"After dinner, Bunsen called for us, and took us first to his house on the Capitol, the different windows of which command the different views of ancient and modern Rome. Never shall I forget the view of the former; we looked down on the Forum, and just opposite were the Palatine and the Aventine, with the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars on the one, and houses intermixed with gardens on the other. The mass of the Coliseum rose beyond the Forum, and beyond all, the wide plain of the Campagna to the sea. On the left rose the Alban hills, bright in the setting sun, which played full upon Frescati and Albano, and the trees which edge the lake, and further away in the distance, it lit up the old town of Labicum."—Arnold's Letters.
From the further end of the courtyard of the Caffarelli Palace one can look down upon part of the bare cliff of the Rupe Tarpeia. Here there existed till 1868 a small court, which is represented as the scene of the murder in Hawthorne's Marble Faun, or "Transformation." The door, the niche in the wall, and all other details mentioned in the novel, were realities. The character of the place is now changed by the removal of the boundary-wall. The part of the rock seen from here is that usually visited from below by the Via Tor de' Specchi.
To reach the principal portion of the south-eastern height of the Capitol, we must ascend the staircase beyond the Palace of the Conservators, on the right. Here we shall find ourselves upon the highest part of
The dirty lane, with its shabby houses, and grass-grown spaces, and filthy children, has little to remind one of the appearance of the hill as seen by Virgil and Propertius, who speak of the change in their time from an earlier aspect.
It was on this side that the different attacks were made upon the Capitol. The first was by the Sabine Herdonius at the head of a band of slaves, who scaled the heights and surprised the garrison, in B.C. 460, and from the heights of the citadel proclaimed freedom to all slaves who should join him, with abolition of debts, and defence of the plebs from their oppressors; but his offers were disregarded, and on the fourth day the Capitol was re-taken, and he was slain with nearly all his followers. The second attack was by the Gauls, who, according to the well-known story, climbed the rock near the Porta Carmentale, and had nearly reached the summit unobserved—for the dogs neglected to bark—when the cries of the sacred geese of Juno aroused an officer named Manlius, who rushed to the defence, and hurled over the precipice the first assailant, who dragged down others in his fall, and thus the Capitol was saved. In remembrance of this incident, a goose was annually carried in triumph, and a dog annually crucified upon the Capitol, between the temple of Summanus and that of Youth.[42] This was the same Manlius, the friend of the people, who was afterwards condemned by the patricians on pretext that he wished to make himself king, and thrown from the Tarpeian rock, on the same spot, in sight of the Forum, where Spurius Cassius, an ex-consul, had been thrown down before. To visit the part of the rock from which these executions must have taken place, it is necessary to enter a little garden near the German Hospital, whence there is a beautiful view of the river and the Aventine.
"Quand on veut visiter la roche Tarpéienne, on sonne à une porte de peu d'apparence, sur laquelle sont écrits ces mots: Rocca Tarpeia. Une pauvre femme arrive et vous mène dans un carré de choux. C'est de là qu'on précipita Manlius. Je serais desolé que le carré de choux manquât."—Ampère, Portraits de Rome.
This side of the Intermontium is now generally known as Monte Caprino, a name which Ampère derives from the fact that Vejovis, the Etruscan ideal of Jupiter, was always represented with a goat.[43] On this side of the hill, the viaduct from the Palatine, built by Caligula (who affected to require it to facilitate communication with his friend Jupiter), joined the Capitoline.
We have still to examine the north-eastern height, the site of the most interesting of pagan temples, now occupied by one of the most interesting of Christian churches. The name of the famous Church of Ara-Cœli is generally attributed to an altar erected by Augustus to commemorate the Delphic oracle respecting the coming of our Saviour, which is still recognised in the well-known hymn of the Church:
Teste David cum Sibylla.[44]
The altar bore the inscription "Ara Primogeniti Dei." Those who seek a more humble origin for the church, say that the name merely dates from mediæval times, when it was called "Sta, Maria in Aurocœlio." It originally belonged to the Benedictine Order, but was transferred to the Franciscans by Innocent IV. in 1252, since which time its convent has occupied an important position as the residence of the General of the Minor Franciscans (Grey-friars), and is the centre of religious life in that Order.
