CHAPTER VII
ROME: THE IMPERIAL CITY
In the year 64 the capital of the Roman Empire was, it is true, a large and splendid city and an "epitome of the world," but it had not yet reached either its zenith of splendour or its maximum, of size. Many of the largest and most sumptuous structures of which we possess the records, and in most cases the ruins, were not yet built or even contemplated. There was no Colosseum; there were no Baths of Trajan, Caracalla, or Diocletian. The Column of Trajan, still soaring in the Foro Traiano, and of Marcus Aurelius, now so conspicuous in the Piazza Colonna, are of a later date. So also are the three great triumphal arches which are still standing—those of Titus, Severus, and Constantine. The Mausoleum of Hadrian, now stripped of its outward magnificence of marble and sculpture, and known as the Castle of Sant' Angelo, was not built for two generations. On the Palatine Hill the palaces of the Caesars were wide and lofty, but not more than half so spacious and imposing as they became by the end of the following century.
Down in the Forum there stood no Basilica of Constantine; the place of several later temples and shrines was occupied by edifices of less dignity; many columns and statues, and much ornament of gilt or marble, were still to come. Beside and beyond the two embellished public places which had been added to the public comfort and convenience by Julius Caesar and Augustus, and which were known respectively as the Julian and the Augustan Forum, lay only the houses of citizens or streets of shops. Up from the Forum towards the later Arch of Titus and the Colosseum, the "Upper Sacred Way" ran as but a narrow road between buildings for the most part of ordinary character, principally shops catering for luxury. It was later by two centuries and a half that this street was converted into a broad avenue forming a worthy approach to the "hub of the universe."
In the ruins which lie on the Palatine Hill, or along the valley of the Forum below, or up the Sacred Slope towards the Colosseum, or across where the streets wind round from the "Roman" Forum through the Forum of Trajan to the Corso, the modern visitor to the Eternal City does not behold simply the remnants of the temples, halls, squares, and arches which actually existed in the days of Nero. We must not say of these places that St. Paul trod the very paving-stones or gazed on the very walls which we now find in their worn and broken state. In a few cases it may be so; in most it is certainly otherwise. Either the building was not there, or what we now behold is part of a reconstruction or an enlargement. Fire, flood, earthquake and the wear and tear of time called for many a rebuilding or restoration. In the very year upon which we have fixed, there swept over all this part of the city perhaps the most disastrous fire that it ever experienced. Another only a little less destructive occurred in A.D. 283, and when we say that the remains of the glory of ancient Rome are still visible in the excavated Forum, we must recognise that the glory which they represent is the glory of the place as restored after that year.
This does not mean that the general plan and appearance were markedly different under Nero, nor that there was any lack of magnificence; it is only meant by way of caution against a frequent misconception.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
If there was no Arch of Severus in the Forum, there was an Arch of Augustus, near the Temple of Castor, surmounted by his statue in the four-horsed chariot of the conqueror, and there was an Arch of Tiberius near the temple of Saturn. If to the north there was as yet no bridge or "castle" of Sant' Angelo to celebrate the dead Hadrian, there was, on the near side of the Tiber, not far from the modern Piazza del Popolo, a splendid Mausoleum of the deified Augustus and his family. In the chief Forum the Temples of Vesta, of Julius Caesar, of Castor, Saturn, and Concord existed under Nero in the same spots and in much the same style as they did through all the remainder of Roman history. Above them towered the Capitoline Hill, with its resplendent Temple of Jupiter on the one summit and its great shrine of Juno on the other. Beyond, in the "Field of Mars"—the site of the densest part of modern Rome—was an almost continuous cluster of public buildings and resorts, of theatres, temples—including the first form of that incomparable edifice, the Pantheon, the only building of ancient Rome which still remains practically whole—of baths, porticoes, and enclosed promenades.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—SOME REMAINS OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT.]
Away in the opposite direction stretched the Appian Way, and in the year 64 the beautiful tomb of Caecilia Metella, which is so familiar in picture, stood as perhaps the noblest among the multitude of patrician tombs. The Apostle Paul certainly passed close by it on his way from Puteoli. The aqueduct, of which so many arches still meet the eye as you cross the Campagna, was the work of Nero's predecessor, Claudius, and it still bears his name—the Aqua Claudia. Where now you go out of the gate to St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls there stood—more free and visible than now—that pyramid of Cestius, close to whose shadow lie the graves of the English Shelley and Keats. There was no gate at this spot in the days of Nero, for the great wall, of which so many portions—more or less restored—are still conspicuous, had no existence till a much later date, when the empire was already tottering to its fall, and when Aurelian was driven to recognise that the heart of the empire, after remaining secure for centuries, must at last look to be assailed. There was, it is true, an inner wall of ancient date (to be seen upon the plan) which had enclosed the "Seven Hills" before Rome was mistress of more than her own small environment. But the city had long ago overflowed this boundary, and the newer quarters lay as open to the country as do our own modern cities.
How far the suburbs stretched, or precisely how far Rome proper extended, in the days of Nero, is no easy matter to decide. We shall in all probability be near the mark if we accept the line of the later wall of Aurelian as practically the limit of what might be included in the "Metropolitan Area." The total circumference of the whole city would be about twelve English miles, a circuit which fell somewhat short of that of Alexandria and probably of Antioch, although in actual importance these cities took but the second and third rank respectively.
Some parts within this line were thickly inhabited, in some the houses must have been but sparse. Particularly along the upper slopes of the hills—of the Pincian, Quirinal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine—were the spacious houses and gardens of the wealthy. The Palatine was almost, though not completely, monopolised by the emperors' palaces and sundry temples. The Campus Martius was mostly a region of public buildings and grounds for promenade and exercise, although some of the finest shops stood very close to where they stand to-day, in that Flaminian Way which is now called the Corso of Humbert. On one side below the Palatine Hill, space was taken up by the vast Circus or racing-ground; on the other lay the public places known as the Fora. It was left for the poorer inhabitants to crowd themselves into the valleys of the town, either between the Forum and the spurs of the several hills which trend towards the centre—up under Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, or Caelian—to the left behind the buildings as you now go from the bottom of the Forum to the Colosseum; or between the Forum and the Tiber in the low-lying ground called the Velabrum and there-abouts; or else across the river in that "Transtiberine" region which still bears the name of Trastevere.
If, therefore, it is asked what may have been the Population of Neronian Rome, it need cause no surprise if the number should appear comparatively small to one who is accustomed to our huge modern towns. Rome had never been a seat of manufactures. Its wealth and luxury came almost wholly from its empire, and it was emphatically a city for the rich and ruling classes. In Nero's day it was still growing, and even in its fullest times it is doubtful if the population ever exceeded or even reached a million and a quarter. Perhaps for the year 64 we may most safely put it down at about 750,000.
