Passing from Ostia along the sea coast through the woods of Castel Fusano to Torre Paterno, we find the ruins of a large villa, which have been supposed by some to belong to Pliny’s Laurentinum. But they are more probably the relics of an imperial villa mentioned by Herodian as the retreat to which Commodus withdrew, by the advice of his physicians, at the time of the great plague in Rome, in the year 187. The neighbourhood of Laurentum was recommended, says the historian, on account of its being cooler than Rome, and also because it was shaded with large woods of laurel and bay trees, the strong scent from which was supposed to counteract the influence of the deadly malaria which was devastating the capital.[155] The present ruins at Torre Paterno consist of brick walls in two styles, one of which Nibby refers to the age of Nero, and the other to the reign of Commodus or Severus. The central building, which contained the grand suite of rooms, is the only part where work of the first century, analogous to that of Nero’s buildings at Rome, is to be seen; the rest, says Nibby, is composed of various courtyards in the style of the Antonine era, which have been altered and partly concealed by later modern edifices. On one side of the ruins are two large cisterns, supplied by an aqueduct which comes from the Tenimento la Santola. The brickwork of this is apparently contemporaneous with other works which we know to have belonged to the age of Commodus or Severus as having very thin bricks and a great quantity of mortar. Near these reservoirs is an enclosed space which was probably a courtyard or garden of a rectangular shape. On the north side it has some ruins in the mode of construction called opus mixtum of the fourth century; and on the east is the principal part of the villa built of large and thick triangular bricks, with thin layers of mortar beautifully laid, and evidently of an early date. On the west there is a large dining-hall looking towards the sea, like that described in Pliny’s Laurentinum. Various other rooms and the foundations of a tower can be traced on the sites occupied by the modern guardhouse and the Chapel of S. Filippo.[156]

(E) TIBUR.

The Via Valeria or Tiburtina leading to Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, now leaves Rome at the Porta S. Lorenzo. Traces of the polygonal pavement of the old road can be seen at intervals along the modern road to Tivoli, especially between the eighth and ninth milestones, and here and there elsewhere. In the Basilica of S. Lorenzo, a mile from the gate, are many ancient fragments of architecture. The Ponte Mammolo, by which the Anio is crossed at three and a half miles from Rome, is modern and there are scarcely any relics of the old bridge. Here and there on the road are the naked cores of tombs, but nothing of any interest offers itself to an archæologist until the Aquæ Albulæ are reached. Some few remains of an ancient building, which may have belonged to the Thermæ here, have been discovered. They are now built into the walls of a modern farmhouse. These ruins may have belonged to the Thermæ of Agrippa, which Augustus frequented.

The ancient quarries of travertine mentioned by Strabo, whence the stone of the Coliseum came, lie on the right of the road beyond the Solfatara, and the modern quarries on the left. The road then crosses the Anio over an ancient bridge still called the Ponte Lucano, from Marcus Plautius Lucanus, a Tiburtine magistrate, whose memory is preserved in an inscription discovered upon the ancient fourteenth milestone on this road.

The bridge was originally composed of three travertine arches, of which the one next to the left bank remains entire. The central arch has been restored with masonry of the sixth century, similar to that in the Ponte Nomentano and the Ponte Salario. The arch on the right bank was restored in the fifteenth century, and the whole bridge was repaired again about 1836. This bridge was broken down by Totila when he was encamped at Tibur, and Nibby thinks that he destroyed the middle arch, which was then restored by Narses.

Just on the other side of the bridge is the tomb of the gens Plautia, well known from numerous paintings and photographs. It is very similar to that of Cæcilia Metella on the Appian Road, and to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, in its main features. A cylindrical tower of travertine, based on a square foundation, and capped with a cone, was the original design, but a mediæval tower built upon the top now disfigures it.

Two inscriptions placed in a projecting front with Ionic pilasters record the names of M. Plautius Silvanus, consul with Augustus in the year B.C. 2, and his son Ti. Plautius Silvanus, prefect of the city in A.D. 73. A third inscription, which is now destroyed, commemorated a P. Plautius Pulcher. The longer inscription is given with notes in Wilmann’s Inscr. Lat. No. 1145. The person whose memory it preserves was the pontifex who officiated at the rebuilding of the Capitoline Temple in A.D. 70, as recorded by Tacitus.

