THE FORUMS AND THE COLISEUM.
Forum of Trajan--(Sta. Maria di Loreto)--Temple of Mars
Ultor--Forum of Augustus--Forum of Nerva--Forum of Julius
Cæsar--(Academy of St. Luke)--Forum Romanum--Tribune--Comitium
--Vulcanal--Temple of Concord--Temple of Vespasian--Temple of
Saturn--Arch of Septimius Severus--Temple of Castor and
Pollux--Pillar of Phocas--Temple of Antoninus and
Faustina--Basilica of Constantine--(Sta. Martina--S. Adriano--Sta.
Maria--Liberatrice, SS. Cosmo and Damian--Sta. Francesca
Romana)--Temple of Venus and Rome--Arch of Titus--(Sta. Maria
Pallara--S. Buonaventura)--Meta Sudans--Arch of
Constantine--Coliseum.
Following the Corso to its end at the Ripresa dei Barberi, and turning
to the left, we find ourselves at once amid the remains of the _Forum of
Trajan_, erected by the architect Apollodorus for the Emperor Trajan on
his return from the wars of the Danube. This forum now presents the
appearance of a ravine between the Capitoline and Quirinal, but is an
artificial hollow, excavated to facilitate the circulation of life
within the city. An inscription over the door of the column, which
overtops the other ruins, shows that it was raised in order to mark the
depth of earth which was removed to construct the forum. The earth was
formerly as high as the top of the column, which reaches, 100 Roman
feet, to the level of the Palatine Hill. The forum was sometimes called
the "Ulpian," from one of the names of the emperor.
"Before the year A.D. 107 the splendours of the city and the Campus
beyond it were still separated by a narrow isthmus, thronged
perhaps by the squalid cabins of the poor, and surmounted by the
remains of the Servian wall which ran along its summit. Step by
step the earlier emperors had approached with their new forums to
the foot of this obstruction. Domitian was the first to contemplate
and commence its removal. Nerva had the fortune to consecrate and
to give his own name to a portion of his predecessor's
construction; but Trajan undertook to complete the bold design, and
the genius of his architect triumphed over all obstacles, and
executed a work which exceeded in extent and splendour any previous
achievement of the kind. He swept away every building on the site,
levelled the spot on which they had stood, and laid out a vast area
of columnar galleries, connecting halls and chambers for public use
and recreation. The new forum was adorned with two libraries, one
for Greek, the other for Roman volumes, and it was bounded on the
west by a basilica of magnificent dimensions. Beyond this basilica,
and within the limits of the Campus, the same architect
(Apollodorus) erected a temple for the worship of Trajan himself;
but this work probably belonged to the reign of Trajan's successor,
and no doubt the Ulpian forum, with all its adjuncts, occupied many
years in building. The area was adorned with numerous statues, in
which the figure of Trajan was frequently repeated, and among its
decorations were groups in bronze or marble, representing his most
illustrious actions. The balustrades and cornices of the whole mass
of buildings flamed with gilded images of arms and horses. Here
stood the great equestrian statue of the emperor; here was the
triumphal arch decreed him by the senate, adorned with sculpture,
which Constantine, two centuries later, transferred without a blush
to his own, a barbarous act of this first Christian emperor, to
which however we probably owe their preservation to this day from
more barbarous spoliation."--_Merivale, Romans under the Empire_,
ch. lxiii.
The beautiful _Column of Trajan_ was erected by the senate and people of
Rome, A.D. 114. It is composed of thirty-four blocks of marble, and is
covered with a spiral band of bas-reliefs illustrative of the Dacian
wars, and increasing in size as it nears the top, so that it preserves
throughout the same proportion when seen from below. It was formerly
crowned by a statue of Trajan, holding a gilt globe, which latter is
still preserved in the Hall of Bronzes in the Capitol. This statue had
fallen from its pedestal long before Sixtus V. replaced it by the
existing figure of St. Peter. At the foot of the column was a sepulchral
chamber, intended to receive the imperial ashes, which were however
preserved in a golden urn, upon an altar in front of it.
"And apostolic statues climb
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime."
_Childe Harold_, cx.
It was while walking in this forum, that Gregory the Great, observing
one of the marble groups which told of a good and great action of
Trajan, lamented bitterly that the soul of so noble a man should be
lost, and prayed earnestly for the salvation of the heathen emperor. He
was told that the soul of Trajan should be saved, but that to ensure
this he must either himself undergo the pains of purgatory for three
days, or suffer earthly pain and sickness for the rest of his life. He
chose the latter, and never after was in health. This incident is
narrated by his three biographers, John and Paul Diaconus, and John of
Salisbury.[50]
The forum of Trajan was partly uncovered by Pope Paul III. in the
sixteenth century, but excavated in its present form by the French in
1812. There is much still buried under the streets and neighbouring
houses.
"All over the surface of what once was Rome it seems to be the
effort of Time to bury up the ancient city, as it were a corpse,
and he the sexton; so that, in eighteen centuries, the soil over
its grave has grown very deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and
the accumulation of more modern decay upon older ruin.
"This was the fate, also, of Trajan's forum, until some papal
antiquary, a few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again,
and disclosed the whole height of the gigantic column, wreathed
round with bas-reliefs of the old emperor's warlike deeds (rich
sculpture, which, twining from the base to the capital, must be an
ugly spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this
huge, storied shaft must be laid before the judgment seat, as a
piece of the evidence of what he did in the flesh). In the area
before the column stands a grove of stone, consisting of the broken
and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, still keeping a majestic
order, and apparently incapable of further demolition. The modern
edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, out of the spoil of
its old magnificence) look down into the hollow space whence these
pillars rise.
"One of the immense gray granite shafts lies in the piazza, on the
verge of the area. It is a great, solid fact of the Past, making
old Rome actually visible to the touch and eye; and no study of
history, nor force of thought, nor magic of song, can so vitally
assure us that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what
its rulers and people wrought. There is still a polish remaining on
the hard substance of the pillar, the polish of eighteen centuries
ago, as yet but half rubbed off."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._
On the north of this forum are two churches: that nearest to the Corso
is _Sta. Maria di Loreto_ (founded by the corporation of bakers in
1500), with a dome surmounted by a picturesque lantern by Giuliano di
Sangallo, c. 1506. It contains a statue of Sta. Susanna (_not_ the
Susanna of the Elders) by _Fiammingo_ (François de Quesnoy), which is
justly considered the chef-d'œuvre of the Bernini School. The
companion church is called _Sta. Maria di Vienna_, and (like Sta. Maria
della Vittoria) commemorates the liberation of Vienna from the Turks in
1683, by Sobieski, king of Poland. It was built by Innocent XI.
Leaving the forum at the opposite corner by the Via Alessandrina, and
passing under the high wall of the Convent of the Nunziatina, a street,
opening on the left, discloses several beautiful pillars, which, after
having borne various names, are now declared to be the remains of the
_Temple of Mars Ultor_, built by Augustus in his new forum, which was
erected in order to provide accommodation for the crowds which
overflowed the Forum Romanum and Forum Julium.
"The title of Ultor marked the war and the victory by which,
agreeably to his vow, Augustus had avenged his uncle's death.
"'Mars ades, et satia scelerato sanguine ferrum;
Stetque favor causa pro meliore tuus.
Templa feres, et, me victore, vocaberis Ultor.'[51]
The porticoes, which extended on each side of the temple with a
gentle curve, contained statues of distinguished Roman generals.
The banquets of the Salii were transferred to this temple, a
circumstance which led to its identification, from the discovery of
an inscription here recording the _mansiones_ of these priests.
Like the priesthood in general, they appear to have been fond of
good living, and there is a well-known anecdote of the Emperor
Claudius having been lured by the steams of their banquet from his
judicial functions in the adjacent forum, to come and take part in
their feast. The temple was appropriated to meetings of the senate
in which matters connected with wars and triumphs were debated....
Here while Tiberius was building a temple to Augustus upon the
Palatine, his golden statue reposed upon a couch."--_Dyer's City of
Rome._
"Up to the time of Augustus, the god Mars, the reputed father of
the Roman race, had never, it is said, enjoyed the distinction of a
temple within the walls. He was then introduced into the city which
he had saved from overthrow and ruin; and the aid he had lent in
bringing the murderers of Cæsar to justice, was signalised by the
title of Avenger, by which he was now specially addressed.... The
temple of Mars Ultor, of gigantic proportions, 'Et deus est ingens
et opus,' was erected in the new forum of Augustus at the foot of
the Capitoline and Quirinal hills."--_Merivale, Romans under the
Empire._
"Ce temple était particulièrement cher à Auguste. Il voulut que les
magistrats en partissent pour aller dans leurs provinces; que
l'honneur du triomphe y fût décerné, et que les triomphateurs y
fissent hommage à Mars Vengeur de leur couronne et de leur sceptre;
que les drapeaux pris à l'ennemi y fussent conservés; que les chefs
de la cavalerie exécutassent des jeux en avant des marches de ce
temple; enfin que les censeurs, en sortant de leur charge, y
plantassent le clou sacré, vieil usage étrusque jusque-là attaché
au Capitole. Auguste désirait que ce temple fondé par lui prît
l'importance du Capitole.
"Il fit dédier le temple par ses petit-fils Caius et Lucius; et son
autre petit-fils, Agrippa, à la tête des plus nobles enfants de
Rome, y célébra le jeu de Troie, qui rappelait l'origine prétendue
troyenne de César; deux cent soixante lions furent égorgés dans la
cirque, c'était leur place; deux troupes de gladiateurs
combattirent dans les Septa ou se faisaient les élections au temps
de la république, comme si Auguste eût voulu, par ces combats qui
se livraient en l'honneur des morts, célébrer les funérailles de la
liberté romaine."--_Ampère, Emp._ i. 224.
The temple of Mars stands at the north-eastern corner of the magnificent
_Forum of Augustus_, which extended from here as far as the present Via
Alessandrina, surpassing in size the forum of Julius Cæsar, to which it
was adjoining. It was of sufficient size to be frequently used for
fights of animals (venationes). Among its ornaments were statues of
Augustus triumphant and of the subdued provinces--with inscriptions
illustrative of the great deeds he had accomplished there; also a
picture by Apelles representing War with her hands bound behind her,
seated upon a pile of arms. Part of the boundary wall exists, enclosing
on two sides the remains of the temple of Mars Ultor, and is constructed
of huge masses of peperino. The arch, in the wall close to the temple,
is known as Arco dei Pantani. The sudden turn in the wall here is
interesting as commemorating a concession made to the wish of some
proprietors, who were unwilling to part with their houses for the sake
of the forum.
"C'est l'histoire du moulin de Sans-Souci, qui du reste paraît
n'être pas vraie.
"Il est piquant d'assister aujourd'hui à ce ménagement d'Auguste
pour l'opinion qu'il voulait gagner. Envoyant le mur s'infléchir
parce-qu'il a fallu épargner quelques maisons, on croit voir la
toute-puissance d'Auguste gauchir à dessein devant les intérêts
particuliers, seule puissance avec laquelle il reste à compter
quand tout intérêt général a disparu. L'obliquité de la politique
d'Auguste est visible dans l'obliquité de ce mur, qui montre et
rend pour ainsi dire palpable le manège adroit de la tyrannie, se
déguisant pour se fonder. Le mur biaise, comme biaisa constamment
l'empereur."--_Ampère, Emp._ i. 233.
(The street on the left--passing the Arco dei Pantani--the Via della
Salita del Grillo, commemorates the approach to the castle of the great
mediæval family Del Grillo; the street on the right leads through the
ancient Suburra.)
At the corner of the next street (Via della Croce Bianca)--on the left
of the Via Alessandrina--is the ruin called the "Colonnace," being part
of the _Portico of Pallas Minerva_, which decorated the _Forum
Transitorium_, begun by Domitian, but dedicated in the short reign of
Nerva, and hence generally called the _Forum of Nerva_, on account of
the execration with which the memory of Domitian was regarded. Up to the
seventeenth century seven magnificent columns of the temple of Minerva
were still standing, but they were destroyed by Paul V., who used part
of them in building the Fontana Paolina. The existing remains consist of
two half-buried Corinthian columns with a figure of Minerva, and a
frieze of bas-reliefs.
"Les bas-reliefs du forum de Nerva représentent des femmes occupées
des travaux d'aiguille, auxquels présidait Minerve. Quand on se
rappelle, que Domitien avait placé à Albano, près du temple de
cette déesse, un collège de prêtres qui imitaient la parure et les
mœurs de femmes, on est tenté de croire qu'il y a dans le choix
des subjets figurés ici une allusion aux habitudes efféminées de
ces prétres."--_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 161.
"The portico of the temple of Minerva is most rich and beautiful in
architecture, but woefully gnawed by time, and shattered by
violence, besides being buried midway in the accumulation of the
soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood-tide. Within this
edifice of antique sanctity a baker's shop is now established, with
an entrance on one side; for everywhere, the remnants of old
grandeur and divinity have been made available for the meanest
neccessities of to-day."--_Hawthorne._
It was in this forum that Nerva caused Vetronius Turinus, who had
trafficked with his court interest, to be suffocated with smoke, a
herald proclaiming at the time, "Fumo punitur qui vendidit fumum."