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Now suppose yourself to be standing at F in the recognised centre of Roman life, the "Roman Forum." Here, before we begin our rapid exploration of the city, it is well to clear our minds of one false notion which too commonly prevails. Think of any modern town you please, and remember that, whatever may be the accumulation of architectural magnificence around any given spot, the people of that town treat it all with familiarity and without any waste of sentiment. They will set up their shops or stalls wherever they are allowed; they will carry on their traffic and their amusements; they will saunter and sit on steps and misbehave without feeling oppressed by any appreciable awe of their surroundings. So was it, and even more so, in ancient Rome. The fact that there were shrines or public buildings on all sides did not prevent the Romans from loitering and loafing in the Forum, from sitting on the steps of a temple or a basilica, or leaning against its columns or statues, or playing at a sort of draughts or of backgammon on its marble platforms—the lines to put the "men" upon are here and there still visible upon the pavements—or even scratching a name or a drawing on a pillar. In certain parts the Forum was alive with the bustle of financial business and, doubtless under certain limitations, with the traffic of the pedlar. Curiosities were exhibited, the crier shouted his advertisements, and, in short, the place was almost as freely used for the vulgar purposes of ordinary life as for the dignified gatherings and ceremonies which to our minds appear so much more appropriate to it. Though we are not yet dealing with the social life of Rome, whether indoor or outdoor, it seems advisable to make this observation before proceeding.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—THE ROSTRA: BACK VIEW. (Probable restoration for A.D. 64.)]
Let us now stand at F and look about us toward the Capitol, noting only the chief features of the scene. The reader would do well to consider the plan along with the frontispiece to this book. We are upon an open space paved with marble slabs, round which stand sundry honorary statues and various minor monuments into which we need not now enquire. Facing us, toward the far end, is a platform about 80 feet long and 11 feet in height, with marble facing. A trellis-work rail, or pierced screen, runs along it at either side, and also extends along the front for one-third of the distance from either end. The one-third in the middle of the front is open. This platform is approached by a flight of steps at the back, while in the sheer face are set as ornaments rows of bronze "beaks" or "rams" cut from ships captured in war. From these "beaks" the platform obtains its name—the Rostra. It is the platform for harangues delivered to the Roman people—the Roman citizens who are politely assumed to be the body politic—and the open space on the front is the position for the orator. It is from this stand that important announcements are made to the people at large. An emperor or his nominee may speak from it; a magistrate may deliver some pronouncement; a political exhortation may be uttered; in the case of a public funeral, or even of the private obsequies in some eminent family, an oration over the deceased may be spoken with that finished and animated elocution which the Romans so zealously cultivated, and which the Italians still affect with no little success. It is not indeed the same platform as was used by Cicero and the orators of the republic: this stood elsewhere, and doubtless the substance of public speaking had declined deplorably since that day. Nevertheless many a torrent of rich and sonorous Latin must have streamed over the Forum from that noble standing-place, and it must still have been worth while for a Roman to develop both his speaking voice and his oratorical art. Still further back, to the right behind the Rostra, there stands the Temple of Concord, where the Senate in older times gathered on more than one occasion to listen to Cicero, and where the emperors have formed practically a gallery of works of art; to the left is the Temple of Saturn, long used as the Roman Treasury, of which eight pillars still remain as perhaps the most conspicuous feature among the existing ruins. Another object in the background to the left, at the rear of the Rostra, will be a stone pillar coated with gilded bronze, upon which the first emperor, Augustus, inscribed the names of the great roads leading out from Rome into the length and breadth of the empire, with a list of the chief towns to which those roads would take you, and their distances. The name of this pillar is the "Golden Milestone." Behind these objects, running along the high face of the Capitoline Hill, are visible the arcades of the Record Office, of which the greater portion still exists, though stripped of its architectural graces and built over and about in more modern times, in the state represented in FIG. 18. Still higher on the summit to the left, with its gilded tiles glistening in the sun—at least they were gilded within the next few years—rises the most sacred structure of all, the building most closely identified in the Roman mind with the eternity of the empire. This is the splendid temple of Jove, Supreme and Most Benign. Of this edifice nothing considerable except its platform now remains, its site being occupied by an object of which the existence would have been inconceivable to the ancient Roman—to wit, the German Embassy. On the other summit, a fortified citadel to your right stands the temple of the consort of Jupiter. In this shrine she was known as Juno Moneta, and since, attached to her temple in this citadel, was the office of the Roman coinage, her name Moneta has become familiar to modern mouths in the form of "the Mint." If you seek the place of this temple now, you must look for it under the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—RUINS OF FORUM.]
[Illustration: Photo, Anderson. (Record Office in background with modern building above.)]
Next, instead of looking up at the hill, glance to your left, and you will see running along that side of the Forum, beside the Sacred Way, a spacious public building known as the Basilica of Julius, that is to say, of Julius Caesar. It is an edifice of a type familiar in cities of the Roman world. You mount the steps from the Sacred Way and find yourself under an outer two-storied arcade suitable for lounging or promenading while discussing business or gossip with your friends. Passing from this inwards you are in a building which consists of a covered colonnade, or nave, about 270 feet in length, with a row of pillars on either hand. On each side is a gallery, or upper floor, from which spectators may look down upon the interior, or, from the outer side, upon the open Forum. At the far end is a recess with a raised tribunal, shut off, if necessary, by railings. In other basilicas there may be an apse at this point, similarly enclosed. This serves as a court of justice, round which the curious may stand, or upon which listening spectators may gaze from the ends of the galleries above. Meanwhile up and down the open space of the nave all kinds of verbal business may be transacted by appointment, exactly as such business used to be carried on in old St. Paul's Cathedral in London or in churches elsewhere. In what may be called the inner side-aisle are situated offices of various kinds, including those of sundry public corporations, boards, or commissions. The whole of this great hall is paved with coloured marbles; its pillars are coated with marble; its ceiling is adorned with painting and gilt; it is embellished with statues; and it is lighted from above by a clerestory. Though the question has been debated, it is almost certain that it was mainly from buildings like this, or from rooms similarly constructed in palatial houses, that the early Church developed its basilicas—with their nave, aisles, and clerestory, and with their railed apse at the end, where was placed the chair of the bishop on its dais. Across the Forum on the opposite side, to your right, lies another structure of the same kind, in artistic respects more excellent. In this, the Basilica Aemilia, the chief business was that of the bankers and money-changers, although it served various other purposes according to convenience.
If you could see round the farther end of this basilica to the right, you would perceive the beginning of one of the busiest streets in Rome—the Argiletum—chiefly known to fame as a favourite quarter of the booksellers, who fasten on their door-posts, or on the pillars which support a balcony or upper floor, the lists of the newest or most popular publications to be bought within. And where that street enters the Forum, though standing back a little from your line of vision—perhaps you can catch sight of the top of it over the corner of the Basilica—is the temple-like Senate-House with its offices. Here is the meeting-place of the six hundred who nominally govern jointly with the emperor. If you visit Rome to-day you will find the greater part of the actual chamber, though miserably despoiled, bearing the name of the church of S. Adriano.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.—N.E. OF FORUM, A.D. 64. (Complementary to frontispiece.)
From left: in background, Record Office, with Temple of Concord and Rostra below; on summit, Temple of Juno and Citadel; below, Prison, with shrine of Janus in front. To right: Basilica Aemilia, with gable of Senate-House beyond. (Largely after Tognetti.)]
The little building, half arch, half shrine, which you observe standing free where the roads converge upon the Forum, is the famous sanctuary of Janus, of which the doors are never shut unless there is complete peace throughout the Roman world. So long as Rome is anywhere engaged in a great or little war, the open doors of Janus tell the fact to a people which might otherwise be unconscious of so slight or remote a circumstance.
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[Illustration: FIG. 20.—TEMPLE OF FORTUNA AUGUSTA. (Pompeii.)]