Beyond the Ponte Lucano to the right are the ruins of Hadrian’s great Tiburtine Villa. They occupy the slopes of a hill of volcanic tufa, which may be called an outlying part of Monte Affliano, extending for about three miles in a direction from south-east to north-west. The various levels afforded by the ground have been formed into terraces adapted to the buildings they were intended to support by means of substructions, which in some places are of vast solidity and gigantic height. “From these terraces,” says Nibby, “the views are most varied and picturesque. On one side the horizon is bounded by the pointed heights of the Montes Corniculani, and by the ridges of the Peschiatore, the Ripoli, and the Affliano, and on the other, the eye ranges over the gently undulating expanse of the Ager Romanus, from which rise the towers of the Eternal City; while beyond, the long streak of light reflected from the waters of the Etruscan and Laurentine Sea seems to encircle the whole with a silvery zone. The situation of the villa is open to the healthy breezes of the west wind, but is sheltered by the mountains from the fury of the north wind, the piercing chills of the north-east, and the unwholesome hot summer blasts of the south.”

The high ground on which the villa stands rises between two valleys, which may be called from their position the north and south valleys. They run down into the plain through which the Anio cuts its bed. The northern valley has been artificially altered, with the view of increasing its picturesque appearance, by cutting the sides so as form perpendicular cliffs of reddish stone. The tints of these rocks, the soft verdure of the plants and trees which grow luxuriantly upon them, the bright colours of the wild flowers scattered here and there, and the lovely hills which rise as a screen behind them, give this valley such a character of soothing and enchanting retirement and beauty, that it has been universally regarded as the spot to which the name of the Vale of Tempe was given by the emperor. The southern valley is less deep and bold, and from its monotonous and severe aspect it may perhaps have been the spot where Hadrian placed his imitation of the infernal regions.[157]

The brook which runs at the bottom of the northern valley (Fosso dell’ Acqua Ferrata) has received the name of the Peneius from antiquaries, and that in the southern valley is called Fosso di Risicoli by the modern inhabitants. These streams are now very scantily supplied with water, but in ancient times, when the villa was watered by a constant flow from its aqueducts, they must have been of considerable volume. The ruins, now overgrown with clumps of cypress and other trees, extend for a space of seven miles in circumference, and in the middle ages were known as Tivoli Vecchio, from a vague and unfounded idea that the ancient city of Tibur stood here. It has been remarked that the Coliseum is strikingly characteristic of the Flavian emperors who planned and executed it, and with equal truth it may be said that the Tiburtinum of Hadrian gives a marvellous picture of the many-sided genius of the great man who was at once the ruler of the whole known world and had travelled throughout his vast domains from Britain to the Euphrates, organising and controlling everywhere, and at the same time showing an appreciation of and value for literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, which was generally foreign to the Roman character. Hadrian constructed in his villa at Tibur a panorama of all the sights which had struck him most in his world-wide travels, in order that he might in this realm of enchantment, when no longer able to travel, have the sights and thoughts in which he had taken such pleasure, revived for his imagination to feed upon. Considering the size and magnificence of the place, which almost resembles a town in its vast extent, it is surprising that so few notices of it should be found among the Roman historians and biographers. Dion Cassius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphilinus, does not even mention it, and Spartianus and Aurelius Victor pass it over without such special remark as we should expect. As, however, a great part of the building consisted of the familiar Thermæ, stadia, theatres and gymnasium, which were constructed in every large Roman villa, they were perhaps not noticed, as matters of course, and only the peculiarities of the villa were recorded. After Hadrian’s return to Rome at the end of his last journey to the East in A.D. 135, he resigned the care of the empire to Lucius Ælius Verus and retired to this villa, which had probably been built during his absence, and may have been begun in 125 when he returned to Rome from his first journey, and finished during the last three years of his life from 135 to 138.

This opinion as to the date at which the villa was built is confirmed by the stamps found on the bricks, which range from the year 123 to the year A.D. 137, and that the ruins belong to Hadrian’s villa is sufficiently attested by universal tradition, and by the number of statues of Antinous, and other works of art found here unquestionably belonging to the reign of Hadrian.

The ruins contain specimens of almost every kind of construction. The most ancient part is a wall of opus incertum, composed of small polygonal fragments of tufa, which stands near the Casino Fede. This wall is probably a remnant of some older villa rustica or farmhouse which occupied the site before Hadrian’s time, and may have belonged to the gens Ælia. It apparently belongs to the first half of the first century B.C. The most common mode of construction is opus reticulatum, with squares of tawny coloured tufa cut in the valley adjoining and bonded at the corners with blocks of the same rock, or with red bricks. In those parts of the buildings, which require great durability from being exposed to the action of water, brickwork is used throughout. The Greek theatre and parts of the academy are built of small squared blocks of tufa, or in some cases of irregular fragments of tufa resembling the later opera Saracenesca. These are sometimes strengthened with bands of reticulated work. In most cases the outer covering of the walls has been removed, especially where it consisted of marble slabs. Some of the stucco ornaments are still very beautiful and well preserved.

