Chapter V: Part 5

Another suburb extended along the Tiber as far as Ponte Sisto at the great reach of the river, where the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus was situated; it occupied the whole side of the river, which in our maps is erroneously called Campus Martius. We generally imagine that this Campus was the only one the Romans had; but this is a mistake, for Campi also existed in front of other hills and gates; and like the great Campus, they were gradually covered with houses, though they were neither as extensive nor as important as the Campus Martius. One of them was the _Campus Esquilinus_, in the plain before the Esquiline beyond the agger, and the _Campus Caelimontanus_ at the foot of the Caelius (now the palace of the Lateran) was another. These two Campi are as clear as possible, and are frequently mentioned; their destination was the same as that of the Campus Martius, and when in consequence of inundations the games could not be held in the latter, they were transferred to the Caelimontanus or the Esquilinus. Both these Campi were national property. Ever since the time of Augustus, houses were built in the Campus Martius. It contained the well known _septa_, a place fenced round, in which the centuries voted; even Pompey had built his theatre on the very border of the Campus; Agrippa erected his thermae there, and his incomparably more beautiful Pantheon; and Augustus had there his Mausoleum, from which an avenue of trees led to the buildings of Agrippa. Alexander Severus built there new thermae, a circus, and several triumphal arches, so that the Campus Martius entirely disappeared. In the second and third century Rome extended more and more in that direction, whence at present that part is thickly covered with houses. Of the buildings which are found there, I have already mentioned the thermae of Alexander Severus, the Circus Agonalis, and the structures of Agrippa, and I shall now say a few words about the _Mausoleum, of Augustus_. This building formed a gigantic mass, and was as imperishable as the pyramids. The descriptions we have of it are very obscure, nor do its remains enable us to form an idea of it; the drawings of its remains, which were made in the sixteenth century, are very doubtful. A large bas-relief may still have existed, also a water basin made of stone, which has disappeared in an unaccountable manner; but otherwise I believe that the drawings contain restorations. It is said that there was also a kind of suspended gardens with the soil artificially carried into them, but this may be founded on some misunderstanding.

The _mausoleum of Hadrian_, at present the Castel S. Angelo, was even a much larger structure. Its restoration, which we see in drawings, is anything but trustworthy; but there are drawings of the fifteenth century, in which a small portion, which was then still uninjured, is represented. At present we still see an immense pile impregnable and inaccessible, into which there was only one entrance like that of a cave, with a passage leading to the burial place. There Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Antoninus the philosopher were buried. Inscriptions about it are still found in the Itinerary of Einsiedeln, which belongs to the seventh or eighth century. This building was used as a fort at a very early period; Belisarius there defended himself against the Goths: the Roman garrison consisted of Huns who hurled the statues with which the building was adorned against the enemies. It is possible that the Barberini Faun was on that occasion thrown down, as it was found there at the time when Urban VIII. built the fortifications. During subsequent wars the Castel S. Angelo was often defended, as for example, when under Crescentius the city refused to surrender to Otho III. The greatest devastations took place in the fourteenth century, when the Romans, who were then little better than barbarians, wanted to level the whole structure with the ground, because it had occasioned them great annoyance: at that time many more inscriptions were preserved than at present. For weeks and months they laboured in tearing away the marble coating and the outward ornaments, but not being able to get through they gave it up at last. Pope Alexander VI. built some towers as means of defence, and on that occasion the destruction was carried still further. But after that time, three inscriptions still remained in the sixteenth century. The present condition, which is still imposing, is the work of Urban VIII. who made a regular fortress of it. In order to provide it with artillery, he caused the bronze of the vestibule of the Pantheon to be melted and eighty cannons to be made of it, which, during the French revolution, were carried by Murat to Naples. The costly sarcophagi of porphyry, which belonged to the mausoleum of Hadrian are dispersed; one of them still exists in the palace Borghese, and another, generally called the sarcophagus of Agrippa, probably also belonged to it. Trajan’s ashes were contained in an urn which stood on his column. Hence the opinion that the gilt ball on the obelisk in front of the Circus contained the ashes of Augustus; but this is only an erroneous opinion of the middle ages; it was opened under Sixtus V. when the obelisk was removed, and nothing but dust was found in it; but how this dust had got into it, no one can tell, perhaps it was introduced by rain. It certainly was not the ashes of Augustus, for we know distinctly where Augustus and his family were buried. There still exists in the Capitol a very simple coffin containing the remains of Agrippina; its side has the inscription _Ossa Agrippinae Germanici_. During an accidental excavation near San Carlo and the Corso, a _bustum_ of the Caesars was discovered, on which their bodies were burnt; each imperial family had a distinct place for this purpose. At present several monumental stones of such _busta_ exist in the Museo Pio-Clementino; they always have an inscription, such as _C. Caesar hic crematus est_. I believe there still exist half-a-dozen of such inscriptions.