We need not describe in detail the temple of Castor, or rather of the "Twin Brethren," which stands immediately to your left, or that of the deified Julius Caesar, which is just behind you, on the spot where the body of the great dictator was burned. It is perhaps more interesting to note the ordinary—though not by any means the only—form of the Roman temple in general. Those who have seen the so-called Maison Carrée at Nimes will possess a fair notion of the commonest or most typical shape and arrangement. For the most part we have a rather lofty platform, mounted from one end by steps, which are flanked by walls or balustrades, often bearing at their extremities equestrian statues or other appropriate figures. Upon the platform stands the temple proper, consisting of a chamber containing the statue of the god. Where more than one deity are combined in the same temple—as in that of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, where the supreme deity has Juno and Minerva to left and right of him—there may either be as many separate chambers or as many chapel-like bays as there are deities. The altar for sacrifice stands outside opposite the entrance, being placed either upon the top of the main platform or more commonly on a minor platform of its own in the middle of the steps. In most cases the chamber stands back behind a row, in some instances two rows, of columns, which support the characteristic entablature seen in the illustrations. In the case of the more grandiose temples a series of columns may run all round the building, carrying an extension of the roof, under which is thus formed a covered colonnade. More commonly the sides and back of the chamber have only what are known as "engaged" columns, as it were half-embedded in the wall. The roof is gabled and tiled, with ornaments along the eaves. The front has an embellished entablature, with its triangle of masonry called the "pediment," consisting of a cornice overhanging a sunken surface decorated with a sculptured group. Over each angle, right, left, and summit, is a base of stone supporting some conspicuous ornament, such as a statue, an eagle, or a figure in a chariot. In the middle of the front of the building, behind the columns of the portico, are double doors, commonly made of decorated bronze, with an open grating of the same metal above them. The whole is outwardly of marble, either all white or with colour in the pillars, but the core of at least the platform is commonly made of the immensely strong Roman concrete, or else of blocks of the less beautiful and costly kinds of stone.
In point of architectural style the Romans of this date—who in artistic matters were but imitators of the Greeks and far less certain in taste than their masters—affected the Corinthian, as being the most florid. Even this they could not leave in its native purity, but for the most part converted it into Graeco-Roman or composite varieties. A prime fault of the Roman taste was then, as it has always been, a love of gorgeousness, of excessive and obtrusive ornament. In almost any Roman church of to-day we find the walls and pillars stuck about with figures, slabs, and so-called decorations to such an extent that the finer lines and proportions are often ruined, The ancient Roman likewise was commonly under the impression that the more decoration you added, the more magnificent was the building. There were doubtless many buildings in simpler and purer taste, probably executed by Greek artists under the authority of some Roman who happened to possess a finer judgment or less self-assertiveness. Nevertheless the fault of over-elaboration is distinctly Roman.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—SO-CALLED TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL AT TIVOLI.]
We must not omit to say that, besides temples of this typical rectangular form, there were others of a round shape, encircled by columns, like that graceful structure at Tivoli commonly, though mistakenly, known as the temple of the Sibyl, and that small building which still exists in an impoverished condition near the Tiber, and which used to bear the erroneous title of the temple of Vesta. Others again were simply round and domed, like the true temple of Vesta in the Forum, or the superb and impressive Pantheon in the Campus Martius. So far as the bare round was broken in these cases, it was either by a pillared portico, as with the Pantheon, or by engaged columns and ornament, as with the true temple of Vesta.
The mention of the temple of Vesta reminds us that it is time to face about, and, passing behind the temple of Julius, to look in the opposite direction, from V. Before us lies this circular shrine, a form gradually developed from the primitive round hut which once served as house to the prehistoric ancestors of the Roman stock. As it was the duty of the maiden daughters of that ancient tribe to keep alight the fire upon the domestic hearth, so through all the history of Rome it was the duty of certain chosen virgins to keep perpetually burning the hearth-fire of the city. The roof of the temple is open in the middle, and you may perhaps see the smoke issuing from it. But if you are a male, you may not enter. No man, except the chief Pontifex, may set foot inside the shrine of the virgin goddess, who is attended by virgin priestesses. Close behind the temple stands the house of these Vestals. They are in a large measure the ancient prototype of the modern nun, and their house is the prototype of the convent. Six nobly-born young women, sworn to chastity, and dressed in a ritual garb, live in an edifice of much magnificence under the rule of one who is the chief Vestal, a sort of Mother Superior. Many pedestals of the statues of such chief priestesses still remain, and we can clearly trace the arrangement of their abode, with its open court—once containing a garden and cool cisterns of pure water—its separate room for each Vestal, its baths, and its resources of considerable comfort and even luxury.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.—VESTAL VIRGIN]
If, as you face this way, you look up to your right, you will perceive the Palatine Hill rising steeply above you, with its summit crowned by the lofty palaces and gardens constructed by the Caesars. At the side and corner which look down upon the Forum stands the part built by Caligula, the epileptic who thought himself no less than a god, and who in consequence not only turned the temple of Castor into a lower vestibule to his own house, but also built a bridge across the valley over the temple of Augustus and the Basilica of Julius to the Capitoline Hill, so that he might visit and converse with Jupiter, his only compeer. From the top of the Basilica he occasionally threw money into the Forum to be scrambled for by people who crushed each other to death in the process. It would require too much space if we climbed the sloping road which leads on to the Palatine and examined the various structures upon that hill. As we now see it in its ruins it is perhaps the most mysteriously impressive place in the world. But many alterations and enlargements of the palaces were made after the date of Nero, and we cannot now be sure of the precise aspect of the hill-top in his day. Suffice it that, overlooking the Forum, overlooking the Velabrum Valley which leads from the Forum to the Tiber, and overlooking the middle of the valley where the vast Circus or race-ground separated the imperial hill from the Aventine, there were portions of the huge imperial abodes, rising in several stories gleaming with marble, and enjoying the purest air and the widest views obtainable within the city. Nero himself, it is true, was not content with such mere human housing. After the great fire of this year 64, he proceeded to make for himself what he called "a home fit for a man," and so built—though he never finished—that famous or infamous "Golden House," which ran from the Palatine all across the upper Sacred Way and the hollow now occupied by the Colosseum far on to the opposite hills—a house of countless chambers, with three miles of colonnade, enclosed gardens large enough to be called a park, and a statue of himself 120 feet in height. The epigram went that the people of Rome must migrate, inasmuch as what had once been a city was now but a private house. This, however, had not yet occurred, and we have rather to think of palaces and gardens rich indeed, but by no means occupying the whole of the Palatine Hill alone. There were, of course, numerous buildings more or less connected with the imperial establishment, among them being quarters for the officers and soldiers of the guard. There were also a number of temples, one of which, the magnificent shrine of Apollo, the god of light and learning, stood in a court marvellously enriched with sculptured masterpieces, while connected with it were libraries filled with Greek and Latin books and adorned with the busts and medallion-portraits or statues of great authors.
If we proceeded now to walk up the Sacred Way, along the narrow street edged by jewellers' and other shops, we should meet as yet with no Arch of Titus, nor in descending beyond should we see any Colosseum, but only a block of ordinary dwellings, to be swept away later in this year by the fire which made room here for the ornamental waters of Nero's Golden House. Turning to the right along the valley between the Palatine and Caelian Hills, we should not have to pass under any Arch of Constantine; but, after glancing up to the left at the great unfinished temple of Claudius and going under the Claudian aqueduct which carries water to the Palatine, we should proceed between private houses and gardens till we reached a famous gate in the ancient wall and found ourselves on that noted Appian Way, which would take us to Capua and thence over the Apennines to Brindisi and the East. Just outside the gate we should find the livery-stables, with their vehicles and horses or mules waiting to be hired for the stage which would carry us as far as the slope on the southern edge of the Alban Hills.
