IMPERIAL TOMBS.[94]
The death and burial of Augustus.--His will.--The Monumentum
Ancyranum.--Description and history of his mausoleum.--Its
connection with the Colonnas and Cola di Rienzo.--Other members
of the imperial family who were buried in it.--The story of the
flight and death of Nero.--His place of burial.--Ecloge, his
nurse.--The tomb of the Flavian emperors, Templum Flaviæ
Gentis.--Its situation and surroundings.--The death of
Domitian.--The mausolea of the Christian emperors.--The tomb and
sarcophagus of Helena, mother of Constantine.--Those of
Constantia.--The two rotundas built near St. Peter's as imperial
tombs.--Discoveries made in them in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.--The priceless relics of Maria, wife of
Honorius.--Similar instances of treasure-trove in ancient and
modern times.
THE MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS. Ancient writers have left detailed accounts
of the last hours of the founder of the Roman Empire. On the morning
of the nineteenth of August, anno Domini 14, feeling the approach of
death, Augustus inquired of the attendants whether the outside world
was concerned at his precarious condition; then he asked for a mirror,
and composed his body for the supreme event, as he had long before
prepared his mind and soul. Of his friends and the officers of the
household he took leave in a cheerful spirit; and as soon as he was
left alone with Livia he passed away in her arms, saying, "Livia, may
you live happily, as we have lived together from the day of our
marriage." His death was of the kind he had desired, peaceful and
painless. _[Greek: Euthanashian]_ (an easy end) was the word he used
longingly, whenever he heard of any one dying without agony. Once only
in the course of the malady he seemed to lose consciousness, when he
complained of forty young men crowding around the bed to steal away
his body. More than a wandering mind, Suetonius thinks this was a
vision or premonition of an approaching event, because forty prætorian
soldiers were really to carry the bier in the funeral march. The great
man died at Nola, in the same villa and room in which his father,
Octavius, had passed away years before. His body was transported from
village to village, from city to city, along the Appian Way, by the
members of each municipal council in turn; and, to avoid the intense
heat of the Campanian and Pontine lowlands, the procession marched
only at night, the bier being kept in the local sanctuaries or town
halls during the day. Thus Bovillae (le Frattocchie, at the foot of
the Alban hills) was reached. The whole Roman knighthood was here in
attendance; the body was carried in triumph, as it were, over the last
ten miles of the road, and deposited in the vestibule of the palace on
the Palatine Hill.
[Illustration: Military funeral evolutions; from the base of the
Column of Antoninus.]
Meanwhile proposals were made and resolutions passed in the Senate,
which went far beyond anything that had ever been suggested in such
contingencies of state. One of the members recommended that the statue
of Victory which stood in the Curia should be carried before the
hearse, that lamentations should be sung by the sons and daughters of
the senators, and that the pageant, on its way to the Campus Martius,
should march through the Porta Triumphalis, which was never opened
except to victorious generals. Another member suggested that all
classes of citizens should put aside their golden ornaments and all
articles of jewelry, and wear only iron finger-rings; a third, that
the name of "August" should be transferred to the month of September,
because the lamented hero was born in the latter and had died in the
former. These exaggerated expressions of grief were suppressed,
however, and the funeral was organized with the grandest simplicity.
The body was placed in the Forum, in front of the Temple of Julius
Cæsar, from the _rostra_ of which Tiberius read a panegyric. Another
oration was delivered at the opposite end of the Forum by Drusus, the
adopted son of Tiberius. Then the senators themselves placed the bier
on their shoulders, leaving the city by the Porta Triumphalis. The
procession formed by the Senate, the high priesthood, the knights, the
army, and the whole population skirted the Circus Flaminius and the
Septa Julia, and by the Via Flaminia reached the _ustrinum_, or sacred
enclosure for cremation. As soon as the body had been placed on the
pyre the "march past" began in the same order, the officers and men of
the various army corps making their evolutions or _decursiones_. This
word, taken in a general sense, means a long march by soldiers made in
a given time and without quitting the ranks; when referring to a
funeral ceremony it signifies special evolutions performed three
times, in honor of distinguished generals. A _decursio_ is represented
on the base of the column of Antoninus Pius, now in the Giardino della
Pigna. In that which I am describing, officers and men threw on the
pyre the decorations which Augustus had awarded them for their bravery
in battle. The privilege of setting fire to the _rogus_ was granted to
the captains of the legions whom he had led so often to victory. They
approached with averted faces, and, uttering a last farewell,
performed their act of duty and respect. The cremation accomplished,
and while the glowing embers were being extinguished with wine and
perfumed waters, an eagle rose from the ashes as if carrying the soul
of the hero to Heaven. Livia and a few officers watched the place for
five days and nights, and finally collected the ashes in a precious
urn, which they placed in the innermost crypt of the mausoleum which
Augustus had built in the Campus Martius forty-two years before.
[Illustration: The Apotheosis of an Emperor; from the base of the
Column of Antoninus.]
Of this monument we have a description by Strabo, and ruins which
substantiate the description in its main lines. It was composed of a
circular basement of white marble, two hundred and twenty-five feet in
diameter, which supported a cone of earth, planted with cypresses and
evergreens. On the top of the mound the bronze statue of the emperor
towered above the trees.
This type of sepulchral structure dates almost from prehistoric times,
and was in great favor with the Etruscans. The territories of Vulci,
near the Ponte dell' Abbadia, and of Veii, near the Vaccareccia, are
dotted with these mounds, which the peasantry call _cocumelle_.
Augustus made the type popular among the Romans, as is proved by the
large number of tumuli which date from his age, on the Via Salaria,
the Via Labicana, and the Via Appia.
His tomb was entered from the south, the entrance being flanked by
monuments of great interest, such as the obelisks now in the Piazza
del Quirinale and the Piazza di S. Maria Maggiore; the copies of the
decrees of the Senate in honor of the personages buried within; and,
above all, the _Res gestæ divi Augusti_, a sort of political will,
autobiography, and apology, the importance of which surpasses that of
any other document relating to the history of the Roman Empire.
This was written by Augustus towards the end of his life. He ordered
his executors to have it engraved on bronze pillars on each side of
the entrance to his mausoleum. That his will was duly executed by
Livia, Tiberius, Drusus, and Germanicus, his heirs and trustees, is
proved by the frequent allusions to the document made by Suetonius and
Velleius, and also by the copies which have come down to us, not from
Rome or Italy, but from the remote provinces of Galatia and Pisidia.
It was customary in ancient times to raise temples in honor of the
rulers of the empire, and to ornament them with their images and
eulogies. These were called _Augustea_ or _ædes Augusti et Romæ_ in
the western provinces, [Greek: sebasteia] in eastern or Greek-speaking
countries,[95] Ancyra (Angora), the capital of Galatia, and Apollonia,
the capital of Pisidia, were the foremost among the Asiatic cities to
pay this honor to the founder of the empire.
