the practice of better emperors, but after reading their opinion, gave sentence according to his own pleasure, without reference to the judgment of the majority. On this occasion it might have been expected that he would have pronounced the condemnation of the accused, for the influence of Poppæa had now reached its culminating point, and she was a Jewish proselyte. We can scarcely doubt that the emissaries from Palestine would have demanded her aid for the destruction of a traitor to the Jewish faith; nor would any scruples have prevented her listening to their request, backed as it probably was, according to Roman usage, by a bribe. However this may be, the trial resulted in the acquittal of St. Paul. He was pronounced guiltless of the charges brought against him, his fetters were struck off, and he was liberated from his long captivity."--Conybeare and Howson.

Beyond the basilica is the Tablinum, the great hall of the palace, which served as a kind of commemorative domestic museum, where family statues and pictures were preserved. This vast room was lighted from above, on the plan which may still be seen at Sta. Maria degli Angeli, which was in fact a great hall of a Roman house. The roof of this hall was one vast arch, unsupported except by the side walls. We have record of a period when these walls were supposed insufficient for the great weight, and had to be strengthened, in interesting confirmation of which we can still see how the second wall was added and united to the first.

Appropriately opening from the family picture gallery of the Tablinum, was the Lararium, a private chapel for the worship of such members of the family--Livia and many others--as were deified after death. An altar, on the original site, has been erected here by Signor Rosa, from bits which have been found.

Hitherto the chambers which we have visited were open to the public; beyond this, none but his immediate family and attendants could follow the emperor. We now enter the Peristyle, a courtyard, which was open to the sky, but surrounded with arcades ornamented with statues, where we may imagine that the empresses amused themselves with their birds and flowers. Hence, by a narrow staircase, we can descend into what is perhaps the most interesting portion of the whole, the one unearthed fragment of the actual Palace of Augustus, which still retains remains of gilding and fresco, and an artistic group in stucco. An original window remains, and it will be recollected on looking at it, that when this was built it was not subterranean, but merely in the hollow of the valley, afterwards filled up. In these actual rooms may have lived Livia, who in turn inhabited three houses on the Palatine, first that of her first husband Nero Drusus, whom Augustus compelled her to divorce; then the imperial house of Augustus; and lastly that of Tiberius, the son by her first husband, whom she was the means of raising to the throne.

We now reach the Triclinium or dining-room, surrounded by a skirting of pavonazzetto with a cornice of giallo. Tacitus describes a scene in the imperial triclinium, in which the Emperor Tiberius is represented as reclining at dinner, having on one side his aged mother, the Empress Livia, and on the other his niece Agrippina, widow of Germanicus and granddaughter of the great Augustus.[110] It was while the imperial family were seated at a banquet in the triclinium, in the time of Nero, that his young step-brother Britannicus (son of Claudius and Messalina) swallowed the cup of poison which the emperor had caused Locusta to prepare and sank back dead upon his couch, his wretched sisters Antonia and Octavia, also seated at the ghastly feast, not daring to give expression to their grief and horror,--and Nero merely desiring the attendants to carry the boy out, and saying that it was a fit to which he was subject.[111] Here it was that Marcia the concubine presented the cup of drugged wine to the wicked Commodus, on his return from a wild beast hunt, and produced the heavy slumber during which he was strangled by the wrestler Narcissus. In this very room also his successor Pertinax, who had spent his short reign of three months in trying to reform the State, resuscitate the finances, and to heal, as far as possible, 'the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny,' received the news that the guard, impatient of unwonted discipline, had risen against him, and going forth to meet his assassins, fell, covered with wounds, just in front of the palace.[112]

Vitruvius says that every well-arranged Roman house has a dining-room opening into a nymphæum, and accordingly here, on the right, is a Nymphæum, with a beautiful fountain surrounded by miniature niches, once filled with bronzes and statues. Water was conveyed hither by the Neronian aqueduct. The pavement of this room was of oriental alabaster, of which fragments remain.

Beyond the Triclinium is a disgusting memorial of Roman imperial life, in the Vomitorium, with its bason, whither the feasters retired to tickle their throats with feathers, and come back with renewed appetite to the banquet.

We now reach the portico which closed the principal apartments of the palace on the south-west. Some of its Corinthian pillars have been re-erected on the sites where they were found. From hence we can look down upon some grand walls of republican times, formed of huge tufa blocks.

Passing a space of ground, called, without much authority, Bibliotheca, we reach a small Theatre on the edge of the hill, interesting as described by Pliny, and because the Emperor Vespasian, who is known to have been especially fond of reciting his own compositions, probably did so here. Hence we may look down upon the valley between the Palatine and Aventine, where the rape of the Sabines took place, and upon the site of the Circus Maximus. From hence, we may imagine, that the later emperors surveyed the hunts and games in that circus, when they did not care to descend into the amphitheatre itself.

Beyond this, on the right, is (partially restored) the grand staircase leading to the platform once occupied by the Temple of Jupiter-Victor, vowed by Fabius Maximus during the Samnite war, in the assurance that he would gain the victory. On the steps is a sacrificial altar, which retains its grooves for the blood of the victims, with an inscription stating that it was erected by "Cnæus Domitius C. Calvinus, Pontifex,"--who was a general under Julius Cæsar, and consul B.C. 53 and B.C. 40.

Now, for some distance, there are no remains, because this space was always kept clear, for here, constantly renewed, stood the Hut of Faustulus and the Sacred Fig-tree.

"The old Roman legend ran as follows:--Procas, king of Alba, left two sons. Numitor, the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Amulius to wrest the government from him, and reduce him to his father's private estates. In the enjoyment of these he lived rich, and, as he desired nothing more, secure: but the usurper dreaded the claims that might be set up by heirs of a different character. He had Numitor's son murdered, and appointed his daughter, Silvia, one of the Vestal virgins.

