In the grounds of the Villa Magnani, which are reached from the Via di S. Bibiana, are two small Columbaria, one of which formerly contained inscriptions relating to the family of the Arruntii, and also one which belonged to Statilius Taurus, a nobleman mentioned by Tacitus. This was decorated with scenes from the Æneid of Virgil, but these are nearly destroyed. In the same gardens, not far to the north-west of the Porta Maggiore, stands a lofty and picturesque ruin, comprising a central decagonal hall surrounded by four other apartments, the ground-plan of which has been preserved by San Gallo. The central hall contained nine deep niches, and the entrance passes through the tenth side. Over the niches and the entrance archway are round-headed windows, and the roof was of vaulted brickwork. Traces still remain of stucco work and cement on the inner walls, from which it appears that they were covered with ornamental work and in some parts with marble.

Parts of the pavement, which was of porphyry, have also been found, and in the neighbourhood of the ruin a number of sculptures have been at various times discovered, among which are statues of Pomona, Æsculapius, Adonis, Venus, Hercules, Antinous, some Luperci, and a Faun. The old topographers, Blondus Flavius and Lucius Faunus, give the name of Terme di Galuccio or Galuzze to the ruin, and this name has been ingeniously explained as referring to the Thermæ or Basilica of Caius and Lucius. But there is no good foundation for this conjecture, or for the identification of the building with the Temple of Minerva Medica, mentioned in the Notitia. The latter name was derived from the supposed discovery here of the Pallas Giustiniani, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. But another and more ancient account asserts that the statue of Pallas was found near S. Maria sopra Minerva, and therefore the name of Minerva Medica cannot with any certainty be applied here.

Canina has proposed another explanation of the name Galuzze. He thinks that the ruins belonged to the Palatium Licinianum, which is mentioned by Anastasius, in his ‘Life of Simplicius,’ as near the Church of S. Bibiana. This palace, he thinks, is identical with the Pleasure Gardens of Gallienus, who bore the name of Licinius, in which, according to Trebellius Pollio, he used to bathe and banquet with his courtiers. The name Galuzze is, therefore, according to Canina, derived from Gallieni Liciniaria, and the building may be supposed to have formed a part of the baths in Gallienus’s pleasure grounds, resembling as it does in its construction the great rotunda of the Baths of Caracalla. The proximity of the Arch of Gallienus adds probability to this conjecture. The basin now standing in the ruin is not ancient, and therefore cannot be held to support this conjecture, but the brickwork and style of architecture are said by competent judges to be such as might have been erected at the time of the later Empire. The building called Minerva Medica by the Notitia may have been near this spot, as some inscriptions here discovered show, but it most probably consisted only of a chapel of no great extent standing near the Via Prænestina.

The extensive alterations which have been carried on at Rome during the last few years in the district at the back of the Viminal and Esquiline Hills, where a new quarter of the city is being laid out, have disclosed a number of fragments of sculptures and inscriptions, a detailed account of which has been given from time to time in the Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Municipale, and in the letters of Mr. Hemans to the Academy. The most interesting relics bearing upon topographical questions are the inscription relating to the Macellum Liviæ and Forum Esquilinum found near the Arch of Gallienus, and the supposed foundations of the Villa of Mæcenas.

Most of the antiquarian and artistic relics lately discovered here have been deposited in the Capitoline Museum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

TI. CLAUDIUS DRUSI F. CAISAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS PONTIF. MAXIM. TRIBUNICIA POTESTATE XII. COS V. IMPERATOR XXVII. PATER PATRIÆ AQUAS CLAUDIAM EX FONTIBUS QUI VOCABANTUR CÆRULEUS ET CURTIUS A MILLIARIO XXXXV. ITEM AMERIEM NOVAM A MILLIARIO LXVII. SUA INPENSA IN URBEM PERDUCENDAS CURAVIT. IMP. CÆSAR VESPASIANUS AUGUST. PONTIF. MAX. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. VI. COS. III. DESIG. III. P. P. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CÆRULEAM PERDUCTAS A DIVO CLAUDIO ET POSTEA INTERMISSAS DILAPSASQUE PER ANNOS NOVEM SUA IMPENSA URBI RESTITUIT.

