On the side of the Capitoline Hill towards the Forum, a very high and wide mass of building, now called the Palace of the Senator, and used for the transaction of urban business, stands. This is founded upon an ancient range of masonry of which a considerable part still remains, measuring about 220 feet in length, and 50 feet in height. An entrance has been made from the Via del Campidoglio, and as the wall was cut through for this purpose, the structure of the building may be best observed here. On the inner side red tufa has been used, and on the outer grey peperino, and the blocks are laid alternately lengthwise and crosswise, as in the Servian wall building. A great mass of masonry of this sort without cement, forms the main substructions of the building. Along the front run the traces of an arcaded passage, which anciently led across from one side to the other of the building. The arches were walled up by Nicolas V., in order to bear modern buildings above them. One has now been opened to show the architecture. A pavement of basaltic lava, such as was used in the streets of ancient Rome, has been found in the arcade, showing that it was a public passage. The architecture of the building is Doric, which points to an early date, and the capitals and cornice are of travertine. It is probable that another arcade ran above the one now traceable. A high flight of steps leads up into the chambers from the archway now walled up at the back of the Temple of Vespasian. From the architecture it may be concluded that these remains of a large ancient building date from the republican times of Rome, and are almost the only relics of that era. This ruin is generally called the Tabularium, but it has been shown by Mommsen that there is no ground for supposing that the name was ever applied to it in any ancient writings, and that the name is more properly Ærarium Populi Romani, or Ærarium Saturni, and that it was attached to the Temple of Saturn. Many of the temples in Rome had æraria attached to them, and it does not appear that any central place of deposit ever had the name of Tabularium alone, without further title, especially applied to it. The inscription which has been placed at the entrance, and records the construction of some building, or part of a building by Q. Lutatius Catulus, when consul, was placed where it now stands by Canina. It is supposed by Mommsen to refer to the repairs and alterations of the vaults under the Capitol, which were carried out in pursuance of Sulla’s plan of improvements on the Capitol, and after Sulla’s death were continued for many years by Q. Catulus.[66]
THE COLISEUM AND ESQUILINE.
On the road from the Forum Romanum to the Coliseum, after passing through the Arch of Titus, we descend between the platform and ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome, and the remains called the lavacrum of Heliogabalus, mentioned previously, and, close to the south-western corner of the mass of substruction on the left, we find a conical column of brickwork about thirty feet high. A large breach on the side towards the Coliseum shows that the centre was pierced with a perpendicular pipe, and the eastern exhibits traces of having been divided into three ledges or stages. This conical building stood in the centre of a circular basin, the ruin of which has been traced out and restored. The shape would of itself point to the purpose which this building served, even if this were not rendered clear by the remains of a watercourse which descended to it from the Esquiline. The name Meta Sudans by which the ruin is known comes from the mediæval list of buildings known as the Curiosum Urbis, but the earliest authentic authority to which we can appeal for its date is a coin of Alexander Severus, A.D. 222. The passage of Seneca in which he gives the name Meta Sudans as being a spot at which the flute-players and trumpeters made a din by their practice, does not give us any information as to its position, and therefore we are not justified in assuming that the fountain was erected in Nero’s time.[67] The coins of Titus which represent the Coliseum do not show it. Cassiodorus and other chronologists place the date of the Meta Sudans in Domitian’s reign, and this agrees with the coins of Titus and also with the nature of the brickwork, which is of the Flavian era.
Near the Meta Sudans at the entrance of the Via di S. Gregorio stands the Arch of Constantine, which is the most completely preserved of all ancient Roman buildings. The name of Constantine, revered by subsequent ages, seems to have defended the archway from the barbarous spoliation which attacked most of the great monuments of Rome. The most interesting feature of this arch in the history of art is the proof which it gives of the decline of art in the fourth century. Some of the reliefs with which it is ornamented were taken from an older arch, probably that which formed the entrance to Trajan’s Forum, and those which are of Constantine’s time show a coarse and harsh style of execution in lamentable contrast to the flowing and delicate lines of the more ancient work by their side.