"Amulius had no children, or at least only one daughter: so that the race of Anchises and Aphrodite seemed on the point of expiring, when the love of a god prolonged it, in spite of the ordinances of man, and gave it a lustre worthy of its origin. Silvia had gone into the sacred grove, to draw water from the spring for the service of the temple. The sun quenched its rays: the sight of a wolf made her fly into a cave: there Mars overpowered the timid virgin, and then consoled her with the promise of noble children, as Posidon consoled Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus. But he did not protect her from the tyrant; nor could the protestations of her innocence save her. Vesta herself seemed to demand the condemnation of the unfortunate priestess; for at the moment when she was delivered of twins, the image of the goddess hid its eyes, her altar trembled, and her fire died away. Amulius ordered that the mother and her babes should be drowned in the river. In the Anio Silvia exchanged her earthly life for that of a goddess. The river carried the bole or cradle, in which the children were lying, into the Tiber, which had overflowed its banks far and wide, even to the foot of the woody hills. At the root of a wild fig-tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, which was preserved and held sacred for many centuries, at the foot of the Palatine, the cradle overturned. A she-wolf came to drink of the stream: she heard the whimpering of the children, carried them into her den hard by, made a bed for them, licked and suckled them. When they wanted other food than milk, a woodpecker, the bird sacred to Mars, brought it to them. Other birds consecrated to auguries hovered over them, to drive away insects. This marvellous spectacle was seen by Faustulus, the shepherd of the royal flocks. The she-wolf drew back, and gave up the children to human nature. Acca Laurentia, his wife, became their foster-mother. They grew up, along with her twelve sons, on the Palatine hill, in straw huts which they built for themselves: that of Romulus was preserved by continual repairs, as a sacred relic, down to the time of Nero. They were the stoutest of the shepherd lads, fought bravely against wild beasts and robbers, maintaining their right against every one by their might, and turning might into right. Their booty they shared with their comrades. The followers of Romulus were called Quinctilii, those of Remus Fabii: the seeds of discord were soon sown amongst them. Their wantonness engaged them in disputes with the shepherds of the wealthy Numitor, who fed their flocks on Mount Aventine: so that here, as in the story of Evander and Cacus, we find the quarrel between the Palatine and the Aventine in the tales of the remotest times. Remus was taken by the stratagem of these shepherds, and dragged to Alba as a robber. A secret foreboding, the remembrance of his grandsons, awakened by the story of the two brothers, kept Numitor from pronouncing a hasty sentence. The culprit's foster-father hastened with Romulus to the city, and told the old man and the youths of their kindred. They resolved to avenge their own wrong and that of their house. With their faithful comrades, whom the dangers of Remus had brought to the city, they slew the king; and the people of Alba again became subject to Numitor.

"But love for the home which fate had assigned them drew the youths back to the banks of the Tiber, to found a city there, and the shepherds, their old companions, were their first citizens.... This is the old tale, as it was written by Fabius, and sung in ancient lays down to the time of Dionysius."--Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome.

In the cliff of the Palatine, below the fig-tree, was shown for many centuries the cavern Lupercal, sacred from the earliest times to the Pelasgic god Pan.

"Hinc lucum ingentum, quem Romulus acer Asylum Retulit, et gelidâ monstrat sub rupe Lupercal, Parrhasio dictum Panos de monte Lycæi."

Virgil, Æn. viii. 342.

"La louve, nourrice de Romulus, a peut-être été imaginée en raison des rapports mythologiques qui existaient entre le loup et Pan défenseur des troupeaux. Ce qu'il y a de sûr, c'est que les fêtes lupercales gardèrent le caractère du dieu en l'honneur duquel elles avaient été primitivement instituées et l'empreinte d'une origine pélasgique; ces fêtes au temps de Cicéron avaient encore un caractère pastoral en mémoire de l'Arcadie d'où on les croyait venues. Les Luperques qui représentaient les Satyres, compagnons de Pan, faisaient le tour de l'antique séjour des Pélasges sur le Palatin. Ces hommes nus allaient frappant avec les lanières de peau de bouc, l'animal lascif par excellence, les femmes pour les rendre fécondes; des fêtes analogues se célébraient en Arcadie sous le nom de Lukéia (les fêtes des loups), dont le mot lupercales est une traduction."--Ampère, Hist. Rome, i. 143.

In the hut of Romulus were preserved several objects venerated as relics of him.

"On conservait le bâton augural avec lequel Romulus avait dessiné sur le ciel, suivant le rite étrusque, l'espace où s'était manifesté le grand auspice des douze vautours dans lesquels Rome crut voir la promesse des douze siècles qu'en effet le destin devait lui accorder. Tous les augures se servirent par la suite de ce bâton sacré, qui fut trouvé intact après l'incendie du monument dans lequel il était conservé, miracle païen dont l'equivalent pourrait se rencontrer dans plus d'une légende de la Rome chrétienne. On montrait le cornouiller né du bois de la lance que Romulus, avec la vigueur surhumaine d'un demi-dieu, avait jetée de l'Aventin sur le Palatin, où elle s'était enfoncée dans la terre et avait produit un grand arbre.

"On montrait sur le Palatin le berceau et la cabane de Romulus. Plutarque a vu ce berceau, le Santo-Presepio des anciens Romains, qui était attaché avec des liens d'airain, et sur lequel on avait tracé des caractères mystérieux. La cabane était à un seul étage, en planches et couverte de roseaux, que l'on reconstruisait pieusement chaque fois qu'un incendie la détruisait; car elle brûla à diverses reprises, ce que la nature des matériaux dont elle était formée fait croire facilement. J'ai vu dans les environs de Rome un cabaret rustique dont la toiture était exactement pareille à celle de là cabane de Romulus."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. i. 342.

Turning along the terrace which overhangs the Velabrum we reach the ruins of the Palace of Tiberius,[113] in which he resided during the earlier part of his reign, when he was under the influence of his aged and imperious mother Livia. Here he had to mourn for Drusus, his only son, who fell a victim (A.D. 23) to poison administered to him by his wife Livilla and her lover the favourite Sejanus. Here also, in A.D. 29, died Livia, widow of Augustus, at the age of eighty-six, "a memorable example of successful artifice, having attained in succession, by craft if not by crime, every object she could desire in the career of female ambition."[114]

The row of arches remaining are those of the soldiers' quarters. In the fourth arch is a curious graffite of a ship. In another the three pavements in use at different times may be seen in situ, one above another. On the terrace above these arches has recently been discovered a large piscina, or fish-pond, and the painted chambers of a building, which is supposed to have been the House of Drusus (elder brother of Tiberius) and Antonia. Several of the rooms in this building are richly decorated in fresco, one has a picture of a street with figures of females going to a sacrifice, and of ladies at their toilette; another of Mercury, Io, and Argus; and a third of Galatea and Polyphemus. From the names of the characters in these pictures represented being affixed to them in Greek, we may naturally conclude that they are the work of Greek artists.

