population had diminished the rate of distribution of water (from 530 to
430 liters per head), determined that the old aqueducts of the Appia and
the Anio should be repaired, and a new one built, the appropriation for
both works being 8,000,000 sesterces, or 1,760,000 lire.
The execution of the scheme was entrusted to Q. Marcius Rex. He selected
a group of springs at the foot of the Monte della Prugna, in the
territory of Arsoli, 4,437 meters to the right of the thirty-sixth
milestone of the Via Valeria; and after many years of untiring efforts
he succeeded in making a display of the water on the highest platform of
the Capitol. Agrippa restored the aqueduct in 33 B.C.; Augustus
doubled the volume of the water in 5 B.C. by the addition of
the Aqua Augusta. In 196 Septimius Severus brought in a new supply for
the use of his Thermae Severianae; in 212-213 Caracalla built a branch
aqueduct, four miles long, for the use of his baths; in 305-306
Diocletian did the same thing for his great thermæ; and, finally,
Arcadius and Honorius devoted to the restoration of the aqueduct the
money seized from Count Gildo, the African rebel.
None of the Roman aqueducts are eulogized by Frontinus like the
Claudian. He calls it "a work most magnificently done," and after
demonstrating in more than one way that the volume of the springs
collected by Claudius amounted to 4,607 quinariae, he says that there
was a reserve of 1,600 always ready.
The works, began by Caligula in A.D. 38, lasted fourteen years,
the water having reached Rome only on August 1, 52 (the birthday of
Claudius). The course of the aqueduct was first around the slopes of the
Monte Ripoli, like that of the Marcia and of the Anio Vetus. Domitian
shortened it by several miles by boring a tunnel 4,950 meters long
through the Monte Affiano. Length of channel, 68,750 meters, of which
15,000 was on arches; volume per day, 209,252 cubic meters. The Claudia
was used for the Imperial table; a branch aqueduct, 2,000 meters long,
left the main channel at Spem Veterem (Porta Maggiore), and following
the line of the Via Caelimontana (Villa Wolkonsky), of the Campus
Caelimontan (Lateran), and of the street now called di S. Stefano
Rotondo, reached the temple of Claudius by the church of SS. Giovanni e
Paolo, and the Imperial palace by the church of St. Bonaventura.
The Anio Novus, like the Vetus, was at first derived from the river of
the same name at the forty-second milestone of the road to Subiaco,
great precautions being taken for purifying the water. The works were
begun by Caligula in A.D. 38, and completed by Claudius on
August 1, 52, on a most magnificent scale, some of the arches reaching
the height of thirty-two meters above ground; and there were eight miles
of them. Yet, in spite of the purifying reservoir, and of the clear
springs of the Rivus Herculaneus (Fosso di Fioggio), which had been
mixed with the water from the river, the Anio Novus was hardly ever
drinkable. Whenever a shower fell on the Simbruine mountains, the water
would get troubled and saturated with mud and carbonate of lime. Trajan
improved its condition by carrying the head of the aqueduct higher up
the valley, where Nero had created three artificial lakes for the
adornment of his Villa Sublacensis. These lakes served more efficiently
as "purgatories," than the artificial basin of Caligula, nine miles
below. The Anio Novus reached Rome in its own channel after a course of
86,964 meters, but for the last seven miles it ran on the same arches
with the Aqua Claudia. The Anio Novus was the largest of all Roman
aqueducts, discharging nearly three hundred thousand cubic meters per
day.
There are two places in the suburbs of Rome where these marvelous arches
of the Claudia and Anio Novus can be seen to advantage; one is the
Torre Fiscale, three miles outside the Porta S. Giovanni on the Albano
road (to be reached also from the Tavolato station, on the upper Albano
railway); the other is the Vicolo del Mandrione, which leaves the
Labicana one mile outside the Porta Maggiore and falls into the
Tusculana at the place called Porta Furba.
THE QUARRIES AND BRICKS OF THE ANCIENT CITY[16]
BY RODOLFO LANCIANI
The materials used in Roman constructions are the "lapis ruber" (tufa);
the "lapis Albanus" (peperino); the "lapis Gabinus" (sperone); the
"lapis Tiburtinus" (travertino); the silex ("selce"); and bricks and
tiles of various kinds. The cement was composed of pozzolana and lime.