Returning a short distance down the Via Alessandrina, and turning (left)
down the Via Bonella, we traverse the site of the _Forum of Julius
Cæsar_, upon which 4000 sestertia (800,000 _l._) were expended, and
which is described by Dion-Cassius as having been more beautiful than
the Forum Romanum. It was ornamented with a Temple of Venus
Genetrix--from whom Julius Cæsar claimed to be descended--which
contained a statue of the goddess by Archesilaus, a statue of Cæsar
himself, and a group of Ajax and Medea by Timomacus. Here, also, Cæsar
had the effrontery to place the statue of his mistress, Cleopatra, by
the side of that of the goddess. In front of the temple stood a bronze
figure of a horse--supposed to be the famous Bucephalus--the work of
Lysippus.
"Cedat equus Latiæ qui, contra templa Diones,
Cæsarei stat sede Fori. Quem tradere es ausus
Pellæo Lysippa Duci, mox Cæsaris ora
Aurata cervice tulit."
_Statius, Silv._ i. 84.
The only visible remains of this forum are some courses of huge square
blocks of stone (Lapis Gabinus), in a dirty court.
Part of the site of the forum of Julius Cæsar is now occupied--on the
right near the end of the Via Bonella--by the _Accademia di San Luca_,
founded in 1595, Federigo Zuccaro being its first director. The
collections are open from 9 to 5 daily. A ceiling representing Bacchus
and Ariadne, is by _Guido_. The best pictures are:--
Bacchus and Ariadne: _Poussin_.
Vanity: _Paul Veronese_.
Calista and the Nymphs: _Titian_.
The murder of Lucretia: _Guido Cagnacci_.
Fortune: _Guido_.
Innocent XI.: _Velasquez_.
The Saviour and the Pharisee: _Titian_.
A lovely fresco of a child: _Raphael_.
St. Luke painting the Virgin: _Attributed to Raphael_.
"St. Luke painting the Virgin has been a frequent and favourite
subject. The most famous of all is a picture in the Academy of St.
Luke, ascribed to Raphael. Here St. Luke, kneeling on a footstool
before an easel, is busied painting the Virgin with the Child in
her arms, who appears to him out of heaven, sustained by clouds;
behind St. Luke stands Raphael himself, looking on."--_Mrs.
Jameson._
A skull preserved here was long supposed to be that of Raphael, but his
true skull has since been found in his grave in the Pantheon.
"On a longtemps vénéré ici un crâne que l'on croyait être celui de
Raphael; crâne étroit sur lequel les phrénologistes auront prononcé
de vains oracles, devant lequel on aura bien profondément rêvé et
qui n'était que celui d'un obscur chanoine bien innocent de toutes
ces imaginations."--_A. Du Pays._
Just beyond St. Luca, we enter the Forum Romanum.
* * * * *
The interest of Rome comes to its climax in the Forum. In spite of all
that is destroyed, and all that is buried, so much still remains to be
seen, and every stone has its story. Even without entering into all the
vexed archæological questions which have filled the volumes of Canina,
Bunsen, Niebuhr, and many others, the occupation which a traveller
interested in history will find here is all but inexhaustible; and,
after the disputes of centuries, the different sites seem now to be
verified with tolerable certainty. The study of the Roman Forum is
complicated by the _succession_ of public edifices by which it has been
occupied, each period of Roman history having a different set of
buildings, and each in a great measure supplanting that which went
before. Another difficulty has naturally arisen from the exceedingly
circumscribed space in which all these buildings have to be arranged,
and which shows that many of the ancient temples must have been mere
chapels, and the so-called "lakes" little more than fountains.
"This spot, where the senate had its assemblies, where the rostra
were placed, where the destinies of the world were discussed, is
the most celebrated and the most classical of ancient Rome. It was
adorned with the most magnificent monuments, which were so crowded
upon one another, that their heaped-up ruins are not sufficient for
all the names which are handed down to us by history. The course of
centuries has overthrown the Forum, and made it impossible to
define; the level of the ancient soil is twenty-four feet below
that of to-day, and however great a desire one may feel to
reproduce the past, it must be acknowledged that this very
difference of level is a terrible obstacle to the powers of
imagination; again, the uncertainties of archæologists are
discouraging to curiosity and the desire of illusion. For more than
three centuries learning has been at work upon this field of ruins,
without being able even to agree upon its bearings; some describing
it as extending from north to south, others from east to west. The
origin of the Forum goes back to the alliance of the Romans and
Sabines. It was a space surrounded by marshes, which extended
between the Palatine and the Capitol, occupied by the two colonies,
and serving as a neutral ground where they could meet. The Curtian
Lake was situated in the midst. Constantly adorned under the
republic and the empire, it appears that it continued to exist
until the eleventh century. Its total ruin dates from Robert
Guiscard, who, when called to the assistance of Gregory VII., left
it a heap of ruins. Abandoned for many centuries, it became a
receptacle for rubbish, which gradually raised the level of the
soil. About 1547, Paul III. began to make excavations in the Forum.
Then the place became a cattle-market, and the glorious name of
Forum Romanum changed into that of Campo Vaccino.
"The Forum was surrounded by a portico of two stories, the lower of
which was occupied by shops (tabernæ). In the beginning of the
sixth century of Rome, two fires destroyed part of the edifices
with which it had been embellished. This was an opportunity for
isolating the Forum, and basilicas and temples were raised in
succession along its sides, which in their turn were partly
destroyed in the fire of Nero. Domitian rebuilt a part, and added
the temple of Vespasian, and Antoninus that of Faustina."--_A. Du
Pays._
The excavations which were made in the Forum before 1871 are for the
most part due to the generosity of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The
papal government always displayed the most extraordinary apathy about
extending them, and, when a large excavation was made in the winter of
1869--70, by the British Archæological Society, in front of the Church
of Sta. Martina, insisted on its being immediately filled up again,
instead of extending it, as might easily have been done, to join the
excavation which had long existed on the Clivus Capitolinus. Lately the
excavations have been considerably increased, but were the roads
leading to the Forum to be closed, and a large body of efficient
labourers set to work, the whole of the Roman Forum and its surroundings
might be laid bare in a month, without any injury to the interesting
churches in its neighbourhood. At present, even that part which is
disinterred is cut up by a number of raised causeways, which distract
the eye and mar the general effect, and the excavations, recommenced by
the Italian government, are slowly and inadequately carried on.
If we stand on the causeway in front of the arch of Septimius Severus,
and turn towards the Capitol, we look upon the Clivus Capitolinus, which
is perfectly crowded with historical sites and fragments, viz.:--
1. The modern Capitol, resting on the _Tabularium_. This is one of the
earliest architectural relics in Rome. It is built in the Etruscan
style, of huge blocks of tufa or peperino placed long-and cross-ways
alternately. It was formerly composed of two stages called Camellaria.
Only the lower now remains. It contained the tables of the laws. The
corridor which remains in the interior is used as a museum of
architectural fragments. The Tabularium probably communicated with the
_Ærarium_ in the temple of Saturn.
2. On the right of the excavated space, and nearest the Tabularium, the
site of the _Tribune_, in front of which were the _Rostra_, to which the
head of Octavius was affixed by Marius, and the head and hand of Cicero
by Antony, and where Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, spat in his dead
face, and pierced his inanimate tongue with the pin which she wore in
her hair. In front of the rostrum were the statues of the three Sibyls
called Tria Fata.
3. Below, a little(**typo? little?) more to the right, is the site of
the _Comitium_, where the survivor of the Horatii was condemned to
death, and saved by the voice of the people. Here, also, was the
trophied pillar which bore the arms of the Curiatii. In the area of the
Comitium grew the famous fig-tree which was always preserved here in
commemoration of the tree under which Romulus and Remus were suckled by
the wolf, and beneath which was a bronze representation of the wolf and
the children.
4. A little more to the left, is the site of _the Vulcanal_, so called
from an altar dedicated to Vulcan, a platform (still defined) where, in
the earliest times, Romulus and Tatius used to meet on intermediate
ground and transact affairs common to both; and where Brutus was seated,
when, without any change of countenance, he saw his two sons beaten and
beheaded. Adjoining the Vulcanal was the _Græcostasis_, where foreign
ambassadors waited before they were admitted to an audience of the
senate.
5. Below the Vulcanal, and just behind the Arch of Severus, is the site
of the _Temple of Concord_, dedicated, with blasphemous
inappropriateness, B.C. 121, by the consul Opimius, immediately after
the murder of Caius Gracchus. Here Cicero pronounced his orations
against Catiline before the senate. A pavement of coloured marbles
remains. At its base are still to be seen some small remains of the
_Colonna Mænia_, which was surmounted by the statue of C. Mænius, who
decorated the rostra with the iron beaks of vessels taken in war.
6. The three beautiful columns which are still standing were attributed
to a temple of Jupiter Tonans, but are now decided to belong to the
_Temple of Vespasian_. The engravings of Piranesi represent them as
buried almost to their capitals, and they remained in this state until
they were disinterred during the first French occupation. The space was
so limited in this part of Rome, that in order to prevent encroaching
upon the street Clivus Capitolinus, which descends the hill between this
temple and that of Saturn, the temple of Vespasian was raised on a kind
of terrace, and the staircase which led to it was thrust in between the
columns. This temple was restored by Septimius Severus, and to this the
letters on the entablature refer, being part of the word _Restituere_.
Instruments of sacrifice are sculptured on the frieze.
7. On the left of the excavated space, close beneath the Tabularium, a
low range of columns recently re-erected represents the building called
the _School of Xanthus_, chambers, for the use of the scribes and
persons in the service of the curule ædiles, which derived their name
from Xanthus, a freedman, by whom they were rebuilt.
8. The eight Ionic columns still standing, part of the _Temple of
Saturn_, the ancient god of the Capitol. Before this temple Pompey sate
surrounded by soldiers, listening to the orations which Cicero was
delivering from the rostrum, when he received the personal address, "Te
enim jam appello, et ea voce ut me exaudire possis." Here the tribune
Metellus flung himself before the door and vainly attempted to defend
the treasure of the _Ærarium_ in this temple against Julius Cæsar. The
present remains are those of an indifferent and late renovation of an
earlier temple, being composed of columns which differ in diameter, and
a frieze put together from fragments which do not belong to one another.
The original temple was built by Tarquin, and was supposed to mark the
site of the ancient Sabine altar of the god and the limit of the wood of
refuge mentioned by Virgil.
9. Just below the Temple of Saturn is the site of the _Arch of
Tiberius_, erected, according to Tacitus, upon the recovery by
Germanicus of the standards which Varus had lost.
10. The remains of the _Milliarium Aureum_, which formed the upper
extremity of a wall faced with marbles, ending near the arch of Severus
in a small conical pyramid. Distances without the walls were inscribed
upon the Milliarium Aureum, as distances within the walls were upon the
pyramid (from which in this case they were also measured) which bore the
name of _Umbilicus Romæ_. The Via Sacra, which is still visible,
descended from the Capitol between the temples of Saturn and
Vespasian,--being known here as the Clivus Capitolinus, and passed to
the left of--
11. The _Arch of Septimius Severus_, which was erected by the senate
A.D. 205, in honour of that emperor and his two sons, Caracalla and
Geta. It is adorned with bas-reliefs relating his victories in the
east,--his entry into Babylon and the tower of the temple of Belus are
represented. A curious memorial of imperial history may be observed in
the inscription, where we may still discern the erasure made by
Caracalla after he had put his brother Geta to death in A.D. 213, for
the sake of obliterating his memory. The added words are OPTIMIS
FORTISSIMISQVE PRINCIPIBUS--but the ancient inscription P. SEPT. LVC.
FIL. GETÆ. NOBILISS. CÆSARI, has been made out by painstaking
decipherers. In one of the piers is a staircase leading to the top of
the arch which was formerly (as seen from coins of Severus and
Caracalla) adorned by a car drawn by six horses abreast, and containing
figures of Severus and his sons. It was in front of this arch that the
statue of Marcus Aurelius stood, which is now at the Capitol.
"Les proportions de l'arc de Septime-Sévère sont encore belles.
L'aspect en est imposant; il est solide sans être lourd. La grande
inscription où se lisent les épithètes victorieuses qui rappellent
les succès militaires de l'empereur, Parthique, Dacique,
Adiabénique, se déploie sur une vaste surface et donne à
l'entablement un air de majesté qu'admirent les artistes. Cette
inscription est doublement historique; elle rappelle les campagnes
de Sévère et la tragédie domestique qui après lui ensanglanta sa
famille, le meurtre d'un de ses fils immolé par l'autre, et
l'acharnement de celui-ci à poursuivre la mémoire du frère qu'il
avait fait assassiner. Le nom de Géta a été visiblement effacé par
Caracalla. La même chose se remarque dans une inscription sur
bronze qu'on voit au Capitale et sur le petit arc du Marché aux
bœufs dont j'ai parlé, où l'image de Géta a été effacée comme
son nom. Caracalla ne permit pas même à ce nom proscrit de se
cacher parmi les hiéroglyphes. En Egypte, ceux qui composaient le
nom de Géta ont été grattés sur les monuments."--_Ampère, Emp._ ii.
