Part 7 (1/2)

Unfortunately the necessary extension of the buildings attached to the railway station has resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the Servian Agger. Some large fragments of the huge blocks belonging to the Servian wall may be seen at the back of the station. Traces of a road and a gate were found which have been supposed to belong to the Via and Porta Viminalis, and many confused heaps of ruins, the relics of private houses built up against the side of the agger. In one of these the bricks bore the date of the third consuls.h.i.+p of Servia.n.u.s, A.D. 134, and of that of Niger and Camerinus, A.D. 138.

A Hermeracles in marble was found near the station, which is figured in the _Bullettino della Commissione_ for March 1873, and numerous mosaic pavements, one of which is laid on the floor of the waiting-room at the station.

[Sidenote: Auditorium.]

One of the buildings attached to an ancient house in this neighbourhood has been carefully preserved and walled in for protection. It stands near the ruin called the Trophies of Marius, and not far from the Arch of Gallienus, and consists of a semicircular recess with ledges rising one above another in the form of a miniature theatre. A more correct description of the site is given by stating that it stands where the former gardens of the convent of the Redentoristi were situated. This building has, on account of its resemblance to a theatre, and of its position on a spot over which the famous Gardens of Maecenas probably extended, been called the Auditorium of Maecenas, and romantic ideas have been connected with it as having been the actual auditorium where Virgil and Horace may have recited their poetry to their great patron. This view, however, has been shown to be untenable by Signor Mau, who thinks with more probability that the ruin in question is an ornamental recess for decorative works of art and flowers or a fountain. Such recesses may be seen in some of the houses at Pompeii. The paintings on the walls are of a style similar to those in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, and the building may therefore possibly belong to the Augustan age.

[Sidenote: Porta S. Lorenzo.]

The inscriptions on the Porta S. Lorenzo at the eastern side of the Esquiline Hill tell the history of the several gateways here built by Augustus and other emperors down to Honorius. The aqueducts run along the walls from this gate to the Porta Maggiore.

[Sidenote: Porta Maggiore.]

[Sidenote: Tomb of Eurysaces.]

The Gateway of Honorius was removed from the Porta Maggiore by Gregory XVI. as the inscription on the present gate records. The removal of the old gateway disclosed the Tomb of Eurysaces, a bread contractor, which is a very fantastic monument, constructed of stone mortars used for kneading dough, and ornamented with some curious bas-reliefs of a good period of art, representing the operations of baking. The inscriptions upon it are as follows: ”EST HOC MONIMENTUM MARCEI VERGILEI EURYSACIS PISTORIS AC REDEMPTORIS APPARETORUM. FUIT ATISTIA UXOR MIHEI FEMINA OPTIMA VEIXIST QUOJUS CORPORIS RELIQUIae QUOD SUPERANT SUNT IN HOC PANARIO.” The latter of these inscriptions, however, probably belongs to some other tomb, the remains of several having been found here, which lead to the supposition that this was a spot especially devoted to the burial of bakers.

The present gateway is formed by two arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, which runs along the course of the walls from this point to the corner near the Amphitheatrum Castrense. The arches are built of rusticated travertino blocks, and each of the piers is pierced with a smaller arch, decorated with Corinthian half-columns of rustic work and pediments in the usual Graeco-Roman style of a triumphal arch. This gateway is one of the most characteristic creations of Roman architecture. It conveys more than any other building I know, except, perhaps, the rusticated archways of the amphitheatre at Verona, the impression of rough force and solidity. Over the arches are three atticas, upon which the following inscriptions are cut, recording the erection and renewal of the Claudian aqueduct by Claudius, Vespasian, and t.i.tus:

TI. CLAUDIUS DRUSI F. CAISAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS PONTIF. MAXIM. TRIBUNICIA POTESTATE XII. COS V. IMPERATOR XXVII. PATER PATRIae AQUAS CLAUDIAM EX FONTIBUS QUI VOCABANTUR CaeRULEUS ET CURTIUS A MILLIARIO x.x.xXV. ITEM AMERIEM NOVAM A MILLIARIO LXVII. SUA INPENSA IN URBEM PERDUCENDAS CURAVIT.

IMP. CaeSAR VESPASIa.n.u.s AUGUST. PONTIF. MAX. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. VI. COS.

III. DESIG. III. P. P. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CaeRULEAM PERDUCTAS A DIVO CLAUDIO ET POSTEA INTERMISSAS DILAPSASQUE PER ANNOS NOVEM SUA IMPENSA URBI RESt.i.tUIT.

IMP. T. CaeSAR DIVI F. VESPASIa.n.u.s AUGUSTUS PONT. MAX. TRIBUNIC. POTEST.

X. IMP. XVII. P. P. CENS. COS. VIII. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CaeRULEAM PERDUCTAS A DIVO CLAUDIO ET POSTEA A DIVO VESPASIANO PATRE SUO URBI RESt.i.tUTAS c.u.m A CAPITE AQUARUM A SOLO VETUSTATE DILAPSae ESSENT NOVA FORMA REDUCENDAS SUA IMPENSA CURAVIT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FORA OF THE CAESARS]

CHAPTER IV.

THE IMPERIAL FORA AND THE CAPITOLIUM.

[Sidenote: Trajan's Forum.]

[Sidenote: Ruin in the Salita del Grillo.]

The whole s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s 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 bas.e.m.e.nts, 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 s.p.a.ce of the Forum was close at hand, in the centre of which it might have been placed.