The north-eastern corner of the area is entirely occupied by the vast ruins of the Palace of Caligula, built against the side of the hill above the Clivus Victoriœ, which still remains, and consisting of ranges of small rooms, communicating with open galleries, edged by marble balustrades, of which a portion exists. In these rooms the half-mad Caius Caligula rushed about, sometimes dressed as a charioteer, sometimes as a warrior, and delighted in astonishing his courtiers by his extraordinary pranks, or shocking them by trying to enforce a belief in his own divinity.[115]

"C'est dans ce palais que, tourmenté par l'insomnie et par l'agitation de son âme furieuse, il passera une partie de la nuit à errer sous d'immenses portiques, attendant et appellant le jour. C'est là aussi qu'il aura l'incroyable idée de placer un dieu infâme.

"Caligula se fit bâtir sur le Palatin deux temples. Il avait d'abord voulu avoir une demeure sur le mont Capitolin; mais, ayant réfléchi que Jupiter l'avait precédé au Capitole, il en prit de l'humeur et retourna sur le Palatin. Dans les folies de Caligula, on voit se manifester cette pensée: Je suis dieu! pensée qui n'était peut-être pas très-extraordinaire chez un jeune homme de vingt-cinq ans devenu tout-à-coup maître du monde. Il parut en effet croire à sa divinité, prenant le nom et les attributs de divers dieux, et changeant de nature divine en changeant de perruque.

"Non content de s'élever un temple à lui-même, Caligula en vint à être son propre prêtre et à s'adorer. Le despotisme oriental avait connu cette adoration étrange de soi: sur les monuments de l'Egypte on voit Ramsès-roi présenter son offrande à Ramsès-dieu; mais Caligula fit ce que n'avait fait aucun Pharaon; il se donna pour collègue, dans ce culte de sa propre personne, son cheval, qu'il ne nomma pas, mais qu'il songea un moment de nommer consul."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 8.

Here "one day at a public banquet, when the consuls were reclining by his side, Caligula burst suddenly into a fit of laughter; and when they courteously inquired the cause of his mirth, astounded them by coolly replying that he was thinking how by one word he could cause both their heads to roll on the floor. He amused himself with similar banter even with his wife Cæsonia, for whom he seems to have had a stronger feeling than for any of his former consorts. While fondling her neck he is reported to have said, 'Fair as it is, how easily I could sever it.'"--Merivale, ch. xlviii.

After the murder of Caligula (Jan. 24, 794) by the tribune Cheræa, in the vaulted passage which led from the palace to the theatre, a singular chance which occurred in this part of the palace led to the elevation of Claudius to the throne.

"In the confusion which ensued upon the death of Caius, several of the prætorian guards had flung themselves furiously into the palace and began to plunder its glittering chambers. None dared to offer them any opposition; the slaves or freedmen fled and concealed themselves. One of the inmates, half-hidden behind a curtain in an obscure corner, was dragged forth with brutal violence; and great was the intruder's surprise when they recognised him as Claudius, the long despised and neglected uncle of the murdered emperor.[116] He sank at their feet almost senseless with terror: but the soldiers in their wildest mood still respected the blood of the Cæsars, and instead of slaying or maltreating the suppliant, the brother of Germanicus, they hailed him, more in jest perhaps than earnest, with the title of Imperator, and carried him off to their camp."--Merivale, ch. xlix.

In this same palace Claudius was feasting when he was told that his hitherto idolised wife Messalina was dead, without being told whether she died by her own hand or another's,--and asked no questions, merely desiring a servant to pour him out some more wine, and went on eating his supper.[117] Here also Claudius, who so dearly loved eating, devoured his last and fatal supper of poisoned mushrooms which his next loving wife (and niece) Agrippina prepared for him, to make way for her son Nero upon the throne.[118]

The Clivus Victoriæ commemorates by its name the Temple of Victory,[119] said to have been founded by the Sabine aborigines before the time of Romulus, and to be the earliest temple at Rome of which there is any mention except that of Saturnus. This temple was rebuilt by the consul L. Posthumius.

Chief of a group of small temples, the famous Temple of Cybele, "Mother of the Gods," stood at this corner of the Palatine. Thirteen years before it was built, the "Sacred Stone," the form under which the "Idæan Mother" was worshipped, had been brought from Pessinus in Phrygia, because, according to the Sibylline books, frequent showers of stones which had occurred could only be expiated by its being transported to Rome. It was given up to the Romans by their ally Attalus, king of Pergamus, and P. Cornelius Scipio, the young brother of Africanus--accounted the worthiest and most virtuous of the Romans--was sent to receive it. As the vessel bearing the holy stone came up the Tiber it grounded at the foot of the Aventine, when the aruspices declared that only chaste hands would be able to move it. Then the Vestal Claudia drew the vessel up the river by a rope.

"Ainsi Sainte Brigitte, Suédoise morte à Rome, prouva sa pureté en touchant le bois de l'autel, qui reverdit soudain. Une statue fut érigée à Claudia, dans le vestibule du temple de Cybèle. Bien qu'elle eût été, disait on, seule épargnée dans deux incendies du temple, nous n'avons plus cette statue, mais nous avons au Capitole un bas-relief où l'événement miraculeux est représenté. C'est un autel dédié par une affranchie de la gens Claudia; il a été trouvé au pied de l'Aventin, près du lieu qu'on désignait comme celui où avait été opéré le miracle."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. iii. 142.

In her temple, which was round and surmounted by a cupola, Cybele was represented by a statue with its face to the east; the building was adorned with a painting of Corybantes, and plays were acted in front of it.[120]

"Qua madidi sunt tecta Lyæi Et Cybeles picto stat Corybante domus."

Martial, Ep. i. 71, 9.

This temple, after its second destruction by fire, was entirely rebuilt by Augustus in A.D. 2.

"Cybèle est certainement la grande déesse, la grande mère, c'est-à-dire la personnification de la fécondité et de la vie universelle: bizarre idole qui présente le spectacle hideux de mamelles disposés par paires le long d'un corps comme enveloppé dans une gaîne, et d'où sortent des taureaux et des abeilles, images des forces créatrices et des puissances ordonnatrices de la nature. On honorait cette déesse de l'Asie par des orgies furieuses, par un mélange de débauche effrénée et de rites cruels; ses prêtres efféminés dansaient au son des flûtes lydiennes et de ses crotales, véritables castagnettes, semblables à celles que fait résonner aujourd'hui la paysanne romaine en dansant la fougueuse saltarelle. On voit au musée du Capitole l'effigie bas-relief d'un archigalle, d'un chef de ces prêtres insensés, et près de lui les attributs de la déesse asiatique, les flûtes, les crotales, et la mystérieuse corbeille. Cet archigalle, avec son air de femme, sa robe qui conviendrait à une femme, nous retrace l'espèce de démence religieuse à laquelle s'associaient les délires pervers d'Héliogabale."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 310.