Not far from the _moles Hadriani_ there was a third _Circus_, built by Nero, and by the side of it stands the church of St. Peter. According to a tradition, the iron gate, where the apostles Peter and Paul suffered the death of martyrs, still exists there; but according to others, Peter died on the Janiculus, the _mons aureus_ of the middle ages. There, too, a suburb arose as early as the time of Justinian; the church of St. Peter attracted many inhabitants, and the place was especially occupied by Germans, Saxons, and Lombards, who went to Rome for devotional purposes, or were engaged in the service of the Praefectus to defend the pope. They had their quarters (_scholae_) there, whence the name _schola Saxonum_, and in the same district we have the Ospidale in Sassi. This suburb was surrounded with walls by Leo IV. and called _Burgus_ (_Borgo_).

_Trastevere_, on the same side of the river, though separated by a great space, was a suburb as early as the time of Augustus; it now contains the oldest houses in Rome, which belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Augustus had gardens there, and during the republican period a _navale_ existed there on the south of the Aventine. On the same bank of the river there was a _naumachia_, a district surrounded by a wall, which could be filled with water for mock-fights with small boats.

Ancient Rome had originally only one bridge, the _Pons Sublicius_; it consisted at first entirely of wood, and could be taken down for the purpose of defending the city against the attacks of an enemy. This bridge remained for a long time the only one. The _Pons Milvius_, in the neighbourhood of Rome, was likewise very ancient, but was three Roman miles distant from the Porta Carmentalis. After the third Punic war, Scipio, as censor, built a second bridge (_Pons Palatinus_) across the Tiber. It was situated before the Velabrum, near to the Pons Sublicius, and between it and the island. Not a trace of the Pons Sublicius now exists. The Milvian bridge was at first likewise made of wood, and no doubt that of Scipio also. The latter remained throughout the middle ages until the sixteenth century. There have been hydrostatic disputes about this bridge, as to whether it was built flat against the current of the river or not; it does not, however, seem probable, that, if it had been constructed on a wrong principle, it should have existed for a period of 1700 years; we must rather suppose that during this long interval the Tiber changed its course. In the sixteenth century, when the river had retreated, the bridge broke down. I am of opinion that Cavaliere Linotte, who asserts this, is right, although he is not a man of learning: such investigations do not require much learning, and good common sense is often of greater assistance. In the same century, the bridge was restored, but twenty years later it broke down again; at present only a few arches of it exist, and the first, on the opposite bank, may be assumed with certainty to be the one that was built by Scipio. A poor woman had established a garden upon its ruins, and for the payment of a trifle I was allowed to go there as often as I liked.

The _island_ which, according to tradition, was formed out of the corn thrown into the river after the expulsion of the Tarquins, is remarkable for the temple of Aesculapius. Even in very early times, and long before the age of Augustus, the incredibly tasteless attempt was made to give to that temple the form of a ship, in imitation of the vessel in which the god had been conveyed to Rome; it was built of travertine. During the middle ages a considerable part of the temple still existed, as may be seen from a drawing of Boissard, which was made in the fourteenth century. Old people under Pius VI. still saw a great deal of it, but afterwards a large part of the wall was used for other purposes; in like manner a splendid part of the thermae of Titus was destroyed as late as 1796.

The island was connected with the mainland on both sides by the _Pons Cestius_ and the _Pons Fabricius_, which were very ancient. Next came the _Pons Senatorius_, on the spot now occupied by the Ponte Sisto; _Pons Aelius_ near S. Angelo, and the _Pons Milvius_ outside the city, now Ponte Molle.

I shall now proceed to speak of

LATIUM

as the country of the Latins. We shall first take Latium Proper, then the coast from Antium to Terracina, which was originally a Tyrrhenian and afterwards a Volscian country, and lastly the country of the Hernicans. But I have previously to make some remarks about the port towns of Rome.

All rivers of any importance carrying sand or mud form a delta, their mouths being pushed forward by the tides or the nature of the seas. Down to a certain point, they flow in a straight line, and then divide into two arms, leaving a low sand-bank between them. Such are the deltas of the Po, the Mississipi, the Nile, and the Ganges. The Tiber forms a similar πρόχωσις, and the ridges of sand on both sides become more and more widely separated from each other. On the left arm, which accordingly must have existed as early as that time, king Ancus Marcius, who is no doubt an historical personage, built the town of _Ostia_. I believe I can prove that Ancus Marcius concluded a treaty with the Latins, by which a number of the Latin towns, I mean those between Rome and the sea, were ceded to Rome, while other places remained united with Latium. In after times, Rome twice concluded similar treaties with Latium. Ostia was founded as a pure Roman colony, and became the port town of Rome. Afterwards it grew into a very large place, as is clear from the extensive and very splendid ruins. It was first destroyed in the war between Marius and Sulla, and afterwards frightfully devastated by the Vandals; in the ninth century it existed again, but was then destroyed by the Saracens. The great pope Leo IV. restored it, but the new town was not of long duration. At present the atmosphere is very unhealthy, which was not the case in the time of ancient Rome; whence we must infer, that then there were no marshes in the neighbourhood, for the poisonous air comes from the marshes. The district is at present so neglected that the place is completely deserted.

