VII. THE CŒLIAN…

VII. THE CŒLIAN

S. Gregorio--S. Giovanni e Paolo--Arch of Dolabella--S. Tommaso in Formis--Villa Mattei--Sta. Maria della Navicella--S. Stefano Rotondo--I Santi Quattro Incoronati--S. Clemente.

The Cœlian Hill extends from St. John Lateran to the Vigna of the Porta Capena, and from the Fountain of Egeria to the Convent of S. Gregorio. It is now entirely uninhabited, except by monks of the Camaldolese, Passionist, and Redemptorist Orders, and by the Augustinian Nuns of the Incoronati.

In the earliest times the name of this hill was Mons Querquetulanus, "The Hill of Oaks," and it was clothed with forest, part of which long remained as the sacred wood of the Camenæ. It first received its name of Cœlius from Cœlius Vibenna, an Etruscan Lucumo of Ardea, who is said to have come to the assistance of Romulus in his war against the Sabine king Tatius, and to have afterwards established himself here. In the reign of Tullus Hostilius the Cœlian assumed some importance, as that king fixed his residence here, and transported hither the Latin population of Alba.

As the Cœlian had a less prominent share in the history of Rome than any of the other hills, it preserves scarcely any historical monuments of pagan times. All those which existed under the republic were destroyed by a great fire which ravaged this hill in the reign of Tiberius,[155] except the Temple of the Nymphs, which once stood in the grove of the Camenæ, and which had been already burnt by Clodius, in order to destroy the records of his falsehoods and debts which it contained.[156] Some small remains in the garden of the Passionist convent are attributed to the temple which Agrippina raised to her husband the Emperor Claudius, and in S. Stefano Rotondo some antiquaries recognize the Macellum of Nero. There are no remains of the palace of the Emperor Tetricus, who lived here, "between the two sacred groves,"[157] in a magnificent captivity under Aurelian, whom he received here at a banquet, at which he exhibited an allegorical picture representing his reception of the empire of Gaul, and his subsequent resignation of it for the simple insignia of a Roman senator.[158]

To the Christian visitor, however, the Cœlian will always prove of the deepest interest--and the slight thread of connection which runs between all its principal objects, as well as their nearness to one another, brings them pleasantly within the limits of a single day's excursion. Many of those who are not mere passing visitors at Rome, will probably find that their chief pleasure lies not amid the well-known sights of the great basilicas and palaces, but in quiet walks through the silent lanes and amid the decaying buildings of these more distant hills.

"The recollection of Rome will come back, after many years, in images of long delicious strolls, in musing loneliness, through the deserted ways of the ancient city; of climbing among its hills, over ruins, to reach some vantage-ground for mapping out the subjacent territory, and looking beyond on the glorious chains of greater and lesser mountains, clad in their imperial hues of gold and purple; and then, perhaps, of solemn entrance into the cool solitude of an open basilica, where your thought now rests, as your body then did, after the silent evening prayer, and brings forward from many well-remembered nooks, every local inscription, every lovely monument of art, the characteristic feature of each, or the great names with which it is associated. The Liberian speaks to you of Bethlehem and its treasured mysteries; the Sessorian of Calvary and its touching relics. Baronius gives you his injunctions on Christian architecture inscribed, as a legacy, in his title of Fasciola; St. Dominic lives in the fresh paintings of a faithful disciple, on the walls of the opposite church of St. Xystus; there stands the chair and there hangs the hat of St. Charles, as if he had just left his own church, from which he calls himself in his signature to letters 'the Cardinal of St. Praxedes;' near it, in a sister church, is fresh the memory of St. Justin Martyr, addressing his apologies for Christianity to heathen emperor and senate, and of Pudens and his British spouse; and, far beyond the city gates, the cheerful Philip[159] is seen kneeling at S. Sebastiano, waiting for the door to the Platonia to be opened for him, that he may watch the night through in the martyr's dormitory."--Wiseman's Life of Leo XII.

"For myself, I must say that I know nothing to compare with a pilgrimage among the antique churches scattered over the Esquiline, the Cœlian, and the Aventine Hills. They stand apart, each in its solitude, amid gardens, and vineyards, and heaps of nameless ruins;--here a group of cypresses, there a lofty pine or solitary palm; the tutelary saint, perhaps some Sant' Achilleo, or Santa Bibiana, whom we never heard of before,--an altar rich in precious marbles,--columns of porphyry,--the old frescoes dropping from the walls,--the everlasting colossal mosaics looking down so solemn, so dim, so spectral;--these grow upon us, until at each succeeding visit they themselves, and the associations by which they are surrounded, become a part of our daily life, and may be said to hallow that daily life when considered in a right spirit. True, what is most sacred, what is most poetical, is often desecrated to the fancy by the intrusion of those prosaic realities which easily strike prosaic minds; by disgust at the foolish fabrications which those who recite them do not believe, by lying inscriptions, by tawdry pictures, by tasteless and even profane restorations;--by much that saddens, much that offends, much that disappoints;--but then so much remains! So much to awaken, to elevate, to touch the heart; so much that will not pass away from the memory, so much that makes a part of our after-life."--Mrs. Jameson.

* * * * *

We may pass under the Arch of Constantine, or through the pleasant sunny walks known as the Parco di San Gregorio,--planted by the French during their first occupation of Rome, but which may almost be regarded as a remnant of the sacred grove of the Camenæ which once occupied this site.

The further gate of the Parco opens on a small triangular piazza, whence a broad flight of steps lead up to the Church of S. Gregorio, to the English pilgrim one of the most interesting spots in Rome, for it was at the head of these steps that St. Augustine took his last farewell of Gregory the Great, and, kneeling on this green-sward below, the first missionaries of England received the parting blessing of the great pontiff, as he stood on the height in the gateway. As we enter the portico (built 1633, by Card. Scipio Borghese,) we see on either side two world-famous inscriptions.

On the right:

Adsta hospes et lege. Hic olim fuit M. Gregori domus Ipse in monasterium convertit, Ubi monasticen professus est Et diu abbas præfuit. Monachi primum Benedictini Mox Græci tenuere Dein Benedictini iterum Post varios casos Quum jamdiu Esset commendatum Et poene desertum. Anno MDLXXIII Camaldulenses inducti Qui et industria sua Et ope plurium R. E. Cardinalium Quorum hic monumenta exstant, Favente etiam Clemente XI. P. M. Templum et adjacentes ædes In hanc quam cernis formam Restituerunt.

On the left:

Ex hoc monasterio Prodierunt. S. Gregorius, M. Fundator et Parens S. Eleutherius, A.B. Hilarion, A.B. S. Augustinus. Anglor. Apostol. S. Laurentius. Cantuar. Archiep. S. Mellitus. Londinen. Ep. mox. Archiep. Cantuar. S. Justus. Ep. Roffensis. S. Paulinus. Ep. Eborac. S. Maximianus. Syracusan. Ep. SS. Antonius, Merulus, et Joannes, Monachi. St. Petrus. A.B. Cantuar. Marinianus. Archiep. Raven. Probus. Xenodochi. Jerosolymit. Curator. A. S. Gregori. Elect. Sabinus Callipodit. Ep. Gregorius. Diac. Card. S. Eustach. Hic. Etiam. Diu. Vixit. M. Gregori Mater. S. Silvia. Hoc. Maxime Colenda. Quod. Tantum. Pietatis Sapientiæ. Et. Doctrinæ. Lumen Pepererit.

"Cette ville incomparable renferme peu de sites plus attrayants et plus dignes d'éternelle mémoire. Le sanctuaire occupe l'angle occidental du mont Cœlius.... Il est à égale distance du grand Cirque, des Thermes de Caracalla et du Colisée, tout proche de l'église des saints martyrs Jean et Paul. Le berceau du christianisme de l'Angleterre touche ainsi au sol trempé par le sang de tant de milliers de martyrs. En face s'élève le mont Palatin, berceau de Rome païenne, encore couvert des vastes débris du palais des Césars.... Où est donc l'Anglais digne de ce nom qui, en portant son regard du Palatin au Colisée, pourrait contempler sans émotion ce coin de terre d'où lui sont venus la foi, le nom chrétien et la Bible dont il est si fier. Voilà où les enfants esclaves de ses aïeux étaient recueillis et sauvés! Sur ces pierres s'agenouillaient ceux qui ont fait sa patrie chrétienne! Sous ces voûtes a été conçu par une âme sainte, confié à Dieu, béni par Dieu, accepté et accompli par d'humbles et généreux chrétiens, le grand dessein! Par ces degrés sont descendus les quarante moines qui ont porté à l'Angleterre la parole de Dieu, la lumière de l'Évangile, la succession apostolique et la règle de Saint-Benoît!"--Montalembert, Moines d'Occident.

Hard by was the house of Sta. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory, of which the ruins still remain, opposite to the church of S. Giovanni e Paolo, and in the little garden which still exists, we may believe that he played as a child under his mother's care. Close to his mother's home he founded the monastery of St. Andrew, where he dwelt for many years as a monk, employed in writing homilies, and in the enjoyment of visionary conversation with the Virgin, whom he believed to answer him in person from her picture before which he knelt. "To this monastery he presented his own portrait, with those of his father and mother, which were probably in existence 300 years after his death; and this portrait of himself probably furnished that peculiar type of physiognomy which we trace in all the best representations of him."[160] During the life of penance and poverty which was led here by St. Gregory, he sold all his goods for the benefit of the poor, retaining nothing but a silver bason given him by his mother. One day a poor shipwrecked sailor came several times to beg in the cell where he was writing, and as he had no money, he gave him instead this one remaining treasure. A long time after, St. Gregory saw the same shipwrecked sailor reappear in the form of his guardian angel, who told him that God had henceforth destined him to rule his church, and become the successor of St. Peter, whose charity he had imitated.[161]

"Un moine (A.D. 590) va monter pour la première fois sur la chaire apostolique. Ce moine, le plus illustre de tous ceux qui ont compté parmi les souverains pontifes, y rayonnera d'un éclat qu'aucun de ses prédécesseurs n'a égalé et qui rejaillera comme une sanction suprême, sur l'institut dont il est issu. Grégoire, le seul parmi les hommes avec le Pape Léon Ier qui ait reçu à la fois, du consentement universel, le double surnom de Saint et de Grand, sera l'eternel honneur de l'Ordre bénédictin comme de la papauté. Par son génie, mais surtout par le charme et l'ascendant de sa vertu, il organisera le domaine temporel des papes, il développera et régularisera leur souveraineté spirituelle, il fondera leur paternelle suprématie sur les royautés naissantes et les nations nouvelles qui vont devenir les grands peuples de l'avenir, et s'appeler la France, l'Espagne, l'Angleterre. A vrai dire, c'est lui qui inaugure le moyen âge, la société moderne et la civilisation chrétienne."--Montalembert.

The church of St. Gregory is approached by a cloistered court filled with monuments. On the left is that of Sir Edward Carne, one of the commissioners to obtain the opinion of foreign universities respecting the divorce of Henry VIII. from Catherine of Arragon, ambassador to Charles V., and afterwards to the court of Rome. He was recalled when the embassy was suppressed by Elizabeth, but was kept at Rome by Paul IV., who had conceived a great affection for him, and he died here in 1561. Another monument, of an exile for the catholic faith, is that of Robert Pecham, who died 1567, inscribed:

"Roberto Pecham Anglo, equite aurato, Philippi et Mariæ Angliæ et Hispan regibus olim a consiliis genere religione virtute præclaro qui cum patriam suam a fede catholica deficientem adspicere sine summo dolore non posset, relictis omnibus quæ in hac vita carissima esse solent, in voluntarium profectus exilium, post sex annis pauperibus Christi heredibus testamento institutis, sanctissime e vita migravit."

The Church, rebuilt in 1734, under Francesco Ferrari, has sixteen ancient granite columns and a fine Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. Among its monuments we may observe that of Cardinal Zurla, a learned writer on geographical subjects, who was abbot of the adjoining convent. It was a curious characteristic of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II. (1503-13), that her friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in this church, and to inscribe upon her tomb: "Imperia, cortisana Romana, quæ digna tanto nomine, raræ inter homines formæ specimen dedit. Vixit annos xxvi. dies xii. obiit 1511, die 15 Augusti,"--but this monument has now been removed.

At the end of the right aisle is a picture by Badalocchi, commemorating a miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation. It will be observed that in this and in most other representations of St. Gregory, a dove is perched upon his shoulder, and whispering into his ear. This is commemorative of the impression that every word and act of the saint was directly inspired by the Holy Ghost; a belief first engendered by the happy promptitude of Peter, his arch-deacon, who invented the story to save the beloved library of his master which was about to be destroyed after his death by the people, in a pitiful spirit of revenge, because they fancied that a famine which was decimating them, had been brought about by the extravagance of Gregory.[162] An altar beneath this picture is decorated with marble reliefs, representing the same miracle, and also the story of the soul of the Emperor Trajan being freed from purgatory by the intercession of Gregory. (Chap. IV.)

A low door near this leads into the monastic cell of St. Gregory, containing his marble chair, and the spot where his bed lay, inscribed:

"Nocte dieque vigil longo hic defessu labore Gregorius modica membra quiete levat."

Here also an immense collection of minute relics of saints are exposed to the veneration of the credulous.

On the opposite side of the church is the Salviati Chapel, the burial-place of that noble family, modernized in 1690 by Carlo Maderno. Over the altar is a copy of Annibale Caracci's picture of St. Gregory, which once existed here, but is now in England. On the right is the picture of the Madonna, "which spoke to St. Gregory," and which is said to have become suddenly impressed upon the wall after a vision in which she appeared to him;--on the left is a beautiful marble ciborium.

Hence a sacristan will admit the visitor into the Garden of Sta. Silvia, whence there is a grand view over the opposite Palatine.

"To stand here on the summit of the flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the ruined Palace of the Cæsars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of thoughts. There, before us, the Palatine Hill--pagan Rome in the dust; here, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Cæsars, and first set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness."--Mrs. Jameson.

Here are three Chapels, restored by the historian Cardinal Baronius, in the sixteenth century. The first, of Sta. Silvia, contains a fresco of the Almighty with a choir of angels, by Guido, and beneath it a beautiful statue of the venerable saint (especially invoked against convulsions), by Niccolo Cordieri--one of the best statues of saints in Rome. The second chapel, of St. Andrew, contains the two famous rival frescoes of Guido and Domenichino. Guido has represented St. Andrew kneeling in reverent thankfulness at first sight of the cross on which he was to suffer; Domenichino--a more painful subject--the flagellation of the saint. Of these paintings Annibale Caracci observed that "Guido's was the painting of the Master; but Domenichino's the painting of the scholar who knew more than the master." The beautiful group of figures in the corner, where a terrified child is hiding its face in its mother's dress, is introduced in several other pictures of Domenichino.

"It is a well-known anecdote that a poor old woman stood for a long time before the story of Domenichino, pointing it out bit by bit and explaining it to a child who was with her,--and that she then turned to the story told by Guido, admired the landscape, and went away. It is added that when Annibale Caracci heard of this, it seemed to him in itself a sufficient reason for giving the preference to the former work. It is also said that when Domenichino was painting one of the executioners, he worked himself up into a fury with threatening words and gestures, and that Annibale, surprising him in this condition, embraced him, saying: 'Domenico, to-day you have taught me a lesson, which is that a painter, like an orator, must first feel himself that which he would represent to others.'"--Lanzi, v. 82.

"In historical pictures Domenichino is often cold and studied, especially in the principal subject, while on the other hand, the subordinate persons have much grace, and a noble character of beauty. Thus, in the scourging of St. Andrew, a group of women thrust back by the executioners is of the highest beauty. Guido's fresco is of high merit--St. Andrew, on his way to execution, sees the cross before him in the distance, and falls upon his knees in adoration,--the executioners and spectators regard him with astonishment."--Kugler.

The third chapel, of Sta. Barbara, contains a grand statue of St. Gregory by Niccolo Cordieri[163] (where the whispering dove is again represented), and the table at which he daily fed twelve poor pilgrims after washing their feet. The Roman breviary tells how on one occasion an angel appeared at the feast as the thirteenth guest. This story,--the sending forth of St. Augustine,--and other events of St. Gregory's life, are represented in rude frescoes upon the walls by Viviani.

The adjoining Convent (modern) is of vast size, and is now occupied by Camaldolese monks, though in the time of St. Gregory it belonged to the Benedictines. In its situation it is beautiful and quiet, and must have been so even in the time of St. Gregory, who often regretted the seclusion which he was compelled to quit.

"Un jour, plus accablé que jamais par le poids des affaires séculières, il s'était retiré dans un lieu secret pour s'y livrer dans un long silence à sa tristesse, et y fut rejoint par le diàcre Pierre, son élève, son ami d'enfance et le compagnon de ses chères études. 'Vous est-il donc arrivé quelque chagrin nouveau,' lui dit le jeune homme, 'pour que vous soyez ainsi plus triste qu'à l'ordinaire.' 'Mon chagrin,' lui répondit le pontife, 'est celui de tous mes jours, toujours vieux par l'usage, et toujours nouveau par sa croissance quotidienne. Ma pauvre âme se rappelle ce qu'elle était autrefois, dans notre monastère, quand elle planait sur tout ce qui passe, sur tout ce qui change; quand elle ne songeait qu'au ciel; quand elle franchissait par la contemplation le cloître de ce corps qui l'enserre; quand elle aimait d'avance la mort comme l'entrée de la vie. Et maintenant il lui faut, à cause de ma charge pastorale, supporter les mille affaires des hommes du siècle et se souiller dans cette poussière. Et quand, après s'être ainsi répandue au dehors, elle veut retrouver sa retraite intérieure, elle n'y revient qu'amoindrie. Je médite sur tout ce que je souffre et sur tout ce que j'ai perdu. Me voici, battu par l'océan et tout brisé par la tempête; quand je pense à ma vie d'autrefois, il me semble regarder en arrière vers le rivage. Et ce qu'il y a de plus triste, c'est qu'ainsi ballotté par l'orage, je puis à peine entrevoir le port que j'ai quitté.'"--Montalembert, Moines d'Occident.

Pope Gregory XVI. was for some years abbot of this convent, to which he was afterwards a generous benefactor;--regretting always, like his great predecessor, the peace of his monastic life. His last words to his cardinals, who were imploring him, for political purposes, to conceal his danger, were singularly expressive of this--"Per Dio lasciatemi!--voglio morire da frate, non da sovrano." The last great ceremony enacted at S. Gregorio was when Cardinal Wiseman consecrated the mitred abbot of English Cistercians,--Dr. Manning preaching at the same time on the prospects of English Catholicism.

Ascending the steep paved lane between S. Gregorio and the Parco, the picturesque church on the left with the arcaded apse and tall campanile (c. A.D. 1206), inlaid with coloured tiles and marbles, is that of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, two officers in the household of the Christian princess Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, in whose time they occupied a position of great influence and trust. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he attempted to persuade them to sacrifice to idols, but they refused, saying, "Our lives are at the disposal of the emperor, but our souls and our faith belong to our God." Then Julian, fearing to bring them to public martyrdom, lest their popularity should cause a rebellion and the example of their well-known fortitude be an encouragement to others, sent off soldiers to behead them privately in their own house. Hence the inscription on the spot, "Locus martyrii SS. Joannis et Paoli in ædibus propriis." The church was built by Pammachus, the friend of St. Jerome, on the site of the house of the saints. It is entered by a portico adorned with eight ancient granite columns, interesting as having been erected by the English pope, Nicholas Breakspear, A.D. 1158. The interior, in the basilica form, has sixteen ancient columns and a beautiful Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. In the centre of the floor is a stone, railed off, upon which it is said that the saints were beheaded. Their bodies are contained in a porphyry urn under the high altar. In early times these were the only bodies of saints preserved within the walls of Rome (the rest being in the catacombs). In the Sacramentary of St. Leo, in the Preface of SS. John and Paul, it is said, "Of Thy merciful providence Thou hast vouchsafed to crown not only the circuit of the city with the glorious passions of the martyrs, but also to hide in the very heart of the city itself the victorious limbs of St. John and St. Paul."[164]

Above the tribune are frescoes by Pomerancio. A splendid chapel on the right was built 1868;--two of its alabaster pillars were the gift of Pius IX. Beneath the altar on the left of the tribune is preserved the embalmed body of St. Paul of the Cross (who died 1776), founder of the Order of Passionists, who inhabit the adjoining convent. The aged face bears a beautiful expression of repose;--the body is dressed in the robe which clothed it when living.[165]

Male visitors are admitted through the convent to its large and beautiful Garden, which overhangs the steep side of the Cœlian towards the Coliseum, of which there is a fine view between its ancient cypresses. Here, on a site near the monastery, are some remains believed to be those of the temple built by Agrippina (c. A.D. 57), daughter of Germanicus, to the honour of her deified husband (and uncle) Claudius, after she had sent him to Olympus by feeding him with poisonous mushrooms. This temple was pulled down by Nero, who wished to efface the memory of his predecessor, on the pretext that it interfered with his Golden House; but was rebuilt under Vespasian. In this garden also is the entrance to the vast substructions known as the Vivarium, whence the wild beasts who devoured the early Christian martyrs were frightened by burning tow down a subterranean passage into the arena.

The famous Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice was founded by emigrants from this convent. The memory of these saints was so much honoured up to the time of Pope Gregory the Great, that the eve of their festival was an obligatory fast. Their fête (June 26) is still kept with great solemnities on the Cœlian, when the railing round their place of execution is wreathed and laden with flowers. When the "station" is held at their church, the apse is illuminated.

Continuing to follow the lane up the Cœlian, we reach the richly tinted brick Arch of Dolabella, erected, A.D. 10, by the consuls P. Cornelius Dolabella and Caius Julius Silanus. Nero, building his aqueduct to the palace of the Cæsars, made use of this, which already existed, and included it in his line of arches.

Above the arch is a Hermitage, revered as that where S. Giovanni di Matha lived, and where he died in 1213. Before he came to reside here he had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!

Passing beneath the gateway, we emerge upon the picturesque irregular Piazza of the Navicella, the central point of the Cœlian, which is surrounded by a most interesting group of buildings, and which contains an isolated fragment of the aqueduct of Nero, dear to artists from its colour. Behind this, under the trees, is the little marble Navicella, which is supposed to have been originally a votive offering of a sailor to Jupiter Redux, whose temple stood near this; but which was adapted by Leo X. as a Christian emblem of the Church,--the boat of St. Peter.