The Ancyran temple owes its preservation to the Christians, who made
use of it as a church from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, and
also to the Turks, who have turned it into a mosque associated with
the Hadji Beiram. The temple and its invaluable epigraphic treasures
became known towards the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1555 an
embassy was sent by the emperor Ferdinand II. to Suleiman, the khalif,
who was then residing at Amasia.[96] It so happened that the head of
the mission, Ogier Ghislain Busbecq, and his assistant, Antony Wrantz,
bishop of Agram, were fond of archæological investigation. They were
struck by the importance of the Augusteum at Ancyra; and with the
help of their secretaries, they made a tolerably good copy of its
inscriptions. Since 1555 the place has been visited many times,
notably by Edmond Guillaume, in 1861, and by Humann, in 1882.[97]
There are two copies of the will of Augustus engraved on the marble
wall of the temple: one in Latin, which is in the pronaos, on either
side of the door; the other in Greek, on the outer wall of the cella.
Both were transcribed (or translated) "from the original, engraved on
the bronze pillars at the mausoleum in Rome." The document is divided
into three parts, and thirty-five paragraphs. The first part describes
the honors conferred on Augustus,--military, civil, and sacerdotal;
the second gives the details of the expenses which he sustained for
the benefit and welfare of the public; the third relates his
achievements in peace and war; and some of the facts narrated are
truly remarkable. He says, for instance, that the Roman citizens who
fought under his orders and swore allegiance to him numbered five
hundred thousand, and that more than three hundred thousand completed
the term of their engagement, and were honorably dismissed from the
army. To each of these he gave either a piece of land, which he bought
with his own money, or the means of purchasing it in other lands than
those assigned to military colonies. Since, at the time of his death,
one hundred and sixty thousand Roman citizens were still serving under
the flag, the number of those killed in battle, disabled by disease,
or dismissed for misconduct, in the course of fifty-five years[98] is
reduced to forty thousand. The percentage is surprisingly low,
considering the defective organization of the military medical staff,
and the length and hardships of the campaigns which were conducted in
Italy (Mutina), Macedonia (Philippi), Acarnania (Actium), Sicily,
Egypt, Spain, Germany, Armenia and other countries. The number of
men-of-war of large tonnage, which were captured, burnt, or sunk in
battle, is stated at six hundred. In the naval engagement against
Sextus Pompeius, off Naulochos, he sank twenty-eight vessels, and
captured or burnt two hundred and fifty-five; so that only seventeen
out of a powerful fleet of three hundred could make their escape.
Thrice he took the census of the citizens of Rome; the first time in
the year 29-28 B. C., when 4,063,000 souls were counted; the second in
the year 8 B. C., showing 4,233,000; the third in 14 A. D., with
4,937,000. Under his peaceful rule, therefore, there was an increase
of 874,000 in the number of Roman citizens. He remarks with pride
that, while from the beginning of the history of Rome to his own age
the gate of the Temple of Janus had been shut but twice, as a sign
that peace was prevailing over land and sea, he had been able to close
it three times in the course of fifty years. His liberalities are
equally surprising. Sometimes they took the form of free distributions
of corn, oil, or wine; sometimes of an allowance of money. He asserts
that he spent in gifts the sum of six hundred and twenty millions of
sestertii, nearly twenty-six millions of dollars. Adding to this sum
the cost of purchasing lands for his veterans in Italy (six hundred
millions) and in the provinces (two hundred and sixty millions), of
giving pecuniary rewards to his veterans (four hundred millions), of
helping the public treasury (one hundred and fifty millions), and the
army funds (one hundred and seventy millions), besides other grants
and bounties, the amount of which is not known, we reach a total
expenditure for the benefit of his people of ninety-one million
dollars.
I need not speak of the material renovation of the city, which he
found of brick and left of marble. Roads, streets, aqueducts, bridges,
quays, places of amusement, places of worship, parks, gardens, public
offices, were built, opened, repaired, and decorated with incredible
profusion. Suetonius says that, on one occasion alone, he offered to
Jupiter Capitolinus sixteen thousand pounds of gold and fifty
millions' worth of jewels. In the year 28 B. C. not less than
eighty-two temples were rebuilt in Rome itself.
Were we not in the presence of official statistics and of state
documents, we should hardly feel inclined to believe these enormous
statements. We must remember, too, that the work of Augustus was
seconded and imitated with equal magnitude by his wealthy friends and
advisers, Marcius Philippus, Lucius Cornificius, Asinius Pollio,
Munatius Plaucus, Cornelius Balbus, Statilius Taurus, and above all by
Marcus Agrippa, to whom we owe the aqueducts of the Virgo and Julia,
the Pantheon, the Thermæ, the artificial lake (_stagnum_), the Portico
of the Argonauts, the Temple of Neptune, the Portico of Vipsania
Palta, the Diribitorium, the Septa, the Campus Agrippæ, a bridge on
the Tiber, and hundreds of other costly structures. During the twelve
months of his ædileship, in 19 B. C., he rebuilt the network of the
city sewers, adding many miles of new channels, erected eight hundred
and five fountains, and one hundred and thirty water reservoirs. These
edifices were ornamented with three hundred bronze and marble statues,
and four hundred columns.
We have seen works of perhaps greater importance accomplished in our
age; but, as Baron de Hübner remarks, in speaking of another great
man, Sixtus V., they are the joint product of government, national
credit, speculation, and public and private capital; and they are
facilitated by wonderful mechanical contrivances. The transformation
of Rome at the time of Augustus was the work of a few wealthy
citizens, whose names will forever be connected with their splendid
creations.
The gates of the Mausoleum of Augustus were opened for the last time
in A. D. 98, for the reception of the ashes of Nerva. We hear no more
of it until the year 410, when the Goths ransacked the imperial
vaults. No harm, however, seems to have been done to the building
itself at that time. Like the mausolea of Metella, on the Appian Way,
and Hadrian, on the right bank of the Tiber, it was subsequently
converted into a stronghold, and occupied by the Colonnas. Its
ultimate destruction, in 1167, marks one of the great occurences in
the history of mediæval Rome.
Between the counts of Tusculum, partisans of the German Empire, and
the Romans, devoted to their independent municipal government, there
was a feud of long standing, which had resulted occasionally in open
violence. In 1167, Alexander III. being Pope, the Romans decided to
strike the decisive blow on the Tusculans, as well as on their allies,
the Albans. The cardinal of Aragona, the biographer of Alexander III.,
states that towards the end of May, when the cornfields begin to
ripen, the Romans sallied forth on their expedition against Count
Raynone, much against the Pope's will; and having crossed the frontier
of his estate, set fire to the crops, uprooted trees and vineyards,
ruined farmhouses, killed cattle, and laid siege to the city itself.
Raynone, knowing how precarious his position was, implored the help of
the emperor Frederic, who was at that time encamped near Ancona. The
request was granted, and a body of German warriors returned with the
ambassadors to the rescue of Tusculum. They soon perceived that,
although the Romans had the advantage of numbers, they were so
imperfectly drilled and so insubordinate that the chances were equal
for both sides. The battle was opened at nine o'clock on the morning
of Whit-Monday, May 30, 1167. The twelve hundred Germans, led by
Christian, archbishop of Mayence, and three hundred Tusculans, led by
Raynone, gallantly attacked the advance guard of the Roman army, which
numbered thirty thousand men. Overcome by panic, the Romans fled and
disbanded at the first encounter. They were closely followed from
valley to valley, and slain in such numbers that scarcely one third of
them reached the walls of Aurelian in safety. The local memories of
the battle still survive, after a lapse of eight centuries; the valley
which leads from the villa of Q. Voconius Pollio (Sassone) to Marino
being still called by the peasantry "la valle dei morti."
