sacked it, as it were; and that was followed by that of the Abate di
Farfa, and the peasantry of the Orsini family[151].
Rome was assaulted by the Bourbon, May 5, 1527; and the imperialists
left it February 17, 1528.
No sooner was the Bourbon in sight of Rome, than he harangued his
troops, and pointed to the end of all their sufferings. Being destitute
of artillery, with which he might batter the walls, he instantly made
his dispositions for an assault; and having discovered a breach, he
planted, with his own hands, a ladder against the rampart, and prepared
to mount it, followed by his German bands. But, at that instant, a shot,
discharged from the first arquebuse which was fired, terminated at once
his life and his misfortunes. Much fruitless inquiry has been made to
ascertain the author of his death, which is commonly attributed to a
priest; but Benvenuto Cellini, so well known by his extraordinary
adventures and writings, lays claim to the merit of killing this hero.
By whatever hand he fell he preserved, even in the act of expiring, all
his presence as well as greatness of mind. He no sooner felt himself
wounded, than he ordered a Gascon captain, named Jonas, to cover him
with a cloak, in order to conceal his death, lest it should damp the
courage of his soldiers. Jonas executed his commands with punctuality.
The Constable still continued to breathe when the city was taken. He
was, therefore, carried thither, and there expired, May 5, 1527, at
thirty-eight years of age.
Philipart, prince of Orange, contrived to keep the troops in ignorance
of their commander’s death, till they were masters of Rome; and then, to
render them inaccessible to pity, he revealed to them the fate of
Bourbon. No language can express the fury with which they were animated
at this sad intelligence. They rent the air with the cries of “Carné,
carné! Sangre, sangre! Bourbon, Bourbon!”
The imagination is appalled at the bare recital of the wanton outrages
on human nature, which were committed by Bourbon’s army, during the time
that they remained masters of Rome. The pillage lasted, without any
interruption, for two months.
Never had that proud city suffered from her barbarian conquerors, in the
decline of the Roman empire,—from Alaric, from Genseric, or from
Odoacer,—the same merciless treatment as she underwent from the rage of
the imperial troops;—the subjects, or the soldiers of a Catholic king!
Rapacity, lust, and impiety, were exhausted by these men. Roman ladies
of the noblest extraction were submitted to the basest and vilest
prostitution. The sacred ornaments of the sacerdotal, and even of the
pontifical dignity, were converted to purposes of ridicule and
buffoonery. Priests, nay even bishops and cardinals, were degraded to
the brutal passions of the soldiery; and after having suffered every
ignominy of blows, mutilation, and personal contumely, were massacred in
pastime. Exorbitant ransoms were exacted repeatedly from the same
persons; and when they had no longer wherewithal to purchase life, they
were butchered without mercy. Nuns, virgins, matrons, were publicly
devoted to the infamous appetites of the soldiers; who first violated,
and then stabbed, the victims of their pleasures. The streets were
strewed with the dead; and it is said that eight thousand young women,
of all ranks and conditions, were found to be pregnant within five
months from the sack of the unfortunate city.
Three years after the sack by Bourbon, that is in 1530, an inundation of
the Tiber ruined a multitude of edifices both public and private, and
was almost equally calamitous with the sack of Rome. Simond, writing
from Rome in January 1818, says: “The Tiber has been very high, and the
lower parts of the town under water; yet this is nothing compared with
the inundations recorded on two pillars at the port of Ripetta, a sort
of landing-place. The mark on one of them is full eighteen feet above
the level of the adjoining streets; and, considering the rapidity of the
stream, a great part of the city must then have been in imminent danger
of being swept away.” In 1819 the Pantheon was flooded; but this is not
an uncommon event, as it stands near the river, and the drain, which
should carry off the rain-water that falls through the aperture in the
top, communicates with the stream. The inundations of the Tiber, indeed,
are one of the causes, which combined to destroy so many of the
monuments of Rome during the middle ages. There is one recorded in 1345,
among the afflictions of the times, when only the summits of the hills
were above the water, and the lower grounds were converted into a lake
for the space of eight days. Several floods are mentioned by the ancient
writers; and Tacitus speaks of a project which was debated in the
senate, A. D. 15, for diverting some of the streams running into the
Tiber, but which was not carried into execution in consequence of the
petitions of various towns, who sent deputies to oppose it; partly on
the ground of their local interests being affected, and partly from a
feeling of superstition, which emboldened them to urge that “Nature had
assigned to rivers their proper courses,” and other reasons of a similar
nature.