Each part of the buildings is complete in itself, but they do not seem to have been arranged on any general plan, and now that the roads which conducted from one part to another have disappeared, they present a confused mass which requires some careful attention to unravel. I have been obliged to confine myself to a very general and cursory account of each main feature. To notice every detail would be far beyond the compass of this book. In Ligorio’s plan 334 different parts of the villa are marked and separately described, and he spent a year in his investigation of the ruins.

Spartianus gives us the names of the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Tempe and the Inferi as the parts of the villa made by Hadrian in imitation of their foreign originals. To these Ligorio has added the name Cynosarges found upon a brick stamp. The sites of the Canopus, the Pœcile, the Academy, Tempe, and the Inferi may be said to be ascertained with tolerable certainty, but those of the Lyceum and Prytaneum have not been discovered.

The other names given by antiquarians to the different buildings are generally founded upon some definite evidence drawn from their shape and situation, and are probably upon the whole fairly applicable. They are the Theatres, the Palæstra, the Nymphæum, the Library, the Imperial Palace, the Hospitals, the Stadium, the Camp, and the Thermæ.

Proceeding from north to south, the ruins may be divided, for the convenience of description, into ten grand groups—A, the Palæstra, including the Greek and Latin Theatres and the Nymphæum; B, the Pœcile; C, the Guards’ Barracks; D, the Library; E, the Imperial Palace; F, the Stadium; G, the Thermæ; H, the Canopus; I, the Academy, including the third theatre or Odeum; K, the Inferi. In giving these general divisions, some attempt is made to represent the parts of the villa as they were in Hadrian’s time. The ruins are in such different states of preservation—some being entirely destroyed and the ground-plan barely traceable, while others are almost entire—that their real relative importance is completely obscured. The modern alleys and walks also create much confusion, and render the recognition of the ancient arrangement much more difficult.

The ancient grand entrance to the grounds was at the north-western end of the ruins, on the road towards Tibur, about a quarter of a mile beyond the Ponte Lucano. It seems to have consisted of two large pedestals of white marble, between which the carriage-road passed, and which were pierced with arched passages for the footways on each side. One of these is still traceable in the Vigna Gentili, and has the remains of a bas-relief upon it, while the other has been destroyed, and its corresponding bas-relief placed in the Villa Albani at Rome. This gateway has been imitated by the architect of the gateway at the old Villa Borghese. It is erroneously called a tomb by Piranesi and Ligorio (see Piranesi, Ant. Rom. tom. ii. tav. 39.)

The modern entrance to the ruins is at the gate of the Villa Braschi, and leads, through an avenue of cypress-trees, in a direction at right angles to the ancient road of approach. The avenue runs across a space which was formerly a large quadrilateral court, 350 feet by 250 feet, surrounded with porticoes, attached to the theatre which stands a little to the side at the end of the avenue. The ancient road from the Ponte Lucano entered this court at the northern angle. The porticoes have now nearly disappeared, but part of them was remaining in Ligorio’s time. They served the same purposes as the great colonnades behind the Theatres of Pompey and Balbus at Rome. The theatre is an oval building, sunk in the slope of the rising ground, the southern side containing the seats for spectators, and the northern being occupied by the orchestra and scena, which has a stage in the form of a long and narrow parallelogram. The plan corresponds exactly to the description by Vitruvius of a Greek theatre, and has, therefore, been called the Greek Theatre by the antiquaries. The Greeks had the orchestra wider and the actual stage much narrower than the Latins. Fragments of the travertine substructions of the scena still remain.

At some distance from this theatre, towards the east, and on the other side of the stream which runs along the Valley of Tempe, is the Latin Theatre, so called because the stage is much broader than that of the theatre just described. Externally it was surrounded with arched porticoes decorated, like the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome, with half-columns, There were probably two tiers of these arches, corresponding to the two divisions of seats. At the sides of the scena there were rooms for the use of the actors and for the machinery, and behind the scena are three rooms, probably corresponding to the three doors in the wall behind the stage. The spectators’ seats are turned towards the south, contrary to the rules of Vitruvius.

Between the two theatres there is a natural rise in the ground, which has been further heightened by the rubbish heaped upon the spot. The ruins here occupy a space in the form of a trapezium, the largest side of which lies towards the north-west, and the shortest towards the south-west. They are now covered with modern buildings belonging to the Villa Braschi.

