CHAPTER XIX.

MISCELLANEOUS ANTIQUITIES.

Millearium Aureum-Via Appia-Other Roman Roads-Cloacæ. -Aqueducts-Fountains-Thermæ of Dioclesian-Thermæ of Titus-Thermæ of Caracalla-Thermæ of Agrippa, of Constantine, of Alexander Severus-Circus Maximus-Circus of Maxentius-Temple of Quirinus-Temple of the Sun-Por

ticoes.

IN the Roman Forum, at the west end of the Rostrum, stood the pillar called the Millearium Aureum, on which were inscribed the distances from the Capitol to all the great cities of Italy and of the empire. At this column the Viæ or military roads commenced, diverging in every direction as they left the city, generally running in straight lines as nearly as possible, sometimes cut through the solid rock, and sometimes carried on lofty arches over broad valleys and deep ravines. They were the most remarkable highways ever constructed by any nation in any age. In process of time they were extended to the most distant parts of the empire, and formed a means of easy communication with its remotest provinces.

The most famous of all these military roads was the Via Appia. This was begun by Appius Claudius more than three centuries before Christ. At first it terminated at Capua, but was subsequently continued to Brundusium. It was paved with solid blocks of basaltic lava, exceedingly smooth and hard. These blocks were not square, but polygonal, yet fitted together in the exactest manner. They were from two to three feet in breadth, and from one to two in thickness. The most interesting part of this road from the tomb of Cæcilia Metella to the Alban Hills, has been excavated during the reign of the present pope, under the direction of the eminent and indefatigable Roman archæologist, Commendatore Canina; who, when the work was finished, in 1853, published an interesting ac

count of it in two volumes, with detailed topographical plans, and restorations of the principal monuments.

One fine morning in May, I procured a carriage, and we drove out eight miles on this ancient thoroughfare. Passing the Porta Sebastiano, we met a priest who spoke a little English, and asked him, as our vetturino seemed not to know, which was the way into the Via Appia. 'Oh yes,' he replied, 'it is very happy, you must not fear; it is quite safe for you.' Thus encouraged, though little enlightened, we proceeded, but soon found that we were going astray, and were obliged to take a cross-road, which brought us to the Via Appia near the catacombs of San Sebastiano. From this point, for more than seven miles, it is a continuous street of tombs; none of them entire, and most of them in utter ruin. Among the rest is one, near the fourth milestone, which Canina supposes to be that of Seneca, where he was murdered, by order of Nero, for his endeavours to reform his imperial pupil; and two near the fifth milestone, evidently more ancient than their neighbours, and somewhat Etruscan in their style, which he identifies as the sepulchres of the immortal Horatii and Curiatii. The largest of all these monuments is called Casal Rotondo, about seven miles and a half beyond the city wall. It is built of small fragments of lava, imbedded in a strong cement; and was originally encased in large blocks of travertine, and covered with a conical roof. Travertine and conical roof, however, long since disappeared under the hand of the spoiler; and there is now upon the top of it a farm-house, with outbuildings, and a garden of olives. It is not certain to whom this majestic mausoleum belonged, but an inscription discovered in the course of a late excavation has led to the belief that it was reared by Marcus Aurelius Messalinus Cotta, who was Consul in the twentieth year of our era, in honour of his father, the orator and poet, Messala Corvinus-the friend of Augustus and Horace, who died nine years before. If this opinion be correct, this monument was built to perpetuate the name of the dead, while he who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through his gospel,' was personally upon the earth.

My remarks on the sepulchre of Cæcilia Metella I re

serve for another chapter. The fragments of fine statuary and beautifully wrought marbles, which lie scattered along the way, are truly a melancholy sight. In some places the road is actually macadamized with these fragments, which have been broken up for this purpose. Much of the distance, however, the ancient pavement is nearly perfect, and here and there one sees something of the narrow sidewalk with its curbstones-the very pavement over which rolled the wheels of Augustus, and the very sidewalk trodden by the weary-footed Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,' as he came to stand before his imperial pagan judge.