"The allegory of a ship is peculiarly dwelt upon by the ancient Fathers. A ship entering the port was a favourite heathen emblem of the close of life. But the Christian idea, and its elevation from individual to universal or catholic humanity, is derived directly from the Bible,--see, for instance, I Peter iii. 20, 21. 'Without doubt,' says St. Augustine, 'the ark is the figure of the city of God pilgrimising in this world, in other words, of the Church, which is saved by the wood on which hung the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' The same interpretation was recognised in the Latin Church in the days of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, &c. The bark of St. Peter is similarly represented on a Greek gem, found in the Catacombs, as sailing on a fish, probably Leviathan or Satan, while doves, emblematical of the faithful, perch on the mast and stern,--two Apostles row, a third lifts up his hands in prayer, and our Saviour, approaching the vessel, supports Peter by the hand when about to sink.... But the allegory of the ship is carried out to its fullest extent in the fifty-seventh chapter of the second book of the 'Apostolical Constitutions,' supposed to have been compiled in the name of the Apostles, in the fourth century."--Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, i. 18.

On the right is (first) the gateway of the deserted convent of Redemptorists, called S. Tommaso in Formis, which was founded by S. Giovanni de Matha, who, when celebrating his first mass at Paris, beheld in a vision, an angel robed in white, with a red and blue cross upon his breast, and his hands resting in benediction upon the heads of two captives,--a white and a black man. The bishop of Paris sent him to Rome to seek explanation from Innocent III., who was celebrated as an interpreter of dreams,--his foundation of the Franciscan order having resulted from one which befell him. S. Giovanni was accompanied to the pope by another hermit, Felix de Valois. They found that Innocent had himself seen the same vision of the angel between the two captives while celebrating mass at the Lateran, and he interpreted it as inculcating the duty of charity towards Christian slaves, for which purpose he founded the Trinitarians, since called Redemptorists. The story of the double vision is commemorated in a Mosaic, erected above the door, A.D. 1260, and bearing the name of the artist, Jacobus Cosmati.

The next gate beyond the church is that of the Villa Mattei, the garden of the Redemptorists. (The villa is now the property of Baron Richard Hoffmann: visitors are generally admitted upon writing down their names at the gate.)

These grounds are well worth visiting--quite the ideal of a deserted Roman garden, a wealth of large Roman daisies, roses, and periwinkle spreading at will amid remains of ancient statues and columns. A grand little avenue of ilexes leads to a terrace whence there is a most beautiful view towards the aqueducts and the Alban Hills, with a noble sarcophagus and a quantity of fine aloes and prickly-pears in the foreground. There is an obelisk, of which only the top is Egyptian. It is said that there is a man's hand underneath;--when the obelisk was lowered it fell suddenly, and one of the workmen had not time to take his hand away. In the grounds annexed to the lower part of the villa is the Fountain of Egeria (p. 375).

Almost standing in the garden of the villa, and occupying the site of the house of Sta. Cyriaca, is the Church of Sta. Maria in Domenica or della Navicella. (If no one is here, the hermit at S. Stefano Rotondo will unlock it.) The portico is due to Raphael (his design is at Windsor). The damp interior (rebuilt by Leo X. from designs of Raphael) is solemn and striking. It is in the basilica form, the nave separated from the aisles by eighteen columns of granite and one (smaller, near the tribune) of porphyry. The frieze, in chiaroscuro, was painted by Giulio Romano and Pierino del Vaga. Beneath the confessional are the bones of Sta. Balbina, whose fortress-like church stands on the Pseudo-Aventine. In the tribune are curious mosaics, in which the figure of Pope Paschal I. is introduced, the square nimbus round his head being an evidence of its portrait character, i. e., that it was done during his lifetime.[166]

"Within the tribune are mosaics of the Virgin and Child seated on a throne, with angels ranged in regular rows on each side; and, at her feet, with unspeakable stiffness of limb, the kneeling figure of Pope Paschal I. Upon the walls of the tribune is the Saviour with a nimbus, surrounded with two angels and the twelve apostles, and further below, on a much larger scale, two prophets, who appear to point towards him. The most remarkable thing here is the rich foliage decoration. Besides the wreaths of flowers (otherwise not a rare feature) which are growing out of two vessels on the edge of the dome, the floor beneath the figures is also decorated with flowers--a graceful species of ornament seldom aimed at in the moroseness of Byzantine art. From this point, the decline into utter barbarism is rapid."--Kugler.

"The Olivetan monks inhabited the church and cloisters of Sta. Maria in Domenica, commonly called in Navicella, from the rudely sculptured marble monument that stands on the grass before its portal, a remnant of bygone days, to which neither history nor tradition has given a name, but which has itself given one to the picturesque old church which stands on the brow of the Cœlian Hill."--Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

A tradition of the Church narrates that St. Lorenzo, deacon and martyr, daily distributed alms to the poor in front of this church--then the house of Sta. Cyriaca--with whom he had taken refuge.

Opposite, is the round Church of S. Stefano Rotondo, dedicated by St. Simplicius in 467. It appears to have been built on the site of an ancient circular building, and to have belonged to the great victual market--Macellum Magnum--erected by Nero in this quarter.[167] It is seldom used for service, except on St. Stephen's Day (December 26), but visitors are admitted through a little cloister, in which stands a well of beautiful proportions, of temp. Leo X.--attributed to Michael Angelo. The interior is exceedingly curious architecturally. It is one hundred and thirty-three feet in diameter, with a double circle of granite columns, thirty-six in the outer and twenty in the inner series, enclosing two tall Corinthian columns, with two pilasters supporting a cross wall. In the centre is a kind of temple in which are relics of St. Stephen (his body is said to be at S. Lorenzo). In the entrance of the church is an ancient marble seat from which St. Gregory is said to have read his fourth homily.

The walls are lined with frescoes by Pomerancio and Tempesta. They begin with the Crucifixion, but as the Holy Innocents really suffered before our Saviour, one of them is represented lying on each side of the cross. Next comes the stoning of St. Stephen, and the frescoes continue to pourtray every phase of human agony in the most revolting detail, but are interesting as showing a historical series of what the Roman Catholic Church considers as the best authenticated martyrdoms, viz.:

{St. Peter, crucified. {St. Paul, beheaded. {St. Vitale, buried alive. {St. Thecla, tossed by a bull. Under Nero {St. Gervase, beaten to death. {SS. Protasius, Processus, and Martinianus, beheaded. {St. Faustus and others, clothed in skins of beasts {and torn to pieces by dogs.

{St. John, boiled in oil (which he survived) at the {Porta Latina. {St. Cletus, Pope, beheaded. Under Domitian {St. Denis, beheaded (and carrying his head). {St. Domitilla, roasted alive. {SS. Nereus and Achilles, beheaded.

{St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, eaten by lions in {the Coliseum. Under Trajan {St. Clement, Pope, tied to an anchor and thrown {into the sea. {St. Simon, Bishop of Jerusalem, crucified.

{St. Eustachio, his wife Theophista, and his children {Agapita and Theophista, burnt in a {brazen bull before the Coliseum. Under Hadrian {St. Alexander, Pope, beheaded.

{St. Sinforosa, drowned, and her seven sons martyred {in various ways. {St. Pius, Pope, beheaded.

{St. Felicitas and her seven sons martyred in Under Antoninus-Pius {various ways. and Marcus {St. Justus, beheaded. Aurelius {St. Margaret, stretched on a rack, and torn to {pieces with iron forks.

{St. Blandina, tossed by a bull, in a net. Under Antoninus {St. Attalus, roasted on red-hot chair. and Verus {St. Pothicus and others, burnt alive.

{SS. Perpetua and Felicitas, torn to pieces by lions Under Septimius {in the Coliseum. Severus and {SS. Victor and Zephyrinus, Leonida and Basil, Caracalla {beheaded. {St. Alexandrina, covered with boiling pitch.

{St. Calixtus, Pope, thrown into a well with a stone {round his neck. {St. Calepodius, dragged through Rome by wild {horses, and thrown into the Tiber. Under Alexander {St. Martina, torn with iron forks. Severus {St. Cecilia, who, failing to be suffocated with hot {water, was stabbed in the throat. {St. Urban the Pope, Tibertius, Valerianus, and {Maximus, beheaded.

{St. Pontianus, Pope, beheaded in Sardinia. {St. Agatha, her breasts cut off. {SS. Fabian and Cornelius, Popes, and St. Cyprian {of Carthage, beheaded. {St. Tryphon, burnt. {SS. Abdon and Sennen, torn by lions. {St. Apollonia, burnt, after all her teeth were pulled Under Valerianus {out. and Gallienus {St. Stephen, Pope, burnt in his episcopal chair. {St. Cointha, torn to pieces. {St. Sixtus, Pope, killed with the sword. {St. Venantius, thrown from a wall. {St. Laurence the deacon, roasted on a gridiron. {St. Hippolytus, torn by wild horses. {SS. Rufina and Semula, drowned in the Tiber. {SS. Protus and Hiacinthus, beheaded.

{Three hundred Christians, burnt in a furnace. {St. Tertullian, burnt with hot irons. {St. Nemesius, beheaded. {St. Sempronius, Olympius, and Theodulus, burnt. Under Claudius {St. Marius, hung, with a huge weight tied to his II. {feet. {St. Martha, and her children, martyred in different {ways. {SS. Cyprian and Justinian, boiled. {St. Valentine, killed with the sword.

{St. Agapitus (aged 15), hung head downwards over {a pan of burning charcoal. Inscribed above {are these words from Wisdom, 'Properavit ut Under Aurelian {educeret illum a seductionibus et iniquitatibus and Numerianus {gentis suæ.' {St. Christina, transfixed through the heart. {St. Columba, burnt. {SS. Chrysanthus and Daria, buried alive.

{St. Agnes, bound to a stake, afterwards beheaded. {St. Caius, Pope, beheaded. {St. Emerantia, stoned to death. {Nearly the whole population of Nicomedia martyred {in different ways. {St. Erasmus, laid in a coffin, into which boiling {lead was poured. {St. Blaise, bound to a column, and torn to pieces. {St. Barbara, burnt with hot irons. {St. Eustrathius and his companions, martyred in Under Diocletian {different ways. and Maximianus {St. Vincent, burnt on a gridiron. {SS. Primus and Felicianus, torn by lions. {St. Anastasia, thrown from a rock? {SS. Quattro Incoronati, martyred in various ways. {SS. Peter and Marcellinus, beheaded. {St. Boniface, placed in a dungeon full of boiling {pitch. {St. Lucia, shut up in a well full of serpents. {St. Euphemia, run through with a sword. {SS. Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentius, boiled alive. {St. Sebastian, shot with arrows (which he survived). {SS. Cosmo and Damian, Pantaleon, Saturninus, {Susanna, Gornius, Adrian, and others, in {different ways.

{St. Catherine of Alexandria, and others, broken {on the wheel. Under Maxentius {SS. Faustina and Porfirius, burnt with a company {of soldiers. {St. Marcellus, Pope, died worn out by persecution.

{St. Simon and 1600 citizens cut into fragments. Under Maximinus {St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandra, and forty soldiers, and Licinius {left to die, up to their waists in a frozen lake.

{SS. John and Paul, beheaded. {St. Artemius, crushed between two stones. Under Julian the {St. Pigmenius, drowned in the Tiber. Apostate {St. Bibiana, flogged to death, and thrown for food {to dogs in the Forum.

The last picture represents the reunion of eminent martyrs (in which the Roman Church includes English sufferers under Elizabeth), and above is inscribed this verse from Isaiah xxv., "Laudabit populus fortis, civitas gentium robustarum."

"Au-dessus du tableau de la Crucifixion se trouve cette inscription: 'Roi glorieux des martyrs, s'il donne sa vie pour racheter la péché, il verra une postérité sans fin.' Et quelle postérité! Hommes, femmes, vieillards, jeunes hommes, jeunes filles, enfants! Comme tous accourent, comme tous savent mourir."--Une Chrétienne à Rome.

"Les païens avaient divinisé la vie, les chrétiens divinisèrent la mort."--Madame de Stael.

"S. Stefano Rotondo exhibits, in a series of pictures all round the church, the martyrdoms of the Christians in the so-called persecutions, with a general picture of the most eminent martyrs since the triumph of Christianity. No doubt many of the particular stories thus painted will bear no critical examination; it is likely enough, too, that Gibbon has truly accused the general statements of exaggeration. But this is a thankless labour, such as Lingard and others have undertaken with regard to the St. Bartholomew massacre, and the Irish massacre of 1642. Divide the sum total of reported martyrs by twenty,--by fifty, if you will,--but after all you have a number of persons of all ages and sexes suffering cruel torments and death for conscience' sake and for Christ's, and by their sufferings manifestly, with God's blessing, ensuring the triumph of Christ's gospel. Neither do I think that we consider the excellence of this martyr-spirit half enough. I do not think pleasure is a sin: the stoics of old, and the ascetic Christians since, who have said so (see the answers of that excellent man, Pope Gregory the Great, to Augustine's questions, as given at length by Bede), have, in saying so, outstepped the simplicity and wisdom of Christian truth. But, though pleasure is not a sin, yet surely the contemplation of suffering for Christ's sake is a thing most needful to us in our days, from whom, in our daily life, suffering seems so far removed. And, as God's grace enabled rich and delicate persons, women, and even children, to endure all extremities of pain and reproach in times past, so there is the same grace no less mighty now, and if we do not close ourselves against it, it might in us be no less glorified in a time of trial. And that such times of trial will come, my children, in your times, if not in mine, I do believe fully, both from the teaching of man's wisdom and of God's. And therefore pictures of martyrdom are, I think, very wholesome--not to be sneered at, nor yet to be looked on as a mere excitement,--but as a sober reminder to us of what Satan can do to hurt, and what God's grace can enable the weakest of His people to bear. Neither should we forget those who, by their sufferings, were more than conquerors, not for themselves only, but for us, in securing to us the safe and triumphant existence of Christ's blessed faith--in securing to us the possibility, nay, the actual enjoyment, had it not been for the Antichrist of the priesthood--of Christ's holy and glorious ἑκκλησια, the congregation and commonwealth of Christ's people."--Arnold's Letters.

"On croit que l'église de Saint-Etienne-le-Rond est bâtie sur l'emplacement du Macellum Augusti. S'il en est ainsi, les supplices des martyrs, hideusement représentés sur les murs de cette église, rappellent ce qu'elle a remplacé."--Ampère, Emp. i. 270.

The first chapel on the left, dedicated to SS. Primus and Felicianus, contains some delicate small mosaics.

"The mosaics of the small altar of S. Stefano Rotondo, are of A.D. 642--649. A brilliantly-decorated cross is represented between two standing figures of St. Primus and St. Felicianus. On the upper end of the cross (very tastefully introduced) appears a small head of Christ with a nimbus, over which the hand of the Father is extended in benediction."--Kugler.

In the next chapel is a very beautiful tomb of Bernardino Capella, Canon of St. Peter's, who died 1524.

In a small house, which formerly stood among the gardens in this neighbourhood, Palestrina lived and wrote.

"Sous le règne de Paul IV., Palestrina faisait partie de la chapelle papale; mais il fut obligé de la quitter, parce-qu'il était marié. Il se retira alors dans une chaumière perdue au milieu des vignes du Mont Cœlius, et là, seul, inconnu au monde, il se livra, durant de longs jours, à cette extase de la pensée qui agrandit, au-delà de toute mesure, la puissance créatrice de l'homme. Le désir des Pères du concile lui ayant été manifesté, il prit aussitôt une plume, écrivit en tête de son cahier, 'Mon Dieu, éclairez-moi,' et se mit à l'œuvre avec un saint enthousiasme. Ses premiers efforts ne répondirent pas à l'idéal que son génie s'était formé; mais peu à peu ses pensées s'éclaircirent, et les flots de poésie qui inondaient son âme, se répandirent en mélodies touchantes. Chaque parole du texte retentissait clairement, allait chercher toutes les consciences, et les exaltait dans une émotion commune. La messe du pape Marcel trancha la question; et Pie IV. s'écria, après l'avoir entendue, qu'il avait cru assister aux concerts des anges."--Gournerie, Rome Chrétienne, ii. 195.

Following the lane of S. Stefano Rotondo--skirted by broken fragments of Nero's aqueduct--almost to its debouchment near St. J. Lateran, and then turning to the left, we reach the quaint fortress like church and convent of the Santi Quattro Incoronati crowned by a stumpy campanile of 1112. The full title of this church is "I Santi quattro Pittori Incoronati e i cinque Scultori Martiri," the names which the Church attributes to the painters being Severus, Severianus, Carpoforus, and Vittorinus; and those of the sculptors Claudius, Nicostratus, Sinforianus, Castorius, and Simplicius,--who all suffered for refusing to carve and paint idols for Diocletian. Their festa is kept on Nov. 8.

This church was founded on the site of a temple of Diana by Honorius I., A.D. 622; rebuilt by Leo IV. A.D. 850; and again rebuilt in its present form by Paschal II., who consecrated it afresh in A.D. 1111. It is approached through a double court, in which are many ancient columns,--perhaps remains of the temple. Some antiquaries suppose that the church itself was once of larger size, and that the pillars which now form its atrium were once included in the nave. The interior is arranged on the English plan with a triforium and a clerestory, the triforium being occupied by the nuns of the adjoining convent. The aisles are groined, but the nave has a wooden ceiling. Behind the tribune is a vaulted passage, partly subterranean. The tribune contains a marble throne, and is adorned with frescoes by Giovanni di San Giovanni.[168] In the right aisle are preserved some of the verses of Pope Damasus. Another inscription tells of the restoration of the church in the fifteenth century, and describes the state of desolation into which it had fallen.

"Hæc quæcumque vides veteri prostrata ruina Obruta verberis, ederis, dumisque jacebant."

Opening out of the court in front of the church is the little Chapel of S. Sylvestro, built by Innocent II. in 1140. It contains a series of very curious frescoes.

"Showing the influence of Byzantine upon Roman art is the little chapel of S. Silvestro, detailing the history of the conversion of Constantine with a naïveté which, with the exception of a certain dignity in some of the figures, constitutes their sole attraction. They are indeed little better than Chinese paintings; the last of the series, representing Constantine leading Pope Sylvester's horse by the bridle, walking beside him in his long flowing robe, with a chattah held over his head by an attendant, has quite an Asiatic character."--Lord Lindsay's Christian Art.

"Here, as in so many instances, legend is the genuine reflex, not of the external, but the moral part of history. In this series of curious wall-paintings, we see Constantine dismissing, consoled and laden with gifts, the mothers whose children were to be slaughtered to provide a bath of blood, the remedy prescribed--but which he humanely rejected--for his leprosy, his punishment for persecuting the Church while he yet lingered in the darkness of paganism; we see the vision of St. Peter and St. Paul, who appear to him in his dreams, and prescribe the infallible cure for both physical and moral disease through the waters of baptism; we see the mounted emissaries, sent by the emperor to seek St. Sylvester, finding that pontiff concealed in a cavern on Mount Soracte; we see that saint before the emperor, exhibiting to him the authentic portraits of the two apostles (said to be still preserved at St. Peter's), pictures in which Constantine at once recognises the forms seen in his vision, assuming them to be gods entitled to his worship; we see the imperial baptism, with a background of fantastic architecture, the rite administered both by immersion (the neophyte standing in an ample font) and affusion; we see the pope on a throne, before which the emperor is kneeling, to offer him a tiara--no doubt the artist intended thus to imply the immediate bestowal of temporal sovereignty (very generally believed the act of Constantine in the first flush of his gratitude and neophyte zeal) upon the papacy; lastly, we see the pontiff riding into Rome in triumph, Constantine himself leading his horse, and other mitred bishops following on horseback. Another picture--evidently by the same hand--quaintly represents the finding of the true cross by St. Helena, and the miracle by which it was distinguished from the crosses of the two thieves,--a subject here introduced because a portion of that revered relic was among treasures deposited in this chapel, as an old inscription, on one side, records. The largest composition on these walls, which completes the series, represents the Saviour enthroned amidst angels and apostles. This chapel is now only used for the devotions of a guild of marble-cutters, and open for mass on but one Sunday--the last--in every month."--Hemans Mediæval Christian Art.

In the fresco of the Crucifixion in this chapel an angel is represented taking off the crown of thorns and putting on a real crown, an incident nowhere else introduced in art.

The castellated Convent of the Santi Quattro was built by Paschal II. at the same time as the church, and was used as a papal palace while the Lateran was in ruins, hence its defensive aspect, suited to the troublous times of the anti-popes. It is now inhabited by Augustinian Nuns.

At the foot of the Cœlian beneath the Incoronati, and in the street leading from the Coliseum to the Lateran, is the Church of S. Clemente, to which recent discoveries, have given an extraordinary interest.

The upper church, in spite of modernizations under Clement XI. in the last century, retains more of the details belonging to primitive ecclesiastical architecture than any other building in Rome. It was consecrated in memory of Clement, the fellow-labourer of St Paul, and the third bishop of Rome, upon the site of his family house. It was already important in the time of Gregory the Great, who here read his thirty-third and thirty-eighth homilies. It was altered by Adrian I. in A.D. 772, and by John VIII. in A.D. 800, and again restored in A.D. 1099 by Paschal II., who had been cardinal of the church, and who was elected to the papacy within its walls. The greater part of the existing building is thus either of the ninth or the twelfth century.

At the west end a porch supported by two columns, and attributed to the eighth century, leads into the quadriporticus, from which is the entrance to the nave, separated from its aisles by sixteen columns evidently plundered from pagan buildings. Raised above the nave and protected by a low marble wall is the cancellum, preserving its ancient pavement, ambones, altar, and episcopal throne.

"In S. Clemente, built on the site of his paternal mansion, and restored at the beginning of the twelfth century, an example is still to be seen, in perfect preservation, of the primitive church; everything remains in statu quo--the court, the portico, the cancellum, the ambones, paschal candlestick, crypt, and ciborium--virgin and intact; the wooden roof has unfortunately disappeared, and a small chapel, dedicated to St. Catherine, has been added, yet even this is atoned for by the lovely frescoes of Masaccio. I most especially recommend this relic of early Christianity to your affectionate and tender admiration. Yet the beauty of S. Clemente is internal only, outwardly it is little more than a barn."--Lord Lindsay.

On the left of the side entrance is the Chapel of the Passion, clothed with frescoes of Masaccio, which, though restored, are very beautiful--over the altar is the Crucifixion, on the side walls the stories of St. Clement and St Catherine.

"The celebrated series relating to St. Catherine is still most striking in the grace and refinement of its principal figures:

"1. St. Catherine (cousin of the Emperor Constantine) refuses to worship idols.

"2. She converts the empress of Maximin. She is seen through a window seated inside a prison, and the empress is seated outside the prison, opposite to her, in a graceful listening attitude.

"3. The empress is beheaded, and her soul is carried to heaven by an angel.

"4. Catherine disputes with the pagan philosophers. She is standing in the midst of a hall, the forefinger of one hand laid on the other, as in the act of demonstrating. She is represented fair and girlish, dressed with great simplicity in a tunic and girdle,--no crown, nor any other attribute. The sages are ranged on each side, some lost in thought, others in astonishment, the tyrant (Maximin) is seen behind, as if watching the conference, while through an open window we behold the fire kindled for the converted philosophers, and the scene of their execution.

"5. Catherine is delivered from the wheels, which are broken by an angel.