But we will not proceed in this direction. From our stand at V in front of the temple of Vesta we will turn back, walk over the Forum to the right of the Rostra, between the sanctuary of Janus and the front of the Senate-House. Thence we will cross an enclosed forum, or public place, erected by Julius Caesar, with its temple of "Venus the Mother" in the middle, and so enter the Forum of Augustus. This is worth a pause. As you pass to-day up the narrow Via Bonella and perceive near the Pantani Arch a few imposing columns and a patch of rather depressing bare wall, it requires much effort to realise that here was once a noble space enclosed by marble-covered walls 100 feet in height, and that those walls contained in a series of niches a gallery of statues of all the military heroes and patriots of Roman history from Aeneas downwards. Meanwhile the few columns at your side are the sole survivors of the number which surrounded the splendid temple of Mars the Avenger, the shrine which was identified in imperial times with the military power of Rome, and which received the standards captured from the enemy, just as captured flags are to be seen in many a modern church.
Leaving this Forum, we will not bear to the right to find ourselves amid the dense population of the Subura and its neighbourhood, but we will turn to the left and pass between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills, which then met more steeply and closely than they did fifty years later, when Trajan had cut away the rising ground and levelled an open space which must have been an incalculable advantage to the convenience of the city. It is perhaps well to observe here that the piling up of fallen ruins and the deliberate levellings and gradings, both in ancient and modern times, have greatly altered the appearance of the often-mentioned hills of Rome, especially of the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—TEMPLE OP MARS THE AVENGER IN FORUM OF
AUGUSTUS. (After Ripostelli.)]
Emerging from this too narrow passage-way and proceeding a short distance, we enter that straight Flaminian Road which has been replaced by the modern Corso beginning at the Piazza Venezia. For the first part of its course it was also known as "Broadway." We are now in that more open part of Rome which lies outside the ancient wall, and which is commonly spoken of loosely as the Campus Martius. Here again, it is impossible to inspect all the various sights visible in the year 64. A few examples must suffice. As you walk along this straight thorough-fare—the commencement of the road which would eventually carry you to the North of Italy—you will find but few buildings of any note on your right. Lying to your left is a long and wide cloistered space which contains not only certain public offices and a pillared promenade, but also the richest shops in Rome, where are sold gold and silver work, objects of art, tapestries, and fine fabrics from Alexandria, Syria, and farther East. The place is, in fact, mainly a huge bazaar. Up the Flaminian Way beyond this enclosure we go under a triumphal arch erected by the late Emperor Claudius to record his conquest of Britain, where he subdued "eleven kings" without Roman loss. Keeping straight on we pass, this time on our right, another large enclosure surrounded by arcades, where is now the east side of the Piazza Colonna. In and about this locality are carried on not only promenades and saunterings but also various athletic exercises, including feats of horsemanship. Farther on still, and you will see to your left the Mausoleum of Augustus, rising some 220 feet into the air. Its base, coated with sculptured marble, contains one grand sepulchral chamber for Augustus himself, and fourteen smaller chambers for members of his family. Above this base towers a conical mound of earth planted with evergreen trees, and on the summit is a colossal statue of the first emperor. Close by is a paved space, where the bodies of the Caesars are cremated before their ashes are placed in the Mausoleum. From this spot a ready faith saw their immortal part carried up to heaven by the eagle, messenger of Jove.
Turning back and passing across the Campus we arrive at the public baths erected by Nero, and then at the Pantheon. This building, though shorn of many of its decorative splendours both within and without, still stands structurally intact, at least as it was restored and enlarged two generations later than our date. It is scarcely possible to say how far its shape was altered at its restoration under Hadrian, but we may provisionally treat the edifice as already belonging to our period. It is still, after all these centuries, an entirely noble pile, and forms a fit receptacle for the tomb, not only of Victor Emanuel, but of Raphael. Its form is that of a rotunda, with walls of concrete 20 feet in thickness and with a dome of concrete cast in a solid mass. The middle of the dome is open to the sky, and by that means the building is lighted in a manner most perfectly suited to it. Could we behold it fully restored and at its best, we should see above its portico, which is supported by huge marble pillars each made of a single stone, large bronze reliefs of gods and giants. To one side of the doors would be a colossal statue of Augustus; on the other a colossal statue of the builder Agrippa, the son-in-law of that emperor. Inside there is a series of niches for colossal effigies of Mars, Venus, and other deities connected with the Julian family. The marble pillars dividing the niches have capitals of fine bronze, and the coffered ceiling of the dome, now bare and colourless, shines with gilt on blue, like the sky lit up with stars. The doors, which have mysteriously remained entire, are also of noble bronze; the roof consists of tiles of bronze thinly plated with gold. The gold has naturally vanished, after passing into Saracen hands; of the bronze nearly half a million pounds weight has been stripped from the building, some to make cannon for the defence of the Castle of St. Angelo, some to form the twisted columns which now support the giant baldacchino under St. Peter's dome.
At a short distance behind this magnificent temple Agrippa—who was in charge of the aqueducts and water-supply—had also built the first great public baths. It would probably be incorrect to found any detailed description of them upon what we know of the stupendous structures of Caracalla and Diocletian, which were perhaps the most amazing exhibitions of public luxury ever seen in the world. Of these we know how huge and splendid were the halls, with their coloured marbles, their mosaic floors, their colossal masterpieces of statuary, their elaborate arrangements of baths—cold, tepid, hot and dry-sweating—their conversation-rooms and reading-rooms. But we cannot pretend to say how far the Agrippan and Neronian baths of the year 64 corresponded in magnificence to these. We shall be safer in simply assuming that, since the baths of Pompeii were in full swing in the year in question, Home must have possessed establishments of a similar kind but on a larger and more sumptuous scale.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—EXTERIOR OP THEATRE OF MARCELLUS. (Present state.)]
Leaving without further mention the various temples of Minerva, Isis, Serapis, and other deities which might be found about the Campus Martius, we note an undistinguished stone amphitheatre, the only resort of the kind as yet possessed by the metropolis. In this were exhibited the sanguinary combats of gladiators with each other, and the fights with wild beasts performed by trained professionals or by criminals selling their lives as dearly as possible. Of these "sports" we have to treat in a later chapter. Coming nearer to the Tiber, while returning towards the city proper, we pass in succession the three great theatres, lofty semicircular constructions of stone and concrete faced with marble, one computed to hold 40,000 spectators, but probably accommodating not more than 25,000, and the others some 20,000 and 12,000 respectively. In these matters we must allow both for Roman exaggeration and Roman close-packing. The theatres rise in three stories, of which the outward sides consist of open arcades adorned with pillars in varied styles, while round their bases are shops for the sale of sweetmeats, beverages, perfumes, and other articles which the theatre-goer or the loitering public may require. What a theatrical Performance was like is a matter belonging to the question of spectacles and amusements. At the back of the largest theatre—that of Pompey—lies a large square surrounded by colonnades of a hundred pillars, where sycamores form avenues and fountains play, while statues of finished workmanship stand where they produce the best effect. Particularly grateful to the Roman lounger were the seats in the large semi-circular bays, so placed as to offer full protection from too hot a sun or too cold a wind.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.—THEATRE OF MARCELLUS. (Restored.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.—CIRCUS MAXIMUS (restored); Imperial Palaces on Palatine to left.]