We have the authority of Martial[121] that in the immediate neighbourhood of the temple of Cybele, stood the Temple of Apollo, though Signor Rosa places it on the other side of the hill in the gardens of S. Buonaventura. Its remains have yet to be discovered.

"Nothing could exceed the magnificence of this temple, according to the accounts of ancient authors. Propertius, who was present at its dedication, has devoted a short elegy to the description of it, and Ovid describes it as a splendid structure of white marble.

'Tum medium claro surgebat marmore templum, Et patria Phœbo carius Ortygia. Auro solis erat supra fastigia currus, Et valvæ Libyci nobile dentis opus. Altera dejectos Parnassi vertice Gallos, Altera mœrebat funera Tantalidos. Deinde inter matrem Deus ipse, interque sororem Pythius in longa carmina veste sonat.'

Propertius, ii. El. 31.

'Inde timore pari gradibus sublimia celsis Ducor ad intonsi candida templa Dei.'

Ovid, Trist. iii. El. 1.

"From the epithet aurea porticus, it seems probable that the cornice of the portico which surrounded it was gilt. The columns were of African marble, or giallo-antico, and must have been fifty-two in number, as between them were the statues of the fifty Danaids, and that of their father, brandishing a naked sword.

'Quæris cur veniam tibi tardior? aurea Phœbi Porticus a magno Cæsare aperta fuit. Tota erat in speciem Pœnis digesta columnis: Inter quas Danai fœmina turba senis.'

Propert. ii. El. 31.

'Signa peregrinis ubi sunt alterna columnis Belides, et stricto barbarus ense pater.'

Ovid, Trist. iii. 1. 61.

"Here also was a statue of Apollo sounding the lyre, apparently a likeness of Augustus; whose beauty when a youth, to judge from his bust in the Vatican, might well entitle him to counterfeit the god. Around the altar were the images of four oxen, the work of Myron, so beautifully sculptured that they seemed alive. In the middle of the portico rose the temple, apparently of white marble. Over the pediment was the chariot of the sun. The gates were of ivory, one of them sculptured with the story of the giants hurled down from the heights of Parnassus, the other representing the destruction of the Niobids. Inside the temple was the statue of Apollo in a tunica talaris, or long garment, between his mother Latona and his sister Diana, the work of Scopas, Cephisodorus, and Timotheus. Under the base of Apollo's statue Augustus caused to be buried the Sibylline books which he had selected and placed in gilt chests. Attached to the temple was a library called Bibliotheca Græca et Latina, apparently, however, only one structure, containing the literature of both tongues. Only the choicest works were admitted to the honour of a place in it, as we may infer from Horace:

'Tangere vitet Scripta, Palatinus quæcunque recepit Apollo.'

Ep. i. 3. 16.

"The library appears to have contained a bronze statue of Apollo, fifty feet high; whence we must conclude that the roof of the hall exceeded that height. In this library, or more probably, perhaps, in an adjoining apartment, poets, orators, and philosophers recited their productions. The listless demeanour of the audience on such occasions seems, from the description of the younger Pliny, to have been, in general, not over-encouraging. Attendance seems to have been considered as a friendly duty."--Dyer's City of Rome.

The temple of Apollo was built by Augustus to commemorate the battle of Actium. He appropriated to it part of the land covered with houses which he had purchased upon the Palatine;--another part he gave to the Vestals; the third he used for his own palace.

"Phœbus habet partem, Vestæ pars altera cessit: Quod superest illis, tertius ipse tenet.

* * * * *

Stet domus, æternos tres habet una deos."

Ovid, Fast. iv. 951.

Thus Apollo and Vesta became as it were the household gods of Augustus:

"Vestaque Cæsareos inter sacrata penates, Et cum Cæsarea tu, Phœbe domestice, Vesta."

Ovid, Metam. xv. 864.

Other temples on the Palatine were that of Juno Sospita:

"Principio mensis Phrygiæ contermina Matri Sospita delubris dicitur aucta novis."

Ovid, Fast. ii. 55.

of Minerva:

"Sexte, Palatinæ cultor facunde Minervæ Ingenio frueris qui propiore Dei."

Martial, v. Ep. 5.

a temple of Moonlight mentioned by Varro (iv. 10) and a shrine of Vesta.

"Vestaque Cæsareos inter sacrata penates."

Ovid, Met. i.

From the Torretta del Palatino which is near the house of Caligula, there is a magnificent view over the seven hills of Rome;--the Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline, Cœlian, Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline. From this point also it is very interesting to remember that these were not the heights considered as "the Seven Hills" in the ancient history of Rome, when the sacrifices of the Septimontium were offered upon the Palatine, Velia, and Germale, the three divisions of the Palatine--of which one can no longer be traced; upon the Fagutal, Oppius, and Cispius, the secondary heights of the Esquiline; and upon the Suburra, which perhaps comprehended the Viminal.[122] Hence also we see the ground we have traversed on the Palatine spread before us like a map.

If we descend the staircase in the Palace of Caligula, we may trace as far as the Porta Romana the piers of the Bridge of Caligula, which, half in vanity, half in madness, he threw across the valley, that he might, as he said, the more easily hold intercourse with his friend and comrade Jupiter upon the Capitol. One of the piers which he used for his bridge, beyond the limits of the palace, was formed by the temple of Augustus built by Tiberius.[123] This bridge, with all other works of Caligula, was of very short duration, being destroyed immediately after his death by Claudius.

