Part 18 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Alban Mount.]
The triumphal route by which the festal processions from Rome ascended the Alban Mount diverged from the Appian road at the ninth milestone. It probably pa.s.sed by Marino to Palazzuolo and thence ascended to the summit by a series of zigzags. The stones which mark its course have the letters N V. (numinis via) cut upon them. On the summit stood the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the ancient sanctuary of the Latin league. The sole remains of this famous building are now built into the wall of the reservoir of the convent of Palazzuolo. They consist of fragments only.
Most of the stones employed by Cardinal York in 1783 in the erection of the convent of Palazzuolo and the church of the Trinity, on the site of the temple, were taken from the ruins, but nothing can be learnt from them regarding the ancient buildings. The summit of the hill is not broad enough to have supported any large building, and we may therefore conclude that the temple was of small size, and that the great festival games at the Feriae Latinae were held in the Prati d'Annibale below. The inscriptions on some of the stones are merely the freaks of some modern stonemasons.
The fragments which remain were probably used for the area round the temple.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of the Area OF THE TEMPLE of JUPITER ON MONTE CAVO]
The explorations carried out in 1876 seem to have proved that the buildings consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris on Monte Cavo were a walled area of about sixty-five yards long, and fifty wide, a fragment of the wall of which was found; a chapel dedicated to Jupiter, one corner of which was excavated; a large altar, and some other chapels dedicated as votive offerings. A tracing of the shape and position of the area, chapels and altar was found by M. S. De Rossi in a seventeenth century MS. in the Barberini Library, and was published in the Annali dell' Inst.i.tuto for 1876. This traced sketch agrees with the excavations. (See Plan.)
[Sidenote: Alba Longa.]
The early destruction of Alba Longa, so famous in Roman legendary lore, has completely deprived us of the means of tracing its site by the discovery of any remains of the walls or buildings which it contained. It was razed to the ground by Tullus Hostilius in B.C. 667 and never rebuilt.
Dionysius thus describes the site: ”The city was built close to the mountain and lake, upon a site between the two. They serve as defences to it, and make it almost impregnable, for the mountain is very steep and lofty and the lake deep and wide.” Livy says that the city was named Longa because it extended along a ridge of the Alban hills. The words of Dionysius seem to imply that Alba stood immediately between Monte Cavo and the lake on the site of the convent of Palazzuolo, and Cav. Rosa, the highest modern authority on the topography of the Campagna, who has made the neighbourhood of Albano and Nemi the subject of special study, holds this opinion. Nibby thought that the whole edge of the crater from Palazzuolo nearly to Marino, a distance of more than two miles, was occupied by the city of Alba. Sir William Gell discovered an ancient road running along the edge of the crater above Monte Cuccu, and a few blocks of stone on the top of the precipice bordering the lake further eastwards, which he thought must have belonged to the gate of Alba.
At the sixteenth milestone on the Appian road beyond Albano, in the valley below the modern town of Ariccia, is the ma.s.sive causeway 700 feet in length and 40 in width, upon which the old Appian road was raised. It is built of blocks of peperino and is a solid ma.s.s of masonry, except where three archways give pa.s.sage to the water which descends from the Alban hills and the neighbourhood of Nemi.
[Sidenote: Lake of Nemi.]
Beyond the ancient viaduct we come to the tunnel through which the lake of Nemi discharges its waters.
The name of this lake and of the village on its margin, is derived from the great grove of Diana (Nemus Dianae) whose temple probably stood on the site of the present village of Nemi. The wooded cliffs which surround the crater here are steep and descend immediately into the water, except on the side near Genzano, where they slope magnificently and are planted with vines. Their average height is 300 feet. In the Latin poets frequent mention is made of this lake as one of the princ.i.p.al ornaments of the neighbourhood of Rome, and in connection with the widely celebrated temple of Diana. Hence it was called Speculum Dianae, lacus Triviae and Stagnum Dianae.
Whether the name Lacus Aricinus also belonged to this lake is doubtful, for Pliny speaks of a lake which formerly occupied the valley of Ariccia, and the water in this valley was certainly called Lacus Aricinus in the middle ages.
The water of the lake is supplied partially at least from a small spring near the road from Genzano to Nemi, and also from the copious stream which turns the mills of the village of Nemi. The latter is probably alluded to by Strabo when he says that the sources whence the lake is filled are visible, and are near the temple of Diana.