By the time that we have passed the last theatre of the three we have arrived at the river end of the low valley leading into the Forum between the Capitoline Hill and the Palatine, a place which had once been a cattle-market but had now become an open place surrounded by dwellings of the humbler sort. It still, however, bore the name of "Cattle-Market." If from this point we followed the river bank, we should come to the wharves, to which the smaller ships bring up the Tiber the freights of grain transhipped from the larger vessels from Alexandria or Carthage, or of marble from the quarries of Numidia, Greece, and Phrygia, or of granite and porphyry from Upper Egypt. All along this bank are the offices and storehouses of such cargoes, and here too is performed much of the shaping of those blocks which Rome is using in such astonishing profusion. Along the river by the stone embankment the ships are moored, with their cables passed through huge stone corbels or sculptured lions' mouths. No busier part of Rome could be found than this, but we have no time to proceed further in this direction.
In front of us rises the Aventine Hill, another quarter of the wealthy, but otherwise chiefly distinguished by its temples of Juno the Queen and of Diana. Turning our eyes from the Aventine to the left we see lying in the valley between Aventine and Palatine—where now are the Jewish Cemetery and the grimy Gasworks—the vast Circus Maximus or Hippodrome. This structure, devoted chiefly to chariot-racing, is some 700 yards in length and 135 in width, and will at a pinch hold nearly a quarter of a million spectators. In all probability it would seat 150,000. It consists, as the illustration will show, of long tiers of seats sweeping down the sides and round the curved end of an oblong space. As with the theatres, its outside view presents three tiers of marble arches, and through the lowest tier are numerous staircases leading to the various sections of the seats within. Those seats themselves are laid upon large vaults of concrete; the lower rows are of marble, the upper ones are as yet of wood. How the chariot-races were run, and what is meant by the "sports of the circus," will naturally require a separate narration.
Coming back from the entrance of this mammoth place of amusement and turning up the Velabrum Valley, we pass by a temple of Augustus, to which is attached a public library, and issue by the temple of Castor into the Forum to our first standing-point at F.
CHAPTER VIII
STREETS, WATER-SUPPLY, AND BUILDING MATERIAL
After this rapid walk through the more interesting parts of the capital, we may consider one or two connected topics of natural interest.
Amid all this splendour and spaciousness of public buildings, what is the aspect of the ordinary streets? In this respect Rome was by no means fortunate. As in Old London, Old Paris, or Old New York, the streets had for the most part grown up as chance circumstances would have it. There were very few thoroughfares laid out straight from the first like the Flaminian or "Broad" Road. Alexandria and Antioch were the creations of monarchs who began with a clear field and a consistent scheme. Their straight, broad streets might well be the envy of the capital. The Romans, then as now, possessed the engineering genius, but they could not well undo the work of a struggling past, which had necessitated the crowding of population, within the defences of a wall. They knew how to supply the city abundantly with water, and how to drain it with sewers of great capacity and strength. The chief of such sewers—the Cloaca Maxima—which passed underneath the Forum to the Tiber and was laid down more than twenty-five centuries ago, is still in working order. But no republican or imperial government ever took it in hand to Hansmannise the city, even after one of those devastating conflagrations which might seem to have cleared the way. It is true that all traffic of vehicles, except for special processions, for Vestal Virgins, and a few other cases—was forbidden for ten hours in the day. All through the morning and afternoon there were no wheels in the Roman streets, unless some public building imperatively demanded its load of stones or timber, or unless the few privileged persons were proceeding in their carriages to some festival. Nevertheless the rich men and women in their litters or sedan-chairs, attended by their servants or their clients; the porters carrying their heavy loads; the itinerant hucksters; and the ordinary man on errand or other business bent, made up crowds which were often difficult to pass through.
Another consequence of the old compression within narrow walls was that, as population increased, the houses grew more lofty. How high the Romans built, or were allowed to build, in republican times we cannot tell. The tendency was certainly to build higher and higher, and sky-scrapers would perhaps have become the rule if the ancient Roman had understood the use of materials both sufficiently light and sufficiently strong, or if he had been forced to establish his work on secure foundations. In point of fact there had been, and there continued to be, too much of jerry-building. Houses sometimes collapsed, and many were unsubstantially shored up. A flood or an earthquake was apt to find them out, and there was frequent peril in the streets. The majority of the abodes of people of humble means were not like those in smaller towns, such as Pompeii, still less like those in the country. They were "tenement houses," large blocks let out in rooms and flats, and it was natural that landlords should make haste to run them up and to increase the number of their stories. When Augustus became emperor he enacted what may be called a Metropolitan Building Act, which insisted on firmer foundations and limited the height to 70 feet. That act was apparently still in force in the age of Nero, and we may take it that along the more frequented streets the houses commonly ran to a height of four or five stories. They looked the taller because of the narrowness of the street itself. While it is perhaps, though not necessarily, an exaggeration for the epigrammatist—who lived "up three pair of stairs, and high ones"—to say that he could touch his opposite neighbour with his hand, it is at least an indication of the truth. Some of the narrower lanes between blocks cannot have been more than a few feet across.
Nor does it appear that the occupants' of rooms opening on the streets were very particular as to what they threw out in the way of rubbish or dirty water. It is true that there were aediles, or officers to look after the order of the streets and public places, but their efforts seem to have been mainly directed to preventing conspicuous obstruction. Practices which we should regard as heinous were treated lightly or disregarded. To make matters worse, the shopkeepers, who occupied the lower fronts of most of such houses, took the greatest liberties in encroaching upon the roadway when exhibiting their wares, and it was not till twenty years later than our date that the Emperor Domitian ordered them to keep within their own thresholds.
Apart from the question of the freedom of traffic, it can be readily imagined that, with all the wooden counters, doors, and shutters down below, and with the disproportionate quantity of woodwork in the beams, floors, and even walls above, fires were of the commonest occurrence, and, with streets so high and narrow, the conflagration of a whole quarter of the town was speedy and complete. Augustus had divided the metropolitan area into fourteen regions, and had distributed over these a force of 7000 watchmen to keep the peace and to deal with fires at night; but it was not to be expected, if a fire occurred in a lofty block, that this body, assisted or hampered by the neighbours, could do much with the buckets, siphons, and wet blankets which formed the extinguishing apparatus of the time.
Another serious danger, or, when not danger, at least discomfort, came from the trick which the Tiber has always had of flooding the lower parts of the city. Somewhat later than our date the river restrained by strong stone embankments, which one had to descend by steps in order to reach the river at the ferries or other boats; but this must have been but inadequately achieved in the early period of the empire, and a severe flood might bring the houses in the Velabrum, for example, tumbling about the ears of their inhabitants.
* * * * *
On the whole the streets of Neronian Rome were neither very comfortable nor very safe to walk in. At night there was no lighting, except when, at some great festival, illuminations might be made by order of the emperor for a whole night or perhaps a series of nights. In ordinary times torches and lanterns must be provided by yourself, and even the 7000 watchmen scarcely gave you a full feeling of security. The precise arrangements made for scavenging are unknown, but presumably it was done by the public slaves under the supervision of the aediles. It is, however, easy to discover from contemporary complaints that the streets were often annoyingly wet and slimy.
