THE IMPERIAL FORA AND THE CAPITOLIUM.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s Forum.]
[Sidenote: Ruin in the Salita del Grillo.]
The whole space between the Quirinal and the Capitoline Hills was occupied
by the immense Forum and public buildings which Trajan constructed. The
Column of Trajan, with its wonderful spiral reliefs, still marks the site
of this great mass of masonry; but the remainder, which included a
basilica, two libraries, a temple, and two extensive porticoes, has
disappeared with the exception of a fragmentary ruin in the Via della
Salita del Grillo under the Quirinal. This ruin is the remains of a part
of the great semicircular side of Trajan’s Forum under the Quirinal Hill.
It consists of a brick building of two stories high, containing in the
lower story small rooms measuring about ten feet square, probably shops or
offices for notaries and lawyers’ clerks. The interior of three of the
rooms is covered with plaster, and painted roughly. The floors were
covered with mosaic pavement of a common kind, of which much still remains
in situ. Above these rooms runs a corridor with arched windows, at the
back of which a row of large and high chambers opens, resting upon the
natural rock of the Quirinal Hill. The front is faced with brick pilasters
on travertine basements, in a mixed Doric and Ionic style, and there were
formerly pediments over the windows.
It will be seen by reference to the plan that a small portion of the Forum
of Trajan can be now seen in the Piazza della Colonna Trajana. The arch
from which the beautiful bas-reliefs on Constantine’s Arch were robbed,
probably stood in the Via del Priorato at some distance from the Piazza.
The two double rows of bases now to be seen in the Piazza formed a part of
the great Basilica Ulpia, part of the ground-plan of which is still
preserved on two fragments of the Capitoline map. Many fragments are to be
seen here of the columns which supported the roof of the basilica, among
which those of grey granite, probably belonging to the outer rows of
columns, are most conspicuous.
[Sidenote: Column of Trajan.]
The great PILLAR with its well-known spiral bas-reliefs, perhaps the most
interesting and instructive monument of antiquity in Rome, was surrounded
when the buildings round it were complete with a narrow court not more
than forty feet square. The south side of this was formed by the Basilica
Ulpia, the eastern and western by the libraries, and on the north there
was probably an open colonnade, the line of which can be traced leading to
the structures beyond, where stood the temple dedicated to Trajan. Thus we
discover a fact which seems at first somewhat surprising, that the pillar
could not be viewed in its full height from any side, and that the upper
part of it alone was visible from the Forum over the roof of the basilica.
That it was intentionally thus enclosed is evident, for had the Greek
architect Apollodorus of Damascus, who designed the Forum, wished it to be
where the full colossal proportions could be seen, the open space of the
Forum was close at hand, in the centre of which it might have been placed.
But it is not unlikely that the sight of a column was almost inseparable
in the Greek architectural ideas from an entablature and pediment. The
Greeks did not place their statues on the top of columns, and probably had
this reason for it, that a single column cannot form a whole by itself,
and wears a forsaken and deserted aspect when viewed from any distance. An
obelisk conveys a different meaning, and the use of a single column cannot
be justified by it. The obelisk tapers upwards and completes itself, but a
column instantly brings the idea of support with it. Obelisks, moreover,
were never used singly by the Egyptians, but always placed in pairs. The
intention of the architect was not that the column should be viewed as we
now view it, as a whole, but that the colossal statue of the emperor might
be raised on high above his splendid group of buildings, and also that the
bas-reliefs should be conveniently viewed from the surrounding galleries.
[Illustration: The Column of Trajan.]
The height of the column is 124 feet from the pavement to the foot of the
statue. It stands upon a pedestal of marble eighteen feet high,
ornamented on three sides with highly interesting bas-reliefs representing
trophies of Roman and Dacian armour of various kinds, the Roman labarum
and the Dacian dragon, coats of mail made of scale or chain armour,
helmets, curved and straight swords, axes, clubs, bows, quivers, arrows,
lances, trumpets, and several kinds of military tools. On the fourth side
two genii bear the tablet on which is the inscription: SENATUS POPULUSQUE
ROMANUS IMP. CAESARI DIVI NERVAE F. NERVAE TRAJANO AUG. GERM. DACICO
PONTIF. MAXIMO TRIB. POT. XII. IMP. VI. PP. AD DECLARANDUM QUANTAE
ALTITUDINIS MONS ET LOCUS TANT[is operi]BUS SIT EGESTUS.