On the following day an embassy was sent to Archbishop Christian and
Count Raynone begging leave to bury the dead. The permission was
granted, with the humiliating clause that the number of dead and
missing should be reported at Tusculum. The legend says that the
number ascertained was fifteen thousand, which is an exaggeration.
Contemporary historians speak of only two thousand dead and three
thousand prisoners, who were sent to Viterbo. The chronicle of
Sikkardt adds that the Romans were encamped near Monte Porzio; that
the battle lasted only two hours, and that the dead were buried in the
church of S. Stefano, at the second milestone of the Via Latina, with
the following inscription:--
MILLE DECEM DECIES ET SEX DECIES QVOQVE
SENI,--
which, if genuine, proves that the number of killed in battle was only
eleven hundred and sixty-six, that is, 1,000+100+60+6.
The connection of the Mausoleum of Augustus with this mediæval battle
of Cannæ is easily explained. The mausoleum had been selected by the
Colonnas for their stronghold in the Campus Martius, and it was for
their interest to keep it in good repair. As happens in cases of
crushing defeats, when the succumbing party must find an excuse and an
opportunity for revenge, the powerful Colonnas were accused of high
treason, namely, of having led the advance-guard of the Romans into an
ambush. Consequently they were banished from the city, and their
castle on the Campus Martius was destroyed. Thus perished the
Mausoleum of Augustus.
The history of its ruins, however, does not end with the events just
described. Most important of all, they are associated with the fate of
Cola di Rienzo. His biographer, in Book III. ch. xxiv., says that the
body of the Tribune was allowed to remain unburied, for two days and
one night, on some steps near S. Marcello. Giugurta and Sciarretta
Colonna, leaders of the aristocratic faction, ordered the body to be
dragged along the Via Flaminia, from S. Marcello to the mausoleum
which had been occupied and fortified by that powerful family once
more in 1241. In the mean time, the Jews had gathered in great numbers
around the "Campo dell' Augusta," as the ruins were then called.
Thistles and dry brushwood were collected and set afire, and the body
thrown into the flames; this extemporized pyre being fed with fresh
fuel until every particle of the corpse was consumed. A strange
coincidence, that the same monument which the founder of the empire,
the oppressor of Roman liberty, had chosen for his own burial-place,
should serve, thirteen centuries later, for the cremation of him who
tried to restore popular freedom! Here is the description of the
event by a contemporary: "Along this street (the Corso of modern days)
the corpse was dragged as far as the church of S. Marcello. There it
was hung by the feet to a balcony, because the head had been crushed
and lost, piece by piece, along the road; so many wounds had been
inflicted on the body that it might be compared to a sieve
(_crivello_); the entrails were protruding like a bull's in the
butchery; he was horribly fat, and his skin white, like milk tinted
with blood. Enormous was his fatness,--so great as to give him the
appearance of an ox (_bufalo_). The body hung from the balcony at S.
Marcello for two days and one night, while boys pelted it with stones.
On the third day it was removed to the Campo dell' Augusta, where the
Jewish colony, to a man, had congregated; and although the pyre had
been made only with thistles, in which those ruins abounded, the fat
from the corpse kept the flames alive until their work was
accomplished. Not an atom of the great champion of the Romans was
left."
I need not remind the reader that the house near the Ponte Rotto, and
opposite the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, which guides attribute to Cola
di Rienzo, has no connection with him.[99] He was born and lived many
years near the church of S. Tommaso in Capite Molarum, between the
Palazzo Cenci and the synagogue of the Jews, on the left bank of the
Tiber. The church is still in existence, although it has changed its
mediæval name into that of S. Tommaso a' Cenci.
The house by the Ponte Rotto, just referred to, has still another name
in folk-lore; it is called the _House of Pilate_. The denomination is
not so absurd as it at first seems; it brings us back to bygone times,
when passion-plays were performed in Rome in a more effective way
than they are now exhibited at Oberammergau. They took place, not on a
wooden stage, so suggestive of conventionality, but in a quarter of
the city most wonderfully adapted to represent the Via Dolorosa of
Jerusalem, from the houses of Pilate and Caiaphas to the summit of
Calvary.
The passion-play began at a house, Via della Bocca della Verità, No.
37, which is still called the "Locanda della Gaiffa," a corruption of
_Gaifa_, or _Caiaphas_. From this place the procession moved across
the street to the "Casa di Pilato," as the house of Crescenzio was
called, where the scenes of the Ecce Homo, the flagellation, and the
crowning with thorns, were probably enacted. The Via Dolorosa
corresponds to our streets of the Bocca della Verità, Salara,
Marmorata, and Porta S. Paolo; there must have been stations at
intervals for the representation of the various episodes, such as the
meeting with the Virgin Mary, the fainting under the cross, the
meeting with Veronica and with the man from Cyrene. The performance
culminated on the summit of the Monte Testaccio, where three crosses
were erected. One is still there.
Readers who have had an opportunity of studying the Via Dolorosa at
Jerusalem will be struck by the resemblance between the original and
its Roman imitation. The latter must have been planned by crusaders
and pilgrims on their return from the Holy Land towards the end of the
thirteenth century. Every particular, even those which rest on
doubtful tradition, was repeated here, such as that referring to the
house of the rich man, and to the stone in front of it on which
Lazarus sat. A ruin half-way between the house of Pilate, by the Ponte
Rotto, and the Monte Testaccio, or Calvary, is still called the Arco
di S. Lazaro.
The Mausoleum of Augustus was explored archæologically for the
first time in 1527, when the obelisk now in the Piazza di S. Maria
Maggiore was found on the south side, near the church of S. Rocco. On
July 14, 1519, Baldassarre Peruzzi discovered and copied some
fragments of the original inscriptions _in situ_; but the discovery
made in 1777 casts all that preceded it into the shade. In the spring
of that year, while the corner house between the Corso and the Via
degli Otto Cantoni (opposite the Via della Croce) was being built, the
_ustrinum_, or sacred enclosure for the cremation of the members of
the imperial family, came to light, lined with a profusion of
historical monuments. Strabo describes the place as paved with marble,
enclosed with brass railings, and shaded by poplars. The marble
pavement was found at a depth of nineteen feet below the sidewalk of
the Corso. The first object to appear was the beautiful vase of
_alabastro cotognino_, now in the Vatican Museum (Galleria delle
Statue), three feet in height, one and one half in diameter, with a
cover ending in a lotus flower, the thickness of the marble being only
one inch. The vase had once contained the ashes of one of the imperial
personages in the mausoleum; either Alaric's barbarians or Roman
plunderers must have left it in the _ustrinum_, after looting its
contents.
The marble pedestals lining the borders of the square were of two
kinds: some were intended to indicate the spot on which each prince
had been cremated, others the place where the ashes had been
deposited. The former end with the formula HIC CREMATVS (or CREMATA)
EST, the latter with the words HIC SITVS (or SITA) EST.
