erected, according to Livy (i. 33) by Ancus Martius. "In order to
suppress the terror, the boldness which the vicious assumed from hence
(A.U.C. 121),[1] and which gained ground continually, a prison was
built in the middle of the city, adjoining the Forum." Servius Tullius
added a lower cell, called the TULLIANUM, 6½ feet high and 19 feet by
9. Prisoners who were condemned to be strangled or to die of hunger
were thrust down the aperture; hence the phrase, "to cast into
prison." Sallust ("Catiline," lv.) thus describes it:--
"There is a place in the prison which is called the Tullianum Dungeon.
It is about 12 feet deep in the ground when you have ascended a little
to the left.[2] It is secured round the sides by walls, and over it is
a vaulted roof, connected with stone arches; but its appearance is
disgusting and horrible, by reason of the filth, the obscurity, and
the stench. When Lentulus had been let down into this place, certain
men, to whom orders had been given, strangled him with a cord."
The upper part of the Mamertine Prison was partly rebuilt in the time
of Tiberius, as we know from an inscription remaining in the cornice
over the flight of steps under the church.
C. VIBIUS . C. F. RUFINUS . M. COCCEIUS . NERVA . COS . EX . S. C.
Consuls A.D. 23.
It seems to have been used exclusively for state prisoners. We have
records of the following, amongst others, who were confined here:--
Manlius, who had defended the Capitol against the Gauls.--B.C. 382.
Quintus Pleminius, a prisoner for sedition.--B.C. 194.
Jugurtha, King of Numidia, who was starved to death B.C. 104. He
exclaimed, when cast in, "By Hercules! how cold is this bath of
yours!" (Plutarch, in "Caius Marius"), evidently speaking of the
spring as existing in those days.
Catiline conspirators, strangled by order of the Consul Cicero.--B.C.
55.
Vercingetorix, King of the Gauls, by order of Julius Cæsar.
Sejanus, the minister of Tiberius.--A.D. 31.
Simon, the son of Giora, the defender of Jerusalem against
Vespasian.--A.D. 69.
In the centre of the upper chamber is the round aperture, covered by a
grate, down which the prisoners were cast.
Juvenal says: "Happy ages of the just, happy centuries, it may be
said, those which saw, formerly under the kings, as under the
tribunes, Rome content with one prison."
One prison may have been enough in those times when it was against the
law to confine a Roman citizen before he was tried. We have records of
other prisons. Appius Claudius constructed a prison for common
offenders near the Forum Olitorium, the scene of "Roman Charity." (See
page 190.) Pliny mentions "_Stationes Municipiorum_"--barracks of the
municipal soldiers--near the Forum of Julius Cæsar. These may likewise
have been prisons. In addition to these, there was the _Lautumiæ_.
_Below_ the church, the Chapel of the Crucifixion occupies part of the
buildings of the prison, and from the sacristy a flight of modern
steps leads down into a lower cell, the Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul.
The entrance and steps from the street are also modern. In this
chamber, to the right of the altar, is a closed-up passage; it
evidently communicated with other chambers. On the tufa, carefully
guarded by iron bars, an indentation is shown which, they say, was
caused by the jailers beating Peter's face against the rock. (He must
have had rather a hard head!)
Another flight of modern stairs leads down into the Tullianum: the
opening down which the prisoners were cast can still be seen. The iron
door is the opening of a sewer leading into the Cloaca Maxima, by
which means the dead bodies, &c., were taken away. This drain is of
the same construction as the Cloaca Maxima, and comes from beyond the
other chambers, mentioned below, with which it also communicates.
The Roman Catholic tradition is, that SS. Peter and Paul were confined
here, and they show the pillar to which they are said to have been
chained, though there are no marks of a staple having been fixed in
the stone, as represented in the bronze bas-relief; and a fountain
which miraculously sprang up when they had converted their keepers,
and they wished to be baptized: this was evidently alluded to by
Jugurtha.
The name Mamertine Prison is medieval. By the ancients it was called
_the Prison_, or the Tullian Prison.[3] The two chambers are only a
small part of the ancient prison, which extended up the left side of
the Clivus Argentarius, the modern Via Marforio, and evidences of its
extent can be seen in the cellars of the houses. It evidently extended
up as far as No. 68, for under that wine shop we found two chambers
corresponding with the two under the church. The prison was approached
from the Forum by a flight of stairs called