278.
(The excavations in thé Forum are open to the public on the same days as
the Palace of the Cæsars--Thursdays and Sundays.)
The platform on which we have been standing leads to the Via della
Consolazione, occupying the site of the ancient _Vicus Jugarius_, where
Augustus erected an altar to Ceres, and another to Ops Augusta, the
goddess of wealth. (In this street, on the left, is a good cinque-cento
doorway.) Where this street leaves the Forum was the so-called _Lacus
Servilius_, a basin which probably derived its name from Servilius Ahala
(who slew the philanthropist Sp. Mælius with a dagger near this very
spot), and which was encircled with a ghastly row of heads in the
massacres under Sylla. This fountain was adorned by M. Aggrippa with a
figure of a hydra. The right side of the Forum is now occupied for a
considerable distance by the disinterred remains of the _Basilica
Julia_, begun by Julius Cæsar, and finished by Augustus, who dedicated
it in honour of his daughter. A basilica of this description was
intended partly as a Law Court and partly as an Exchange. In this
basilica the judges called Centumviri held their courts, which were four
in number:
"Jam clamor, centumque viri, densumque coronæ
Vulgus: et infanti Julia tecta placent."
_Martial_, vi. _Ep._ 38.
Beyond the basilica are three beautiful columns which belong to a
restoration of the _Temple of Castor and Pollux_, dedicated by
Postumius, B.C. 484. Here costly sacrifices were always offered in the
ides of July, at the anniversary of the battle of the Lake Regillus,
after which the Roman knights, richly clothed, crowned with olive, and
bearing their trophies, rode past it in military procession, starting
from the temple of Mars outside the Porta Capena. The entablature which
the three columns support is of great richness, and the whole fragment
is considered to be one of the finest existing specimens of the
Corinthian order. None of the Roman ruins have given rise to more
discussion than this. It has perpetually changed its name. Bunsen and
many other authorities considered it to belong to the temple of Minerva
Chalcidica; but as it is known that the position of the now discovered
Basilica Julia was exactly between the temple of Saturn and that of
Castor, and a passage of Ovid describes the latter as being close to the
site of the temple of Vesta, which is also ascertained, it seems almost
certain now that it belonged to the temple of the Dioscuri. Dion-Cassius
mentions that Caligula made this temple a vestibule to his house on the
Palatine.
Here, on the right, branches off the Via dei Fienili, once the _Vicus
Tuscus_, or Etruscan quarter (see Chap. V.), leading to the Circus
Maximus. At its entrance was the bronze statue of Vertumnus, the god of
Etruria, and patron of the quarter. The long trough-shaped fountain
here, at which such picturesque groups of oxen and buffaloes are
constantly standing, is a memorial of the _Lake of Juturna_ the sister
of Turnus, or as she was sometimes described, the wife of Janus the
Sabine war-god. This fountain, for such it must have been, was dried up
by Paul V.
"At quæ venturas præcedit sexta kalendas,
Hac sunt Ledæis templa dicata deis.
Fratribus illa deis fratres de gente deorum
Circa Juturnæ composuere lacus."
_Ovid, Fast._ i. 705.
Here, close under the Palatine, is the site of the famous _Temple of
Vesta_, in which the sacred fire was preserved, with the palladium saved
from Troy. On the altar of this temple, blood was sprinkled annually
from the tail of the horse which was sacrificed to Mars in the
Campus-Martius. The foundation of the temple was attributed to Numa, but
the worship must have existed in Pelasgic times, as the mother of
Romulus was a vestal. It was burnt down in the fire of Nero, rebuilt and
again burnt down under Commodus, and probably restored for the last time
by Heliogabalus. Here, during the consulate of the young Marius, the
high priest Scævola was murdered, splashing the image of Vesta with his
blood,--and here (A.D. 68) Piso, the adopted son of Galba, was murdered
in the sanctuary whither he had fled for refuge, and his head, being cut
off, was affixed to the rostra. Behind the temple, along the lower ridge
of the Palatine, stretched the sacred grove of Vesta, and the site of
the Church of Sta. Maria Liberatrice was occupied by the _Atrium Vestæ_,
a kind of convent for the vestal virgins. Here Numa Pompilius fixed his
residence, hoping to conciliate both the Latins of the Palatine and the
Sabines of the Capitoline by occupying a neutral ground between them.
"Quæris iter? dicam, vicinum Castora, canæ
Transibis Vestæ, virgineamque domum,
Inde sacro veneranda petes palatia Clivo."
_Martial_, i. _Ep._ 70.
"Hic focus est Vestæ, qui Pallada servat et ignem.
Hic fuit antiqui regia parva Numæ."
_Ovid, Trist._ iii. _El._ 1.
"Hic locus exiguus, qui sustinet atria Vestæ,
Tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numæ.
Forma tamen templi, quae nunc manet, ante fuisse
Dicitur; et formæ causa probanda subest.
Vesta eadem est, et Terra; subest vigil ignis utrique,
Significant sedem terra focusque suam.
Terra pilæ similis, nullo fulcimine nixa,
Aëre subjecto tam grave pendet onus.
Arte Syracosia suspensus in aëre clauso
Stat globus, immensi parva figura poli;
Et quantum a summis, tantum secessit ab imis
Terra. Quod ut fiat, forma rotunda facit.
Par facies templi: nullus procurrit ab illo
Angulus. A pluvio vindicat imbre tholus."
_Ovid, Fast._ vi. 263.
"Servat et Alba, Lares, et quorum lucet in aris
Ignis adhuc Phrygius, nullique adspecta virorum
Pallas, in abstruso pignus memorabile templo."
_Lucan_, ix. 992.
Close to the temple of Vesta was the _Regia_, where Julius Cæsar lived
(as pontifex maximus)--where Pompeia his second wife admitted her lover
Clodius in the disguise of a woman to the mysteries of the Bona
Dea--whence Cæsar went forth to his death--and from which his last wife
Calpurnia rushed forth with loud outcries to receive his dead body.
Somewhere in this part of the Forum was the famous _Curtian Lake_, so
called from Mettus Curtius, a Sabine warrior, who with difficulty
escaped from its quagmires to the Capitol after a battle between Romulus
and Tatius.[52] Tradition declares that the quagmire afterwards became a
gulf, which an oracle declared would never close until that which was
most important to the Roman people was sacrificed to it. Then the young
Marcus Curtius, equipped in full armour, leapt his horse into the abyss,
exclaiming that nothing was more important to the Roman people than arms
and courage; and the gulf was closed.[53] Two altars were afterwards
erected on the site to the two heroes, and a vine and an olive tree grew
there.[54]
"Hoc, ubi nunc fora sunt, udæ tenuere paludes:
Amne redundatis fossa madebat aquis.
Curtius ille lacus, siccas qui sustinet aras,
Nunc solida est tellus, sed lacus ante fuit."
_Ovid, Fast._ vi. 401.
Some fountain, like those of Servilius and Juturna, bearing the name of
Lacus Curtius must have existed on this site to imperial times, for the
Emperor Galba was murdered there.
"A single cohort still surrounded Galba, when the standard-bearer
tore the Emperor's image from his spear-head, and dashed it on the
ground. The soldiers were at once decided for Otho; swords were
drawn, and every symptom of favour for Galba amongst the bystanders
was repressed by menaces, till they dispersed and fled in horror
from the Forum. At last, the bearers of the emperor's litter
overturned it at the Curtian pool beneath the Capitol. In a few
moments enemies swarmed around his body. A few words he muttered,
which have been diversely reported: some said that they were abject
and unbecoming; others affirmed that he presented his neck to the
assassin's sword, and bade him strike 'if it were for the good of
the republic;' but none listened, none perhaps heeded the words
actually spoken; Galba's throat was pierced, but even the author of
his mortal wound was not ascertained, while his breast being
protected by the cuirass, his legs and arms were hacked with
repeated gashes."--_Merivale_, vii. 73.
At the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, on the left (looking towards the
Arch of Titus) stood the _Temple of Janus Quirinus_, between the great
Forum and the Forum of Julius Cæsar, and near the ascent to the Porta
Janualis, by which Tarpeia admitted the Sabines to the Capitol.
Procopius, in the sixth century, saw the little bronze temple of Janus
still standing. This was one of many temples of the great Sabine god.
"Quum tot sint Jani; cur stas sacratus in uno,
Hic ubi juncta foris templa duobus habes?"
_Ovid, Fast._ i. 257.
This was the temple which was the famous index of peace and war, closed
by Augustus for the third time from its foundation after the victory of
Actium.[55]
" ...et vacuum duellis
Janum Quirini clausit, et ordinem
Rectum, et vaganti fræna licentiæ
Injecit."
_Horace_, Ode iv. 15.
Besides this temple there were three arches, whose sites are unknown,
dedicated to Janus in different parts of the Forum.
" ...Hæc Janus summus ab imo
Perdocet----"
_Horace, Ep._ i. 1, 54.
The central arch was the resort of brokers and money-lenders.[56]
" ...Postquam omnis res mea Janum
Ad medium fracta est."
_Hor. Sat._ ii. 3, 18.
Along this side of the Forum stood the _Tabernæ Argentariæ_, the
silversmiths' shops, and beyond them--probably in front of S.
Adriano--were the Tabernæ Novæ, where Virginia was stabbed by her father
with a butcher's knife, which he had seized from one of the stalls,
saying, "This, my child, is the only way to keep thee free," as he
plunged it into her heart.[57] Near this also was the statue of Venus
Cloacina.[58]
The front of the Church of S. Adriano is a fragment of the _Basilica of
Æmilius Paulus_, built with part of 1500 talents which Cæsar had sent
from Gaul to win him over to his party. This basilica occupied the site
of the famous _Curia_ of Tullus Hostilius.
"Là se réunit, pour la première fois sous un toit, le conseil des
anciens rois que le savant Properce, avec un sentiment vrai des
antiquités romaines, nous montre tel qu'il était dans l'origine, se
rassemblant au son de la trompe pastorale dans un pré, comme le
peuple dans certains petits cantons de la Suisse."--_Ampère, Hist.
Rom._ ii. 310.
The Curia was capable of containing six hundred senators, their number
in the time of the Gracchi. It had no tribune,--each speaker rose in
turn and spoke in his place. Here was "the hall of assembly in which the
fate of the world was decided." The Curia was destroyed by fire, which
it caught from the funeral pyre of Clodius. Around the Curia stood many
statues of Romans who had rendered especial service to the state. The
Curia Julia occupied the site of the Curia Hostilia in the early part of
the reign of Augustus. Close by the old Curia was the _Basilica Porcia_,
built by Cato the Censor, which was likewise burnt down at the funeral
of Clodius. Near this, the base of the rostral column, _Colonna Duilia_,
has been found.
Opposite the Basilica Julia, in the depth of the Forum, is the _Column
of Phocas_, raised to that emperor by the exarch Smaragdus in 608. This
is--
"The nameless column with a buried base,"
of Byron, but is now neither nameless nor buried, its pedestal having
been laid bare by the Duchess of Devonshire in 1813, and bearing an
inscription which shows an origin that no one ever anticipated.
"In the age of Phocas (602--610), the art of erecting a column like
that of Trajan or M. Aurelius had been lost. A large and handsome
Corinthian pillar, taken from some temple or basilica, was
therefore placed in the Forum, on a huge pyramidal basis quite out
of proportion to it, and was surmounted with a statue of Phocas in
gilt bronze. It has so little the appearance of a monumental
column, that for a long while it was thought to belong to some
ruined building, till, in 1813, the inscription was discovered. The
name of Phocas had, indeed, been erased; but that it must have been
dedicated to him is shown by the date.... The base of this column,
discovered by the excavations of 1816 to have rested on the ancient
pavement of the Forum, proves that this former centre of Roman life
was still, at the beginning of the seventh century, unencumbered
with ruins."--_Dyer's History of the City of Rome._
"Ce monument et l'inscription qui l'accompagne sont précieux pour
l'histoire, car ils montrent le dernier terme de l'avilissement où
Rome devait tomber. Smaragdus est le premier magistrat de
Rome,--mais ce magistrat est un préfet, l'élu du pouvoir impérial
et non de ses concitoyens;--il commande, non, il est vrai, à la
capitale du monde, mais au chef-lieu du duché de Rome. Ce préfet,
qui n'est connu de l'histoire que par ses lâches ménagements envers
les Barbares, imagine de voler une colonne à un beau temple, au
temple d'un empereur de quelque mérite, pour la dédier à un
exécrable tyran monté sur le trône par des assassinats, au
meurtrier de l'empereur Maurice, à l'ignoble Phocas, que tout le
monde connaît, grâce à Corneille, qui l'a encore trop ménagé. Et le
plat drôle ose appeler très-clément celui qui fit égorger sous les
yeux de Maurice ses quatre fils avant de l'égorger lui-même. Il
décerne le titre de triomphateur à Phocas, qui laissa conquérir par
Chosroès une bonne part de l'empire. Il ose écrire: 'pour les
innombrables bienfaits de sa piété, pour le repos procuré à
l'Italie et à la liberté.' Ainsi l'histoire monumentale de la Rome
de l'empire finit honteusement par un hommage ridicule de la
bassesse à la violence."--_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 389.