In the time of the Antonines, Ostia was the summer residence of the Romans, probably those of the middle classes, who had no large estates and could not afford to remain away from Rome for any great length of time. A very pleasing description of it occurs in the apologetic work of Minutius Felix, the scene of which is laid at Ostia. The Roman jurists spent their vacations there. The beauty and wealth of the place at that time form a remarkable contrast with its present condition, for scarcely any persons but criminals live there; for a long time past Ostia has been a sort of asylum, where murderers are safe against the danger of being seized by the police. This is one of the most fearful changes: the country round it is an immense swamp inhabited by buffalos.

In the reign of Claudius an artificial port was formed on the right arm of the Tiber, which was deeper, the course of the river having been regulated. Trajan extended the port, and this _Portus Romanus_ now became the real sea-port of Rome, a depôt for the immense supplies required for the city. At present, too, the little maritime commerce of the Romans is carried on along the right bank of the Tiber.

I will not mention all the places of ancient Latium which happen to be once noticed by ancient writers, many of them are mere names of destroyed places; much more might indeed be made out than has yet been done, but the advantages would not be very considerable. We must conceive Latium in the earlier times to have been divided into three parts: 1. _Alba and its perioeci_, or thirty neighbouring and dependent places, said to have been colonies, and called _Albenses_; 2. the _Latin demi_, about Alba and its territory, the number of which we may assume, without fear of being mistaken, to have likewise amounted to thirty. They formed the Latin state, and stood in the same relation to Alba in which Latium afterwards stood to Rome; 3. the _Tyrrhenian towns on the coast_, which were properly foreign to the body of the Latin state, but may possibly have been in alliance with it. I have succeeded in throwing more light upon this relation between Alba and the Latin towns than I myself could formerly have expected; I have found all the names of the thirty Albensian towns, but the list of the others is not complete.

ALBA generally appears to us almost as a mythical place, because it vanishes from Roman history at so early a period; but there can be no doubt that its existence is a perfectly historical fact, and that, too, in the relation I have just indicated. But it never was the mother-city of Rome; the first elements out of which Rome grew up may, perhaps, at one time have constituted a portion of the towns which, in a state of dependence as perioeci, were united with Alba into one state, but may have separated themselves from it at an early period: Rome itself was never founded by Alba. The place where Alba was once situated is still so distinctly marked that it cannot be mistaken. From the testimonies of the ancients, we know that it was situated at the foot of the Alban hill, forming one long street, high above the Alban lake, whence its name _Alba Longa_. Every one in that district shows the spot near the place called Palazzuolo, where may be seen the ancient tomb of a praetor with six fasces distinctly cut into the rock. This site has been recognised by several Italians, chiefly men without learning, but who had eyes to see that on this spot the rock has been cut away to a considerable height. This part must be conceived to have been below the town, so that the lake, even when its waters were very low, rendered the town perfectly inaccessible. The present level of the lake is the result of a tunnel (_emissarius_); but I am of opinion that formerly it must have been much lower.[31] In this manner the town was safe on that side, for the rock was cut away to such a height as to render it impossible to scale it by means of ladders; on the precipitous side of the rock opposite no artificial protection was necessary. Thus the town could be attacked only on the two accessible sides, which for this reason were fortified. The summit of the hill was probably fortified by an arx. The hill, now called Monte Cavo, though only 2,900 French feet in height, is one of the highest in that district; from it a person acquainted with Roman history enjoys the most magnificent prospect, for he may there survey the whole territory of the Roman state such as it was until the fourth century of the city. On this summit stood the very ancient temple of Jupiter Latiaris, which was certainly as old as the temple on the Capitoline, and a road led up to it which is still quite intact, and is made in the same style as the Roman high roads. There the Alban dictators once used to ride up to offer their thanks to Jupiter Latiaris for victories they had gained; Roman generals also triumphed there, when they could not obtain permission from the senate to celebrate their triumph in the Capitol; there lastly the Feriae Latinae were celebrated. The temple is now completely destroyed, and the foundation stones, which still existed there, were broken down in the 18th century. The large blocks of stone were too huge for the puny race, and were, accordingly, broken to pieces to build a monastery. The last remains, consisting of beautiful square blocks, were carefully raised from the ground in the year 1780 or 1790. The Monte Cavo, like the lake, is of a volcanic nature.

