RAMBLES IN ROME.

"If you are visiting Rome, you will find in this book a high-class companion and guide. Try it, and see the difference between the mere guide-book produced by the trade to sell, and the chatty, masterly production of a writer of ability and taste."—C. H. Spurgeon.

Rambles in Rome

An ArchÆological and Historical Guide

TO THE

MUSEUMS, GALLERIES, VILLAS, CHURCHES,
AND ANTIQUITIES OF ROME AND
THE CAMPAGNA.

By

S. RUSSELL FORBES,
ArchÆological and Historical Lecturer on Roman Antiquities.

Fifth Edition,
Revised and Enlarged; embracing all the Recent
Excavations and Discoveries.

WITH MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON: THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

ROME: S. RUSSELL FORBES, 93 VIA BABUINO.
1887.

RAMBLES IN ROME.

CORRECTIONS, ALTERATIONS, AND DISCOVERIES
TO SEPTEMBER 1889.

Page 9. Some of the columns of the Temple of Neptune have been isolated.

Page 45. Plan.—A is the Shrine of Janus. B, Inscription to Constantinus II., 357 A.D. C, Pedestal to Statue of Constantine (Eusebius, E. H., ix. 9, "Life of Constantine I.," 40 and 48). D, Inscription to Arcadius, Honorius, and Theodosius.

Page 56, sixth line from bottom, for at the same time read in 1503.

Page 60, sixth line from bottom, for S. Bonaventura read the Ædem Larum.

Page 72, line 19, for inside read outside.

Page 76, line 23, for Scipio read Regulus.

Page 77, sixth line from bottom, for second read third, 299–296.

Page 103. The Apollo Theatre is pulled down.

Page 118, line 21, for Monsignor Macchi read the Maggiordomo; also at page 124, third line from bottom.

Page 121. Vatican Galleries.—Second line, for 3rd and 4th objects read—3. S. Giovanni della Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers Schools, by C. Manani, 1888. 4. Jesuits Martyred in Japan, by Peter Gagliardi.

Second Room.—No. 12, read S. Grata of Bergamo, with the head of her lover, S. Alexander of the Theban legion, by Peter Loverini, 1887.

Page 126. Hall of Busts.—For 280 read 273, the young Augustus. For 282 read 272, and for 285 read 292.

Page 127. Cabinet of Masks.—For 427 read 425. For 428 read 427. After Alcamenes, line 10, read 436, Venus of Cnidos, by Praxiteles. For 436 read 441. Omit 441, Ganymedes, and for 442 read 443.

Page 129. Chiaramonti Corridor.—For 635 read 636. Omit 416, Augustus as a Youth. Insert 372a, A Fragment from the Parthenon, by Phidias. Omit 112, Venus of Cnidos. For 484 read 483, Cupid. 639 read Soemia.

Page 130. Braccio Nuovo.—For 92 read 38B. For 96A read 97A. Insert 112, a fine bust of Juno as queen of heaven.

Page 136. Torlonia Museum closed to the public.

Page 140, line 19, for by the new road read Via Luciano Manara.

Page 147. Borghese Gallery.—Permission necessary. To be obtained at the palace, on the days the gallery is opened, before 1 P.M.

Page 160. Kircherian Museum.—The objects have been arranged in cases on the walls instead of down the centre of the rooms. Third Room.—For at end on left read in front of the window.

Page 175. Capitoline Museum.—36. Omit whose bust it now supports; insert a porphyry fragment. 41. For Antoninus Pius read Claudius. 49, 50. After Pius read destroyed in 1665 by Alexander VI.

Page 179. Omit 23. Mercury.

Page 180. Terra-cotta Room.—Omit a large jar, down to urn.

Page 181. Omit the case, line 21, down to Pia.

Page 183. Courtyard.—For 2 and 3 read 4 and 6; for 3 and 18 read 5 and 7; for 7 read 9; for 8 and 13 read 18 and 10.

Lower Corridor.—For 3 read 4; for 5 read 8; for 7 read 18; for 8 read 21; for 10 read 23; for 14 read 35; for 15 read 36; for 16 read 37; for 17 read 38; for 18. Porphyry read 39. Original.

No. 3. A votive altar dedicated to the imperial house, on the left side of which is a personification of the Via Appia reclining on a wheel, similar to Trajan's Relief on the Arch of Constantine.

No. 6. Egyptian statuette, with the cartouch of Rameses II., found on Via Nazionale. The base upon which it stands is inscribed to Fabius Cilone, prefect of Rome under Septimius Severus, who had performed the annual sacrifice to Hercules at the Ara Maxima, at the entrance to the Circus Maximus. No. 13 is a companion inscription, a circular vase offered by Catius Sabinus, prefect of Rome, who performed the annual sacrifice at the great altar of Hercules. It was found at the back of S. Maria in Cosmedin.