The last words of this inscription are illustrated by a passage of Dion
Cassius, who says that Trajan placed a colossal pillar in his Forum to be
his own tomb, and also to show the amount of labour expended upon the
Forum, the slope of the hill which previously occupied the site having
been dug away so as to afford a level space for the Forum. There is no
need to interpret this, as some writers have done, to mean that the ground
on the spot where the column stands had previously been as high as the top
of the column. Such an interpretation seems highly improbable. The view
taken by Becker and Brocchi is more tenable, that the words allude to the
cutting away of the Quirinal Hill, which was steep and inaccessible before
but was sloped away to a point on the side of the hill as high as the top
of the column. Brocchi’s geological observations have made it almost
certain that the ground has not been cut away to any great depth between
the two hills.
The top of the column is only six feet lower than the level of the Villa
Aldobrandini on the top of the Quirinal, and two feet higher than the
Piazza di Ara Cœli. If, therefore, at any time the ground on the site of
Trajan’s Forum was as high as the column, it must have formed a ridge
between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills, higher than the Capitoline and
very nearly as high as the Quirinal.
In the base of the column the ashes of Trajan were deposited in a golden
urn. Sixtus V. had the chamber in which the urn was placed opened, but
found it empty, and it has now been walled up.
Above the pedestal are two flat stones ornamented with garlands of oak
leaves, and upon them rests a round base carved in the shape of a laurel
wreath. The shaft which stands immediately upon this is composed of
nineteen cylindrical blocks of marble, on the outside of which a spiral
band of beautifully executed bas-reliefs winds from bottom to top,
covering the whole shaft. The capital is a single ring of egg-shaped
ornaments with arrowheads between them, and a simple border below. On a
pedestal above it stood originally the colossal bronze-gilt statue of
Trajan. This statue and pedestal were probably carried off during the
robberies committed at Rome by the Byzantine emperors, A.D. 663. Sixtus V.
replaced it by a modern cylindrical pedestal and statue of S. Peter. The
ancient winding staircase hewn in the solid blocks of marble, and lighted
by narrow openings, still leads to the top. From thence it may be seen how
difficult it is to suppose that the ground ever rose to such a height
between the Capitoline and Quirinal as has been imagined by many
historians and topographers.
[Sidenote: Bas-reliefs representing scenes in the Dacian wars.]
The magnificent wreath of bas-reliefs which winds round the shaft may be
best studied by means of the model to be seen in the French Academy on the
Pincian Hill, or that in the Kensington Museum. It contains the history of
two campaigns against the Dacians, and has been ingeniously and minutely
interpreted by several writers. A complete account of this marble history
of the Dacian wars, with a discussion of all the historical and
antiquarian points connected with it, would occupy several volumes, and we
must, therefore, content ourselves with noticing the general character of
the work and some few of the more interesting portions.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s first campaign in Dacia.]
Two campaigns are represented. The first of these took place in the year
101, and during it Trajan’s army passed down the river Save and crossed
the Danube in two divisions at Kastolatz and at the confluence of the
Tjerna. The two divisions effected a junction at the pass of the Bistra,
called the Iron Gate, which they forced, and then attacked and took the
royal city Zermizegethusa. Trajan was not satisfied with this success, but
pushed on into the heart of the enemy’s country, and gained a great
victory at Tapæ, after which Decebalus, the Dacian king, sued for peace.
The bas-relief begins at the base by a representation of the banks of the
Save, down which the Roman army passed, and shows military storehouses,
piles of wood, stacks of hay, and wooden huts. Then follow forts with
soldiers on guard, and boats carrying barrels of provisions.
The river god Danube then appears and looks on with astonishment at the
bridge of boats over which the Roman army is passing. The baggage of the
soldiers on the march, tied to the top of the vallum or palisade which
they carry, and the different military standards, are very distinctly
shown. Many of the men are without covering on their heads, but some wear
lions’ skins. The emperor and his staff are then introduced. He is sitting
upon a suggestus or platform, and Lucius, the Prætorian prefect, sits
beside him. The suovetaurilia, a grand sacrificial celebration, is the
next scene, with priests in the Cinctus Gabinus and trumpeters. After this
the emperor is seen making a speech to the army, and a little farther on
the building of a stone encampment enclosing huts is being carried on with
great vigour, and bridges are being thrown across a river, over which
cavalry are passing.