IMP. T. CÆSAR DIVI F. VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS PONT. MAX. TRIBUNIC. POTEST. X. IMP. XVII. P. P. CENS. COS. VIII. AQUAS CURTIAM ET CÆRULEAM PERDUCTAS A DIVO CLAUDIO ET POSTEA A DIVO VESPASIANO PATRE SUO URBI RESTITUTAS CUM A CAPITE AQUARUM A SOLO VETUSTATE DILAPSÆ ESSENT NOVA FORMA REDUCENDAS SUA IMPENSA CURAVIT.

CHAPTER IV.

The two double rows of bases now to be seen in the Piazza formed a part of the great Basilica Ulpia, part of the ground-plan of which is still preserved on two fragments of the Capitoline map. Many fragments are to be seen here of the columns which supported the roof of the basilica, among which those of grey granite, probably belonging to the outer rows of columns, are most conspicuous.

The great Pillar with its well-known spiral bas-reliefs, perhaps the most interesting and instructive monument of antiquity in Rome, was surrounded when the buildings round it were complete with a narrow court not more than forty feet square. The south side of this was formed by the Basilica Ulpia, the eastern and western by the libraries, and on the north there was probably an open colonnade, the line of which can be traced leading to the structures beyond, where stood the temple dedicated to Trajan. Thus we discover a fact which seems at first somewhat surprising, that the pillar could not be viewed in its full height from any side, and that the upper part of it alone was visible from the Forum over the roof of the basilica. That it was intentionally thus enclosed is evident, for had the Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus, who designed the Forum, wished it to be where the full colossal proportions could be seen, the open space of the Forum was close at hand, in the centre of which it might have been placed. But it is not unlikely that the sight of a column was almost inseparable in the Greek architectural ideas from an entablature and pediment. The Greeks did not place their statues on the top of columns, and probably had this reason for it, that a single column cannot form a whole by itself, and wears a forsaken and deserted aspect when viewed from any distance. An obelisk conveys a different meaning, and the use of a single column cannot be justified by it. The obelisk tapers upwards and completes itself, but a column instantly brings the idea of support with it. Obelisks, moreover, were never used singly by the Egyptians, but always placed in pairs. The intention of the architect was not that the column should be viewed as we now view it, as a whole, but that the colossal statue of the emperor might be raised on high above his splendid group of buildings, and also that the bas-reliefs should be conveniently viewed from the surrounding galleries.

The Column of Trajan.

The height of the column is 124 feet from the pavement to the foot of the statue. It stands upon a pedestal of marble eighteen feet high, ornamented on three sides with highly interesting bas-reliefs representing trophies of Roman and Dacian armour of various kinds, the Roman labarum and the Dacian dragon, coats of mail made of scale or chain armour, helmets, curved and straight swords, axes, clubs, bows, quivers, arrows, lances, trumpets, and several kinds of military tools. On the fourth side two genii bear the tablet on which is the inscription: SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS IMP. CAESARI DIVI NERVAE F. NERVAE TRAJANO AUG. GERM. DACICO PONTIF. MAXIMO TRIB. POT. XII. IMP. VI. PP. AD DECLARANDUM QUANTAE ALTITUDINIS MONS ET LOCUS TANT[is operi]BUS SIT EGESTUS.

The last words of this inscription are illustrated by a passage of Dion Cassius, who says that Trajan placed a colossal pillar in his Forum to be his own tomb, and also to show the amount of labour expended upon the Forum, the slope of the hill which previously occupied the site having been dug away so as to afford a level space for the Forum. There is no need to interpret this, as some writers have done, to mean that the ground on the spot where the column stands had previously been as high as the top of the column. Such an interpretation seems highly improbable. The view taken by Becker and Brocchi is more tenable, that the words allude to the cutting away of the Quirinal Hill, which was steep and inaccessible before but was sloped away to a point on the side of the hill as high as the top of the column. Brocchi’s geological observations have made it almost certain that the ground has not been cut away to any great depth between the two hills.