Among the sculptures which belong to the earlier and better period are the large reliefs under the central arch and those which are placed on either end of the attica. These four were originally parts of a larger relief which has been sawn into four equal pieces for the purpose of adorning Constantine’s arch. The order in which they stood in the original design has been pointed out by Bellori. The first part is that now placed on the inside of the middle archway towards the Coliseum, the second stands on the side of the attica over the arch towards the Cælian, the third on the inside of the middle archway towards the Palatine, and the fourth upon the attica on the same side. When united they represented Trajan crowned by Victory, with the goddess Roma standing near, a battle between Dacians and Romans, ending in the defeat and submission of the barbarian army. The dress of the Roman soldiers and of the Dacians is similar to that represented on Trajan’s column, and quite different from the Roman military habit in the age of Constantine. Beside these four rectangular reliefs the eight circular sculptures which stand over the smaller archways belong to the time of Trajan. They represent hunting scenes and sacrificial ceremonies. One of them, the second from the left, upon the side towards the Coliseum, has a remarkable figure of the Emperor with a nimbus or cloud encircling his head, exactly similar to those represented round the heads of modern saints. The eight large reliefs upon the attica over the side archways are also of the workmanship of Trajan’s time, and commemorate some of the exploits of that emperor, among which may be mentioned the construction of a road through the Pontine marshes represented upon the second relief from the left on the side of the attica towards the Coliseum. The reclining figure with a wheel represents the road, and the other figures the surveyors, one of which is perhaps Apollodorus, the famous Greek architect of Damascus. The other reliefs upon the sides of the attica represent interviews of Trajan with barbarian princes, and the common sacrifice of the Suovetaurilia, so frequently depicted on the reliefs of the columns of that emperor, and also on the large marble screens now standing in the Forum Romanum. The remainder of the sculptures belong to the Constantinian era, and contain, viewed as works of art, nothing worth attention. One of them on the side next to the Coliseum is, however, of great interest to the antiquarian, as it represents the rostra of the later Empire and the northern end of the Forum, with the arches of Severus and Tiberius, and the end of the Basilica Julia, and another, on the side towards the Via di S. Gregorio representing the victory of Constantino over Maxentius at the Milvian bridge, is historically valuable.
The figures which stand in front of the attica have the Dacian costume, and have been removed from some one of Trajan’s buildings. Upon the side of the central archway can be still seen the traces of nails which fastened some Roman ensigns to the stones. Similar traces of nails are to be seen upon the arch of Severus as before mentioned.
The inscriptions over the smaller arches refer to the decennalia or vicennalia, a festival celebrated after the time of Augustus every ten years of an emperor’s reign when he was supposed to have the imperium conferred upon him afresh. The meaning of the expression VOTIS X. VOTIS XX. seems to be that these inscriptions were put up on the “vota” or day when vows were made for the emperor’s safety at the beginning of the tenth and twentieth years of his reign. This is not an uncommon signification of the word “vota” in later Latin. The day which was usually called vota was either the first or third of January, and the custom of offering these vows was retained long after Christianity had been nominally made the state religion, so that it is not surprising to find it alluded to on Constantine’s arch.[68] The words on the other side of the arch SIC. X. SIC. XX. may be interpreted as the form of words used in making vows to the emperor. “Sic x. annos regnet; sic xx. annos regnet.” “May his reign last ten years more or twenty years.”
The larger inscription which is cut upon the attica on both sides shows that the arch was erected in honour of the victory of Constantine over Maxentius, and the union of the empire under one sovereign. It is not, however, certain that the arch was built in the first year of Constantine’s sole reign, for not only do the words INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS “by inspiration of the Deity,” seem to indicate a more decided leaning to Christianity than Constantine showed at the beginning of his reign, but the title of Maximus, which is found in the inscription, does not occur in the coins of Constantine before the tenth year of his reign.
The solid contents of this arch, as may be seen by ascending the staircase which is entered by a door at some height from the ground at the end nearest the Palatine Hill, are mainly composed of pieces of marble taken from other buildings, and it has even been suspected that the plan itself, which in beauty of proportion surpasses the Arch of Severus, was borrowed, together with the materials, from Trajan’s Arch or some older building now destroyed.
The Coliseum, from the Palatine Hill.