A battle seems then to take place, and the heads of two enemies are being
brought to the emperor. The Dacian army with the dragon ensign and the
Dacian cap, the symbol of superior rank, seen upon the statues of the
Dacian prisoners on the Arch of Constantine, appears. Jupiter gives the
victory to the Romans, the Dacian camp is burnt, and the Dacians fly.
Numerous representations of forts, boats, different kinds of troops,
skirmishes, and sieges follow, ending with the surrender of Decebalus and
the return of Trajan to Rome, where a great festival is celebrated. The
arrival at Rome, and the crowd of Romans going to meet the great
conqueror, are very vividly drawn. An immense number of bulls for
sacrifice, altars, camilli, and half-naked popæ are introduced into the
triumphal rejoicings, and the first campaign ends with the figure of
Trajan offering incense on the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus.
[Sidenote: Trajan’s second campaign in Dacia.]
A somewhat similar series of scenes are represented in the sculptures
which depict the second campaign. Perhaps the most interesting is that of
the great bridge over the Danube, made of wood supported on stone piers,
the foundations of which may still be seen in the bed of the river.
Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, designed this immense work, which
crossed the Danube at a spot where it is not less than 1300 yards wide,
near the village of Gieli. A permanent road into Dacia and secure
communications with his basis of operations having thus been secured,
Trajan gradually advanced from post to post, driving the Dacians into the
mountainous parts of the country. The sculptures represent a number of
skirmishes and assaults upon fortified places, but no regular pitched
battle. At last the ghastly spectacle of the head and hands of Decebalus
is exhibited on a board by two soldiers in front of the Prætorium. This
disgusting scene is followed by a representation of the storming of the
last strongholds of the enemy in the mountains, and a mournful procession
of fugitives carrying away their goods and driving their cattle into exile
forms the close of the sculptured history of the Dacian campaigns of
Trajan.[76]
In these curious bas-reliefs we have a treasury of information on the
religion, the military science, the habits and dress of the Romans of the
Empire far more valuable than ten thousand pages of descriptive writing.
The lover of Roman antiquities will learn more by studying Fabretti’s
engravings of these reliefs, or the casts at the French Academy at Rome,
and at the Kensington Museum, than by much book-labour. The descriptions
of Livy and Polybius, Cæsar and Tacitus, receive life, and movement, and
interest as we look at the actual figures (oculis subjecta fidelibus) of
the general and his staff; the Prætorian guards marked by their belts over
the left shoulder; the fierce-looking standard-bearers and centurions with
their heads covered by lions’ skins, the shaggy manes of which stream down
their backs; the rank and file carrying enormous stakes; the master
masons, sappers, and pioneers, with their axes and crowbars; the lancers,
heavy and light cavalry, and royal chargers; the Sarmatian horsemen,
clothed, both riders and steeds, in complete scale armour, and the Moorish
cavalry, riding without reins.
Bridges are constructed, Roman causeways laid, forts attacked with all
kinds of military engines; the charge of cavalry, the rout and confusion
of a defeated army, are all most vividly depicted. Trajan in person
traverses the ranks on foot, or mounts the suggestus and harangues his
men, or receives with simple dignity the submission of the enemy, or
marches with all the pomp of a Roman procession under the triumphal arch.
The soldierlike simplicity of the great military emperor is strikingly
portrayed. There is no silken tent, or richly decorated chariot, or
throne, or canopy of state to be seen. His colonel of the guards sits
beside him, as an equal, on the suggestus. In the midst of a battle the
emperor tears up his robe to bind the wounds of his soldiers; he is
present everywhere, wearing a sword and fighting in person. Nothing could
be more illustrative of the state of Roman affairs in that iron age when
again, as in the olden times, a rough and unlettered warrior, fresh from
the camp, swayed the destinies of the empire.
In this vast spiral relief there are said to be above 2500 figures of men
sculptured, and the higher they are placed on the column the larger are
their dimensions, showing the care that was taken to counteract the
effects of the increased distance from the eye. The whole of the carving
from base to summit is executed with equally minute care, though the upper
part can never have been easily visible, except from the windows or roofs
of the basilica and the libraries which, as we have seen, were placed very
near. The opinion which prevailed for some time, that the figures had been
coloured, is incorrect, as the more minute examination since made has
proved that the colours imagined to be artificial are the natural results
of the decay of the stone and oxidisation of the metallic parts of the
structure, under the effects of the rain, sun, and dust.
