Old Rome Part 22

The Tempio della Tosse which probably obtains its name from a vulgar interpretation of the name of the gens Tossia, is a ruin standing in a vineyard at the side of the old road, called the Via Constantina, below the Villa d'Este. It has none of the characteristic marks of an ancient temple, and the large number of windows it contains forbid us to suppose it to be a tomb. The interior of the building is round, the exterior octagonal. It is built of layers of small fragments of tufa intermixed with courses of bricks, materials which point to the fourth century as the earliest possible date of its erection. On the walls are the remains of frescoes of the Saviour and the Virgin, dating probably from the 13th century. These show that, if it was not originally a Christian Church, it was used as one at the time the frescoes were painted.

[Sidenote: Villa of Ca.s.sius.]

The ruins of a considerable villa lie near the Porta S. Croce of Tivoli, in the estate called Carciano, from the mediaeval name of the Fundus Ca.s.sia.n.u.s, which is stated in a list of the estates belonging to the cathedral at Tivoli to have been the site of a villa of Caius Ca.s.sius.

Part of these ruins consist of a very ancient structure of polygonal work, but the rest is p.r.o.nounced by Nibby to belong to the time of the later republic. The casino of the Collegio Greco is now built on the spot, but the plan of the ancient villa can be so far traced as to show that it had several terraces, and looked towards the south-west. In the 16th century there were still eighteen large apartments existing, surrounded with a portico of Doric columns, and also some temples, a theatre, some fountains, and fish ponds. The opus reticulatum of these ruins is peculiar for the alternate arrangement of coloured tufa in its lozenges. An immense number of works of art were dug up here, and the nearly complete destruction of what still remained of the villa in the 16th century, is probably due to the fact of its having been found to be so rich a mine of sculpture.

[Sidenote: Sabine Farm of Horace.]

The Sabine farm of Horace can hardly be pa.s.sed over here, though it is not strictly included within the district of Tibur. There is no evidence to show that Horace ever had any villa at Tibur in addition to his Sabine farm; indeed his own words seem expressly to imply the contrary. The estate he had was plainly usually called a Sabinum, not a Tiburtinum, and must therefore be looked for at some distance from Tibur. Horace mentions two places in its neighbourhood, Varia, and Mandela, the sites of which can be exactly determined. The ancient list of towns places Varia on the Via Valeria, eight miles beyond Tibur, and precisely at this distance are the remains of an ancient town now covered by the modern village of Vico Varo. But the position of Mandela is more important for ascertaining the site of Horace's farm, because if we can fix upon it, we then can discover to which of the mountain streams which flow into the Anio the name Digentia belonged. An inscription dug up in 1757 near the Church of S.

Cosimato on the Via Valeria, two miles from the village of Bardella, shows that an estate in the modern district formed by the union of Cantalupo and Bardella was called in the later imperial times, or the early Middle Ages, Ma.s.sa Mandelana.

From this it is plain that the Digentia was the torrent called Mariscella, which joins the Anio between Cantalupo, Bardella and Vico Varo, descending from near Licenza, a small village about six miles from Vico Varo. As to the exact spot where the farm of Horace itself stood in the valley of the Digentia, we cannot be quite certain. The ruins usually pointed out are on a little knoll opposite to the village of Licenza, and on the other side of the stream. These are possibly situated on the spot on which the farmhouse stood, if they do not date so far back as the lifetime of the poet himself. Dennis in Milman's Horace says, "The ruins consist only of a mosaic pavement, and of two capitals and two fragments of Doric columns lying among the bushes. The pavement has been much ruined by the planting of a vineyard, and can only be seen on removing the earth which covers it. The groundwork is white with a border of animals in black. These are the sole traces now visible (1842), but some fifty years ago, the mosaic floors of six chambers were brought to light, but were covered again with earth, as nothing was found to tempt any further excavation. The farm is situated on a rising ground which sinks with a gentle slope to the stream, leaving a level intervening strip now yellow with the harvest. In this I recognised the sunny meadow which, as the poet says, was in danger of being inundated. The sunny fields were probably then, as now, sown with corn. Here it must have been that the poet was wont to repose on the gra.s.s after his meal, and here his personal efforts perhaps to dam out the stream provoked his neighbours' smiles." The place is surrounded on all sides by hills, except where the main valley of the Digentia separates them, running nearly due north and south, so that facing down the valley, the sun before midday rests on the right-hand slopes, and in the afternoon on the left hand, thus corresponding exactly to the poet's description of the site.[160]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vico Varo and Lucretilis.]

