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not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning, or otherwise injured.

Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularise the Romulus and the Remus, especially the first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed: and Dion only mentions that it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows that the statue was not then standing in its former position. Winkelmann has observed, that the present twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there are marks of gilding on the wolf, which might therefore be supposed to make part of the ancient group. It is known that the sacred images of the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were put into certain under-ground depositaries, called favissæ. (1) It may be thought possible that the wolf had been so deposited, and had been replaced in some conspicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it was found near the arch of Severus, it may have been one of the images which Orosius (2) says was thrown down in the Forum by lightning when Alaric took the city. That it is of very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive proof; and that circumstance induced Winkelmann to believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline wolf, however, may have been of the same early date as that at the temple of Romulus. Lactantius (3) asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped

(1) Luc. Faun. ibid.

(2) See note to stanza LXXX. in Historical Illustrations. (3) "Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem, si animal ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant, de Falsa Religione, lib. i. cap. xx. pag. 101. edit. varior. 1660; that is to say, he would rather adore a wolf than a prostitute. His commentator has observed that the opinion of Livy concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. Strabo thought so. Rycquius is wrong in saying that Lactantius mentions the wolf was in the Capitol.

(4) To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," says Baronius (Ann. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 602, in an. 496.), "viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelasii tempora, quæ fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalia?" Gelasius wrote a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up.

(5) Eusebius has these words: καὶ ἀνδριάντι παρ' ὑμῖν ὡς θεὸς τετίμηται, ἐν τῷ Τίβερι ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρῶν, ἔχων ἐπιγραφὴν Ρωμαϊκὴν ταύτην Σίμωνι δίω Σάγκτῳ. Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story before, but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. Nardini, Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii.

See

a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period (4) after every other observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired. This may account for the preservation of the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of Paganism.

It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which they make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had probably never heard of such a person before, who came, however, to play a considerable though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial combat with St. Peter at Rome; notwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god called Semo Sangus or Fidius.(5)

Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been abandoned, it was thought expedient to humour the habits of the good matrons of the city, by sending them with their sick infants to the church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carried them to the temple of Romulus. (6) The practice is continued to this day; and the site of the above church seems to be thereby identified with that of the temple; so that if the wolf had been really found there, as Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present statue being that seen by Dionysius.(7) Bat Faunus, in saying that it was at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, is only talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and even if he had been remarking where it was found, would not have alluded to the church of Saint Theodore, but to a very different place, near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminalis had been, and also the Comitium; that is, the three columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum.

It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up;(8) and perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian

(6) "In esse gli antichi pontefici per toglier la memoria de' giuochi Lupercali instuiti in onore di Romolo, introdussero l'uso di portarvi bambini oppressi da infermità occulte, acciò si liberino per l'intercessione di questo santo, come di continuo si sperimenta." Rione xii. Ripa, accurata e succinta Descrizione, etc. di Roma Moderna, dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766.

(7) Nardini, lib. v. cap. 11. convicts Pomponius Lætus crassi erroris, in putting the Ruminal fig-tree at the church of Saint Theodore: but as Livy says the wolf was at the Ficus Ruminalis, and Dionysius at the temple of Romulus, he is obliged (cap. iv.) to own that the two were close together, as well as the Lupercal cave, shaded, as it were, by the fig-tree.

(8) "Ad comitium ficus olim Ruminalis germinabat, sub qua lupa rumam, hoc est, mammam, docente Varrone, suxerant olim Romulus et Remus; non procul a templo hodie D. Mariæ Liberatricis appellato, ubi forsan inventa nobilis illa ænea statua lupa geminos puerulos lactantis, quam hodie in Capitolino videmus." Olai Borrichii Antiqua Urbis Romane Facies, cap. x. See also cap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini, in I687. 4p. Græv. Antiq. Rom, tom. iv. p1522.

wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting relics of the ancient city, (1) and is certainly the figure, if not the very animal, to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses:-

"Geminos huic ubera circum

Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem Impavidos: illam tereti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguà."(2)

XXVI.