A little behind the Column of Phocas are the marble slabs commemorating
the sacrifices called Suovetaurilia, consisting of a pig, a sheep, and
an ox, animals which are sculptured here in bold relief. On the side
towards the Capitol a number of figures are represented, amongst them a
woman presenting a child to the emperor, in reference to Trajan's asylum
for orphans, or for those who were too poor to bring up their children.
On the other side is a burning of deeds in reference to the famous
remission of debts by Trajan.
Beyond this, on the left, the base of the famous statue of Domitian has
been discovered as described by Statius:
"Ipse loci custos, cujus sacrata vorago,
Famosusque lacus nomen memorabile servat."
_Silv._ i. 66.
Here the Via Sacra turns, almost continuing the Vicus Tuscus. On its
right, on a line with the Temple of the Dioscuri, has been discovered
the base of the small Temple of Julius Cæsar (Ædes Divi Julii),[59]
which was surrounded with a colonnade of closely-placed columns and
surmounted by a statue of the deified triumvir. This was the first
temple in Rome which was dedicated to a mortal.
"Fratribus assimilis, quos proxima templa tenentes
Divus ab excelsa Julius æde videt."
_Ovid, Pont. El._ ii. 2.
Dion Cassius narrates that this temple was erected on the spot where the
body of Julius was burnt. It was adorned by Augustus with the beaks of
the vessels taken in the battle of Actium, and hence obtained the name
of Rostra Julia. He also placed here the statue of Venus Anadyomene of
Apelles, because Cæsar had claimed descent from that goddess. Here, in
A.D. 14, the body of Augustus, being brought from Nola, where he died,
was placed upon a bier, while Tiberius pronounced a funeral oration over
it, before it was carried to the Campus Martius.
The road turns again in front of the remains of the _Temple of Antoninus
and Faustina_, erected by the flattery of the senate to the memory of
the licentious Empress Faustina, the faithless wife of Antoninus Pius,
whom they elevated to the rank of a goddess. Her husband, dying before
its completion, was associated in her honours, and the inscription,
which still remains on the portico, is "DIVO ANTONINO ET DIVÆ FAUSTINÆ.
EX. S. C." The front of the temple is adorned with eight columns of
cipolino, forty-three feet high, supporting a frieze ornamented with
griffins and candelabra. The effect of these remains would be
magnificent if the modern road were removed, and the temple were laid
bare in its full height, with the twenty-one steps which formerly led to
it. It is also greatly injured by the hideous Church of S. Lorenzo in
Miranda, which encloses the cella of the temple, and whose name, says
Ampère, naively expresses the admiration in which its builders held
these remains.[60]
On the left we now reach the Church of SS. Cosmo and Damian, considered
by Nibby and others to occupy the site of a temple of Remus. Ampère has
since proved that this temple never existed, and that the remains are
those of a _Temple of the Penates_, rebuilt by Augustus. Here Valerius
Publicola had a house, to which he removed from the Velia, in deference
to the wishes of the Roman people.
"Le sentiment d'effroi que la demeure féodale des Valérius causait,
était pareille à celui qu'inspiraient aux Romains du moyen âge les
tours des barons, que le peuple, dès qu'il était le maître, se
hâtait de démolir. Valerius n'attendit pas qu'on se portât à cette
extrémité, et il vint habiter au pied de la Velia. C'est le premier
triomphe des plébéiens sur l'aristocratie romaine et la première
concession de cette aristocratie."--_Ampère, Hist. Rom._ ii. 274.
A little further on are three gigantic arches, being all that remains of
the magnificent _Basilica of Constantine_, which was 320 feet in length
and 235 feet in width. The existing ruins are those of one of the aisles
of the basilica. There are traces of an entrance towards the Coliseum.
The roof was supported by eight Corinthian columns, of which one,
remaining here till the time of Paul V., was removed by him to the
piazza of Sta. Maria Maggiore, where it still stands. This site was
previously occupied by the _Temple of Peace_, burnt down in the time of
Commodus. This temple was the great museum of Rome under the empire, and
contained the seven-branched candlestick and other treasures brought
from Jerusalem,[61] as well as all the works of art which had been
collected in the palace of Nero and which were removed hither by
Vespasian. A statue of the Nile, with children playing around it, is
mentioned by Pliny as among the sights in the temple of Peace.[62]
It was near this that the Via Sacra was crossed by the _Arch of Fabius_,
erected B.C. 121, in honour of the conqueror of the Allobroges,--the
then inhabitants of Savoy. Close to this portion of the Via Sacra also
stood a statue of Valeria, daughter of Publicola, by whom the honours of
the virgin Clœlia were disputed.
Besides those which we have noticed, there is mention in classical
authors of many other buildings and statues which were once crowded into
this narrow space; but all trace of many even of those enumerated is
still buried many feet below the soil.
The modern name of _Campo Vaccino_, by which the Forum is now known, is
supposed by some antiquaries to be derived from Vitruvius Vacco, who
once had a house there.
"La guerre aux habitants de Privernum (Piperno) rattache à une
localité du Palatin.... Les habitants de Fondi avaient fait cause
commune avec les habitants de Privernum. Leur chef, Vitruvius
Vacca, possedait une maison sur le Palatin; c'était un homme
considérable dans son pays et même à Rome. Ils demandèrent et
obtinrent grâce. Privernum fut pris, et Vitruvius Vacca, qui s'y
était réfugié, conduit à Rome, enfermé dans le prison Mamertine
pour y être gardé jusqu'au retour du consul, et alors battu de
verges et mis à mort; sa maison du Palatin fut rasée, et le lieu où
elle avait été garda le nom de _Prés de Vacca_."--_Ampère, Histoire
Romaine_, iii. 17.
But the name will seem singularly appropriate to those who are familiar
with the groups of meek-faced oxen of the Campagna, which are always to
be seen lying in the shade under the trees of the Forum, or drinking at
its water-troughs.
"'Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire Carinis.'
"Ce vers m'a toujours profondément frappé, lorsque je traversais le
Forum, aujourd'hui Campo-Vaccino (le champ du bétail); je voyais
en effet presque toujours à son extrémité des bœufs couchés au
pied du Palatin. Virgile, se reportant de la Rome de son temps à la
Rome ancienne d'Evandre, ne trouvait pas d'image plus frappante du
changement produit par les siècles, que la présence d'un troupeau
de bœufs dans le lieu destiné à être le Forum. Eh bien, le jour
devait venir où ce qui était pour Virgile un passé lointain et
presque incroyable se reproduirait dans la suite des âges; le Forum
devait être de nouveau un lieu agreste, ses magnificences s'en
aller et les bœufs y revenir.
"J'aimais à les contempler à travers quelques colonnes moins
vieilles que les souvenirs qu'ils me retracaient, reprenant
possession de ce sol d'où les avait chassés la liberté, la gloire,
Cicéron, César, et où devait les ramener la plus grande vicissitude
de l'historie, la destruction de l'empire romain per les barbares.
Ce que Virgile trouvait si étrange dans le passé n'étonne plus dans
le présent; les bœufs mugissent au Forum; ils s'y couchent et y
ruminent aujourd'hui, de même qu'au temps d'Evandre et comme s'il
n'était rien arrivé."--Ampère, Hist. Rom. 1. 211.
"In many a heap the ground
Heaves, is if Ruin in a frantic mood
Had done his utmost. Here and there appears,
As left to show his handy-work not ours,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,
A wall of some great temple. It was once,
And long, the centre of their Universe,
The Forum--whence a mandate, eagle-winged,
Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend
Slowly. At every step much may be lost,
The very dust we tread stirs as with life,
And not a breath but from the ground sends up
Something of human grandeur.
* * * * *
Now all is changed; and here, as in the wild,
The day is silent, dreary as the night;
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd,
Savage alike; or they that would explore,
Discuss, and learnedly; or they that come,
(And there are many who have crossed the earth,)
That they may give the hours to meditation,
And wander, often saving to themselves,
'This was the Roman Forum!'"
_Rogers' Italy._
"We descended into the Forum, the light fast fading away and
throwing a kindred soberness over the scene of ruin. The soil has
risen from rubbish at least fifteen feet, so that no wonder that
the hills look lower than they used to do, having been never very
considerable at the first. There it was one scene of desolation,
from the massy foundation-stones of the Capitoline Temple, which
were laid by Tarquinius the Proud, to a single pillar erected in
honour of Phocas, the eastern emperor, in the fifth century. What
the fragments of pillars belonged to, perhaps we can never know;
but that I think matters little. I care not whether it was a temple
of Jupiter Stator or the Basilica Julia, but one knows that one is
on the ground of the Forum, under the Capitol, the place where the
tribes assembled, and the orators spoke; the scene, in short, of
all the internal struggles of the Roman people."--_Arnold's
Journal._
"They passed the solitary column of Phocas, and looked down into
the excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches,
pavements, and shattered blocks and shafts--the crumbs of various
ruins dropt from the devouring maw of Time--stand, or lie, at the
base of the Capitoline Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is
little more) now rose abruptly above them. The ponderous masonry,
with which the hillside is built up, is as old as Rome itself, and
looks likely to endure while the world retains any substance or
permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now bears up the
great pile which the mediæval builders raised on the antique
foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a
larger page of deeper historic interest than any other scene can
show. On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will
doubtless arise, and vanish like ephemeral things.
"To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of
Roman history, and of Roman life itself, appear not so distant as
the Gothic ages which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on
the height of the Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at
hand. We forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in
which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, around the
birthtime of Christianity, as well as the age of chivalry and
romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a better
civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember these mediæval
times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The reason may
be, that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an
intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming
with the subsequent ones.
"The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence, and
makes it look nearer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of
the Appian Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other
Roman ruin, be it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the
impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the
ivy, from the grey walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet
every brick and stone, which we pick up among the former, had
fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was
begun."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._
"A Rome, vous marchez sur les pierres qui ont été les dieux de
César et de Pompée: vous considérez la ruine de ces grands
ouvrages, dont la vieillesse est encore belle, et vous vous
promènerez tous les jours parmi les histoires et les fables.... Il
n'y à que Rome où la vie soit agréable, où le corps trouve ses
plaisirs et l'esprit les siens, où l'on est à la source des belles
choses. Rome est cause que vous n'êtes plus barbares, elle vous a
appris la civilité et la religion.... Il est certain que je ne
monte jamais au Palatin ni au Capitole que je n'y change d'esprit,
et qu'il ne me vienne d'autres pensées que les miennes ordinaires.
Cet air m'inspire quelque chose de grand et de généreux que je
n'avais point auparavant: si je rêve deux heures au bord du Tibre,
je suis aussi savant que si j'avais étudié huit jours."--_Balzac._
* * * * *
Before leaving the Forum we must turn from its classical to its mediæval
remains, and examine the very interesting group of churches which have
sprung up amid its ruins.
Almost opposite the Mamertine Prisons, surmounted by a handsome dome, is
the _Church of Sta. Martina_, which contains the original model,
bequeathed by the sculptor Thorwaldsen, of his Copenhagen statue of
Christ in the act of benediction. The opposite transept contains a very
inferior statue of Religion by _Canova_. The figure of Sta. Martina by
_Guerini_ reposes beneath the high altar. The subterranean church is
well worth visiting. An ante-chapel adorned with statues of four virgin
martyrs leads to a chapel erected at the cost and from the designs of
Pietro da Cortona, whose tomb stands near its entrance, with a fine bust
by _Bernini_. In the centre of the inner chapel lamps are burning round
the magnificent bronze altar which covers the shrine of Sta. Martina,
and beneath it, you can discover the martyr's tomb by the light of a
torch which a monk lets down through a hole. In the tribune is an
ancient throne. A side chapel contains the grave in which the body of
the virgin saint, with three other martyrs, her companions, was found in
1634: it is adorned with a fine bas-relief by _Algardi_.
"At the foot of the Capitoline hill, on the left hand as we descend
from the Ara Cœli into the Forum, there stood in very ancient
times a small chapel dedicated to Sta. Martina, a Roman virgin, who
was martyred in the persecution under Alexander Severus. The
veneration paid to her was of very early date, and the Roman people
were accustomed to assemble there on the first day of the year.
This observance was, however, confined to the people, and not very
general till 1634; an era which connects her in rather an
interesting manner with the history of art. In this year, as they
were about to repair her chapel, they discovered, walled into the
foundations, a sarcophagus of terra-cotta, in which was the body of
a young female, whose severed head reposed in a separate casket.