The staircase on the left of the Senators' palace, which leads to the side entrance of Ara-Cœli, is in itself full of historical associations. It was at its head that Valerius the consul was killed in the conflict with Herdonius for the possession of the Capitol. It was down the ancient steps on this site that Annius, the envoy of the Latins, fell (B.C. 340), and was nearly killed, after his audacious proposition in the temple of Jupiter, that the Latins and Romans should become one nation, and have a common senate and consuls. Here also,[45] in B.C. 133, Tiberius Gracchus was knocked down with the leg of a chair, and killed in front of the temple of Jupiter.
It is at the top of these steps, that the monks of Ara-Cœli, who are celebrated as dentists, perform their hideous, but useful and gratuitous operations, which may be witnessed here every morning!
Over the side entrance of Ara-Cœli is a beautiful mosaic of the Virgin and Child. This, with the ancient brick arches above, framing fragments of deep blue sky—and the worn steps below—forms a subject dear to Roman artists, and is often introduced as a background to groups of monks and peasants. The interior of the church is vast, solemn, and highly picturesque. It was here, as Gibbon himself tells us, that on the 15th of October, 1764, as he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers, the idea of writing the "Decline and Fall" of the city first started to his mind.
"As we lift the great curtain and push into the church, a faint perfume of incense salutes the nostrils. The golden sunset bursts in as the curtain of the (west) door sways forward, illuminates the mosaic floor, catches on the rich golden ceiling, and flashes here and there over the crowd (gathered in Epiphany), on some brilliant costume or closely shaven head. All sorts of people are thronging there, some kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna, which gleams with its hundreds of silver votive hearts, legs, and arms, some listening to the preaching, some crowding round the chapel of the Presepio. Old women, haggard and wrinkled, come tottering along with their scaldini of coals, drop down on their knees to pray, and, as you pass, interpolate in their prayers a parenthesis of begging. The church is not architecturally handsome, but it is eminently picturesque, with its relics of centuries, its mosaic pulpits and floors, its frescoes of Pinturicchio and Pesaro, its antique columns, its rich golden ceiling, its gothic mausoleum to the Savelli, and its mediæval tombs. A dim, dingy look is over all—but it is the dimness of faded splendour; and one cannot stand there, knowing the history of the church, its great antiquity, and the varied fortunes it has known, without a peculiar sense of interest and pleasure.
"It was here that Romulus in the grey dawning of Rome built the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Here the spolia opima were deposited. Here the triumphal processions of the emperors and generals ended. Here the victors paused before making their vows, until, from the Mamertine prisons below, the message came to announce that their noblest prisoner and victim—while the clang of their triumph and his defeat rose ringing in his ears, as the procession ascended the steps—had expiated with death the crime of being the enemy of Rome. On the steps of Ara-Cœli, nineteen centuries ago, the first great Cæsar climbed on his knees after his first triumph. At their base, Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes, fell—and if the tradition of the Church is to be trusted, it was on the site of the present high altar that Augustus erected the 'Ara Primogeniti Dei,' to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the coming of our Saviour. Standing on a spot so thronged with memories, the dullest imagination takes fire. The forms and scenes of the past rise from their graves and pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled together in strange poetic confusion."—Roba di Roma, i. 73.
The floor of the church is of the ancient mosaic known as Opus Alexandrinum. The nave is separated from the aisles by twenty-two ancient columns, of which two are of cipollino, two of white marble, and eighteen of Egyptian granite. They are of very different forms and sizes, and have probably been collected from various pagan edifices. The inscription "A Cubiculo Augustorum" upon the third column on the left of the nave, shows that it was brought from the Palace of the Cæsars. The windows in this church are amongst the few in Rome which show traces of gothic. At the end of the nave, on either side, are two ambones, marking the position of the choir before it was extended to its present site in the sixteenth century.
The transepts are full of interesting monuments. That on the right is the burial-place of the great family of Savelli, and contains—on the left, the monument of Luca Savelli, 1266 (father of Pope Honorius IV.) and his son Pandolfo,—an ancient and richly sculptured sarcophagus, to which a gothic canopy was added by Agostino and Agnolo da Siena from designs of Giotto. Opposite, is the tomb of the mother of Honorius, Vana Aldobrandesca, upon which is the statue of the pope himself, removed from his monument in the old St. Peter's by Paul III.