[Sidenote: Remains found on the site.]
A vast number of fragments of columns, of inscriptions, and of
architectural ornaments have been dug up at various times on the site of
Trajan’s Forum. The great granite columns which now lie near the base of
the pillar were found in laying the foundations of the Church of S. Maria
in Loreto, by the architect, the elder San Gallo, and are mentioned as
lying near that church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio,
stands upon a pedestal made by Michael Angelo out of an immense fragment
of entablature found on the site of Trajan’s Forum.
An inscription, which is now built into the wall on the north of the
pillar, commemorates the remission of all debts to the emperor’s private
purse (fiscus) by Hadrian, a fact which we find also mentioned in Dion
Cassius and Spartianus. The latter writer adds that it was in the Forum of
Trajan that Hadrian publicly burnt the list of his debtors, and the
inscription was no doubt intended to mark the spot of this act of
liberality or bribery.
[Sidenote: Ruins of the Forum Julium.]
The ruins of two portions only of the Forum Julium, which adjoined that of
Trajan, have been discovered in modern times. The first is a considerable
part of the outer wall of the Forum, standing in the court of the house
No. 18 in the Via del Ghetarello, a small street which opens out of the
Via di Marforio, near the Carcer and the Church of SS. Martina e Luca.
This ruined wall consists of three arches composed of large blocks of
peperino and travertine skilfully cut and joined without mortar and
under-built by another arch, as if in order to enable the wall to bear a
great weight. The length of the fragment of wall is about 50 feet and the
highest point about 30 feet.
The other relic of Cæsar’s Forum is now no longer visible. We obtain our
information about it from Palladio, the architect, about the middle of the
sixteenth century, who relates that while he was at Rome the ground-plan
of a temple was uncovered in digging the foundations of a house between
the Salita di Marforio and the temple of Mars Ultor, a description which
points plainly to the block of houses behind SS. Martina e Luca. There was
a peculiarity in the inter-columniations of this temple, which Palladio
particularly remarked. The distance between the columns, he says, was the
eleventh part of the diameter of a column less than a diameter and a
half.
[Sidenote: Forum of Augustus. Temple of Mars Ultor.]
The almost universal opinion of Roman topographers now is that the three
Corinthian columns on the left-hand side of the Via Bonella and the
massive arch which leads from it into the Via di Tor di Conti are the
remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which Augustus built in his Forum,
and of the north-eastern portion of the enclosing wall.
This opinion was already held by Palladio in the sixteenth century, but
the Italian antiquaries since his time have adopted the most various
hypotheses on the subject. There is, it is true, no actual proof that this
was the temple of Mars Ultor, but there is strong presumptive evidence
that it was so. The ‘Catalogue of the Curiosum’ places it next to the
Forum Julium in the eighth region. Now the eighth region was bounded on
the east, in this neighbourhood, by the Quirinal Hill and the Via del
Sole, or a street a little to the east of it, and we are tolerably sure
that the forum transitorium filled up a great part of the space between
the temple in question and the above-mentioned street, and that the Forum
Julium intervened between it and the Forum Romanum, while the Forum
Trajani limits the space to the westward within which we can suppose the
Forum Augusti to have been. Thus the only space left in the eighth region
within which the Forum of Augustus can be supposed to have been contained,
is that bounded by the Via della Croce Bianca, the Via del Priorato, and
the Via di Tor di Conti.
The ruins of the temple consist of three lofty fluted Corinthian columns,
a pilaster of white Carrara marble, a part of the surmounting architrave,
and the corresponding wall of the cella of the temple. Antiquarians are of
opinion that the purity of style and elegance of these columns, and their
ornamentation, forms a strong proof that they were designed and executed
in the best times of Roman architectural art, and cannot belong to a
period later than that of Augustus. The richest decorative work is to be
seen under the roof of the portico, between the columns and the wall of
the cella.
[Sidenote: Exterior wall. Arco dei Pantani.]
