Pagan and Christian Rome Part 11

The inscription, besides proving that the removal of the oratory from its original site to the summit of the mountain had been accomplished before the age of the Millini, is the only historical record of the jubilee of 1350, which attracted to Rome enormous mult.i.tudes, so that pilgrims' camps had to be provided both inside and outside the walls.

Petrarca and king Louis of Hungary (then on his way back from Apulia) were among the visitors. Bishop Pontius of Orvieto, Ponzio Perotti, is also an historical man. He was intrusted with the government of the city in consequence of the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of his predecessor, cardinal Annibaldo, by a partisan of Cola di Rienzo.

This chapel, to which so many interesting souvenirs were attached, which owed its origin to one of the greatest battles in history, which commanded one of the finest panoramas in the world, is no more. It was sacrificed in 1880 to the necessity of raising a fortress on the hill.

No sign is left to mark its place.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] In volume ix. of the _Spicilegium romanum_, pp. 384-468.

[61] Baldwin Brown: _From Schola to Cathedral_, p. 1. Edinburgh, Douglas, 1886.

[62] See de Rossi: _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1867, p. 46; _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, vi. no. 1454.--Spalletti: _Tavola ospitale trovata in Roma sull' Aventino._ Roma, Salomoni, 1777 (p.

34).--Lanciani: _The Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1891.--Armellini: _Chiese_, first edition, p. 500.

[63] 2 Timothy, iv. 21.

[64] Gaspare Celio: _Memoria dei nomi degli artefici_, p. 81. Napoli, Bonino, 1638.

[65] See d.u.c.h.esne: _Liber pontificalis_, vol. i. pp. 132, 133.--De Era: _Storia di S. Pudenziana_, two MSS. volumes in the library of S.

Bernardo alle Terme.--Bartolini: _Sopra l'antichissimo altare di legno della basilica lateranense._ Roma, 1852.--De Rossi: _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1867, p. 49; _Musaici delle chiese di Roma._--Pellegrini: _Scavi nelle terme di Novato_, in the _Bullettino dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1870, p. 161.

[66] See Lorenzo Fortunati: _Relazione degli scavi e scoperte fatte lungo la via Latina._ Roma, 1859.

[67] Baldwin Brown: _ubi supra_, p. 17.

[68] Dionysii: _Vaticanae basilicae cryptarum monumenta_, pl. xxvii.--De Rossi: _Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae_, ii. p. 56, 350, 411.--d.u.c.h.esne: _Liber pontificalis_, i. cxxii.

[69] See Eugene Muntz: _Ricerche intorno ai lavori archeologici di Giacomo Grimaldi_. Firenze, 1881.--The best autograph work of Grimaldi, dedicated to Paul V. in 1618, belongs to the Barberini library, and is marked x.x.xiv. 50.

[70] The author of _Le Latran, dans le moyen age_.

[71] S. Pietro Montorio, rebuilt towards 1472, by Ferdinand IV. and Isabella of Spain, from the designs of Baccio Pontelli, stands on the site of an older church.

[72] _Chiese di Roma_, 1st edition, p. 520.

[73] "Collocate e poste una appresso all' altra con diligenza e cura esatta."

[74] Francesco Maria Torrigio: _Le sacre grotte vaticane_, p. 64.

Roma, 1639.

[75] _Le liber pontificalis: Texte, introduction et commentaire par l'abbe L. d.u.c.h.esne._ Paris, Thorin, 1886-1892.

[76] The letters LINVS might be the termination of a longer name, like [ANUL]LINVS or [MARCEL]LINVS.

[77] See Lampridius: _Heliog_, 23.

[78] See p. 345 sq.

[79] _Liber Pontificalis_, Silvester, xvi. p. 176.

[80] Pietro Mallio says that they came from the Temple of Apollo in Troy. This statement, however absurd, confirms the opinion that the tradition about Solomon's Temple is of modern origin. It seems that Constantine's canopy was borne by only six columns, and that the other six were added at the time of Gregory III.