Augustus was not the first member of the family to occupy the
mausoleum. He was preceded by Marcellus (28 B. C.) whose premature
fate is so admirably described by Virgil (Æneid, vi. 872); by Marcus
Agrippa, in 14 B. C.; by Octavia, the sister of Augustus, in the year
13; by Drusus the elder, in the year 9; and by Caius and Lucius,
nephews of Augustus. After Augustus, the interments of Livia,
Germanicus, Drusus, son of Tiberius, Agrippina the elder, Tiberius,
Antonia wife of Drusus, Claudius, Brittannicus, and Nerva are
registered in succession. Of these great and, in many cases, admirable
men and women, ten funeral cippi have been found in the _ustrinum_,
some by the Colonnas before they were superseded by the Orsinis in the
possession of the place, some in the excavations of 1777.
The fate of two of them cannot fail to impress the student of the
history of the ruins of Rome. The pedestal of Agrippina the elder,
daughter of Agrippa, wife of Germanicus, and mother of Caligula, and
that of her eldest son Nero, were hollowed out during the Middle Ages,
turned into standard measures for solids, and as such placed at the
disposal of the public in the portico of the city hall. The pedestal
of Nero perished during the renovation of the Conservatori Palace at
the time of Michelangelo; that of Agrippina is still there.
The fate of this noble woman is described by Tacitus in the sixth book
of the Annals; she was banished by Tiberius to the island of
Pandataria, now called Ventotiene, where she spent the last three
years of her life in solitude and grief. In 33 A. D.--the most
memorable date in Christian chronology--she either starved herself to
death voluntarily, or was starved by order of her persecutor. On
hearing of her death the emperor eulogized his own clemency, because,
instead of strangling the princess and exposing her body on the
Gemonian steps, he had allowed her to die a peaceful death in that
island. No honors were paid to her memory, but as soon as Caligula
succeeded Tiberius in the government of the empire, he sailed to
Pandataria, collected the ashes of his mother and relatives, and
ultimately placed them in the mausoleum. The cippus represented in the
illustration below is manifestly the work of Caligula, because mention
is made on it of his accession to the throne. The hole excavated in it
in the Middle Ages is capable of holding three _hundred_ pounds of
grain, as shown by the legend RVGIATELLA DE GRANO, engraved in Gothic
letters above the municipal coat of arms. The three armorial shields
below belong to the three syndics, or conservatori, by whose authority
the standard measure was made. Another inscription, engraved in 1635
on the opposite side, says: "The S. P. Q. R. pay honor to the memory of
the noble and courageous woman who voluntarily put an end to her life"
(and here follows a witticism of doubtful taste on the _bread_ which
she denied herself, and on the _breadstuffs_, for the measurement of
which her tomb had been used).
[Illustration: The Cippus of Agrippina the Elder, made into a measure
for grain.]
The other cippi found in the _ustrinum_ mention four other children of
Germanicus, among them Caius Cæsar, the lovely child who was so much
beloved by Augustus, and so deeply regretted by him. A statue
representing the youth with the attributes of a Cupid was dedicated by
Livia in the temple of the Capitoline Venus, and another one was
placed by Augustus in his own bedroom, on entering and leaving which
he never missed kissing the cherished image.
The Mausoleum of Augustus and its precious contents have not escaped
the spoliation and desecration which seem to be the rule both in past
and modern times. The building is used now as a circus. Its basement
is concealed by ignoble houses; the urn of Agrippina is kept in the
courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori; three others have been
destroyed, and six belong to the Vatican Museum.
THE TOMB OF NERO. The defection of the last Roman legion was announced
to Nero while at dinner in the Golden House. On hearing the news, he
tore up the letters, upset the table, dashed upon the floor two
marvellous cups, called _Homeric_, because their chiselling
represented scenes from the Iliad; and having borrowed from Locusta a
phial of poison, went out to the Servilian gardens. He then despatched
a few faithful servants to Ostia with orders to keep a squadron of
swift vessels in readiness for his escape. After this he inquired of
the officers of the prætorian guards if they were willing to accompany
him in his flight; some found an excuse, others openly refused; one
had the courage to ask him: "Is death so hard?" Then various projects
began to agitate his mind; now he was ready to beg for mercy from
Galba, his successful opponent; now to ask help from the Parthian
refugees, and again to dress himself in mourning, and appear
barefooted and unshaven before the public by the rostra, and implore
pardon for his crimes; in case that should be refused, to ask
permission to exchange the imperial power for the governorship of
Egypt. He was ready to carry this project into execution, but his
courage failed at the last moment, as he knew that the exasperated
people would tear him to pieces before he could reach the Forum.
Towards evening he calmed his mind in the hope that there would be
time enough to make a decision if he waited until the next day. As
midnight approached he awoke, to find that the Prætorians detailed at
the gates of the Servilian gardens had retired to their barracks.
Servants were sent to rouse the friends sleeping in the villa, but
none of them returned. He went around the apartments, finding them
closed and deserted. On re-entering his own room he saw that his
private attendants had run away, carrying the bed-covers, and the
phial of poison. Then he seemed determined to put an end to his life
by throwing himself from one of the bridges; but again his courage
failed, and he begged to be shown a hiding-place. It was at this
supreme moment that Phaon the freedman offered him his suburban villa,
situated between the Via Salaria and the Via Nomentana, four miles
outside the Porta Collina. The proposal was accepted at once; and
barefooted, and dressed in a tunic, with a mantle of the commonest
material about his shoulders, he jumped on a horse and started for the
gate, accompanied by only four men,--Phaon, Epaphroditus, Sporus, and
another whose name is not given.
[Illustration: Head of Nero, in the Capitoline Museum.]
[Illustration: The Ponte Nomentano.]
The incidents of the flight were terrible enough to deprive the
imperial fugitive of the last spark of hope. The sky was overcast, and
heavy black clouds hung close to the earth, the stillness of nature
being occasionally broken by claps of thunder. The earth shook just as
he was riding past the prætorian camp. He could hear the shouts of the
mutinous soldiers cursing his name, while Galba was proclaimed his
successor. Farther on, the fugitives met several men hurrying towards
the town in search of news. Nero heard some of them telling one
another to be sure to run in search of him. Another passer inquired
the news from the palace. Before reaching the Ponte Nomentano, Nero's
horse, frightened by a corpse which was lying on the roadside, gave a
start. The slouched hat and handkerchief, with which the emperor was
trying to conceal his face, slipped aside, and just at that moment a
messenger from the prætorian camp recognized him, and by force of
habit gave the military salute.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF PHAON'S VILLA]
Beyond the bridge the Via Nomentana divides: the main road, on the
right, leads to Nomentum (Mentana); the left to the territory of
Ficulea (la Cesarina). It is now called the Strada delle Vigne Nuove.