"6. She is beheaded. In the background three angels lay her in a sarcophagus on the summit of Mount Sinai."--See Jameson's Sacred Art, p. 491.

"'Masaccio,' says Vasari, 'whose enthusiasm for art would not allow him to rest contentedly at Florence, resolved to go to Rome, that he might learn there to surpass every other painter.' It was during this journey, which, in fact, added much to his renown, that he painted, in the Church of San Clemente--the chapel which now so usually disappoints the expectations of the traveller, on account of the successive restorations by which his work has been disfigured.... The heavy brush which has passed over each compartment has spared neither the delicacy of the outline, the roundness of the forms, nor the play of light and shade: in a word, nothing which constitutes the peculiar merit of Masaccio."--Rio, Poetry of Christian Art.

At the end of the right aisle is the beautiful tomb of Cardinal Rovarella, ob. 1476. A statue of St. John the Baptist is by Simone, brother of Donatello. Beneath the altar repose the relics of St. Clement, St. Ignatius of Antioch--martyred in the Coliseum, St. Cyril, and St. Servulus.

"'The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God:' So says the Truth; as if the motionless clay Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod, Smouldering and struggling till the judgment-day.

"And hence we learn with reverence to esteem Of these frail houses, though the grave confines: Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem That they are earth;--but they are heavenly shrines."

J. H. Newman, 1833.

"St. Grégoire raconte que de son temps on voyait dans le vestibule de l'église Saint Clément un pauvre paralytique, priant et mendiant, sans que jamais une plainte sortît de sa bouche, malgré les vives douleurs qu'il endurait. Chaque fidèle lui donnait, et le paralytique distribuait à son tour, aux malheureux ce qu'il avait reçu de la compassion publique. Lorsqu'il mourut, son corps fut placé près de celui de Saint Clément, pape, et de Saint Ignace d'Antioche, et son nom fut inscrit au martyrologe. On le vénère dans l'Eglise sous le nom de Saint Servulus."--Une Chrétienne à Rome.

The mosaics in the tribune are well worth examination.

"There are few Christian mosaics in which mystic meaning and poetic imagination are more felicitous than in those on the apse of S. Clemente, where the crucifix, and a wide-spreading vine-tree (allusive to His words, who said 'I am the True Vine'), spring from the same stem; twelve doves, emblems of the apostles, being on the cross with the Divine Sufferer; the Mother and St. John beside it, the usual hand stretched out in glory above, with a crown; the four doctors of the Church, also other small figures, men and birds, introduced amidst the mazy vine-foliage; and at the basement, the four mystic rivers, with stags and peacocks drinking at their streams. The figure of St. Dominic is a modern addition. It seems evident, from characteristics of style, that the other mosaics here, above the apsidal arch, and at the spandrils, are more ancient, perhaps by about a century; these latter representing the Saviour in benediction, the four Evangelic emblems, St. Peter and St. Clement, St. Paul and St. Laurence seated; the two apostles designated by their names, with the Greek 'hagios' in Latin letters. The later art-work was ordered (see the Latin inscription below) in 1299, by a cardinal titular of S. Clemente, nephew to Boniface VIII.; the same who also bestowed the beautiful gothic tabernacle for the holy oils, with a relief representing the donor presented by St. Dominic to the Virgin and Child--set against the wall near the tribune, an admirable, though but an accessorial, object of mediæval art."--Hemans' Mediæval Art.

From the sacristy a staircase leads to the Lower Church (occasionally illuminated for the public) first discovered in 1857. Here, there are several pillars of the rarest marbles in perfect preservation, and a very curious series of frescoes of the eighth and ninth centuries, parts of which are still clear and almost uninjured. These include--the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John standing by the cross,--the earliest example in Rome of this well-known subject; the Ascension, sometimes called by Romanists (in preparation for their dogma of 1870), "the Assumption of the Virgin," because the figure of the Virgin is elevated above the other apostles, though she is evidently intent on watching the retreating figure of her divine Son--in this fresco the figure of a pope is introduced (with the square nimbus, showing that it was painted in his lifetime), and the inscription "Sanctissimus dominus, Leo Papa Romanus," probably Leo III. or Leo IV.; the Maries at the sepulchre; the descent into Hades; the Marriage of Cana; the Funeral of St. Cyril with Pope Nicholas I. (858--67) walking in the procession; and, the most interesting of all--probably of somewhat later date, the story of S. Clemente, and that of S. Alexis, whose adventures are described in the account of his church on the Aventine. An altar of Mithras was discovered during the excavations here. Beneath this crypt is still a third structure, discovered 1867,--probably the very house of St. Clement,--(decorated with rich stucco ornament)--sometimes supposed to be the 'cavern near S. Clemente' to which the Emperor Otho III., who died at the age of twenty-two, retired in A.D. 999 with his confessor, and where he spent fourteen days in penitential retirement.

According to the Acts of the Martyrs, the Prefect Mamertinus ordered the arrest of Pope Clement, and intended to put him to death, but was deterred by a tumult of the people, who cried with one voice, "What evil has he done, or rather what good has he not done?" Clement was then condemned to exile in the Chersonese, and Mamertinus, touched by his submission and courage, dismissed him with the words--"May the God you worship bring you relief in the place of your banishment."

In his exile Clement received into the Church more than two hundred Christians who had been waiting for baptism, and miraculously discovered water for their support in a barren rock, to which he was directed by a Lamb, in whose form he recognised the guidance of the Son of God. The enthusiasm which these marvels excited led Trajan to send executioners, by whom he was tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea. But his disciples, kneeling on the shore, prayed that his relics might be given up to them, when the waves retired, and disclosed a marble chapel, built by unearthly hands--over the tomb of the saint. From the Chersonese the remains of St. Clement were brought back to Rome by St. Cyril, the Apostle of the Slavonians, who, dying here himself, was buried by his side.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VIII. THE AVENTINE

Jewish Burial-ground--Sta. Sabina--S. Alessio--The Priorato--Sta. Prisca--The Vigna dei Gesuiti--S. Sabba--Sta. Balbina.

The Aventine, which is perhaps the highest, and now--from its coronet of convents--the most picturesque of all the Roman hills, is of irregular form, and is divided into two parts by a valley; one side, the higher, is crowned by the churches of Sta. Sabina, S. Alessio, and the Priorato, which together form "the Capitol of the Aventine;" the other, known as the Pseudo-Aventine, is marked by the churches of S. Sabba and Sta. Balbina.

Virgil and Ovid allude repeatedly to the thick woods which once clothed the Aventine.[169] Dionysius speaks of the laurels or bays, an indigenous tree of ancient Rome, which grew there in abundance. Only one side of the hill, that towards the Tiber, now shows any of the natural cliff, but it was once remarkable for its rocks, and the Pseudo-Aventine obtained the name of Saxum from a huge solitary mass of stone which surmounted it.

"Est moles nativa; loco res nomina fecit Appellant Saxum: pars bona mentis ea est."[170]

The upper portion of the hill is of volcanic formation, and it is supposed that the legend of Cacus vomiting forth flames from his cave on the side of the Aventine had its origin in noxious sulphuric vapours emitted by the soil, as is still the case at the Solfatara on the way to Tivoli. The demi-god Faunus, who had an oracle at the Solfatara, had also an oracle on this hill.[171]

Some derive the name of Aventine from Aventinus-Silvius, king of Alba, who was buried here;[172] others from Avens, a Sabine river; while others say that the name simply means "the hill of birds," and connect it with the story of the foundation of the city. For when it became necessary to decide whether Romulus or Remus was to rule over the newly-built Rome, Romulus seated himself upon the Palatine to watch the auspices, but Remus upon the rock of the Pseudo-Aventine. Here Remus saw only six vultures, while Romulus saw twelve, but each interpreted the augury in his own favour, and Remus leapt across the boundary of the Palatine, whether in derision or war, and was slain by his brother, or by Celer, one of his followers. He was brought back and buried upon the Aventine, and the stone whence he had watched the vultures was thenceforth called the Sacred Rock. Ancient tradition places the tomb of Remus on the Pseudo-Aventine, but in the middle ages the tomb of Caius Cestus was believed--even by Petrarch--to be the monument of Remus.

Some authorities consider that when Remus was watching the vultures on the Pseudo-Aventine, that part of the hill was already occupied by a Pelasgic fortress called Romoria, but at this time and for long afterwards, the higher part of the Aventine was held by the Sabines. Here the Sabine king Numa dedicated an altar to Jupiter Elicius,[173] and the Sabine god Consus had also an altar here. Hither Numa came to visit the forest-gods Faunus and Picus at their sacred fountain:

Lucus Aventino suberat niger ilicis umbra, Quo posses viso dicere, numen inest. In medio gramen, muscoque adoperta virenti Manabat saxo vena perennis aquæ. Inde fere soli Faunus Picusque bibebant.[174]

By mingling wine and honey with the waters of their spring, Numa snared the gods, and compelled them to tell him how he might learn from Jupiter the knowledge of his will, and to reveal to him a charm against thunder and lightning.[175]

The Sabine king Tatius, the rival of Romulus, was buried on the Aventine "in a great grove of laurels," and, at his tomb, then called Armilustrum, it was the custom, every year, in the month of October, to hold a feast for the purification of arms, accompanied by martial dances. A horse was at the same time sacrificed to Janus, the Sabine war-god.[176]

Ancus Martius surrounded the Aventine by a wall,[177] and settled there many thousands of the inhabitants of Latin towns which he had subdued. This was the origin of the plebs, who were soon to become such formidable opponents of the first colonists of the Palatine, who took rank as patricians, and who at first found in them an important counterpoise to the power of the original Sabine inhabitants, against whom the little Latin colony of Romulus had hitherto been standing alone. The Aventine continued always to be the especial property and sanctuary of the plebs, the patricians avoiding it--in the first instance, it is supposed, from an impression that the hill was of evil omen, owing to the story of Remus. In B.C. 416, the tribune Icilius proposed and carried a law by which all the public lands of the Aventine were officially conferred upon the plebs, who forthwith began to cover its heights with houses, in which each family of the people had a right in one floor,--a custom which still prevails at Rome. At this time, also, the Aventine was included for the first time within the pomœrium or religious boundary of the city. Owing to its being the "hill of the people," the commons henceforth held their comitia and elected their tribunes here; and here, after the murder of Virginia, to whom the tribune Icilius had been betrothed, the army assembled against Appius Claudius.

Very little remains of the numerous temples which once adorned the hill, but their sites are tolerably well ascertained. We still ascend the Aventine by the ancient Clivus Publicius, originally paved by two brothers Publicii, who were ædiles at the same time, and had embezzled a public sum of money, which they were compelled to expend thus--

Parte locant clivum, qui tune erat ardua rupes: Utile nunc iter est, Publiciumque vocant.[178]

At the foot of this road was the temple of Luna, or Jana, in which Tatius had also erected an altar to Janus or the Sun.

Luna regit menses; hujus quoque tempora mensis Finit Aventino Luna colenda jugo.[179]

It was up this road that Caius Gracchus, a few hours before his death, fled to take refuge in a small Temple of Diana, which stood somewhere near the present site of S. Alessio, where, kneeling before the statue of the goddess, he implored that the people who had betrayed him might never be free. Close by, singularly enough, rose the Temple of Liberty, which his grandfather Sempronius Gracchus had built. Adjoining this temple was a hall where the archives of the censors were kept, and where they transacted business; this was rebuilt by Asinius Pollio, who added to it the first public library established in Rome.

Nec me, quæ doctis patuerunt prima libellis Atria, Libertas tangere passa sua est.[180]

In the same group stood the famous sanctuary of Juno Regina, vowed by Camillus during the siege of Veii, and to which the Juno of the captured city was removed after she had given a verbal consent when asked whether she wished to go to Rome and inhabit a new temple, much as the modern queen of heaven is apt to do in modern times at Rome.[181] The Temples of Liberty and Juno were both rebuilt under Augustus; some imagine that they were under a common roof. If they were distinct buildings, nothing of the former remains; some beautiful columns built into the church of Sta. Sabina are all that remain of the temple of Juno, though Livy thought that her reign here would be eternal--

... in Aventinum, æternam sedem suam.[182]

Also belonging to this group was a Temple of Minerva.

Sol abit a Geminis, et Cancri signa rubescunt: Cœpit Aventina Pallas in arce coli.[183]

Here the dramatist Livius Andronicus, who lived upon the Aventine, was honoured after his death by a company of scribes and actors. Another poet who lived upon the Aventine was Ennius, who is described as inhabiting a humble dwelling, and being attended by a single female slave. The poet Gallus also lived here.

Totis, Galle, jubes tibi me servire diebus, Et per Aventinum ter quater ire tuum![184]

On the other side of the Aventine (above the Circus Maximus), which was originally covered with myrtle--a shrub now almost extinct at Rome--on the site now occupied by Sta. Prisca, was a more important Temple of Diana, sometimes called by the Sabine name of Murcia,--built in imitation of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Propertius writes--

Phyllis Aventinæ quædam est vicina Dianæ;[185]

and Martial--

Quique videt propius magna certamina Circi Laudat Aventinæ vicinus Sura Dianæ.[186]

Here till the time of Dionysius was preserved the pillar of brass on which was engraved the law of Icilius.

Near this were the groves of Simila, the retreat of the infamous association discovered and terribly punished at the time of the Greek wars; and--in the time of the empire--the gardens of Servilia, where she received the devotion of Julius Cæsar, and in which her son Brutus is said to have conspired his murder, and to have been interrogated by his wife Portia as to the mystery, which he refused to reveal to her, fearing her weakness under torture, until, by the concealment of a terrible wound which she had given to herself, she had proved to him that the daughter of Cato could suffer and be silent.

The Aventine continued to be inhabited, and even populous, until the sixth century, from which period its prosperity began to decline. In the eleventh century it was occupied by the camp of Henry IV. of Germany, when he came in war against Gregory VII. In the thirteenth century Honorius III. made a final effort to re-establish its popularity; but with each succeeding generation it has become--partly owing to the ravages of malaria--more and more deserted, till now its sole inhabitants are monks, and the few ague-stricken contadini who look after the monastic vineyards. In wandering along its desolate lanes, hemmed in by hedges of elder, or by walls covered with parasitical plants, it is difficult to realize the time when it was so thickly populated; and except in the quantities of coloured marbles with which its fields and vineyards are strewn, there is nothing to remind one of the 16 ædiculæ, 64 baths, 25 granaries, 88 fountains, 130 of the larger houses called domus, and 2487 of the poorer houses called insulæ, which occupied this site.

The present interest of the hill is almost wholly ecclesiastical, and centres around the story of St. Dominic, and the legends of the saints and martyrs connected with its different churches.

* * * * *

The best approach to the Aventine is behind the Church of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, where the Via Sta. Sabina, once the Clivus Publicius (available for carriages), turns up the hill.

A lane on the left leads to the Jewish burial-ground, used as a place of sepulture for the Ghetto for many centuries. A curious instance of the cupidity attributed to the Jewish race may be seen in the fact, that they have, for a remuneration of four baiocchi, habitually given leave to their neighbours to discharge the contents of a rubbish cart into their cemetery, a permission of which the Romans have so abundantly availed themselves, that the level of the soil has been raised by many yards, and whole sets of older monuments have been completely swallowed up, and new ones erected over their heads.

After we turn the corner at the hill top, with its fine view over the Palatine, and cross the trench of fortification formed during the fear of a Garibaldian invasion in 1867, we skirt what appears to be part of a city wall. This is in fact the wall of the Honorian city, built by Pope Honorius III., of the great family of Savelli, whose idea was to render the Aventine once more the populous and favourite portion of the city, and who began great works for this purpose. Before his arrangements were completed St. Dominic arrived in Rome, and was appointed master of the papal household, and abbot of the convent of Sta. Sabina, where his ministrations and popularity soon formed such an attraction, that the pope wisely abandoned his design of founding a new city which should commemorate himself, and left the field to St. Dominic,--to whom he made over the land on this side of the hill. Henceforward the convent of Sta. Sabina and its surroundings have become, more than any other spot, connected with the history of the Dominican Order,--there, all the great saints of the Order have received their first inspiration,--have resided,--or are buried; there St. Dominic himself received in a beatific vision the institution of the rosary; there he was ordered to plant the famous orange-tree, which, being then unknown in Rome, he brought from his native Spain as the only present which it was suitable for the gratitude of a poor monk to offer to his patron Honorius, who was himself one of the great botanists of his time,--an orange-tree which still lives, and which is firmly believed by the monks to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Order, so that it has lately been greatly the worse for the suppression of the convents in Northern Italy, though the residence of Père Lacordaire within the convent proved exceedingly beneficial to it, and his visit even caused a new sucker to sprout.

The Church of Sta. Sabina was built on the site of the house of the saint--in which she suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Hadrian,[187] in A.D. 423--by Peter, a priest of Illyria, "rich for the poor, and poor for himself" (pauperibus locuples, sibi pauper), as we read by the mosaic inscription inside the principal entrance. St. Gregory the Great read two of his homilies here. The church was rebuilt in 824, and restored and reconsecrated by Gregory IX. in 1238. Much of its interest,--ancient pavements, mosaics, &c.,--was destroyed in 1587 by Sixtus V., who took the credit of discovering the relics of the martyrs who are buried beneath the altar.

On the west is a covered corridor containing several ancient inscriptions. It is supported on one side by ancient spiral columns of pavonazzetto, on the other these have been plundered and replaced by granite. Hence, through a window, ladies are allowed to gaze upon the celebrated orange-tree, 665 years old, which they cannot approach; a rude figure of St. Dominic is sculptured upon the low wall which surrounds it. The west door, of the twelfth century, in a richly sculptured frame, is cited by Kugler as an instance of the extinction of the Byzantine influence upon art. Its panels are covered with carvings from the Old and New Testament, referred by Mamachi to the seventh, by Agincourt to the thirteenth century. Some of the subjects have been destroyed; among those which remain are the Annunciation, the Angels appearing to the Shepherds, the Angel and Zachariah in the Temple, the Magi, Moses turning the rods into serpents, the ascent of Elijah, Christ before Pilate, the denial of Peter, and the Ascension. Within the entrance are the only remains of the magnificent mosaic, erected in 431, under Celestine I., which entirely covered the west wall till the time of Sixtus V., consisting of an inscription in large letters, with a female figure on either side, that on the left bearing the name "Ecclesia cum circumcisione," that on the right, "Ecclesia ex gentibus." Among the parts destroyed were the four beasts typical of the Evangelists, and St. Peter and St. Paul. The church was thus gorgeously decorated, because in the time of the Savelli popes, it was what the Sistine is now, the Chiesa Apostolica.

The nave is lined by twenty-four Corinthian columns of white marble, relics of the temple of Juno Regina, which once stood here. Above, is an inlaid frieze of pietradura, of A.D. 431, which once extended up to the windows, but was destroyed by Sixtus V., who at the same time built up the windows which till then existed over each pier. In the middle of the pavement near the altar, is a very curious mosaic figure over the grave of Munoz de Zamora, a General of the Dominican Order, who died in 1300. Nearer the west door are interesting incised slabs representing a German bishop and a lady, benefactors of this church, and (on the left) a slab with arms in mosaic, to a lady of the Savelli family. In the left aisle is another monument of 1312, commemorating a warrior of the imperial house of Germany. The high altar covers the remains of Sabina and Seraphia, Alexander the Pope, Eventius and Theodulus, all martyrs. In the chapel beneath St. Dominic is said to have flagellated himself three times nightly, "perché uno colpo solo non abbastava per mortificare la carne."

At the end of the right aisle is the Chapel of the Rosary, where a beautiful picture of Sassoferrato, called "La Madonna del Rosario," commemorates the vision of St. Dominic on that spot, in which he received the rosary from the hands of the Virgin.

"St. Catherine of Siena kneels with St. Dominic before the throne of the Madonna; the lily at her feet. The Infant Saviour is turned towards her, and with one hand he crowns her with thorns, with the other he presents the rosary. This is the master-piece of the painter, with all his usual elegance, without his usual insipidity."--Jameson's Monastic Orders.

Few Roman Catholic practices have excited more animadversion than the "vain repetition" of the worship of the Rosary. The Père Lacordaire (a Dominican) defended it, saying--

"Le rationaliste sourit en voyant passer de longues files de gens qui redisent une même parole. Celui qui est éclairé d'une meilleure lumière comprend que l'amour n'a qu'un mot, et qu'en le disant toujours, il ne le répète jamais."

Grouped around this chapel are three beautiful tombs,--a cardinal, a bishop, and a priest of the end of the fifteenth century. That of the cardinal (which is of the well-known Roman type of the time), is inscribed "Ut moriens viveret, vixit est moriturus;" the others are incised slabs. At the other end of this aisle is a marble slab, on which St. Dominic is said to have been wont to lie prostrate in prayer. One day while he was lying thus, the Devil in his rage is said to have hurled a huge stone (a round black marble, pietra di paragone,) at him, which missed the saint, who left the attack entirely unnoticed. The devil was frantic with disappointment, and the stone, remaining as a relic, is preserved on a low pillar in the nave. A small gothic ciborium, richly inlaid with mosaic, remains on the left of the tribune.

Opening from the left aisle is a chapel built by Elic of Tuscany--very rich in precious marbles. The frame of the panel on the left is said to be unique.

It was in this church, in 1218, that St. Hyacinth, struck by the preaching of St. Dominic, and by the recollection of the barbarism, heathenism, and ignorance which prevailed in many parts of his native land of Silesia, offered himself as its missionary, and took the vows of the Dominican Order, together with his cousin St. Ceslas. Hither fled to the monastic life St. Thomas Aquinas, pursued to the very door of the convent by the tears and outcries of his mother, who vainly implored him to return to her. One evening, a pilgrim, worn out with travel and fatigue, arrived at the door of this convent mounted upon a wretched mule, and implored admittance. The prior in mockery asked, "What are you come for, my father? are you come to see if the college of cardinals is disposed to elect you as pope?" "I come to Rome," replied the pilgrim Michele Ghislieri, "because the interests of the Church require it, and I shall leave as soon as my task is accomplished; meanwhile I implore you to give me a brief hospitality and a little hay for my mule." Sixteen years afterwards Ghislieri mounted the papal throne as Pius V., and proved, during a troubled reign, the most rigid follower and eager defender of the institutions of St. Dominic. One day as Ghislieri was about to kiss his crucifix in the eagerness of prayer, "the image of Christ," says the legend, retired of its own accord from his touch, for it had been poisoned by an enemy, and a kiss would have been death. This crucifix is now preserved as a precious relic in the convent, where the cells both of St. Dominic and of St. Pius V. are preserved, though, like most historical chambers of Roman saints, their interest is lessened by their having been beautified and changed into chapels. In the cell of St. Dominic is a portrait by Bazzani, founded on the records of his personal appearance; the lily lies by his side,--the glory hovers over his head,--he is, as the chronicler describes him, "of amazing beauty." In this cell he is said frequently to have passed the night in prayer with his rival St. Francis of Assisi. The refectory is connected with another story of St. Dominic:--

"It happened that when he was residing with forty of his friars in the convent of Sta. Sabina at Rome, the brothers who had been sent to beg for provisions had returned with a very small quantity of bread, and they knew not what they should do, for night was at hand, and they had not eaten all day. Then St. Dominic ordered that they should seat themselves in the refectory, and, taking his place at the head of the table, he pronounced the usual blessing: and behold! two beautiful youths clad in white and shining garments appeared amongst them; one carried a basket of bread, and the other a pitcher of wine, which they distributed to the brethren: then they disappeared, and no one knew how they had come in, nor how they had gone out. And the brethren sat in amazement; but St. Dominic stretched forth his hand, and said calmly, 'My children, eat what God hath sent you:' and it was truly celestial food, such as they had never tasted before nor since."--Jameson's Monastic Orders, p. 369.