The top of the column is only six feet lower than the level of the Villa Aldobrandini on the top of the Quirinal, and two feet higher than the Piazza di Ara Cœli. If, therefore, at any time the ground on the site of Trajan’s Forum was as high as the column, it must have formed a ridge between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills, higher than the Capitoline and very nearly as high as the Quirinal.

In the base of the column the ashes of Trajan were deposited in a golden urn. Sixtus V. had the chamber in which the urn was placed opened, but found it empty, and it has now been walled up.

Above the pedestal are two flat stones ornamented with garlands of oak leaves, and upon them rests a round base carved in the shape of a laurel wreath. The shaft which stands immediately upon this is composed of nineteen cylindrical blocks of marble, on the outside of which a spiral band of beautifully executed bas-reliefs winds from bottom to top, covering the whole shaft. The capital is a single ring of egg-shaped ornaments with arrowheads between them, and a simple border below. On a pedestal above it stood originally the colossal bronze-gilt statue of Trajan. This statue and pedestal were probably carried off during the robberies committed at Rome by the Byzantine emperors, A.D. 663. Sixtus V. replaced it by a modern cylindrical pedestal and statue of S. Peter. The ancient winding staircase hewn in the solid blocks of marble, and lighted by narrow openings, still leads to the top. From thence it may be seen how difficult it is to suppose that the ground ever rose to such a height between the Capitoline and Quirinal as has been imagined by many historians and topographers.

The magnificent wreath of bas-reliefs which winds round the shaft may be best studied by means of the model to be seen in the French Academy on the Pincian Hill, or that in the Kensington Museum. It contains the history of two campaigns against the Dacians, and has been ingeniously and minutely interpreted by several writers. A complete account of this marble history of the Dacian wars, with a discussion of all the historical and antiquarian points connected with it, would occupy several volumes, and we must, therefore, content ourselves with noticing the general character of the work and some few of the more interesting portions.

Two campaigns are represented. The first of these took place in the year 101, and during it Trajan’s army passed down the river Save and crossed the Danube in two divisions at Kastolatz and at the confluence of the Tjerna. The two divisions effected a junction at the pass of the Bistra, called the Iron Gate, which they forced, and then attacked and took the royal city Zermizegethusa. Trajan was not satisfied with this success, but pushed on into the heart of the enemy’s country, and gained a great victory at Tapæ, after which Decebalus, the Dacian king, sued for peace.

The bas-relief begins at the base by a representation of the banks of the Save, down which the Roman army passed, and shows military storehouses, piles of wood, stacks of hay, and wooden huts. Then follow forts with soldiers on guard, and boats carrying barrels of provisions.

The river god Danube then appears and looks on with astonishment at the bridge of boats over which the Roman army is passing. The baggage of the soldiers on the march, tied to the top of the vallum or palisade which they carry, and the different military standards, are very distinctly shown. Many of the men are without covering on their heads, but some wear lions’ skins. The emperor and his staff are then introduced. He is sitting upon a suggestus or platform, and Lucius, the Prætorian prefect, sits beside him. The suovetaurilia, a grand sacrificial celebration, is the next scene, with priests in the Cinctus Gabinus and trumpeters. After this the emperor is seen making a speech to the army, and a little farther on the building of a stone encampment enclosing huts is being carried on with great vigour, and bridges are being thrown across a river, over which cavalry are passing.

A battle seems then to take place, and the heads of two enemies are being brought to the emperor. The Dacian army with the dragon ensign and the Dacian cap, the symbol of superior rank, seen upon the statues of the Dacian prisoners on the Arch of Constantine, appears. Jupiter gives the victory to the Romans, the Dacian camp is burnt, and the Dacians fly.

Numerous representations of forts, boats, different kinds of troops, skirmishes, and sieges follow, ending with the surrender of Decebalus and the return of Trajan to Rome, where a great festival is celebrated. The arrival at Rome, and the crowd of Romans going to meet the great conqueror, are very vividly drawn. An immense number of bulls for sacrifice, altars, camilli, and half-naked popæ are introduced into the triumphal rejoicings, and the first campaign ends with the figure of Trajan offering incense on the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus.