The northern angle of these ruins shows the remains of a quadrilateral area surrounded by a covered way; and at the eastern angle there is another smaller court, surrounded with a portico, which has a double row of columns on the south-west side. This court is called the Palæstra by Ligorio and Piranesi, and it is supposed by them that the double portico was intended to be used in bad weather, when the athletes could not take their exercise in the unsheltered part of the court. Several statues of athletes, the colossal bust of Isis, now in the Museo Chiaromonti, and a statue of Ceres, were found here. There is a suite of rooms on the north-west side, intended, perhaps, for anointing-rooms, dust rooms, or sparring-courts. On the southern side there is a spacious recess, with niches for statues, and attached to it are two large halls, in the form of a Greek cross, with small recesses at the sides, still retaining some marks of their ancient decorations in stucco and paint. The western angle of these ruins is conjectured to have been the site of the Xystus or covered Palæstra, a cloistered court, with a small square opening in the centre.

The ruins of the Nymphæum lie on the south side of the Palæstra, and are connected with it by some chambers in which the stucco ornaments are still well preserved, and show what elegance of design and workmanship was bestowed even on the inferior parts of the villa. The curved basin of the Nymphæum can be traced, though it is now overgrown with trees, and some of the niches still covered with stucco-work remain. The western side of one of the adjacent rooms, now used as a granary, is ornamented with niches, and Nibby thinks that this, which was the back of the Nymphæum, was arranged so as to present a fountain supplied from the main pipe of the aqueduct. A similar arrangement, he says, may be seen in the remains of the Nymphæum at Ampiglione. The great vase now at Warwick Castle came from Hadrian’s Villa.

The Pœcile lies to the south of the Nymphæum. Between them is a reservoir and the remains of a fountain belonging to some building now entirely destroyed.

The Athenian Pœcile, of which this is an imitation, was a portico, the walls of which were decorated with the paintings of Polygnotus and Micon. From the description given of it by Pausanias, the Athenian building appears to have been a portico with three sides at least, on one of which the battle of Oenoe was represented; on the second, and longest, the wars of Theseus against the Amazons, and the council of the Greek chiefs after the capture of Troy; and on the third, the battle of Marathon. It thus appears that one of the sides was much longer than the others; and this is the case with the ruin in the Villa of Hadrian, which has three sides, one, 640, on the north, and the others, on the east and west, each 240 feet in length. In Ligorio’s time, 1550, a part of the porticoes, which were of brick, still remained, and some of the paintings corresponding to the Athenian pattern. It is not certain whether there was a similar wall and portico on the southern side. The wall of the northern side, which is the longest, still remains entire. It had a portico on the exterior, which terminated in two circular buildings; and in the centre was the principal entrance to the Pœcile. The present entrance is modern. Both the eastern and western sides are slightly curved. The former contains a recess in the centre connected with the buildings behind. In the centre was an open reservoir of the same shape as the building surrounding it. On the western and southern sides the area of the Pœcile is supported by substructions of masonry, against which are built a number of soldiers’ rooms commonly called the Cento Camarelle. At the corner towards the south-west is a public washhouse, the tubes of which are still in good preservation.

Attached to the north-eastern corner of the Pœcile is a fine building, in the form of a recess, with a semicircular niche turned towards the north, which, from the connection of the Stoic philosophy with the Stoa Pœcile at Athens, has been called the Temple or School of the Stoics. It was possibly a hall for conversation and discussion.

Opening from this school, towards the north-east, is a building in the form of two concentric circles. Between the two circular parts there was a canal filled with water. This edifice was probably a swimming-bath. It appears to have been very highly ornamented with precious marbles and sculptures, most of which were taken to Rome by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and others to Tivoli by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este. The ruin commonly goes by the name of Theatrum Maritimum. A little farther to the north-east is a quadrilateral court, 200 feet wide, which was surrounded by a portico with Corinthian columns. On the north-west side of this court are the buildings usually supposed to belong to the library, and called the Greek and Latin libraries. They consist of a large number of rooms, more or less preserved, which may have been ante-rooms and chambers for the attendants and librarians. In the centre of the north-western side of the court is a well-preserved Nymphæum, and on the north-east a long corridor with windows towards the south, which may be called a Helio Caminus, or room for basking in the sun, from its resemblance to the place so called by Pliny at his Laurentine villa. The ruins to the north-east of these, towards the Valley of Tempe, are thought by Nibby to be the remains of a suite of rooms belonging to one wing of the imperial palace, but their plan is very imperfectly known.