Other saints who sojourned for a time in this convent were St. Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensians (ob. 1134), and St. Raymond de Penaforte (ob. 1275), who left his labours in Barcelona for a time in 1230 to act as chaplain to Gregory IX.

In 1287 a conclave was held at Sta. Sabina for the election of a successor to Pope Martin IV., but was broken up by the malaria, six cardinals dying at once within the convent, and all the rest taking flight except Cardinal Savelli, who would not desert his paternal home, and survived by keeping large fires constantly burning in his chamber. Ten months afterwards his perseverance was rewarded by his own election to the throne as Honorius IV.

In the garden of the convent are some small remains of the palace of the Savelli pope, Honorius III. Here, on the declivity of the Aventine, many important excavations were made in 1856--57, by the French Prior Besson, a person of great intelligence, and he was rewarded by the discovery of an ancient Roman house--its chambers paved with black and white mosaic, and some fine fragments of the wall of Servius Tullius, formed of gigantic blocks of peperino. In the chambers which were found decorated in stucco with remnants of painting in figures and arabesque ornaments, "one little group represented a sacrifice before the statue of a god, in an ædicula. Some rudely scratched Latin lines on this surface led to the inference that this chamber, after becoming subterranean and otherwise uninhabitable, had served for a prison; one unfortunate inmate having inscribed curses against those who caused his loss of liberty; and another, more devout, left record of his vows to sacrifice to Bacchus in case of recovering that blessing."[188]

Since the death of Prior Besson[189] the works have been abandoned, and the remains already discovered have been for the most part earthed up again. A nympheum, a well, and several subterranean passages, are still visible on the hillside.

Just beyond Sta. Sabina is the Hieronymite Church and Convent of S. Alessio, the only monastery of Hieronymites in Italy where meat was allowed to be eaten,--in consideration of the malaria. The first church erected here was built in A.D. 305 in honour of St. Boniface, martyr, by Aglae, a noble Roman lady, whose servant (and lover) he had been. It was reconsecrated in A.D. 401 by Innocent I., in honour of St. Alexis, whose paternal mansion was on this site. This saint, young and beautiful, took a vow of virginity, and being forced by his parents into marriage, fled on the same evening from his home, and was given up as lost. Worn out and utterly changed he returned many years afterwards to be near those who were dear to him, and remained, unrecognised, as a poor beggar, under the stairs which led to his father's house. Seventeen years passed away, when a mysterious voice suddenly echoed through the Roman churches, crying, "Seek ye out the man of God, that he may pray for Rome." The crowd was stricken with amazement,--when the same voice continued, "Seek in the house of Euphemian." Then, pope, emperor, and senators rushed together to the Aventine, where they found the despised beggar dying beneath the doorstep, with his countenance beaming with celestial light, a crucifix in one hand, and a sealed paper in the other. Vainly the people strove to draw the paper from the fingers which were closing in the gripe of death, but when Innocent I. bade the dying man in God's name to give it up, they opened, and the pope read aloud to the astonished multitude the secret of Alexis; and his father Euphemian and his widowed bride, regained in death the son and the husband they had lost.

S. Alessio is entered through a courtyard.

"The courtyards in front of S. Alessio, Sta. Cecilia, S. Gregorio, and other churches, are like the vestibula of the ancient Roman houses, on the site of which they were probably built. This style of building, says Tacitus, was generally introduced by Nero. Beyond opened the prothyra, or inner entrance, with the cellæ for the porter and dog, both chained, on either side."

In the portico of the church is a statue of Benedict XIII. (Pietro Orsini, 1724). The west door has a rich border of mosaic. The church has been so much modernised as to retain no appearance of antiquity. The fine Opus-Alexandrinum pavement is preserved. In the floor is the incised gothic monument of Lupi di Olmeto, General of the Hieronymites (ob. 1433). Left of the entrance is a shrine of S. Alessio, with his figure sleeping under the staircase--part of the actual wooden stairs being enclosed in a glass case over his head. Not far from this is the ancient well of his father's house. In a chapel which opens out of a passage leading to the sacristy is the fine tomb of Cardinal Guido di Balneo, of the time of Leo X. He is represented sitting, with one hand resting on the ground--the delicate execution of his lace in marble is much admired. The mosaic roof of this chapel was burst open by a cannon-ball during the French bombardment of 1849, but the figure was uninjured. The baldacchino (well known from Macpherson's photographs) is remarkable for its perfect proportions. Behind, in the tribune, are the inlaid mosaic pillars of a gothic tabernacle. No one should omit to descend into the Crypt of S. Alessio, which is an early church, supported on stunted pillars, and containing a marble episcopal chair, green with age. Here the pope used to meet the early conclaves of the Church in times of persecution. The pillar under the altar is shown as that to which St. Sebastian was bound when he was shot with the arrows.

The cloister of the convent, from which ladies are excluded, blooms with orange and lemon trees. There are only six Hieronymite brethren here now. The convent was at one time purchased by the ex-king Ferdinand of Spain, who intended turning it into a villa for himself.

A short distance beyond S. Alessio is a sort of little square, adorned with trophied memorials of the knights of Malta, and occupying the site of the laurel grove (Armilustrum) which contained the tomb of Tatius. Here is the entrance of the Priorato garden, where is the famous View of St. Peter's through the Keyhole, admired by crowds of people on Ash-Wednesday, when the "stazione" is held at the neighbouring churches. Entering the garden (which can always be visited) we find ourselves in a beautiful avenue of old bay-trees framing the distant St. Peter's. A terrace overhanging the Tiber has an enchanting view over the river and town. In the garden is an old pepper-tree, and in a little court a picturesque palm-tree and well. From hence we can enter the church, sometimes called S. Basilio, sometimes Sta. Maria Aventina, an ancient building modernized by Cardinal Rezzonico in 1765, from the very indifferent designs of Piranesi. It contains an interesting collection of tombs, most of them belonging to the Knights of Malta; that of Bishop Spinelli is an ancient marble sarcophagus, with a relief of Minerva and the Muses. A richly sculptured ancient altar contains relics of saints found beneath the pavement of the church.

The Priorato garden, so beautiful and attractive in itself, has an additional interest as that in which the famous Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073--80) was brought up as a boy, under the care of his uncle, who was abbot of the adjoining monastery. A massive cornice in these grounds is one of the few architectural fragments of ancient Rome existing on the Aventine. It may perhaps have belonged to the smaller temple of Diana in which Caius Gracchus took refuge, and in escaping from which, down the steep hillside, he sprained his ankle, and so was taken by his pursuers. Some buried houses were discovered and some precious vases brought to light, when Urban VIII. built the stately buttress walls which now support the hillside beyond the Priorato.

The cliff below these convents is the supposed site of the cave of the giant Cacus, described by Virgil.

"At specus et Caci detecta apparuit ingens Regia, et umbrosæ penitus patuere cavernæ; Non secus, ac si quâ penitus vi terra dehiscens Infernas reseret sedes, et regna recludat Pallida, dîs invisa; superque immane barathrum Cernatur, trepidentque immisso lumine manes."

Æneid, lib. viii.

Hercules brought the oxen of Geryon to pasture in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine. Cacus issuing from his cave while their owner was asleep, carried off four of the bulls, dragging them up the steep side of the hill by their tails, that Hercules might be deceived by their foot-prints being reversed. Then he concealed them in his cavern, and barred the entrance with a rock. Hercules sought the stolen oxen everywhere, and when he could not find them, he was going away with the remainder. But as he drove them along the valley near the Tiber one of his oxen lowed, and when the stolen oxen in the cave heard that, they answered; and Hercules, after rushing three times round the Aventine boiling with fury, shattered the stone which guarded the entrance of the cave with a mass of rock, and, though the giant vomited forth smoke and flames against him, he strangled him in his arms. Thus runs the legend, which is explained by Ampère.

"Cacus habite une caverne de l'Aventin, montagne en tout temps mal famée, montagne anciennement hérissée de rochers et couverte de forêts, dont la forêt Nœvia, longtemps elle-même un repaire de bandits, était une dépendance et fut un reste qui subsista dans les temps historiques. Ce Cacus était sans doute un brigand célèbre, dangereux pour les pâtres du voisinage dont il volait les troupeaux quand ils allaient paître dans les prés situés au bord du Tibre et boire l'eau du fleuve. Les hauts faits de Cacus lui avaient donné cette célébrité qui, parmi les paysans romains, s'attache encore à ses pareils, et surtout le stratagème employé par lui probablement plus d'une fois pour dérouter les bouviers des environs, en emmenant les animaux qu'il dérobait, à manière de cacher la direction de leurs pas. La caverne du bandit avait été découverte et forcée par quelque pâtre courageux, qui y avait pénétré vaillamment, malgré la terreur que ce lieu souterrain et formidable inspirait, y avait surpris le voleur et l'avait étranglé.

"Tel était, je crois, le récit primitif où il n'était pas plus question d'Hercule que de Vulcain, et dans lequel Cacus n'était pas mis à mort par un demi-dieu, mais par un certain Recaranus, pâtre vigoureux et de grande taille. A ces récits de bergers, qui allaient toujours exagérant les horreurs de l'antre de Cacus et la résistance désespérée de celui-ci, vinrent se mêler peu à peu des circonstances merveilleuses."--Hist. Rom. i. 170.

We must retrace our steps, as far as the summit of the hill towards the Palatine, and then turn to the right in order to reach the ugly obscure-looking Church of Sta. Prisca, founded by Pope Eutychianus in A.D. 280, but entirely modernised by Cardinal Giustiniani from designs of Carlo Lombardi, who encased its fine granite columns in miserable stucco pilasters. Over the high altar is a picture by Passignano of the baptism of the saint, which is said to have taken place in the ancient crypt beneath the church, where an inverted Corinthian capital,--a relic of the temple of Diana which once occupied this site,--is shown as the font in which Sta. Prisca was baptized by St. Peter.

Opening from the right aisle is a kind of terraced loggia with a peculiar and beautiful view. In the adjoining vineyard are three arches of an aqueduct.

"According to the old tradition, this church stands on the site of the house of Aquila and Priscilla, where St. Peter lodged when at Rome, and who are the same mentioned by St. Paul as tent-makers; and here is shown the font, from which, according to the same tradition, St. Peter baptized the first Roman converts to Christianity. The altar-piece represents the baptism of Sta. Prisca, whose remains being afterwards placed in the church, it has since borne her name. According to the legend, she was a Roman virgin of illustrious birth, who, at the age of thirteen, was exposed in the amphitheatre. A fierce lion was let loose upon her, but her youth and innocence disarmed the fury of the savage beast, which, instead of tearing her to pieces, humbly licked her feet;--to the great consolation of Christians, and the confusion of idolaters. Being led back to prison, she was there beheaded. Sometimes she is represented with a lion, sometimes with an eagle, because it is related that an eagle watched by her body till it was laid in the grave; for thus, says the story, was virgin innocence honoured by kingly bird as well as by kingly beast."--Mrs. Jameson.

Opposite the door of this church is the entrance of the Vigna dei Gesuiti, a wild and beautiful vineyard occupying the greater part of this deserted hill, and extending as far as the Porta S. Paolo and the pyramid of Caius Cestius. Several farm-houses are scattered amongst the vines and fruit trees. There are beautiful views towards the Alban mountains, and to the Pseudo-Aventine with its fortress-like convents. The ground is littered with fragments of marbles and alabaster, which lie unheeded among the vegetables, relics of unknown edifices which once existed here. Just where the path in the vineyard descends a slight declivity towards S. Paolo, are the finest existing remains of the Walls of Servius Tullius,[190] formed of large quadrilateral blocks of tufa, laid alternately long and cross-ways, as in the Etruscan buildings. The spot is beautiful, and overgrown by a luxuriance of wild mignonette and other flowers in the late spring.

Descending to the valley beneath Sta. Prisca, and crossing the lane which leads from the Via Appia to the Porta S. Paolo, we reach, on the side of the Pseudo-Aventine, the Church of S. Sabba, which is supposed to mark the site of the Porta Randusculana of the walls of Servius Tullius. Its position is very striking, and its portico, built in A.D. 1200, is picturesque and curious.

This church is of unknown origin, but is known to have existed in the time of St. Gregory the Great, and to have been one of the fourteen privileged abbacies of Rome. Its patron saint was St. Sabbas, an abbot of Cappadocia, who died at Jerusalem in A.D. 532.

"The record of the artist Jacobus dei Cosmati, dated the third year of Innocent III. (1205), on the lintel of the mosaic-inlaid doorway, justifies us in classing this church among monuments of the thirteenth century. From its origin a Greek monastery, it was assigned by Lucius II., in 1141, to the Benedictines of the Cluny rule. An epigraph near the sacristy mentions a rebuilding either of the cloisters or church, in 1325, by an abbot Joannes; and in 1465 the roof was renewed in woodwork by a cardinal, the nephew of Pius II.

"In 1512 the Cistercians of Clairvaux were located here by Julius II.; and some years later these buildings were given to the Germanic-Hungarian College. Amidst gardens and vineyards, approached by a solitary lane between hedgerows, this now deserted sanctuary has a certain affecting character in its forlornness. Save on Thursdays, when the German students are brought hither by their Jesuit professors to enliven the solitude by their sports and converse, we might never succeed in finding entrance to this quiet retreat of the monks of old.

"Within the arched porch, through which we pass into an outer court, we read an inscription telling that here stood the house and oratory (called cella nova) of Sta. Sylvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, whence the pious matron used daily to send a porridge of legumes to her son, while he inhabited his monastery on the Clivus Scauri, or northern ascent of the Cœlian. Within that court formerly stood the cloistral buildings, of which little now remains. The façade is remarkable for its atrium in two stories: the upper with a pillared arcade, probably of the fifteenth century; the lower formerly supported by six porphyry columns, removed by Pius VI. to adorn the Vatican library, where they still stand. The porphyry statuettes of two emperors embracing, supposed either an emblem of the concord between the East and West, or the intended portraits of the co-reigning Constantine II. and Constans--a curious example of sculpture in its deep decline, and probably imported by Greek monks from Constantinople--project from two of those ancient columns."--Hemans' Mediæval Art.

The interior of St. Sabba is in the basilica form. It retains some fragments of inlaid pavements, some handsome inlaid marble panels on either side of the high altar, and an ancient sarcophagus. The tribune has rude paintings of the fourteenth century--the Saviour between St. Andrew and St. Sabbas the Abbot; and below the Crucifixion, the Madonna and the twelve Apostles. Beneath the tribune is a crypt,--and over its altar a beautifully ornamented disk with a Greek cross in the centre.

Behind St. Sabbas is another delightful vineyard, but it is difficult to gain admittance. Here Flaminius Vacca describes the discovery of a mysterious chamber without door or window, whose pavement was of agate and cornelian, and whose walls were plated with gilt copper; but of this nothing remains.[191]

To reach the remaining church of the Aventine, we have to turn to the Via Appia, and then follow the lane which leads up the hillside from the Baths of Caracalla to the Church of Sta. Balbina, whose picturesque red brick tower forms so conspicuous a feature, as seen against the long soft lines of the flat Campagna, in so many Roman views. It was erected in memory of Sta. Balbina, a virgin martyr (buried in Sta. Maria in Domenica), who suffered under Hadrian, A.D. 132. It contains the remains of an altar erected by Cardinal Barbo, in the old basilica of St. Peter's, a splendid ancient throne of marble inlaid with mosaics, and a fine tomb of Stefano Sordi, supporting a recumbent figure, and adorned with mosaics by one of the Cosmati.

Adjoining this church Monsignor de Mérode established a house of correction for youthful offenders, to avert the moral result of exposing them to communication with other prisoners.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

IX. THE VIA APPIA

The Porta Capena--Baths of Caracalla--Vigna Guidi--SS. Nereo ed Achilleo--SS. Sisto e Domenico--S. Cesareo (S. Giovanni in Oleo--S. Giovanni in Porta Latina)--Columbarium of the Freedmen of Octavia--Tomb of the Scipios--Columbarium of the Vigna Codini--Arch of Drusus--Porta S. Sebastiano--Tombs of Geta and Priscilla--Church of Domine Quo Vadis (Vigna Marancia)--Catacombs of S. Calixtus, of S. Pretextatus, of the Jews, and SS. Nereo ed Achilleo--(Temple of Bacchus, i.e. S. Urbano--Grotto of Egeria--Temple of Divus Rediculus)--Basilica and Catacombs of S. Sebastiano--Circus of Maxentius--Temple of Romulus, son of Maxentius--Tomb of Cecilia Metella--Castle of the Caetani--Tombs of the Via Appia--Sta. Maria Nuova--Roma Vecchia--Casale Rotondo--Tor di Selce, &c.

The Via Appia, called Regina Viarum by Statius, was begun B.C. 312, by the Censor Appius Claudius the Blind, "the most illustrious of the great Sabine and Patrician race, of whom he was the most remarkable representative." It was paved throughout, and during the first part of its course served as a kind of patrician cemetery, being bordered by a magnificent avenue of family tombs. It began at the Porta Capena, itself crossed by the Claudian aqueduct, which was due to the same great benefactor,--

"Substitit ad veteres arcus madidamque Capenam,"

and was carried by Claudius across the Pontine Marshes as far as Capua, but afterwards extended to Brundusium.

The site of the Porta Capena, so important as marking the commencement of the Appian Way, was long a disputed subject. The Roman antiquaries maintained that it was outside the present Walls, basing their opinion on the statement of St. Gregory, that the river Almo was in that Regio, and considering the Almo identical with a small stream which is crossed in the hollow about half a mile beyond the Porta S. Sebastiano, and which passes through the Valle Caffarelle, and falls into the Tiber near S. Paolo. This stream, however, which rises at the foot of the Alban Hills below the lake, divides into two parts about six miles from Rome, and its smaller division, after flowing close to the Porta San Giovanni, recedes again into the country, enters Rome near the Porta Metronia, a little behind the Church of S. Sisto, and passing through the Circus Maximus, falls into the Tiber at the Pulchrum Littus, below the temple of Vesta. Close to the point where this, the smaller branch of the Almo, crosses the Via San Sebastiano, Mr. J. H. Parker, in 1868--69, discovered some remains, on the original line of walls, which he has identified, beyond doubt, as those of the Porta Capena, whose position had been already proved by Ampère and other authorities.

Close to the Porta Capena stood a large group of historical buildings, of which no trace remains. On the right of the gate was the temple of Mars:

"Lux eadem Marti festa est; quem prospicit extra Appositum Tectæ Porta Capena viæ."

Ovid, Fast. vi. 191.

It is probably in allusion to this temple that Propertius says:

"Armaque quum tulero portæ votiva Capenæ, Subscribam, salvo grata puella viro."

Prop. iv. Eleg. 3.

Martial alludes to a little temple of Hercules near this:

"Capena grandi porta qua pluit gutta, Phrygiæque Matris Almo qua lavat ferrum, Horatiorum qua viret sacer campus, Et qua pusilli fervet Herculis fanum."

Mart. iii. Ep. 47.

Near the gate also stood the tomb of the murdered sister of the Horatii,[192] with the temples of Honour and Virtue, vowed by Marcellus and dedicated by his son,[193] and a fountain, dedicated to Mercury:

"Est aqua Mercurii portæ vicina Capenæ; Si juvat expertis credere, numen habet. Huc venit incinctus tunicas mercator, et urna Purus suffita, quam ferat, haurit aquam. Uda fit hinc laurus: lauro sparguntur ab uda Omnia, quæ dominos sunt habitura novos."

Ovid, Fast. v. 673.

It was at the Porta Capena that the survivor of the Horatii met his sister.

"Horatius went home at the head of the army, bearing his triple spoils. But as they were drawing near to the Capenian gate, his sister came out to meet him. Now she had been betrothed in marriage to one of the Curiatii, and his cloak, which she had wrought with her own hands, was borne on the shoulders of her brother; and she knew it, and cried aloud, and wept for him she had loved. At the sight of her tears Horatius was so wrath that he drew his sword, and stabbed his sister to the heart; and he said, 'So perish the Roman maiden who shall weep for her country's enemy!'"--Arnold's Hist. of Rome, i. 16.

Among the many other historical scenes with which the Porta Capena is connected, we may remember that it was here that Cicero was received in triumph by the senate and people of Rome, upon his return from banishment B.C. 57.

* * * * *

Two roads lead to the Via S. Sebastiano, one the Via S. Gregorio, which comes from the Coliseum beneath the arch of Constantine; the other, the street which comes from the Ghetto, through the Circus Maximus, between the Palatine and Aventine.

The first gate on the left, after the junction of these roads, is that of the vineyard of the monks of S. Gregorio, in which the site of the Porta Capena was found. The remains discovered have been reburied, owing to the indifference or jealousy of the government; but the vineyard is worth entering on account of the picturesque view it possesses of the Palace of the Cæsars.

On the right, a lane leads up the Pseudo-Aventine to the Church of Sta. Balbina, described Chap. VIII.

On the left, where the Via Appia crosses the brook of the Almo, now called Maranna, the Via di San Sisto Vecchio leads to the back of the Cœlian behind S. Stefano Rotondo. Here, in the hollow, in the grounds of the Villa Mattei, under some picturesque farm-buildings, is a spring which modern archæology has determined to be the true Fountain of Egeria, where Numa Pompilius is described as having his mysterious meetings with the nymph Egeria. The locality of this fountain was verified when that of the Porta Capena was ascertained, as it was certain that it was in the immediate neighbourhood of that gate, from a passage in the 3d Satire of Juvenal, which describes, that when he was waiting at the Porta Capena with Umbritius while the waggon was loading for his departure to Cumæ, they rambled into the valley of Egeria, and Umbritius said, after speaking of his motives for leaving Rome, "I could add other reasons to these, but my beasts summon me to move on, and the sun is setting. I must be going, for the muleteer has long been summoning me by the cracking of his whip."

To this valley the oppressed race of the Jews was confined by Domitian, their furniture consisting of a basket and a wisp of hay:

"Nunc sacri fontis nemus et delubra locantur Judæis, quorum cophinus fœnumque supellex."