The other spots mentioned by Horace as near his farm, are the Chapel of Vacuna, the slopes of Ustica, and the mountain of Lucretilis. The first of these has been placed by the Italian topographers at Rocca Giovane, a village perched on a hill on the west side of the valley about two miles above Cantalupo Bardella. The evidence for this identification is, however, very doubtful.

The Ustica cubans of the poet is commonly with some probability supposed to be La Rustica, which lies on the hill close to Licenza on the eastern side of the valley. Lucretilis is probably a name applied to the whole range of hills connected with Monte Gennaro. Cav. Rosa, however, places it at Monte del Corynaleto just above Rocca Giovane. The name of Fons Bandusiae has been given to most of the springs in this valley by the enthusiastic admirers of Horace, but it is quite uncertain whether the Fons Bandusiae was not in Apulia.

(F) THE NORTH-WESTERN DISTRICT.

The princ.i.p.al roads which traversed the Campagna to the north and north-west of Rome are the Nomentana, the Salaria and the Flaminia.

These roads offer but little, within the bounds of ancient Latium, which calls for remark.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AGRI ROMANI TABULA]

The Via Nomentana diverged from the Via Salaria at the Collina gate in the Servian walls, and pa.s.sed through the Aurelian wall at a gate which now stands a little to the south of the modern Porta Pia. The present road follows the line of the ancient Via Nomentana, as may be seen by the ruins of tombs which fringe it beyond S. Agnese. The Chapel of S. Constanza, opposite S. Agnese, is an interesting building of the Constantinian epoch, and the mosaics it contains, including a mixture of Christian and pagan emblems, are very remarkable. The Mons Sacer stands just beyond the bridge over the Anio, and the Villa of Phaon, where Nero ended his life, was at the Vigne Nuove, on a side road which branches off to the right, just beyond the Ponte Nomentano.

The Via Salaria is said to have been so named from the supplies of salt conveyed along it to the Sabine district at the time when the Romans and Sabines were confederates. It is first mentioned in history as the scene of the single combat between Manlius and the gigantic Gaul. The ancient road pa.s.sed out at the Collina gate, and followed very nearly the same line as the present road along the left bank of the Tiber, as may be seen by the ruins near Serpentara, and by the position of the ancient bridge, the Ponte Salaro, which carries it over the Anio close to Antemnae. Beyond this, Fidenae and the Allia are the most remarkable points of interest upon the road in the neighbourhood of Rome. Beyond Malpa.s.so, the ancient road, according to Nibby, diverges to the right, crossing the railway to Ancona.

The Via Flaminia, after pa.s.sing through the Porta Ratumena at the Tomb of Bibulus, left the Aurelian fortifications at the Porta Flaminia, which stood a little nearer the slope of Monte Pincio than the present Porta del Popolo. It ran to the right of the present street, and then crossed the Tiber at the well-known Milvian bridge, and then diverged to the right along the Tiber valley, while the Via Ca.s.sia ascended to the left among the Etruscan hills towards Veii, which lay to the right at the twelfth milestone. The old Flaminian Road lay closer to the river than the modern, which is carried through a cutting in the hills and rejoins it at Tor di Quinto. There are a few rock tombs on the left hand, between the fifth and sixth milestones. One of them has been connected with the poet Ovid by a mistaken inference drawn from the inscription found upon it which bears the name of Q. Nasonius Ambrosius.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ponte Nomentano.]