[81] Venuti: _Ragionamento sopra la pina di bronzo_, etc., in the _Codex Vatica.n.u.s_ 9024.--Gayet Lacour: _La pigna du Vatican_, in the _Melanges de l'Ecole francaise_, 1881, p. 312.--Lanciani: _Il Pantheon e le terme di Agrippa_, in the _Notizie degli scavi_, 1882.--De Rossi: _Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae_, vol. ii., 428-430.--Gori: _Archivio storico artistico_, 1881, p. 230.

[82] _Numismata summorum pontific.u.m templi vaticani fabricam indicantia_, by Philippus Bonanni. Rome, 1696.

[83] See _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1867, p. 33, sq.--_Idem_, 1883, p. 90.

[84] De Rossi: _Inscriptiones christianae_, ii. p. 428-430.--Febeo: _De ident.i.tate cathedrae S. Petri_, Rome, 1666.--Cancellieri: _De secretariis_, p. 1245.

[85] But Sixtus V. (+ 1590) did not complete the lantern surmounting the dome, upon which the gilded cross was placed November 18, 1593.

[86] Vincenzo Briccolani: _Descrizione della basilica vaticana_, third ed. Roma, 1816.--Pietro Ercole Visconti: _Metrologia vaticana_. Roma, 1828.

[87] The baldacchino raised with questionable taste above the ciborium of Arnolfo di Cambio, a pupil of Nicol Pisano (A. D. 1285), rests on four columns of Oriental alabaster, from the quarries of Sannhur, in the district of the Beni Souef, offered to Gregory XVI. by Mohammed Ali, viceroy of Egypt. The pedestals are inlaid with malachite, a present from the emperor Nicholas of Russia.

[88] _Sulla grandezza e disposizione della primitiva basilica ostiense_. Roma, 1835.

[89] _Acta apost. apocrif._ p. 1-39. Lipsiae, 1851.

[90] See: _Die Grabplatte des h. Paulus: neue Studien uber die romischen Apostelgraber_, von H. Grisar, S. I. In the _Romische Quartalschrift_, 1892. Heft. I., II.

[91] See chapter ii., p. 99.

[92] My map of ancient Rome (scale 1:1000), which has cost me twenty-five years of labor, will be published in forty-six sheets measuring 0.90 m. 0.60 m. each. The first, comprising sheets nos.

iii., x., xvii., xxiii., x.x.x., and x.x.xvi. (from the gardens of Sall.u.s.t to the Macellum Magnum on the Caelian), will be ready in May, 1893. The plan is drawn in five colors, referring respectively to the royal, republican, imperial, mediaeval and modern epochs.

[93] The basilica of S. Valentine, discovered in 1886, by our archaeological commission, is mentioned on p. 120 of the present volume.

CHAPTER IV.

IMPERIAL TOMBS.[94]

The death and burial of Augustus.--His will.--The Monumentum Ancyranum.--Description and history of his mausoleum.--Its connection with the Colonnas and Cola di Rienzo.--Other members of the imperial family who were buried in it.--The story of the flight and death of Nero.--His place of burial.--Ecloge, his nurse.--The tomb of the Flavian emperors, Templum Flaviae Gentis.--Its situation and surroundings.--The death of Domitian.--The mausolea of the Christian emperors.--The tomb and sarcophagus of Helena, mother of Constantine.--Those of Constantia.--The two rotundas built near St. Peter's as imperial tombs.--Discoveries made in them in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.--The priceless relics of Maria, wife of Honorius.--Similar instances of treasure-trove in ancient and modern times.