We now pass from the Arch of Constantine, with its borrowed ornamentation, to the great ruin of Rome, the Coliseum, or Flavian Amphitheatre. Although two-thirds of the original building have disappeared under the shameful treatment to which the barbarous nobles of the middle agessubjected it, enough still remains to show the arrangement of the entrances, passages, and seats of this wonderful construction. The plan of the whole may be best described as consisting of three principal massive concentric elliptical arcades. The intervals between each of these are filled in with other arched work containing corridors and staircases, and between the innermost of these three arcades and the wall which surrounded the arena was a triple system of substruction supporting the lower parts of the rows of seats in the amphitheatre. The stone used throughout is travertine, with the exception of some interior work of brick and concrete, and some pumice-stone in the arches. The elliptical shape was probably chosen instead of the circular in imitation of the amphitheatre of Curio, which was composed of two semicircular theatres with their stages between them. The name Coliseum was possibly derived from the great colossal statue of Nero which for a long time stood close to the Flavian Amphitheatre, and when the real history of the amphitheatre was lost, would naturally become the most prominent mark by which it could be designated. This colossal statue was placed originally in the vestibule of Nero’s Golden Palace, and was 120 feet high, according to Suetonius. The material was bronze and the artist was Zenodorus. It appears that Vespasian, and afterwards Hadrian, moved the colossus to make room for their new buildings, and that it was finally placed upon the massive pedestal of brickwork which still remains on the north of the Coliseum. That it actually stood upon this pedestal is shown by a coin of Alexander Severus, which represents the Coliseum with the colossus close to it. It is said by Gibbon that the name Coliseum was also given to the amphitheatre at Capua without reference to a colossal statue. The Capuan title may, however, have been taken from the Roman.
The major axis of this huge amphitheatre, from one outside wall to the other, measures 602 feet, the minor 507. The principal outer wall is 157 feet in height, and is divided into four stories.[69] Of these the lowest stands on a substruction of two steps, and originally consisted of a row of eighty arches, between which stood half columns of the Doric order. These outer arches, with the exception of thirty-three archways, have disappeared. Upon these rests a very simple entablature without any of the usual peculiarities of the Doric style, and rather belonging to the Ionic, a mixture of styles not very rare in Rome.[70] The arches are all numbered. These numbers were probably intended to correspond to those upon the entrance tickets and rows of seats, in order that the spectators might find their proper seats with ease. There is a staircase and a vomitorium corresponding to every four arches, and the vomitoria as well as the entrance arches were all numbered to prevent confusion. A ticket for the amphitheatre at Frosinone has been found. It bears an inscription CAN. VI IN. X. VIII., thus giving the position and number of the seat. The arches which stood at the extremities of the minor axis were the approaches to the imperial pavilions. They were ornamented with marble columns and carved work on the exterior, and led in the interior to a large withdrawing-room, from which there was a separate passage to the emperor’s throne (pulvinar) on the podium. On the Esquiline side the imperial entrance may still be recognised by a slight projection in the substructions, and by the pillars of white marble lying near it, which originally stood on each side. The same arrangement was doubtless made on the Cælian side, where the Emperor Commodus made himself an underground approach. The other two principal entrances at the extremities of the major axis lead directly into the arena, and were probably used for the entry of processions or marching bodies of gladiators, or machines of various kinds.
The entablature of the first story is surmounted by an attica, with projections corresponding to the columns below. Above these stand the arches of the second story, between which half-columns of the Ionic order are placed. The details of the architecture here are in a very meagre style, for the spiral lines on the volutes are omitted, and also the usual toothed ornaments of the entablature. The same remark applies to the third story, the half-columns of which have Corinthian capitals with the acanthus foliage very roughly worked. The fourth story has no arches, but consists of a wall, pierced with larger and smaller square windows placed alternately, and is decorated with pilasters of the Composite order. Between each pair of pilasters three consoles project from the wall, and above these are corresponding niches in the entablature. The purpose of these was to support the masts upon which the awnings were stretched.
The second and third of the principal concentric walls contain arches corresponding to those in the outer wall. Corridors run between these concentric walls, and on the first and second floors of the outer ring, and the first floor of the inner ring, these circles afford a completely unobstructed passage all round. The other corridors are blocked up in parts by various staircases, leading to the upper rows of seats.
Within the third principal concentric arcade the supports of the building take the form of massive walls, radiating from the centre of the ellipse, and divided by elliptical corridors into three ranges. Between these massive walls and in the corridors are the steps and passages leading to the lower seats of the amphitheatre. The actual seats which were of marble have been all pilfered for the benefit of the Roman palaces and churches of the feudal ages, but we can still make out with tolerable certainty the five principal divisions into which they were separated. The lowest of these, called the podium, was a platform raised twelve or fifteen feet above the arena, upon which were placed the chairs of the higher magistrates and dignitaries. This was protected by railings and nets full of spikes, and sometimes also by trenches, called euripi, and horizontal bars of wood or iron which turned freely round, and thus afforded no hold to the paws of a wild animal.