On the left of the high altar is the tomb of Cardinal Gianbattista Savelli, ob. 1498, and near it—in the pavement, the half-effaced gravestone of Sigismondo Conti, whose features are so familiar to us from his portrait introduced into the famous picture of the Madonna di Foligno, which was painted by Raphael at his order, and presented by him to this church, where it remained over the high altar, till 1565, when his great niece Anna became a nun at the convent of the Contesse at Foligno, and was allowed to carry it away with her. In the east transept is another fine gothic tomb, that of Cardinal Matteo di Acquasparta (1302), a General of the Franciscans mentioned by Dante for his wise and moderate rule.[46] The quaint chapel in the middle of this transept, now dedicated to St. Helena, is supposed to occupy the site of the "Ara Primogeniti Dei."
Upon the pier near the ambone of the gospel is the monument of Queen Catherine of Bosnia, who died at Rome in 1478, bequeathing her states to the Roman Church on condition of their reversion to her son, who had embraced Mahommedanism, if he should return to the Catholic faith. Near this, upon the transept wall, is the tomb of Felice de Fredis, ob. 1529, upon which it is recorded that he was the finder of the Laocoon. The Chapel of the Annunciation, opening from the west isle, has a tomb to G. Crivelli, by Donatello, bearing his signature, "Opus Donatelli Florentini." The Chapel of Santa Croce is the burial-place of the Ponziani family, and was the scene of the celebrated ecstasy of the favourite Roman saint Francesca Romana.
"The mortal remains of Vanozza Ponziani (sister-in-law of Francesca) were laid in the church of Ara-Cœli, in the chapel of Santa Croce. The Roman people resorted there in crowds to behold once more their loved benefactress—the mother of the poor, the consoler of the afflicted. All strove to carry away some little memorial of one who had gone about among them doing good, and during the three days which preceded the interment, the concourse did not abate. On the day of the funeral Francesca knelt on one side of the coffin, and, in sight of all the crowd, she was wrapped in ecstasy. They saw her body lifted from the ground, and a seraphic expression in her uplifted face. They heard her murmur several times with an indescribable emphasis the word 'Quando? Quando?' When all was over, she still remained immoveable; it seemed as if her soul had risen on the wings of prayer, and followed Vanozza's spirit into the realms of bliss. At last her confessor ordered her to rise and go and attend on the sick. She instantly complied, and walked away to the hospital which she had founded, apparently unconscious of everything about her, and only roused from her trance by the habit of obedience, which, in or out of ecstasy, never forsook her."—Lady Georgiana Fullerton's Life of Sta. Fr. Romana.
There are several good pictures over the altars in the aisles of Ara-Cœli. In the Chapel of St Margaret of Cortona are frescoes illustrative of her life by Filippo Evangelisti,—in that of S. Antonio, frescoes by Nicola da Pesaro;—but no one should omit visiting the first chapel on the right of the west door, dedicated to S. Bernardino of Siena, and painted by Bernardino Pinturicchio, who has put forth his best powers to do honour to his patron saint with a series of exquisite frescoes, representing his assuming the monastic habit, his preaching, his vision of the Saviour, his penitence, death, and burial.
Almost opposite this—closed except during Epiphany—is the Chapel of the Presepio, where the famous image of the Santissimo Bambino d'Ara Cœli is shown at that season lying in a manger.
"The simple meaning of the term Presepio is a manger; but it is also used in the Church to signify a representation of the birth of Christ. In the Ara-Cœli the whole of one of the side-chapels is devoted to this exhibition. In the foreground is a grotto, in which is seated the Virgin Mary, with Joseph at her side and the miraculous Bambino in her lap. Immediately behind are an ass and an ox. On one side kneel the shepherds and kings in adoration; and above, God the Father is seen surrounded by crowds of cherubs and angels playing on instruments, as in the early pictures of Raphael. In the background is a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended. Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palm-trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and perspective are admirable. In the middle ground is a crystal fountain of glass, near which sheep, preternaturally white, and made of real wool and cotton wool, are feeding, tended by figures of shepherds carved in wood. Still nearer come women bearing great baskets of real oranges and other fruits on their heads. All the nearer figures are full-sized, carved in wood, painted, and dressed in appropriate robes. The miraculous Bambino is a painted doll swaddled in a white dress, which is crusted over with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The Virgin also wears in her ears superb diamond pendants. The general effect of the scenic show is admirable, and crowds flock to it and press about it all day long.