One thing the ordinary Roman appears never to have minded, any more than it is minded at the present day. This was noise. There are studious men enough in ancient literature who complain that sleep or study is impossible in Rome. They exclaim upon the bawling of the hawkers, the canting songs of the beggars, the banging of hammers, the sing-song of schoolboys learning to read in the open-air verandahs or balconies which often served as schools, and the shouting in the baths. All night long there was the rattle of carts and the creaking of heavy waggons. But the average Roman cared, and still cares, very little for quiet or sleep, and no emperor attempted to check the annoyance. Perhaps he could devise no check. Perhaps he himself, being on the Palatine, and his counsellors, being in their own comparatively secluded houses on the hills, scarcely realised the full enormity of the nocturnal roar of Rome. In any case the fact of the noise is unquestionable. It was then very much as it is now if one tries to sleep in rooms in the Corso or the Via Babuino. The saying that "God made the country and man made the town" is met with in a Roman writer of the age of Augustus, and the noise is one factor in the difference.
The ancient Romans, we have said, were masters of practical engineering, and a chief glory of the city was its abundant supply of water. Apart from the Tiber and the natural springs, there were in the year 64 at least eight aqueducts bringing drinkable water into the city. It was the emperor's concern to see to this matter, as he did to the corn-supply, but in practice he appointed what he might call his Minister of Water-supply, and gave him liberal means to provide a large staff of engineers, surveyors, masons, pipelayers, inspectors, and custodians. It is a common error to imagine that the Romans were ignorant of the simple hydraulic law that water will find its own level, and to suppose that their aqueducts were built in consequence of that ignorance. In point of fact they knew the law as well as we do. Their earlier aqueducts were conduits almost wholly underground; their later were all on arches. When they wished to carry water to a height within the city, up a watertower to a distributing cistern, or to the top storey of a building, they did so by pipes, just as we should; but when they brought water from forty miles away they preferred to bring it in channels lined with impermeable cement and carried upon arches, which wound across the country according to the levels in order to avoid the excessive pressure of too steep a gradient. The reasons for their choice are simple enough. Their chief difficulty was in making pipes of iron of sufficient capacity. On the other hand, it was easy to construct a cemented channel in masonry of any size you desired. In the next place the water about Rome rapidly lays a calcareous deposit, and it is much easier to clear this from a readily accessible channel than from pipes buried in the ground. The pipes which the Romans commonly made were of lead, bronze, or wood. None of these could be made and cleared cheaply enough to serve for the volume of water required for household use, the baths, and the public fountains of Rome. Meanwhile slave labour was inexpensive, and the cost of building an aqueduct of any length was of little account to the Roman.
When the water reached the city it was conducted into settling and distributing reservoirs and its flow regulated. Thence it was carried by pipes, mostly of lead, wherever it was required. When Agrippa was minister of water-supply he constructed in the city 700 public pools or basins and 500 fountains, drawing their supply from 130 collecting heads or reservoirs. And it is to the credit of Agrippa and of Rome that all these pools, fountains, and reservoirs were made pleasant to the eye with suitable adornment. There is mention of 400 marble columns and 300 statues, but these are to be regarded as only chief among the embellishments.
The streets of Rome were commonly paved with blocks of lava quarried in the neighbourhood from the abundant deposits which had formed in a not very remote volcanic period.
The materials employed for substantial building were various; in the older days red and black tufa—a stone so soft as to require protection by a layer of stucco; later the dark-brown peperino, the golden-creamy travertine, marble white and coloured, and concrete. The modern visitor to Rome who regards the ruins but superficially would naturally imagine that many of the edifices were mainly constructed of brick. In reality there was no building so composed. The flat triangular bricks, or rather tiles, which are so much in evidence, are but inserted in the face of concrete to cover the nakedness of that material. Concrete alone might serve for cores and substructures, but those parts of the building which showed were required to present a more pleasing surface. At the date of Nero this might be achieved by a fronting of marble slabs and blocks, but more commonly it was obtained by means of the triangular red or yellow tiles above mentioned. In buildings of slightly earlier date the exterior often presented a "diamond pattern" or network arrangement of square pieces of stone inserted in the concrete while it was still soft. The huge vaults and arches affected by the Romans made concrete a particularly convenient material, and nothing could better illustrate its strength than the tenacity with which it has endured the strain in the unsupported portions of the vaults of the Basilica of Constantine. Any of the more imposing buildings which were not mainly of concrete were composed of blocks of stone, held to each other by clamps soldered in with lead. Few, if any, such buildings were made entirely of marble. In the case of those composes of the other varieties of stone already named, the surface was commonly coated either with stucco or with marble facings attached by hook-like clamps fixed into the main structure Externally the appearance of Rome—so far as its public buildings are concerned-was that of a city of marble. The present having been for centuries torn away, either to be used elsewhere, or more often to be burned down for lime.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.—BUILDING MATERIALS. (From Middleton.)]
CHAPTER IX
THE ROMAN TOWN HOUSE
We have taken a general survey of the city of Rome, its open places, streets, and public buildings. We may now look at the houses in which the Romans lived, and at the furniture to be expected inside them.
Mention has already been made of the large and lofty tenement houses or blocks, often mere human rookeries, which were let out in lodgings to those who did not possess sufficient means to occupy a separate domicile of their own. These buildings, which were naturally to be found in the busier streets and more thickly inhabited quarters, were not, however, the habitations most typical of the romanized world. They were created by the special circumstances of the city, and might recur in other towns wherever the conditions were similar. The cramped island part of Tyre, for example, possessed houses even loftier than those of Rome. Where there was sufficient room—that is to say, where there was no large population crowded into a space limited by nature or by walls of defence—the ordinary house was of a very different character. It was built on a different plan and seldom ran to more than two stories, if so high. We shall shortly proceed to describe such a house; but it is first desirable to say something more of the tenement "block" in the metropolis. It is to be regretted that no such building has actually come down to us; we are therefore compelled to form our notions of one from the scattered references and hints of literature. Nevertheless if these are read in the light of customs still observable in Rome itself and in other parts of Italy, the picture becomes fairly definite.
A block—or "island," as it was called—might be a building of four or five stories, surrounded by four of the narrow streets, lanes, or alleys which formed a network in the city. Whether managed by the landlord, by his agent, or by a tenant who sub-let at a profit, it was divided into lodgings, which might consist either of a single room or of a suite. Some such rooms and flats were "ordinary," others were described (as they are still in the advertisements of modern Rome) as "suitable for a gentleman," or, to use the exact language of the day, "suitable for a knight." Access to the respective quarters of the house was to be gained, not solely through a main door, but by separate stairs leading up directly from the streets and lanes. It would appear that each tenant had his own key, corresponding, though hardly in convenience of size, to our latch-key. Whereas it will be found that the ordinary private house of one storey was for the most part lighted by openings in the roof and by wide courts, this arrangement could manifestly be applied only partially to the tall tenement buildings. There might, it is true, exist in the middle interior of such a block an open space or "well," with galleries running round it at each floor, so that the inner rooms could obtain light from that quarter. It is also to be assumed that stairs ran up to these galleries, so that the inward rooms or flats were made accessible in this way. Mainly, however, the light came from windows opening on the street. If we glanced up at these from below we should find them narrower than ours at the present day—since we have discovered how to produce large and entirely diaphanous sheets of glass—but probably not narrower than those of a century ago. They were either mere openings with shutters, or, in the better houses, were glazed with transparent material. In the brighter part of the year they contained their boxes of flowering or other plants, and were often provided with a shade-awning not unlike those so familiar in Paris.