Nero and his followers took this country road. The particulars given
by Suetonius suit the present aspect and the nature of the district so
exactly that we can follow the four men step by step to the walls of
Phaon's villa. The slopes of the hills were then, as they are now,
uncultivated, and covered with bushes. There is still a path on the
banks of the Fosso della Cecchina, leading to the rear wall of the
villa, _aversum villæ parietem_; and the hillsides are still
honeycombed with pozzolana quarries, the _angustiæ cavernarum_ of
Suetonius. The villa extends on the tableland, or ridge, between the
valleys of la Cecchina and Melaina. Its main gate corresponds exactly
with the gate of the Vigna Chiari, the first of the "vigne nuove" on
the right as one goes from Rome, at a distance of six kilometres from
the threshold of the Porta Collina. For a radius of a thousand feet
around the gate, we meet with the typical remains of a Roman villa of
the first century,--porticoes, water tanks, and substructions, from
the platform of which there is a lovely view over the wooded plains of
the Tiber and the Anio, the city, and the hills of the Vatican, and of
the Janiculum, which frame the panorama. The site is pleasant,
secluded, and quiet, so that it well fulfilled the wish for a
_secretior latetra_ expressed by Nero in his hopeless condition. The
fugitives dismounted at the turn of the Strada delle Vigne Nuove,
and let the horses loose among the brambles. Not wishing to be seen in
the open road, they followed the lower path on the banks of the
Cecchina, which was concealed by a thick growth of canes. It was
necessary to bore a hole in the rear wall of the villa, and while this
was being done, Nero quenched his thirst from a pond of stagnant
water, near the opening of the pozzolana quarries. Once inside the
villa, he was asked to lie down on a couch covered with a peasant's
mantle, and was offered a piece of stale bread, and a glass of tepid
water. Food he refused, but touched the rim of the cup with his
parched lips. It is curious to read in Suetonius of the many grimaces
the wretch made before he could determine to kill himself; he made up
his mind to do so only when he heard the tramping of the horsemen whom
the Senate had sent to arrest him. He then put the dagger into his
throat, aided in giving the last thrust by his freedman Epaphroditus.
The centurion sent to take him alive arrived before he expired. To him
Nero addressed these last words: "Too late! Is this your fidelity?" He
gradually sank, his countenance assuming such a frightful expression
that all who were present fled in horror. Icelus, freedman of Galba,
the newly elected emperor, gave his consent to a decent funeral.
Ecloge and Alexandra, his nurses, Acte his mistress, and the three
faithful men who had accompanied him in his flight, provided the
necessary funds, about five thousand dollars. The body was cremated,
wrapped in a sheet of white woven with gold, the same that he had used
on his bed New Year's night. The three women collected the ashes and
placed them in the tomb of the Domitian family, which stood on the
spur of the Pincian Hill which is behind the present church of S.
Maria del Popolo. The urn was of porphyry, the altar upon which it
stood of Carrara marble, and the tomb itself of Thesian marble. A
pathetic discovery has just been made in the Vigna Chiari, on the
exact spot of Nero's suicide, by my friend, Cav. Rodolfo Buti, that of
the tomb of Claudia Ecloge, the old woman who was so devoted to her
nursling. The epitaph is a plain marble slab containing only a name.
But this simple inscription, read amid the ruins of Phaon's villa,
with every detail of the scene of the suicide before one's eyes, makes
more impression on the feelings than would a great monument to her
memory. As she could not be buried within or near the family vault of
the Domitii on the Pincian, she selected the spot where Nero's remains
had been cremated.
"When Nero perished by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,
Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb,--
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour."[100]
The original epitaph of Claudia Ecloge has been removed to the
Capitoline Museum, where it seems lost among so many other objects of
interest; but the student who will select the Vigne Nuove for an
afternoon excursion will find there a facsimile, placed by our
archæological commission on the front wall of the Casino di Vigna
Chiari.
THE TOMB OF THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS. The Via del Quirinale-Venti
Settembre, which leads from the Quirinal Palace to the Porta Pia,
corresponds exactly to the old Alta Semita, which was a street of such
importance, on account of its length, straightness, and surroundings,
that the whole region (the sixth) was named from it. For our present
purpose we shall take into consideration only the first part, between
the Quirinal Palace and the Quattro Fontane. It was bordered on the
north side by the Temple of Quirinus, discovered and demolished in
1626, and by the Capitolium Vetus, the old Capitol, also destroyed in
1625, by Pope Barberini.
[Illustration: Plan of the Alta Semita.]
The opposite side of the street was lined with private mansions of
families who were eminent in the history of the republic and the
empire. The first belonged to Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero,
and to his descendants the Pomponii Bassi. Cicero locates it between
the Temple of Quirinus and the Temple of Health, that is, near the
present church of S. Andrea al Quirinale; and precisely here, in
November, 1558, the house was discovered by Messer Uberto Ubaldini, in
such perfect condition that the family documents and deeds, inscribed
on bronze, were still hanging on the walls of the _tablinum_,--a fact
that is recorded only twice in the annals of Roman excavations.[101]
The house, seen and described by Manuzio and Ligorio, stood at the
corner of the Alta Semita and a side street called "The Pomegranate"
(_ad malum punicum_), and was profusely adorned with statues,
colonnades, spacious halls, etc. One of the bronze tablets, which was
saved from the ruins, and is now exhibited in the Gallery of the
Uffizi, at Florence, states that the municipal council of Ferentinum,
assembled in the Temple of Mercury, had placed the city under the
guardianship of Pomponius Bassus, A. D. 101. The patronage was accepted
by the gallant patrician, and _tabulæ hospitales_ were exchanged
between the parties.
When his majesty king Humbert laid out a new garden, in 1887, on the
site of this house, I hoped to come across some of the ruins described
by Manuzio and Ligorio. But nothing was found, except a marble statue,
of no especial value, which is now preserved in the royal palace.
Another illustrious man lived near the Temple of Health,--Valerius
Martial the epigrammatist. He distinctly says so in his "Epigrams" (x.
58; xi. 1). Was the house his own, or did he dwell in it as a tenant
or guest? I believe he was the guest of his wealthy relative and
countryman G. Valerius Vegetus, consul A. D. 91, whose city residence
occupied half the site of the present building of the Ministry of War,
on the Via Venti Settembre.
The residence has been explored three times, at least; the first in
1641, the second in 1776, the last in the autumn of 1884. Judging from
this last exploration, which was conducted in my presence, and
described by my late friend Capannari in the "Bullettino Comunale" of
1885, the palace of Valerius Vegetus must have been built and
decorated on a grand scale. Martial, like all poets, if not actually
in financial difficulties, was never a rich man, much less the owner
of a private residence in a street and quarter in which the land
alone represented a fortune.
Between the two palaces just described, the Pomponian and the
Valerian, in the space now occupied by the Palazzo Albani and the
church and convent of S. Carlino alle Quattro Fontane, there was an
humbler house, which belonged to Flavius Sabinus, brother of
Vespasian. Here the emperor Domitian was born, October 24, A. D. 50.
The house which stood at the corner of the Alta Semita and the
"Pomegranate" street was converted by him into a family memorial, or
mausoleum, after the death of his father and brother. Here were
buried, besides Vespasian and Titus, Flavius Sabinus, Julia, daughter
of Titus, and ultimately Domitian himself.