Returning by the Clivus Victoriæ, we shall find ourselves again on the eastern slope of the hill from which we started, the site once occupied by so many of the great patrician families. Here at one time lived Caius Gracchus, who to gratify the populace, gave up his house on the side of the Palatine, and made his home in the gloomy Suburra. Here also lived his coadjutor in the consulship, Fulvius Flaccus, who shared his fate, and whose house was razed to the ground by the people after his murder. At this corner of the hill also was the house of Q. Lutatius Catulus, poet and historian, who was consul B.C. 102, and together with Marius was conqueror of the Cimbri in a great battle near Vercelli. In memory of this he founded a temple of the "Fortuna hujusce diei," and decorated the portico of his house with Cimbrian trophies. Varro mentions that his house had also a domed roof.[124] Here also the consul Octavius, murdered on the Janiculum by the partisans of Marius, had a house, which was rebuilt with great magnificence by Emilius Scaurus, who adorned it with columns of marble thirty-eight feet high.[125] These two last-named houses were bought by the wealthy Clodius, who gave 14,800,000 sesterces, or about 130,000_l._, for that of Scaurus, and throwing down the Porticus Catuli, included its site, and the house of E. Scaurus, in his own magnificent dwelling. Clodius was a member of the great house of the Claudii, and was the favoured lover of Pompeia, wife of Julius Cæsar, by whose connivance, disguised as a female musician, he attempted to be present at the orgies of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated in the house of the Pontifex Maximus close to the temple of Vesta, and from which men were so carefully excluded, that even a male mouse, says Juvenal, dared not show himself there. The position of his own dwelling, and that of the pontifex, close to the foot of the Clivus Victoriæ, afforded every facility for this adventure, but it was discovered by his losing himself in the passages of the Regia. A terrible scandal was the result--Cæsar divorced Pompeia, and the senate referred the matter to the pontifices, who declared that Clodius was guilty of sacrilege. Clodius attempted to prove an alibi, but Cicero's evidence showed that he was with him in Rome only three hours before he pretended to have been at Interamna. Bribery and intimidation secured his acquittal by a majority of thirty-one to twenty-five,[126] but from this time a deadly enmity ensued between him and Cicero.

The house of Clodius naturally leads us to that of Cicero, which was also situated at this corner of the Palatine, whence he could see his clients in the Forum and go to and fro to his duties there. This house had been built for M. Livius Drusus, who, when his architect proposed a plan to prevent its being overlooked, answered, "Rather build it so that all my fellow-citizens may behold everything that I do." In his acts Drusus seemed to imitate the Gracchi; but he sought popularity for its own sake, and after being the object of a series of conspiracies was finally murdered in the presence of his mother Cornelia, in his own hall, where the image of his father was sprinkled with his blood. When dying he turned to those around him and asked, with characteristic arrogance, based perhaps upon conscious honesty of purpose, "when will the commonwealth have a citizen like me again?" After the death of Drusus the house was inhabited by L. Licinius Crassus the orator, who lived here in great elegance and luxury. His house was called from its beauty "the Venus of the Palatine," and was remarkable for its size, the taste of its furniture, and the beauty of its grounds. "It was adorned with pillars of Hymettian marble, with expensive vases, and triclinia inlaid with brass. His gardens were provided with fishponds, and some noble lotus-trees shaded his walks. Ahenobarbus, his colleague in the censorship, found fault with such corruption of manners,[127] estimated his house at a hundred million, or, according to Valerius Maximus,[128] six million sesterces, and complained of his crying for the loss of a lamprey as if it had been a daughter. It was a tame lamprey which used to come at the call of Crassus, and feed out of his hand. Crassus retorted by a public speech against his colleague, and by his great powers of ridicule, turned him into derision; jested upon his name,[129] and to the accusation of weeping for a lamprey, replied, that it was more than Ahenobarbus had done for the loss of any of his three wives."[130] Cicero purchased the house of Crassus a year or two after his consulate for a sum equal to about 30,000_l._, and removed thither from the Carinæ with his wife Terentia. His house was close to that of Clodius, but a little lower down the hill, which enabled him to threaten to increase the height, so as to shut out his neighbour's view of the city. Upon his accession to the tribuneship Clodius procured the disgrace of Cicero, and after his flight to Greece, obtained a decree of banishment against him. He then pillaged and destroyed his house upon the Palatine, as well as his villas at Tusculum and Formia, and obliged Terentia to take refuge with the Vestals, whose Superior was fortunately her sister. But in the following year, a change of consuls and revulsion of the popular favour led to the recall of Cicero, who found part of his house appropriated by Clodius, who had erected a shrine to Libertas (with a statue which was that of a Greek courtezan carried off from the tomb)[131] on the site of the remainder, which he had razed to the ground.[132]

"Clodius had also destroyed the portico of Catulus; in fact, he appears to have been desirous of appropriating all this side of the Palatine. He wanted to buy the house of the ædile Seius. Seius having declared that so long as he lived, Clodius should not have it, Clodius caused him to be poisoned, and then bought his house under a feigned name! He was thus enabled to erect a portico three hundred feet in length, in place of that of Catulus. The latter, however, was afterwards restored at the public expense.

"Cicero obtained public grants for the restoration of his house and of his Tusculan and Formian villas, but very far from enough to cover the losses he had suffered. The aristocratic part of the Senate appears to have envied and grudged the novus homo to whose abilities they looked for protection. He was advised not to rebuild his house on the Palatine, but to sell the ground. It was not in Cicero's temper to take such a course; but he was hampered ever after with debts. Clodius, who had been defeated but not beaten, still continued his persecutions. He organised a gang of street boys to call out under Cicero's windows, 'Bread! Bread!' His bands interrupted the dramatic performances on the Palatine, at the Megalesian games, by rushing upon the stage. On another occasion, Clodius, at the head of his myrmidons, besieged the Senate in the temple of Concord. He attacked Cicero in the streets, to the danger of his life; and when he had begun to rebuild his house, drove away the masons, overthrew what part had been re-erected of Catulus' portico, and cast burning torches into the house of Quintus Cicero, which he had hired next to his brother's on the Palatine, and consumed a great part of it."--Dyer's City of Rome, 152.

The indemnity which Cicero received from the state in order to rebuild his house on the Palatine, amounted to about 16,000_l._ The house of Quintus Cicero was rebuilt close to his brother's at the same time by Cyrus, the fashionable architect of the day.[133]

Among other noble householders on this part of the Palatine was Mark Antony,[134] whose house was afterwards given by Augustus to Agrippa and Messala, soon after which it was burnt down.

A small Museum in this part of the garden contains some of the smaller objects which have been found in the excavations, and specimens of the different marbles and alabasters. There is nothing of any great importance. The fragments of statues and some busts which have been found (including Flavia Domitilla, wife of Vespasian, and Julia, daughter of Titus), have been sent to Paris, but casts have been left here.

We have now made the round of the French division of the Palatine.