LAVINIUM, which is nothing else than Lacinium in Oenotria (both forms being only dialectic varieties of Latinium), was the real sanctuary of Latium, and every year a common sacrifice was offered there by all the Latins. There is a tradition, that six hundred families were sent thither from Alba, that is, ten from every demos, the thirty Albensian and the thirty Latin towns. In this manner the statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus resolves itself into a general formula of a common settlement, proceeding from Alba and _commune Latium_ (this is the correct name for all the Latins, like κοινὸν Θεσσαλῶν). Originally Lavinium was regarded as common property, like Washington; but when subsequently it became a place of importance, it obtained its independence, and was a town like all the others.

Besides Lavinium, which was fabulously said to be a Trojan colony, there existed on that coast, between the Tiber and Antium, two other places, LAURENTUM and the Rutulian ARDEA, which are familiar to us from the Aeneid. The ending _entum_ in Laurentum is Pelasgian, as in the case of Maluentum and others; but it is Latinised, the native form probably was οῦς, Λαυροῦς. After the Volscian calamity, when the whole Latin confederacy broke up, Ardea was a separate town: it received a Romano-Latin colony, and accordingly entered into an entirely new relation. Cyclopean walls are still found there, but the place is so desolate, that at present it has only thirty houses with about eighty inhabitants.

The most important of the Latin towns in the vicinity of Rome was TUSCULUM; it was distant only a few miles and could be seen from Rome, being situated above Frascati. During the middle ages, it was destroyed by the degenerate Romans, and never restored on the height, but the survivors were obliged to settle at the foot of the hill, which was the origin of the modern Frascati. The ruins of Tusculum which have been dug out are very important; the theatre was found with very beautiful statues in it, but it has been covered over again. A number of pedestals with inscriptions also were found, which are no doubt as ancient as the persons they described; some are as old as the period after the Hannibalian war, as for example, the one of Fulvius Nobilior, the conqueror of Aetolia: nowhere have so many ancient stones been brought to light; but the number of inscriptions belonging to the earlier times and even to the Augustan age is extremely small. The whole district belongs to Lucien Bonaparte, who has made excavations, in the process of which very many things of importance have been discovered. If he had continued them, extraordinary things would certainly have been brought to light; but he has no interest for anything except works of art, statues and the like, and it is impossible to make him see the importance of the remains of antiquity. He has the most unhistorical mind, and is unable to understand of what interest antiquities can be to history: the most beautiful things have been sold by him. He is one of those men who enjoy a high degree of celebrity without deserving it: he is lively, but absurd, and an extremely bad epic poet. He has laid out a garden on a hill, and on a box-tree in it he has inscribed in order the names of the greatest epic poets, beginning near the root: out of modesty he has put his own name lowest, and ascends up to Homer. It was impossible to induce him to make excavations according to a regular plan. I have often been in despair about it: this is a grief which a man may often have to bear in Italy, because excavations can be so easily made. The Fasti Capitolini are of extreme importance in Roman history; three large pieces of them had been found behind the church of S. Maria Liberatrice, and I implored the authorities to grant me permission to dig there, offering to bear the expenses myself; but I could not obtain permission, and was told that it would be done in due time, and that our descendants also must have something to do. Such things are a severe trial of one’s patience. If excavations were made at Tusculum, a Roman Herculaneum would be found. I do not mean to say that buildings equally well preserved would be discovered, but the ruins are very large, and the streets would certainly be found. When I was there, excavations were accidentally made below a wall, but they were afterwards stopped, for Lucien Bonaparte was inexorable. Once, during excavations which were continued only for a few weeks, a whole street with the walls of the houses up to a certain height was discovered; it was of the most perfect construction, although it was only the street of a country town, for Tusculum was certainly not larger than Coblenz. The street was completely filled with pieces of architecture, which had fallen down during the barbarous process of destruction: columns of the most beautiful marble were found, but broken to pieces, and statues of the most exquisite workmanship, such as one might expect to find at Rome during its most brilliant period. The architecture is that of the imperial period; the street also contained a well, the water of which was carried down from a hill. Very ancient inscriptions also were found, one of which contained the name of A. Sicinius, who is mentioned by Livy in the war against Perseus. If the Forum were laid open, Fasti and law-tables would no doubt be brought to light; it is still possible to say whereabouts it must have been situated. In like manner the site of the Forum of Praeneste was known, and fragments of the Fasti of Verrius Flaccus were found there, although the excavations were made very carelessly. In later times Tusculum was the most brilliant among the Latin towns.

The second Latin town in point of rank was TIBUR, now celebrated, under the name of Tivoli, for its waterfalls, the charming nature of the country, and the beauty of its ruins. Some persons erroneously consider the sepulchral monument of Cellius, built in the age of Augustus, to be a temple of the Sibyl. Tibur ruled over a considerable number of dependent towns. Its present circumference dates from the middle ages, for in antiquity it was considerably smaller. All these towns were very little, though they have a great name in history. Two learned Jesuits, Cabral and Del Ré, have written a very good topographical history of Tivoli.