These three columns stood at the side of the temple which abutted on the
exterior wall of the Forum, as the ruins show. A large portion of this
wall is still standing on each side of the arch called the Arco dei
Pantani. The arch itself is built of travertine, the wall of blocks of
peperino laid alternately with the longer and shorter sides outwards as in
the masonry of the tabularium. In the middle ages a door was fitted on to
this archway, and a portion of the stone was cut away on the west side.
This has injured its architectural beauty very much. It has also been
stripped of the marble facing with which it was probably covered
originally, and being now half buried in the rubbish of ages, it presents
a somewhat mean and rough appearance.
This archway formed one of the entrances to the Forum Augusti from the
east. The wall of the enclosure can be traced for a considerable distance
on each side of it, but there are no other archways now open. The
monotonous appearance of so high a wall is relieved by having the edges of
the stones cut so that each block stands out separately, and the lower
part of the wall is divided into two, and its upper into three stages by
projecting ruins of travertine.
It is said that the blocks of stone in this masonry are fastened with
wooden bolts made in the shape of double swallow tails, and that some of
these have been found completely petrified. When the Forum was first
designed Augustus encountered great opposition from owners of private
house property; and through fear of the unpopularity which wholesale
evictions might have caused, he accommodated the shape of the external
walls to that of the ground he could occupy. Hence arose the irregular
line of the exterior, which was, however, reduced to a symmetrical plan
inside by secondary walls. The general shape of the interior area of the
enclosure was that of a broad oblong piazza with two large semicircular
side extensions or wings (somewhat like those in the Piazza S. Pietro)
opposite to and corresponding to each other. The area was large, for the
horse races, and games in honour of Mars were held here once when the
Tiber had overflowed the circus.[77] The temple stood at the northern end
between these two side extensions, and occupied about one-sixth of the
whole space. Tribunals were placed in the hemicycles and courts of law
held there. Some portions of the semicircular recesses are still extant
by which their plan may be traced, but the outer wall is in no part
preserved entire except at the back and sides of the temple. Its height at
the back of the temple is 120 feet, and over the Arco dei Pantani 100
feet, which we must suppose to have been the normal height of the rest of
the enclosure. These enormous walls served as a defence against fire, no
less than to exclude the traffic and noise of the streets.
Although it is possible that Augustus may have entertained the design of
erecting a new group of public buildings as a means of gaining distinction
and popularity before the battle of Philippi which established his power,
yet so far as we know, the temple of Mars Ultor and the Forum Augusti owed
their existence to a vow made by the emperor immediately before the
decisive battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, to build if victorious a temple to
Mars as the avenger of his adopted father. The dedication of the temple
took place in B.C. 2, accompanied with most magnificent shows of
gladiators and splendid sham sea-fights.
[Sidenote: Forum of Nerva.]
[Sidenote: The Colonnacce.]
The Forum of Nerva was in the district through which the Via della Croce
Bianca passes, and was connected with the ruin commonly called the Temple
of Minerva, still standing on the right-hand side of that street where it
is crossed by the Via Alessandrina. Two columns are there to be seen now
called the Colonnacce, half buried in the earth, surmounted by an
entablature and an attica. The wall behind the columns is built of blocks
of peperino of unequal size, and is in a style of masonry inferior to the
walls of the Forum of Augustus. In it may be seen the traces of an arch
which has been filled up with the same stone as that of which the wall is
built. The columns, which are of fluted marble, stand out in front of the
wall; but, as in the Arch of Severus, the entablature does not lie between
them, but projects from the wall over the capitals, and unites them with
the wall. The edges of the architrave are richly decorated, and the frieze
contains an elaborately carved bas-relief, which, though unfortunately
much disfigured, can be partially understood by the help of old engravings
taken before it was reduced to its present lamentable state.
[Illustration: Forum of Nerva as it stood in 1600. From Du Perac, ‘Vestigj
di Roma.’]
From these it appears that the figures represent various attributes of
Minerva as the patroness of household management. Some of them are drawing
water, others weaving or spinning, and others dyeing, washing, holding
scales and purses as if bargaining. The remaining portion of the design is
incomplete, and was probably carried round the rest of the frieze of the
enclosure.[78] On the cornices, both upper and lower, the ornamentation is
very rich, but not so chaste as work of the Augustan period. In the centre
of the attica stands a figure of Minerva in alto-relievo, with spear,
helmet, and shield.