Juvenal, Sat. iii. 13.

On the right, are the Baths of Caracalla, the largest mass of ruins in Rome, except the Coliseum; consisting for the most part of huge shapeless walls of red and orange-coloured brickwork, framing vast strips of blue sky, and tufted with shrubs and flowers. These baths, which could accommodate 1600 bathers at once, were begun in A.D. 212, by Caracalla, continued by Heliogabalus, and finished under Alexander Severus. They covered a space of 2,625,000 square yards--a size which made Ammianus Marcellinus say that the Roman baths were like provinces--and they were supplied with water by the Antonine Aqueduct, which was brought hither for that especial purpose from the Claudian, over the Arch of Drusus.

Antiquaries have amused themselves by identifying different chambers, to which, with considerable uncertainty, the names of Calidarium, Laconicum, Tepidarium, Frigidarium, &c., have been affixed.

The habits of luxury and inertion which were introduced with the magnificent baths of the emperors were among the principal causes of the decline and fall of Rome. Thousands of the Roman youth frittered away their hours in these magnificent halls, which were provided with everything which could gratify the senses. Poets were wont to recite their verses to those who were reclining in the baths.

----"In medio qui Scripta foro recitent, sunt multi,--quique lavantes: Suave locus voci resonat conclusus."

Horace, Sat. i. 4.

"These Thermæ of Caracalla, which were one mile in circumference, and open at stated hours for the indiscriminate service of the senators and the people, contained above sixteen hundred seats of marble. The walls of the lofty apartments were covered with curious mosaics that imitated the art of the pencil in elegance of design and in the variety of their colours. The Egyptian granite was beautifully encrusted with the precious green marble of Numidia. The perpetual stream of hot water was poured into the capacious basons through so many wide mouths of bright and massy silver; and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. From these stately palaces issued forth a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes and without mantle; who loitered away whole days in the street or Forum, to hear news and to hold disputes; who dissipated, in extravagant gaming, the miserable pittance of their wives and children; and spent the hours of the night in the indulgence of gross and vulgar sensuality."--Gibbon.

In the first great hall was found, in 1824, the immense mosaic pavement of the pugilists, now in the Lateran museum. Endless works of art have been discovered here from time to time, among them the best of the Farnese collection of statues,--the Bull, the Hercules, and the Flora,--which were dug up in 1534, when Paul III. carried off all the still remaining marble decorations of the baths to use for the Farnese Palace. The last of the pillars to be removed from hence is that which supports the statue of Justice in the Piazza Sta. Trinità at Florence.

A winding stair leads to the top of the walls, which are worth ascending, as well for the idea which you there receive of the vast size of the ruins, as for the lovely views of the Campagna, which are obtained between the bushes of lentiscus and phillyrea with which they are fringed. It was seated on these walls that Shelley wrote his "Prometheus Unbound."

"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees which are extended in ever-winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening spring in that divinest climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the inspiration of the drama."--Preface to the Prometheus.

"Maintenant les murailles sont nues, sauf quelques fragments de chapiteaux oubliés par la destruction; mais elles conservent ce que seules des mains de géant pourraient leur ôter, leur masse écrasante, la grandeur de leurs aspects, la sublimité de leurs ruines. On ne regrette rien quand on contemple ces énormes et pittoresque débris, baignés à midi par une ardente lumière ou se remplissant d'ombres à la tombée de la nuit, s'élançant, à une immense hauteur vers un ciel éblouissant, ou se dressant, mornes et mélancoliques, sous un ciel grisâtre,--ou bien, lorsque, montant sur la plate-forme inégale, crevassée, couverte d'arbustes et tapissée de gazon, on voit, comme du haut d'une colline, d'un côté se dérouler la campagne romaine et le merveilleux horizon de montagnes qui la termine, de l'autre apparaître, ainsi qu'une montagne de plus, le dôme de Saint-Pierre, la seule des œuvres d'homme qui ait quelque chose de la grandeur des œuvres de Dieu."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 286.

The name of the lane which leads to the baths (Via all' Antoniana) recalls the fact that, "with a vanity which seems like mockery, Caracalla dared to bear the name of Antoninus," which was always dear to the Roman people.

Passing under the wall of the government-garden for raising shrubs for the public walks, a door on the left of the Via Appia, with a sculptured marble frieze above it, is that of Guidi, the antiquity vendor, who has a small museum here of splendid fragments of marble and alabaster for sale. Opposite is the Vigna of Signor Guidi, who has unearthed a splendid mosaic pavement of Tritons riding on dolphins, and who has here also a collection of antique fragments to be disposed of.

On the right, is SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, a most interesting little church. The tradition runs that St. Peter, going to execution, let drop here one of the bandages of his wounds, and that the spot was marked by the early Christians with an oratory, which bore the name of Fasciola. Nereus and Achilles, eunuchs in the service of Clemens Flavius and Flavia Domitilla (members of the imperial family exiled to Pontia under Diocletian), having suffered martyrdom at Terracina, their bodies were transported here in 524 by John I., when the oratory was enlarged into a church, which was restored under Leo III., in 795. The church was rebuilt in the sixteenth century, by Cardinal Baronius, who took his title from hence. In his work he desired that the ancient basilica character should be carefully carried out, and all the ancient ornaments of the church were preserved and re-erected. His anxiety that his successors should not meddle with or injure these objects of antiquity is shown by, the inscription on a marble slab in the tribune:

"Presbyter, Card. Successor quisquis fueris, rogo te, per gloriam Dei, et per merita horum martyrum, nihil demito, nihil minuito, nec mutato; restitutam antiquitatem pie servato; sic Deus martyrum suorum precibus semper adjuvet!"

The chancel is raised and surrounded by an inlaid marble screen. Instead of ambones there are two plain marble reading-desks for the epistle and gospel. The altar is inlaid, and has "transennæ," or a marble grating, through which the tomb of the saints Nereus and Achilles may be seen, and through which the faithful might pass their handkerchiefs to touch it. Behind, in the semicircular choir, is an ancient episcopal throne, supported by lions, and ending in a gothic gable. Upon it part of the twenty-eighth homily of St. Gregory was engraved by Baronius, under the impression that it was delivered thence,--though it was really first read in the catacomb, whence the bodies of the saints were not yet removed. All these decorations are of the restoration under Leo III., in the eighth century. Of the same period are the mosaics on the arch of the tribune (partly painted over in later times), representing, in the centre, the Transfiguration (the earliest instance of the subject being treated in art), with the Annunciation on one side, and the Madonna and Child attended by angels on the other.

It is worth while remarking that when the relics of Flavia Domitilla (who was niece of Vespasian) and of Nereus and Achilles were brought hither from the catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, which bears the name of the latter, they were first escorted in triumph to the Capitol, and made to pass under the imperial arches which bore as inscriptions: "The senate and the Roman people to Sta. Flavia Domitilla, for having brought more honour to Rome by her death than her illustrious relations by their works." ... "To Sta. Flavia Domitilla, and to the Saints Nereus and Achilles, the excellent citizens who gained peace for the Christian republic at the price of their blood."

Opposite, on the left, is a courtyard leading to the Church of S. Sisto, with its celebrated convent, long deserted on account of malaria.

It was here that St. Dominic first resided in Rome, and collected one hundred monks under his rule, before he was removed to Sta. Sabina by Honorius III. After he went to the Aventine, it was decided to utilize this convent by collecting here the various Dominican nuns, who had been living hitherto under very lax discipline, and allowed to leave their convents, and reside in their own families. The nuns of Sta. Maria in Trastevere resisted the order, and only consented to remove on condition of bringing with them a Madonna picture attributed to St. Luke, hoping that the Trasteverini would refuse to part with their most cherished treasure. St. Dominic obviated the difficulty by going to fetch the picture himself at night, attended by two cardinals, and a bare-footed, torch-bearing multitude.

"On Ash-Wednesday, 1218, the abbess and some of her nuns went to take possession of their new monastery, and being in the chapter-house with St. Dominic and Cardinal Stefano di Fossa Nuova, suddenly there came in one tearing his hair, and making great outcries, for the young Lord Napoleon Orsini, nephew of the cardinal, had been thrown from his horse, and killed on the spot. The cardinal fell speechless into the arms of Dominic, and the women and others who were present were filled with grief and horror. They brought the body of the youth into the chapter-house, and laid it before the altar; and Dominic, having prayed, turned to it, saying, 'O adolescens Napoleo, in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi tibi dico surge,' and thereupon he arose sound and whole, to the unspeakable wonder of all present."--Jameson's Monastic Orders.

After being convinced by this miracle of the divine mission of St. Dominic, forty nuns settled at S. Sisto, promising never more to cross its threshold.[194]

There is very little remaining of the ancient S. Sisto, except the campanile, which is of 1500. But the vaulted Chapter-House, now dedicated to St. Dominic, is well worth visiting. It has recently been covered with frescoes by the Padre Besson,--himself a Dominican monk,--who received his commission from Father Mullooly, Prior of S. Clemente, the Irish Dominican convent, to which S. Sisto is now annexed. The three principal frescoes represent three miracles of St. Dominic--in each case of raising from the dead. One represents the resuscitation of a mason of the new monastery, who had fallen from a scaffold; another, that of a child in a wild and beautiful Italian landscape; the third, the restoration of Napoleone Orsini on this spot,--the mesmeric upspringing of the lifeless youth being most powerfully represented. The whole chapel is highly picturesque, and effective in colour. Of two inscriptions, one commemorates the raising of Orsini; the other, a prophecy of St. Dominic, as to the evil end of two monks who deserted their convent.

Just beyond S. Sisto, where the Via della Ferratella branches off on the left to the Lateran, stands a small ædiculum, or Shrine of the Lares, with brick niches for statues.

Further, on the right, standing back from a kind of piazza, adorned with an ancient granite column, is the Church of S. Cesareo, which already existed in the time of St. Gregory the Great, but was modernized under Clement VII. (1523--34). Its interior retains many of its ancient features. The pulpit is one of the most exquisite specimens of church decoration in Rome, and is covered with the most delicate sculpture, interspersed with mosaic; the emblems of the Evangelists are introduced in the carving of the panels. The high altar is richly encrusted with mosaics, probably by the Cosmati family; tiny owls form part of the decorations of the capitals of its pillars. Beneath is a "confession," where two angels are drawing curtains over the tomb of the saint. The chancel has an inlaid marble screen. In the tribune is an ancient episcopal throne, once richly ornamented with mosaics.

In this church St. Sergius was elected to the papal throne, in 687; and here, also, an Abbot of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio was elected in 1145, as Eugenius III., and was immediately afterwards forced by the opposing senate to fly to Montecelli, and then to the Abbey of Farfa, where his consecration took place.

Part of the palace of the titular cardinal of S. Cesareo remains in the adjoining garden, with an interesting loggia of c. 1200.

In this neighbourhood was the Piscina Publica, which gave a name to the twelfth Region of the city. It was used for learning to swim, but all trace of it had disappeared before the time of Festus, whose date is uncertain, but who lived before the end of the fourth century--

"In thermas fugio: sonas ad aurem, Piscinam peto: non licet natare."

Martial, iii. Ep. 44.

* * * * *

Here a lane turns on the left, towards the ancient Porta Latina (through which the Via Latina led to Capua), now closed.

In front of the gate is a little chapel, of the sixteenth century, called S. Giovanni in Oleo, decorated with indifferent frescoes, on the spot where St. John is said to have been thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil (under Domitian), from which "he came forth as from a refreshing bath." It is the suffering in the burning oil which gave St. John the palm of a martyr, with which he is often represented in art. The festival of "St. John ante Port. Lat." (May 6) is preserved in the English Church Calendar.

On the left, is the Church of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, built in 1190 by Celestine III.

In spite of many modernizations, the last by Cardinal Rasponi in 1685, this building retains externally more of its ancient character than most Roman churches, in its fine campanile and the old brick walls of the nave and apse, decorated with terra-cotta friezes. The portico is entered by a narrow arch resting on two granite columns. The entrance-door and the altar have the peculiar mosaic ribbon decoration of the Cosmati, of 1190. The frescoes are all modern; in the tribune, are the deluge and the baptism of Christ,--the type and antitype. Of the ten columns, eight are simple and of granite, two are fluted and of porta-santa, showing that they were not made for the church, but removed from some pagan building--probably from the temple of Ceres and Proserpine. Near the entrance is a very picturesque marble Well, like those so common at Venice and Padua, decorated with an intricate pattern of rich carving.

In the opposite vineyard, behind the chapel of the Oleo, very picturesquely situated under the Aurelian Wall, is the Columbarium of the Freedmen of Octavia. A columbarium was a tomb containing a number of cinerary urns in niches like pigeon-holes, whence the name. Many columbaria were held in common by a great number of persons, and the niches could be obtained by purchase or inheritance; in other cases, the heads of the great houses possessed whole columbaria for their families and their slaves. In the present instance the columbarium is more than usually decorated, and, though much smaller, it is far more worth seeing than the columbaria which it is the custom to visit immediately upon the Appian Way. One of the cippi, above the staircase, is beautifully decorated with shells and mosaic. Below, is a chamber, whose vault is delicately painted with vines and little Bacchi gathering in the vintage. Round the walls are arranged the urns, some of them in the form of temples, and very beautifully designed, others merely pots sunk into the wall, with conical lids, like pipkins let into a kitchen-range. A beautiful vase of lapis-lazuli found here has been transferred to the Vatican.

* * * * *

Proceeding along the Via Appia, on the left by a tall cypress (No. 13) is the entrance to the Tomb of the Scipios, a small catacomb in the tufa rock, discovered in 1780, from which the famous sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, and a bust of the poet Ennius,[195] were removed to the Vatican by Pius VII.

"The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers."

Childe Harold.

The contadino at the neighbouring farmhouse provides lights, with which one can visit a labyrinth of steep narrow passages, some of which still retain inscribed sepulchral slabs. Among the Scipios whose tombs have been discovered here were Lucius Scipio Barbatus and his son, the conqueror of Corsica; Aula Cornelia wife of Cneius Scipio Hispanis; a son of Scipio Africanus; Lucius Cornelius son of Scipio Asiaticus; Cornelius Scipio Hispanis and his son Lucius Cornelius. At the further end of these passages, and now, like them, subterranean, may be seen the pediment and arched entrance of the tomb towards the Via Latina. "It is uncertain whether Scipio Africanus was buried at Liternum or in the family tomb. In the time of Livy monuments to him were extant in both places."[196]

There is a beautiful view towards Rome from the vineyard above the tomb.

A little further on, left (No. 14), is the entrance of the Vigna Codini (a private garden with an extortionate custode), containing three interesting Columbaria. Two of these are large square vaults, supported by a central pillar, which, as well as the walls, is perforated by niches for urns. The third has three vaulted passages.

We now reach the Arch of Drusus. On its summit are the remains of the aqueduct by which Caracalla carried water to his baths. The arch once supported an equestrian statue of Drusus, two trophies, and a seated female figure representing Germany.

The Arch of Drusus was decreed by the senate in honour of the second son of the empress Livia, by her first husband, Tiberius Nero. He was father of Germanicus and the emperor Claudius, and brother of Tiberius. He died during a campaign on the Rhine, B.C. 9, and was brought back to be buried by his step-father Augustus in his own mausoleum. His virtues are attested in a poem ascribed to Pedo Albinovanus.

"This arch, 'Marmoreum arcum cum tropæo Appia Via' (Suet. I), is, with the exception of the Pantheon, the most perfect existing monument of Augustan architecture. It is heavy, plain, and narrow, with all the dignified but stern simplicity which belongs to the character of its age."--Merivale.

"It is hard for one who loves the very stones of Rome, to pass over all the thoughts which arise in his mind, as he thinks of the great Apostle treading the rude and massive pavement of the Appian Way, and passing under that Arch of Drusus at the Porta S. Sebastiano, toiling up the Capitoline Hill past the Tabularium of the Capitol, dwelling in his hired house in the Via Lata or elsewhere, imprisoned in those painted caves in the Prætorian Camp, and at last pouring out his blood for Christ at the Tre Fontane, on the road to Ostia."--Dean Alford's Study of the New Testament, p. 335.

The Porta San Sebastiano has two fine semicircular towers of the Aurelian wall, resting on a basement of marble blocks, probably plundered from the tombs on the Via Appia. Under the arch is a gothic inscription relating to the repulse of some unknown invaders.

It was here that the senate and people of Rome received in state the last triumphant procession which has entered the city by the Via Appia, that of Marc-Antonio Colonna, after the victory of Lepanto in 1571. As in the processions of the old Roman generals, the children of the conquered prince were forced to adorn the triumph of the victor, who rode into Rome attended by all the Roman nobles, "in abito di grande formalità,"[197] preceded by the standard of the fleet.

From the gate, the Clivus Martis (crossed by the railway to Civita Vecchia) descends into the valley of the Almo, where antiquaries formerly placed the Porta Capena. On the hillside stood a Temple of Mars, vowed in the Gallic war, and dedicated by T. Quinctius the "duumvir sacris faciundis," in B.C. 387. No remains exist of this temple. It was "approached from the Via Capena by a portico, which must have rivalled in length the celebrated portico at Bologna extending to the church of the Madonna di S. Luca."[198] Near this, a temple was erected to Tempestas in B.C. 260, by L. Cornelius Scipio, to commemorate the narrow escape of his fleet from shipwreck off the coast of Sardinia.[199] Near this, also, the poet Terence owned a small estate of twenty acres, presented to him by his friend Scipio Emilianus.[200] After crossing the brook, we pass between two conspicuous tombs. That on the left is the Tomb of Geta, son of Septimius Severus, the murdered brother of Caracalla; that on the right is the Tomb of Priscilla, wife of Abascantius, a favourite freedman of Domitian.

"Est locus, ante urbem, qua primum nascitur ingens Appia, quaque Italo gemitus Almone Cybele Ponit, et Idæos jam non reminiscitur amnes. Hic te Sidonio velatam molliter ostro Eximius conjux (nec enim fumantia busta Clamoremque rogi potuit perferre), beato Composuit, Priscilla, toro."

Statius, lib. v. Sylv. i. 222.

Just beyond this, the Via Ardeatina branches off on the right, passing, after about two miles, the picturesque Vigna Marancia, a pleasant spot, with fine old pines and cypresses.

Where the roads divide, is the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, containing a copy of the celebrated footprint said to have been left here by Our Saviour: the original being removed to S. Sebastiano.

"After the burning of Rome, Nero threw upon the Christians the accusation of having fired the city. This was the origin of the first persecution, in which many perished by terrible and hitherto unheard-of deaths. The Christian converts besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way, about two miles from the gates, he was met by a vision of our Saviour travelling towards the city. Struck with amazement, he exclaimed, 'Lord, whither goest thou?' to which the Saviour, looking upon him with a mild sadness, replied, 'I go to Rome to be crucified a second time,' and vanished. Peter, taking this as a sign that he was to submit himself to the sufferings prepared for him, immediately turned back to the city.[201] Michael Angelo's famous statue, now in the Church of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, is supposed to represent Christ as he appeared to St. Peter on this occasion. A cast or copy of it is in the little church of 'Domine, quo vadis?'

"It is surprising that this most beautiful, picturesque, and, to my fancy, sublime legend, has been so seldom treated; and never, as it seems to me, in a manner worthy of its capabilities and high significance. It is seldom that a story can be told by two figures, and these two figures placed in such grand and dramatic contrast;--Christ in His serene majesty, and radiant with all the joy of beatitude, yet with an expression of gentle reproach; the Apostle at his feet arrested in his flight, amazed, and yet filled with a trembling joy; and for the background the wide Campagna, or towering walls of imperial Rome."--Mrs. Jameson.[202]

Beyond the church is a second "Bivium," or cross-ways, where a lane on the left leads up the Valle Caffarelle. Here, feeling an uncertainty which was the crossing where Our Saviour appeared to St. Peter, the English Cardinal Pole erected a second tiny chapel of "Domine Quo Vadis," which remains to this day.

On the left, is the Columbarium of the Freedmen of Augustus and Livia, divided into three chambers, but despoiled of its adornments. Other Columbaria near this are assigned to the Volusii, and the Cæcilii.

Over the wall on the left of the Via Appia now hangs in profusion the rare yellow-berried ivy. Many curious plants are to be found on these old Roman walls. Their commonest parasite, the Pellitory--"herba parietina," calls to mind the nickname given to the Emperor Trajan in derision of his passion for inscribing his name upon the walls of Roman buildings which he had merely restored, as if he were their founder;[203] a passion in which the popes have since largely participated.

We now reach (on the right) the entrance of the Catacombs of St. Calixtus.

(The Catacombs (except those at S. Sebastiano) can only be visited in company of a guide. For most of the Catacombs it is necessary to obtain a permesso at the office of the Cardinal-Vicar, 70 Via della Scrofa, before 12 A.M.; upon which a day (generally Sunday) is fixed, which must be adhered to. The Catacombs of St. Calixtus are sometimes superficially shown without a special permesso. It may be well for the visitor to provide himself with tapers--cerini.)

All descriptions of dangers attending a visit to the Catacombs, if accompanied by a guide, and provided with "cerini," are quite imaginary. Neither does the visitor ever suffer from cold; the temperature of the Catacombs is mild and warm; the vaults are almost always dry, and the air pure.

"The Roman Catacombs--a name consecrated by long usage, but having no etymological meaning, and not a very determinate geographical one--are a vast labyrinth of galleries excavated in the bowels of the earth in the hills around the Eternal City; not in the hills on which the city itself was built, but in those beyond the walls. Their extent is enormous; not as to the amount of superficial soil which they underlie, for they rarely, if ever, pass beyond the third mile-stone from the city, but in the actual length of their galleries; for these are often excavated on various levels, or piani, three, four, or even five--one above the other; and they cross and recross one another, sometimes at short intervals, on each of these levels; so that, on the whole, there are certainly not less than 350 miles of them; that is to say, if stretched out in one continuous line, they would extend the whole length of Italy itself. The galleries are from two to four feet in width, and vary in height according to the nature of the rock in which they are dug. The walls on both sides are pierced with horizontal niches, like shelves in a bookcase or berths in a steamer, and every niche once contained one or more dead bodies. At various intervals this succession of shelves is interrupted for a moment, that room may be made for a doorway opening into a small chamber; and the walls of these chambers are generally pierced with graves in the same way as the galleries.

