8 and extent, the variety of marbles, the size and multitude of the columns, compared the labour and expense with the use and importance. Of the baths of Constantine, of Alexander,' of Domitian, or rather of Titus, some vestige might yet be found. 4. The triumphal arches of Titus, Severus,' and Constantine were entire, both the structure and the inscriptions; a falling fragment was honoured with the name of Trajan; and two arches, then extant in the Flaminian Way, have been ascribed to the baser memory of Faustina and Gallienus.10 5. After the wonder of the Coliseum, Poggius might have overlooked a small amphitheatre of brick, most probably for the use of the prætorian camp. The theatres of Marcellus " and Pompey were occupied, in a great measure, by public and private buildings; and in the Circus, Agonalis, and Maximus, little more than the situation and the form could be investigated. 6. The columns of Trajan and Antonine 12 were still erect; but the Egyptian obelisks were broken or buried.13 A people of gods and heroes, the workmanship of art, was reduced to one equestrian figure of gilt brass, 7 [Thermo Neronianæ et Alexandrinæ, baths built by Nero and enlarged by Alexander Severus, were close to the Stadium (discovered in 1869), south of the Piazza Navona-south-west of the Pantheon.] [It has been proved only quite recently (by excavations in 1895) that the Baths of Titus and Trajan were distinct; it was not a case of baths built by Titus and restored or improved by Trajan. The Propylæa of the Therme of Titus have been found on the north side of the Coliseum; the Baths of Trajan were to the northeast, almost adjoining. See Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, p. 365-6. On the Aventine there were other large Baths, the Therma Decianæ. See Lanciani, ib. p. 544-6.] 9 [An interesting sketch of the history of this arch will be found in Lanciani, op. cit. p. 284-6.] 10 [He also mentions the Arch of Claudius (in the Piazza Sciarra) and the Arch of Lentulus (on the Aventine). Lanciani has shown that an old Church of St. Stephen, which was excavated in the Piazza di Pietra, was built of spoils taken from the triumphal Arch of Claudius and from the Temple of Neptune (in the Piazza di Pietra). Cp. his Pagan and Christian Rome, p. 99. Fragments of the Arch of Tiberius at the foot of the Capitoline have been discovered. Foundations of the Arch of Augustus were found in 1888. Lanciani had shown in 1882 that "this arch had been found and destroyed by the workmen of the fabbrica di S. Pietro between 1540 and 1546 exactly in that place, and that the inscription Corpus, vol. vii. no. 872, belonged to it". Ruins and Excavations, p. 271.] 11 [See below, p. 328, note 54.] 12 [It is interesting to observe that in the Middle Ages it was usual to ascend the Column of Marcus Aurelius for the sake of the view, by the spiral staircase within, and a fee of admission was charged. See Gregorovius, iii. p. 549.] 13 [Poggio saw on the Capitol a small obelisk which is now in the Villa Mattei. And there was the obelisk in the Vatican Circus, which Sixtus V. removed to the Piazza di S. Pietro where it now stands. Since then several obelisks have been set up again; e.g., the great red granite obelisk in the Piazza of St. John in the Lateran; the obelisks in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza di Monte Citorio. See Parker's Twelve Egyptian Obelisks. And cp. above, vol. ii. p. 278, note 48.] Gradual decay of Rome and to five marble statues, of which the most conspicuous were the two horses of Phidias and Praxiteles. 7. The two mausoleums or sepulchres of Augustus 14 and Hadrian could not totally be lost; but the former was only visible as a mound of earth; and the latter, the castle of St. Angelo, had acquired the name and appearance of a modern fortress. With the addition of some separate and nameless columns, such were the remains of the ancient city; for the marks of a more recent structure might be detected in the walls, which formed a circumference of ten miles, included three hundred and seventy-nine turrets, and opened into the country by thirteen gates. This melancholy picture was drawn above nine hundred years after the fall of the Western empire, and even of the Gothic kingdom of Italy. A long period of distress and anarchy, in which empire, and arts, and riches had migrated from the banks of the Tiber, was incapable of restoring or adorning the city; and, as all that is human must retrograde if it do not advance, every successive age must have hastened the ruin of the works of antiquity. To measure the progress of decay, and to ascertain, at each æra, the state of each edifice, would be an endless and a useless labour; and I shall content myself with two observations, which will introduce a short inquiry into the general causes and effects. 