"While this is taking place on one side of the church, on the other is a very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the antique columns a stage is erected, from which little maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons, dialogues, and little speeches, in explanation of the Presepio opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate questions and answers about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna, the greatest stress being, however, always laid upon the latter. All these little speeches have been written for them by their priest or some religious friend, committed to memory, and practised with appropriate gestures over and over again at home. Their little piping voices are sometimes guilty of such comic breaks and changes, that the crowd about them rustles into a murmurous laughter. Sometimes, also, one of the little preachers has a dispetto, pouts, shakes her shoulders, and refuses to go on with her part; another, however, always stands ready on the platform to supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened the little pouter into obedience. These children are often very beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very amusing and interesting effect."—Story's Roba di Roma.
At other times the Bambino dwells in the inner Sacristy, where it can be visited by admiring pilgrims. It is a fresh-coloured doll, tightly swathed in gold and silver tissue, crowned, and sparkling with jewels. It has servants of its own, and a carriage in which it drives out with its attendants, and goes to visit the sick. Devout peasants always kneel as the blessed infant passes. Formerly it was taken to sick persons and left on their beds for some hours, in the hope that it would work a miracle. Now it is never left alone. In explanation of this, it is said that an audacious woman formed the design of appropriating to herself the holy image and its benefits. She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the "Santissimo," and having feigned sickness, and obtained permission to have it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent it back to Ara-Cœli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and hastening thither could see nothing but a wee naked pink foot peeping in from under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara-Cœli, shivering in the wind and the rain,—so the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more.
In the sacristy is the following inscription relating to the Bambino:—
"Ad hoc sacellum Ara Cœli a festo nativitatis domini usque ad festum Epiphaniæ magna populi frequentia invisitur et colitur in presepio Christi nati infantuli simulacrum ex oleæ ligno apud montem olivarum Hierosolymis a quodam devoto Minorita sculptum eo animo, ut ad hoc festum celebrandum deportaretur. De quo in primis hoc accidit, quod deficiente colore inter barbaras gentes ad plenam infantuli figurationem et formam, devotus et anxius artifex, professione laicus, precibus et orationibus impetravit, ut sacrum simulacrum divinitus carneo colore perfunctum reperiretur. Cumque navi Italiam veheretur, facto naufragio apud Tusciæ oras, simulacri capsa Liburnum appulit. Ex quo, recognita, expectabatur, enim a Fratribus, et jam fama illius a Hierosolymis ad nostras familiæ partes advenerat, ad destinatam sibi Capitolii sedem devenit. Fertur etiam, quod aliquando ex nimia devotione à quadam devota fœmina sublatum ad suas ædes miraculosè remeaverit. Quapropter in maxima veneratione semper est habitum a Romanis civibus, et universo populo donatum monilibus, et jocalibus pretiosis, liberalioribusque in dies prosequitur oblationibus."
The outer Sacristy contains a fine picture of the Holy Family by Giulio Romano.
The scene on the long flight of steps which leads to the west door of Ara-Cœli is very curious during Epiphany.
"If any one visit the Ara-Cœli during an afternoon in Christmas or Epiphany, the scene is very striking. The flight of one hundred and twenty-four steps is then thronged by merchants of Madonna wares, who spread them out over the steps and hang them against the walls and balustrades. Here are to be seen all sorts of curious little coloured prints of the Madonna and Child of the most extraordinary quality, little bags, pewter medals, and crosses stamped with the same figures and to be worn on the neck—all offered at once for the sum of one baiocco. Here also are framed pictures of the saints, of the Nativity, and in a word of all sorts of religious subjects appertaining to the season. Little wax dolls, clad in cotton-wool to represent the Saviour, and sheep made of the same materials, are also sold by the basket-full. Children and Contadini are busy buying them, and there is a deafening roar all up and down the steps, of 'Mezzo baiocco, bello colorito, mezzo baiocco, la Santissima Concezione Incoronata,'—'Diario Romano, Lunario Romano nuovo,'—'Ritratto colorito, medaglia e quadruccio, un baiocco tutti, un baiocco tutti,'—'Bambinella di cera, un baiocco.' None of the prices are higher than one baiocco, except to strangers, and generally several articles are held up together, enumerated, and proffered with a loud voice for this sum. Meanwhile men, women, children, priests, beggars, soldiers, and villani are crowding up and down, and we crowd with them."—Roba di Roma, i. 72.