No. 17. Inscription to Hercules the leader of the Muses by the Consul M. F. Nobilior, 189 B.C., from the temple which stood in the Portico of Philip, now S. Ambrogio.

Nos. 2 and 3 in the courtyard are the two Egyptian lions from the Temple of Isis, which in the sixteenth century were placed at the foot of the ascent to the Capitol, and removed here in 1885.

Nos. 13 and 14. Two columns from the same temple found in 1883.

No. 32. Sphinx in red granite. 33. Vase in basalt, Villa Hadrian. Altar sacred to Isis. On the left side is Harpocrates, the god of silence; on the right, Anubis, the Egyptian Mercury. 34. Sphinx in basalt, with the cartouch of Amasi II., 550 B.C. 44 and 51. Monkey-gods of Pharaoh Nectanebus I., 370 B.C. 49. Crocodile in red granite. With the exception of the vase, all these objects came from the Temple of Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, founded, B.C. 100, by Apuleius II., and rebuilt by Domitian (Suetonius, "Dom." v.).

Hall of Mosaics.—On right in entering, inscription to Nerva, by Septimius Severus, A.D. 194, used in 1676 by the city Conservatori to record their privileges.

8. Mosaic Head of an Athlete. 9. The Sea with fish, and a border of foliage and birds, from the Baths of Olympia, Viminal Hill. 10. The Rape of Proserpina (the names of the horses are written in Greek), from a tomb on the Via Portuense. 12. Representation of a Bath, from the PrÆtorian Camp. 14. Hercules conquered by Love. 18. A veiled woman presenting a statuette to a seated nude figure, probably Mercury: a beautiful work. 24. Personification of the Month of May. 27. An Inundation of the Nile. 28. A Ship entering a Port. In the centre of the room,

ALTAR OF THE LARES.

In the month of August 1888, on the Via Arenula, the new street leading to the new Ponte Garibaldi, at the corner of the Via di S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari, the last street on the right which leads up to the reputed House and School of S. Paul, at the depth of twenty-seven feet (which shows how the soil has accumulated here), another of the Lares Compitales of the time of Augustus was discovered. It is a square marble altar with a beautiful cornice, which is, unfortunately, broken. On the front is a relief representing four men at a sacrifice, with bay crowns upon their veiled heads. A bull and a pig are by assistants being led up to sacrifice—the bull to the Genius CÆsarum, and the pig to the Lares. On each side of the altar is the figure of a youth, the titular deities; and at the back a crown.

Above the relief in front is the inscription,—

It was dedicated to the Lares of Augustus by four officials of a street nine years after Augustus had restored the street shrines. That was in 6 B.C. (Dion Cassius, lv. 8); so this altar was erected in A.D. 3.

On the right side under the cornice is inscribed,—

and on the left side,—

evidently the names of two of the officials.

The altar stands on a travertine base, on which is written,—

which is valuable as giving us the name of the street Vicus Æscletus, Beech Street.

This is the first mention we have of this street. The victors of the Pythian games were crowned with a chaplet made of beech leaves before the bay (laurel) was used; hence Ovid,—

Suetonius ("Augustus," xxx.) says, "He divided the city into regions and streets, ordaining that the annual magistrates should take by lot the charge of the former, and that the latter should be superintended by wardens chosen out of the people of each neighbourhood." Pliny ("N. H.," iii. 9) says, "The city is divided into fourteen regions, with two hundred and sixty-five cross streets under the guardianship of the Lares."

The pedestal of the Apollo, leader of the Muses (No. 516), in the Vatican Museum, is an altar dedicated to the Laribus Augustis, Genius CÆsarum, by four street officials; on the left of which is the Genius of Augustus, similar to the statue, 555, in the Sala Rotonda.

If the Jewish tradition is correct, that the House of S. Paul was at the angle of the Via S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari and the Via degli Strengari; and if the Romish Church tradition is true, that he had a school (room shown) at the Church of S. Paola alla Regola, on the Via S. Paola alla Regola, a continuation of the Via S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari; then we have at last arrived at the name of the street where the apostle dwelt for two whole years in his own hired house, 62 to 64,—namely, the Vicus Æscletus, probably so called because it led to a grove of beech trees, Æsculus being corrupted into Æscletus.

Pliny (xvi. 15) speaks of this grove: "Q. Hortensius, the dictator, on the secession of the plebeians to the Janiculum (A.U.C. 466), passed a law in the Æsculetum, that what the plebeians had enacted should be binding on every Roman citizen."

Second Room.—The walls are encased with inscriptions. On the left is a fragment of a Roman calendar, found in 1888 near S. Martino di Monti. It represents the 1st to 3rd, 18th to 29th of April, and 1st to 4th of May. On the door is part of a Lex Horreorum of the time of Hadrian. These magazines were situated near Monte Testaccio. On the right of window inscription of Lucius Aquilinus Modestus, master of the guild of timber merchants at Ostia. On the door opposite, inscription dedicated to the imperial house by a college of health found near Monte Testaccio.