The great mass of the imperial apartments were farther to the south-east, and were grouped round three large courts of dazzling magnificence. The most splendid of those, which afforded spoil for generations of plunderers, is called by Piranesi, from the richness of its decorative work, the Piazza d’Oro. Round the courts were numberless suites of rooms and several large recesses, a basilica, and a great hall now called Eco Corintio, formerly supported on vast granite columns, and cased with slabs of the choicest marbles.

The Stadium lies in a direction at right-angles to the southern side of the Pœcile. The curved end is towards the south. Between the swimming-bath and the northern, or square end of the Stadium, are some bath-rooms for the use of the athletes, and on the west side stands a temple surrounded by a sacred enclosure formed by two vast semicircular walls ornamented with niches. On the eastern side are more rooms, and a magnificent quadrilateral covered way.

The Thermæ stand between the Stadium and the Canopus. Numerous pipes and conduits for water, and also the arrangement of the various parts of the buildings, show that they have been rightly placed here. There seem to have been two distinct sets of bath-rooms, which are generally called the Terme virili and the Terme muliebri by the Italian antiquaries. The northern group of buildings is connected with the curved end of the Stadium, and contains the usual number of halls and an elliptical Laconicum. The Laconicum of the southern wing is circular, and is connected with a grand central hall similar to that in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome.

The place called Canopus lies to the south of the Thermæ, and close to a mass of buildings now utterly destroyed, but in Piranesi’s time thought to be a vestibule of the villa. The Canopus itself consists of an oblong pool of water or euripus excavated in the tufa, with a row of buildings on the west side, and a magnificent nymphæum at the southern end, containing a great number of niches for statuary, and holes for jets of water. At the back of the Nymphæum is a hall called the Sacrarium, in which it is supposed the statue of Serapis stood. A passage of Strabo explains the idea which Hadrian had in forming this canal and Nymphæum. He says that on the grand festival of Serapis, whose temple and oracle were at Canopus, 120 stadia from Alexandria, immense crowds of men and women go down to Canopus from Alexandria by boats on the canal, on the banks of which are pleasant houses of entertainment, where the worshippers stop on their way to feast and dance.[158] The long, broad pool was intended to represent the Canopic canal, and the rooms ranged along the side, the houses of refreshment. A confirmation of this is derived from the character of the statues found here which were almost all those of Egyptian deities.

To the south-west of the Canopus rise the immense substructions, 1755 feet in length, which supported the highest terrace on this side of the villa. They extend as far as the square tower called Rocca Bruna in Ligorio’s plan. This terrace and hill are supposed to have been the imitation of the Athenian Academy mentioned by Spartianus. There was a gymnasium here, the ruins of which are to be seen in a vineyard at the southern end of the hill, consisting of a large court, a circular temple, and a large recess. Beyond these there was a large square block of buildings supposed by Nibby to have been used for the students and masters of the School of Art maintained by Hadrian, and beyond this again was a spacious Odeum or theatre for musical performances. The raised seat of this is now converted into a vineyard, but the stage is still well preserved. There were, as in the Odeum of Catania, two divisions, and at the top of the central division was a round temple dedicated to the presiding genius of the Odeum; just as in the Theatre of Pompey the Chapel of Victory stood above the seats.

Close to this Odeum are the vast subterranean passages supposed to be the Inferi which Spartianus mentions. The depth at which these lie is only fourteen feet, but they occupy a trapezoidal area, the longest side of which is about one thousand and fifty feet, and the shortest two hundred. Most of these corridors are excavated like catacombs in the natural rock. A brick stamped with the name Cynosarges was found near the aqueduct which runs to the south of the Inferi. There are two other names found in Spartianus, the Lyceum, and the Prytaneum, and Piranesi identifies the Lyceum with a ruined portico at a little distance to the south of the Inferi, and the Prytaneum with some more extensive ruins to the south-east.

After Constantine’s time, the Villa of Hadrian remained in a desolate state, and was abandoned to the caprices of the imbecile Cæsars, who tormented the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, and to occasional visits from the plundering hordes of Goths, Vandals, and Heruli, who successively ravaged the neighbouring country. In the middle of the sixth century it was completely pillaged and ruined. In the Gothic wars of 546-556 Totila took Tibur after a siege of some months, and revenged himself for the resistance of the Isaurian garrison by putting all to the sword without sparing even the bishop. At the same time Totila broke down all the bridges on the Anio. During that long siege, the Villa of Hadrian with its enormous halls, its vast ranges of rooms, and its advantageous and commanding site at the junction of several roads, offered convenient quarters to the barbarian king and his host. It may be imagined what devastation such tenants would inflict upon the place. In the sixth century the villa fell more and more into ruins; to the disasters of the Gothic wars were added those incurred during the Lombard wars under Astulf. The Lombards were a more savage horde than the Goths, and their object was to destroy the Roman empire utterly, and to divide Italy into dukedoms. These barbarians attacked Rome many times, and ravaged the Campagna, but Astulf distinguished himself above all the rest in these incursions, massacring and burning everywhere without distinction. As we hear that he was encamped near Tivoli, we may conclude that the Villa of Hadrian suffered severely in or about the year 755.