* * * * *

It has been decided that some remains which exist in the garden of the Villa Mills (now a Convent of Visitandine Nuns) are those of the House of Hortensius, an orator, "who was second only to Cicero in eloquence, and who, in the early part at least of their lives, was his chief opponent."[135] Cicero himself describes the extraordinary gifts of his rival[136] as well as the integrity with which he fulfilled the duties of a quæstor.[137] In the latter portion of his public career Hortensius was frequently engaged on the same side with Cicero, and then always recognised his superiority by allowing him to speak last. Hortensius died B.C. 50, to the great grief of his ancient rival.[138] The splendid villas of Hortensius were celebrated. He was accustomed to water his trees with wine at regular intervals,[139] and had huge fishponds at Bauli, into which the salt-water fish came to be fed from his hand, and he became so fond of them, that he wept for the death of a favourite muræna.[140] But the house on the Palatine was exceedingly simple and had no decorations but plain columns of Alban stone.[141] This was the chosen residence of Augustus, until, upon its destruction by fire, the citizens insisted upon raising the more sumptuous residence in the hollow of the Palatine by public subscription. The subterranean chambers which have been discovered have some interesting remains of stucco ornament.

The villa, which is now turned into a convent, possessed some frescoes painted by Giulio Romano from designs of Raphael, but these have been destroyed or removed in deference to the modesty of the present inhabitants. The neighbouring church and garden of S. Sebastiano occupy the site of the Gardens of Adonis. (See Chap. IV.)

* * * * *

A large, and by far the most picturesque portion of the Palace of the Cæsars (the only part which was not imbedded in soil ten years ago), is now accessible either from the end of the lane of S. Buenaventura, or from a gate on the left of the Via dei Fienili just before reaching Sta. Anastasia. The excavations in the last-named quarter were begun by the Emperor of Russia, who purchased the site, but afterwards presented it to the city.

Behind Sta. Maria Liberatrice, in some farm buildings, are remains which probably belong to the Regia of Julius Cæsar.

Beyond this, against the escarpment of the Palatine, a part of the Walls of Romulus has been discovered, built in large oblong blocks. Here also are fragments of bases of towers of republican times. Behind S. Teodoro are remains of an early concrete wall, behind which the tufa rock is visible. The wall is only built where the tufa is of a soft character.

"La système de construction est le même que dans les villes d'Étrurie et dans la muraille bâtie à Rome par les rois étrusques. Cependant l'appareil est moins régulier. Les murs d'une petite ville du Latium fondée par un aventurier ne pouvaient être aussi soignés que les murs des villes de l'Étrurie, pays tout autrement civilisé. La petite cité de Romulus, bornée au Palatin, n'avait pas l'importance de la Rome des Tarquins, qui couvrait les huit collines.

"Du reste, la construction est étrusque et devait l'être. Romulus n'avait dans sa ville, habitée par des pâtres et des bandits, personne qui fût capable d'en bâtir l'enceinte. Les Étrusques, grands bâtisseurs, étaient de l'autre côté du fleuve. Quelques-uns même l'avaient probablement passé déjà et habitaient le mont Cœlius. Romulus dut s'adresser à eux, et faire faire cet ouvrage par des architects et des maçons étrusques. Ce fut aussi selon le rite de l'Étrurie, pays sacerdotal, que Romulus, suivant en cela l'usage établi dans les cités latines, fit consacer l'enceinte de la ville nouvelle. Il agit en cette circonstance comme agit un paysan romain, quand il appelle un prêtre pour bénir l'emplacement de la maison qu'il veut bâtir.

"Les détails de la cérémonie par laquelle fut inaugurée la première enceinte de Rome nous ont été transmis par Plutarque,[142] et, avec un grand détail par Tacite,[143] qui sans doute avait sous les yeux les livres des pontifes. Nous connaissons avec exactitude le contour que traça la charrue sacrée. Nous pouvons le suivre encore aujourd'hui.

"Romulus attela an taureau blanc et une vache blanche à une charrue dont le soc était d'airain.[144] L'usage de l'airain a précédé à Rome, comme partout, l'usage du fer. Il partit du lieu consacré par l'antique autel d'Hercule, au-dessous de l'angle occidental du Palatin et de la première Rome des Pelasges, et, se dirigeant vers le sud-est, traça son sillon le long de la base de la colline.

"Ceux qui suivaient Romulus, rejetaient les mottes de terre en dedans du sillon, image du Vallum futur. Ce sillon était l'Agger de Servius Tullius en petit. A l'extrémité de la vallée qui sépare le Palatin de l'Aventin, où devait être le grand cirque, et où est aujourd'hui la rue des Cerchi, il prit à gauche, et, contournant la colline, continua, en creusant toujours son sillon, à tracer sans le savoir la route que devaient suivre un jour les triomphes, puis revint au point d'où il était parti. La charrue, l'instrument du labour, le symbole de la vie agricole des enfants de Saturne, avait dessiné le contour de la cité guerrière de Romulus. De même, quand on avait détruit une ville, on faisait passer la charrue sur le sol qu'elle avait occupé. Par là, ce sol devenait sacré, et il n'était pas plus permis de l'habiter qu'il ne l'était de franchir le sillon qu'on creusait autour des villes lors de leur fondation, comme le fit Romulus et comme le firent toujours depuis les fondateurs d'une colonie; car toute colonie était une Rome."--Ampère, Hist. Rome, i. 283.

Close under this, the northern side of the walls of Romulus, ran the Via Nova, down which Marcus Cædicius was returning to the city in the gloaming, when, at this spot, between the sacred grove and the temple of Vesta, he heard a supernatural voice, bidding him to warn the senate of the approach of the Gauls. After the Gauls had invaded Rome, and departed again, an altar and sanctuary recorded the miracle on this site.[145]

At the corner near Sta. Anastasia, are remains of a private house of early times built against the cliff. Near this were the steps called the Stairs of Cacus, leading up to the hut of Faustulus. On the other side the Gradus Pulchri Littoris, the κλη Ακτη of Plutarch, led to the river.[146]

Here a remarkable altar of republican times has been discovered, and remains in situ. It is inscribed SEI DEO SEI DIVAE SAC.--C SEXTIVS C T CALVINUS TR--DE SENATI SENTENTIA RESTITVIT. Some suppose this to be the actual altar mentioned above as erected to the Genius Loci, in consequence of the mysterious warning of the Gallic invasion. The father of the tribune, C. S. Calvinus, mentioned in the inscription, was consul with C. Cassius Longinus, B.C. 124, and is described by Cicero as an elegant orator of a sickly constitution.[147]

Beyond this a number of chambers have been discovered under the steep bank of the Palatine, and retain a quantity of graffiti scratched upon their walls. The most interesting of these, found in the fourth chamber, has been removed to the museum of the Collegio Romano. It is generally believed to have been executed during the reign of Septimius Severus, and to have been done in an idle moment by one of the soldiers occupying these rooms, supposed to have been used as guard-chambers under that emperor. If so, it is perhaps the earliest existing pictorial allusion to the manner of our Saviour's death. It is a caricature evidently executed in ridicule of a Christian fellow-soldier. The figure on the cross has an ass's head, and by the worshipping figure is inscribed in Greek characters, Alexamenos worships his God.