1. Two hundred years before the eloquent complaint of Poggius, an anonymous writer composed a description of Rome.15 His ignorance may repeat the same objects 14 [The Mausoleum of Augustus was taken as a stronghold by the Colonnas and destroyed in 1167 when they were banished. It was refortified in 1241, and it was used as a pyre for the body of Rienzi. See Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, p. 177-80. The Soderini family converted it into a hanging garden in 1550. The ancient ustrinum or cremation enclosure, and a number of monuments, were found in excavations in 1777.] 15 Liber de Mirabilibus Romæ, ex Registro Nicolai Cardinalis de Arragoniâ, in Bibliothecâ St. Isidori Armario IV. No. 69. This treatise, with some short but pertinent notes, has been published by Montfaucon (Diarium Italicum, p. 283-301), who thus delivers his own critical opinion: Scriptor xiiimi circiter sæculi, ut ibidem notatur; antiquariæ rei imperitus, et, ut ab illo ævo, nugis et anilibus fabellis refertus sed quia monumenta quæ iis temporibus Romæ supererant pro modulo recenset, non parum inde lucis mutuabitur qui Romanis antiquitatibus indagandis operam navabit (p. 283). [Mirabilia Romæ, ed Parthey, 1867; The Marvels of Rome or Picture of the Golden City, Eng. tr. by F. M. Nicholls, 1889. The Mirabilia is a 12th century recension of an older guide-book, probably of the 10th century, of which the Graphia aureæ urbis Romæ (Publ. in Ozanam's Documents inédits, p. 155 sqq.) is another recension. The Ordo Romanus, or itinerary, of Benedict (12th cent.) is based on the Mirabilia. We have a still older description, of about A.D. 900, in the Collection of inscriptions by the Anonymous of Einsiedeln (based on a map of Rome, of 4th or 5th century). It is published in Jordan's Topo Yet this barbarous topo under strange and fabulous names. causes of tion; After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes Four of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of destrucmore than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans. I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more I. The injuries of permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these nature: monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and, in the boundless annals of time, his life and his labours must equally be measured as a fleeting moment. Of a simple and solid edifice, it is not easy, however, to circumscribe the duration. As the wonders of ancient days, the pyramids 18 attracted the graphie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, vol. ii. Cp. the accounts of this topographical literature in Jordan, op. cit., Gregorovius, iii. p. 516 sqq., and Lanciani, Destruction of Ancient Rome.] 16 The Père Mabillon (Analecta, tom. iv. p. 502) has published an anonymous pilgrim of the ixth century, who, in his visit round the churches and holy places of Rome, touches on several buildings, especially porticoes, which had disappeared before the xiiith century. [The Anonymous of Einsiedeln, see last note.] 17 On the Septizonium, see the Mémoires sur Pétrarque (tom. i. p. 325), Donatus (p. 338), and Nardini (p. 117, 414). [The existing remains of the Palace of Severus on the Palatine are about sixty yards high. In the eighth century, two-fifths of the building in the centre collapsed. The siege of Henry IV. in 1084 (see below, p. 327) destroyed many pillars, and in 1257 Brancaleone destroyed the larger extremity. For its use by Sixtus V. see below, p. 325.] 18 The age of the pyramids is remote and unknown, since Diodorus Siculus (tom. and earth fires; curiosity of the ancients: an hundred generations, the leaves of autumn,19 have dropped into the grave; and, after the fall of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies, the Caesars and Caliphs, the same pyramids stand erect and unshaken above the floods of the Nile. A complex figure of various and minute parts is more accessible to injury and decay; and the silent lapse of time is hurricanes often accelerated by hurricanes and earthquakes, by fires and quakes; inundations. The air and earth have doubtless been shaken; and the lofty turrets of Rome have tottered from their foundations; but the seven hills do not appear to be placed on the great cavities of the globe; nor has the city, in any age, been exposed to the convulsions of nature which, in the climate of Antioch, Lisbon, or Lima, have crumbled in a few moments the works of ages into dust. Fire is the most powerful agent of life and death: the rapid mischief may be kindled and propagated by the industry or negligence of mankind; and every period of the Roman annals is marked by the repetition of similar calamities. A memorable conflagration, the