That this beautiful ruin, which is one of the most picturesque in Rome,
belonged to the wall of Nerva’s Forum is rendered certain by the old views
of the sixteenth century, which represent it as part of the inner side of
the wall enclosing a splendid temple which stood to the north-west of it.
Seven of the columns of this temple were still standing in the fifteenth
century, belonging to the left-hand side of the portico, and a
considerable part also of the walls of the cella with the pilasters of the
portico. The cella of the temple adjoined the semicircular part of
Augustus’s Forum on one side, and, as will be seen by the plan, the wall
of the enclosure met it on the other, so that only the portico of the
temple projected into the open space of the Forum.
On the front were the words, probably the last line of a longer
inscription, IMP. NERVA CÆSAR AUG. PONT. MAXIM. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. II.
PROCOS, showing that the temple was dedicated by Nerva.
There can be but little doubt that this was the temple of Minerva begun
together with the Forum by Domitian, and finished by Nerva. It is true
that there is no actual mention in any of the ancient writers of a temple
of Minerva here, but the assertion of Dion Cassius that Domitian had a
particular reverence for Minerva and Janus, and the character of the
designs and statues of Minerva found upon the ruined part of the enclosure
already described, leave little doubt on the subject. The name of
Palladium given to the Forum by Martial also agrees with this supposition.
The fate of the Temple of Minerva is better known than that of most of the
ancient temples in Rome.
In the time of Pope Pius V. (1566-1572) the building of a new quarter of
the city was begun in this district. The streets Via Alessandrina and Via
Bonella were laid out, and as the new quarter grew, the ruins of the old
temple became an impediment to their progress, which Paul V. in the
beginning of the seventeenth century ordered to be removed, and to be
applied to the construction of the Chapel of S. Paul in the church of S.
Maria Maggiore and that of the Fontana Paolo upon the Janiculum. The great
gateway which stood at the end of the Via della Croce Bianca was suffered
to remain for a century longer, but is now quite gone.
[Sidenote: Tomb of Bibulus.]
We now return to the Piazza Trajana. Between it and the Piazza del
Campidoglio, in a street called the Via di Marforio, are two of the more
ancient ruins in Rome consisting of tombs now built into the walls of
houses. These tombs are monuments of imperial Rome, and were probably
outside the ancient Servian Wall not far from the Porta Ratumena.
The more prominent of the two, the Tomb of Bibulus, stands close by the
junction of the modern streets of Macel de’ Corvi and Marforio. The front
of it only can be seen, as the rest is built into the wall of a house. The
inscription is as follows,
C . POPLICIO . L . F . BIBULO AED . PL . HONORIS.
VIRTUTISQUE . CAUSSA . SENATUS.
CONSULTO . POPULI . QUE . JUSSU . LOCUS.
MONUMENTO . QUO . IPSE . POSTEREIQUE.
EIUS . INFERRENTUR . PUBLICE . DATUS . EST.
The inscription was also placed on the side of the tomb, where the
beginning of it may still be seen. It must not be inferred that the
privilege of being buried within the walls was granted to Bibulus contrary
to the regulations of the twelve tables, which forbade any corpse to be
buried or burnt within the city walls. Had this been the case the
exemption would have been expressly mentioned in the inscription, and
besides this the course of the Servian Wall, which crossed the depression
between the Quirinal and Capitoline, would naturally run so as to exclude
the tomb. The inscription only records the gift of the burial place to
Bibulus by the Senate, and is intended to prevent the burial of any other
person there, except the family of Bibulus.
An Ædile of the name C. Bibulus is mentioned in the ‘Annals’ of Tacitus in
the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 22, and the style of the tomb agrees tolerably
well with this date. The whole is built of travertine, and the basement is
of the simplest description possible. Four Doric pilasters with Attic
bases surmounted by an Ionic entablature, ornamented with wreaths of fruit
and ox-skulls, form the whole decoration of the front. Bergau, however,
thinks that the architecture is Italian, and should not be called by these
Greek names.[79]
The other ruin of a tomb is in the wall of a house nearly opposite to that
of Bibulus, and is reduced to a shapeless mass of remains.
[Sidenote: Capitolium. Temple of Jupiter.]