Imported marbles came into fashion toward the end of the republic, and
became soon after the pride and glory of Rome....
The only material which the first builders of Rome found at hand was the
volcanic conglomerate called tufa. The quality of the stone used in
those early days was far from perfect. The walls of the Palatine hill
and of the Capitoline citadel were built of material quarried on the
spot--a mixture of charred pumice-stones and reddish volcanic sand. The
quarries used for the fortification of the Capitol were located at the
foot of the hill toward the Argiletum, and were so important as to give
their name, Lautumiae, to the neighboring district. It is probable that
the prison called Tullianum, from a jet of water, "tullus," which sprang
from the rock, was originally a portion of this quarry. The tufa blocks
employed by Servius Tullius for the building of the city walls, and of
the agger, appear to be of three qualities--yellowish, reddish, and
gray; the first, soft and easily broken up, seems to have been quarried
from the Little Aventine, near the church of St. Saba. The galleries of
this quarry, much disfigured by medieval and modern use, can be followed
to a considerable distance, altho the collapsing of the vaults makes it
dangerous to visit them....
The quarries of the third quality were, or rather one of them was,
discovered on February 7, 1872, in the Vigna Querini, outside the Porta
St. Lorenzo, near the first milestone of the Vicolo di Valle Cupa. It
was a surface quarry, comprising five trenches 16 feet wide, 9 feet
deep. Some of the blocks, already squared, were lying on the floor of
the trenches, others were detached on two or three sides only, the size
of others was simply traced on the rock by vertical or horizontal lines.
This tufa, better known by the name of cappellaccio, is very bad. The
only buildings in which it was used, besides the inner wall of the
Servian agger, are the platform of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in
the gardens of the German Embassy, and the "puticuli" in the
burial-grounds of the Esquiline. Its use must have been given up before
the end of the period of the Kings, in consequence of the discovery of
better quarries on the right bank of the Tiber, at the foot of the
hills now called Monte Verde....
They cover a space one mile in length and a quarter of a mile wide on
each side of the valley of Pozzo Pantaléo. In fact, this valley, which
runs from the Via Portuensis toward the lake of the Villa Pamphili,
seems to be artificial; I mean, produced by the extraction of the rock
of millions of cubic meters in the course of twenty-four centuries. If
the work of the ancient quarrymen could be freed from the loose material
which conceals it from view, we should possess within a few minutes'
drive from the Porta Portese a reproduction of the famous mines of El
Masarah, with beds of rock cut into steps and terraces, with roads and
lanes, shafts, inclines, underground passages, and outlets for the
discharge of rain-water. When a quarry had given out, its galleries were
filled up with the refuse of the neighboring ones--chips left over after
the squaring of the blocks; so that, in many cases, the color and
texture of the chips do not correspond with those of the quarry in which
they are found. This layer of refuse, transformed by time into humus,
and worked upon by human and atmospheric forces, has given the valley a
different aspect, so that it looks as if it were the work not of
quarrymen, but of nature.
Tufa may be found used in many existing monuments of ancient Rome, such
as the drains of the middle and southern basin of the left bank, the
channels and arches of the Marcia and Anio Vetus, the Servian walls, the
temples of Fortuna Virilis, of Hercules Magnus Custos, the Rostra, the
embankment of the Tiber, etc. The largest and most magnificent quarries
in the suburban district are the so-called Grotte della Cervara. No
words can convey an idea of their size and of the regularity of their
plan. They seem to be the work of a fanciful architect who has hewn out
of the rock halls and galleries, courts and vestibules, and imitated the
forms of an Assyrian palace.
For the study of the peperino mines, which contain a stone special to
the Alban district, formed by the action of hot water on gray volcanic
cinders, the reader should follow on foot the line of the new Albano
railway, from the place called Il Sassone to the town of Marino. Many of
the valleys in this district, now made beautiful by vineyards and
oliveyards, owe their existence to the pickax of the Roman stonecutter,
like the valley of Pozzo Pantaléo. The most curious sight is a dolmen or
isolated rock 10 meters high, left in the center of one of the quarries
to certify the thickness of the bed of rock excavated. In fact, the
whole district is very interesting both to the archeologist and to the
paysagiste. The mines of Marino, still worked in the neighborhood of the
railway station, would count, like the Grotte della Cervara, among the
wonders of the Campagna, were they known to the student as they deserve
to be.