"The lowest orders of the populace were as intelligently hostile to it [the worship of the Crucified] as were the philosophers. Witness that remarkable caricature of the adoration of our crucified Lord, which was discovered some ten years ago beneath the ruins of the Palatine palace. It is a rough sketch, traced, in all probability, by the hand of some pagan slave in one of the earliest years of the third century of our era. A human figure with an ass's head is represented as fixed to a cross, while another figure in a tunic stands on one side. This figure is addressing himself to the crucified monster, and is making a gesture which was the customary pagan expression of adoration. Underneath there runs a rude inscription: Alexamenos adores his God. Here we are face to face with a touching episode of the life of the Roman Church in the days of Severus or of Caracalla. As under Nero, so, a century and a half later, there were worshippers of Christ in the household of Cæsar. But the paganism of the later date was more intelligently and bitterly hostile to the Church than the paganism which had shed the blood of the apostles. The Gnostic invective which attributed to the Jews the worship of an ass, was applied by pagans indiscriminately to Jews and Christians. Tacitus attributes the custom to a legend respecting services rendered by wild asses to the Israelites in the desert; 'and so, I suppose,' observes Tertullian, 'it was thence presumed that we, as bordering upon the Jewish religion, were taught to worship such a figure.' Such a story, once current, was easily adapted to the purposes of a pagan caricaturist. Whether from ignorance of the forms of Christian worship, or in order to make his parody of it more generally intelligible to its pagan admirers, the draughtsman has ascribed to Alexamenos the gestures of a heathen devotee. But the real object of his parody is too plain to be mistaken. Jesus Christ, we may be sure, had other confessors and worshippers in the Imperial palace as well as Alexamenos. The moral pressure of the advancing Church was felt throughout all ranks of pagan society; ridicule was invoked to do the work of argument; and the moral persecution which crowned all true Christian devotion was often only the prelude to a sterner test of that loyalty to a crucified Lord, which was as insensible to the misrepresentations, as Christian faith was superior to the logic, of heathendom."[148]--Liddon, Bampton Lectures of 1866, lect. vii. p. 593.

These chambers acquire a great additional interest from the belief which many entertain that they are those once occupied by the Prætorian Guard, in which St. Paul was confined.

"The close of the Epistle to the Ephesians contains a remarkable example of the forcible imagery of St. Paul. Considered simply in itself, the description of the Christian's armour is one of the most striking passages in the sacred volume. But if we view it in connection with the circumstances with which the Apostle was surrounded, we find a new and living emphasis in his enumeration of all the parts of the heavenly panoply,--the belt of sincerity and truth, with which the loins are girded for the spiritual war,--the breast-plate of that righteousness, the inseparable links whereof are faith and love,--the strong sandals, with which the feet of Christ's soldiers are made ready, not for such errands of death and despair as those on which the Prætorian soldiers were daily sent, but for the universal message of the gospel of peace,--the large shield of confident trust, wherewith the whole man is protected, and whereon the fiery arrows of the Wicked One fall harmless and dead,--the close-fitting helmet, with which the hope of salvation invests the head of the believer,--and finally the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, which, when wielded by the Great Captain of our Salvation, turned the tempter in the wilderness to flight, while in the hands of His chosen Apostle (with whose memory the sword seems inseparably associated), it became the means of establishing Christianity on the earth.

"All this imagery becomes doubly forcible if we remember that when St. Paul wrote the words he was chained to a soldier, and in the close neighbourhood of military sights and sounds. The appearance of the Prætorian Guards was daily familiar to him; as his 'chains,' on the other hand (so he tells us in the succeeding Epistle), became well known throughout the whole Prætorium! (Phil. i. 13). A difference of opinion has existed as to the precise meaning of the word in this passage. Some have identified it, as in the authorised version, with the house of Cæsar on the Palatine: more commonly it has been supposed to mean that permanent camp of the Prætorian Guards, which Tiberius established on the north of the city, outside the walls. As regards the former opinion, it is true that the word came to be used, almost as we use the word 'palace,' for royal residences generally or for any residences of princely splendour. Yet we never find the word employed for the imperial house at Rome: and we believe the truer view to be that which has been recently advocated, namely, that it denotes here, not the palace itself, but the quarters of that part of the imperial guards, which was in immediate attendance upon the emperor. The emperor was prætor or commander-in-chief of the troops, and it was natural that his immediate guard should be in prætorium near him. It might, indeed, be argued that this military establishment on the Palatine would cease to be necessary, when the Prætorian camp was established: but the purpose of that establishment was to concentrate near the city those cohorts, which had previously been dispersed in other parts of Italy: a local body-guard near the palace would not cease to be necessary: and Josephus, in his account of the imprisonment of Agrippa, speaks of a 'camp' in connection with the 'royal house.' Such we conceive to have been the barrack immediately alluded to by St. Paul: though the connection of these smaller quarters with the general camp was such that he would naturally become known to 'all the rest' of the guards, as well as those who might for the time be connected with the imperial household.

"St. Paul tells us (in the Epistle to the Philippians) that throughout the Prætorian quarter he was well known as a prisoner for the cause of Christ, and he sends special salutations to the Philippian Church from the Christians of the imperial household. These notices bring before us very vividly the moral contrasts by which the Apostle was surrounded. The soldier to whom he was chained to-day might have been in Nero's body-guard yesterday; his comrade who next relieved guard might have been one of the executioners of Octavia, and might have carried her head to Poppæa a few weeks before.

"History has few stronger contrasts than when it shows us Paul preaching Christ under the walls of Nero's palace. Thenceforward there were but two religions in the Roman world; the worship of the emperor, and the worship of the Saviour. The old superstitions had long been worn out; they had lost all hold on educated minds.... Over against the altars of Nero and Poppæa, the voice of a prisoner was daily heard, and daily woke in grovelling souls the consciousness of their divine destiny. Men listened, and knew that self-sacrifice was better than ease, humiliation more exalted than pride, to suffer nobler than to reign. They felt that the only religion which satisfied the needs of man was the religion of sorrow, the religion of self-devotion, the religion of the cross."--Conybeare and Howson.