Passing from the Tomb of Bibulus to the Piazza del Campidoglio, and thence
to the Caffarelli or southern end of the Capitoline Hill, we find in the
gardens of the German Embassy an excavation which shows a number of tufa
blocks fitted together without mortar, and in an irregular manner.[80]
The area of the great temple and the wall surrounding it have been traced
out by Lanciani and Jordan among the fragments which are found in this
garden, and on the north side of the Caffarelli palace, and between the
garden and the rotunda of the museum. Jordan thinks that the measurements
of the area indicated by these fragments correspond to the size of the
environs of the temple as given by Dionysius, and that they afford a
conclusive proof that the great temple of Jupiter was on the Caffarelli
and not on the Ara Cœli height. The north-eastern corner of the excavation
in the Caffarelli garden shows a part of these constructions, and a
fragment may be seen in the wall of the Montanara Garden in the Vicolo di
Monte Caprino.
The natural features of the Capitoline Hill could hardly have been more
completely concealed than they are by the present situation of the
buildings upon it, even if those buildings had been erected with the
express purpose of changing the appearance of the hill. For the convent of
Ara Cœli and the Palazzo Caffarelli, which occupy respectively the
north-eastern and south-western summits of the hill, are comparatively
low and unconspicuous, while the so-called Tabularium and above it the
Palace of the Senator compose a lofty pile which nearly fills up the
depression between these two heights. To the spectator looking at the
Capitol from the Forum, the higher part of the hill appears to lie nearly
in the centre, whereas in reality the shape is that of a double hill
rising at each end. The north-eastern end is somewhat curved round towards
the north, while the south-western approaches within 300 paces of the
river. The whole core of the hill is formed of the harder volcanic tufa, a
section of which may be plainly seen, composing the face of the low
precipice now shown as the Tarpeian rock, and also in a courtyard
surrounded by cottages, near the spot called Palazzaccio. This tufa was,
as has been frequently mentioned, used as a building stone in the early
ages of Rome before the lapis Gabinus, or Albanus (peperino) or the lapis
Tiburtinus had been introduced.
[Sidenote: Tarpeian Rock.]
The Tarpeian Rock whence criminals were hurled, was, according to the
older Italian topographers down to the time of Nardini, placed at the
western edge of the hill towards the Tiber, where the Piazza Montanara now
is. But Dureau de la Malle in the Mémoires de l’Académie for 1809, pointed
out that this was inconsistent with the statements of Dionysius, who says
that it was over the Forum, and that the executions took place in full
view of all the people. This would seem to place it on the S.E. side
towards the Palatine near S. Maria della Consolazione. Becker’s objection
that the hill is less steep there than at the western edge, may be met by
the fact that several large masses of rock are recorded to have fallen
down from this spot, and therefore the face of the cliff is entirely
changed. The further objection that the criminals would have fallen into
the Vicus Jugarius, instead of which they ought, according to custom, to
have been cast over the city walls, seems to rest on the assumption that
criminals were always thrown over the walls, no proof of which has been
adduced. Tradition is equally divided between the two localities, and
therefore the passages of Dionysius above quoted must be held at present
decisive in favour of the side towards the Palatine and Forum.
[Sidenote: Thermæ of Constantine.]
It has been conclusively proved by Becker, that Aurelian’s Temple of the
Sun which was commonly supposed to have occupied the Colonna Gardens, and
to which the huge fragments near the Capitol which lie there were thought
to have belonged, was not here but in the Campus Agrippæ on the Campus
Martius. For the Notitia and the Chronologers both place it in the seventh
region or Via Lata, which occupied the eastern side of the Campus, and
mention castra as attached to it. Further, Vopiscus when describing a
drive in which he accompanied Junius Tiberianus, the prefect of the city,
seems to place the Temple of the Sun at a much greater distance from the
Palatine than the Colonna Gardens are.
The ruin with which it was identified, formerly called turris Mæcenatis,
or Frontispicium Neronis, has now been pulled down, but a part of it, and
especially one huge mass of carved marble, remains in the Colonna Gardens.
Representations of the Frontispicium Neronis as it was before its
destruction, may be seen in Donatus and the older topographers. The
fragments of stonework are now thought to have belonged to the entrance of
the Thermæ of Constantine.
The site of the building erected upon the Quirinal by the mad emperor
Heliogabalus, and called Senaculum Mulierum in which he assembled the
Roman matrons for consultation about the laws of fashion in dress and
manners, is not known.