The principal Roman buildings in which the lapis Albanus has been used
are: the Claudian aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima, the temples of Antonius
and Faustina, of Cybele, of the Eventus Bonus, of Neptune, the inclosure
wall of the Forum Augustum, Forum Transitorium, and Forum Pacis, the
Porticus Argonautarum, Porticus Pompeii, the Ustrinum of the Appian Way,
etc. The sarcophagus of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican
museum, and the tomb of the Tibicines in the Museo Municipale al Celio
are also of this stone.
Travertine stone was quarried in the plains of Tivoli at places now
called Le Caprine, Casal Bernini, and Il Barco. This last was reopened
after an interval of many centuries by Count G. Brazza, brother of the
African explorer. Lost in the wilderness and overgrown with shrubs, it
had not been examined, I believe, since the visit of Brocchi. It can be
reached by stopping at the station of the Aquae Albulae, on the Tivoli
line, and following the ancient road which led to the works. This road,
twice as wide as the Appian Way, is flanked by substructures, and is not
paved, but macadamized. Parallel with it runs an aqueduct which supplied
the works with motive power, derived probably from the sulfur springs.
There are also remains of tombs, one of which, octagonal in shape,
serves as a foundation to the farmhouse del Barco.
The most remarkable monument of the whole group is the Roman quarry from
which five and a half million cubic meters of travertine have been
extracted, as proved by the measurement of the hollow space between the
two opposite vertical sides. That this is the most important ancient
quarry of travertine, and the largest one used by the Romans, is proved,
in the first place, by its immense size. The sides show a frontage of
more than two and a half kilometers; the surface amounts to 500,000
square meters. The sides are quite perpendicular, and have the
peculiarity of projecting buttresses, at an angle of 90 degrees. Some of
these buttresses are isolated on three sides, and still preserve the
grooves, by means of which they could be separated from the solid
mass....
In order to keep the bottom of the works clean and free from the
movement of the carts, for the action of the cranes, and for the
maneuvres of the workmen, the chips, or useless product of the squaring
of the blocks, were transported to a great distance, as far as the banks
of the Anio, and there piled up to a great height. This is the origin of
that chain of hills which runs parallel to the river, and of whose
artificial formation no one, as far as I know, had the least suspicion.
One of these hills, visible from every point of the neighboring
district, from Hadrian's villa as well as from the Sulfur Baths, is
elliptical in shape, 22 meters high, 90 meters long, and 65 meters wide.
It can with reason be compared with our Testaccio. It is easy to imagine
how immense must have been the number of blocks cut from the Cava del
Barco during the period of the formation of this hill alone. Another
proof of the antiquity of the quarry, and of its abandonment from
imperial times down to our own day, is given by this fact....
There are three collections of brick-stamps in Rome; one, of little
value, in the Kircherian museum; the second in the last room of the
Vatican library, past the "Nozze aldobrandine;" the third and best in
the Museo Municipale al Celio. This last contains over a thousand
specimens, and a unique set of the products of Roman kilns. In fact, the
first hall of the Museo is set apart exclusively for the study of
ancient building and decorative materials.
Roman bricks were square, oblong, triangular, or round, the latter being
used only to build columns in the Pompeiian style. The largest bricks
that have been discovered in my time measure 1.05 meters in length.
They were set into an arch of one of the great stairs leading to the
avenue or boulevard established in Imperial times on the top of the
agger of Servius. Roman bricks are very often stamped with a seal, the
legend of which contains the names of the owner and the manager of the
kilns, of the maker of the tile, of the merchant entrusted with the sale
of the products, and of the consuls under whose term of office the
bricks were made. These indications are not necessarily found all in one
seal.
The most important of them is the consular date, because it helps the
student to determine, within certain limits, the date of the building
itself. The rule, however, is far from being absolute, and before fixing
the date of a Roman structure from that of its brick stamps one must
take into consideration many other points of circumstantial evidence.