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The Via Aurelia was more extensive than the Via Appia. Reaching the Mediterranean coast at Alsium, it ran along the shore to Genoa, and thence to Forum Julium in Gaul. Besides these, there were the Via Latina, the Via Labicana, the Via Collatina, the Via Prenestina, the Via Tiburtina, the Via Nomentana, the Via Carniola, the Via Veientana, the Via Salaria, the Via Flaminia, the Via Cassia, the Via Claudia, the Via Vitellea, the Via Laurentina, the Via Ardeatina, the Via Portuensis, the Via Ostiensis, and perhaps several more. Most of these were constructed in the same manner as the Via Appia, though in some instances they were paved with large rectangular blocks of hewn stone, joined so closely as to appear but one continuous rock. These great military ways are among the most remarkable memorials of the Roman power. You meet with their remains in every direction across the wild campagna; and some of them may still be traced a hundred miles from the capital. They have resisted alike the influence of time, and the march of marshalled hosts, with the roll of triumphal chariots, and the heavy engines of war; and where they have not been torn up by human hands, or shaken to pieces by earthquakes, or undermined by torrents, they are as perfect now as they were two thousand years ago.

Another of the most noticeable relics of ancient Rome -remarkable as well for its utility as its antiquity and solidity is the Cloaca Maxima. This is an arched subterranean gallery, sixteen feet wide and thirty feet high, constructed in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, for the purpose of draining the city. It was built by Etruscan

hands, in the Etruscan style-that is, with large square blocks of travertine, nicely fitted together without cramps or cement. So solid is the structure that it remains as perfect, after the chariot-wheels of twenty-four centuries have rolled over it as it was in the day of its completion.

Communicating with this great sewer were many smaller ones of like construction, also called Cloaca, carried under the city in every direction, sufficiently large for a boat or a loaded car to pass through them. To cleanse them, streams from the aqueducts were turned into them, and torrents rushed through them with a force which would soon have torn to pieces any ordinary masonry of our day, and swept the fragments into the Tiber. Since the ruin of the aqueducts, the expense of clearing them from time to time has been enormous, and on one occasion amounted to more than six hundred thousand dollars. Notwithstanding the immense superincumbent weight of modern buildings and ancient,ruins, these gigantic works for the chief part still remain entire, serving to drain the present as they did the former city, and exciting often in the tourist a wonder equal to that which they produced in the Gothic conqueror.

Of all the ruins of imperial Rome, the most stupendous are the broken arches of its aqueducts. From the city wall you see them stretching away across the dreary campagna for six or seven miles; and in some places where they cross the little valleys, they are a hundred feet high. The original structures were of stone, but many of the additions and repairs are of brick. There were nine of these aqueducts on this side the Tiber, and three on the other. One of the nine conveyed the water more than sixty miles. Two of them were carried more than twenty miles over these lofty arches. The others were partly subterranean. The first was built by Appius Claudius, as its name indicates, three hundred and eleven years before Christ. Two others dated from the days of the republic; but the rest were all of imperial origin. They were all broken and destroyed by the barbarians in the sixth century; but three of them have been restored by the popes, and still serve to supply Rome with abundance of pure and salubrious water from the distant mountains.

The streams from these aqueducts anciently flowed into large reservoirs, elevated on towers called Castella, whence it was distributed over the city. These towers were massive and solid structures, and some of them were very magnificent, being faced with marble, and adorned with pillars and statuary. The number of public reservoirs, from their extent and depth called lakes, is supposed to have been over a thousand. The fountains also were exceedingly numerous and tastefully ornamented. Agrippa alone, according to Pliny, opened a hundred and thirty in one year, and beautified them with three hundred statues of brass and marble. Strabo tells us that such a quantity of water was introduced into the city, that whole rivers seemed to flow through the streets and sewers; and every house, by means of conduits and cisterns, was furnished with an unfailing supply. If the Claudian aqueduct alone afforded eight hundred thousand tons of water a day, how copious must have been this grand provision for the popular convenience! When the utility of these public works is considered, one does not wonder at their estimate by Frontonius, who preferred them to the idle bulk of the Egyptian pyramids, and to the more graceful though less profitable edifices of Greece.

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Only three of these aqueducts are now in use; yet Rome is better supplied, perhaps, with good water than any other city in the world. Its streets, courts, and squares are adorned with numerous fountains; not throwing up each a mere thread of water into the air, or distilling a few drops into a dirty basin; but pouring forth magnificent jets and torrents, which never intermit nor diminish. Fontana di Paolina, just under the brow of the Janiculum, is the source of three rivers, which drive a dozen flourmills, and all the other machinery of the Trastevera. And there are several others--as the Fontana di Trevi in the centre of the city, that on the Quirinal, where Moses stands smiting the rock, the two in front of St. Peter's, and those of the Piazza Navona, of the Piazza di Spagna, of the Piazza del Popolo-which rival this in the grandeur of their arrangements, and the quantity of water which they yield.

With the aqueducts and fountains of imperial Rome are