A somewhat similar series of scenes are represented in the sculptures which depict the second campaign. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the great bridge over the Danube, made of wood supported on stone piers, the foundations of which may still be seen in the bed of the river. Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, designed this immense work, which crossed the Danube at a spot where it is not less than 1300 yards wide, near the village of Gieli. A permanent road into Dacia and secure communications with his basis of operations having thus been secured, Trajan gradually advanced from post to post, driving the Dacians into the mountainous parts of the country. The sculptures represent a number of skirmishes and assaults upon fortified places, but no regular pitched battle. At last the ghastly spectacle of the head and hands of Decebalus is exhibited on a board by two soldiers in front of the Prætorium. This disgusting scene is followed by a representation of the storming of the last strongholds of the enemy in the mountains, and a mournful procession of fugitives carrying away their goods and driving their cattle into exile forms the close of the sculptured history of the Dacian campaigns of Trajan.[76]

In these curious bas-reliefs we have a treasury of information on the religion, the military science, the habits and dress of the Romans of the Empire far more valuable than ten thousand pages of descriptive writing. The lover of Roman antiquities will learn more by studying Fabretti’s engravings of these reliefs, or the casts at the French Academy at Rome, and at the Kensington Museum, than by much book-labour. The descriptions of Livy and Polybius, Cæsar and Tacitus, receive life, and movement, and interest as we look at the actual figures (oculis subjecta fidelibus) of the general and his staff; the Prætorian guards marked by their belts over the left shoulder; the fierce-looking standard-bearers and centurions with their heads covered by lions’ skins, the shaggy manes of which stream down their backs; the rank and file carrying enormous stakes; the master masons, sappers, and pioneers, with their axes and crowbars; the lancers, heavy and light cavalry, and royal chargers; the Sarmatian horsemen, clothed, both riders and steeds, in complete scale armour, and the Moorish cavalry, riding without reins.

Bridges are constructed, Roman causeways laid, forts attacked with all kinds of military engines; the charge of cavalry, the rout and confusion of a defeated army, are all most vividly depicted. Trajan in person traverses the ranks on foot, or mounts the suggestus and harangues his men, or receives with simple dignity the submission of the enemy, or marches with all the pomp of a Roman procession under the triumphal arch. The soldierlike simplicity of the great military emperor is strikingly portrayed. There is no silken tent, or richly decorated chariot, or throne, or canopy of state to be seen. His colonel of the guards sits beside him, as an equal, on the suggestus. In the midst of a battle the emperor tears up his robe to bind the wounds of his soldiers; he is present everywhere, wearing a sword and fighting in person. Nothing could be more illustrative of the state of Roman affairs in that iron age when again, as in the olden times, a rough and unlettered warrior, fresh from the camp, swayed the destinies of the empire.

In this vast spiral relief there are said to be above 2500 figures of men sculptured, and the higher they are placed on the column the larger are their dimensions, showing the care that was taken to counteract the effects of the increased distance from the eye. The whole of the carving from base to summit is executed with equally minute care, though the upper part can never have been easily visible, except from the windows or roofs of the basilica and the libraries which, as we have seen, were placed very near. The opinion which prevailed for some time, that the figures had been coloured, is incorrect, as the more minute examination since made has proved that the colours imagined to be artificial are the natural results of the decay of the stone and oxidisation of the metallic parts of the structure, under the effects of the rain, sun, and dust.

A vast number of fragments of columns, of inscriptions, and of architectural ornaments have been dug up at various times on the site of Trajan’s Forum. The great granite columns which now lie near the base of the pillar were found in laying the foundations of the Church of S. Maria in Loreto, by the architect, the elder San Gallo, and are mentioned as lying near that church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in the Piazza del Campidoglio, stands upon a pedestal made by Michael Angelo out of an immense fragment of entablature found on the site of Trajan’s Forum.