Above the podium were four different orders of seats, divided by belts of upright masonry from each other. The first of these consisted of about twenty rows of seats, and was appropriated to the knights and tribunes, and other state officers. The upper row of this set was probably at a height of about ten feet above the top of the arches of the lowest story. The next ranges of seats between the second and third belt were appropriated to Roman citizens in general, and held the greatest number of spectators.
The wall dividing these seats from the next set was very high, and contained, besides the vomitoria or entrance doors, a number of windows for the purpose of lighting the corridors and passages. A considerable part of this wall is still extant upon the side towards the Esquiline Hill. Above it ran the third set of seats, occupied by the lower classes of the people, and above this again, and separated from it by a very low wall without vomitoria, was the fourth group of seats, immediately under the windows of the uppermost story, and covered by a portico which ran round the whole top of the building.[71] The traces of this uppermost row of seats and of the colonnade which supported the portico may still be seen on the side towards the Esquiline Hill.
The seats in this part seem to have been partly appropriated to women, partly to the lower classes. On the roof of the portico stood the workmen whose business it was to manage the awnings, and to move them as the sun or rain required. The number of seats in the whole amphitheatre is said to have been 87,000, and a considerable number, in addition to these, could stand in the passages between the seats at the entrances of the vomitoria, and in other vacant places, so that the whole number which the building, when filled from top to bottom, could hold, was probably not less than 90,000.
The exterior arcade of the building diminishes in thickness towards the top, in order to render it more stable, and while the Doric and Ionic columns of the first and second stories stand out from the wall by nearly three-quarters of their circumference, the third row of Corinthian columns projects less, and the uppermost row are merely pilasters.
Much discussion has been raised on the question of the awnings or velaria required for so large a space. It is impossible of course, in the absence of any distinct contemporaneous description, to discover the exact mode of suspension adopted. Venuti supposes that a net of cords constructed like a spider’s web, with both radiating and concentric ropes, was suspended over the amphitheatre, and that by pulleys arranged over this the vela were drawn across any part which happened to be exposed to the sun. By means of pulleys attached to this network of rope, the little boys mentioned by Juvenal as caught up to the awnings may have been drawn up. The ropes and pulleys, we are told by Lampridius, were managed by sailors. In rough and windy weather the awnings could not always be drawn, and umbrellas coloured according to the favourite’s colours, or large broad-brimmed hats called causiæ or birri, were then used. Martial has written some amusing epigrams, showing how jealously the seats appropriated to any particular privileged order were reserved. He gives the names of Lectius and Oceanus to the boxkeepers of his time, who chased intruders from the seats to which they were not entitled. And he describes with great humour the attempts of a certain Nanneius to smuggle himself into a better place than he was entitled to. The pickpockets of Martial’s time also frequented the amphitheatre.
The anxiety of the public to attend the shows was so great that they occupied the free seats in the amphitheatre before dawn in the morning, and gave fees to the officials to keep places for them, when any favourite gladiator or bestiarius was announced to perform. The shows lasted whole days, and hence various contrivances for keeping the spectators in good humour, and filling up the intervals between the combats. Seneca tells us of the meridiani, a class of slaves who were kept on purpose to fill up the midday leisure hours with sham fights, and ludicrous pranks played upon the bodies of those killed or half killed in the previous fights. The air was cooled with immense jets of water projected from the centre of the arena, or from holes in the statues, and scented with fragrant essences, among which extract of saffron mixed with wine seems to have been the most popular.
The arena of the Coliseum was originally about 250 feet in length, and 150 feet in breadth. It seems now much larger on account of the removal of the wall of the podium. The attention which has been drawn to the arena during the last few years by the re-opening of the hypogæa, or subterranean passages, renders it necessary to allude to the subject of these hypogæa, and to estimate how far the recent excavations have thrown new light upon the history and construction of the great amphitheatre. When the French occupied Rome, and it was incorporated into their empire in the four years preceding the Battle of Waterloo, the French Government carried out considerable excavations in the arena of the Coliseum, and besides clearing the podium and the chambers annexed to it, they opened the cryptoporticus which runs underground towards the Cælian Hill, and also discovered the passages beneath the arena which have been now excavated again.