The third Latin place is PRAENESTE, now Palestrina. This metathesis is common in Italian; even when they write correctly, they speak badly from affectation, especially the higher classes: instead of _una capra_, the Roman people usually say _una carpa_. The _l_ and _r_ also are interchanged: at the time of the French revolution, when a republic was forced upon the Romans, they were unable to pronounce the name, and said _la Repubrica_. I have found traces of a form _Penestra_ belonging to the time when the western empire still existed; in the middle ages _civitas_ was always added, and the simple names were thereby completely suppressed; people, therefore, did not say _Lanuvium_, but _civitas Lanuvina_, and so also _civitas Penestrina_. Praeneste was an immense place both in regard to its extent and to its fortifications, and was situated on a hill. Fortuna was its tutelary divinity, whose temple with its _temenos_ occupied the acra, and the whole of the present little town of Palestrina is situated within the ruins of that temple. We still possess descriptions of it belonging to the end of the thirteenth century; many parts of it must then have been preserved; in the fourteenth the town was taken by pope Bonifacius VIII., and everything was then destroyed with barbarous fury; at present we can only admire the immense substructions on the side of the hill, for the town, like many others, was built up the hill in the form of terraces; and when it was intended to enlarge the town, a new terrace was built.

In Roman history Praeneste does not appear as an important town till after the Gallic time. As to the impatience with which it, more than any other Latin town, bore the Roman yoke during the fifth century, from the Samnite wars until the war of Pyrrhus, we have distinct indications, although history is silent about it. The Praenestines made repeated attempts to shake it off; but although they were unsuccessful in this, still they gained the respect of the Romans, and obtained from them an honourable relation, with which they were satisfied. After this, they were the most faithful allies of the Romans, and during the Hannibalian war they were as attached to them as they had previously been intrepid in their struggles for their own independence. During the Social War they obtained the franchise, and were passionate champions of the Marian party. Marius the younger there sustained the terrible siege, after which Sulla took the town, and shewed the first symptoms of his raving cruelty: he butchered the whole population, and established a colony of veterans in the place. The town became quite desolate. Most of the Latin towns had perished at an early period.

LANUVIUM, afterwards _civitas Lanuvina_, on the Via Appia, still shows remains of a large wall, and indications that it once was a splendid town; it must not, however, be supposed to have been very extensive. Among its buildings, I may notice the temple of Juno Lanuvina, a common sanctuary for the Romans and Latins.

ARICIA was situated on the same road; its arx was on a height, but the town itself in the valley; at present the road most inconveniently and dangerously runs right across the height. Aricia was somewhat nearer Rome than Lanuvium; for a time it seems to have been the first among the Latin towns, I allude to the period after the banishment of the kings, when Rome and Latium were separated. The temple and grove of Diana Aricina were near the beautiful lake of Nemi, not far from Aricia.

GABII, one of the most ancient towns, has a traditional greatness in the earliest history of Rome. Dionysius still saw its extensive walls, of which at present every vestige has disappeared, but the ruins of the cella of a vast temple of Juno may still be seen. History does not inform us when the town was destroyed, but it was probably during the period of the Aequian wars, for after them it is no longer mentioned in the history of the republic; and in the age of Cicero it was a deserted place. Excellent remains were found there during the excavations made by Prince Borghese; he came upon ruins of the Forum, various works of art, many inscriptions and statues, which, though not of the first order, are yet of good workmanship. Under the Roman emperors a population appears to have again assembled in several of those towns, which were situated on high roads; whence they rose again, though they remained small places with a wretched population of vagabonds from all parts, who did not form a civil community, although they had a civic constitution. Hence Gabii at a later period had a bishop. This also accounts for the fact, that works of art belonging to a late period of Rome are found in those early destroyed places. At present Gabii is quite deserted.

The place for the general assemblies of the Latins was near the Alban lake, which, like a crater, is environed by a high ridge of surrounding hills. The place of meeting is supposed, and I think justly, to have been on the other side of this crater; but there is no evidence to support this view. The spot is now occupied by the town of Marino, below which there is a beautiful well, generally believed to be the well of Ferentina.