The wars between emperors and popes, and the quarrels between the factions in Rome itself which followed, injured Rome perhaps rather more than the cities of the Campagna. But the greatest damage of all was done to the villa by its being made the quarry whence the churches, the monasteries, and the houses of the wealthy Tiburtines were decorated with marbles, columns, and costly stonework, and when these were filled and could hold no more of the innumerable marble sculptures and statues, they were condemned to the lime-kiln and converted into mortar. After the revival of letters and arts in the fifteenth century, the lamentations poured out in the time of Pius II. (A.D. 1458) over the ruins of the villa are most pathetic. “The lofty vaults of the temples are still standing, and the wonderful columns of the cloisters and magnificent porticoes. The swimming-baths and Thermæ can be traced, where the water of the Anio once mitigated the summer heats. But the hand of time has defaced all these, and the walls once draped with embroidered tapestry and cloth of gold are now clad with ivy; the thorns and briar grow where tribunes sat in purple robes, and serpents crawl, in their kings’ chambers.” In spite of the existence here and there of such love of antiquity, the burning of the Tiburtine marbles into lime continued throughout the sixteenth century, and the levelling of the ground for cultivation has gone on even to the present century.[159]

The same fate attended all the other grand monuments of the Campagna. Rutilius Numatianus, writing probably in 417 in the reign of Honorius, speaks of the buildings of Rome and the aqueducts of the Campagna as if they were still uninjured, but he prefers to return to his native home in Gaul by sea, on account of the bad state of the roads on the coast caused by the Gothic devastations.

Ascending from Hadrian’s Villa to the point where the Anio issues from a valley dividing the Æquian from the Sabine Mountains, we find the river winding round a considerable hill, partly clothed with groves of olive, and rising to the height of 830 feet. At the back of this hill the river has forced a passage for itself through the limestone rocks which threaten to impede its exit from the upper valley, and falls in a tremendous cataract down a precipitous cliff of 320 feet in height to the lower level. The water is strongly charged with carbonate of lime, which is constantly being deposited in the shape of masses of travertine in the channels through which the stream runs, especially where the water, in consequence of the violent agitation caused by its rapid descent, parts quickly with the carbonic acid gas contained in it. The course of the stream is from time to time blocked up by its own formations of stone, and it is forced to open new passages for itself. From this cause the city of Tibur, which stands on the hill, close to the point where the river falls to its lower level, has always been subject to violent and dangerous inundations. The great inundation of 1826 proved so formidable that it was at once resolved to divert the course of part of the river and provide it with an artificial outlet. This was effected by boring two tunnels through Monte Catillo on the east of the city, through which any rush of water can be allowed to pass and fall harmlessly into the lower valley. A part of the river water is always allowed to pass through these tunnels, and forms at their lower end a magnificent cascade. Another part passes under the bridge called Ponte S. Gregorio and then rushes through a fantastic grotto of travertine blocks called by the local guides Grotta di Nettuno, and joins the stream from the tunnels at the bottom of the valley. A third portion of the Anio is diverted just above the bridge into canals apparently of very ancient date, which, passing completely through the centre of the town, are used as the motive power of watermills and factories of various kinds, and then fall again into the main stream at various points of the romantic cliffs on the western hill side. These form the wreaths of “snow white foam” so celebrated as the cascades of the Anio, and explain perfectly the expression of Horace:

O headlong Anio, O Tiburnian groves,
And orchards saturate with shifting streams.

But few traces of the ancient walls of the city are left. Nibby is however doubtless right in saying that there can be no question about their course along the northern and eastern sides of the city, where the brow of the hill is steep and perfectly adapted for defence by a wall placed on the edge of the rocky valley of the Anio. The citadel was probably situated in the quarter called Castro Vetere—where the two temples commonly called the temples of the Sibyl and of Drusilla stand, for it is plain that some pains have been taken to isolate this from the remainder of the site. On the western side the limit of the ancient walls is marked by the old gate, and by the fragments of walls which still exist at the point where the direct road from Rome enters the city by the modern Porta del Colle. The course of the walls then excludes the Villa d’Este, and runs across the hill to the Church of the Annunziata and the Porta Santa Croce and the citadel built by Pius II. on the site of the ancient amphitheatre. From thence the walls passed in a straight line down to the river near the Church of S. Bartolommeo. The ancient town did not extend to the right bank of the Anio.