The story of his death is as follows: After murdering his cousin
Flavius Clemens, the Christian prince whose fate I have described in
chapter i., his life became an intolerable burden to him. The fear
that some one would suddenly rise to revenge the innocent blood into
which he had dipped his hands made him tremble every moment for his
life; so much so that he caused the porticos of the imperial palace to
be encrusted with Phengite marble, in the brilliant surface of which
he could see the reflection of his followers and attendants, and could
watch their proceedings even if they were at quite a distance behind
him. For several weeks he was frightened by thunderbolts. Once the
Capitol was struck, next the family tomb on the Quirinal, which he had
officially styled Templum Flaviæ Gentis; and another time the imperial
palace and even his own bedroom. He was heard to mutter to himself in
despair, "Let them strike: who cares?" On another occasion a furious
cyclone wrenched the dedicatory tablet from the pedestal of his
equestrian statue in the Forum. He also dreamed that Minerva, the
protecting divinity of his happier days, had suddenly disappeared from
his private chapel. What frightened him most, however, was the fate of
Askletarion the fortune-teller. Having asked what sort of death
Askletarion expected, the answer was: "I shall very soon be torn to
pieces by dogs." To persuade himself and his friends that these
predictions deserved no credit, Domitian, who had just received a very
sad warning from the oracle of the Fortuna Prænestina, caused the
necromancer to be killed at once, and his remains to be enclosed in a
well-guarded tomb. But while the cremation was in progress, a
hurricane swept the _ustrinum_, and frightened away the attendants, so
that the half-charred remains did fall a prey to the dogs. The story
was related to the emperor that very evening while he was at supper.
The details of the assassination, which took place a few days later,
on September 18, A. D. 96, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
fifteenth of his reign, are not well known, because, with the
exception of the four murderers, the deed was witnessed only by a
little boy, to whom Domitian had given the care of the images of the
gods in the bedroom. The names of the conspirators are Saturius, the
head valet de chambre, Maximus, a freedman of a lower class,
Clodianus, an orderly, and Stephanus, who was the head of the party.
He was led to commit the crime in the hope that the embezzlements of
which he was guilty in his management of the property of Flavia
Domitilla, niece of the emperor, would never be discovered, or
punished. To avoid suspicion, he appeared for several days before the
attempt with his arm bandaged, and in a sling, so that he could carry
a concealed weapon with impunity even in the presence of his intended
victim. The boy stated at the inquest that Domitian died like a brave
man, fighting unarmed against his assailants. The moment he saw
Stephanus drawing his dagger he told the boy to hand him quickly the
poniard under the pillow of his bed, and to run for help; but he found
only the empty scabbard, and all the doors were locked. The emperor
fell at the seventh stroke.
The corpse was removed to a garden which his nurse Phyllis owned, on
the borders of the Via Latina; and the ashes were secretly mingled
with those of his niece Julia, another nursling of Phyllis, and
deposited in the family mausoleum on the Quirinal. The mausoleum,
which rose in the middle of the atrium of the old Flavian house, was
discovered and destroyed towards the middle of the sixteenth century.
Ligorio describes the structure as a round temple, with a pronaos of
six columns of the composite order. The excavations were made at the
expense of cardinal Sadoleto. He found among other things a beautiful
marble statue of Minerva, with a shield in the left hand and a lance
in the right. The villa of cardinal Sadoleto was afterwards bought by
messer Uberto Ubaldini, who levelled everything to the ground, and
uprooted the very foundations of the building. In so doing he
discovered several headless marble statues. Flaminio Vacca adds, that
the columns were of _bigio africano_, fourteen feet high.
* * * * *
The reader will easily understand, that were I to pass in review the
tombs of all the rulers of the Roman Empire, from Trajan to
Constantine, the present chapter would exceed the allotted length of
the entire book. The Mausoleum of Hadrian, on which the history of the
city is written century by century, down to our days; the Column of
Trajan, in the foundations of which the ashes of the best of Roman
princes are buried; the tomb of Geta, built in the shape of a
septizonium, on the Appian Way; the artificial hill of the Monte del
Grano, believed to be the tomb of Alexander Severus, and his wife and
mother, in the very depths of which the Capitoline sarcophagus and the
Portland vase were found: all these monuments would furnish abundant
material for archæological, artistic, and historical discussion. My
purpose is, however, to mention only subjects illustrated by recent
and little-known discoveries, or else to select such representative
specimens as may help the reader to compare pagan with Christian art
and civilization. For this reason, and to save unavoidable
repetitions, I pass over the fate of the emperors of the second and
third centuries, and resume my description with those who came to
power after the peace of the church.
[Illustration: Remains of Geta's Mausoleum.]
MAUSOLEA OF CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. The first Christian members of the
imperial family, Helena, mother of Constantine, and Constantia, his
daughter, were buried in separate tombs, one on the Via Labicana, at
the place formerly called _ad duas Lauros_ and now Torre Pignattara,
the other near the church of S. Agnese, on the Via Nomentana.
[Illustration: The Torre Pignattara.]
Helena's mausoleum at Torre Pignattara (so called from the _pignatte_,
or earthen vases built into the vault to lighten its weight) is round
in shape, and contains seven niches or recesses for sarcophagi. One of
these sarcophagi, famous in the history of art, was removed from its
position as early as the middle of the twelfth century by Pope
Anastasius IV., who selected it for his own resting-place. It was
taken to the Lateran basilica, where it appears to have been much
injured by the hands of indiscreet pilgrims. In 1600 it was carried
from the vestibule to the tribune, and thence to the cloister-court.
When Pius VI. added it to the wonders of the Vatican Museum, it was
subjected to a thorough process of restoration which employed
twenty-five stone-cutters for a period of nine years.
The reliefs upon it are tolerably well executed, but lack invention
and novelty. They are partly borrowed from an older work, partly
combined from various sources in an extraordinary manner; horsemen
hovering in the air, and below them, prisoners and corpses scattered
around. They are intended to represent a triumphal procession, or
possibly a military _decursio_, to which allusion has been made above.
It may appear indiscreet and even insulting on the part of Anastasius
IV. to have removed the remains of a canonized empress from this noble
sarcophagus in order to have his own placed in it; but we must bear in
mind that although the Torre Pignattara has all the appearance of a
royal mausoleum, and although the ground on which it stands is known
to have belonged to the crown, Eusebius and Socrates deny that Helena
was buried in Rome. Their assertion is contradicted by the "Liber
Pontificalis" and by Bede, and above all by the similarity between
this porphyry coffin and the one discovered in the second mausoleum of
which I have spoken,--that of S. Constantia, on the Via Nomentana.
[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF HELENA, MOTHER OF CONSTANTINE]
When the love of splendor which was characteristic of the Romans of
the decadence induced them to take possession of the enormous block of
primeval stone of which this second sarcophagus was made, the art of
sculpture had already degenerated; all that it could accomplish was to
impart to this mass of rock more of an architectural than a plastic
shape. The representations with which the sarcophagus is adorned or
disfigured, as the case may be, if met with elsewhere would
scarcely attract our attention. On the sides are festoons enclosing
groups of winged boys gathering grapes; on the ends are similar
figures treading out the grapes. This sarcophagus was removed to the
Hall of the Greek Cross by the same enlightened Pope Pius VI.
[Illustration: The Mausoleum of S. Constantia.]
The same vintage scenes are represented in the beautiful mosaics with
which the vault of the mausoleum is encrusted, and from this
circumstance the monument received the erroneous name of the Temple of
Bacchus, at the time of the Renaissance. There is no doubt that this
is the tomb of the princess whose name it bears. Amianus Marcellinus,
Book XXI., chapter i., says that the three daughters of
Constantine--Helena, wife of Julian, Constantina, wife of Gallus
Cæsar, and Constantia, who had vowed herself to chastity, and to the
management of a congregation of virgins which she had established at
S. Agnese--were all buried in the same place.
[Illustration: Plan of the Imperial Mausoleum.]