The tunnel of the Alban lake, a wonderful work, is one of the curiosities of Latium; it runs nearly three Roman miles under ground towards the place of its destination, and was intended to carry off the water of the lake, which, when, in consequence of earthquakes, the subterraneous passages had become blocked up, rose above the ridge of the crater and inundated the country. I have already spoken about this extraordinary structure in my History of Rome,[32] and shall, therefore, confine myself to a brief recapitulation. It is difficult to form a clear idea of the matter. Imagine the crater filled to the edge, and bear in mind that it was intended to give to it a level about 200 feet lower. In order to attain this, a line was first drawn in the contemplated direction of the tunnel, and by this line it could be seen how deep it must be to answer its purpose. In order to obtain the level, and at the same time to employ a great many hands, shafts were sunk along the whole line at a distance of less than a hundred feet from one another. It was easy to calculate how deep each shaft ought to be, so as to bring the bottom of the tunnel to the level which it was intended to give to it. These numerous shafts also facilitated the running off of the water on account of the pressure of the air, and at the same time rendered access to the tunnel easy. On any other plan only few persons could have been employed at a time, whereas now from every shaft two parties worked in opposite directions and broke through the rock. This working of different parties towards one another also insured their keeping the exact level. This tunnel, which was the admiration even of ancient Rome, has now existed for a period of 2500 years; it is still entire, and will exist in all time to come, unless some great revolution of the earth shall break it to pieces. The Roman cloacae are of the same character, and will endure until the last day of the earth. There are many such tunnels in the Roman territory, of which at present the advantages alone are perceptible, but whence they carry the waters can no longer be ascertained. Such is the case near lake Nemi: the whole valley of Aricia was formerly a lake, which is now perfectly drained. There, too, a great thing was effected by a little tunnel: the valley of Aricia is one of the most fertile in the world, and is still the same as it is described by Pliny. The fertility in Italy is so great that wheat, unless it is weeded, cannot grow; agriculture there requires a degree of industry of which we have no idea; if any one were to introduce there the system of Flemish or English agriculture, it would lead to ruin.

The _Vallis Albana_ is the modern valley of Grotta Ferrata.

In the east of Latium, in its narrower sense, we have the towns of

THE HERNICANS.

We know only five of them; ANAGNIA was the capital, to which the others were opposed as a political body. We here again find a parallel phenomenon: the same relation which existed between Alba and the Albensian towns, and between Rome and the Latin towns, appears to have existed between Anagnia and the towns of the Hernicans. This is briefly, but officially, alluded to in the Triumphal Fasti, where Q. Marcius Tremulus triumphs _de Anagninis Hernicisque_. The other towns were _Frusino_, _Ferentinum_, _Verulae_, and _Alatrium_. There can, however, be no doubt that they had more towns; some must have been taken from them by the Volscians and Aequians, while others may have continued to exist, but decayed and perished, so that we have no information about them. Livy, in speaking of the last war against the Hernicans, says, _omnes Hernici nominis populi_, except three. I have a conjecture which is a combination of several traces, and according to which their number was forty. All the five above-mentioned places still exist; they are generally small and poor, with the exception of Anagnia, which is a place of some consequence; but all of them are still imposing on account of their ruins and their mighty Cyclopean walls, in which towers and gates are still preserved.

Servius, on the Aeneid, and the ancient Scholia on Virgil, fragments of which were published about ten years ago by A. Mai from a Veronese MS., state that the name _Hernici_ is derived from the Sabine word _hernae_, which Arndt very happily compares with the Swiss _firn_ (mountain); as there exists a radical affinity between the two languages, such a comparison is certainly admissible. According to this, the Hernicans were a Sabine or Marsian colony. Another statement, however, though of very weak authority, in Julius Hyginus, makes the Hernicans Pelasgians. If we consider that the Sabines pressed forward at a comparatively late period, perhaps about the time of the foundation of Rome, and that the Hernicans dwelt on the other side of the Oscan nation of the Aequians, it is probable that the Hernicans, like the Latins, were of Tyrrhenian origin. An etymology like that mentioned before is very captivating, and it is not easy to get rid of it; but if we ask ourselves, What is the ground of the derivation? How could the name come from their habitations? Did the other Sabines call them Hernicans in the same manner in which the Scotch Lowlanders call the Gael in the mountains Highlanders? It is possible that the name Hernicans is only a surname to another national name; they may, in this case, have belonged to a different race, and have received that surname from the Sabines. That a people should call itself mountaineers from its habitations is very surprising. The derivation may be very accidental: in like manner the Thuringians might be said to owe their name to the old word _Taure_, which signifies “mountain.” If we assume that the Hernicans were Tyrrhenians, they occupied exactly the district in which they could have maintained themselves against the shock of the Ausonians, who were pressed on by the Sabines. But nothing decisive can be said on this point, we can only form conjectures; and we must carefully distinguish between what is conjectural and what is certain.[33]

There is no occasion for saying anything more about the towns of the Hernicans which I have mentioned. On the side of a rock, near the town of Ferentinum, there still exists a fragment of a will engraved in the stone. A wealthy citizen leaves a legacy, and fixes the interest of his landed property. The late Madame Dionigi, who made a drawing of it and published it, states that two of the pieces of land still exist in that district and bear the same name. A great many things of this kind continue to exist in some parts of Italy from ancient times; he who lives there in intimate familiarity with every-day affairs, and who does not mind spending months in those places, may recover the past to an extent which we believe altogether impossible.

The Hernicans formed part of the Roman and Latin confederacy, and had their share in the Feriae Latinae. In ancient times they were allied with Rome on equal terms, and shared with her and Latium all that they conquered in war. Afterwards this alliance was broken up, as I shall show in the second volume of my History,[34] because being weak and powerless, they could no longer claim their former rights. After the Gallic calamity, when Rome had fallen, they made themselves independent, and thirty years later the ancient treaty was renewed, and remained in force for fifty years, to the great advantage of the Hernicans. They were a small people, which did not extend, while Rome enlarged her dominion immensely. Hence the Romans demanded that the relation which had hitherto subsisted between them should be discontinued. In consequence of this, a war arose between them and the Hernicans, in which the latter had reason bitterly to repent their presumption.