A great controversy was raised at that time as to the real level of the original arena between several of the archæological professors and antiquarians of Rome. The same controversy has now been again revived, and the same questions as to the probable date of the underground constructions have been again raised, but with as little hope as ever of arriving at a satisfactory solution. The truth seems to be that, as in most amphitheatres, these hypogæa were constructed at the very first erection of the Coliseum, but have been altered, neglected, filled up, and again cleared out many times during the eventful history of the building, and that it has now become impossible to trace the various stages of such destructions and restorations. As often as the drains which were intended to carry off the water became choked and failed to act, these lower chambers and passages were filled with water and rendered useless.
The French excavations conducted till the early part of this century, 1810-1814, showed the general character of the chambers and passages under the arena. They consist of one central passage which extends under the arena from end to end in the line of the major axis of the ellipse. Parallel to this there are four narrower rectilineal passages on each side connected with each other by archways and surrounding these are three curved passages following the elliptical curves of the sides of the amphitheatre. The material of which these walls were originally built was great blocks of travertine similar to those in the surrounding construction of the amphitheatre, but they have been patched and propped in many places with tufa stones and brick, and now present a strange miscellaneous mass of masonry. These underground passages are similar to those found under the arena at Pozzuoli and Capua. It would seem that they must have been necessary, in addition to the chambers under the staircases of the building, for keeping wild beasts in large numbers, or for marshalling and arranging the long processions which were sometimes exhibited in the arena, or for other unusual exhibitions requiring more room for preparation than could be otherwise afforded. In the amphitheatre at Verona the passages under the arena seem to have served the purpose of drains, as they are much less extensive than those under the Coliseum, and are apparently connected with the channels which conducted the rain-water from the upper part. The same is the case with those at Pola in Istria, but at Pozzuoli and at Capua the hypogæa are of a similar character to those in the Coliseum, and were evidently used in connection with the exhibitions on the arena.
The excavations of 1810-14 do not seem to have been carried deep enough to show the floor of the hypogæa, and among the principal new objects of antiquarian interest discovered by the recent operations have been some large blocks of travertine sunk in the floor of the passages, and pierced in their centre with large round holes. These holes have evidently been the sockets into which upright posts of some kind were fixed. In some of these sockets a metal lining still remains, and in one of them the remains of a wooden post are said to have been found. Many conjectures as to the purpose of these sockets have been hazarded. They have been imagined to be the points on which revolving doors turned, or the holes into which posts for chaining wild beasts were fixed, or the capstans for the purpose of winding the ropes attached to stage machines. The explanation which appears to me to be the most probable is that they were used for the erection of temporary wooden posts in the same way in which at the present time such movable posts are used in some of the doorways of large houses in Rome, to divide the doorway temporarily into two distinct passages, by attaching a rope to the posts. When long processions had to be marched across the arena it would be necessary, if they were marshalled below, to have the course of the entering processionists and of those returning kept apart by some such device as that of a rope stretched between posts of this kind.
A large wooden framework has been found in the central passage, blackened by long exposure to the water. This seems to have been a contrivance for making an inclined plane on which heavy machines could be dragged up from below.
Another discovery which has been made is that of two cryptoportici, one of which extends towards the Esquiline and the Thermæ of Titus, and the other opens out from under the eastern end of the longer axis of the Coliseum. A few graffiti of interest representing gladiatorial figures, and some fragments of inscriptions relating to restorations of the building, or to the munificence of those who indulged the public with amphitheatrical exhibitions, have also been found.
The mode in which the naval contests mentioned by Dion as having been exhibited in the Coliseum were conducted, cannot be stated with any certainty. They were given by Titus at the dedication of the building and probably before its completion, so that the space now occupied by the hypogæa may then have been filled with water previously to the construction of the dividing walls.
Perhaps no building of ancient Rome is so strikingly characteristic of the builder, and the age in which he lived as the Flavian amphitheatre. Vespasian is described by historians, and represented on coins, and in extant sculptures, as a thick-set, square-shouldered man, with a short neck, small eyes, strongly marked but coarse features wearing an expression of effort. He cared little for the elegancies of life, and was plebeian in his tastes, and regardless of appearances, but set a high value on manliness and obstinate, unflinching endurance.