The site of the Thermæ of Constantine, which are placed by the Notitia
next to the Capitolium antiquum, is tolerably well defined by the notices
of the Anonymous MS. of Einsiedlen, and by an inscription found near the
Quirinal Palace, recording their restoration by Petronius Perpenna
probably in the year 443. Both of these indicate the Palazzo Rospigliosi
as standing upon the ground once occupied by the central building of the
Thermæ. The Anonymous MS. mentions the Thermæ on the road between the
Church of S. Agata and that of S. Vitale. Pozzio, Albertini, Fulvius, Q.
Fauno, and Gamucci, all agree in confirming this evidence. Large portions
of the ruins were still standing in their time, and in Du Perac’s views,
published in the seventeenth century, the central part of the buildings is
represented. Another part of the ruins of these baths was found in the
construction of the Quirinal Palace in the time of Paul V.
[Sidenote: Statues found in the Thermæ of Constantine.]
There can be no doubt that these Thermæ, which were of great extent,
reached nearly across the Quirinal Hill, occupying the sites of the
present Palazzo Rospigliosi, part of the Colonna Gardens and the Quirinal
Palace. Three statues were found in the ruins, representing Constantine
and two of his sons. These are supposed to have stood near the grand
entrance of the Thermæ. The first is now in the Portico of the Lateran
Basilica, the two others were placed by Paul III. on the balustrade of the
Piazza Capitolina. The famous pair of the Dioscuri and their horses, which
now ornament the Piazza di Monte Cavallo, were also discovered on this
site. The history of these well-known sculptures cannot be traced farther
back than the time of Constantine, whose Thermæ they adorned. The old
tradition which states that they were a present from Tiridates to Nero is
in some degree supported by the mention of the equi Tiridatis in the
Notitia, but is not confirmed by any other evidence. That they are not
rightly supposed to represent the Dioscuri can hardly be doubted, and the
inscriptions which ascribe them to the chisels of Phidias and Praxiteles
respectively are erroneous. For not to mention that the exact reproduction
of nature in its highest type of symmetry, peculiar to the style of the
highest Greek art is absent, and that we find instead the conventional
mode of representation characteristic of the revival of art under the
emperors, it seems hardly possible that Praxiteles, who lived more than
half a century after Phidias, should have occupied himself in imitating
and completing a group begun by his predecessor.
These colossal figures and the statues of Constantine mentioned above,
probably stood in the grand court of the Thermæ. There are now no traces
left of the outer enclosure of this court, but the plan of the central
blocks of buildings has been preserved by Palladio, in whose time there
was doubtless a sufficient portion left to enable him to reconstruct the
whole. It is somewhat different from the plan of most of the other Thermæ,
having a large semicircular court on one side surrounded with arcades, the
purpose of which has not been discovered. The other halls and apartments
are of the usual size and shape, with the exception of the exedræ, which
are rectangular. At one side of the enclosing court, apparently the north
side, there was a large theatre similar to that at the baths of Titus.
Some of the older topographers had conjectured that the ruins in the
Colonna Gardens, wrongly, as has been shown, ascribed to Aurelian’s Temple
of the Sun, and also the massive substructions and stairs which have been
found behind the stables of the Quirinal Palace on the west slope of the
hill, belonged to the Thermæ of Constantine. This conjecture has been
revived and ingeniously supported by Professor Reber, who remarks that the
outer court of the Thermæ, to judge by the extent of that of the baths of
Diocletian or of Caracalla, may very well have reached across the whole
breadth of the hill from east to west, and further that the approach to
the Thermæ would naturally be placed on the west side, where the Imperial
fora lay. If so, the building called the tower of Mæcenas stood exactly in
the position at the summit of the colossal flight of stairs now hidden
under the Papal stables which would answer to the entrance portico of the
Thermæ. The fragments of the so-called Tower of Mæcenas are very similar
to those of the portico of Octavia, which was also the entrance to a grand
enclosure. They consist of two huge blocks of marble, the largest of which
is seventeen feet in length, ornamented with mouldings of the usual
Corinthian character, and with a frieze beautifully decorated with
festoons of foliage enclosing birds and genii. The style is of a late
epoch, and might very probably belong to the Constantinian age.