THE VOLSCIANS AND AEQUIANS.

Both these Ausonian nations lived within the boundaries of Latium in its wider sense. The Volscians were subdivided into smaller parts, the Antiatan, Ecetranian, and other Volscians without any definite name. All the coast towns, as far as the upper Liris, were Volscian, as e.g. Anxur or Terracina, Privernum, Sora, Arpinum, Fabrataria, Fregellae, etc. The Aequians, on the other hand, dwelt on the one side as far as Praeneste, and on the other as far as lake Fucinus in the north. The Aequians and Volscians are almost always mentioned together, just as Romans and Latins, whence it is probable that isopolity existed between the two nations. Every man belonging to one nation might take up his abode among the other with which it was in isopolity: he there enjoyed higher rights than an alien; he was not, indeed, a full citizen, but a free member of the community; he was what was termed in the middle ages a pale-burgher. This is a relation which, on the whole, is seldom rightly understood by German jurists, and even by K. F. Eichhorn, who, in other respects, is a man of the greatest merit in matters of German law. Such an isopolity must have existed between the Aequians and Volscians; but besides this, they must have had another political connection, for a large party of the Aequians very frequently made common cause with a numerous body of the Volscians.

It is an important point to decide, as to whether the Volscians always inhabited the towns on the coast from Antium as far as Terracina, which are called Volscian, or whether they took possession of them as conquerors. At first I shared in the general error, thinking that they had always been Volscian; afterwards, I began to doubt—the first step towards truth—and to consider the possibility of its being otherwise; and now I am convinced that the country was originally inhabited by Tyrrhenians, that it was afterwards conquered by the Volscians, and that this event did not occur till after the banishment of the kings. All the places on the coast from Terracina to Antium, as well as Velitrae in the interior, were once Pelasgian, and may be justly called Latin, this being the ancient and common name. Receive this result of my inquiries with confidence; there is no danger of your being mistaken. In like manner, the Aequians extended their dominion in the direction of the Latins and Hernicans at the expense of both.

All the Volscians did not form one common state: the people of Arpinum, Sora, Anxur, Formiae, and Fundi may, at the time of their first conquest, have mutually assisted one another; but when their possessions were secured, when Antium and Ecetrae had become Volscian, the towns situated farther behind probably did not exert themselves for the other Volscian places.

In regard to the Aequians, it would almost seem, as if they had formed one compact state, although each of the several towns could, by itself, do little or nothing; scarcely one of them is deserving of notice. If we possessed the ancient commentaries on the Aeneid, we should know a great deal more about the ethnography and chorography of those parts. Virgil speaks of Nersae as one of the principal towns of the Aequians: _et te montosae misere in proelia Nersae_;[35] editors have unwarrantably changed this into _Nursae_, and referred it to Nursia, which is an Umbrian town in the Apennines beyond the Sabines, to which the Aequians never penetrated. People will not own, that there are things of which they know nothing. The books of Servius unfortunately have come down to us only in a wretched abridgment: if we examine the first two books, of which we have the original, we cannot but feel respect for Servius as a great grammarian. In like manner, the name of mount Vesulus—in the illustration of the boar inhabiting the marshes of the valley of Laurentum and the heights of Vesulus—has been senselessly referred to a hill near the sources of the Padus.[36] The hill must have been in the neighbourhood of Laurentum, in a district which Virgil knew very well, and which must afterwards have lost its name. I can well imagine what kind of a place Vesulus may have been, but it was most assuredly not a glacier of the Alps. This is one specimen of the perverse manner in which Virgil has been commented upon; an able commentary on the Aeneid, not too diffuse, has yet to be written; in regard to the Eclogues and the Georgics, Voss has done everything that can be desired.

The Aequians extended as far as lake Fucinus. When in the middle of the fifth century the Romans subdued them, they destroyed nearly fifty of their places, and forced the franchise upon them. Afterwards they obtained favourable terms and fair treatment, but the first shock of the war was terrible.

In the second and third books of Livy, the Volscians and Aequians generally come in contact with each other on mount _Algidus_. There are different opinions as to what mountain is meant by this name; scholars commonly rely on a passage in the Itineraries, where a place _Algidus_ or _Algidum_ is mentioned. The district is now never visited, because it is the haunt of fearful robbers; however, after I had left Italy, a friend of mine visited and described the localities. Between the countries of the Latins and Hernicans, there was a high and cold table land, _locus algidus_, not hills in the proper sense, but a rugged district covered with wood (_ilex_). At present there remain but slight traces of that forest, which is a little to the north of Velitrae. As the Aequians and Volscians were contiguous there, they separated the Hernicans from the Romans and Latins, and thus were pernicious to the latter. According to these statements, you will have no difficulty in finding the situation of mount Algidus in your maps.