When we examine, for instance, the grain warehouses at Ostia, or
Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, and find that their walls have never
undergone repairs, that their masonry is characteristic of the first
quarter of the second century, that their bricks bear the dates of
Hadrian's age and no others, we may rest assured that the stamps speak
the truth. Their evidence is, in such a case, conclusive. But if the
bricks are variously dated, or bear the names of various kilns, and not
of one or two only, then their value as an evidence of the date of a
building is diminished, if not lost altogether....
The bricks, again, occasionally bear curious signs, such as footmarks of
chickens, dogs, or pigs, which stept over them while still fresh,
impressions of coins and medals, words or sentences scratched with a
nail, etc. A bricklayer, who had perhaps seen better times in his youth,
wrote on a tile the first verse of the Aeneid.
The great manufacturing center of Roman bricks was the district between
the viae Triumphalis, Cornelia, and the two Aureliae, now called the
Monti della Creta, which includes the southern slopes of the Vatican
ridge and the northern of the Janiculum. Here also, as at Pozzo
Pantaléo, the traces of the work of man are simply gigantic. The valleys
del Gelsomino, delle Fornaci, del Vicolo delle Cave, della Balduina, and
a section of the Val d'Inferno, are not the work of nature, but the
result of excavations for "creta figulina," which began 2,300 years ago,
and have never been interrupted since. A walk through the Monti della
Creta will teach the student many interesting things. The best point of
observation is a bluff between the Vicolo della Cave and the Vicolo del
Gelsomino, marked with the word "Ruderi" and with the altitude of 75
meters, in the military map of the suburbs. The bluff rises 37 meters
above the floor of the brick-kilns of the Gelsomino....
Roman bricks were exported to all the shores of the Mediterranean; they
have been found in the Riviera, on the coasts of Benetia, of
Narbonensis, of Spain and Africa, and in the island of Sardinia. The
brick-making business must have been very remunerative, if we judge from
the rank and wealth of many personages who had an interest in it. Many
names of emperors appear in brick-stamps, and even more of empresses and
princesses of the imperial family.
PALM SUNDAY IN ST. PETER'S[17]
BY GRACE GREENWOOD (Mrs. Lippincott)
Yesterday began Holy Week with the imposing but tedious ceremonies of
Palm Sunday at St. Peter's. At nine o'clock in the morning we were in
our places--seats erected for the occasion near the high altar, drest in
the costume prescribed by church etiquette--black throughout, with black
veils on our heads. At about ten the Pope entered, and the rites,
ordinary and extraordinary, the masses and processions, continued until
one.
The entrance of the Pope into this his grandest basilica was, as usual,
a beautiful and brilliant sight. He came splendidly vested, wearing his
miter, and borne in his chair of state under a gorgeous canopy, between
the flabelli--two enormous fans of white peacock feathers. He was
preceded and followed by cardinals, bishops, arch-bishops, monsignori,
abbots, the apostolic prothonotaries, generals of the religious orders,
officers of the state, of the army, of his household, and the Guardia
Nobile.
He took his seat on the throne, and received the homage of the
cardinals, who, kneeling, kissed his right hand. This is a ceremony
which is always gone through with in the most formal, mechanical,
business-like manner possible. Some palms, not in natural branches, but
cut and wreathed in various strange, fantastic forms, lay on the altar.
The Pope's chief sacristan took one of these, a deacon another, a
sub-deacon a third, and knelt at the foot of the throne. His Holiness
read prayers over them, sprinkled them with holy water, and incensed
them three times. One of these is held beside the throne by the prince
assistant during the service; another is borne by the Pope when in
procession.
After this, multitudes of palms were brought up for the Papal
benediction. First came the cardinals, each, as he received his palm
from the Pope, kissing it, the right hand and knee of His Holiness; then
the bishops, who only kissed the palm and his right knee; then the
abbots, who were only entitled to kiss the palm and his foot; then the
governor of Rome, the prince assistant, the auditor, the treasurer, the
maggiordomo, the secretaries, the chamberlains, the mace bearers, the
deacons and sub-deacons, generals of the religious orders and priests in
general, masters of the ceremonies, singers, clerks of the Papal chapel,
students of Roman colleges, foreign ministers and their attachés,
Italian, French, Spanish, Austrian, Russian, Prussian officers, noblemen
and gentlemen, all came up in turn, knelt, received blest palms, and
kissed the foot of the Sovereign Pontiff.