The Ponte Molle, which derives its name from an unknown Roman Mulvius, or from the neighbouring hills, carries the Flaminian Road over the Tiber at a distance of two miles from the Porta del Popolo. Some of the foundations of the bridge, and parts of the peperino and travertine stonework in the smaller arches, are ancient. The victory of Constantine over Maxentius, which is usually called the battle of the Pons Mulvius, was gained six miles further along the road.

An inscription cut in a block of travertine has been fixed in the right-hand parapet of the bridge. This inscription records the inspection of the banks of the Tiber by the Censors of M. Valerius and Publius Serveilius, who were Censors in the year B.C. 55.

[Sidenote: Villa of Livia at Prima Porta.]

One of the imperial villas of an early date was placed on the right bank of the Tiber at the ninth milestone on the Via Flaminia in the Veientine territory.

The Via Flaminia is here bordered for a long distance on the left-hand side by tufa rocks of a reddish hue, whence the district had obtained, in Livy's time, the name of Saxa Rubra. The Cremera, now the Valca, is one of the streams which enter the Tiber in this district, and beyond it, where the road turns to the left, and, leaving the valley of the Tiber, ascends the hill through a cutting, is the stream and hamlet of Prima Porta. On the right of the road here, and between it and the Tiber, lie the ruins of a large villa, the various terraces of which, raised one above the other, occupy the whole of the top of the hill, and command magnificent views of the Sabine and aequian highlands. There can be no doubt that these ruins are the remains of the villa of Livia called ad Gallinas, mentioned by Pliny and by Suetonius as situated at the ninth milestone on the Via Flaminia. The style of construction in the walls which remain corresponds to that of the Mausoleum of Augustus in the Campus Martius. The reticulated work has that peculiar irregularity about it which indicates the transition from the opus incertum to the more regularly formed opus reticulatum. Nibby had pointed out this spot in 1837 as one in which a rich harvest might be reaped from excavating, but it was not till 1863 that the splendid Statue of Augustus, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican with other interesting sculptures, was dug up here.[161]

At the same time some rooms were excavated at a depth of ten feet, under the level of the ancient villa. They had apparently been closed at a very early time and filled with earth, in order to erect a building over them.

The largest of these was apparently intended as a cool retreat during the summer heats, and the walls are painted with trees and birds, in imitation of a rustic bower. These paintings have attracted great attention as being some of the most ancient now in existence, and also on account of their intrinsic beauty, and the wonderful way in which they have preserved their freshness of colour. The pavement of this painted room was of marble, which was, however, removed when the earth was thrown in at the time of building the rooms above.

The legend about this villa connects it with the death of Nero, relating that the laurel bushes and the white fowls, for which the villa had been celebrated since the days of Livia, withered and died out during Nero's last days.

[Sidenote: Veii.]

Beyond Prima Porta, to the west, is the site of Veii. This is about twelve miles from Rome, and now bears the name of Isola Farnese. But little remains of the ancient city have been found, but no doubt is now felt by antiquaries that the city occupied the rocky ground between the Cremera and the Fosso de' due Fossi.

Inscriptions bearing the names of some Etruscan families, especially the Tarquitii, have been found here, and the remains of the ancient citadel, on the spot now called the Piazza d'Armi, are mentioned in some old ecclesiastical doc.u.ments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _ICHNOGRAPHIA._ ROMAE VETERIS.]

One of the gates must have been at the spot now called the Porta de' Sette Pagi as the road from Veii to Sutri probably pa.s.sed out here, and another gate was opposite Isola called the Porta dell' Arco. A third may have stood towards Fidenae, where the ancient postern and flight of steps is now to be seen, called La Scaletta. Other remains are to be seen near the site of a gate called by Canina La Spezieria. The Ponte Sodo and the tombs near it are worth attention, as is also the ancient Etruscan tomb called the Grotta Campana, in which a most interesting set of sepulchral ornamentations and cinerary urns has been preserved. The chief monuments of Veii, which have been taken to Rome, are the Ionic columns in front of the Post Office in the Piazza Colonna, the Statue of Tiberius, and the colossal heads of Tiberius and Augustus, now in the Vatican Museum.[162]