During his reign the prevalent feeling in the Roman nation was that of a worn-out and repentant prodigal. Sick of the frivolity and wanton debauchery of the Neronian age, yet unable to return to the ascetic simplicity of primitive times, men adored, for want of a better idol, the blunt honesty and coarse strength of the Flavians. What if their emperor wished that his courtiers should smell of garlic rather than of perfumery, if in his contempt for speculative genius he dubbed the agitating philosophers of his day “barking curs.”[72] Yet he stood before them as a proof that the stern old vigour of the national character was not yet extinct, and that the profligate effeminacy of the previous generation had not yet rotted the Roman character to its core. The same massive power of endurance, yet ponderous and vulgar character, belongs to the architecture of the Coliseum. It exhibits a neglect, almost a contempt for elegance of proportion. The upper tiers are as heavy and solid as the lower. Its arcades are massive, practical, built to last for ages; the full, elaborate details of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, in which an artistic eye usually finds so much pleasure, are merely hinted at as superfluous.
Doubtless as we now see it, the ruin is far more effective than the complete building can ever have been. For when complete the appearance of the Coliseum must have been heavy and oppressive. The enormous unrelieved, flat surface of the upper wall must have seemed ready to topple over or to crush the arcade below. But now that earthquakes and barbarous hands have made such ghastly rents in its sides, the outline has become more varied, and the base more proportioned to the superstructure, so that although we can still recognise the flavour of a somewhat vulgar and material age, yet all that would have offended the eye has been removed, and the historical memories which cluster around its walls, of mighty emperors and blood-thirsty mobs, of screams of death or triumph, of gorgeous pageants and heroic martyrdoms, combine to render the Coliseum in its decay the most imposing ruin in the whole world.
Two architectural merits have been pointed out in the Coliseum, the impression of height and size conveyed by the tiers of arches rising one above another, and the graceful curves produced by the continuous lines of the entablatures as they cross the building. But what the Roman emperor under whose auspices this great building was raised would doubtless have valued more than any elegancies of design which could have been pointed out to him, is the perfect adaptation of the structure to its purposes. After the great catastrophe at Fidenæ where 20,000 persons were injured or killed by the breaking down of a wooden amphitheatre, solidity and safety were the principal requisites. Free ingress and egress for crowds of spectators, as well as for any great personages who might attend, was indispensable. A glance at the plan of the Coliseum will show how admirably each of these objects was attained. The extraordinary solidity of the building removed all possibility of the failure of any part to bear whatever weight might be heaped upon it, and the entrances, galleries and vomitoria were by the oval form of the building rendered so numerous that each seat in the whole cavea was accessible at once and without difficulty. A system of carefully arranged barriers in the passages would effectually prevent confusion and excessive crowding.
In endeavouring to adorn the great amphitheatre of the metropolis more richly than those of the provinces its architect defeated his own object. Some of the provincial amphitheatres, as that of Capua, though in other respects like the Coliseum, show a simpler and therefore more natural exterior. When the Doric order is retained in all the tiers, it harmonises far better with the rude strength of such an edifice than the Corinthian and Ionic orders of the Coliseum. At Verona and Pola a still further improvement is made by the rustication of the exterior. At Nismes, on the other hand, the faults of the Coliseum are aggravated by breaking the entablatures, and introducing pediments over each front; and in the small Amphitheatrum Castrense at Rome, where the Corinthian order is executed in brick, a lamentable illustration of Roman want of taste is exhibited.
The holes which are now so conspicuous in the travertine blocks of the exterior wall of the Coliseum were probably made in the middle ages to extract the iron clamps by which the stones were fastened together. Some antiquarians have however held that they are the holes in which the beams of the buildings which clustered round the Coliseum in mediæval times were fixed. At the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the travertine blocks of the amphitheatre were used as a quarry from which to build palaces, and it is said that the Palazzo di Venezia, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Palazzo della Cancelleria were constructed of the stone robbed from hence. During part of the eleventh and twelfth centuries a castle of the powerful family of the Frangipani, which afterwards belonged to the Annibaldi stood in the walls of the Coliseum. Later generations of nobles and popes since the beginning of the nineteenth century have propped the building by buttresses of brickwork, and have endeavoured to postpone the date foretold by two Anglo-Saxon pilgrims as that of the fall of Rome. “When the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall.”[73]
The Coliseum was built by Vespasian in a depression between the Cælian and Esquiline Hills, which had been occupied by a large lake of ornamental water, called the Stagnum Neronis, used by Nero for aquarian entertainments and exhibitions. The vast palace known as the Domus Aurea Neronis extended along the side of the Esquiline on the north of the Coliseum. The Flavian emperors destroyed this palace, and Titus built a new group of courts and chambers over the ruins. The relics of these buildings of Titus are now remaining mingled with the substructures and lower parts of the Domus Aurea which they superseded. They are entered by a gateway on the road leading from the Coliseum to S. Pietro in Vincoli.