These remains were very naturally supposed to be those of the saint
who had been so long venerated on that spot. The discovery was
hailed with the utmost exultation, not by the people only, but by
those who led the minds and consciences of the people. The pope
himself, Urban VIII., composed hymns in her praise; and Cardinal
Francesco Barberini undertook to rebuild her church. Amongst those
who shared the general enthusiasm was the painter, Pietro da
Cortona, who was at Rome at the time, who very earnestly dedicated
himself and his powers to the glorification of Sta. Martina. Her
church had already been given to the Academy of Painters, and
consecrated to St. Luke, their patron saint. It is now 'San Luca
and Santa Martina.' Pietro da Cortona erected at his own cost, the
chapel of Sta. Martina, and when he died, endowed it with his whole
fortune. He painted for the altarpiece his best picture, in which
the saint is represented as triumphing over the idols, while the
temple in which she has been led to sacrifice, is struck by
lightning from heaven, and falls in ruins around her. In a votive
picture of Sta. Martina kneeling at the feet of the Virgin and
Child, she is represented as very young and lovely; near her, a
horrid instrument of torture, a two-pronged fork with barbed
extremities, and the lictor's axe, signifying the manner of her
death."--_Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art._
The feast of the saint is observed here on Jan. 30, with much solemnity.
Then in all the Roman churches is sung the Hymn of Sta. Martina--
"Martinæ celebri plaudite nomini,
Cives Romulei, plaudite gloriæ;
Insignem mentis dicite virginem,
Christi dicite martyrem.
Hæc dum conspicuis orta parentibus
Inter delicias, inter amabiles
Luxus illecebras, ditibus affluit
Faustæ muneribus domus.
Vitæ despiciens commoda, dedicat
Se rerum Domino, et munifica manu
Christi pauperibus distribuens opes
Quærit præmia cœlitum.
A nobis abigas lubrica gaudia
Tu, qui martyribus dexter ades,
Deus
Une et trine: tuis da famulis jubar,
Quo clemens animos beas. Amen."
There is nothing especial to notice in _S. Adriano_, which is built in
the ruins of the basilica of Emilius Paulus, or in _S. Lorenzo in
Miranda_, which occupies the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, but _Sta.
Maria Liberatrice_, built on the site of the house of Numa and the
convent of the Vestals, commemorates by its name a curious legend of the
fourth century. On this site, it is said, dwelt in a cave, a terrible
dragon who had slain three hundred persons with the poison of his
breath. Into this cave, instructed thereto by St. Peter, and entrusting
himself to the care of the Virgin, descended St. Silvester the Pope,
attended by two acolytes bearing torches, and here, having pronounced
the name of Christ, he was miraculously enabled to bind the dragon, and
to shut him up till the day of Judgment. But when he ascended in safety,
he found at the mouth of the cave two magicians who had followed him in
the hope of discovering some imposture, dying from the poison of the
dragon's breath,--and these also he saved alive.
We now reach the circular building which has been so long known as the
temple of Remus. To the right of the entrance are two pillars of
cipolino, almost buried in the soil. The porphyry pillars at the
entrance, supporting a richly sculptured cornice, were probably set up
in their present position when the temple was turned into a church. The
bronze doors were brought from Perugia. If, as is now supposed, the
temple on this site was that of the Penates, the protectors against all
kinds of illness and misfortune, the modern dedication to the protecting
physicians Cosmo and Damian may have had some reference to that which
went before.
The Church of _SS. Cosmo and Damiano_ was founded within the ancient
temple by Pope Felix IV. in 527, and restored by Adrian I. in 780. In
1633 the whole building was modernized by Urban VIII., who, in order to
raise it to the present level of the soil, cut the ancient church in
half by the vaulting which now divides the upper and lower churches. To
visit the lower church a monk must be summoned, who will bring a torch.
This is well worth while. It is of great size, and contains a curious
well into which Christian martyrs in the time of Nero are said to have
been precipitated. The tomb of the martyrs Cosmo and Damian is beneath
the altar, which is formed of beautiful transparent marble. Under a side
altar is the grave of Felix IV. The third and lowest church (the
_original_ crypt) which is very small, is said to have been a place of
refuge during the early Christian persecutions. Here is shown the altar
at which Felix IV. celebrated mass while his converts were hiding
here--the grave in which the body of the pope was afterwards
discovered--and a miraculous spring, still flowing, which is said to
have burst forth in answer to his prayers that he might have wherewithal
to baptize his disciples. A passage which formerly led from hence to the
Catacombs of St. Sebastian, was walled up, twenty years ago, by the
paternal government, because twenty persons were lost in it. In this
crypt were found the famous "Pianta Capitolina," now preserved in the
Capitol. In the upper church, on the right of the entrance from the
circular vestibule into the body of the building is this inscription--
"L'imagine di Madonna Santissima che esiste all'altar magg. parlò a
S. Gregorio Papa dicendogli, 'Perchè piu non mi saluti mentre
passando eri solito salutarmi?' Il santo domandò perdona e concesse
a quelli che celebrano in quell'altare la liberazione dell'anima
dal purgatorio, cioé per quell'anima per la quale si celebra la
messa."[63]
Another inscription narrates--
"Gregorius primus concessit omnibus et singulis visitantibus
ecclesiam istam sanctorum Cosmæ et Damiani mille annos de
indulgentia, et in die stationis ejusdem ecclesiæ idem Gregorius
concessit decem millia annorum de indulgentia."
Among the many relics preserved in this church are, "Una ampulla lactis
Beatæ Mariæ Virginis"; "De Domo Sanctæ Mariæ Magdalenæ"; "De Domo Sancti
Zachariæ profeta!"
Deserving of the most minute attention is the grand mosaic of
Christ--coming on the clouds of sunset.
"The mosaics of SS. Cosmo and Damian (A.D. 526--530) are the finest
of ancient Christian Rome. Above the arch appear, on each side of
the Lamb, four angels, of excellent but somewhat severe style; then
follow various apocalyptic emblems: a modern walling up having left
but few traces of the four and twenty elders. A gold surface,
dimmed by age, with little purple clouds, forms the background:
though in Rome, at least, at both an earlier and later date, a blue
ground prevailed. In the apsis itself, upon a dark blue ground,
with golden-edged clouds, is seen the colossal figure of Christ;
the right hand raised, either in benediction or teaching, the left
holding a written scroll; above is the hand, which is the emblem of
the First Person of the Trinity. Below, on each side, the apostles
Peter and Paul are leading SS. Cosmo and Damiano, each with crowns
on their heads, towards the Saviour, followed by St. Theodore on
the right, and by Pope Felix IV., the founder of the church, on the
left. This latter, unfortunately, is an entirely restored figure.
Two palm-trees, sparkling with gold, above one of which appears the
emblem of eternity, the phœnix--with a star-shaped nimbus, close
the composition on each side. Further below, indicated by
water-plants, sparkling also with gold, is the river Jordan. The
figure of Christ may be regarded as one of the most marvellous
specimens of the art of the middle ages. Countenance, attitude, and
drapery combine to give him an expression of quiet majesty, which,
for many centuries after, is not found again in equal beauty and
freedom. The drapery, especially, is disposed in noble folds, and
only in its somewhat too ornate details is a further departure from
the antique observable. The saints are not as yet arranged in stiff
parallel forms, but are advancing forward, so that their figures
appear somewhat distorted, while we already remark something
constrained and inanimate in their step. The apostles Peter and
Paul wear the usual ideal costume. SS. Cosmo and Damiano are
attired in the late Roman dress: violet mantles, in gold stuff,
with red embroideries of oriental barbaric effect. Otherwise the
chief motives of the drapery are of great beauty, though somewhat
too abundant in folds. The high lights are brought out by gold and
other sparkling materials, producing a gorgeous play of colour
which relieves the figures vigorously from the dark blue
background. Altogether, a feeling for colour is here displayed, of
which no later mosaics with gold grounds give any idea. The heads,
with the exception of the principal figure, are animated and
individual, though without any particular depth of expression;
somewhat elderly, also, in physiognomy, but still far removed from
any Byzantine stiffness; St. Peter has already the bald head, and
St. Paul the short brown hair and dark beard, by which they were
afterwards recognizable. Under this chief composition, on a gold
ground, is seen the Lamb upon a hill, with the four rivers of
Paradise, and the twelve sheep on either hand. The great care of
execution is seen in the five or six gradations of tints which the
artist has adopted."--_Kugler._
SS. Cosmo and Damian, to whom this church is dedicated, were two Arabian
physicians who exercised their art from charity. They suffered under
Diocletian. "First they were thrown into the sea, but an angel saved
them; and then into the fire, but the fire refused to burn them; then
they were bound to crosses and stoned, but the stones either fell
harmless or rebounded on their executioners and killed them, so then the
pro-consul Lycias, believing them to be sorcerers, commanded that they
should be beheaded, and thus they died." SS. Cosmo and Damian were the
patron saints of the Medici, and their gilt statues were carried in
state at the coronation of Leo X. (Giovanni de' Medici). Their fame is
general in many parts of France, where their fête is celebrated by a
village fair--children who ask for their fairing of a toy or gingerbread
calling it their "St. Côme."
"It is related that a certain man, who was afflicted with a cancer
in his leg, went to perform his devotions in the Church SS. Cosmo
and Damian at Rome, and he prayed most earnestly that these
beneficent saints would be pleased to aid him. When he had prayed,
a deep sleep fell upon him. Then he beheld St. Cosmo and St.
Damian, who stood beside him; and one carried a box of ointments,
and the other a sharp knife. And one said, 'What shall we do to
replace this diseased leg when we have cut it off?' And the other
replied, 'There is a Moor who has been buried just now at St.
Pietro in Vincoli; let us take his leg for the purpose.' So they
brought the leg of the dead man, and with it they replaced the leg
of the sick man; anointing it with celestial ointment, so that he
remained whole. When he awoke he almost doubted whether it could be
himself; but his neighbours, seeing that he was healed, looked into
the tomb of the Moor, and found that there had been an exchange of
legs: and thus the truth of this great miracle was proved to all
beholders."--_Mrs. Jameson, from the Legenda Aurea._
Just beyond the basilica of Constantine, stands the _Church of Sta.
Francesca Romana_, which is full of interest. It was first built by St.
Sylvester on the site of the temple of Venus and dedicated to the
Virgin, under the title of Sta. Maria Antica. It was rebuilt in A.D. 872
by John VIII., who resided in the adjoining monastery during his
pontificate. An ancient picture attributed to St. Luke, brought from
Troy in 1100, was the only object in this church which was preserved
when the building was totally destroyed by fire in 1216, after which the
church, then called Sta. Maria Nuova, was restored by Honorius III.
During the restoration, the picture was kept at S. Adriano, and its
being brought back led to a contest amongst the people, which was ended
by a child exclaiming--"What are you doing? the Madonna is already in
her own church." She had betaken herself thither none knew how.
In the twelfth century the church was given to the Lateran Canons, in
the fourteenth to the Olivetan monks; under Eugenius IV., the latter
extended their boundaries so far that they included the Coliseum, but
their walls were forced down in the succeeding pontificate. Gregory XI.,
Paul II., and Cæsar Borgia, were cardinals of Sta. Maria Novella. In
1440 the name was changed to that of Sta. Francesca Romana, when that
saint, Francesca de' Ponziani, foundress of the Order of Oblates, was
buried here. Her tomb was erected in 1640 by Donna Agata Pamfili, sister
of Innocent X., herself an Oblate. It is from the designs of Bernini,
and is rich in marbles. The figure was not added till 1868.
"After the death of Francesca, her body remained during a night and
a day at the Ponziani Palace, the Oblates watching by turns over
the beloved remains.... Francesca's face, which had recently borne
traces of age and suffering, became as beautiful again as in the
days of youth and prosperity; and the astonished bystanders gazed
with wonder and awe at her unearthly loveliness. Many of them
carried away particles from her clothes, and employed them for the
cure of several persons who had been considered beyond the
possibility of recovery. In the course of the day the crowd
augmented to a degree which alarmed the inhabitants of the palace,
Battista Ponziani took measures to have the body removed at once to
the church, and a procession of the regular and secular clergy
escorted the venerated remains to Santa Maria Nuova, where they
were to be interred.
"The popular feeling burst forth on the occasion; it was no longer
to be restrained. Francesca was invoked by the crowd, and her
beloved name was heard in every street, in every piazza, in every
corner of the Eternal City. It flew from mouth to mouth, it seemed
to float in the air, to be borne aloft by the grateful enthusiasm
of a whole people, who had seen her walk to that church by her
mother's side in her holy childhood; who had seen her kneel at that
altar in the grave beauty of womanhood, in the hour of bereavement,
and now in death, carried thither in state, she the gentle, the
humble saint of Rome, the poor woman of the Trastevere, as she was
sometimes called at her own desire."--_Lady G. Fullerton's Life of
Sta. Francesca Romana._
A chapel on the right of the church contains the monument of Cardinal
Vulcani, 1322, supporting his figure, with Faith, Hope, and Charity
sculptured in high relief below. Near the door is that of Cardinal
Adimari, 1432, who died here after an ineffectual mission to the
anti-pope Pedro da' Luna. In the left transept was a fine Perugino
(removed 1867); in the right transept is the tomb of Pope Gregory XI.,
by Pietro Paolo Olivieri, erected by the senate in gratitude for his
having restored the papal court to Rome from Avignon. A bas-relief
represents his triumphal entry, with St. Catherine of Siena, by whose
entreaties he was induced to return, walking before his mule. A breach
in the walls indicates the ruinous state into which Rome had fallen, the
chair of St. Peter is represented as floating back through the air,
while an angel carries the papal tiara and keys; a metaphorical figure
of Rome is coming forth to welcome the pope.