"These vast excavations once formed the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome; they were begun in apostolic times, and continued to be used as burial-places of the faithful till the capture of the city by Alaric in the year 410. In the third century, the Roman Church numbered twenty-five or twenty-six of them, corresponding to the number of her titles, or parishes, within the city; and besides these, there are about twenty others, of smaller dimensions, isolated monuments of special martyrs, or belonging to this or that private family. Originally they all belonged to private families or individuals, the villas or gardens in which they were dug being the property of wealthy citizens who had embraced the faith of Christ, and devoted of their substance to His service. Hence their most ancient titles were taken merely from the names of their lawful owners, many of which still survive. Lucina, for example, who lived in the days of the Apostles, and others of the same family, or at least of the same name, who lived at various periods in the next two centuries; Priscilla, also a contemporary of the Apostles; Flavia Domitilla, niece of Vespasian; Commodilla, whose property lay on the Via Ostiensis; Cyriaca, on the Via Tiburtina; Pretextatus, on the Via Appia; Pontiano, on the Via Portuensis; and the Jordani, Maximus and Thraso, all on the Via Salaria Nova. These names are still attached to the various catacombs, because they were originally begun upon the land of those who bore them. Other catacombs are known by the names of those who presided over their formation, as that of St. Calixtus, on the Via Appia; or St. Mark, on the Via Ardeatina; or of the principal martyrs who were buried in them, as SS. Hermes, Basilla, Protus, and Hyacinthus, on the Via Salaria Vetus; or, lastly, by some peculiarity of their position, as ad Catacumbas on the Via Appia, and ad duas Lauros on the Via Labicana.

"It has always been agreed among men of learning who have had an opportunity of examining these excavations, that they were used exclusively by the Christians as places of burial and of holding religious assemblies. Modern research has now placed it beyond a doubt, that they were also originally designed for this purpose and for no other: that they were not deserted sand-pits (arenariæ) or quarries, adapted to Christian uses, but a development, with important modifications, of a form of sepulchre not altogether unknown even among the heathen families of Rome, and in common use among the Jews both in Rome and elsewhere.

"At first, the work of making the Catacombs was done openly, without let or hindrance, by the Christians; the entrances to them were public on the high-road or on the hill-side, and the galleries and chambers were freely decorated with paintings of a sacred character. But early in the third century, it became necessary to withdraw them as much as possible from the public eye; new and often difficult entrances were now effected in the recesses of deserted arenariæ, and even the liberty of Christian art was cramped and fettered, lest what was holy should fall under the profane gaze of the unbaptized.

"Each of these burial-places was called in ancient times either hypogæum, i. e. generically, a subterranean place, or cœmeterium, a sleeping-place, a new name of Christian origin which the pagans could only repeat, probably without understanding; sometimes also martyrium, or confessio (its Latin equivalent), to signify that it was the burial-place of martyrs or confessors of the faith. An ordinary grave was called locus or loculus, if it contained a single body; or bisomum, trisomum, or quadrisomum, if it contained two, three, or four. The graves were dug by fossores, and burial in them was called depositio. The galleries do not seem to have had any specific name; but the chambers were called cubicula. In most of these chambers, and sometimes also in the galleries themselves, one or more tombs are to be seen of a more elaborate kind; a long oblong chasse, like a sarcophagus, either hollowed out in the rock or built up of masonry, and closed by a heavy slab of marble lying horizontally on the top. The niche over tombs of this kind was of the same length as the grave, and generally vaulted in a semicircular form, whence they were called arcosolia. Sometimes, however, the niche retained the rectangular form, in which case there was no special name for it, but for distinction's sake we may be allowed to call it a table-tomb. Those of the arcosolia, which were also the tomb of martyrs, were used on the anniversaries of their deaths (Natalitia, or birthdays) as altars whereon the holy mysteries were celebrated; hence, whilst some of the cubicula were only family-vaults, others were chapels, or places of public assembly. It is probable that the holy mysteries were celebrated also in the private vaults, on the anniversaries of the deaths of their occupants; and each one was sufficiently large in itself for use on these private occasions; but in order that as many as possible might assist at the public celebrations, two, three, or even four of the cubicula were often made close together, all receiving light and air through one shaft or air-hole (luminare), pierced through the superincumbent soil up to the open air. In this way as many as a hundred persons might be collected in some parts of the catacombs to assist at the same act of public worship; whilst a still larger number might have been dispersed in the cubicula of neighbouring galleries, and received there the bread of life brought to them by the assistant priests and deacons. Indications of this arrangement are not only to be found in ancient ecclesiastical writings; they may still be seen in the very walls of the catacombs themselves, episcopal chairs, chairs for the presiding deacon or deaconess, and benches for the faithful, having formed part of the original design when the chambers were hewn out of the living rock, and still remaining where they were first made."--Roma Sotterranea, Northcote and Brownlow.

"To our classic associations, Rome was still, under Trajan and the Antonines, the city of the Cæsars, the metropolis of pagan idolatry--in the pages of her poets and historians we still linger among the triumphs of the Capitol, the shows of the Coliseum; or if we read of a Christian being dragged before the tribunal, or exposed to the beasts, we think of him as one of a scattered community, few in number, spiritless in action, and politically insignificant. But all this while there was living beneath the visible an invisible Rome--a population unheeded, unreckoned--thought of vaguely, vaguely spoken of, and with the familiarity and indifference that men feel who live on a volcano--yet a population strong-hearted, of quick impulses, nerved alike to suffer or to die, and in number, resolution, and physical force sufficient to have hurled their oppressors from the throne of the world, had they not deemed it their duty to kiss the rod, to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to submit, for their Redeemer's sake, to the 'powers that be.' Here, in these 'dens and caves of the earth,' they lived; here they died--a 'spectacle' in their lifetime 'to men and angels,' and in their death a 'triumph' to mankind--a triumph of which the echoes still float around the walls of Rome, and over the desolate Campagna, while those that once thrilled the Capitol are silenced, and the walls that returned them have long since crumbled into dust."--Lord Lindsay' s Christian Art, i. 4.

The name Catacombs is modern, having originally been only applied to S. Sebastiano "ad catacumbas." The early Christians called their burial-places by the Greek name Cœmeteria, sleeping-places. Almost all the catacombs are between the first and third mile-stones from the Aurelian wall, to which point the city extended before the wall itself was built. This was in obedience to the Roman law which forbade burial within the precincts of the city.

The fact that the Christians were always anxious not to burn their dead, but to bury them, in these rock-hewn sepulchres, was probably owing to the remembrance that our Lord was himself laid "in a new tomb hewn out of the rock," and perhaps also for this reason the bodies were wrapt in fine linen cloths, and buried with precious spices, of which remains have been found in the tombs.

The Catacomb which is known as St. Calixtus, is composed of a number of catacombs, once distinct, but now joined together. Such were those of Sta. Lucina; of Anatolia, daughter of the consul Æmilianus; and of Sta. Soteris, "a virgin of the family to which St. Ambrose belonged in a later generation," and who was buried "in cœmeterio suo," A.D. 304. The passages of these catacombs were gradually united with those which originally belonged to the cemetery of Calixtus.

The high mass of ruin which meets our eyes on first entering the vineyard of St. Calixtus, is a remnant of the tomb of the Cæcilii, of which family a number of epitaphs have been found. Beyond this is another ruin, supposed by Marangoni to have been the basilica which St. Damasus provided for his own burial and that of his mother and sister; which Padre Marchi believed to be the church of St. Mark and St. Marcellinus;--but which De Rossi identifies with the cella memoriæ, sometimes called of St. Sistus, sometimes of St. Cecilia (because built immediately over the graves of those martyrs), by St. Fabian in the third century.[204]

Descending into the Catacomb by an ancient staircase restored, we reach (passing a sepulchral cubiculum on the right) the Chapel of the Popes, a place of burial and of worship of the third or fourth century, (as it was restored after its discovery in 1854) but still retaining remains of the marble slabs with which it was faced by Sixtus III. in the fifth century, and of marble columns, &c. with which it was adorned by St. Leo III. (795--816). The walls are lined with graves of the earliest popes, many of them martyrs--viz. St. Zephyrinus, (202--211); St Pontianus, who died in banishment in Sardinia, (231--236); St. Anteros, martyred under Maximian in the second month of his pontificate, (236); St. Fabian, martyred under Decius, (236--250); St. Lucius, martyred under Valerian, (253--255); St. Stephen I., martyred in his episcopal chair under Valerian, (255--257); St. Sixtus II., martyred in the catacombs of St. Pretextatus, (257--260); St. Dionysius, (260--271); St. Eutychianus, martyr, (275--283); and St. Caius, (284--296). Of these, the gravestones of Anteros, Fabian, Lucius, and Eutychianus, have been discovered, with inscriptions in Greek, which is acknowledged to have been the earliest language of the Church,--in which St. Paul and St. James wrote, and in which the proceedings of the first twelve Councils were carried on.[205] Though no inscriptions have been found relating to the other popes mentioned, they are known to have been buried here from the earliest authorities.

Over the site of the altar is one of the beautifully-cut inscriptions of Pope St. Damasus (366--384), "whose labour of love it was to rediscover the tombs which had been blocked up for concealment under Diocletian, to remove the earth, widen the passages, adorn the sepulchral chambers with marble, and support the friable tufa walls with arches of brick and stone."[206]

"Hic congesta jacet quæris si turba Piorum Corpora Sanctorum retinent veneranda sepulchra, Sublimes animas rapuit sibi Regia Cœli: Hic comites Xysti portant qui ex hoste tropæa; Hic numerus procerum servat qui altaria Christi; Hic positus longâ vixit qui in pace Sacerdos; Hic Confessores sancti quos Græcia misit; Hic juvenes, puerique, senes, castique nepotes, Quis mage virgineum placuit retinere pudorem. Hic fateor Damasus volui mea condere membra, Sed cineres timui sanctos vexare Piorum.

"Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a number of the holy, These honoured sepulchres inclose the bodies of the saints, Their lofty souls the palace of heaven has received. Here lie the companions of Xystus, who bear away the trophies from the enemy; Here a tribe of the elders which guards the altars of Christ; Here is buried the priest who lived long in peace;[207] Here the holy confessors who came from Greece;[208] Here lie youths and boys, old men and their chaste descendants, Who kept their virginity undefiled. Here I Damasus wished to have laid my limbs, But feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints."[209]

From this chapel we enter the Cubiculum of Sta. Cecilia, where the body of the saint was buried by her friend Urban after her martyrdom in her own house in the Trastevere (see Chap. XVII.) A.D. 224, and where it was discovered in 820 by Pope Paschal I. (to whom its resting-place had been revealed in a dream), "fresh and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen cloths stained with blood rolled up at her feet, lying in a cypress coffin."[210]

Close to the entrance of the cubiculum, upon the wall, is a painting of Cecilia, "a woman richly attired, and adorned with bracelets and necklaces." Near it is a niche for the lamp which burnt before the shrine, at the back of which is a large head of Our Saviour, "of the Byzantine type, and with rays of glory behind it in the form of a Greek cross. Side by side with this, but on the flat surface of the wall, is a figure of St. Urban (the friend of Cecilia, who laid her body here) in full pontifical robes, with his name inscribed." Higher on the wall are figures of three saints, "executed apparently in the fourth, or perhaps even the fifth century"--Polycamus, an unknown martyr, with a palm branch; Sebastianus; and Curinus, a bishop (Quirinus bishop of Siscia--buried at St. Sebastian). In the pavement is a gravestone of Septimus Pretextatus Cæcilianus, "a servant of God, who lived worthy for three-and-thirty years;"--considered important as suggesting a connection between the family of Cecilia and that of St. Prætextatus, in whose catacomb on the other side of the Appian Way her husband and brother-in-law were buried, and where her friend St. Urban was concealed.

These two chapels are the only ones which it is necessary to dwell upon here in detail. The rest of the catacomb is shown in varying order, and explained in different ways. Three points are of historic interest. 1. The roof-shaped tomb of Pope St. Melchiades, who lived long in peace and died A.D. 313. 2. The Cubiculum of Pope St. Eusebius, in the middle of which is placed an inscription, pagan on one side, on the other a restoration of the fifth century of one of the beautiful inscriptions of Pope Damasus, which is thus translated:--

"Heraclius forbade the lapsed to grieve for their sins. Eusebius taught those unhappy ones to weep for their crimes. The people were rent into parties, and with increasing fury began sedition, slaughter, fighting, discord, and strife. Straightway both (the pope and the heretic) were banished by the cruelty of the tyrant, although the pope was preserving the bonds of peace inviolate. He bore his exile with joy, looking to the Lord as his judge, and on the shore of Sicily gave up the world and his life."

At the top and bottom of the tablet is the following title:--

"Damasus Episcopus fecit Eusebio episcopo et martyri,"

and on either side a single file of letters which hands down to us the name of the sculptor who executed the Damasine inscriptions.

"Furius Dionysius Filocalus scripsit Damasis pappæ cultor atque amatot."

3. Near the exit, properly in the catacomb of Sta. Lucina, connected with that of Calixtus by a labyrinth of galleries, is the tomb of Pope St. Cornelius (251, 252) the only Roman bishop down to the time of St. Sylvester (314) who bore the name of any noble Roman family, and whose epitaph, (perhaps in consequence) is in Latin, while those of the other popes are in Greek. The tomb has no chapel of its own, but is a mere grave in a gallery, with a rectangular instead of a circular space above, as in the cubicula. Near the tomb are fragments of one of the commemorative inscriptions of St. Damasus, which has been ingeniously restored by De Rossi thus:--

"Aspice, descensu extructo tenebrisque fugatis Corneli monumenta vides tumulumque sacratum Hoc opus ægroti Damasi præstantia fecit, Esset ut accessus melior, populisque paratum Auxilium sancti, et valeas si fundere puro Corde preces, Damasus melior consurgere posset, Quem non lucis amor, tenuit mage cura laboris."

"Behold! a way down has been constructed, and the darkness dispelled; you see the monuments of Cornelius, and his sacred tomb. This work the zeal of Damasus has accomplished, sick as he is, in order that the approach might be better, and the aid of the saint might be made convenient for the people; and that, if you will pour forth your prayers from a pure heart, Damasus may rise up better in health, though it has not been love of life, but care for work, that has kept him (here below)."[211]

St. Cornelius was banished under Gallus to Centumcellæ--now Civita Vecchia, and was brought back thence to Rome for martyrdom Sept. 14, A.D. 252. On the same day of the month, in 258, died his friend and correspondent St. Cyprian, archbishop of Carthage,[212] who is consequently commemorated by the Church on the same day with St. Cornelius. Therefore also, on the right of the grave, are two figures of bishops with inscriptions declaring them to be St. Cornelius and St. Cyprian. Each holds the book of the Gospels in his hands and is clothed in pontifical robes, "including the pallium, which had not yet been confined as a mark of distinction to metropolitans."[213] Beneath the picture stands a pillar which held one of the vases of oil which were always kept burning before the shrines of the martyr. Beyond the tomb, at the end of the gallery, is another painting of two bishops, St. Sistus II., martyred in the catacomb of Pretextatus, and St. Optatus who was buried near him.

In going round this catacomb, and in most of the others, the visitor will be shown a number of rude paintings, which will be explained to him in various ways, according to the tendencies of his guide. The paintings may be considered to consist of three classes, symbolical; allegorical and biblical; and liturgical. There is little variety of subject,--the same are introduced over and over again.

The symbols most frequently introduced on and over the graves are:--

The Anchor, expressive of hope. Heb. vi. 19.

The Dove, symbolical of the Christian soul released from its earthly tabernacle. Ps. lv. 6.

The Sheep, symbolical of the soul still wandering amid the pastures and deserts of earthly life. Ps. cxix. 176. Isaiah liii. 6. John x. 14; xxi. 15, 16, 17.

The Phœnix, "the palm bird," emblematical of eternity and the resurrection.

The Fish--typical of Our Saviour--from the word ιχθυς, formed by the initial letters of the titles of Our Lord--Ιησοὑς Χριστὁς θεοὑ Υἱὁς Σωτἡρ--"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour."

The Ship--representing the Church militant, sometimes seen carried on the back of the fish.

Bread, represented with fish, sometimes carried in a basket on its back, sometimes with it on a table--in allusion to the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

A Female Figure Praying, an "Orante"--in allusion to the Church.

A Vine--also in allusion to the Church. Ps. lxxx. 8. Isaiah v. 1.

An Olive branch, as a sign of peace.

A Palm branch, as a sign of victory and martyrdom. Rev. vii. 9.

Allegorical and Biblical Representations.

Of these The Good Shepherd requires an especial notice from the importance which is given to it and its frequent introduction in catacomb art, both in sculpture and painting.

"By far the most interesting of the early Christian paintings is that of Our Saviour as the Good Shepherd, which is almost invariably painted on the central space of the dome or cupola, subjects of minor interest being disposed around it in compartments, precisely in the style, as regards both the arrangement and execution, of the heathen catacombs.

"He is represented as a youth in a shepherd's frock and sandals, carrying the 'lost sheep' on his shoulders, or leaning on his staff (the symbol, according to St. Augustine, of the Christian hierarchy), while the sheep feed around, or look up at him. Sometimes he is represented seated in the midst of the flock, playing on a shepherd's pipe,--in a few instances, in the oldest catacombs, he is introduced in the character of Orpheus, surrounded by wild beasts enrapt by the melody of his lyre,--Orpheus being then supposed to have been a prophet or precursor of the Messiah. The background usually exhibits a landscape or meadow, sometimes planted with olive-trees, doves resting on their branches, symbolical of the peace of the faithful; in others, as in a fresco preserved in the Museum Christianum, the palm of victory is introduced, --but such combinations are endless. In one or two instances the surrounding compartments are filled with personifications of the Seasons, apt emblems of human life, whether natural or spiritual.

"The subject of the Good Shepherd, I am sorry to add, is not of Roman but Greek origin, and was adapted from a statue of Mercury carrying a goat, at Tanagra, mentioned by Pausanias. The Christian composition approximates to its original more nearly in the few instances where Our Saviour is represented carrying a goat, emblematical of the scapegoat of the wilderness. Singularly enough, though of Greek parentage, and recommended to the Byzantines by Constantine, who erected a statue of the Good Shepherd in the forum of Constantinople, the subject did not become popular among them; they seem, at least, to have tacitly abandoned it to Rome."--Lord Lindsay's Christian Art.

"The Good Shepherd seems to have been quite the favourite subject. We cannot go through any part of the Catacombs, or turn over any collection of ancient Christian monuments, without coming across it again and again. We know from Tertullian that it was often designed upon chalices. We find it ourselves painted in fresco upon the roofs and walls of the sepulchral chambers; rudely scratched upon gravestones, or more carefully sculptured on sarcophagi; traced in gold upon glass, moulded on lamps, engraved on rings; and, in a word, represented on every species of Christian monument that has come down to us. Of course, amid such a multitude of examples, there is considerable variety of treatment. We cannot, however, appreciate the suggestion of Kügler, that this frequent repetition of the subject is probably to be attributed to the capabilities which it possessed in an artistic point of view. Rather, it was selected because it expressed the whole sum and substance of the Christian dispensation. In the language even of the Old Testament, the action of Divine Providence upon the world is frequently expressed by images and allegories borrowed from pastoral life; God is the Shepherd, and men are His sheep. But in a still more special way our Divine Redeemer offers Himself to our regards as the Good Shepherd. He came down from His eternal throne into this wilderness of the world to seek the lost sheep of the whole human race, and having brought them together into one fold on earth, thence to transport them into the ever-verdant pastures of Paradise."--Roma Sotterranea.

Other biblical subjects are:--from the Old Testament (those of Noah, Moses, Daniel, and Jonah being the only ones at all common)--

1. The Fall. Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, round which the serpent is coiled. Sometimes, instead of this, "Our Saviour (as the representative of the Deity) stands between them, condemning them, and offering a lamb to Eve and a sheaf of corn to Adam, to signify the doom of themselves and their posterity to delve and to spin through all future ages."

2. The Offering of Cain and Abel. They present a lamb and sheaf of corn to a seated figure of the Almighty.

3. Noah in the Ark, represented as a box--a dove, bearing an olive-branch, flies towards him. Interpreted to express the doctrine that "the faithful having obtained remission of their sins through baptism, have received from the Holy Spirit the gift of divine peace, and are saved in the mystical ark of the church from the destruction which awaits the world."[214] (Acts ii. 47.)

4. Sacrifice of Isaac.

5. Passage of the Red Sea.

6. Moses receiving the Law.

7. Moses striking water from the rock--(very common).

8. Moses pointing to the pots of manna.

9. Elijah going up to heaven in the chariot of fire.

10. The Three Children in the fiery furnace;--very common as symbolical of martyrdom.

11. Daniel in the lions' den;--generally a naked figure with hands extended, and a lion on either side; most common--as an encouragement to Christian sufferers.

12. Jonah swallowed up by the whale, represented as a strange kind of sea-horse.

13. Jonah disgorged by the whale.

14. Jonah under the gourd; or, according to the Vulgate, under the ivy.

15. Jonah lamenting for the death of the gourd.

These four subjects from the story of Jonah are constantly repeated, perhaps as encouragement to the Christians suffering from the wickedness of Rome--the modern Nineveh, which they were to warn and pray for.

Subjects from the New Testament are:

1. The Nativity--the ox and the ass kneeling.

2. The Adoration of the Magi--repeatedly placed in juxtaposition with the story of the Three Children.

3. Our Saviour turning water into wine.

4. Our Saviour conversing with the woman of Samaria.

5. Our Saviour healing the paralytic man--who takes up his bed. This is very common.

6. Our Saviour healing the woman with the issue of blood.

7. Our Saviour multiplying the loaves and fishes.

8. Our Saviour healing the daughter of the woman of Canaan.

9. Our Saviour healing the blind man.

10. The raising of Lazarus, who appears at a door in his grave-clothes, while Christ with a wand stands before it. This is the New Testament subject oftenest introduced. It is constantly placed in juxtaposition with a picture of Moses striking the rock. "These two subjects may be intended to represent the beginning and end of the Christian course, 'the fountain of water springing up to life everlasting.' God's grace and the gift of faith being typified by the water flowing from the rock, 'which was Christ,' and life everlasting by the victory over death and the second life vouchsafed to Lazarus."[215]

11. Our Saviour's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

12. Our Saviour giving the keys to Peter--very rare.

13. Our Saviour predicting the denial of Peter.

14. The denial of Peter.

15. Our Saviour before Pilate.

16. St.Peter taken to prison.

These last six subjects are only represented on tombs.[216]

The class of paintings shown as Liturgical are less definite than these. In the Catacombs of Calixtus several obscure paintings are shown (in cubicula anterior to the middle of the third century), which are said to have reference to the sacrament of baptism. Pictures of the paralytic carrying his bed are identified by some Roman Catholic authorities with the sacrament of penance. (!) Bosio believed that in the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla he had found paintings which illustrated the sacrament of ordination. Representations undoubtedly exist which illustrate the agape or love-feast of the primitive Church.

On the opposite side of the Via Appia from St. Calixtus (generally entered from the road leading to S. Urbano) is the Catacomb of St. Pretextatus, interesting as being the known burial-place of several martyrs. A large crypt was discovered here in 1857, built with solid masonry and lined with Greek marble.