So far as we can draw any conclusion from the fragmentary and confused piles of ruins now left, and from the plan which Palladio sketched at a time when the remains of the palace had not so completely disappeared, it seems that this part of Nero’s palace consisted of a long straight façade of buildings extending along the slope of the Esquiline from east to west in the direction marked on the plan (A-B). In front of this there seems to have been a projecting court surrounded by small chambers (C-D). A few of these still remain at the western end, and are used as a dwelling-house for the custode. Behind the above-mentioned façade were numerous rooms of various kinds, and courts surrounded with colonnades. One of these courts with its adjacent corridors and apartments is now partly accessible (E, F), but the greater part were filled in with rubbish when the baths of Titus were built over them, and have never been entirely cleared. In the centre of this court the remains of a fountain-basin and a pedestal may be seen. The area is now traversed by parallel walls built by Titus to serve as substructions to his Thermæ. These are indicated on the plan by the dotted lines in black.
All the rooms in this part which are now accessible have arched roofs, and are covered with decorative paintings. Fortunately a great number of these have been preserved to us by artists who copied them before they were destroyed by damp and the soot of the cicerone’s torch. At the present time scarcely enough remains to show the beauty and delicacy of the designs. The best preserved paintings are in the long north corridor, where is also an inscription illustrating Persius, Sat. i. 113:
“Pinge duos angues: pueri, sacer est locus, extra
Mejite.”
The two snakes were symbolic of the Lares Compitales, and are common at Pompeii. Raphael adopted the same style of ornamentation as that preserved here in the Loggie of the Vatican. The rooms now shown, which contain a bath and other household apparatus, apparently belonged to a private house, and may either have formed a part of the Aurea Domus, or of some house built on its site at the time immediately following Nero’s death. The eleven rooms (F) which occupied the north side of the court (E) contain traces of wooden staircases leading to an upper story. The decorations and fittings of these appear to have been so inferior to those of the other rooms, that we must suppose them to have been occupied by the imperial slaves, or by the household troops. At the northern end of this row of chambers is a room with mosaic pavement at a considerably lower level than those surrounding it, and which must therefore have belonged to some building earlier in date than the Domus Aurea. It is sometimes called a part of the House of Mæcenas, but there is no authority for this, and it is more probable that the House of Mæcenas stood nearer to the Agger of Servius.
Another portion of the Domus Aurea is still visible at the Sette Sale, a large brick building lying in a vineyard to the left of the Via delle Sette Sale. The purpose of this was plainly to serve as a reservoir for water, and it is shown to have belonged to the Domus Aurea, and not to the Thermæ of Titus, by the correspondence of its position with the ground-plan of the former. It may have been afterwards used in connection with the Thermæ, and was possibly preserved with that view, while the rest of the palace was destroyed or buried. The peculiar construction of the interior, which is divided into nine compartments, communicating with each other by openings—not placed opposite to each other, but in a slanting direction across the building—is said to have been so arranged in order to prevent the heavy mass of water from bursting open the sides of the building. The group of the Laocöon was found near the Sette Sale, and it is supposed that the state-rooms of Titus may have contained that group of statues.
Returning to the ruins of the Baths of Titus near the Coliseum it may be observed that these Thermæ were connected with the Coliseum by a portico, traces of which can still be seen on the north side of the amphitheatre. The arrangement of the building corresponded in some degree to that of the Baths of Caracalla, consisting apparently of a large square court surrounded by various offices and places for recreation, in the centre of which stood a vast mass of building containing the bath-rooms. The sides of this court were not parallel to any lines of building in the Domus Aurea, and, therefore, in order to form a level area many new substructions had to be erected. This is plainly the case with the theatre (A), which occupied the centre of the side towards the Coliseum. In order to raise this to the level of the rest of the area, the nine huge arched chambers, which are now a most conspicuous part of the ruins, were erected, and one of the courtyards of the Domus Aurea was filled, as we have seen, with parallel walls of brickwork. On each side of the theatre there were probably gymnasia, libraries, or ball courts (B B). The central building was occupied with the frigidarium and tepidarium, and the other usual adjuncts of a large Roman bath (C C C).