"On the sixth of January the lofty steps of Ara-Cœli looked like an ant-hill, so thronged were they with people. Men and boys who sold little books (legends and prayers), rosaries, pictures of saints, medallions, chestnuts, oranges, and other things, shouted and made a great noise. Little boys and girls were still preaching zealously in the church, and people of all classes were crowding thither. Processions advanced with the thundering cheerful music of the fire-corps. Il Bambino, a painted image of wood, covered with jewels, and with a yellow crown on its head, was carried by a monk in white gloves, and exhibited to the people from a kind of altar-like erection at the top of the Ara-Cœli steps. Everybody dropped down upon their knees; Il Bambino was shown on all sides, the music thundered, and the smoking censers were swung."—Frederika Bremer.
The Convent of Ara-Cœli contains much that is picturesque and interesting. S. Giovanni Capistrano was abbot here in the reign of Eugenius IV.
Let us now descend from the Capitoline Piazza towards the Forum, by the staircase on the left of the Palace of the Senator. Close to the foot of this staircase is a church, very obscure-looking, with some rude frescoes on the exterior. Yet every one must enter this building, for here are the famous Mamertine Prisons, excavated from the solid rock under the Capitol.
The prisons are entered through the low Church of S. Pietro in Carcere, hung round with votive offerings and blazing with lamps.
"There is an upper chamber in the Mamertine Prisons, over what is said to have been—and very possibly may have been—the dungeon of St. Peter. The chamber is now fitted up as an oratory, dedicated to that saint; and it lives, as a distinct and separate place, in my recollection, too. It is very small and low-roofed; and the dread and gloom of the ponderous, obdurate old prison are on it, as if they had come up in a dark mist through the floor. Hanging on the walls, among the clustered votive offerings, are objects, at once strangely in keeping and strangely at variance with the place—rusty daggers, knives, pistols, clubs, divers instruments of violence and murder, brought here, fresh from use, and hung up to propitiate offended Heaven; as if the blood upon them would drain off in consecrated air, and have no voice to cry with. It is all so silent and so close, and tomblike; and the dungeons below are so black, and stealthy, and stagnant, and naked; that this little dark spot becomes a dream within a dream: and in the vision of great churches which come rolling past me like a sea, it is a small wave by itself, that melts into no other wave, and does not flow on with the rest."—Dickens.
Enclosed in the church, near the entrance, may be observed the outer frieze of the prison wall, with the inscription C. TIBIUS. C. F. RUFINUS. M.. COCCEIUS. NERVA. COS. EX. S. C., recording the names of two consuls of A.D. 22, who are supposed to have repaired the prison. Juvenal's description of the time when one prison was sufficient for all the criminals in Rome naturally refers to this building:
A modern staircase leads to the horrible dungeon of Ancus Martius, sixteen feet in height, thirty in length, and twenty-two in breadth. Originally there was no staircase, and the prisoners were let down there, and thence into the lower dungeon, through a hole in the middle of the ceiling. The large door at the side is a modern innovation, having been opened to admit the vast mass of pilgrims during the festa. The whole prison is constructed of huge blocks of tufa without cement. Some remains are shown of the Scalæ Gemoniæ, so called from the groans of the prisoners—by which the bodies were dragged forth to be exposed to the insults of the populace or to be thrown into the Tiber. It was by this staircase that Cicero came forth and announced the execution of the Catiline conspirators to the people in the Forum, by the single word Vixerunt, "they have ceased to live." Close to the exit of these stairs the Emperor Vitellius was murdered. On the wall by which you descend to the lower dungeon is a mark, kissed by the faithful, as the spot against which St. Peter's head rested. The lower prison, called Robur, is constructed of huge blocks of tufa, fastened together by cramps of iron and approaching horizontally to a common centre in the roof. It has been attributed from early times to Servius Tullius; but Ampère[47] argues against the idea that the lower prison was of later origin than the upper, and suggests that it is Pelasgic, and older than any other building in Rome. It is described by Livy, and by Sallust, who depicts its horrors in his account of the execution of the Catiline conspirators.[48] The spot is shown to which these victims were attached and strangled in turn. In this dungeon, at an earlier period, Appius Claudius and Oppius the decemvirs committed suicide (B.C. 449). Here Jugurtha, king of Mauritania, was starved to death by Marius. Here Julius Cæsar, during his triumph for the conquest of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy Vercingetorix to be put to death. Here Sejanus, the friend and minister of Tiberius, disgraced too late, was executed for the murder of Drusus, son of the emperor, and for an intrigue with his daughter-in-law, Livilla. Here, also, Simon Bar-Gioras, the last defender of Jerusalem, suffered during the triumph of Titus.