Temple of Vesta at Tibur.

Two ancient temples are still standing in tolerable preservation at Tibur. The first of these is a small round temple perched on the very edge of the precipitous ravine through which the Anio dashes. It has been protected against the violence of the furious torrent by massive substructions, which apparently existed in ancient times and have often been renewed. Ten of the eighteen columns which formerly surrounded the inner chamber still remain.

The details of this temple are rather peculiar in style, and show an originality of invention very rare in Roman architecture. The columns have Attic bases, but the grooves of the fluting are cut in a style which is neither Doric nor Ionic. They terminate above in an abrupt horizontal line, and reach at the foot of the column quite down to the base without any intermediate cylinder. The capitals exhibit a fantastic variety of the Corinthian order, having the second row of acanthus leaves nearly hidden behind the first, and a lotus blossom as the decoration of the abacus. The frieze is ornamented with the skulls of oxen and festoons, in the loops of which are rosettes and pateræ placed alternately. The inner chamber, which is built of opus incertum, is partly destroyed, but the lower half of the door and a window still remain.

From the above description it will be seen that the architecture of the temple appears to belong to the end of the Republican era, but the inscription on the architecture gives us no further hint of the exact date, as the whole of it: with the exception of the words L. CELLIO. L. F., has disappeared. The most probable conjecture as to the deity to whom it was dedicated is that based upon the fact that Vesta was worshipped at Tibur, as is shown not only by two inscriptions found near the spot, but also by the mediæval name of this quarter of the town. The form of the temple also confirms such an opinion.

The second temple stands quite close to this round building, and is now consecrated as the Church of S. Giorgio. Its shape was that of a pseudoperipteral temple, i.e. with the side columns half sunk in the walls, raised on a meagre base of tufa blocks. It had a front, with four Ionic columns, one of which still remains, forming a support to the Campanile. An inscription dedicated to Drusilla, the sister of Caligula, was found here, but no reference as to the name of the temple can be drawn from it. A bas-relief, also found on the spot, represents the Tiburtine Sibyl sitting, and in the act of delivering an oracle. Hence it has been thought that we have in the Church of S. Giorgio the Temple of the Sibyl Albunea mentioned by Horace, Tibullus, and Lactantius, and this seems to be the most probable of the various conjectures which have been hazarded on the subject. The Grove of Tiburnus mentioned by Horace was probably on the right bank of the Anio, but further than this it is impossible to determine its exact position. There was also a grove dedicated to Diana. The Mons Catillus, now Monte Catillo or Monte della Croce, is the height on the right bank of the Anio. The name is at least as early as the time of Servius.

As may easily be imagined there are numerous remains of ancient villas scattered about the immediate neighbourhood of Tibur, and the local guides, in order to please travellers but without the slightest evidence in support of their assertions, have dubbed them the Villas of Catullus, Horace, Ventidius, Quintilius Varus, Mæcenas, Sallust, Piso, Capito, Brutus, Popillius, and other celebrated Romans.

The most remarkable ruins are those to which the name of Mæcenas has been attached. The greater part of these have been now unfortunately concealed by new buildings and by an iron manufactory, but a fine terrace and parts of the porticoes still remain on the lofty bank of the Anio. The rest is a mere confused mass of vaulted chambers and archways. The Via Tecta, or Porta Oscura, as it is sometimes called, by which the road passes underneath these ruins, was built, as we learn from an inscription now in the Vatican collection, by O. Vitulus and Rustius Flavos. The materials and style show that it can hardly be of a later date than the first century A.D.

The Tempio della Tosse which probably obtains its name from a vulgar interpretation of the name of the gens Tossia, is a ruin standing in a vineyard at the side of the old road, called the Via Constantina, below the Villa d’Este. It has none of the characteristic marks of an ancient temple, and the large number of windows it contains forbid us to suppose it to be a tomb. The interior of the building is round, the exterior octagonal. It is built of layers of small fragments of tufa intermixed with courses of bricks, materials which point to the fourth century as the earliest possible date of its erection. On the walls are the remains of frescoes of the Saviour and the Virgin, dating probably from the 13th century. These show that, if it was not originally a Christian Church, it was used as one at the time the frescoes were painted.