The study of these two structures may help us greatly to explain the
origin and purpose of the two rotundas which are known to have existed
on the south side of S. Peter's, in the arena of Nero's circus. One of
them, dedicated to S. Petronilla, was destroyed in the sixteenth
century; the other, called the Church of S. Maria della Febbre, met
with the same fate during the pontificate of Pius VI. Their exact
situation in relation to the modern basilica is shown by the
accompanying diagram.
Mention of the structure, with its classical denomination of
"Mausileos," appears in the life of Stephen II. (A. D. 752). To fulfil
a promise which he had made to Pepin, king of France, that the remains
of Petronilla, who was believed to be the daughter of Peter, should
be no longer exposed to barbaric profanations in their original
resting-place on the Via Ardeatina, but put under the shelter of the
Leonine walls near the remains of her supposed father, he selected one
of these two rotundas, which became known as the "chapel of the kings
of France." The early topographers of the Renaissance, ignorant of its
history, gave a wrong name to the building, calling it the Temple of
Apollo. That it was, however, of Christian origin, is proved not only
by the fact that a temple could never have been built across the
_spina_ of the circus, and by the technical details of its
construction, which show it to be a work of the end of the fourth or
the beginning of the fifth century, but also by historical evidence.
In 423 Honorius was buried in the mausoleum close by S. Peter's
(_juxta beati Petri apostoli atrium in mausoleo_). In 451 the remains
of the Emperor Theodosius II. were removed from Constantinople to the
_mausoleum ad apostolum Petrum_. In 483 Basilius, prefect of the
Prætorium, summoned the leaders of the clergy and of the laity to the
mausoleum _quod est apud beatissimum Petrum_. A precious engraving by
Bonanni, No. lxxiv. of his volume on the Vatican, represents the
outside of one of the rotundas, the nearest to the obelisk of the
circus. The architecture of the building, so similar to the tomb of S.
Helena at Torre Pignattara, gives some conception of the enormous
downfall of Roman art and civilization, when we compare it with the
tombs of Augustus and Hadrian.
The discovery of the imperial graves which filled the two rotundas did
not take place at one and the same time. Their profanation and robbery
was accomplished in various stages, by various persons; and so little
has been said or written about them, that only in these last years has
de Rossi been able to reconstruct in its entirety this chapter in the
history of the destruction of Rome.
[Illustration: ROTUNDA AND OBELISK SOUTH OF OLD S. PETER'S. (After
Bonanni)]
In the chronicle of Nicolò della Tuccia of Viterbo is the following
entry, dated 1458: "On the 27th day of June, news was circulated in
Viterbo that two days before a great discovery had been made in S.
Peter's of Rome. A priest of that church, having manifested the wish
to be buried in the chapel of S. Petronilla, in the tribune on the
right, where the story of the emperor Constantine was painted in
ancient times, they found, while digging there, a tomb of exquisite
marble, containing a sarcophagus, and inside of it, a smaller coffin
of cypress wood overlaid with silver. This silver, of eleven carats
standard, weighed eight hundred and thirty-two pounds. The bodies were
wrapped in a golden cloth which yielded sixteen pounds of that
precious metal. It was said that the bodies were those of Constantine
and his little son. No written record or sign was found except a cross
made in this shape: [Symbol: Maltese Cross] The Pope, Callixtus III.,
took possession of everything and sent the gold and silver to the
mint." We hear no more of the imperial mausoleum during the sixty
following years. In the diary of Marcantonio Michiel, of Venice, the
next discovery is registered under the date of December 4, 1519: "A
few days ago, while excavations were going on in the chapel of the
kings of France, for the rebuilding of one of the altars, several
antique coffins were found, and in one of them the bones of an old
Christian prince, wrapped in a pall of gold cloth and surrounded with
articles of jewelry. There was a necklace with a cross-shaped pendant,
believed to be worth three thousand ducats. I know that a certain
jeweller offered that amount of money for the dress alone to Giuliano
Lena, who was in charge of the excavations. The Pope attached great
importance to the jewels, although it was found out afterwards that
they were not worth two thousand ducats, on account of some flaws
in the stones, and of injury wrought by time on their mounting. The
prospect of finding more made them overturn the whole pavement of the
chapel." Another entry of the same diary, under the date of December
23, says: "The treasure-trove in the chapel of the kings of France
consists of eight pounds of gold from the melting of dresses, of a
cross of gold, dotted with emeralds, and of a second plain one, the
value of all being a little over one thousand ducats. The Pope made a
present of some to the chapter of S. Peter's that they might make a
new reliquary for the skull of S. Petronilla."
The search was doubtless irregular, imperfect and careless, as is
proved by other and far richer discoveries which were made in 1544.
Unfortunately, if the accounts we have of these are complete, no
drawings were made before the dispersion of the objects. The only
sketches which have reached us represent a few perfume bottles found
inside the grave. Of these _flacons_ there are two sets of drawings,
one in a codex of marchese Raffaelli di Cingoli, f. 43, with the
legend, "Five goblets of agate discovered in the foundations of S.
Peter's during the pontificate of Paul III. in the tomb of Maria,
daughter of Stilicho and wife of Honorius;" the other in the codex of
Fulvio Orsino, No. 3439 of the Vatican Library.
The discovery took place in 1544. A greater treasure of gems, gold,
and precious objects has never been found in a single tomb. The
beautiful empress was lying in a coffin of red granite, clothed in a
state robe woven of gold. Of the same material were the veil, and the
shroud which covered the head and breast. The melting of these
materials produced a considerable amount of pure gold, its weight
being variously stated at thirty-five or forty pounds. Bullinger puts
it at eighty, with manifest exaggeration. At the right of the body was
placed a casket of solid silver, full of goblets and smelling-bottles,
cut in rock crystal, agate, and other precious stones. There were
thirty in all, among which were two cups, one round, one oval,
decorated with figures in high relief, of exquisite taste, and a lamp,
made of gold and crystal, in the shape of a corrugated sea-shell, the
hole for the oil being protected and concealed by a golden fly, which
moved around a socket. There were also four golden vases, one of which
was studded with gems.
In a second casket of gilded silver, placed at the left side, were
found one hundred and fifty objects,--gold rings with engraved stones,
earrings, brooches, necklaces, buttons, hair-pins, etc. covered with
emeralds, pearls and sapphires; a golden nut, which opened in halves;
a _bulla_ which has been published in a special work by
Mazzucchelli;[102] and an emerald engraved with the bust of Honorius,
valued at five hundred ducats. Silver objects were scarce; of these we
find mentioned only a hairpin and a buckle of répoussé work.