ANTIUM was a Volscian place; I do not mean to say that the whole population consisted of Volscians, but it had received a Volscian colony, which gave the prevailing name; as Virgil says, _Tusco de sanguine vires_, so we may say of Antium, _Volsco de sanguine vires_. In ancient times, Antium was an important maritime and commercial place, but also the haunt of pirates; afterwards it became a _colonia maritima_, that is, its inhabitants were bound to serve in maritime war, and on extraordinary emergencies; they had the Roman franchise, but not the right of voting. The place was greatly favoured, and in the course of time became the emporium of the whole Latin country; its harbour was much better than that of any of the other towns on the same coast, such as Laurentum and Lavinium, which had only road-steads. At a later time, it was artificially improved, a circumstance which had become necessary, for the mud of the Tiber, which was carried along the coast, filled up the harbour. Afterwards Antium was one of those places, in which the wealthy Roman nobles were fond of taking up their summer residence, especially during the first century after Christ. Nero changed it into a military colony, but of an irregular kind.

TERRACINA or ANXUR, was a large and ancient Tyrrhenian city; Anxur is acknowledged to be its Volscian name. Its double name alone leads to the supposition that the place had a mixed population.

ECETRAE, one of the central points of the Volscian population, must be looked for in the interior of the country, above the Pontine marshes, and not far from Ferentinum. It afterwards entirely disappears like so many other places in that district. I cannot explain this otherwise, than by supposing that the Romans have drawn a veil over the Samnite wars. The time when so many places were destroyed there, must have been that when the Samnites penetrated into the heart of Latium.

The Volscians, like the Aequians, belonged the Ausonian race, of which I have spoken in the general survey of the Italian nations. If you compare the names, you will find that the Opicans and Apulians were one and the same people, and that the names of the ancient Italian nations have undergone various changes without a difference in meaning. Thus the _Aequi_ are also called _Aequani_, _Aequuli_, and _Aequiculi_, all of which are one and the same name, just as _Graeci_ and _Graeculi_, and _Hispani_ and _Hispalli_, which were originally used without any difference of meaning. The Aequians and Volscians, as I said before, belonged to this Oscan or Ausonian race, to which Latin writers also give the name _Aurunci_, while the Greeks call them _Ausones_. The same name often has a general signification, and sometimes again it is applied only to a special part, just as _Thessalians_ sometimes signifies the inhabitants of the country of Thessaly, and sometimes the population of Cyzicus, Ravenna, and Agylla, without there being any necessity of thinking of colonisation. In the same manner, Auruncans or Opicans are both the name of the whole race, and at the same time the name of separate portions. This changeableness in the use of names renders the survey of the history of ancient nations difficult, as the ancients themselves never express an opinion on this twofold meaning, and as those whose works are extant, are often themselves in error about it.

The Volscians, thus regarded as a portion of the Ausonians or Auruncans, extended from the Apennines in the neighbourhood of Arpinum along the Liris, south of the Hernicans as far as the coast of Antium. But there can be no doubt that they dwelt farther east, and the migration of the Cascans and Priscans was certainly owing to a commotion among that race. The Aeneid contains many traces of the original population of Latium, as for example, when the poet says, _Memini Auruncos ita ferre senes_.[37]

I have already spoken of the Volscians on the coast, of Antium, Terracina, and of the Ecetrani, whose name is often mentioned in history, but whose town is not spoken of anywhere; from one passage of Livy[38] alone, it may be inferred that it was situated near Ferentinum: it is possible that it may have been taken from the Hernicans by the Volscians. The population of such towns must never be conceived to have been totally changed. The Gauls, and similar uncivilised nations, sometimes did extirpate the ancient population; but people like the Romans and Volscians only settled as colonists among a conquered population, taking a part of its territory for themselves, either for the purpose of cultivating it themselves or of changing the former owners into coloni. Such also was the case with the population of Antium, as I have already mentioned. In the second volume of my Roman History, I shall explain, what in Livy’s history is quite inconceivable, namely, how it happens that Antium appears as a thoroughly Volscian town, which can be accounted for only by the idea we form of the power of the Volscian colonists. Livy is not the only cause of the confusion, but the annalists of the seventh century also have their share in it. If we had but Fabius, we might safely say, that we required no further deductions to discover the ancient relation, which in his work was undoubtedly quite clear and obvious.

FUNDI and FORMIAE likewise belong to those Volscian towns established on ancient Tyrrhenian foundations; but ARPINUM, the birth-place of Marius and Cicero, is the most immortal among the Volscian towns. The present circumference of the walls shows that it was a large and strong place. This town, impelled by necessity, remained faithful to the Romans when they were hard pressed by the Samnites.