An inscription, which is now built into the wall on the north of the pillar, commemorates the remission of all debts to the emperor’s private purse (fiscus) by Hadrian, a fact which we find also mentioned in Dion Cassius and Spartianus. The latter writer adds that it was in the Forum of Trajan that Hadrian publicly burnt the list of his debtors, and the inscription was no doubt intended to mark the spot of this act of liberality or bribery.

The ruins of two portions only of the Forum Julium, which adjoined that of Trajan, have been discovered in modern times. The first is a considerable part of the outer wall of the Forum, standing in the court of the house No. 18 in the Via del Ghetarello, a small street which opens out of the Via di Marforio, near the Carcer and the Church of SS. Martina e Luca. This ruined wall consists of three arches composed of large blocks of peperino and travertine skilfully cut and joined without mortar and under-built by another arch, as if in order to enable the wall to bear a great weight. The length of the fragment of wall is about 50 feet and the highest point about 30 feet.

The other relic of Cæsar’s Forum is now no longer visible. We obtain our information about it from Palladio, the architect, about the middle of the sixteenth century, who relates that while he was at Rome the ground-plan of a temple was uncovered in digging the foundations of a house between the Salita di Marforio and the temple of Mars Ultor, a description which points plainly to the block of houses behind SS. Martina e Luca. There was a peculiarity in the inter-columniations of this temple, which Palladio particularly remarked. The distance between the columns, he says, was the eleventh part of the diameter of a column less than a diameter and a half.

The almost universal opinion of Roman topographers now is that the three Corinthian columns on the left-hand side of the Via Bonella and the massive arch which leads from it into the Via di Tor di Conti are the remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor, which Augustus built in his Forum, and of the north-eastern portion of the enclosing wall.

This opinion was already held by Palladio in the sixteenth century, but the Italian antiquaries since his time have adopted the most various hypotheses on the subject. There is, it is true, no actual proof that this was the temple of Mars Ultor, but there is strong presumptive evidence that it was so. The ‘Catalogue of the Curiosum’ places it next to the Forum Julium in the eighth region. Now the eighth region was bounded on the east, in this neighbourhood, by the Quirinal Hill and the Via del Sole, or a street a little to the east of it, and we are tolerably sure that the forum transitorium filled up a great part of the space between the temple in question and the above-mentioned street, and that the Forum Julium intervened between it and the Forum Romanum, while the Forum Trajani limits the space to the westward within which we can suppose the Forum Augusti to have been. Thus the only space left in the eighth region within which the Forum of Augustus can be supposed to have been contained, is that bounded by the Via della Croce Bianca, the Via del Priorato, and the Via di Tor di Conti.

The ruins of the temple consist of three lofty fluted Corinthian columns, a pilaster of white Carrara marble, a part of the surmounting architrave, and the corresponding wall of the cella of the temple. Antiquarians are of opinion that the purity of style and elegance of these columns, and their ornamentation, forms a strong proof that they were designed and executed in the best times of Roman architectural art, and cannot belong to a period later than that of Augustus. The richest decorative work is to be seen under the roof of the portico, between the columns and the wall of the cella.

These three columns stood at the side of the temple which abutted on the exterior wall of the Forum, as the ruins show. A large portion of this wall is still standing on each side of the arch called the Arco dei Pantani. The arch itself is built of travertine, the wall of blocks of peperino laid alternately with the longer and shorter sides outwards as in the masonry of the tabularium. In the middle ages a door was fitted on to this archway, and a portion of the stone was cut away on the west side. This has injured its architectural beauty very much. It has also been stripped of the marble facing with which it was probably covered originally, and being now half buried in the rubbish of ages, it presents a somewhat mean and rough appearance.

This archway formed one of the entrances to the Forum Augusti from the east. The wall of the enclosure can be traced for a considerable distance on each side of it, but there are no other archways now open. The monotonous appearance of so high a wall is relieved by having the edges of the stones cut so that each block stands out separately, and the lower part of the wall is divided into two, and its upper into three stages by projecting ruins of travertine.

