Part 8 (1/2)
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 Ca.s.sius and Spartia.n.u.s. 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 Caesar'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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce to the westward within which we can suppose the Forum Augusti to have been. Thus the only s.p.a.ce 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 ab.u.t.ted 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 pa.s.ses, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, was.h.i.+ng, 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 s.h.i.+eld.
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 s.p.a.ce of the Forum.
On the front were the words, probably the last line of a longer inscription, IMP. NERVA CaeSAR 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 a.s.sertion of Dion Ca.s.sius that Domitian had a particular reverence for Minerva and Ja.n.u.s, 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.]