"The workmanship points to early date, and specimens of pagan architecture in the same neighbourhood enable us to fix the middle of the latter half of the second century (A.D. 175) as a very probable date for its erection. The Acts of the Saints explain to us why it was built with bricks, and not hewn out of the rock--viz. because the Christian who made it (Sta. Marmenia) had caused it to be excavated immediately below her own house; and now that we see it, we understand the precise meaning of the words used by the itineraries describing it--viz. 'a large cavern, most firmly built.' The vault of the chapel is most elaborately painted, in a style by no means inferior to the best classical productions of the age. It is divided into four bands of wreaths, one of roses, another of corn-sheaves, a third of vine-leaves and grapes (and in all these, birds are introduced visiting their young in nests), and the last or highest, of leaves of laurel or the bay-tree. Of course these severally represent the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The last is a well-known figure or symbol of death; and probably the laurel, as the token of victory, was intended to represent the new and Christian idea of the everlasting reward of a blessed immortality. Below these bands is another border, more indistinct, in which reapers are gathering in the corn; and at the back of the arch is a rural scene, of which the central figure is the Good Shepherd carrying a sheep upon his shoulders. This, however, has been destroyed by graves pierced through the wall and the rock behind it, from the eager desire to bury the dead of a later generation as near as possible to the tombs of the martyrs. As De Rossi proceeded to examine these graves in detail, he could hardly believe his eyes when he read around the edge of one of them these words and fragments of words:--Mi Refrigeri Januarius Agatopos Felicissim Martyres--'Januarius, Agapetus, Felicissimus, martyrs, refresh the soul of....' The words had been scratched upon the mortar while it was yet fresh, fifteen centuries ago, as the prayer of some bereaved relative for the soul of him whom they were burying here, and now they revealed to the antiquarian of the nineteenth century the secret he was in quest of--viz. the place of burial of the saints whose aid is here invoked; for the numerous examples to be seen in other cemeteries warrant us in concluding that the bodies of the saints, to whose intercession the soul of the deceased is here recommended, were at the time of his burial lying at no great distance."--Roma Sotterranea.

The St. Januarius buried here was the eldest of the seven sons of St. Felicitas, martyred July 10, A.D. 162. St. Agapitus and St. Felicissimus were deacons of Pope Sixtus II., who were martyred together with him and St. Pretextatus[217] in this very catacomb, because Sixtus II. "had set at nought the commands of the Emperor Valerian."[218]

A mutilated inscription of St. Damasus, in the Catacomb of Calixtus, near the tomb of Cornelius, thus records the death of this pope:

"Tempore quo gladius secuit pia visura Matris Hic positus rector cælestia jussa docebam; Adveniunt subito, rapiunt qui forte sedentem; Militibus missis, populi tunc colla dedere. Mox sibi cognovit senior quis tollere vellet Palmam seque suumque caput prior obtulit ipse, Impatiens feritas posset ne lædere quemquam. Ostendit Christus reddit qui præmia vitæ Pastoris meritum, numerum gregis ipse tuetur."

"At the time when the sword pierced the heart of our Mother (Church), I, its ruler, buried here, was teaching the things of heaven. Suddenly they came, they seized me seated as I was;--the soldiers being sent in, the people gave their necks (to the slaughter). Soon the old man saw who was willing to bear away the palm from himself, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, fearing lest the blow should fall on any one else. Christ who awards the rewards of life recognises the merit of the pastor, he himself is preserving the number of his flock."

An adjoining crypt, considered to date from A.D. 130, is believed to be the burial-place of St. Quirinus.

Above this catacomb are ruins of two basilicas, erected in honour of St. Zeno; and of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, companions of Sta. Cecilia in martyrdom.

In the road leading to S. Urbano is the entrance to the Jewish Catacomb. It is entered by a chamber open to the sky, floored with black and white mosaic, which is supposed to have formed part of a pagan dwelling. The following chamber has remains of a well. Hence a low door forms the entrance of a gallery out of which open six cubicula, one of them containing a fine while marble sarcophagus, and decorated with a painting of the seven-branched candlestick. A side passage leads to other cubicula, and to an open space which seems to have been an actual arenarium. A winding passage at the end of the larger gallery leads to the graves in the floor divided into different cells for corpses, and called Cocim by Rabbinical writers. A cubiculum at the end of the catacomb has paintings of figures--Plenty, with a cornucopia; Victory, with a palm leaf, &c. The inscriptions found show that this cemetery was exclusively Jewish. They refer to officers of the synagogue, rulers (αρχοντες), and scribes (γραμματεις), &c. The inscriptions are in great part in Greek letters, expressing Latin words.

Another small Jewish catacomb has been discovered behind the basilica of St. Sebastian. Behind the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, on the right of the Via Ardeatina, is the Catacomb of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo. Close to its entrance is the farm of Tor Marancia, where are some ruins, believed to be remains of the villa of Flavia Domitilla. This celebrated member of the early Christian Church was daughter of the Flavia Domitilla who was sister of the Emperor Domitian,--and wife of Titus Flavius Clemens, son of the Titus Flavius Sabinus who was brother of the Emperor Vespasian. Her two sons were, Vespasian Junior and Domitian Junior, who were intended to succeed to the throne, and to whom Quinctilian was appointed as tutor by the emperor. Dion Cassius narrates that "Domitian put to death several persons, and amongst them Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was his nephew, and although he had Flavia Domitilla for his wife, who was also related to the emperor. They were both accused of atheism, on which charge many others also had been condemned, going after the manners and customs of the Jew; and some of them were put to death, and others had their goods confiscated; but Domitilla was only banished to Pandataria."[219] This Flavia Domitilla is frequently confused with her niece of the same name,[220] whose banishment is mentioned by Eusebius, when he says:--"The teaching of our faith had by this time shone so far and wide, that even pagan historians did not refuse to insert in their narratives some account of the persecution and the martyrdoms that were suffered in it. Some, too, have marked the time accurately, mentioning, amongst many others, in the fifteenth year of Domitian (A.D. 97), Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, one of the Roman consuls of those days, who, for her testimony for Christ, was punished by exile to the island of Pontia." It was this younger Domitilla who was accompanied in her exile by her two Christian servants, Nereus and Achilles; whose banishment is spoken of by St. Jerome as "a life-long martyrdom,"--whose cell was afterwards visited by Sta. Paula,[221] and who, according to the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilles, was brought back to the mainland to be burnt alive at Terracina, because she refused to sacrifice to idols. The relics of Domitilla, with those of her servants, were preserved in the catacomb under the villa which had belonged to her Christian aunt.

Receiving as evidence the story of Sta. Domitilla, this catacomb must be looked upon as the oldest Christian cemetery in existence. Its galleries were widened and strengthened by John I. (523--526). A chamber near the entrance is pointed out as the burial-place of Sta. Petronilla.

"The sepulchre of SS. Nereus and Achilles was in all probability in that chapel to which we descend by so magnificent a staircase, and which is illuminated by so fine a luminare; for that this is the central point of attraction in the cemetery is clear, both from the staircase and the luminare just mentioned, as also from the greater width of the adjacent galleries and other similar tokens." Here then St. Gregory the Great delivered his twenty-eighth homily (which Baronius erroneously supposes to have been delivered in the Church of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, to which the bodies of the saints were not yet removed), in which he says--"These saints, before whose tomb we are assembled, despised the world and trampled it under their feet, when peace, plenty, riches, and health gave it charms."

" ... There is a higher and more ancient piano, in which coins and medals of the first two centuries, and inscriptions of great value, have been recently discovered. Some of these inscriptions may still be seen in one of the chambers near the bottom of the staircase; they are both Latin and Greek; sometimes both languages are mixed; and in one or two instances Latin words are written in Greek characters. Many of these monuments are of the deepest importance both in an antiquarian and religious point of view; in archaeology, as showing the practice of private Christians in the first ages to make the subterranean chambers at their own expense and for their own use, e. g.--'M. Aurelius Restutus made this subterranean for himself, and those of his family who believed in the Lord,'--where, both the triple names and the limitation introduced at the end (which shows that many of his family were still pagan), are unquestionably proofs of very high antiquity."--Northcote's Roman Catacombs, p. 103, &c.

Among the most remarkable paintings in this catacomb are, Orpheus with his lyre, surrounded by birds and beasts who are charmed with his music; Elijah ascending to heaven in a chariot drawn by four horses; and the portrait of Our Lord.

"The head and bust of our Lord form a medallion, occupying the centre of the roof in the same cubiculum where Orpheus is represented. This painting, in consequence of the description given of it by Kügler (who misnamed the catacomb St. Calixtus), is often eagerly sought after by strangers visiting the catacombs. It is only just, however, to add, that they are generally disappointed. Kügler supposed it to be the oldest portrait of Our Blessed Saviour in existence, but we doubt if there is sufficient authority for such a statement. He describes it in these words:--'The face is oval, with a straight nose, arched eyebrows, a smooth and rather high forehead, the expression serious and mild; the hair, parted on the forehead, flows in long curls down the shoulders; the beard is not thick, but short and divided; the age between thirty and forty.' But this description is too minute and precise, too artistic, for the original, as it is now to be seen. A lively imagination may, perhaps, supply the details described by our author, but the eye certainly fails to distinguish them."--Roma Sotterranea, p. 253.

Approached by a separate entrance on the slope of the hill-side is a sepulchral chamber, which De Rossi considers to have been the Burial-place of Sta. Domitilla.

"It is certainly one of the most ancient and remarkable Christian monuments yet discovered. Its position, close to the highway; its front of fine brickwork, with a cornice of terra-cotta, with the usual space for an inscription (which has now, alas, perished); the spaciousness of its gallery, with its four or five separate niches prepared for as many sarcophagi; the fine stucco on the wall; the eminently classical character of its decorations; all these things make it perfectly clear that it was the monument of a Christian family of distinction, excavated at great cost, and without the slightest attempt at concealment. In passing from the vestibule into the catacomb, we recognise the transition from the use of the sarcophagus to that of the common loculus; for the first two or three graves on either side, though really mere shelves in the wall, are so disguised by painting on the outside as to present to passers-by the complete outward appearance of a sarcophagus. Some few of these graves are marked with the names of the dead, written in black on the largest tiles, and the inscriptions on the other graves are all of the simplest and oldest form. Lastly, the whole of the vaulted roof is covered with the most exquisitely graceful designs, of branches of the vine (with birds and winged genii among them) trailing with all the freedom of nature over the whole walls, not fearing any interruption by graves, nor confined by any of those lines of geometrical symmetry which characterise similar productions in the next century. Traces also of landscapes may be seen here and there, which are of rare occurrence in the catacombs, though they may be seen in the chambers assigned by De Rossi to SS. Nereus and Achilles. The Good Shepherd, an agape, or the heavenly feast, a man fishing, and Daniel in the lions' den, are the chief historical or allegorical representations of Christian mysteries which are painted here. Unfortunately they have been almost destroyed by persons attempting to detach them from the wall."--Roma Sotterranea, p. 70.

* * * * *

A road to the left now leads to the Via Appia Nuova, passing about a quarter of a mile hence, a turn on the left to the ruin generally known as the Temple of Bacchus, from an altar dedicated to Bacchus which was found there, but considered by modern antiquaries as a temple of Ceres and Proserpine. This building has been comparatively saved from the destruction which has befallen its neighbours by having been consecrated as a church in A.D. 820 by Pope Pascal I., in honour of his sainted predecessor Urban I., A.D. 226--whose pontificate was chiefly passed in refuge in the neighbouring Catacomb of St. Calixtus--because of a belief that he was wont to resort hither.

A chapel at a great depth below the church, is shown as that in which St. Urban baptized and celebrated mass. A curious fresco here represents the Virgin between St. Urban and St. John.

Around the upper part of the interior are a much injured series of frescoes, comprising--the life of Christ from the Annunciation to the descent into Hades,--and the life of St. Cecilia and her husband Valerian, ending in the burial of Cecilia by Pope Urban in the Catacombs of Calixtus, and the story of the martyred Urban I. In the picture of the Crucifixion, the thieves have their names, "Calpurnius and Longinus." The frescoes were altered in the seventeenth century to suit the views of the Roman Church, keys being placed in the hand of Peter, &c. Sets of drawings taken before and after the alterations, are preserved in the Barberini Library, and curiously show the difference.

A winding path leads from S. Urbano into the valley. Here, beside the Almo rivulet, is a ruined Nymphæum containing a mutilated statue of a river-god, which was called "the Grotto of Egeria," till a few years ago, when the discovery of the true site of the Porta Capena fixed that of the grotto within the walls. The fine grove of old ilex-trees on the hillside, was at the same time pointed out as the sacred grove of Egeria.

"Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art Or wert,--a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

"The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops; the face Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep,

"Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies."

Byron, Childe Harold.

It is now known that this nymphæum and the valley in which it stands belonged to the suburban villa called Triopio, of Herodes Atticus, whose romantic story is handed down to us through two Greek inscriptions in the possession of the Borghese family, and is further illustrated by the writings of Filostratus and Pausanias.

A wealthy Greek named Ipparchus offended his government and lost all his wealth by confiscation, but the family fortunes were redeemed, through the discovery by his son Atticus of a vast treasure, concealed in a small piece of ground which remained to them, close to the rock of the Acropolis. Dreading the avarice of his fellow-citizens, Atticus sent at once to Nerva, the then emperor, telling him of the discovery, and requesting his orders as to what he was to do with the treasure. Nerva replied, that he was welcome to keep it, and use it as he pleased. Not yet satisfied or feeling sufficiently sure of the protection of the emperor, Atticus again applied to him, saying that the treasure was far too vast for the use of a person in a private station of life, and asking how he was to use it. The emperor again replied that the treasure was his own and due to his own good fortune, and that "what he could not use he might abuse." Atticus then entered securely into possession of his wealth, which he bequeathed to his son Herodes, who used his fortune magnificently in his bountiful charities, in the encouragement of literature and art throughout both Greece and Italy, and (best appreciated of all by the Greeks) in the splendour of the public games which he gave.

Early in the reign of Antoninus Pius, Herodes Atticus removed to Rome, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the two adopted sons of the emperor, and where he attained the consulship in A.D. 143. Soon after his arrival he fell in love with Annia Regilla, a beautiful and wealthy heiress, and in spite of the violent opposition of her brother, Annius Attilius Braduas, who, belonging to the Julian family, and claiming an imaginary descent from Venus and Anchises, looked upon the marriage as a mesalliance, he succeeded in obtaining her hand. Part of the wealth which Annia Regilla brought to her husband was the Valle Caffarelli and its nymphæum.

For some years Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla enjoyed the perfection of married happiness in this beautiful valley; but shortly before the expected birth of her fifth child, she died very suddenly, leaving her husband almost frantic with grief and refusing every consolation. He was roused, however, from his first anguish by his brother-in-law Annius Braduas, who had never laid aside his resentment at the marriage, and who now accused him of having poisoned his wife. Herodes demanded a public trial, and was acquitted. Filostratus records that the intense grief he showed and the depth of the mourning he wore, were taken as signs of his innocence. Further to clear himself from imputation, Herodes offered all the jewels of Annia Regilla upon the altar of the Eleusinian deities, Ceres and Proserpine, at the same time calling down the vengeance of the outraged gods if he were guilty of sacrilege.

The beloved Regilla was buried in a tomb surrounded by "a sepulchral field" within the precincts of the villa, dedicated to Minerva and Nemesis, and (as recorded in one of the Greek inscriptions) it was made an act of the highest sacrilege, for any but her own descendants to be laid within those sacred limits. A statue was also erected to Regilla in the Triopian temple of Ceres and Proserpine, which is now supposed to be the same with that usually called the temple of Bacchus. Not only did Herodes hang his house with black in his affliction, but all gaily coloured marbles were stripped from the walls, and replaced with the dark grey marble known as "bardiglio,"--and his depth of woe made him so conspicuous, that a satirical person seeing his cook prepare white beans for dinner, wondered that he could dare to do so in a house so entirely black.

The inscriptions in which this story is related (one of them containing thirty-nine Greek verses) are engraved on slabs of Pentelic marble--and Philostratus and Pausanias narrate that the quarries of this marble were the property of Herodes, and that in his magnificent buildings he almost exhausted them.[222]

The field path from hence leads back to the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, passing on the right a beautifully-finished tomb (of the time of Septimius Severus) known as the Temple of Divus Rediculus, and formerly described as having been built to commemorate the retreat of Hannibal, who came thus far in his intended attack upon Rome. The temple erected in memory of this event was really on the right of the Via Appia. It was dedicated to Rediculus, the god of Return. The folly of ciceroni often cites this name as "Ridiculous."

The neighbourhood of the Divus Rediculus (which he however places on the right of the Via Appia) is described by Pliny in connection with a curious story of imperial times. There was a cobbler who had his stall in the Roman Forum, and who possessed a tame raven, which was a great favourite with the young Romans, to whom he would bid good day as he sate perched upon the rostra. At length he became quite a public character, and the indignation was so great when his master killed him with his hammer in a fit of rage at his spoiling some new leather, that they slew the cobbler and decreed a public funeral to the bird; who was carried to the grave on a bier adorned with honorary crowns, preceded by a piper, and supported by two negroes in honour of his colour,--and buried--"ad rogum usque, qui constructus dextrâ Viæ Appiæ ad secundum lapidem in campo Rediculo appellate fuit."--Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. x. c. 60.

* * * * *

Returning to the Via Appia, we reach, on the right, the Basilica of S. Sebastiano, rebuilt in 1611 by Flaminio Ponzio for Cardinal Scipio Borghese on the site of a church which had been founded by Constantine, where once existed the house and garden of the matron Lucina, in which she had buried the body of Sebastian, after his (second) martyrdom under Diocletian. The basilica contains nothing ancient, but the six granite columns in the portico. The altar covers the relics of the saint (a Gaul, a native of Narbonne, a Christian soldier under Diocletian) and the chapel of St. Sebastian has a statue of him in his youth, designed by Bernini and executed by Antonio Giorgetti.

"The almost colossal form lies dead, the head resting on his helmet and armour. It is evidently modelled from nature, and is perhaps the finest thing ever designed by Bernini.... It is probably from the association of arrows with his form and story that St. Sebastian has been regarded from the first ages of Christianity as the protecting saint against plague and pestilence; Apollo was the deity who inflicted plague, and therefore was invoked with prayer and sacrifice against it; and to the honour of Apollo, in this particular character, St. Sebastian has succeeded."--Jameson's Sacred Art, p. 414.

The original of the footprint in the Domine Quo Vadis is said to be preserved here.

On the left of the entrance is the descent into the catacombs, with the inscription:

"In hoc sacrosancto loco qui dicitur ad Catacumbas, ubi sepulta fuerunt sanctorum martyrum corpora 174,000 ac 46 summorum pontificium pariterque martyrum. In altare in quo corpus divi Sebastiani Christi athletæ jacet celebrans summus Pontifex S. Gregorius Magnus vidit angelum Dei candidiorem nive, sibi in tremendo sacrificio ministrantem ac dicentem, 'Hic est locus sacratissimus in quo est divina promissio et omnium peccatorum remissio, splendor et lux perpetua, sine fine lætitia, quam Christi martyr Sebastianus habere promeruit.' Prout Severanus Tom. Pº. pagina 450, ac etiam antiquissimæ lapideæ testantur tabulæ.

"Ideo in hoc insigne privilegiato altari, tam missæ cantatæ quam privatæ, dum celebrante, animæ quæ sunt in purgatorio pro quibus sacrificium offertur plenariam indulgentiam, et omnium suorum peccatorum remissionem consequuntur prout ab angelo dictum fuit et summi pontifices confirmarunt."

These are the catacombs which are most frequently visited by strangers, because they can always be seen on application to the monks attached to the church,--though they are of greatly inferior interest to those of St Calixtus.

"Though future excavations may bring to light much that is interesting in this cemetery, the small portion now accessible is, as a specimen of the Catacombs, utterly without value. Its only interest consists in its religious associations: here St. Bridget was wont to kneel, rapt in contemplation; here St. Charles Borromeo spent whole nights in prayer; and here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed with divine love as to cause his very bodily frame to be changed."--Northcote's Roman Catacombs.

"Philip, on thee the glowing ray Of heaven came down upon thy prayer, To melt thy heart, and burn away All that of earthly dross was there.

"And so, on Philip when we gaze, We see the image of his Lord; The saint dissolves amid the blaze Which circles round the Living Word.

"The meek, the wise, none else is here, Dispensing light to men below; His awful accents fill the ear, Now keen as fire, now soft as snow."

J. H. Newman, 1850.

Owing to the desire in the early Christian Church of saving the graves of their first confessors and martyrs from desecration, almost all the catacombs were gradually blocked up, and by lapse of time their very entrances were forgotten. In the fourteenth century very few were still open. In the fifteenth century none remained except this of St. Sebastian, which continued to be frequented by pilgrims, and was called in all ancient documents "cœmeterium ad catacumbas."

At the back of the high-altar is an interesting half-subterranean building, attributed to Pope Liberius (352--355), and afterwards adorned by Pope Damasus, who briefly tells its history in one of his inscriptions, which may still be seen here:

"Hinc habitasse prius sanctos cognoscere debes, Nomina quisque Petri pariter Paulique requiris. Discipulos Oriens misit, quod sponte fatemur, Sanguinis ob meritum Christumque per astra sequuti, Aetherios petiere sinus et regna piorum. Roma suos potius meruit defendere cives. Hæc Damasus vestras referat sidera laudes."

"Here you should know that saints dwelt. Their names, if you ask them, were Peter and Paul. The East sent disciples, which we freely acknowledge. For the merit of their blood they followed Christ to the stars, and sought the heavenly home and the kingdom of the blest. Rome however deserved to defend her own citizens. May Damasus record these things for your praise, O new stars."

"The two Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, were originally buried, the one at the Vatican, the other on the Ostian Way, at the spot where their respective basilicas now stand; but, as soon as the Oriental Christians had heard of their death, they sent some of their brethren to remove their bodies, and bring them back to the East, where they considered that they had a right to claim them as their fellow-citizens and countrymen. These so far prospered in their mission as to gain a momentary possession of the sacred relics, which they carried off, along the Appian Way, as far as the spot where the church of St. Sebastian was afterwards built. Here they rested for a while, to make all things ready for their journey, or, according to another account, were detained by a thunderstorm of extraordinary violence, which delay, however occasioned, was sufficient to enable the Christians of Rome to overtake them and recover their lost treasure. These Roman Christians then buried the bodies, with the utmost secrecy, in a deep pit, which they dug on the very spot where they were. Soon, indeed, they were restored to their original places of sepulture, as we know from contemporary authorities, and there seems reason to believe the old ecclesiastical tradition to be correct, which states them to have only remained in this temporary abode for a year and seven months. The body of St. Peter, however, was destined to revisit it a second time, and for a longer period; for when, at the beginning of the third century, Heliogabalus made his circus at the Vatican, Calixtus, who was then pope, removed the relics of the Apostle to their former temporary resting-place, the pit on the Appian Way. But in A.D. 257, St. Stephen, the pope, having been discovered in this very cemetery and having suffered martyrdom there, the body of St. Peter was once more removed, and restored to its original tomb in the Vatican."--Northcote's Roman Catacombs.