"The greatest part of the praise due to Gregory's return to Rome
belongs to St. Catherine of Siena, who, with infinite courage,
travelled to Avignon, and persuaded the pope to return, and by his
presence to dispel the evils which disgraced Italy, in consequence
of the absence of the popes. Thus it is not to be wondered at, that
those writers, who rightly understand the matter, should have said
that Catherine, the virgin of Siena, brought back to God the
abandoned apostolical chair upon her shoulders."--_Ughelli, Ital.
Sacra_, vi. col. 45.
Near Pope Gregory's tomb some blackened marks in the wall are shown as
holes made by the (gigantic) knees of St. Peter, when he knelt to pray
that Simon Magus might be dropped by the demons he had invoked to
support him in the air, which he is said to have done to show his power
on this spot.
"When the error of Simon was spreading farther and farther, the
illustrious pair of men, Peter and Paul, the rulers of the Church,
arrested it by going thither, who suddenly exhibited as dead,
Simon, the putative God, on his appearance. For when Simon declared
that he would ascend aloft into heaven, the servants of God cast
him headlong to the earth, and though this occurrence was wonderful
in itself, it was not wonderful under the circumstances, for it was
Peter who did it, he who bears with him the keys of heaven, ... it
was Paul who did it, he who was caught up into the third
heaven."--_St. Cyril of Jerusalem._
"Simon promised to fly, and thus ascend to the heavenly abodes. On
the day agreed upon, he went to the Capitoline hill, and throwing
himself from the rock, began his ascent. Then Peter, standing in
the midst, said, 'O Lord Jesus, show him that his arts are in
vain.' Hardly had the words been uttered, when the wings which
Simon had made use of became entangled, and he fell. His thigh was
fractured, never to be healed,--and some time afterwards, the
unhappy man died at Aretia, whither he had retired after his
discomfiture."--_St. Ambrose._[64]
"There can be no doubt that there existed in the first century a
Simon, a Samaritan, a pretender to divine authority and
supernatural powers; who, for a time, had many followers; who stood
in a certain relation to Christianity; and who may have held some
opinions more or less similar to those entertained by the most
famous heretics of the early ages, the Gnostics. Irenæus calls this
Simon the father of all heretics. 'All those,' he says, 'who in any
way corrupt the truth, or mar the preaching of the Church, are
disciples and successors of Simon, the Samaritan magician.' Simon
gave himself forth as a God, and carried about with him a beautiful
woman named Helena, whom he represented as the first conception of
his--that is, of the divine--mind, the symbol and manifestation of
that portion of spirituality which had become entangled in
matter."--_Jameson's Sacred Art_, p. 204.
The vault of the tribune is covered with mosaics.
"The restored tribune mosaics (A.D. 858--887, during the
pontificate of Nicholas I.), close the list of Roman Byzantine
works. By their time it had become apparent that such figures as
the art of the day was alone able to achieve, could have no
possible relation to each other, and therefore no longer constitute
a composition; the artists accordingly separated the Madonna on the
throne, and the four saints with uplifted hands, by graceful
arcades. The ground is gold, the nimbuses blue. The faces consist
only of feeble lines--the cheeks are only red blotches; the folds
merely dark strokes; nevertheless a certain flow and fulness in the
forms, and the character of a few accessories (for instance, the
exchange of a crown upon the Virgin's head for the invariable
Byzantine veil), seem to indicate that we have not so much to do
here with the decline of Byzantine art, as with a northern and
probably Frankish influence."--_Kugler._
The convent attached to this church was the abode of Tasso during his
first visit to Rome.
Behind Sta. Francesca Romana, and facing the Coliseum, are the remains
generally known as the _Temple of Venus and Rome_, also called Templum
Urbis (now sometimes called by objectors the "Portico of Livia"), which,
if this name is the correct one, was originally planned by the Emperor
Hadrian to rival the Forum of Trajan, erected by the architect
Apollodorus. It was built upon a site previously occupied by the atrium
of Nero's Golden House. Little remains standing except a cella facing
the Coliseum, and another in the cloisters of the adjoining convent
(these, perhaps, being restorations by Maxentius, _c._ 307, after a fire
had destroyed most of the building of Hadrian), but the surrounding
grassy height is positively littered with fragments of the grey granite
columns which once formed the grand portico (400 by 200 feet) of the
building. A large mass of Corinthian cornice remains near the cella
facing the Coliseum. This was the last pagan temple which remained in
use in Rome.[65] It was only closed by Theodosius in 391, and remained
entire till 625, when Pope Honorius carried off the bronze tiles of its
roof to St. Peter's.
"Ac sacram resonare viam mugitibus, ante
Delubrum Romæ; colitur nam sanguine et ipsa
More deæ, nomenque loci, ceu numen, habetur.
Atque Urbis, Venerisque pari se culmine tollunt
Templa, simul geminis adolentur thura deabus."
_Prudentius contr. Symm._ v. 214.
"When about to construct his magnificent temple of Venus and Rome,
Hadrian produced a design of his own and showed it with proud
satisfaction to the architect Apollodorus. The creator of the
Trajan column remarked with a sneer that the deities, if they rose
from their seats, must thrust their heads through the ceiling. The
emperor, we are assured, could not forgive this banter; but we can
hardly take to the letter the statement that he put his critic to
death for it."--_Merivale_, ch. lxvi.
In front of this temple stood the bronze statue of Clœlia, mentioned
by Livy and Seneca, and (till the sixth century) the bronze elephants
mentioned by Cassiodorus. Nearer the Coliseum may still be seen the
remains of the foundation prepared by Hadrian for the _Colossal Statue
of Nero_, executed in bronze by Zenodorus. This statue was twice moved,
first by Vespasian, in A.D. 75, that it might face the chief entrance of
his amphitheatre,[66] whose plan had been already laid out. At the same
time--though it was a striking likeness of Nero--its head was surrounded
with rays that it might represent Apollo. In its second position it is
described by Martial:
"Hic ubi sidereus propius videt astra colossus
Et crescunt media pegmata celsa via,
Invidiosa feri radiabant atria regis,
Unaque jam tota stabat in urbe domus."
_De Spect._ ii.
It was again moved (with the aid of forty-two elephants), a few yards
further north, by Hadrian, when he built his temple of Venus and Rome.
Pliny describes the colossus as 110, Dion Cassius as 100 feet high.
"Hadrian employed an architect named Decrianus to remove the
colossus of Nero, the face of which had been altered into a Sol. He
does not seem to have accomplished the design of Apollodorus to
erect a companion statue of Luna."--_Merivale_, ch. lxvi.
Near the Church of Sta. Francesca the Via Sacra passes under the _Arch
of Titus_, which, even in its restored condition, is the most beautiful
monument of the kind remaining in Rome. Its Christian interest is
unrivalled, from its having been erected by the senate to commemorate
the taking of Jerusalem, and from its bas-reliefs of the seven-branched
candlestick and other treasures of the Jewish Temple. In mediæval times
it was called the Arch of the Seven Candlesticks (septem lucernarum)
from the bas-relief of the candlestick, concerning which Gregorovius
remarks, that the fantastic figures carved upon it prove that it was
_not_ an exact likeness of that which came from Jerusalem. The
bas-reliefs are now greatly mutilated, but they are shown in their
perfect state in a drawing of Giuliano di Sangallo. On the frieze is the
sacred river Jordan, as an aged man, borne on a bier. The arch, which
was in a very ruinous condition, had been engrafted in the middle ages
into a fortress tower called Turris Cartularia, and so it remained till
the present century. This tower originally formed the entrance to the
vast fortress of the powerful Frangipani family, which included the
Coliseum and a great part of the Palatine and Cœlian hills; and here,
above the gate, Pope Urban II. dwelt in 1093, under the protection of
Giovanni Frangipani. The arch was repaired by Pius VII., who replaced in
travertine the lost marble portions at the top and sides.
"Standing beneath the arch of Titus, and amid so much ancient dust,
it is difficult to forbear the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which
hundreds of tourists have already insisted. Over the half-worn
pavement, and beneath this arch, the Roman armies had trodden in
their outward march, to fight battles, a world's width away.
Returning victorious, with royal captives, and inestimable spoil, a
Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly pride, has
streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over these same
flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. It is politic,
however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor is it wise to
suggest how Cicero's feet may have stepped on yonder stone, or how
Horace was wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with
the measure of the ode that was ringing in his mind. The very
ghosts of that massive and stately epoch have so much density that
the people of to-day seem the thinner of the two, and stand more
ghost-like by the arches and columns, letting the rich sculpture be
discerned through their ill-compacted substance."--_Hawthorne,
Transformation._
"We passed on to the arch of Titus. Amongst the reliefs there is
the figure of a man bearing the golden candlestick from the Temple
at Jerusalem, as one of the spoils of the triumph. Yet He who
abandoned His visible and local temple to the hands of the heathen
for the sins of His nominal worshippers, has taken to Him His great
power, and has gotten Him glory by destroying the idols of Rome as
He had done the idols of Babylon; and the golden candlestick burns
and shall burn with an everlasting light, while the enemies of His
holy name, Babylon, Rome, or the carcass of sin in every land,
which the eagles of His wrath will surely find out, perish for ever
from before Him."--_Arnold's Journal._
"The Jewish trophies are sculptured in bas-relief on the inside of
the arch beneath the vaulting. Opposite to these is another
bas-relief representing Titus in the quadriga, the reins borne by
the goddess Roma. In the centre of the arch, Titus is borne to
heaven by an eagle. It may be conjectured that these ornaments to
his glory were designed after the death of Vespasian, and completed
after his own.... These witnesses to the truth of history are
scanned at this day by Christians passing to and fro between the
Coliseum and the Forum; and at this day the Jew refuses to walk
beneath them, and creeps stealthily by the side, with downcast
eyes, or countenance averted."--_Merivale, Romans under the
Empire_, vii. 250.
"The restoration of the arch of Titus reflects the greatest credit
on the commission appointed by Pius VII. for the restoration of
ancient edifices. This, not only beautiful, but precious monument,
had been made the nucleus of a hideous castellated fort by the
Frangipani family. Its masonry, however, embraced and held
together, as well as crushed, the marble arch; so that on freeing
it from its rude buttresses there was fear of its collapsing, and
it had first to be well bound together by props and bracing beams,
a process in which the Roman architects are unrivalled. The simple
expedient was then adopted by the architect Stern of completing the
arch in stone; for its sides had been removed. Thus increased in
solid structure, which continued all the architectural lines, and
renewed its proportions to the mutilated centre, the arch was both
completely secured and almost restored to its pristine
elegance."--_Wiseman's Life of Pius VII._
The processions of the popes going to the Lateran for their solemn
installation, used to halt beside the arch of Titus while a Jew
presented a copy of the Pentateuch, with a humble oath of fealty. This
humiliating ceremony was omitted for the first time at the installation
of Pius IX.
* * * * *
At this point it may not be inappropriate to notice two other buildings,
which, though situated on the Palatine, are totally disconnected with
the other objects occupying that hill.
A lane runs up to the right from the arch of Titus. On the left is a
gateway, surmounted by a faded fresco of St. Sebastian. Here is the
entrance to a wild and beautiful garden, possessing most lovely views of
the various ruins, occupying the site of the gardens of Adonis. This is
the place where St. Sebastian underwent his (so-called) martyrdom, and
will call to mind the many fine pictures, scattered over Europe, of the
youthful and beautiful saint, bound to a tree, and pierced with arrows.
The finest of these are the Domenichino, in Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and
the Sodoma at Florence. He is sometimes represented as bound to an
orange tree, and sometimes, as in the Guido at Bologna, to a cypress,
like those we still see on this spot. Here was an important Benedictine
Convent, where Pope Boniface IV. was a monk before his election to the
papacy, and where the famous abbots of Monte Casino had their Roman
residence. Here, in 1118, fifty-one cardinals took refuge, and elected
Gelasius II. as Pope. The only building remaining is the _Church of Sta.
Maria Pallara_ or _S. Sebastiano_, containing some curious inscriptions
relating to events which have occurred here, and--in the tribune,
frescoes, of the Saviour in benediction with four saints, and below,
two other groups representing the Virgin with saints and angels, placed,
as we learn by the inscription beneath, by one Benedict--probably an
abbot.
Further up the lane a "Via Crucis" leads to the _Church of S.
Buonaventura_, "the seraphic doctor" (Cardinal and Bishop of Albano, ob.