It is said that the blocks of stone in this masonry are fastened with wooden bolts made in the shape of double swallow tails, and that some of these have been found completely petrified. When the Forum was first designed Augustus encountered great opposition from owners of private house property; and through fear of the unpopularity which wholesale evictions might have caused, he accommodated the shape of the external walls to that of the ground he could occupy. Hence arose the irregular line of the exterior, which was, however, reduced to a symmetrical plan inside by secondary walls. The general shape of the interior area of the enclosure was that of a broad oblong piazza with two large semicircular side extensions or wings (somewhat like those in the Piazza S. Pietro) opposite to and corresponding to each other. The area was large, for the horse races, and games in honour of Mars were held here once when the Tiber had overflowed the circus.[77] The temple stood at the northern end between these two side extensions, and occupied about one-sixth of the whole space. Tribunals were placed in the hemicycles and courts of law held there. Some portions of the semicircular recesses are still extant by which their plan may be traced, but the outer wall is in no part preserved entire except at the back and sides of the temple. Its height at the back of the temple is 120 feet, and over the Arco dei Pantani 100 feet, which we must suppose to have been the normal height of the rest of the enclosure. These enormous walls served as a defence against fire, no less than to exclude the traffic and noise of the streets.

Although it is possible that Augustus may have entertained the design of erecting a new group of public buildings as a means of gaining distinction and popularity before the battle of Philippi which established his power, yet so far as we know, the temple of Mars Ultor and the Forum Augusti owed their existence to a vow made by the emperor immediately before the decisive battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, to build if victorious a temple to Mars as the avenger of his adopted father. The dedication of the temple took place in B.C. 2, accompanied with most magnificent shows of gladiators and splendid sham sea-fights.

The Forum of Nerva was in the district through which the Via della Croce Bianca passes, and was connected with the ruin commonly called the Temple of Minerva, still standing on the right-hand side of that street where it is crossed by the Via Alessandrina. Two columns are there to be seen now called the Colonnacce, half buried in the earth, surmounted by an entablature and an attica. The wall behind the columns is built of blocks of peperino of unequal size, and is in a style of masonry inferior to the walls of the Forum of Augustus. In it may be seen the traces of an arch which has been filled up with the same stone as that of which the wall is built. The columns, which are of fluted marble, stand out in front of the wall; but, as in the Arch of Severus, the entablature does not lie between them, but projects from the wall over the capitals, and unites them with the wall. The edges of the architrave are richly decorated, and the frieze contains an elaborately carved bas-relief, which, though unfortunately much disfigured, can be partially understood by the help of old engravings taken before it was reduced to its present lamentable state.

Forum of Nerva as it stood in 1600. From Du Perac, ‘Vestigj di Roma.’

From these it appears that the figures represent various attributes of Minerva as the patroness of household management. Some of them are drawing water, others weaving or spinning, and others dyeing, washing, holding scales and purses as if bargaining. The remaining portion of the design is incomplete, and was probably carried round the rest of the frieze of the enclosure.[78] On the cornices, both upper and lower, the ornamentation is very rich, but not so chaste as work of the Augustan period. In the centre of the attica stands a figure of Minerva in alto-relievo, with spear, helmet, and shield.

That this beautiful ruin, which is one of the most picturesque in Rome, belonged to the wall of Nerva’s Forum is rendered certain by the old views of the sixteenth century, which represent it as part of the inner side of the wall enclosing a splendid temple which stood to the north-west of it. Seven of the columns of this temple were still standing in the fifteenth century, belonging to the left-hand side of the portico, and a considerable part also of the walls of the cella with the pilasters of the portico. The cella of the temple adjoined the semicircular part of Augustus’s Forum on one side, and, as will be seen by the plan, the wall of the enclosure met it on the other, so that only the portico of the temple projected into the open space of the Forum.

On the front were the words, probably the last line of a longer inscription, IMP. NERVA CÆSAR AUG. PONT. MAXIM. TRIB. POT. II. IMP. II. PROCOS, showing that the temple was dedicated by Nerva.