The roof of such a building was either gabled and covered with tiles or, though perhaps less often, it was flat. The flat roof sometimes formed a terrace, on which the plants of a "roof-garden" might be found growing either in earthenware tubs or in earth spread over a layer of impermeable cement. The lowest floor, level with the street, commonly consisted of shops, which were open at full length in the day, but were shuttered and barred at night. As with the shops which are now built into the sides of large hotels and the like, they had no communication with the interior of the building. Regularly, however, they possessed a short staircase at the back or side leading to an upper room or entresol, where, in the poorer instances, the shopkeeper might actually reside. To the aristocratic Roman, with his contempt of petty trade, "born in the shop-loft" was a contemptuous phrase for a "son of nobody."
Meanwhile the more representative houses of the strictly Roman part of the Roman world—that is to say, the dwellings of Romans or of imitators of Romans, wherever they might be settled, as distinct from the Greek and Oriental houses or from the various kinds of primitive huts to be found among the Western provincials—were of three chief kinds. These were the town house, the country seat, and the country homestead. There was, of course, nothing to prevent a wealthy Roman from building his town house exactly like a country seat, or vice versa, if he had so chosen, but from considerations of purpose, apart from those of local space and view, it would have been altogether irrational to take either course. The conditions of his life in town and country differed even more widely than they do with us. The average Roman, moreover, was a lover of variety in respect of his habitation. We find in a somewhat later epigrammatist that one grandee keeps up four town houses in Rome itself, and moves capriciously from one to the other, so that you never know where you will find him. At different seasons or in different moods he might prefer this or that situation or aspect. As for country seats of various degrees of magnificence, a man might—like many modern nobles or royalties—possess three, four, a dozen, or twenty. He might, for example, own one or more on the Italian Lakes, one in Tuscany, one on the Sabine or Alban Hills, one on the coast within a half-day's run of Rome, one on the Bay of Naples, one down in the heel of Italy, and so on. Pliny the Younger, who was born in the reign of Nero, was not a particularly rich man, yet he owned several country seats on Lake Como alone, besides others nearer to Rome on north and south, at the seaside, or on the hills.
We may begin with a town house, and our simplest procedure is to take a plan exhibiting those parts which were most usual for an establishment of even moderate pretensions. Let it be understood that it is but the symmetrical outline of a general scheme which was in practice submitted to indefinite enlargement or modification. In the house of Livia, the mother of Augustus, on the Palatine Hill at Rome, and in various houses at Pompeii—such as those of the Vettii, of "Sallust," of the "Faun," or of "The Tragic Poet"—there will be found much diversity in the number and arrangement of the rooms, halls, and courts. Nevertheless the main principle of division, the general conception of the portions requisite for their several purposes, was practically the same. Some of the differences and enlargements may be illustrated after we have considered our first simple outline. Before we undertake this, however, it may be well to warn any one who may have visited or be about to visit Pompeii, that he must exclude from his thoughts all those small premises of a room or two which face so many of the streets. These were mostly shops, with which we are not now dealing. He must also exclude all the public edifices. This done, he must remember that we now possess only portions of the walls without the roofs, and that in such circumstances apartments always appear to be much smaller than they are by actual measurement, or than they appear when they contain their furniture and appointments properly disposed. Finally, he must not take a Pompeian house, even the most spacious, as a fair example of either the size or splendour of the great houses in the metropolis. Pompeii was but a small place, with a population of no great wealth or standing, and its houses would have cut but a provincial figure among those of the same date on the Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, or Quirinal Hills. Nevertheless they are extremely useful to us in reconstructing the type. It is that type and not the exception which we now consider.
A town house might either be detached or it might stand in a street, like one of the tenement-blocks, with shops let into the less important parts of the outer wall of the ground floor. Much would naturally depend upon the means and dignity of the owner. In any case the interior portions would belong to the private residence. As a rule the exterior of the ordinary house was little regarded. No architecture was wasted upon it; decoration and other magnificence belonged to the interior. Provided a house possessed a more or less imposing doorway its exterior walls might be left either to shops or to a dull monochrome of stucco, pierced here and there, if necessary, at 9 or 10 feet from the ground by barred slits, which cannot be called windows, for the admittance of light. The general principle of a Roman house, as of a Greek, was that of rooms surrounding spaces lighted from within. Privacy from the outer world was not indeed so scrupulously sought by the Romans as by the Athenians—principally because of the more free position occupied by the Roman women—nevertheless it was secured by the absence of ground-floor windows opening on any thoroughfare.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.—TYPICAL SCHEME OF ROMAN HOUSE.]
Before the actual door there was commonly an open recess or space a little backward from the street, in which callers could wait until the door was opened. This was the "vestibule," and in the case of the larger houses of the nobles it was often adorned with honorary statues, on horseback or otherwise, while above the door might be seen the insignia of triumphs won by the family, a decoration in some measure corresponding to the modern hatchment, except that it was permanently fixed. This regularly remained as a mark of the house even when it changed owners. It was in such a vestibule of his Golden House that Nero erected his own colossal statue, destined afterwards to give its name to the Colosseum. Over the larger vestibules there might be a partial roof, but generally, and perhaps always at this date, they were without cover.
Facing you in the middle of the vestibule are double or folding doors, more or less ornate with bronze, ivory, and other work, and generally bearing a large ring or handle to serve either as a knocker or to pull the door to. Above them is a bronze grating or fretwork for further adornment and to admit light and air. Some householders, more superstitious or conventional than the rest, affected an inscription, such as "Let no evil enter here," and over some humbler entrance you might find a cage containing a parrot or magpie, which had been trained to say "Good luck to you" in Greek. At either side of the door, or of the actual entrance to the vestibule, is a column or pilaster, either made of timber and cased with other woods of a more beautiful and costly kind, or consisting of coloured marble with an ornate capital. These "doorposts" were wreathed with laurel or other foliage on festal occasions, such as when the occupant had won some distinguished honour in the field, in the courts, or at the elections, or when a marriage took place from within. At funerals small cypress trees or branches would be placed in and about the vestibule. At one side of it you might sometimes find a smaller door, to be used for the ordinary going in and out when it was unnecessary or inconvenient for the larger doors to be opened.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.—ENTRANCE TO HOUSE OF PANSA. (Pompeii.)]
The doors themselves turn, not upon hinges of the modern kind, but upon pivots, which move, often too noisily, in sockets let into the threshold and lintel. The fastenings consisted of locks—often highly ingenious—of a bar laid across from wall to wall, of bolts shot across or upward and downward, and sometimes of a prop leaning against the inside of the door and entering a cavity in the floor of the passage. The floor of the entrance passage itself might be paved with marble tiles, or made simply of a polished cement with or without patterns worked in it; or it might consist of small cubes of stone, white and black or more variously coloured, frequently worked into figures, and now and then accompanied by an inscription just within the threshold, such as "Greeting" or "Beware the Dog." In one Pompeian house the floor bears the well-known mosaic likeness of a dog held upon its chain. At the side of the passage there is often a smaller room for the janitor. When there is none, he must be supposed to have used a movable seat.