The catalogue called the ‘Curiosum urbis Romæ’ places not only the Baths of Titus but also those of Trajan in the third region. The anonymous MS. of Einsiedlen places Trajani Thermæ near the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli; and Anastasius in his ‘Life of Symmachus,’ mentions them as near the Church of S. Martino. It is, therefore, abundantly proved that the Thermæ of Trajan stood at the back of the Baths of Titus, and it is here that we find them placed in the plan of Palladio. That they were distinct buildings seems clear from an inscription in which they are separately mentioned. A satisfactory explanation of the apparently strange fact that Trajan erected new and smaller Thermæ near those of Titus is given by one of the chronologers of the period, who speaks of the Baths of Trajan as intended for women, for whom there was no separate accommodation provided in those of Titus. The scattered ruins to the north of the Baths of Titus may have belonged to Trajan’s Baths.
On the Esquiline Hill, besides the Baths of Titus, the Domus Aurea, and the Sette Sale, we find four remarkable ruins, which are called the Trophies of Marius, the Arch of Gallienus, the Minerva Medica, and the Auditorium of Mæcenas.
The ruin called the Trophies of Marius stands at the corner of the Via di S. Bibiana. It consists in the lower part of a number of small and curiously shaped compartments of brickwork, with openings at seven or eight different points. Underneath these, and now hidden under the level of the ground, is a large basin or tank, and above them the upper part of the building is formed by the remains of three niches, in which stood the marble trophies now placed upon the balustrade of the steps of the Capitol. They were removed to the Capitol by Sixtus V. in the year 1585. The name Trophies of Marius is an attempt to explain the more ancient name of Cimbrum, which we find attached to the ruin in the middle ages, by identifying the trophies with the Tropæa Marii mentioned by Suetonius as having been pulled down by Sulla and restored by Julius Cæsar.[74] But although we must allow that there is some probability in the supposition that the Marian trophies may have occupied these niches, yet it is certain that the building itself was intended to serve another purpose, that of the castellum or principal reservoir of an aqueduct, with a public fountain in the form of a cascade in front. The basin which has been discovered under the building, and the peculiar shape of the complicated interior structure, can be best explained thus, and the remains of some part of the aqueduct itself may be seen at the back. It was at one time supposed that the Aqua Julia ended here but it is now generally acknowledged that the ruin belonged to the Aqua Alexandrina, and that the name Nymphæum Alexandri, found in the catalogues of the fifth region, must be assigned to it. The Alexandrine Aqueduct was built by Alexander Severus in the year A.D. 225. Water was brought to Rome by means of it from a spot near the Lake Regillus, and a portion is still visible on the left hand of the Via Labicana about two miles from Rome. The level of this aqueduct corresponds exactly with the building in question, and the style of brickwork and architecture are such as might belong to the third century. It is possible, as Reber remarks, that Alexander Severus may have found the exact spot where the Trophies of Marius had been placed by Julius Cæsar convenient for the castellum of his aqueduct, and have used the trophies to ornament the new building which he erected.
Close to the Church of S. Vito, and spanning the Via di S. Vito, stands the Arch of Gallienus, erected by M. Aurelius Victor, prefect of Rome in A.D. 262, in honour of the Emperor Gallienus and Empress Salonina. It is constructed of travertine, and the ornamental work upon it is extremely simple, consisting only of pilasters crowned by roughly worked Corinthian capitals, and surmounted by an entablature of the commonest kind. Part of the basement is buried under the present level of the soil, and from a sketch by San Gallo of its state in the fifteenth century there appears to have been a pediment above the entablature, and two smaller archways on each side. The inscription, which is now hardly legible, is cut upon the architrave and contains a flattering description of one of the most singularly accomplished and incapable emperors of Rome, of whom Gibbon says, “Gallienus was a master of several curious but useless sciences, a ready orator and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince.”[75]