There can be but little doubt that this was the temple of Minerva begun together with the Forum by Domitian, and finished by Nerva. It is true that there is no actual mention in any of the ancient writers of a temple of Minerva here, but the assertion of Dion Cassius that Domitian had a particular reverence for Minerva and Janus, and the character of the designs and statues of Minerva found upon the ruined part of the enclosure already described, leave little doubt on the subject. The name of Palladium given to the Forum by Martial also agrees with this supposition.

The fate of the Temple of Minerva is better known than that of most of the ancient temples in Rome.

In the time of Pope Pius V. (1566-1572) the building of a new quarter of the city was begun in this district. The streets Via Alessandrina and Via Bonella were laid out, and as the new quarter grew, the ruins of the old temple became an impediment to their progress, which Paul V. in the beginning of the seventeenth century ordered to be removed, and to be applied to the construction of the Chapel of S. Paul in the church of S. Maria Maggiore and that of the Fontana Paolo upon the Janiculum. The great gateway which stood at the end of the Via della Croce Bianca was suffered to remain for a century longer, but is now quite gone.

We now return to the Piazza Trajana. Between it and the Piazza del Campidoglio, in a street called the Via di Marforio, are two of the more ancient ruins in Rome consisting of tombs now built into the walls of houses. These tombs are monuments of imperial Rome, and were probably outside the ancient Servian Wall not far from the Porta Ratumena.

The more prominent of the two, the Tomb of Bibulus, stands close by the junction of the modern streets of Macel de’ Corvi and Marforio. The front of it only can be seen, as the rest is built into the wall of a house. The inscription is as follows,

C . POPLICIO . L . F . BIBULO AED . PL . HONORIS.
VIRTUTISQUE . CAUSSA . SENATUS.
CONSULTO . POPULI . QUE . JUSSU . LOCUS.
MONUMENTO . QUO . IPSE . POSTEREIQUE.
EIUS . INFERRENTUR . PUBLICE . DATUS . EST.

The inscription was also placed on the side of the tomb, where the beginning of it may still be seen. It must not be inferred that the privilege of being buried within the walls was granted to Bibulus contrary to the regulations of the twelve tables, which forbade any corpse to be buried or burnt within the city walls. Had this been the case the exemption would have been expressly mentioned in the inscription, and besides this the course of the Servian Wall, which crossed the depression between the Quirinal and Capitoline, would naturally run so as to exclude the tomb. The inscription only records the gift of the burial place to Bibulus by the Senate, and is intended to prevent the burial of any other person there, except the family of Bibulus.

An Ædile of the name C. Bibulus is mentioned in the ‘Annals’ of Tacitus in the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 22, and the style of the tomb agrees tolerably well with this date. The whole is built of travertine, and the basement is of the simplest description possible. Four Doric pilasters with Attic bases surmounted by an Ionic entablature, ornamented with wreaths of fruit and ox-skulls, form the whole decoration of the front. Bergau, however, thinks that the architecture is Italian, and should not be called by these Greek names.[79]

The other ruin of a tomb is in the wall of a house nearly opposite to that of Bibulus, and is reduced to a shapeless mass of remains.

Passing from the Tomb of Bibulus to the Piazza del Campidoglio, and thence to the Caffarelli or southern end of the Capitoline Hill, we find in the gardens of the German Embassy an excavation which shows a number of tufa blocks fitted together without mortar, and in an irregular manner.[80]

The area of the great temple and the wall surrounding it have been traced out by Lanciani and Jordan among the fragments which are found in this garden, and on the north side of the Caffarelli palace, and between the garden and the rotunda of the museum. Jordan thinks that the measurements of the area indicated by these fragments correspond to the size of the environs of the temple as given by Dionysius, and that they afford a conclusive proof that the great temple of Jupiter was on the Caffarelli and not on the Ara Cœli height. The north-eastern corner of the excavation in the Caffarelli garden shows a part of these constructions, and a fragment may be seen in the wall of the Montanara Garden in the Vicolo di Monte Caprino.