July 14, 1274), who in childhood was raised from the point of death
(1221) by the prayers of St. Francis, who was so surprised when he came
to life, that he involuntarily exclaimed, "O buona ventura"--("what a
happy chance")--whence the name by which he was afterwards known.[67]
The little church contains several good modern monuments. Beneath the
altar is shown the body of the Blessed Leonardo of Porto-Maurizio (ob.
1751), who arranged the Via Crucis in the Coliseum, and who is much
revered by the ultra-Romanists for having prophesied the proclamation of
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The crucifix and the picture of
the Madonna which he carried with him in his missions, are preserved in
niches on either side of the tribune, and many other relics of him are
shown in his cell in the adjoining convent of Minor Franciscans. Entered
through the convent is a lovely little garden, whence there is a grand
view of the Coliseum, and where a little fountain is shaded by two tall
palm trees.
"Oswald went next to the monastery of S. Buenaventura, built on the
ruins of Nero's palace. There, where so many crimes had reigned
remorselessly, poor friars, tormented by conscientious scruples,
doom themselves to fasts and stripes for the least omission of
duty. 'Our only hope,' said one, 'is that when we die, our faults
will not have exceeded our penances.' Nevill, as he entered,
stumbled over a trap, and asked its purpose. 'It is through that we
are interred,' answered one of the youngest, already a prey to the
bad air. The natives of the south fear death so much that it is
wondrous to find there these perpetual mementoes; yet nature is
often fascinated by what she dreads, and such an intoxication fills
the soul exclusively. The antique sarcophagus of a child serves as
the fountain of this institution. The boasted palm of Rome is the
only tree of its garden."--_Madame de Staël, Corinne._
* * * * *
The arch of Titus is spoken of as being "in summa _Via Sacra_," as the
street was called which led from the southern gate of Rome to the
Capitol, and by which the victorious generals passed in their triumphant
processions to the temple of Jupiter. Between the arch of Titus and the
Coliseum, the ancient pavement of this famous road, composed of huge
polygonal blocks of lava, has been allowed to remain. Here we may
imagine Horace taking his favourite walk.
"Ibam forte Via Sacrâ, sicut meus est mos,
Nescio quid meditans nugarum, et totus in illis."
_Sat._ i. 9.
It appears to have been the favourite resort of the _flaneurs_ of the
day:
"Videsne, Sacram metiente te viam
Cum bis ter ulnarum togâ,
Ut ora vertat huc et huc euntium
Liberrima indignatio?"
_Horace, Epod._ 4.
The Via Sacra was originally bordered with shops, some of which,
together with some baths, have been unearthed on the right of the road.
Ovid alludes frequently to the purchases which might be made there in
his time. In this especial part of the Via was the market for fruit and
honey.[68]
"Dum bene dives ager, dum rami pondere nutant;
Adferat in calatho rustica dona puer.
Rure suburbano poteris tibi dicere missa;
Illa vel in Sacra sint licet empta Via."
_Ovid, Art. Aman._ ii. 263.
At the foot of the hill are the remains of the bason and the brick cone
of a fountain called _Meta Sudans_, where the gladiators used to wash.
Seneca, who lived in this neighbourhood, complains (Epist. lvi.) of the
noise which was made by a showman who blew his trumpet close to this
fountain.
On the right the Via Triumphalis leads to the Via Appia, passing under
the _Arch of Constantine_. The lower bas-reliefs upon this arch, which
are crude and ill-designed, refer to the deeds of Constantine; but the
upper, of fine workmanship, illustrate the life of Trajan, which has led
some to imagine that the arch was originally erected in honour of
Trajan, and afterwards appropriated by Constantine. They were, however,
removed from an arch of Trajan (whose ruins existed in 1430[69]), and
were appropriated by Constantine for his own arch.
"Constantin a enlevé à un arc de triomphe de Trajan les statues de
prisonniers daces que l'on voit au sommet du sien. Ce vol a été
puni au seizième siècle, car, dans ce qui semble un accès de folie,
Lorenzino, le bizarre assassin d'Alexandre de Médicis a décapité
toutes les statues qui surmontaient l'arche Constantin, moins une,
la seule dont la tête soit antique. Heureusement on a dans les
musées, à Rome et ailleurs, bon nombre de ces statues de captifs
barbares avec le même costume, c'est-à-dire le pantalon et le
bonnet, souvent les mains liées, dans une attitude de soumission
morne, quelque fois avec une expression de sombre fierté, car l'art
romain avait la noblesse de ne pas humilier les vaincus; il ne les
représentait point à genoux, foulés aux pieds par leurs vainqueurs;
on ne donnait pas à leurs traits étranges un aspect qu'on eût pu
rendre hideux; on les plaçait sur le sommet des arcs de triomphe,
debout, la tête baissée, l'air triste."
"'Summus tristis captivus in arcu.'"
_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 169.
The arch was further plundered by Clement VIII., who carried off one of
its eight Corinthian columns to finish a chapel at the Lateran. They
were formerly _all_ of giallo-antico. But it is still the most striking
and beautiful of the Roman arches.
"L'inscription gravée sur l'arc de Constantin est curieuse par le
vague de l'expression en ce qui touche aux idées religieuses, par
l'indécision calculée des termes dont se servait un sénat qui
voulait éviter de se compromettre dans un sens comme dans l'autre.
L'inscription porte que cet arc a été dédié a l'empereur parcequ'il
a délivré la république d'un tyran (on dit encore la république!)
par la grandeur de son âme et une inspiration de la Divinité,
_instinctu Divinitatis_. Il parait même que ces mots ont été
ajoutés après coup pour remplacer une formule peut-être plus
explicitement païenne. Ce monument, qui célèbre le triomphe de
Constantin, ne proclame donc pas encore nettement le triomphe du
Christianisme. Comment s'en étonner, quand sur les monnaies de cet
empereur on voit d'un côté le monogramme du Christ et l'autre
l'effigie de Rome, qui était une divinité pour les
païens?"--_Ampère, Emp._ ii. 355.
We now turn to the _Coliseum_, originally called The Flavian
Amphitheatre. This vast building was begun in A.D. 72, upon the site of
the reservoir of Nero, by the Emperor Vespasian, who built as far as the
third row of arches, the last two rows being finished by Titus after his
return from the conquest of Jerusalem. It is said that 12,000 captive
Jews were employed in this work, as the Hebrews in building the Pyramids
of Egypt, and that the external walls alone cost a sum equal to
17,000,000 francs. It consists of four stories, the first Doric, the
second Ionic, the third and fourth Corinthian. Its circumference is 1641
feet, its length is 287, its width 182, its height 157. The entrance for
the emperor was between two arches facing the Esquiline, where there is
no cornice. Here there are remains of stucco decoration. On the opposite
side was a similar entrance from the Palatine. Towards S. Gregorio has
been discovered the subterranean passage in which the Emperor Commodus
was near being assassinated. The numerous holes visible all over the
exterior of the building were made in the middle ages, to extract the
iron cramps, at that time of great value. The arena was surrounded by a
wall sufficiently high to protect the spectators from the wild beasts,
who were introduced by subterranean passages closed by huge gates, from
the side towards the Cœlian. The _podium_ contained the places of
honour reserved for the Emperor and his family, the Senate, and the
Vestal virgins. The places for the other spectators who entered by
openings called _vomitoria_, were arranged in three stages (_caveæ_),
separated by a gallery (_præcinctio_). The first stage for knights and
tribunes, had 24 steps, the second (for the common people) 16, the third
(for the soldiery) 10. The women, by order of the emperor, sate apart
from the men, and married and unmarried men were also divided. The whole
building was probably capable of containing 100,000 persons. At the top,
on the exterior, may be seen the remains of the consoles which sustained
the _velarium_ which was drawn over the arena to shelter the spectators
from the sun or rain. The arena could on occasions be filled with water
for the sake of naval combats.
Nothing is known with certainty as to the architect of the Coliseum,
though a tradition of the Church (founded on an inscription in the crypt
of S. Martino al Monte), ascribes it to Gaudentius, a Christian martyr,
who afterwards suffered on the spot.[70]
"The name of the architect to whom the great work of the Coliseum
was entrusted has not come down to us. The ancients seem themselves
to have regarded this name as a matter of little interest; nor, in
fact, do they generally care to specify the authorship of their
most illustrious buildings. The reason is obvious. The forms of
ancient art in this department were almost wholly conventional, and
the limits of design within which they were executed gave little
room for the display of original taste and special character.... It
is only in periods of eclecticism and renaissance, when the taste
of the architect has wider scope, and may lead the eye instead of
following it, that interest attaches to his personal merit. Thus it
is that the Coliseum, the most conspicuous type of Roman
civilisation, the monument which divides the admiration of
strangers in modern Rome with St. Peter's itself, is nameless and
parentless, while every stage in the construction of the great
Christian temple, the creation of a modern revival, is appropriated
with jealous care to its special claimants.
"The dedication of the Coliseum afforded to Titus an opportunity
for a display of magnificence hitherto unrivalled, A battle of
cranes with dwarfs representing the pigmies was a fanciful novelty,
and might afford diversion for a moment; there were combats of
gladiators, among whom women were included, though no noble matron
was allowed to mingle in the fray; and the capacity of the vast
edifice was tested by the slaughter of five thousand animals in its
circuit. The show was crowned with the immission of water into the
arena, and with a sea-fight representing the contests of the
Corinthians and Corcyreans, related by Thucydides.... When all was
over, Titus himself was seen to weep, perhaps from fatigue,
possibly from vexation and disgust; but his tears were interpreted
as a presentiment of his death, which was now impending, and it is
probable that he was already suffering from a decline of bodily
strength.... He lamented effeminately the premature decease he too
surely anticipated, and, looking wistfully at the heavens,
exclaimed that he did not deserve to die. He expired on the 13th
September, 81, not having quite completed his fortieth
year."--_Merivale_, ch. Ix.
"Hadrian gave a series of entertainments in honour of his
birth-day, with the slaughter of a thousand beasts, including a
hundred lions and as many lionesses. One magical scene was the
representation of forests, when the whole arena became planted with
living trees, shrubs, and flowers; to complete which illusion the
ground was made to open, and send forth wild animals from yawning
clefts, instantly re-covered with bushes.
"One may imagine the frantic excess to which the taste for
gladiatorial combats was carried in Rome, from the preventive law
of Augustus that gladiators should no more combat without
permission of the senate; that prætors should not give these
spectacles more than twice a year; that more than sixty couples
should not engage at the same time; and that neither knights nor
senators should ever contend in the arena. The gladiators were
classified according to the national manner of fighting which they
imitated. Thus were distinguished the Gothic, Dacian, Thracian, and
Samnite combatants; the _Retiarii_, who entangled their opponents
in nets thrown with the left hand, defending themselves with
tridents in the right; the _Secutores_, whose special skill was in
pursuit; the _Laqueatores_, who threw slings against their
adversaries; the _Dimachæ_, armed with a short sword in each hand;
the _Hoplomachi_, armed at all points; the _Myrmillones_, so called
from the figure of a fish at the crest of the Gallic helmet they
wore; the _Bustuarii_, who fought at funeral games; the
_Bestiarii_, who only assailed animals; other classes who fought on
horseback, called _Andabates_; and those combating in chariots
drawn by two horses, _Essedarii_. Gladiators were originally
slaves, or prisoners of war; but the armies who contended on the
Roman arena in later epochs, were divided into compulsory and
voluntary combatants, the former alone composed of slaves, or
condemned criminals. The latter went through a laborious education
in their art, supported at the public cost, and instructed by
masters called _Lanistæ_, resident in colleges, called _Ludi_. To
the eternal disgrace of the morals of Imperial Rome, it is recorded
that women sometimes fought in the arena, without more modesty than
hired gladiators. The exhibition of himself in this character by
Commodus, was a degradation of the imperial dignity, perhaps more
infamous, according to ancient Roman notions, than the theatrical
performances of Nero."--_Hemans' Story of Monuments in Rome._
The Emperor Commodus (A.D. 180-182), frequently fought in the Coliseum
himself, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts, calling himself
Hercules, dressed in a lion's-skin, with his hair sprinkled with
gold-dust.
The gladiatorial combats came to an end, when, in A.D. 403, an oriental
monk named Telemachus, was so horrified at them, that he rushed into the
midst of the arena and besought the spectators to renounce them: instead
of listening to him, they stoned him to death. The first martyrdom here
was that of St Ignatius, said to have been the child especially blessed
by our Saviour--the disciple of John--and the companion of Polycarp--who
was sent here from Antioch, where he was bishop. When brought into the
arena, he knelt down, and exclaimed, "Romans who are present, know that
I have not been brought into this place for any crime, but in order that
by this means I may merit the fruition of the glory of God, for love of
whom I have been made prisoner. I am as the grain of the field, and must
be ground by the teeth of the lions, that I may become bread fit for His
table." The lions were then let loose, and devoured him, except the
larger bones, which the Christians collected during the night.