Aurelian endeavoured to put an effectual stop to the calamities which
sprang from the lawless river, by raising its banks and clearing its
channel. However, the deposits resulting from these frequent inundations
have contributed greatly to that vast accumulation of soil, which has
raised the surface of modern Rome so many feet above the ancient level;
and thus the evil itself has occasioned a remedy to a partial extent.
We must now close this portion of our imperfect account, and proceed to
give our readers some idea in respect to the present condition of Rome’s
ancient remains; gleaned, for the most part, from the pages of writers
who have recently been sojourners in “the Eternal City:” but in doing
this we by no means wish our readers to expect the full and minute
particulars, which they may find in works entirely dedicated to the
subject; for Rome, even in its antiquities, would require a volume for
itself.
When Poggio Bracciolini visited Rome in the fifteenth century, he
complained that nothing of old Rome subsisted entire, and that few
monuments of the free city remained; and many writers of more recent
times have made the same complaint. “The artist,” says Sir John
Hobhouse, “may be comparatively indifferent to the date and history, and
regard chiefly the architectural merit of a structure; but the Rome
which the Florentine republican regretted, and which an Englishman would
wish to find, is not that of Augustus and his successors, but of those
greater and better men, of whose heroic actions his earliest impressions
are composed.” To which, however, may be added what Dr. Burton
questions, viz., Whether, in his expectations, the traveller may not
betray his ignorance of real history. “The works of the Romans, in the
early ages of their nation, were remarkable for their solidity and
strength; but there seems no reason to suppose that much taste or
elegance was displayed in them. But then, again, if we wish to confine
ourselves to the republic, there is surely no need of monuments of brick
and stone to awaken our recollections of such a period. If we must have
visible objects on which to fix our attention, we have the ground itself
on which the Romans trod; we have the Seven Hills; we have the Campus
Martius, the Forum,—all places familiar to us from history, and in
which we can assign the precise spot where some memorable action was
performed. Those who feel a gratification, by placing their footsteps
where Cicero or Cæsar did before them, in the consciousness of standing
upon the same hill which Manlius defended, and in all those associations
which bring the actors themselves upon the scene, may have all their
enthusiasm satisfied, and need not complain that there are no monuments
of the time of the republic.”
The remains of ancient Rome may be classed in three different periods.
Of the first, the works of the kings, embracing a period of two hundred
and forty-four years, from the foundation of the city by Romulus to the
expulsion of Tarquin, very little have escaped the ravages of time; the
Tullian walls and prison, with the Cloaca Maxima, being the only
identified remains. Of the works of the republic, which lasted four
hundred and sixty-one years, although the city, during that period, was
more than once besieged, burned, and sacked, many works are yet
extant:—the military ways and aqueducts, and some small temples and
tombs. But it was during the third period, that of the emperors, that
Rome attained the meridian of her glory. For three centuries all the
known world was either subject to her, or bound by commercial treaties;
and the taste and magnificence of the Romans were displayed in the
erection of temples to the gods, triumphal arches and pillars to
conquerors, amphitheatres, palaces, and other works of ostentation and
luxury, for which architecture was made to exhaust her treasures, and no
expense was spared to decorate.
Architecture was unknown to the Romans until Tarquin came down from
Etruria. Hence the few works of the kings, which still remain, were
built in the Etruscan style, with large uncemented, but regular blocks.
In the gardens of the convent Giovanni a S. Paolo is a ruin of the Curia
Hostilia, called the Rostrum of Cicero; and some few fragments, also,
remain of a bridge, erected by Ancus Martius. On this bridge (Pons
Sublicius) Horatius Cocles opposed singly the army of Porsenna; and from
it, in subsequent times, the bodies of Commodus and Heliogabalus were
thrown into the Tiber. In the pontificate of Nicholas V. it was
destroyed by an inundation. There are also the remains of a large brick
edifice, supposed to have been the Curia, erected by Tullus Hostilius,
which was destroyed by fire when the populace burned in it the corpse of
Clodius. Julius Cæsar commenced its restoration; and Augustus finished
it, and gave it the name of Curia Julia, in honour of his father by
adoption.