Third Room.—In the centre is the pedestal of the statue of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, which Pliny (xxxiv. 14) tells us was erected in the Portico of Octavia, where it was found in 1879. On right of door, fragment of the inscription recording Hadrian burning the bonds in Trajan's Forum in 118; a part of the inscription is in Trajan's Forum. By the window, inscription to Aulus Septicius Alexander, a seller of floral wreaths on the Via Sacra. By the next window, a dedication to Concord by Marcus Artorius Geminus, prefect of the military treasury, from the Temple of Concord in the Forum. Inscription to Nero and PoppÆa, wishing them good health, on behalf of the governor of the Balearic Islands, A.D. 60. Fragment of a Fasti, A.D. 220. A fragment of the Maffeiano Calendar. On the next wall, inscription of Lucius Considius Gallus, prÆtor for the strangers, etc.

Page 184. Hall of Inscriptions: First Room.—No. 11. Sarcophagus representing hunting of wild animals. 18. Cippus to Faustina the elder, erected by an official of the treasury, found near the Temple of Saturn in the Forum. 19. Head of Giuba II., King of Numidia. 26. Base dedicated to Hercules Victorious. 28. Sarcophagus of a boar and stag hunt. 30. Sarcophagus, Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, from third room. (See at foot of page 183.)

Near the door, inscription of a monument to Marcus Calpurnius Piso Frugi, B.C. 88, restored by Trajan. Over the door, inscription of the guild of bargemen of Ostia, A.D. 193.

Page 185, line 2, for 2 read 3; for 6 read 4; for 12, 13 read 15, 17; for 15 read 19.

Page 186, line 7, for 5 read 20.

Page 187. Hall of Emperors.—A fine head of Augustus, found, 1889, on Via Merulana, represents him crowned with a wreath of myrtle in commemoration of the ovation celebrated by him (Pliny, xv. 38).

Page 192. Ghetto.—The Via Rua and other streets of the Jews' Quarter have been demolished.

Page 194. The new bridge, Ponte Garibaldi, is approached by the new Via Arenula.

Page 196. The Spada Palace is closed to the public.

Page 199. The Pons Cestius is being rebuilt.

Page 201. The Ponte Rotto has been destroyed by the municipality, and a new bridge, Ponte Palatino, has been built alongside the site of the old one.

Page 208. The Wall of the Latins.—This is now best seen from the new road, Via di Porta S. Paolo.

Page 212. The Cloaca Maxima.—For 530 read 615. The exit is now covered by the new embankment of the Tiber.

Page 222, line 14, for by entering the stonemason's yard, read in the new excavations.

Page 248. Museo Urbino.—Not yet opened to the public.

Page 254, line 11, for close by read in the Via Urbana.

Page 255, tenth line from bottom, for we come to where read at the junction of the new Via Cavour, the Via Giovanni Lanza; and

Page 258, line 21, for Paul read Pius.

NEW NATIONAL MUSEUM—Page 265.

The Government is forming in the old monastery, amidst the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, a museum, composed of the objects found on Government property since 1870. It promises to be one of the most interesting collections in Rome. Amongst the objects of primary importance we may mention the Ceres, found in the Stadium of Domitian on the Palatine, 1878. The Apollo Ægioclus from Hadrian's Villa. The bronze Meleager by Lysippus, found in February 1885 amidst the ruins of the ThermÆ of Constantine on the Quirinal Hill. The Boxer, also in bronze, found in the same place in April of the same year. This is the most realistic statue preserved from ancient days. The youth Bacchus, in bronze, found in the Tiber, September 1885; probably by Praxiteles, or of his school.

Page 269. Ludovisi Museum closed to the public.

Page 284, last line but 13, for palace read PrÆtorian Camp.

Page 299. Sixth line. At the tenth mile carriages cannot now pass into the Via Appia Nuova. From the eighth to the eleventh mile it is now practicable to walkers only.

NEW ETRUSCAN MUSEUM—Page 305.

The Government have formed in the Villa of Papa Julio a museum of the objects recently discovered at Civita Castellana, the ancient Etruscan city of Falerii. Our young friends will remember the Schoolmaster and his Pupils. The objects are arranged in cases round the rooms, and are of great interest; but they are considerably mixed as regards their epochs. Three periods are represented—Native, Etruscan, and Greek. Instead of these being arranged in distinct cases, they are mixed up in nearly every case. Some of the vases are fine works of art, whilst all are interesting. The wooden coffins, hollowed out of trees, should be examined; also the skull with the gold band, which formerly supported four false teeth.

Page 315. Dr. Forbes's excursion is on Friday.

ROMAN DIRECTORY.