Nibby gives the following account of the Lake of Nemi, and of the investigations carried on in his time for the purpose of discovering the real nature of the curious wooden fabrics said to have been found at the bottom of the lake:
”The situation of Nemi is picturesque, and the view from it of the crater, and of the lake, which resembles an enormous mirror spread below, is magnificent. But beyond the historical reminiscences of the Temple of Diana, it presents nothing worth particular mention. The baronial castle near it has all the appearance of a feudal fortress. It was built by the famous Colonna family, once the lords of the estate, who also built the round tower or keep which surmounts it. By ascending the side of the mountain which rises above it, a splendid panoramic view of the coast of Latium and of the adjacent Rutulian and Volscian territory may be enjoyed.
The eye ranges along the whole coast line of the Tyrrhenian Sea, from the Circaean promontory to the mouths of the Tiber, and the situations of Astura, Antium, Ardea, Lavinium, Laurentum, Ostia and Porto are clearly distinguishable, together with many other points.”
”The crater is surrounded in parts by rocks of the hardest basaltic lava, in others by conglomerated cinders and scoriae, and in some places by banks of tufa. Its circ.u.mference is about five miles; and the level of the water is higher than that of the Alban Lake. The story of the s.h.i.+p discovered at the bottom of this lake and said by some authors to have belonged to the time of Tiberius, by others to that of Trajan, is well known. Biondo, Leon Battista Alberti, and particularly Francesco Marchi a celebrated architect and military engineer of the sixteenth century, who went down into the lake himself, have spoken of it.[141] Fresh investigations have been carried on of late, at which I was present, and saw and examined everything which was brought to the surface, and inquired of those who went down what they saw there. I consider myself in a position to a.s.sert that the pretended s.h.i.+p was nothing more than the wooden piles and timbers used in the foundations of a building. The beams are of fir and larch, and are joined by metal nails of various sizes. The pavement, or at least the lowest stratum, of the remains is formed of large tiles placed upon a kind of grating of iron, on which the name CAISAR, in ancient letters, is marked. Some of these tiles and nails and gratings are now kept in the Vatican Library.
”The name Caisar seems to explain the history of the building, for Suetonius in his 'Life of Julius Caesar,' as an ill.u.s.tration of Julius Caesar's extravagance, a.s.serts that after having built a villa on the lake of Nemi at an enormous expense, he had the whole destroyed because it did not quite suit his taste. It is my belief that the pretended s.h.i.+p was nothing else than the piles and wooden framework upon which this villa was supported, and that after the upper part was destroyed the foundations under the water still remained, partly covered by the fragments of the demolished building above.”[142]
The mention of paving tiles, marbles, and leaden pipes as among the objects raised from the bottom of the lake, renders the notion that they belonged to a s.h.i.+p improbable, and Nibby's conjecture that a Roman villa, partly built out into the water, stood here, seems much more likely, though his application of the pa.s.sage of Suetonius is very doubtful.
Cav. Rosa, who examined the neighbourhood of Nemi and Genzano with a special view to the solution of the question of the site of the Temple of Artemis, has given a careful account both of the ruins under Genzano and those to the west of Nemi. The former he p.r.o.nounces undoubtedly to belong to a villa, the latter he thinks belonged to a temple with a large court in front, and an ancient road leading to it from the western side of the lake. These ruins are just above the lower road leading from the Capuccini convent at Genzano to Nemi, at the point where a cross road leads to the left and joins the higher road to Nemi, not far from the place called le Mole.[143] Genzano is a town of mediaeval origin.
(B) THE VIA LATINA AND TUSCULUM.
[Sidenote: Latin road.]
The modern Porta Giovanni is now the point at which the new road to Albano, and also that to Frascati, leave Rome. The Latin road anciently diverged, after pa.s.sing the Porta Capena, from the Alban road and had a gate of its own in the Aurelian wall, called the Porta Latina, now walled up.
[Sidenote: Tombs on Latin road.]
The old Via Latina is unfortunately now almost lost, and can only be traced by the lines of ruined tombs which mark its former course. After leaving the old Porta Latina it runs along the edge of the hills which fringe the right bank of the Caffarelli valley, and crosses the new road to Albano at the second milestone, at a point on the other side of the valley almost opposite to the so-called fountain of Egeria. Not far from this spot some very interesting tombs were excavated in 1860. A full account of them has been given in the 'Annali dell' Inst.i.tuto di Corrispondenza Archeologica' for 1860. The sarcophagi and stucco ornaments are the most perfect remains of the kind in the neighbourhood of Rome.