In regard to the form and size of the city, we must follow the direction
of the seven hills upon which it was built. 1. Of these MONS PALATINUS
has always had the preference. It was in this place that Romulus laid
the foundation of the city, in a quadrangular form; and here the same
king and Tullus Hostilius kept their courts, as did Augustus afterwards,
and all the succeeding emperors. This hill was in compass 1200 paces. 2.
MONS TARPEIUS, took its name from Tarpeia, a Roman virgin, who in this
place betrayed the city to the Sabines. It had afterwards the
denomination of Capitolinus, from the head of a man, casually found here
in digging for the foundation of the temple of Jupiter. This hill was
added to the city by Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines; when, having
been first overcome in the field by Romulus, he and his subjects were
permitted to incorporate with the Romans. 3. MONS ESQUILINUS was taken
in by Servius Tullius, who had here his royal seat. 4. MONS VIMINALIS
derived its name from the osiers that grew very plentifully upon it.
This hill was taken in by Servius Tullus. 5. MONS CŒLIUS owes its name
to Cœlius, or Cœles, a Tuscan general greatly celebrated in his time,
who pitched his tents here when he came to the assistance of Romulus
against the Sabines. Its having been taken into the city is attributed
to Tullus Hostilius, by Livy and Dionysius; but by Strabo, to Ancus
Martius. 6. COLLIS QUIRINALIS was so called from the temple of Quirinus,
another name of Romulus; or from the Curetes, a people that removed
hither from a Sabine city, called Cures. It afterwards changed its name
to Caballus, Mons Caballi, and Caballinus, from the two marble horses,
with each a man holding him, which are set up here. They are still
standing, and, if the inscription on the pilasters be true, were the
work of Phidias and Praxiteles; made by those masters to represent
Alexander and his horse Bucephalus, and sent to Nero as a present by
Tiridates king of Armenia. 7. MONS AVENTINUS derived its name from
Aventinus, an Alban king, from the river Avens, or from (ab Avibus) the
birds, that used to flock there from the Tiber. Gellius affirms, that
this hill was not enclosed within the bounds of the city, till the time
of Claudius; but Eutropius expressly states that it was taken into it
even so early as that of Ancus Martius.
As to the extent of the whole city, the greatest, recorded in history,
was in the reign of Valerian, who enlarged the walls to such a degree,
as to surround a space of fifty miles. The number of inhabitants, in its
flourishing state, is computed by Lipsius at four millions. The present
extent of the walls is about thirteen miles. Sir John Hobhouse walked
round them in three hours, thirty-three minutes and three quarters; and
Dr. Burton did the same in three hours and ten minutes.
This circuit will bring into view specimens of every construction, from
the days of Servius Tullius down to the present. Aurelian took into his
walls whatever he found standing in their line, and they now include
some remains of the Tullian walls, the walls of the Prætorian barracks,
the facing of a tank, aqueducts, sepulchral monuments, a menagerie, an
amphitheatre, a pyramid, &c. Thus do they exhibit the uncemented blocks
of the Etruscan style, the reticular work of the republic, the
travertine preferred by the first emperors, the alternate tufa and
bricks employed by their successors, and that poverty of materials which
marks the declining empire. Since the first breach, made by Totila, the
walls have been often and variously repaired; sometimes by a case of
brick-work, filled up with shattered marbles, rubble, shard, and mortar.
In some parts, the cementitious work is unfaced; here you find stones
and tufa mixed; there tufa alone, laid in the Saracenic manner: the
latter repairs have the brick revêtement of modern fortification.
The gates of Rome, at the present day, are sixteen in number, of which
only twelve are open. The wall of Romulus had but three or four; and
there has been much discussion among antiquaries, as to their position.