JULIUS CAESAR.

"For the Roman's mind

Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould."
Stanza xc. lines 3 and 4.

It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general-the only triumphant politician-inferior to none in eloquence-comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world—an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting (3) and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.

But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial countrymen :

HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.(4)

(1) Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius.

(2) Æn. viii. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject.

(3) In his tenth book, Lucan shows him, sprinkled with the blood of Pharsalia, in the arms of Cleopatra :

"Sanguine Thessalica cladis perfusus adulter
Admisit Venerem curis, et miscuit armis."

After feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse with the Egyptian sages, and tells Achoreus:"Spes sit mihi certa videndi

Niliacos fontes, bellum civile relinquam."
"Sic velut in tuta securi pace trahebant
Noctis iter medium."

Immediately afterwards, he is fighting again, and defending every position:

"Sed adest defensor ubique

Caesar et hos aditus gladiis, hos ignibus arcet
cæca nocte carinis

Insiluit Cæsar semper feliciter usus
Præcipiti cursu bellorum et tempore rapto."

(4) "Jure cæsus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimation of his character, and making use of a phrase

XXVII.

EGERIA.

-"Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting place so fair
As thine ideal breast."

Stanza cxv. lines 1, 2, and 3. The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto.(5) He assures us that he saw an inscription in the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria, dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines (6) of Ovid, from a stone in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think had been brought from the same grotto.

This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, creeps down the matted grass into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aquataccio. The ! valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes of that name, who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land.

There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing-place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality of his commentators have supposed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been into the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped.

The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the Kings, as far as the Arician grove, and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city.(7) The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk.

The modern topographers (8) find in the grotto the

which was a formula in Livy's time. "Melium jure cæsum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit:" (lib. iv. cap. 48.) and which was continued in the legal judgments pronounced in justifiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. See Sueton. in Vit. C. J. Cæsaris, with the commentary of Pitiscus, p. 184.

(5) "Poco lontano dal detto luogo si scende ad un casaletto, del quale ne sono Padroni li Caffarelli, che con questo nome è chiamato il luogo; vi è una fontana sotto una gran volta antica, che al presente si gode, e li Romani vi vanne l'estate a ricrearsi; nel pavimento di essa fonte si legge in un epitaffio essere quella la fonte di Egeria, dedicata alle ninfe, e questa, dice l'epitaffio, essere la medesima fonte in cui fu convertita." Memorie, etc. ap. Nardini, page 13. › lle does not give the inscription.

(6) "In villa Justiniana extat ingens lapis quadratus solidus, in quo sculpta hæc duo Ovidii carmina sunt:Egeria est quæ præbet aquas dea grata Camœnis

Illa Numæ conjux consiliumque fuit.'

Qui lapis videtur ex eodem Egeriæ fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthuc comportatus." Diarium Italic. p. 153.

(7) De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Græv. Ant. Rom. tom. iv. p.

1507.

(8) Echinard, Descrizione di Roma e dell' Agro Romano, | corretto dall' Abate Venuti, in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. "Simulacro di questo fonte, essendovi scolpite le acque a pie di esso."

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statue of the nymph, and nine niches for the Muses; and a late traveller (1) has discovered that the cave is restored to that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. the beadless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any individual cave. (2) Nothing can be collected from the satirist but that, somewhere near the Porta Capena, was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly consultations with his nymph, and where there was a grove and a sacred fountain and fanes once consecrated to the Muses; and that from this spot there was a descent into the valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the decoration which the satirist thought misplaced in these caves; for he expressly assigns other fanes (delubra) to these divinities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had been ejected to make room for the Jews. In fact, the little temple, now called that of Bacchus, was formerly thought to belong to the Muses, and Nardini (3) places them in a poplar grove, which was in his time above the valley.

It is probable, from the inscription and position, that the cave now shown may be one of the "artificial caverns," of which, indeed, there is another a little way higher up the valley, under a tuft of alder bushes: but a single grotto of Egeria is a mere modern invention, grafted upon the application of the epithet Egerian to these nymphea in general, and which might send us to look for the haunts of Numa upon the banks of the Thames.