The letters and names engraved on some pieces prove that they formed
the _mundus muliebris_ (wedding gifts) and toilet articles of Maria,
daughter of Stilicho and Serena, sister of Thermantia and Eucherius,
and wife of the emperor Honorius. Besides the names of the four
arch-angels--Raphael, Gabriel, Michael and Uriel--engraved on a band
of gold, those of Domina Nostra Maria, and of Dominus Noster Honorius,
were seen on other objects. The _bulla_ was inscribed with the names
of Honorius, Maria, Stilicho, Serena, Thermantia, and Eucherius,
radiating in the form of a double cross [Symbol: radiating star]
with the exclamation "Vivatis!" between them. With the exception of
this _bulla_, which was bought by Marchese Trivulzio of Milan, at the
beginning of the present century, every article has disappeared. That
the gold was melted, and that the precious stones were disposed of in
various ways, so as to deprive them of their identity, is easy to
understand, but where have the vases gone? Were it not for the rough
sketches made at the time of discovery we should not be able to form
an idea of their beauty and elegance of shape. They were not the work
of goldsmiths of the fifth century, but were of classical origin; in
fact they represent a portion of the imperial state jewels, which
Honorius had inherited from his predecessors, and which he had offered
to Maria on her wedding day. Claudianus, the court poet, described
them expressly as having sparkled on the breast and forehead of
empresses in bygone days.
We know from Paul Diaconus that Honorius was laid to rest by the side
of his empress; his coffin, however, has never been found. It must
still be concealed under the pavement of the modern church at the
southern end of the transept, near the altar of the crucifixion of S.
Peter.
An incident narrated by Flavius Josephus ("Antiqq." xvi., ii.) proves
that even in this line of discoveries there is nothing new under the
sun. Speaking of the financial troubles of King Herod, and of his
urgent need of new resources for the royal treasury, he describes how
Hircanus had rifled the sum of three thousand silver talents
($3,940,000) from the tomb of David. Herod, on being reminded of this
experiment, decided to try it again, in the hope that other treasures
might be concealed in the recesses of the royal vault. Precautions
were taken to conceal the attempt from the people: the tomb was
entered in the darkness of the night, and only a few intimate friends
were admitted to the secret. Herod found no more silver in coin or
bars, but a considerable quantity of vases and other objects
beautifully chiselled in gold. With the help of his associates the
booty was removed to the palace. But the more the king had, the more
he wanted: and setting aside dignity, self-respect and reverence for
the memory of his great predecessors, he ordered his guard to search
the vaults, even to the very coffins of David and Solomon. The legend
says that the profanation was prevented by an outburst of flames which
killed two of the men. This event filled Herod with fear, and to
expiate his sacrilege he raised a beautiful monument of white marble
at the entrance of the tombs.
The reader must not believe that such discoveries are either of
doubtful credibility or a matter of the past only. They have taken
place in all centuries, the present included; they take place now.
In July, 1793, behind the choir of the nuns of S. Francesco di Paola,
in the Via di S. Lucia in Selci, a room of a private Roman house was
discovered, and in a corner of it a magnificent silver service, which
had once belonged to Projecta, wife of Turcius Asterius Secundus, who
was prefect of the city in 362 A. D. The discovery was witnessed and
described by Ennio Quirino Visconti and Filippo Aurelio Visconti. The
objects were of pure silver, heavily gilded, and weighed one thousand
and twenty-nine ounces. Besides plates and saucers, forks and spoons,
candelabras of various sizes and shapes, there was a wedding-casket
with bas-reliefs representing the bride and groom crowned with wreaths
of myrtle; she, with braids of hair encircling her head many times, in
the fashion of the age of the empress Helena; he, with the beard cut
square, in the style worn by Julian the apostate, and Eugenius. The
reliefs of the body of the casket represented love-scenes, Venus and
the Nereids, the Muses and other pagan subjects; and just under them
was engraved the salutation:--
"Secundus and Proiecta, may you live in Christ."
The casket was filled with toilet articles and jewels. Later
discoveries brought the total weight of the silver to fifteen hundred
ounces.
In 1810 a peasant ploughing his field in the territory of Faleria,
three miles from Civita Castellana, met with an obstacle which, on
closer examination, proved to be a box filled with silver. He loaded
himself with the precious spoils, as did many other peasants, whom the
news of the discovery had attracted to the spot. There were plates,
cups and saucers; a tureen weighing four pounds, wrought in enamelled
répoussé, with birds, lizards, branches of ivy, berries, and other
fruits and animals, and signed by the maker; a statue of a centaur;
and a wine jug, which, after passing through many hands, became the
property of the queen of Naples, Caroline Murat, at a cost of five
thousand ducats.
Alessandro Visconti reported the treasure-trove at once to count
Tournon, the French prefect; but he took no official notice of it, and
the silver was melted in the mint of Rome, and by the silversmiths of
Viterbo and Perugia. Visconti estimates the weight of the silver at
_thirty thousand ounces_.[103]
In 1821, under the foundations of a house at Parma, precious objects
were found to the value of several thousand scudi. The few bought for
the Museo Parmense by its director, Pietro de Lama, comprise eight
bracelets, four rings, a necklace, a chain to which is attached a
medallion of Gallienus, a brooch, and thirty-four medals; all of pure
gold, and weighing three pounds and four ounces.
On May 9, 1877, two earthen jars were discovered at Belinzago, near
Milan, in a farm belonging to a man named Erba. They contained
twenty-seven thousand bronze coins, with a total weight of three
hundred and sixty pounds. Except a few pieces belonging to Romulus,
Maximian, Chlorus, Galerius, Galeria Valeria, and Licinius, the great
mass bear the effigy and name of Maxentius, with an astonishing
variety of letters and symbols on the reverse.
My personal experience in the discovery of treasure, in the special
significance of the word, is limited to the fragments of a bedstead
(?) of gilt brass, studded with gems. This discovery took place in
1879, near the southwest corner of the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, on
the Esquiline, in a room belonging to the Horti Lamiani, the favorite
residence of Caligula and of Alexander Severus. The frame of the couch
rested on four supports, most gracefully cut in rock-crystal; the
frame itself was ornamented with bulls' heads and inlaid with cameos
and gems, to the number of four hundred and thirty. There was also a
"glass paste" representing the heads of Septimius Severus and his
empress Julia Domna. It seems that parts of this rich piece of
furniture must have been inlaid with agate incrustations, of which one
hundred and sixty-eight pieces were discovered in the same room.
FOOTNOTES:
[94] See Otto Hirschfeld: _Die kaiserlichen Grabstätten in Rom_, in
the _Sitzungsberichte der kgl. Akademie der Wissenschaften_. Berlin,
1866.
[95] Visitors to Rome may form an idea of a [Greek: sebasteion] from
that found at Ostia, in 1889, in the barracks of the firemen. I have
given an illustrated description of this remarkable discovery in the
_Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome_, tome ix., 1889, and in the
_Notizie degli scavi_, January-April, 1889.
[96] The birthplace of Mithridates the Great, and of the geographer
Strabo; it still retains its ancient name.
[97] See Mommsen: _Res gestæ divi Augusti_, 2d edition. Berlin,
Weidmann, 1883.
[98] Augustus enrolled his first army in October of the year 41 B. C.
He died in August, A. D. 14.
[99] This house is described in _Ancient Rome_, chapter i., p. 17.
[100] _Don Juan_, canto III. eix.
[101] The other instance was in the excavations of the palace of the
Valerii Aradii, near S. Erasmo, on the Cælian, the most successful
ever made in Rome.
[102] _La bolla di Maria, moglie di Onorio._ Milan, 1819.
[103] _Dissertazione su d' una antica argenteria, letta nell'
accademia archeologica il dì 7 gennaio_, 1811.