That of Servius had seven; but in the time of Pliny, (in the middle of
the first century) there were no less than thirty-seven gates to the
city. The twelve gates at present in use correspond to some of the
principal gates of former times.
Modern Rome, however, can scarcely be said to rest upon the ancient
base. Scarcely two-thirds of the space within the walls are now
inhabited, and the most thickly peopled district is comprised within
what was anciently the open plain of the Campus Martius. On the other
hand the most populous part of the ancient Rome is now but a landscape;
it would almost seem, indeed, as if the city had slipped off its seven
hills into the plain beneath. A remarkable change, too, has taken place
in the surface of the site itself. In the valleys the ground has been
raised not less than fourteen or fifteen feet. This is strikingly
observable in the Forum, where there has been a great rise above the
ancient level, owing partly to the accumulation of soil and rubbish
brought down by the rains; but chiefly, as there is reason to believe,
to that occasioned by the demolition of ancient buildings, and the
practice which prevailed of erecting new structures upon the prostrate
ruins.
The Tiber, too, still remains; but its present appearance has been
variously estimated. “The Tiber,” says Dr. Burton, “is a stream of which
classical recollections are apt to raise too favourable anticipations.
When we think of the fleets of the capital of the world sailing up it,
and pouring in their treasures of tributary kingdoms, we are likely to
attach to it ideas of grandeur and magnificence. But if we come to the
Tiber with such expectations, our disappointment will be great.”
Sir John Hobhouse speaks differently: “Arrived at the bank of the
Tiber,” he says, speaking of the traveller’s approach to Rome from the
north, across the Ponte Molle, “he does not find the muddy insignificant
stream, which the disappointments of overheated imaginations have
described it; but one of the finest rivers of Europe, now rolling
through a vale of gardens, and now sweeping the base of swelling
acclivities, clothed with wood, and crowned with villas, and their
evergreen shrubberies.” Notwithstanding this, the Tiber can be by no
means called a large river, and it is scarcely navigable even below
Rome, owing to the frequent shoals which impede its course. A
steam-boat, which plies between the capital and Fiumicino, a distance of
about sixteen miles, is generally five or six hours in making the
passage. Ordinary vessels are three days in making their way up the
Tiber to Rome; being towed up always by buffaloes. The velocity of its
current may be estimated from the fact, that it deposits its coarser
gravel thirty miles from the city, and its finer at twelve; it hence
pursues its course to the sea, charged only with a fine yellowish sand,
imparting to its waters that peculiar colour, which poets call golden,
and travellers muddy. Yet these waters enjoyed, at one time, a high
reputation for sweetness and salubrious qualities. Pope Paul the Third
invariably carried a supply of the water of the Tiber with him on his
longest journeys; and his predecessor, Clement the Seventh, was
similarly provided, by order of his physician, when he repaired to
Marseilles, to celebrate the marriage of his niece, Catherine de
Medici, with the brother of the Dauphin, afterwards Henry the Second of
France.
Both within and without the walls of Rome, fragments of aqueducts may be
seen. Of these “some,” says Mr. Woods, “are of stone, others of
brick-work, but the former cannot be traced for any continuance; and
while two or three are sometimes supported on a range of arches, in
other places almost every one seems to have a range to itself. It is
curious to trace these repairs, executed, perhaps, fifteen centuries
ago. The execution of the brick-work, in most instances, or perhaps in
all, shows them to be decidedly prior to the age of Constantine; and the
principal restorations, in all probability, took place when the upper
water-courses were added. They generally consist of brick arches, built
within the ancient stone ones; sometimes resting on the old piers, but
more often carried down to the ground; and, in some cases, the whole
arch has been filled up, or only a mere door-way left at the bottom.
Sometimes this internal work has been wholly, or partially, destroyed;
and sometimes the original stone-work has disappeared, as the owner of
the ground happened to want bricks, or squared stones. In one place the
ancient piers have been entirely buried in the more recent brick-work;
but the brick-work has been broken, and the original stone-work taken
away: presenting a very singular, and, at first sight, wholly
unaccountable appearance. In other parts, the whole has fallen,
apparently without having had these brick additions; for a range of
parallel mounds mark the situation of the prostrated piers.”