In the passages of this catacomb are misguiding inscriptions placed here in 1409 by William, Archbishop of Bourges, calling upon the faithful to venerate here the tombs of Sta. Cecilia and of many of the martyred popes, who are buried elsewhere. The martyr St. Cyrinus is known to have been buried here from very early itineraries, but his grave has not been discovered.

"When I was a boy, being educated at Rome, I used every Sunday, in company with other boys of my own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and to go into the crypts excavated there in the bowels of the earth. The walls on either side as you enter are full of the bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one seems almost to see the fulfilment of those words of the prophet, 'Let them go down alive into Hades.' Here and there a little light, admitted from above, suffices to give a momentary relief to the horror of the darkness; but as you go forwards, and find yourself again immersed in the utter blackness of night, the words of the poet come spontaneously to your mind: 'The very silence fills the soul with dread.'"--St. Jerome (A.D. 354), In Ezek. ch. lx.

"A gaunt Franciscan friar, with a wild bright eye, was our only guide down into this profound and dreadful place. The narrow ways and openings hither and thither, coupled with the dead and heavy air, soon blotted out, in all of us, any recollection of the track by which we had come; and I could not help thinking, 'Good Heaven, if in a sudden fit of madness he should dash the torches out, or if he should be seized with a fit, what would become of us!' On we wandered, among martyrs' graves: passing great subterranean vaulted roads, diverging in all directions, and choked up with heaps of stones, that thieves and murderers may not take refuge there, and form a population under Rome, even worse than that which lives between it and the sun. Graves, graves, graves; graves of men, of women, of little children, who ran crying to the persecutors, 'We are Christians! we are Christians!' that they might be murdered with their parents; graves with the palm of martyrdom roughly cut into their stone boundaries, and little niches, made to hold a vessel of the martyr's blood; graves of some who lived down here, for years together, ministering to the rest, and preaching truth, and hope, and comfort, from the rude altars, that bear witness to their fortitude at this hour; more roomy graves, but far more terrible, where hundreds, being surprised, were hemmed in and walled up; buried before death, and killed by slow starvation.

"'The triumphs of the Faith are not above-ground in our splendid churches,' said the friar, looking round upon us, as we stopped to rest in one of the low passages, with bones and dust surrounding us on every side. 'They are here! among the martyrs' graves!' He was a gentle, earnest man, and said it from his heart; but when I thought how Christian men have dealt with one another; how, perverting our most merciful religion, they have hunted down and tortured, burnt and beheaded, strangled, slaughtered, and oppressed each other; I pictured to myself an agony surpassing any that this Dust had suffered with the breath of life yet lingering in it, and how these great and constant hearts would have been shaken--how they would have quailed and drooped--if a foreknowledge of the deeds that professing Christians would commit in the great name for which they died, could have rent them with its own unutterable anguish, on the cruel wheel, and bitter cross, and in the fearful fire."--Dickens.

"Countless martyrs, they say, rest in these ancient sepulchres. In these dark depths the ancient Church took refuge from persecution; there she laid her martyrs, and there, over their tombs, she chaunted hymns of triumph, and held communion with Him for whom they died. In that church I spend hours. I have no wish to descend into those sacred sepulchres, and pry among the graves the resurrection trump will open soon enough. I like to think of the holy dead, lying undisturbed and quiet there; of their spirits in Paradise; of their faith triumphant in the city that massacred them.

"No doubt they also had their perplexities, and wondered why the wicked triumph, and sighed to God, 'How long, O Lord, how long?'"--Schonberg Cotta Family.

"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."--Rev. vi. 9--11.

In the valley beneath S. Sebastiano are the ruins of the Circus of Maxentius, near those of a villa of that emperor. The circus was 1482 feet long, 244 feet broad, and was capable of containing 15,000 spectators, yet it is a miniature compared with the Circus Maximus, though very interesting as retaining in tolerable preservation all the different parts which composed a circus. The circular ruin near it was a Temple dedicated by Maxentius to his son Romulus.

"Le jeune Romulus, étant mort, fut placé au rang des dieux, dans cet olympe qui s'écroulait. Son père lui éleva un temple dont la partie inférieure se voit encore, et le cirque lui-même fut peut-être une dépendance de ce temple funèbre, car les courses de chars étaient un des honneurs que l'antiquité rendait aux morts, et sont souvent pour cela représentées sur les tombeaux."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 360.

These ruins are very picturesque, backed by the peaks of the Sabine range, which in winter are generally covered with snow.

The opposite hill is crowned by the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, daughter of Quintus Metellus Creticus, and wife of Crassus. It is a round tower, seventy feet in diameter. The bulls' heads on the frieze gave it the popular name of Capo di Bove. The marble coating of the basement was carried off by Urban VIII. to make the fountain of Trevi. The battlements were added when the tomb was turned into a fortress by the Caëtani in the thirteenth century.

"About two miles, or more, from the city gates, and right upon the roadside, is an immense round pile, sepulchral in its original purpose, like those already mentioned. It is built of great blocks of hewn stone, on a vast, square foundation of rough, agglomerated material, such as composes the mass of all the other ruinous tombs. But, whatever might be the cause, it is in a far better state of preservation than they. On its broad summit rise the battlements of a mediæval fortress, out of the midst of which (so long since had time begun to crumble the supplemental structure, and cover it with soil, by means of wayside dust) grow trees, bushes, and thick festoons of ivy. This tomb of a woman has become the dungeon-keep of a castle; and all the care that Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless peace for her beloved relics, only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long ages after her death."--Hawthorne, Transformation.

"There is a stern round tower of other days, Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, Such as an army's baffled strength delays, Standing with half its battlements alone, And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity, where wave The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown;-- What was this tower of strength? within its cave What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid?--a woman's grave.

"But who was she, the lady of the dead, Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair? Worthy a king's--or more--a Roman's bed? What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? What daughter of her beauties was the heir? How lived--how loved--how died she? Was she not So honoured--and conspicuously there, Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

"Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom Heaven gives its favourites--early death; yet shed A sunset charm around her, and illume With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

"Perchance she died in age--surviving all, Charms, kindred, children--with the silver grey On her long tresses, which might yet recall, It may be, still a something of the day When they were braided, and her proud array And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed By Rome--but whither would Conjecture stray? Thus much alone we know--Metella died, The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!"

Childe Harold.

Close to the tomb are the ruins of a Gothic church of the Caëtani.

"Le tombeau de Cecilia-Metella était devenu un château fort alors aux mains des Caëtani, et autour du château s'était formé un village avec son église, dont on a récemment retrouvé les restes."--Ampère, Voyage Dantesque.

It is at Cecilia Metella's tomb that the beauties of the Via Appia really begin. A very short distance further, we emerge from the walls which have hitherto shut in the road on either side, and enjoy uninterrupted views over the Latin plain, strewn with its ruined castles and villages--and the long lines of aqueducts, to the Sabine and Alban mountains.

"The Via Appia is a magnificent promenade, amongst ruinous tombs, the massive remains of which extend for many miles over the Roman Campagna. The powerful families of ancient Rome loved to build monuments to their dead by the side of the public road, probably to exhibit at once their affection for their relations and their own power and affluence. Most of these monuments are now nothing but heaps of ruins, upon which are placed the statues and sculptures which have been found in the earth or amongst the rubbish. Those inscriptions which have been found on the Via Appia bear witness to the grief of the living for the dead, but never to the hope of reunion. On a great number of sarcophagi or the friezes of tombs may be seen the dead sitting or lying as if they were alive, some seem to be praying. Many heads have great individuality of character. Sometimes a white marble figure, beautifully draped, projects from these heaps of ruins, but without head or hands; sometimes a hand is stretched out, or a portion of a figure rises from the tomb. It is a street through monuments of the dead, across an immense churchyard; for the desolate Roman Campagna may be regarded as such. To the left it is scattered with the ruins of colossal aqueducts, which, during the time of the emperors, conveyed lakes and rivers to Rome, and which still, ruinous and destroyed, delight the eye by the beautiful proportions of their arcades. To the right is an immense prairie, without any other limit than that of the ocean, which, however, is not seen from it. The country is desolate, and only here and there are there any huts or trees to be seen."--Frederika Bremer.

"For the space of a mile or two beyond the gate of S. Sebastiano, this ancient and famous road is as desolate and disagreeable as most of the other Roman avenues. It extends over small, uncomfortable paving-stones, between brick and plastered walls, which are very solidly constructed, and so high as almost to exclude a view of the surrounding country. The houses are of the most uninviting aspect, neither picturesque, nor homelike and social; they have seldom or never a door opening on the wayside, but are accessible only from the rear, and frown inhospitably upon the traveller through iron-grated windows. Here and there appears a dreary inn, or a wine-shop, designated by the withered bush beside the entrance, within which you discover a stone-built and sepulchral interior, where guests refresh themselves with sour bread and goat's-milk cheese, washed down with wine of dolorous acerbity.

"At frequent intervals along the roadside, up rises the ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these structures are immensely high, and broken mounds of conglomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten by time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite. When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt, with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought, bas-reliefs, and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered majestically beautiful by grand architectural designs. This antique splendour has long since been stolen from the dead, to decorate the palaces and churches of the living. Nothing remains to the dishonoured sepulchres, except their massiveness.

"Even the pyramids form hardly a stranger spectacle, or a more alien from human sympathies, than the tombs of the Appian Way, with their gigantic height, breadth, and solidity, defying time and the elements, and far too mighty to be demolished by an ordinary earthquake. Here you may see a modern dwelling, and a garden with its vines and olive-trees, perched on the lofty dilapidation of a tomb, which forms a precipice of fifty feet in depth on each of the four sides. There is a house on that funeral mound, where generations of children have been born, and successive lives have been spent, undisturbed by the ghost of the stern Roman whose ashes were so preposterously burdened. Other sepulchres wear a crown of grass, shrubbery, and forest-trees, which throw out a broad sweep of branches, having had time, twice over, to be a thousand years of age. On one of them stands a tower, which, though immemorially more modern than the tomb, was itself built by immemorial hands, and is now rifted quite from top to bottom by a vast fissure of decay; the tomb-hillock, its foundation, being still as firm as ever, and likely to endure until the last trump shall rend it wide asunder, and summon forth its unknown dead.

"Yes, its unknown dead! For, except in one or two doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edifices have not availed to keep so much as the bare name of an individual or a family from oblivion. Ambitious of everlasting remembrance as they were, the slumberers might just as well have gone quietly to rest, each in his pigeon-hole of a columbarium, or under his little green hillock, in a grave-yard, without a headstone to mark the spot. It is rather satisfactory than otherwise, to think that all these idle pains have turned out so utterly abortive."--Hawthorne.

Near the fourth milestone, is the tomb of Marcus Servilius Quartus (with an inscription), restored by Canova in 1808. A bas-relief of the death of Atys, killed by Adrastus, a short distance beyond this, has been suggested as part of the tomb of Seneca, who was put to death "near the fourth milestone" by order of Nero. An inscribed tomb beyond this is that of Sextus Pompeius Justus.

Near this, in the Campagna on the left, are some small remains, supposed to be those of a Temple of Juno.

Beyond this a number of tombs can be identified, but none of any importance. Such are the tombs of Plinius Eutychius, erected by Plinius Zosimus, a freedman of Pliny the younger; of Caius Licinius; the Doric tomb of the tax-gatherer Claudius Philippanus, inscribed "Tito. Claudio. Secundo. Philippiano. Coactori. Flavia. Irene. Vxori Indulgentissimo;" of Rabinius, with three busts in relief; of Hermodorus; of Elsia Prima, priestess of Isis; of Marcus C. Cerdonus, with the bas-relief of an elephant bearing a burning altar.

Beyond the fifth milestone, two circular mounds with basements of peperino, were considered by Canina to be the tombs of the Horatii and Curiatii.

On the opposite side of the road is the exceedingly picturesque mediæval fortress, known as Torre Mezza Strada, into which are incorporated the remains of the Church of Sta. Maria Nuova, or della Gloria. Behind this extend a vast assemblage of ruins, which form a splendid foreground to the distant mountain view, and whose size has led to their receiving the popular epithet of Roma Vecchia. Here was the favourite villa of the Emperor Commodus, where he was residing, when the people, excited by a sudden impulse during the games of the Circus, rose and poured out of Rome against him--as the inhabitants of Paris to Versailles--and refused to depart, till, terrified into action by the entreaties of his concubine Marcia, he tossed the head of the unpopular Cleander to them out of the window, and had the brains of that minister's child dashed out against the stones. This villa is proved by the discovery of a number of pipes bearing their names to have been that of the brothers Condianus and Maximus, of the great family of the Quintilii, which was confiscated by Commodus.

"L'histoire des deux frères est intéressante et romanesque. Condianus et Maximus Quintilius étaient distingués par la science, les talents militaires, la richesse, et surtout par une tendresse mutuelle qui ne s'était jamais démentie. Servant toujours ensemble, l'un se faisait le lieutenant de l'autre. Bien qu'étrangers à toute conspiration, leur vertu les fit soupçonner d'être peu favorables à Commode; ils furent proscrits et moururent ensemble comme ils avaient vécu. L'un d'eux avait un fils nommé Sextus. Au moment de la mort de son père et de son oncle, ce fils se trouvait en Syrie. Pensant bien que le même sort l'attendait, il feignit de mourir pour sauver sa vie. Sextus, après avoir bu sang du lièvre, monta à cheval, se laissa tomber, vomit le sang qu'il avait pris et qui parut être son propre sang. On mit dans sa bière le corps d'un bélier qui passa pour son cadavre, et il disparut. Depuis ce temps, il erra sons divers déguisements; mais on sut qu'il avait échappé, et on se mit à sa recherche. Beaucoup furent tués parce-qu'ils lui ressemblaient ou parce-qu'ils étaient soupçonnés de lui avoir donné asile. Il n'est pas bien sûr qu'il ait été atteint, que sa tête se trouvât parmi celles qu'on apporta à Rome et qu'on dit être la sienne. Ce qui est certain, c'est qu'après la mort de Commode, un aventurier, tenté par la belle villa et par les grandes richesses des Quintilii, se donna pour Sextus et réclama son héritage. Il paraît ne pas avoir manqué d'adresse et avoir connu celui pour lequel il voulut qu'on le prît, car par ses réponses il se tira très-bien de toutes les enquêtes. Peut-être s'était-il lié avec Sextus et l'avait-il assassiné ensuite. Cependant l'empereur Pertinax, successeur de Commode, l'ayant fait venir, eut l'idée de lui parler grec. Le vrai Sextus connaissait parfaitement cette langue. Le faux Sextus, qui ne savait pas le grec, répondit tout de travers, et sa fraude fut ainsi découverte."--Ampère, Emp. ii. 253.

On the left of the Via Appia, appears a huge monument, on a narrow base, called the Tomb of the Metelli. Beyond this, after the fifth milestone, are the tombs of Sergius Demetrius, a wine merchant; of Lucius Arrius; of Septimia Gallia; and of one of the Cæcilii, in whose sepulchre, according to Eutropius, was buried Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero, whose daughter Vipsania was the first wife of Agrippa, and whose granddaughter Vipsania Agrippina was the first wife of Tiberius.

Close to the sixth milestone is the mass of masonry sometimes called "Casale Rotondo," or "Cotta's Tomb," from that name being found there inscribed on a stone, but generally attributed to Messala Corvinus, the poet, and friend of Horace, and believed to have been raised to him by his son Valerius Maximus Cotta, mentioned in Ovid.

"Te autem in turba non ausim, Cotta, silere, Pieridum lumen, præsidiumque fori."

Epist. xvi.

This tomb was even larger than that of Cecilia Metella, and was turned into a fortress by the Orsini in the fifteenth century.

Beyond this are tombs identified as those of P. Quintius, tribune of the sixteenth legion; Marcus Julius, steward of Claudius; Publius Decumius Philomusus (with appropriate bas-reliefs of two mice nibbling a cake); and of Cedritius Flaccianius.

Passing on the left the Tor di Selce, erected upon a huge unknown tomb, are the tombs of Titia Eucharis, and of Atilius Evodus, jeweller (margaritarius) on the Via Sacra, with the inscription, "Hospes resiste--aspice ubi continentur ossa hominis boni misericordis amantis pauperis." Near the eighth milestone are ruins attributed to the temples of Silvanus and of Hercules,--of which the latter is mentioned in Martial's Epigrams, beyond which were the villas of Bassus and of Persius. The last tomb identified is that of Quintus Verranius. Near the ninth milestone is a tomb supposed to be that of Gallienus (Imp. 268), who lived close by in a villa, amid the ruins of which "the Discobolus" was discovered.

From the stream called Pontecello, near the tenth milestone, the road gradually ascends to Albano, passing several large but unnamed tombs. At the Osteria delle Frattocchie it joins the Via Appia Nuova. Close to the gate of Albano, it passes on the left the tall tomb attributed to Pompey the Great, in accordance with the statement of Plutarch, and in spite of the epigram of Varro Atacinus, which says:--

"Marmoreo Licinius tumulo jacet; at Cato parvo; Pompeius nullo: quis putet esse Deus."

Among the many processions which have passed along this road, perhaps the most remarkable have been that bearing back to Rome the dead body of Sylla, who died at Pozzuoli, "in a gilt litter, with royal ornaments, trumpets before him, and horsemen behind;"[223] and the funeral of Augustus, who dying at Nola (A.D. 14), was brought to Bovillæ, and remained there a month in the sanctuary of the Julian family, after which the knights brought the body in solemn procession to his palace on the Palatine.

But throughout a walk along the Appian Way, the one great Christian interest of this world-famous road, will, to the Christian visitor, overpower all others.

"And so we went toward Rome.

"And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii-forum, and the Three Taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.

"And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard; but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself, with a soldier that kept him."--Acts xxviii. 14--16.

"It is not without its manifold uses to remember that, amidst the dim and wavering traditions of later times, one figure at least stands out clear and distinct and undoubted, and this figure is the Apostle Paul. He, whatever we may think concerning any other apostle or apostolic man in connection with Rome, he, beyond a shadow of doubt, appears in the New Testament as her great teacher. No criticism or scepticism of modern times has ever questioned the perfect authenticity of that last chapter of the Acts, which gives the account of his journey, stage by stage, till he set foot within the walls of the city. However much we may be compelled to distrust any particular traditions concerning special localities of his life and death, we cannot doubt for a moment that his eye rested on the same general view of sky and plain and mountain; that his feet trod the pavement of the same Appian road; that his way lay through the same long avenue of ancient tombs on which we now look and wonder; that he entered (and there we have our last authentic glimpse of his progress) through the arch of Drusus, and then is lost to our view in the great Babylon of Rome."--A. P. Stanley's Sermons.

"When St. Paul was approaching Rome, all the bases of the mountains were (as indeed they are partially now) clustered round with the villas and gardens of wealthy citizens. The Appian Way climbs and then descends along its southern slope. After passing Lanuvium it crossed a crater-like valley or immense substructions, which still remain. Here is Aricia, an easy stage from Rome. The town was above the road, and on the hillside swarms of beggars beset travellers as they passed. On the summit of the next rise, Paul of Tarsus would obtain his first view of Rome. There is no doubt that the prospect was, in many respects, very different from the view which is now obtained from the same spot. It is true that the natural features of the scene are unaltered. The long wall of blue Sabine mountains, with Soracte in the distance, closed in the Campagna, which stretched far across to the sea and round the base of the Alban hills. But ancient Rome was not, like modern Rome, impressive from its solitude, standing alone, with its one conspicuous cupola, in the midst of a desolate though beautiful waste. St. Paul would see a vast city, covering the Campagna, and almost continuously connected by its suburbs with the villas on the hill where he stood, and with the bright towns which clustered on the sides of the mountains opposite. Over all the intermediate space were the houses and gardens, through which aqueducts and roads might be traced in converging lines towards the confused mass of edifices which formed the city of Rome. Here no conspicuous building, elevated above the rest, attracted the eye or the imagination. Ancient Rome had neither cupola nor campanile, still less had it any of those spires which give life to all the capitals of northern Christendom. It was a widespread aggregate of buildings, which, though separated by narrow streets and open spaces, appeared, when seen from near Aricia, blended into one indiscriminate mass: for distance concealed the contrasts which divided the crowded habitations of the poor and the dark haunts of filth and misery--from the theatres and colonnades, the baths, the temples, and palaces with gilded roofs, flashing back the sun.

"The road descended into the plain at Bovillæ, six miles from Aricia: and thence it proceeded in a straight line, with the sepulchres of illustrious families on either hand. One of these was the burial-place of the Julian gens, with which the centurion who had charge of the prisoners was in some way connected. As they proceeded over the old pavement, among gardens and modern houses, and approached nearer the busy metropolis--the 'conflux issuing forth or entering in' in various costumes and on various errands,--vehicles, horsemen, and foot-passengers, soldiers and labourers, Romans and foreigners,--became more crowded and confusing. The houses grew closer. They were already in Rome. It was impossible to define the commencement of the city. Its populous portions extended far beyond the limits marked out by Servius. The ancient wall, with its once sacred pomœrium, was rather an object for antiquarian interest, like the walls of York or Chester, than any protection against the enemies, who were kept far aloof by the legions on the frontier.

"Yet the Porta Capena is a spot which we can hardly leave without lingering for a moment. Under this arch--which was perpetually dripping with the water of the aqueduct that went over it--had passed all those who, since a remote period of the republic, had travelled by the Appian Way,--victorious generals with their legions, returning from foreign service,--emperors and courtiers, vagrant representatives of every form of heathenism, Greeks and Asiatics, Jews and Christians. From this point entering within the city, Julius and his prisoners moved on, with the Aventine on their left, close round the base of the Cœlian, and through the hollow ground which lay between this hill and the Palatine: thence over the low ridge called Velia, where afterwards was built the arch of Titus, to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem; and then descending, by the Via Sacra, into that space which was the centre of imperial power and imperial magnificence, and associated also with the most glorious recollections of the republic. The Forum was to Rome, what the Acropolis was to Athens, the heart of all the characteristic interest of the place. Here was the Milliarium Aureum, to which the roads of all the provinces converged. All around were the stately buildings, which were raised in the closing years of the republic, and by the earlier emperors. In front was the Capitoline Hill, illustrious long before the invasion of the Gauls. Close on the left, covering that hill, whose name is associated in every modern European language with the notion of imperial splendour, were the vast ranges of the palace--the 'house of Cæsar' (Philipp. iv. 22). Here were the household troops quartered in a prætorium attached to the palace. And here (unless, indeed, it was in the great Prætorian Camp outside the city wall) Julius gave up his prisoner to Burrus, the Prætorian Prefect, whose official duty it was to keep in custody all accused persons who were to be tried before the Emperor."--Conybeare and Howson.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us