The ruins of a considerable villa lie near the Porta S. Croce of Tivoli, in the estate called Carciano, from the mediæval name of the Fundus Cassianus, which is stated in a list of the estates belonging to the cathedral at Tivoli to have been the site of a villa of Caius Cassius. Part of these ruins consist of a very ancient structure of polygonal work, but the rest is pronounced by Nibby to belong to the time of the later republic. The casino of the Collegio Greco is now built on the spot, but the plan of the ancient villa can be so far traced as to show that it had several terraces, and looked towards the south-west. In the 16th century there were still eighteen large apartments existing, surrounded with a portico of Doric columns, and also some temples, a theatre, some fountains, and fish ponds. The opus reticulatum of these ruins is peculiar for the alternate arrangement of coloured tufa in its lozenges. An immense number of works of art were dug up here, and the nearly complete destruction of what still remained of the villa in the 16th century, is probably due to the fact of its having been found to be so rich a mine of sculpture.

The Sabine farm of Horace can hardly be passed over here, though it is not strictly included within the district of Tibur. There is no evidence to show that Horace ever had any villa at Tibur in addition to his Sabine farm; indeed his own words seem expressly to imply the contrary. The estate he had was plainly usually called a Sabinum, not a Tiburtinum, and must therefore be looked for at some distance from Tibur. Horace mentions two places in its neighbourhood, Varia, and Mandela, the sites of which can be exactly determined. The ancient list of towns places Varia on the Via Valeria, eight miles beyond Tibur, and precisely at this distance are the remains of an ancient town now covered by the modern village of Vico Varo. But the position of Mandela is more important for ascertaining the site of Horace’s farm, because if we can fix upon it, we then can discover to which of the mountain streams which flow into the Anio the name Digentia belonged. An inscription dug up in 1757 near the Church of S. Cosimato on the Via Valeria, two miles from the village of Bardella, shows that an estate in the modern district formed by the union of Cantalupo and Bardella was called in the later imperial times, or the early Middle Ages, Massa Mandelana.

From this it is plain that the Digentia was the torrent called Mariscella, which joins the Anio between Cantalupo, Bardella and Vico Varo, descending from near Licenza, a small village about six miles from Vico Varo. As to the exact spot where the farm of Horace itself stood in the valley of the Digentia, we cannot be quite certain. The ruins usually pointed out are on a little knoll opposite to the village of Licenza, and on the other side of the stream. These are possibly situated on the spot on which the farmhouse stood, if they do not date so far back as the lifetime of the poet himself. Dennis in Milman’s Horace says, “The ruins consist only of a mosaic pavement, and of two capitals and two fragments of Doric columns lying among the bushes. The pavement has been much ruined by the planting of a vineyard, and can only be seen on removing the earth which covers it. The groundwork is white with a border of animals in black. These are the sole traces now visible (1842), but some fifty years ago, the mosaic floors of six chambers were brought to light, but were covered again with earth, as nothing was found to tempt any further excavation. The farm is situated on a rising ground which sinks with a gentle slope to the stream, leaving a level intervening strip now yellow with the harvest. In this I recognised the sunny meadow which, as the poet says, was in danger of being inundated. The sunny fields were probably then, as now, sown with corn. Here it must have been that the poet was wont to repose on the grass after his meal, and here his personal efforts perhaps to dam out the stream provoked his neighbours’ smiles.” The place is surrounded on all sides by hills, except where the main valley of the Digentia separates them, running nearly due north and south, so that facing down the valley, the sun before midday rests on the right-hand slopes, and in the afternoon on the left hand, thus corresponding exactly to the poet’s description of the site.[160]

Vico Varo and Lucretilis.

The other spots mentioned by Horace as near his farm, are the Chapel of Vacuna, the slopes of Ustica, and the mountain of Lucretilis. The first of these has been placed by the Italian topographers at Rocca Giovane, a village perched on a hill on the west side of the valley about two miles above Cantalupo Bardella. The evidence for this identification is, however, very doubtful.

The Ustica cubans of the poet is commonly with some probability supposed to be La Rustica, which lies on the hill close to Licenza on the eastern side of the valley. Lucretilis is probably a name applied to the whole range of hills connected with Monte Gennaro. Cav. Rosa, however, places it at Monte del Corynaleto just above Rocca Giovane. The name of Fons Bandusiæ has been given to most of the springs in this valley by the enthusiastic admirers of Horace, but it is quite uncertain whether the Fons Bandusiæ was not in Apulia.

(F) THE NORTH-WESTERN DISTRICT.

The principal roads which traversed the Campagna to the north and north-west of Rome are the Nomentana, the Salaria and the Flaminia. These roads offer but little, within the bounds of ancient Latium, which calls for remark.