“I do not know any thing more striking,” says Simond, “than these
endless arches of Roman aqueducts, pursuing, with great strides, their
irregular course over the desert. They suggest the idea of immensity,
of durability, of simplicity, of boundless power, reckless of cost and
labour, all for a useful purpose, and regardless of beauty. A river in
mid-air, which had been flowing on ceaselessly for fifteen or eighteen
hundred, or two thousand years, poured its cataracts in the streets and
public squares of Rome, when she was mistress, and also when she was the
slave of nations; and quenched the thirst of Attila, and of Genseric, as
it had before quenched that of Brutus and Cæsar, and as it has since
quenched that of beggars and of popes. During those ages of desolation
and darkness, when Rome had almost ceased to be a city, this artificial
river ran to waste among the ruins; but now fills again the numerous and
magnificent fountains of the modern city. Only three out of eleven of
these ancient aqueducts remain entire, and in a state to conduct water;
what, then, must have been the profusion of water to ancient Rome?”
The Tarpeian rock still exists; but has little in its appearance to
gratify the associations of a classic traveller. Seneca describes it as
it existed in his time thus:—“A lofty and precipitous mass rises up,
rugged with many rocks, which either bruise the body to death, or hurry
one down still more violently. The points projecting from the sides, and
the gloomy prospect of its vast height, are truly horrid. This place is
chosen in particular, that the criminals may not require to be thrown
down more than once.”
Poggio Bracciolini gives a melancholy picture of what, in his time, was
the state of this celebrated rock. “This Tarpeian rock was a savage and
solitary thicket. In the time of the poet it was covered with the golden
roofs of a temple; the temple is overthrown, the gold has been pillaged,
the wheel of fortune has accomplished her revolution, and the sacred
ground is again disfigured with thorns and brambles. The hill of the
Capitol, on which we sit, was formerly the head of the Roman empire, the
citadel of the earth, the terror of kings; illustrated by the footsteps
of so many triumphs, enriched with the spoils and attributes of so many
nations. This spectacle of the world, how is it fallen! how changed! how
defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines, and the benches of
the senators are concealed by a dunghill.”
“Like the modern Tiber, the modern Tarpeian,” says an elegant traveller,
“is little able to bear the weight of its ancient reputation.” “The only
precipice that remains,” says another traveller (Mathews) “is one about
thirty feet from the point of a wall, where you might leap down on the
dung, mixed in the fold below, without any fear of breaking your bones.”
The Aqueducts were, beyond all question, some of the noblest designs of
the Romans. Frontinus, a Roman author, and a person of consular dignity,
who compiled a treatise on this subject, affirms them to be the clearest
token of the grandeur of the empire. The first invention of them is
attributed to Appius Claudius, A. U. C. 441, who brought water into the
city by a channel eleven miles in length. But this was very
inconsiderable compared to those that were afterwards carried on by the
emperors and other persons; several of which were cut through the
mountains, and all other impediments, for above forty miles together;
and of such height, that a man on horseback, as Procopius informs us,
might ride through them without the least difficulty. This, however, is
meant only of the constant course of the channel; for the vaults and
arches were, in some places, 109 feet high.
Procopius makes the Aqueducts only fourteen; but Aurelius Victor has
enlarged the number to twenty. The Claudian Aqueduct conveyed 800,000
tons of water each day into the city.
The Forums of Rome were of two kinds; one a place of popular assembly,
both for business, and pleasure; serving at once the purposes of what we
call an Exchange, certain courts of justice, and of hustings for the
election of public functionaries: the other consisted of market-places.
The chief forum was emphatically called the Roman, or the Great Forum.
The second forum, built in Rome, was erected by Julius Cæsar. The third
was called sometimes the Augustan, from its having been formed by
Augustus; and sometimes the Forum of Mars from the temple of that god,
erected by him. Some remains are still in existence. The fourth forum
was begun by Domitian, but being finished by Nerva, it was called after
his name. A fifth forum was built by the emperor Trajan; said to have
been the most celebrated work of the kind in the city. It was built with
the spoils he had taken in his wars. The roof was of brass.