"It is related of Ignatius that he grew up in such innocence of
heart and purity of life, that to him it was granted to hear the
angels sing; hence, when he became bishop of Antioch, he introduced
into the service of his church the practice of singing the praises
of God in responses, as he had heard the choirs of angels answering
each other.... His story and fate are so well attested, and so
sublimely affecting, that it has always been to me a cause of
surprise as well as regret to find so few representations of
him."--_Jameson's Sacred Art_, 693.
Soon after the death of Ignatius, 115 Christians were shot down here
with arrows. Under Hadrian, A.D. 218, a patrician named Placidus, his
wife Theophista, and his two sons, were first exposed here to the wild
beasts, but when these refused to touch them were shut up in a brazen
bull, and roasted by a fire lighted beneath. In 253, Abdon and Sennen,
two rich citizens of Babylon, were exposed here to two lions and four
bears, but on their refusing to attack them, were killed by the swords
of the gladiators. In A.D. 259, Sempronius, Olympius, Theodulus, and
Exuperia, were burnt at the entrance of the Coliseum, before the statue
of the Sun. In A.D. 272, Sta. Prisca was vainly exposed here to a lion,
then starved for three days, then stretched on a rack to have her flesh
torn by iron hooks, then put into a furnace, and--having survived all
these torments--was finally beheaded. In A.D. 277, Sta. Martina, another
noble Roman lady, was exposed in vain to the beasts and afterwards
beheaded in the Coliseum. St. Alexander under Antoninus; St. Potitus,
168; St. Eleutherius, bishop of Illyria, under Hadrian; St Maximus, son
of a senator, 284; and Vitus, Crescentia, and Modesta, under Domitian,
were also martyred here.[71]
"It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest truth, to say: so
suggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a
moment--actually in passing in--they who will, may have the whole
great pile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager
faces staring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and
blood, and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Its
solitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike upon
the stranger, the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never in
his life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight,
not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions.
"To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and arches
overgrown with green, its corridors open to the day; the long
grass growing in its porches; young trees of yesterday springing
up on its ragged parapets, and bearing fruit--chance produce of the
seeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within its
chinks and crannies; to see its pit of fight filled up with earth,
and the peaceful cross planted in the centre; to climb into its
upper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; the
triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimius Severus, and Titus, the
Roman Forum, the Palace of the Cæsars, the temples of the old
religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome,
wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its
people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most
solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable. Never, in its
bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, full and
running over with the lustiest life, have moved one heart, as it
must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. God be thanked: a ruin!
"As it tops all other ruins: standing there, a mountain among
graves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants of
the old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of the
fierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as the
visitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and there
is scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common people
in the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovated
Coliseum to-morrow."--_Dickens._
The spot where the Christian martyrs suffered is now marked by a tall
cross, devoutly kissed by the faithful,--and all round the arena of the
Coliseum, are the small chapels or "stations," used in the Via Crucis,
which is observed here at 4 P.M. every Friday, when a confraternity
clothed in grey, with only the eyes visible, is followed by a crowd of
worshippers who chaunt and pray at each station in turn,--after which a
Capuchin monk preaches from a pulpit on the left of the arena. These
sermons are often very striking, being delivered in a familiar style,
and upon popular subjects of the day, but they also often border on the
burlesque.
"Oswald voulut aller au Colisée pour entendre le Capucin qui devait
y prêcher en plein air au pied de l'un des autels qui désignent,
dans l'intérieur de l'enceinte, ce qu'on appelle _la route de la
Croix_. Quel plus beau sujet pour l'éloquence que l'aspect de ce
monument, que cette arène où les martyrs ont succédé aux
gladiateurs! Mais il ne faut rien espérer à cet égard du pauvre
Capucin, qui ne connâit de l'histoire des hommes que sa propre vie.
Néanmoins, si l'on parvient à ne pas écouter son mauvais sermon, on
se sent ému par les divers objets dont il est entouré. La plupart
de ses auditeurs sont de la confrérie des Camaldules; ils se
revêtent, pendant les exercises religieux, d'une espèce de robe
grise qui couvre entièrement la tête et le corps, et ne laisse que
deux petites ouvertures pour les yeux; c'est ainsi que les ombres
pourraient être représentées. Ces hommes, ainsi cachés sous leurs
vêtements, se prosternent la face contre terre, et se frappent la
poitrine. Quand le prédicateur se jette à genoux en criant
_miséricorde de pitié!_ le peuple qui l'environne se jette aussi à
genoux, et répète ce même cri, qui va se perdre sous les vieux
portiques du Colisée. Il est impossible de ne pas éprouver alors
une émotion profondément religieuse; cet appel de la douleur à la
bonté, de la terre au ciel, remue l'âme jusque dans son sanctuaire
le plus intime."--_Madame de Staël._
"'C'est aujourd'hui Vendredi,' dit Guy, 'il y aura foule au
Colisée, il vaudrait mieux, je crois, y aller un autre jour.'
"'Non, non,' dit Eveline, 'c'est précisément pour cela que je veux
y aller. On m'a dit qu'il fallait le voir ainsi rempli de monde, et
que d'ailleurs cette fête était curieuse.'
"'Ce n'est pas une fête,' dit Guy gravement, 'c'est un simple acte
de dévotion qui se répète tous les Vendredis.'
"'En vérité,' dit Eveline, 'et pourquoi le Vendredi?'
"'Parceque c'est le jour où Christ est mort pour nous; par cette
raison, vous ne l'ignorez pas, ce jour est demeuré consacré dans le
monde chrétien ... dans le monde catholique du moins,' repondit
Guy.
"'Mais à quel propos choisit-on le Colisée pour s'y réunir ce jour
là?'
"'Parceque le Colisée a été baigné du sang des martyrs et que leur
souvenir se mêle là plus qu'ailleurs à celui de la croix pour
laquelle ils l'ont versé.'"--_Mrs. Augustus Craven in Anne
Severin._
The pulpit of the Coliseum was used for the stormy sermons of Gavazzi,
who called the people to arms from thence in the revolution of March,
1848.
It is well worth while to ascend to the upper galleries (a man who
lives near the entrance from the Forum will open a locked door for the
purpose), as then only is it possible to realize the vast size and
grandeur of the building.
"_May, 1827._--Lastly, we ascended to the top of the Coliseum,
Bunsen leaving us at the door, to go home; and I seated myself just
above the main entrance, towards the Forum, and there took my
farewell look over Rome. It was a delicious evening, and everything
was looking to advantage:--the huge Coliseum just under me, the
tufts of ilex and aliternus and other shrubs that fringe the walls
everywhere in the lower part, while the outside wall, with its top
of gigantic stones, lifts itself high above, and seems like a
mountain barrier of bare rock, enclosing a green and varied valley.
I sat and gazed upon the scene with an intense and mingled feeling.
The world could show nothing grander; it was one which for years I
had longed to see, and I was now looking at it for the last time.
When I last see the dome of St. Peter's I shall seem to be parting
from more than a mere town full of curiosities, where the eye has
been amused, and the intellect gratified. I never thought to have
felt thus tenderly towards Rome; but the inexplicable solemnity and
beauty of her ruined condition has quite bewitched me, and to the
latest hour of my life I shall remember the Forum, the surrounding
hills, and the magnificent Coliseum."--_Arnold's Letters._
The upper arches frame a series of views of the Aventine, the
Capitoline, the Cœlian, and the Campagna, like a succession of
beautiful pictures.
Those who visit the Coliseum by moonlight will realize the truthfulness
of the following descriptions:--
"I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,--upon such a night,
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind:--
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths;
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;--
But the gladiator's bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old:--
The dead but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns."
_Manfred._
"Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,
Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine
As 't were its natural torches, for divine
Should be the light which streams here, to illume
The long-explored but still exhaustless mine
Of contemplation; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
"Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
And shadows forth its glory. There is given
Under the things of earth, which Time hath bent,
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
And magic in the ruined battlement,
For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower."
_Childe Harold._
"No one can form any idea of full moonlight in Rome who has not
seen it. Every individual object is swallowed in the huge masses of
light and shadow, and only the marked and principal outlines remain
visible. Three days ago (Feb. 2, 1787) we made good use of a light
and most beautiful night. The Coliseum presents a vision of beauty.
It is closed at night; a hermit lives inside in a little church,
and beggars roost amid the ruined vaults. They had lighted a fire
on the bare ground, and a gentle breeze drove the smoke across the
arena. The lower portion of the ruin was lost, while the enormous
walls above stood forth into the darkness. We stood at the gates
and gazed upon this phenomenon. The moon shone high and bright.
Gradually the smoke moved through the chinks and apertures in the
walls, and the moon illuminated it like a mist. It was an exquisite
moment!"--_Goethe._
It is believed that the building of the Coliseum remained entire until
the eighth century, and that its ruin dates from the invasion of Robert
Guiscard, who destroyed it to prevent its being used as a stronghold by
the Romans. During the middle ages it served as a fortress, and became
the castle of the great family of Frangipani, who here gave refuge to
Pope Innocent II. (Papareschi) and his family, against the anti-pope
Anacletus II., and afterwards in the same way protected Innocent III.
(Conti) and his brothers against the anti-pope Paschal II. Constantly at
war with the Frangipani were the Annibaldi, who possessed a neighbouring
fortress, and obtained from Gregory IX. a grant of half the Coliseum,
which was rescinded by Innocent IV. During the absence of the popes at
Avignon the Annibaldi got possession of the whole of the Coliseum, but
it was taken away again in 1312, and placed in the hands of the
municipality, after which it was used for bull-fights, in which (as
described by Monaldeschi) nobles of high rank took part and lost their
lives. In 1381 the senate made over part of the ruins to the Canons of
the Lateran, to be used as a hospital, and their occupation is still
commemorated by the arms of the Chapter (our Saviour's head between two
candelabra) sculptured in various parts of the building. From the
fourteenth century it began to be looked upon as a stone-quarry, and the
Palazzos Farnese, Barberini, S. Marco, and the Cancellaria, were built
with materials plundered from its walls. It is said that the first of
these destroyers, Cardinal Farnese, only extorted permission from his
reluctant uncle, Paul III., to quarry as much stone as he could remove
in twelve hours, and that he availed himself of this permission to let
loose four thousand workmen upon the building. Sixtus V. endeavoured to
utilize it by turning the arcades into shops, and establishing a woollen
manufactory, and Clement XI. (1700--1721) by a manufactory of saltpetre,
but both happily failed. In the last century the tide of restoration
began to set in. A Carmelite monk, Angelo Paoli, represented the
iniquity of allowing a spot consecrated by such holy memories to be
desecrated, and Clement XI. consecrated the arena to the memory of the
martyrs who had suffered there, and erected in one of the archways the
still existing chapel of Sta. Maria della Pietà. The hermit appointed to
take care of this chapel was stabbed in 1742, which caused Benedict XIV.
to shut in the Coliseum with bars and gates. After this time destruction
became sacrilege, and the five last popes all contributed to strengthen
and preserve the walls which remain. Even so late as thirty years ago,
however, the interior was (like that of an English abbey) an uneven
grassy space littered with masses of ruin, amid which large trees grew
and flourished, and the clearing out of the arena, though exhibiting
more perfectly the ancient form of the building, is much to be regretted
by lovers of the picturesque.[72]
Among the ecclesiastical legends connected with the Coliseum, it is said
that Gregory the Great presented some foreign ambassadors with a handful
of earth from the arena as a relic for their sovereigns, and upon their
receiving the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed
from the soil. Pius V, urged those who wished for relics to gather up
the dust of the Coliseum, wet with the blood of the martyrs.
In 1744 "the blessed Leonardo di Porto Maurizio," who is buried in S.
Buonaventura, drew immense crowds to the Coliseum by his preaching, and
obtained permission from Benedict XIV. to found the confraternity of
"Amanti di Gesù e Maria," for whom the Via Crucis was established here.
Recently the ruins have been associated with the holy beggar, Benoit
Joseph Labré (beatified by Pius IX. in 1860), who died at Rome in 1783,
after a life spent in devotion. He was accustomed to beg in the
Coliseum, to sleep at night under its arcades, and to pray for hours at
its various shrines.
The name Coliseum is first found in the writings of the Venerable Bede,
who quotes a prophecy of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims.
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls, the world."[73]
The name was probably derived from its size; the amphitheatre of Capua
was also called Colossus.
"When one looks at the Coliseum everything else becomes small; it
is so great that one cannot keep its true image in one's soul; one
only remembers it on a smaller scale, and returning thither again
finds it again grown larger."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._
Once or twice in the course of every Roman winter the Coliseum is
illuminated with Bengal lights.
"Les étrangers se donnent parfois l'amusement d'éclairer le Colisée
avec des feux de Bengale. Cela ressemble un peu trop à un finale de
mélodrame, et on peut préférer comme illumination un radieux soleil
on les douces lueurs de la lune. Cependant j'avoue que la première
fois que le Colisée m'apparut ainsi, embrasé de feux rougeâtres,
son histoire me revint vivement à la pensée. Je trouvais qu'il
avait en ce moment sa vraie couleur, la couleur du sang."--_Ampère,
Emp._ ii. 156.