The spot is more interesting to the Christian world as the prison of SS. Peter and Paul, who are said to have been bound for nine months to a pillar, which is shown here. A fountain of excellent water, beneath the floor of the prison, is attributed to the prayers of St. Peter, that he might have wherewith to baptize his gaolers, Processus and Martinianus; but, unfortunately for this ecclesiastical tradition, the fountain is described by Plutarch as having existed at the time of Jugurtha's imprisonment This fountain probably gave the dungeon the name of Tullianum, by which it was sometimes known, tullius meaning a spring.[49] This name probably gave rise to the idea of its connection with Servius Tullius.
It is hence that the Roman Catholic Church believes that St. Peter and St Paul addressed their farewells to the Christian world.
That of St. Peter:—
"Shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.... Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."—2nd St. Peter.
That of St. Paul:—
"God hath not given us a spirit of fear.... Be not thou, therefore, ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.... I suffer trouble as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things, for the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.... I charge thee by God and by the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead ... preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine; ... watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."—2nd Timothy.
On July 4, the prisons are the scene of a picturesque solemnity, when they are visited at night by the religious confraternities, who first kneel and then prostrate themselves in silent devotion.
Above the Church of S. Pietro in Carcere, is that of S. Giuseppe del Falegnami, St. Joseph of the Carpenters.
"Pourquoi les guides et les antiquaires qui nous ont si souvent montré la voie triomphale qui mène au Capitale et nous en ont tant de fois énuméré les souvenirs; pourquoi aucun d'eux ne nous a-t-il jamais parlé de ce qui survint le jour du triomphe de Titus, là-bas, près des prisons Mamertines? Laisse-moi vous rappeler que ce jour-là le triomphateur, au moment de monter au temple, devant verser le sang d'une victime, s'arrêta à cette place, tandis que l'on détachait de son cortége un captif de plus haute taille et plus richement vêtu que les autres, et qu'on l'emmenait dans cette prison pour y achever son supplice avec le lacet même qu'il portait autour du cou. Ce ne fût qu'après cette immolation que le cortége reprit sa marche et acheva de monter jusqu'au Capitole! Ce captif dont on ne daigne nous parler, c'était Simon Bar-Gioras; c'était un des trois derniers défenseurs de Jérusalem; c'était un de ceux qui la défendirent jusqu'au bout, mais hélas! qui la défendirent comme des démons maîtres d'une âme de laquelle ils ne veulent pas se laisser chasser, et non point comme des champions héroïques d'une cause sacrée et perdue. Aussi cette grandeur que la seule infortune suffit souvent pour donner, elle manque à la calamité la plus grande que le monde ait vue, et les noms attachés à cette immense catastrophe ne demeurèrent pas même fameux! Jean de Giscala, Eléazar, Simon Bar-Gioras; qui pense à eux aujourd'hui? L'univers entier proclame et vénère les noms de deux pauvres juifs qui, quatre ans auparavant, dans cette même prison, avaient eux aussi attendu la supplice; mais le malheur, le courage, la mort tragique des autres, ne leur ont point donné la gloire, et un dédaigneux oubli les a effacés de la mémoire des hommes!"—(Anne Severin) Mrs. Augustus Craven.
Forum of Trajan—(Sta. Maria di Loreto)—Temple of Mars Ultor—Forum of Augustus—Forum of Nerva—Forum of Julius Cæsar—(Academy of St. Luke)—Forum Romanum—Tribune—Comitium —Vulcanal—Temple of Concord—Temple of Vespasian—Temple of Saturn—Arch of Septimius Severus—Temple of Castor and Pollux—Pillar of Phocas—Temple of Antoninus and Faustina—Basilica of Constantine—(Sta. Martina—S. Adriano—Sta. Maria—Liberatrice, SS. Cosmo and Damian—Sta. Francesca Romana)—Temple of Venus and Rome—Arch of Titus—(Sta. Maria Pallara—S. Buonaventura)—Meta Sudans—Arch of Constantine—Coliseum.