Hence, we may ascend through some gardens beneath the Villa Mills, to the terrace which surmounts the grand ruins at the end of the Palace of the Cæsars, supposed to be remains of the Palace of Nero, but as no inscriptions have been discovered, no part of it can be identified.[149] These are by far the most picturesque portions of the ruins, and few compositions can be finer than those formed by the huge masses of stately brick arches, laden with a wealth of laurustinus, cytizus, and other flowering shrubs, standing out against the soft hues and delicate blue and pink shadows of the distant Campagna. Beneath the terrace is a fine range of lofty chambers, with a broken statue at the end, through which there is a striking view. One of these ruined halls has been converted into a kind of museum of architectural fragments found in this part of the palace, many of them of great beauty. This was the portion of the palace which longest remained entire, and which was inhabited by Heraclius in the seventh century. Some consider that these ruins were incorporated into the

Septizonium of Severus, so called from its seven stories of building, erected A.D. 198, and finally destroyed by Sixtus V., who carried off its materials for the building of St Peter's. It was erected by Severus at the southern corner of the palace, in order that it might at once strike the eyes of his African compatriots,[150] on their arrival in Rome. He built two other edifices which he called Septizonium, one on the Esquiline near the baths of Titus, and the other on the Via Appia, which he intended as the burial-place of his family, and where his son Geta was actually interred.

The remaining ruins on this division of the hill, supposed to be those of a theatre, a library, &c., have not yet been historically identified. They probably belong to the Palace of Domitian (Imp. A.D. 81--96), who added largely to the buildings on the Palatine. The magnificence of his palace is extolled in the inflated verses of Statius, who describes the imperial dwelling as exciting the jealousy of the abode of Jupiter--as losing itself amongst the stars by its height, and rising above the clouds into the full splendour of the sunshine! Such was the extravagance displayed by Domitian in these buildings, that Plutarch compares him to Midas, who wished everything to be made of gold. This was the scene of many of the tyrannical vagaries of Domitian.

"'Having once made a great feast for the citizens, he proposed,' says Dion, 'to follow it up with an entertainment to a select number of the highest nobility. He fitted up an apartment all in black. The ceiling was black, the walls were black, the pavement was black, and upon it were ranged rows of bare stone seats, black also. The guests were introduced at night without their attendants, and each might see at the head of his couch a column placed, like a tomb-stone, on which his own name was graven, with the cresset lamp above it, such as is suspended in the tombs. Presently there entered a troop of naked boys, blackened, who danced around with horrid movements, and then stood still before them, offering them the fragments of food which are commonly presented to the dead. The guests were paralysed with terror, expecting at every moment to be put to death; and the more, as the others maintained a deep silence, as though they were dead themselves, and Domitian spake of things pertaining to the state of the departed only.' But this funeral feast was not destined to end tragically. Cæsar happened to be in a sportive mood, and when he had sufficiently enjoyed his jest, and had sent his visitors home expecting worse to follow, he bade each to be presented with the silver cup and platter on which his dismal supper had been served, and with the slave, now neatly washed and apparelled, who had waited upon him. Such, said the populace, was the way in which it pleased the emperor to solemnise the funereal banquet of the victims of his defeats in Dacia, and of his persecutions in the city."--Merivale, ch. lxii.

It was in this palace that the murder of Domitian took place:

"Of the three great deities, the august assessors in the Capitol, Minerva was regarded by Domitian as his special patroness. Her image stood by his bedside: his customary oath was by her divinity. But now a dream apprised him that the guardian of his person was disarmed by the guardian of the empire, and that Jupiter had forbidden his daughter to protect her favourite any longer. Scared by these horrors he lost all self-control, and petulantly cried, and the cry was itself a portent: 'Now strike Jove whom he will!' From supernatural terrors he reverted again and again to earthly fears and suspicions. Henceforward the tyrant allowed none to be admitted to his presence without being previously searched; and he caused the ends of the corridor in which he took exercise to be lined with polished marble, to reflect the image of any one behind him; at the same time he inquired anxiously into the horoscope of every chief whom he might fear as a possible rival or successor.

"The victim of superstition had long since, it was said, ascertained too surely the year, the day, the hour which should prove fatal to him. He had learnt too that he was to die by the sword.... The omens were now closing about the victim, and his terrors became more importunate and overwhelming. 'Something,' he exclaimed, 'is about to happen, which men shall talk of all the world over.' Drawing a drop of blood from a pimple on his forehead, 'May this be all,' he added. His attendants, to reassure him, declared that the hour had passed. Embracing the flattering tale with alacrity, and rushing at once to the extreme of confidence, he announced that the danger was over, and that he would bathe and dress for the evening repast. But the danger was just then ripening within the walls of the palace. The mysteries there enacted few, indeed, could penetrate, and the account of Domitian's fall has been coloured by invention and fancy. The story that a child, whom he suffered to attend in his private chamber, found by chance the tablets which he had placed under his pillow, and that the empress, on inspecting them, and finding herself, with his most familiar servants, designated for execution, contrived a plot for his assassination, is one so often repeated as to cause great suspicion. But neither can we accept the version of Philostratus, who would have us believe that the murder of Domitian was the deed of a single traitor, a freedman of Clemens, named Stephanus, who, indignant at his patron's death, and urged to fury by the sentence on his patron's wife, Domitilla, rushed alone into the tyrant's chamber, diverted his attention with a frivolous pretext, and smote him with the sword he bore concealed in his sleeve. It is more likely that the design, however it originated, was common to several of the household, and that means were taken among them to disarm the victim, and baffle his cries for assistance. Stephanus, who is said to have excelled in personal strength, may have been employed to deal the blow; for not more, perhaps, than one attendant would be admitted at once into the presence. Struck in the groin, but not mortally, Domitian snatched at his own weapon, but found the sword removed from its scabbard. He then clutched the assassin's dagger, cutting his own fingers to the bone; then desperately thrust the bloody talons into the eyes of his assailant, and beat his head with a golden goblet, shrieking all the time for help. Thereupon in rushed Parthenius, Maximus, and others, and despatched him as he lay writhing on the pavement."--Merivale, ch. lxii.

Trajan stripped the palace of his predecessors of all its ornaments to adorn the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,[151] but it was restored by Commodus, after a fire which occurred in his reign,[152] and enriched by Heliogabalus,[153] and almost every succeeding emperor, till the time of Theodoric.[154]

"'Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!' their Emperor vaunted; 'Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!' the Tourist may answer."

A. H. Clough.

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