guilt or misfortune of Nero's reign, continued, though with unequal fury, either six or nine days.20 Innumerable buildings, crowded in close and crooked streets, supplied perpetual fuel for the flames; and, when they ceased, four only of the fourteen regions were left entire; three were totally destroyed, and seven were deformed by the relics of smoking and lacerated edifices.21 In the full i. l. i. c. 44, p. 72) is unable to decide whether they were constructed 1000 or 3400 years before the clxxxth Olympiad. Sir John Marshman's contracted scale of the Egyptian dynasties would fix them about 2000 years before Christ (Canon. Chronicus, p. 47). [Most of the pyramids belong to the 4th millennium B.C. The Great Pyramid of Gizeh was the tomb of Khufu (Cheops), the second king of the 4th dynasty said to have flourished in B.C. 3969-3908. See Petrie, History of Egypt, i. p. 38 sqq. For the earlier pyramid of Sneferu, ib. p. 32-3; and for the pyramids of the successors of Khufu, and the following dynasties, the same volume passim.] 19 See the speech of Glaucus in the Iliad (z, 146). This natural but melancholy image is familiar to Homer. 20 The learning and criticism of M. des Vignoles (Histoire Critique de la République des Lettres, tom. viii. p. 74-118; ix. p. 172-187) dates the fire of Rome from A.D. 64, 19th July, and the subsequent persecution of the Christians from 15th November of the same year. 21 Quippe in regiones quatuordecim Roma dividitur, quarum quatuor integræ manebant, tres solo tenus dejects; septem reliquis pauca tectorum vestigia supererant, lacera et semiusta. Among the old relics that were irreparably lost, Tacitus enumerates the temple of the Moon of Servius Tullius; the fane and altar consecrated by Evander præsenti Herculi; the temple of Jupiter Stator, a vow of Romulus; the palace of Numa; the temple of Vesta, cum Penatibus populi Romani. He then deplores the opes tot victoriis quæsitæ et Græcarum artium decora. . . multa quæ seniores meminerant, quæ reparari nequibant (Annal. xv. 40, 41). meridian of empire, the metropolis arose with fresh beauty from her ashes; yet the memory of the old deplored their irreparable losses, the arts of Greece, the trophies of victory, the monuments of primitive or fabulous antiquity. In the days of distress and anarchy, every wound is mortal, every fall irretrievable; nor can the damage be restored either by the public care of government or the activity of private interest. Yet two causes may be alleged, which render the calamity of fire more destructive to a flourishing than a decayed city. 1. The more combustible materials of brick, timber, and metals are first melted or consumed; but the flames may play without injury or effect on the naked walls and massy arches that have been despoiled of their ornaments. 2. It is among the common and plebeian habitations that a mischievous spark is most easily blown to a conflagration; but, as soon as they are devoured, the greater edifices which have resisted or escaped are left as so many islands in a state of solitude and safety. From her situation, Rome is exposed to inundathe danger of frequent inundations. Without excepting the Tiber, the rivers that descend from either side of the Apennine have a short and irregular course; a shallow stream in the summer heats; an impetuous torrent, when it is swelled in the spring or winter by the fall of rain and the melting of the snows. When the current is repelled from the sea by adverse winds, when the ordinary bed is inadequate to the weight of waters, they rise above the banks, and overspread, without limits or control, the plains and cities of the adjacent country. Soon after the triumph of the first Punic war, the Tiber was increased by unusual rains; and the inundation, surpassing all former measure of time and place, destroyed all the buildings that were situate below the hills of Rome. According to the variety of ground, the same mischief was produced by different means; and the edifices were either swept away by the sudden impulse, or dissolved and undermined by the long continuance, of the flood.22 Under the reign of Augustus, the same calamity norum 22 A. U. C. 507, repentina subversio ipsius Romæ prævenit triumphum Romadiversæ ignium aquarumque clades pene absumsere urbem. Nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem, vel diurnitate vel magnitudine redundans, omnia Romæ ædificia in plano posita delevit. Diversæ qualitates locorum ad unam convenere perniciem : quoniam et quæ segnior inundatio tenuit madefacta dissolvit, et quæ cursus torrentis invenit impulsa dejecit (Orosius, Hist. 1. iv. c. 11, p. 244, edit. Havercamp). Yet we may observe that it is the plan and study of the Christian apologist to magnify the calamities of the pagan world. tions |