FOLLOWING the Corso to its end at the Ripresa dei Barberi, and turning to the left, we find ourselves at once amid the remains of the Forum of Trajan, erected by the architect Apollodorus for the Emperor Trajan on his return from the wars of the Danube. This forum now presents the appearance of a ravine between the Capitoline and Quirinal, but is an artificial hollow, excavated to facilitate the circulation of life within the city. An inscription over the door of the column, which overtops the other ruins, shows that it was raised in order to mark the depth of earth which was removed to construct the forum. The earth was formerly as high as the top of the column, which reaches, 100 Roman feet, to the level of the Palatine Hill. The forum was sometimes called the "Ulpian," from one of the names of the emperor.
"Before the year A.D. 107 the splendours of the city and the Campus beyond it were still separated by a narrow isthmus, thronged perhaps by the squalid cabins of the poor, and surmounted by the remains of the Servian wall which ran along its summit. Step by step the earlier emperors had approached with their new forums to the foot of this obstruction. Domitian was the first to contemplate and commence its removal. Nerva had the fortune to consecrate and to give his own name to a portion of his predecessor's construction; but Trajan undertook to complete the bold design, and the genius of his architect triumphed over all obstacles, and executed a work which exceeded in extent and splendour any previous achievement of the kind. He swept away every building on the site, levelled the spot on which they had stood, and laid out a vast area of columnar galleries, connecting halls and chambers for public use and recreation. The new forum was adorned with two libraries, one for Greek, the other for Roman volumes, and it was bounded on the west by a basilica of magnificent dimensions. Beyond this basilica, and within the limits of the Campus, the same architect (Apollodorus) erected a temple for the worship of Trajan himself; but this work probably belonged to the reign of Trajan's successor, and no doubt the Ulpian forum, with all its adjuncts, occupied many years in building. The area was adorned with numerous statues, in which the figure of Trajan was frequently repeated, and among its decorations were groups in bronze or marble, representing his most illustrious actions. The balustrades and cornices of the whole mass of buildings flamed with gilded images of arms and horses. Here stood the great equestrian statue of the emperor; here was the triumphal arch decreed him by the senate, adorned with sculpture, which Constantine, two centuries later, transferred without a blush to his own, a barbarous act of this first Christian emperor, to which however we probably owe their preservation to this day from more barbarous spoliation."—Merivale, Romans under the Empire, ch. lxiii.
The beautiful Column of Trajan was erected by the senate and people of Rome, A.D. 114. It is composed of thirty-four blocks of marble, and is covered with a spiral band of bas-reliefs illustrative of the Dacian wars, and increasing in size as it nears the top, so that it preserves throughout the same proportion when seen from below. It was formerly crowned by a statue of Trajan, holding a gilt globe, which latter is still preserved in the Hall of Bronzes in the Capitol. This statue had fallen from its pedestal long before Sixtus V. replaced it by the existing figure of St. Peter. At the foot of the column was a sepulchral chamber, intended to receive the imperial ashes, which were however preserved in a golden urn, upon an altar in front of it.
It was while walking in this forum, that Gregory the Great, observing one of the marble groups which told of a good and great action of Trajan, lamented bitterly that the soul of so noble a man should be lost, and prayed earnestly for the salvation of the heathen emperor. He was told that the soul of Trajan should be saved, but that to ensure this he must either himself undergo the pains of purgatory for three days, or suffer earthly pain and sickness for the rest of his life. He chose the latter, and never after was in health. This incident is narrated by his three biographers, John and Paul Diaconus, and John of Salisbury.[50]
The forum of Trajan was partly uncovered by Pope Paul III. in the sixteenth century, but excavated in its present form by the French in 1812. There is much still buried under the streets and neighbouring houses.
"All over the surface of what once was Rome it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the ancient city, as it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon older ruin.
"This was the fate, also, of Trajan's forum, until some papal antiquary, a few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the whole height of the gigantic column, wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the old emperor's warlike deeds (rich sculpture, which, twining from the base to the capital, must be an ugly spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied shaft must be laid before the judgment seat, as a piece of the evidence of what he did in the flesh). In the area before the column stands a grove of stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow space whence these pillars rise.
"One of the immense gray granite shafts lies in the piazza, on the verge of the area. It is a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome actually visible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force of thought, nor magic of song, can so vitally assure us that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people wrought. There is still a polish remaining on the hard substance of the pillar, the polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off."—Hawthorne, Transformation.