During the distribution of the palms, anthems were sung by the choir,
who were caged up in a sort of trellice workbox at the right of the
altar. This long but brilliantly picturesque ceremony through, the Pope,
after washing his hands, again mounted into his "sedia gestatoria," and
bearing his palm, preceded and followed by all those to whom he had
given palms, passed slowly down the nave of the church, blessing the
kneeling and bending multitude right and left. This procession of palms
was very striking and gorgeous from the beauty and variety of military
arms and uniforms, and more than royal richness of the priestly
vestments, the gleam of miters and maces, and of innumerable sacred
symbols and insignia.
THE ELECTION OF A POPE[18]
BY CARDINAL WISEMAN
The interval between the close of one pontificate and the commencement
of another is a period of some excitement, and necessarily of much
anxiety. Time is required for the electors to assemble, from distant
provinces, or even foreign countries; and this is occupied in paying the
last tribute of respect and affection to the departed Pontiff. His body
is embalmed, clothed in the robes of his office, of the penitential
color, and laid on a couch of state within one of the chapels in St.
Peter's, so that the faithful may not only see it, but kiss its feet.
This last act of reverence to the mortal remains of the immortal Pius
VIII., the writer well recollects performing.
These preliminaries occupy three days; during which rises, as if by
magic, or from the crypts below, an immense catafalque, a colossal
architectural structure, which fills the nave of that basilica
illustrated by inscriptions, and adorned by statuary. Before this huge
monument, for nine days funeral rites are performed, closed by a funeral
oration. For the body of the last Pope there is a uniform resting-place
in St. Peter's--a plain sarcophagus, of marbled stucco, hardly noticed
by the traveler, over a door beside the choir, on which is simply
painted the title of the latest Pontiff. On the death of his successor
it is broken down at the top, the coffin is removed to the under-church,
and that of the new claimant for repose is substituted. This change
takes place late in the evening, and is considered private. I can not
recollect whether it was on this or on a subsequent occasion that I
witnessed it with my college companions....
In the afternoon of the last day of the novendiali, as they are called,
the cardinals assemble in a church near the Quirinal palace, and walk
thence in procession, accompanied by their conclavisiti, a secretary, a
chaplain, and a servant or two, to the great gate of the royal
residence, in which one will remain as master and supreme lord. Of
course the hill is crowded by persons lining the avenue kept open for
the procession. Cardinals never before seen by them, or not for many
years, pass before them; eager eyes scan and measure them, and try to
conjecture, from fancied omens in eye, or figure, or expression, who
will shortly be the sovereign of their fair city, and, what is more, the
Head of the Catholic Church from the rising to the setting sun.
Equal they pass the threshold of that gate; they share together the
supreme rule, temporal and spiritual; there is still embosomed in them
all the voice yet silent, that soon will sound, from one tongue, over
all the world, and the dormant germ of that authority which will soon
again be concentrated in one man alone. To-day they are all equal;
perhaps to-morrow one will sit enthroned, and all the rest will kiss his
feet; one will be sovereign, the others his subjects; one the shepherd,
and the others his flock....
While we have been thus sketching, hastily and imperfectly, one of many
who passed almost unnoticed in the solemn procession to conclave, on the
2d of September, 1823, we may suppose the doors to have been inexorably
closed on those who composed it. The conclave, which formerly used to
take place in the Vatican, was on this occasion, and has been
subsequently, held in the Quirinal palace. This noble building, known
equally by the name of Monte Cavallo, consists of a large quadrangle,
round which run the papal apartments. From this stretches out, along a
whole street, an immense wing, its two upper floors divided into a great
number of small but complete suites of apartments, occupied permanently,
or occasionally, by persons attached to the Court.
During conclave these are allotted, literally so, to the cardinals, each
of whom lives apart, with his attendants. His food is brought daily from
his own house, and is examined, and delivered to him in the shape of
"broken victuals," by the watchful guardians of the turns and lattices,
through which alone anything, even conversation, can penetrate into the
seclusion of that sacred retreat. For a few hours, the first evening,
the doors are left open, and the nobility, the diplomatic body, and in
fact all presentable persons, may roam from cell to cell, paying a brief
compliment to their occupants, perhaps speaking the same good wishes to
fifty, which they know can be accomplished in only one.