Passing through the passage, you find yourself in a rectangular hall, upon which was lavished the chief display in the way of loftiness and decoration. In the middle of the ceiling is an open space, square or oblong, to which the tiles of the gabled roof converge from above, and in the middle of the floor beneath is a corresponding basin, edged and paved with coloured or plain marble. The basin is of no great depth, and contains the water which has been poured into it from the ornamental pipe-mouths of bronze or terra-cotta projecting, like gargoyles, from the edge of the opening above. Sometimes the basin contained a fountain. There is of course an outlet pipe for the surplus water, but some of that overflow often ran into a covered cistern, over which you would find a small circular well-mouth, ornamented with sculptured reliefs. The opening in the ceiling may be formed simply by the space between the four cross-beams, or it may be supported by a pillar—of marble or of brick cased with marble—at each corner, or it may rest upon a greater number of such pillars. It is this opening which lets in the light and air to the hall, and it should always be remembered that the Italian house had more occasion to seek coolness and freshness than warmth. On a day of glaring sunshine and heat it was always possible to spread under the opening an awning or curtain of purple or other colour, of which the reflected hues meanwhile lent a richness to the space below. If we take one of the finer houses, we shall see, in glancing at the ceiling which covers the rest of the hall, that it is divided into sunken panels or coffers, which are adorned with reliefs in stucco and are painted, or else are decorated with copper, gold or ivory. The height may be whatever the owner wishes, but perhaps 25 feet would be a modest average estimate. The floor in such a house will generally consist of slabs of marble or of marble tiles arranged in patterns. In houses of less show it may be made of the same materials as those described for the entrance passage. To right and left are various chambers, shut off by lofty doors or by portières or both. To these light is admitted their doors and the gratings over them, from the high window-slits already mentioned in the outer wall, or sometimes, when there is no upper storey, from sky-lights. And here let it be observed that the notion that the Romans of this date used very little glass is altogether erroneous, as the discoveries at Pompeii and elsewhere sufficiently prove.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.—Interior of Roman House. (Looking from
Reception-hall to Peristyle.)]
The walls of the hall are in the better instances either coated with panels of tinted marble, or parcelled out in bright bands or oblongs of paint, or decorated with pictures of mythological, architectural, and other subjects worked in bright colours upon darkened stucco. To our own taste these colours—red, yellow, bluish-green, and others—as seen at Pompeii, are often excessively crude and badly harmonised. But while it is true that the ancients appear to have been actually somewhat deficient in colour-sense, it must be borne in mind that many of the Pompeian houses were decorated by journeymen rather than by artists, and, above all, full allowance must be made for the comparatively subdued light in which most of the paintings would be seen. The hall might also contain statuary placed against the walls or against the supporting pillars, where these existed. At the farther end from the entrance you will perceive to right and left two large recesses or bays, generally with pilasters on either side. These "wings" were utilised for a variety of purposes. One of them might occasionally serve for a smaller dining-room, or it might hold presses and cupboards. In noble houses one of them would contain certain family possessions of which the occupants were especially proud. These were the effigies of distinguished ancestors, which served as a family-tree represented in a highly objective form. At our chosen date there would be a series of portrait busts or else of portrait medallions, in relief or painted, while in special receptacles, labelled underneath with name and rank, were kept life-like wax masks of the line of distinguished persons, which could be brought out and carried in procession at the funeral of a member of the family. Though there was no "College of Heralds" in antiquity, it was commonly quite possible for a wealthy parvenu to get a pedigree invented for him. It is true that by use and wont the "right of effigies" was confined to those families which had held the higher offices of state, but there was no specific law on the subject, and the Roman nouveau riche could act exactly like his modern representative in securing his "portraits of ancestors."
[Illustration: FIG. 32.—HOUSE OF CORNELIUS RUFUS. (Pompeii.)]
Having thus glanced to right and left, to the ceiling and the floor, we now look at the end of the hall facing us. The middle section of this is open, and is framed by a couple of high pillars or pilasters and a cornice, which together formed perhaps the most distinguishing feature of this part of the house. Between the pillars is an apartment which may or may not be raised a step or two above the level of the hall. This, unlike the hall itself, is of the nature of a sitting-room, reception-room, or "parlour" (in the old sense of that word), and contains appropriate furniture. In it the master receives a guest, interviews his clients, makes up his accounts, and transacts such other private business as may fall to his lot. At the back it may be entirely closed, or it may contain a large window, through which we can catch a vista of the colonnaded and planted court beyond. The floor may here consist of a large carpet-like mosaic, such as that famous piece, taken from the House of the Faun at Pompeii and now in the Naples Museum, which represents a battle between Alexander and the Persians. To one side of the entrance to this "parlour" there will often stand on a pedestal the bust of the owner, as "Genius of the home." On the other side there is a passage serving as the means of access to the second or inner division of the house.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.—PERISTYLE WITH GARDEN AND AL FRESCO
DINING-TABLE.]
On making our way through this passage we find ourselves in a space still more open than the hall. It is commonly an unroofed, quadrangular court surrounded by a roofed colonnade, and thence known as the "peristyle." Or the colonnade may extend only round three sides, the back being free to the garden. In the uncovered space lying between the rows of pillars there are ornamental shrubs and flowers, marble tables, a cistern of water containing goldfish, a fountain, and marble basins into which fresh water is spouted from bronze or marble statuettes, from figures of animals, or from masks. Under the colonnade are marble floors or other more or less rich pavements, decorated walls, and such works of art as the owner most affects.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.—PERISTYLE IN HOUSE OF THE VETTII. (Present state.)]
When it seems desirable for shade and coolness, coloured curtains or awnings may be suspended between the columns, so that one can sit or walk with comfort under the cloistered portion. At the sides are apartments for different purposes. At the far end, or elsewhere, there is regularly the largest dining-room, often with mosaic floor and generally with pictured walls. Whereabouts in the house the family or an invited party should dine would depend partly on the number to be present, partly on the season of the year, and partly on some passing inclination. A house of any pretensions would possess several rooms used, or capable of being used, for this purpose. Some dining-rooms had what we should call French windows on three sides, permitting the diners to enjoy the view of the garden or the shrubbery outside.
Other large and airy apartments or saloons off the peristyle were used for social conversation, or as drawing-rooms. Farther back still, approached by another passage or door, there was often to be found a garden, containing an arbour or a terrace covered with a trailing vine, of the kind known in modern Italy as a pergola. In suitable weather al fresco meals were often taken here, and occasionally there were fixed couches and tables of masonry always ready for that purpose.
Coming back from the garden into the court, we might explore other passages, leading to the kitchen or to the bathrooms of hot, warm, and cold water. These offices would be respectively situated wherever circumstances made them most convenient. In the kitchen the part corresponding to our "range" consisted of a flat structure of masonry, on which the fire was lighted. The cooking pots were placed either upon ridges of masonry running across the fire or upon three legged stands of iron. The accompanying illustrations will sufficiently show what is meant. The bedrooms, little better than cells, of the slaves, and also the storerooms, were variously distributed. Underground cellars were apparently exceptional, although examples may be seen at Pompeii.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.—KITCHEN HEARTH IN THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII.]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.—KITCHEN HEARTHS (Drawing).]
Somewhere in one of the bays of the hall, at the back of the peristyle court, or elsewhere, would be found a small shrine for the worship of the domestic gods. This was variously constructed. Sometimes it was a niche or recess containing paintings or little effigies and with an altar or altar-shelf beneath, sometimes a miniature temple erected against the wall. There was apparently no special place to which, rather than any other, it was to be assigned. To the nature and meaning of the household gods we may refer again when dealing with the general subject of religion.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.—SHRINE (IN BACKGROUND) IN HOUSE OF THE TRAGIC
POET.]