On the north of this forum are two churches: that nearest to the Corso is Sta. Maria di Loreto (founded by the corporation of bakers in 1500), with a dome surmounted by a picturesque lantern by Giuliano di Sangallo, c. 1506. It contains a statue of Sta. Susanna (not the Susanna of the Elders) by Fiammingo (François de Quesnoy), which is justly considered the chef-d'œuvre of the Bernini School. The companion church is called Sta. Maria di Vienna, and (like Sta. Maria della Vittoria) commemorates the liberation of Vienna from the Turks in 1683, by Sobieski, king of Poland. It was built by Innocent XI.
Leaving the forum at the opposite corner by the Via Alessandrina, and passing under the high wall of the Convent of the Nunziatina, a street, opening on the left, discloses several beautiful pillars, which, after having borne various names, are now declared to be the remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor, built by Augustus in his new forum, which was erected in order to provide accommodation for the crowds which overflowed the Forum Romanum and Forum Julium.
"The title of Ultor marked the war and the victory by which, agreeably to his vow, Augustus had avenged his uncle's death.
The porticoes, which extended on each side of the temple with a gentle curve, contained statues of distinguished Roman generals. The banquets of the Salii were transferred to this temple, a circumstance which led to its identification, from the discovery of an inscription here recording the mansiones of these priests. Like the priesthood in general, they appear to have been fond of good living, and there is a well-known anecdote of the Emperor Claudius having been lured by the steams of their banquet from his judicial functions in the adjacent forum, to come and take part in their feast. The temple was appropriated to meetings of the senate in which matters connected with wars and triumphs were debated.... Here while Tiberius was building a temple to Augustus upon the Palatine, his golden statue reposed upon a couch."—Dyer's City of Rome.
"Up to the time of Augustus, the god Mars, the reputed father of the Roman race, had never, it is said, enjoyed the distinction of a temple within the walls. He was then introduced into the city which he had saved from overthrow and ruin; and the aid he had lent in bringing the murderers of Cæsar to justice, was signalised by the title of Avenger, by which he was now specially addressed.... The temple of Mars Ultor, of gigantic proportions, 'Et deus est ingens et opus,' was erected in the new forum of Augustus at the foot of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills."—Merivale, Romans under the Empire.
"Ce temple était particulièrement cher à Auguste. Il voulut que les magistrats en partissent pour aller dans leurs provinces; que l'honneur du triomphe y fût décerné, et que les triomphateurs y fissent hommage à Mars Vengeur de leur couronne et de leur sceptre; que les drapeaux pris à l'ennemi y fussent conservés; que les chefs de la cavalerie exécutassent des jeux en avant des marches de ce temple; enfin que les censeurs, en sortant de leur charge, y plantassent le clou sacré, vieil usage étrusque jusque-là attaché au Capitole. Auguste désirait que ce temple fondé par lui prît l'importance du Capitole.
"Il fit dédier le temple par ses petit-fils Caius et Lucius; et son autre petit-fils, Agrippa, à la tête des plus nobles enfants de Rome, y célébra le jeu de Troie, qui rappelait l'origine prétendue troyenne de César; deux cent soixante lions furent égorgés dans la cirque, c'était leur place; deux troupes de gladiateurs combattirent dans les Septa ou se faisaient les élections au temps de la république, comme si Auguste eût voulu, par ces combats qui se livraient en l'honneur des morts, célébrer les funérailles de la liberté romaine."—Ampère, Emp. i. 224.
The temple of Mars stands at the north-eastern corner of the magnificent Forum of Augustus, which extended from here as far as the present Via Alessandrina, surpassing in size the forum of Julius Cæsar, to which it was adjoining. It was of sufficient size to be frequently used for fights of animals (venationes). Among its ornaments were statues of Augustus triumphant and of the subdued provinces—with inscriptions illustrative of the great deeds he had accomplished there; also a picture by Apelles representing War with her hands bound behind her, seated upon a pile of arms. Part of the boundary wall exists, enclosing on two sides the remains of the temple of Mars Ultor, and is constructed of huge masses of peperino. The arch, in the wall close to the temple, is known as Arco dei Pantani. The sudden turn in the wall here is interesting as commemorating a concession made to the wish of some proprietors, who were unwilling to part with their houses for the sake of the forum.