THE MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS. Ancient writers have left detailed accounts of the last hours of the founder of the Roman Empire. On the morning of the nineteenth of August, anno Domini 14, feeling the approach of death, Augustus inquired of the attendants whether the outside world was concerned at his precarious condition; then he asked for a mirror, and composed his body for the supreme event, as he had long before prepared his mind and soul. Of his friends and the officers of the household he took leave in a cheerful spirit; and as soon as he was left alone with Livia he pa.s.sed away in her arms, saying, "Livia, may you live happily, as we have lived together from the day of our marriage." His death was of the kind he had desired, peaceful and painless. _???a?as?a?_ (an easy end) was the word he used longingly, whenever he heard of any one dying without agony. Once only in the course of the malady he seemed to lose consciousness, when he complained of forty young men crowding around the bed to steal away his body. More than a wandering mind, Suetonius thinks this was a vision or premonition of an approaching event, because forty praetorian soldiers were really to carry the bier in the funeral march. The great man died at Nola, in the same villa and room in which his father, Octavius, had pa.s.sed away years before. His body was transported from village to village, from city to city, along the Appian Way, by the members of each munic.i.p.al council in turn; and, to avoid the intense heat of the Campanian and Pontine lowlands, the procession marched only at night, the bier being kept in the local sanctuaries or town halls during the day. Thus Bovillae (le Frattocchie, at the foot of the Alban hills) was reached. The whole Roman knighthood was here in attendance; the body was carried in triumph, as it were, over the last ten miles of the road, and deposited in the vestibule of the palace on the Palatine Hill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Military funeral evolutions; from the base of the Column of Antoninus.]

Meanwhile proposals were made and resolutions pa.s.sed in the Senate, which went far beyond anything that had ever been suggested in such contingencies of state. One of the members recommended that the statue of Victory which stood in the Curia should be carried before the hea.r.s.e, that lamentations should be sung by the sons and daughters of the senators, and that the pageant, on its way to the Campus Martius, should march through the Porta Triumphalis, which was never opened except to victorious generals. Another member suggested that all cla.s.ses of citizens should put aside their golden ornaments and all articles of jewelry, and wear only iron finger-rings; a third, that the name of "August" should be transferred to the month of September, because the lamented hero was born in the latter and had died in the former. These exaggerated expressions of grief were suppressed, however, and the funeral was organized with the grandest simplicity.

The body was placed in the Forum, in front of the Temple of Julius Caesar, from the _rostra_ of which Tiberius read a panegyric. Another oration was delivered at the opposite end of the Forum by Drusus, the adopted son of Tiberius. Then the senators themselves placed the bier on their shoulders, leaving the city by the Porta Triumphalis. The procession formed by the Senate, the high priesthood, the knights, the army, and the whole population skirted the Circus Flaminius and the Septa Julia, and by the Via Flaminia reached the _ustrinum_, or sacred enclosure for cremation. As soon as the body had been placed on the pyre the "march past" began in the same order, the officers and men of the various army corps making their evolutions or _decursiones_. This word, taken in a general sense, means a long march by soldiers made in a given time and without quitting the ranks; when referring to a funeral ceremony it signifies special evolutions performed three times, in honor of distinguished generals. A _decursio_ is represented on the base of the column of Antoninus Pius, now in the Giardino della Pigna. In that which I am describing, officers and men threw on the pyre the decorations which Augustus had awarded them for their bravery in battle. The privilege of setting fire to the _rogus_ was granted to the captains of the legions whom he had led so often to victory. They approached with averted faces, and, uttering a last farewell, performed their act of duty and respect. The cremation accomplished, and while the glowing embers were being extinguished with wine and perfumed waters, an eagle rose from the ashes as if carrying the soul of the hero to Heaven. Livia and a few officers watched the place for five days and nights, and finally collected the ashes in a precious urn, which they placed in the innermost crypt of the mausoleum which Augustus had built in the Campus Martius forty-two years before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Apotheosis of an Emperor; from the base of the Column of Antoninus.]

Of this monument we have a description by Strabo, and ruins which substantiate the description in its main lines. It was composed of a circular bas.e.m.e.nt of white marble, two hundred and twenty-five feet in diameter, which supported a cone of earth, planted with cypresses and evergreens. On the top of the mound the bronze statue of the emperor towered above the trees.