The natural features of the Capitoline Hill could hardly have been more completely concealed than they are by the present situation of the buildings upon it, even if those buildings had been erected with the express purpose of changing the appearance of the hill. For the convent of Ara Cœli and the Palazzo Caffarelli, which occupy respectively the north-eastern and south-western summits of the hill, are comparatively low and unconspicuous, while the so-called Tabularium and above it the Palace of the Senator compose a lofty pile which nearly fills up the depression between these two heights. To the spectator looking at the Capitol from the Forum, the higher part of the hill appears to lie nearly in the centre, whereas in reality the shape is that of a double hill rising at each end. The north-eastern end is somewhat curved round towards the north, while the south-western approaches within 300 paces of the river. The whole core of the hill is formed of the harder volcanic tufa, a section of which may be plainly seen, composing the face of the low precipice now shown as the Tarpeian rock, and also in a courtyard surrounded by cottages, near the spot called Palazzaccio. This tufa was, as has been frequently mentioned, used as a building stone in the early ages of Rome before the lapis Gabinus, or Albanus (peperino) or the lapis Tiburtinus had been introduced.

The Tarpeian Rock whence criminals were hurled, was, according to the older Italian topographers down to the time of Nardini, placed at the western edge of the hill towards the Tiber, where the Piazza Montanara now is. But Dureau de la Malle in the Mémoires de l’Académie for 1809, pointed out that this was inconsistent with the statements of Dionysius, who says that it was over the Forum, and that the executions took place in full view of all the people. This would seem to place it on the S.E. side towards the Palatine near S. Maria della Consolazione. Becker’s objection that the hill is less steep there than at the western edge, may be met by the fact that several large masses of rock are recorded to have fallen down from this spot, and therefore the face of the cliff is entirely changed. The further objection that the criminals would have fallen into the Vicus Jugarius, instead of which they ought, according to custom, to have been cast over the city walls, seems to rest on the assumption that criminals were always thrown over the walls, no proof of which has been adduced. Tradition is equally divided between the two localities, and therefore the passages of Dionysius above quoted must be held at present decisive in favour of the side towards the Palatine and Forum.

It has been conclusively proved by Becker, that Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun which was commonly supposed to have occupied the Colonna Gardens, and to which the huge fragments near the Capitol which lie there were thought to have belonged, was not here but in the Campus Agrippæ on the Campus Martius. For the Notitia and the Chronologers both place it in the seventh region or Via Lata, which occupied the eastern side of the Campus, and mention castra as attached to it. Further, Vopiscus when describing a drive in which he accompanied Junius Tiberianus, the prefect of the city, seems to place the Temple of the Sun at a much greater distance from the Palatine than the Colonna Gardens are.

The ruin with which it was identified, formerly called turris Mæcenatis, or Frontispicium Neronis, has now been pulled down, but a part of it, and especially one huge mass of carved marble, remains in the Colonna Gardens. Representations of the Frontispicium Neronis as it was before its destruction, may be seen in Donatus and the older topographers. The fragments of stonework are now thought to have belonged to the entrance of the Thermæ of Constantine.

The site of the building erected upon the Quirinal by the mad emperor Heliogabalus, and called Senaculum Mulierum in which he assembled the Roman matrons for consultation about the laws of fashion in dress and manners, is not known.

The site of the Thermæ of Constantine, which are placed by the Notitia next to the Capitolium antiquum, is tolerably well defined by the notices of the Anonymous MS. of Einsiedlen, and by an inscription found near the Quirinal Palace, recording their restoration by Petronius Perpenna probably in the year 443. Both of these indicate the Palazzo Rospigliosi as standing upon the ground once occupied by the central building of the Thermæ. The Anonymous MS. mentions the Thermæ on the road between the Church of S. Agata and that of S. Vitale. Pozzio, Albertini, Fulvius, Q. Fauno, and Gamucci, all agree in confirming this evidence. Large portions of the ruins were still standing in their time, and in Du Perac’s views, published in the seventeenth century, the central part of the buildings is represented. Another part of the ruins of these baths was found in the construction of the Quirinal Palace in the time of Paul V.