Our English Juvenal was not seduced into mistranslation by his acquaintance with Pope: he carefully preserves the correct plural

The circus of Caracalla depends on a medal of that emperor cited by Fulvius Ursinus, of which the reverse shows a circus, supposed, however, by some to represent the Circus Maximus. It gives a very good idea of that place of exercise. The soil has been but little raised, if we may judge from the smail cellular structure at the end of the Spina, which was probably the chapel of the god Consus. This cell is half beneath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself; for Dionysius (6) could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was under ground.

XXVIII.

THE ROMAN NEMESIS.

"Great Nemesis!

Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long."
Stanza cxxxii. lines 2 and 3.

We read in Suetonius, that Augustus, from a warning received in a dream, (7) counterfeited, once a year, the beggar sitting before the gate of his palace, with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the Villa Borghese, and which should be now at Paris, represents the Emperor in that posture of supplication. The object of this self-degradation was the appeasement of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols attached to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue pass for that of Belisarius: and until the criticism of Winkelmann (8) had rectified the mistake, one fiction was called in to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden termination of prosperity that made Amasis king of Egypt warn his friend, Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved those whose lives were chequered with good and evil fortunes. Nemesis was supposed to lie in wait parti

"Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view The Egerian grots: oh, how unlike the true!" The valley abounds with springs, (4) and over these springs, which the Muses might haunt from their neigh-cularly for the prudent; that is, for those whose caubouring groves, Egeria presided: hence she was said [to supply them with water; and she was the nymph of the grottos through which the fountains were taught to flow,

The whole of the monuments in the vicinity of the Egerian valley have received names at will, which have been changed at will. Venuti (5) owns he can see no traces of the temples of Jove, Saturn, Juno, Venus, and Diana, which Nardini found, or hoped to find. The mutatorium of Caracalla's circus, the temple of Honour and Virtue, the temple of Bacchus, and, above all, the temple of the god Ridiculus, are the antiquaries' despair.

(1) Classical Tour, chap. vi. p. 217, vol. ii.
(2) "Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam,

Hic ubi nocturnæ Numa constituebat amicæ.
Nunc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur
Judæis quorum cophinus fœnumque supellex.
Omnis enim populo mercedem pendere jussa est
Arbor, et ejectis mendicat silva Camœnis.
In vallem Egeria descendimus, et speluncas
Dissimiles veris. Quanto præstantius esset
Numen aquæ, viridi si margine clauderet undas
Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum?"
Sat. III.
Lib. iii. cap. iii.

“Undique e solo aquæ scaturiunt." Nardini, lib. iii.

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tion rendered them accessible only to mere accidents: and her first altar was raised on the banks of the Phrygian Esopus by Adrastus, probably the prince of that name who killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was called Adrastea. (9)

The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a temple to her in the Palatine, under the name of Rhamnusia: (10) so great, indeed, was the propensity of the ancients to trust to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a temple to the Fortune of the day. (11) This is the last superstition

(7) Sueton. in Vit. Augusti, cap. 91. Casaubon, in the note, refers to Plutarch's Lives of Camillus and Æmilius Paulus, and also to his apophthegms, for the character of this deity. The hollowed hand was reckoned the last degree of degradation; and when the dead body of the præfect Rufinus was borne about in triumph by the people, the indignity was increased by putting his hand in that position.

(8) Storia delle Arti, etc. lib. xii. cap. iii. tom. ii. p. 422. Visconti calls the statue, however, a Cybele. It is given in the Museo Pio- Clement. tom. i. par 40. The Abate Fea (Spiegazione dei Rami. Soria, etc. tom. iii. p. 513) calls it a Chrisippus.

(9) Dict. de Bayle, article Adrastea.

(10) It is enumerated by the regionary Victor.

(11) Fortunæ hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. lib. ii.

which retains its hold over the human heart; and, from concentrating in one object the credulity so natural to man, has always appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles of belief. The antiquaries have supposed this goddess to be synonymous with Fortune and with Fate: (1) but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Nemesis.

vived. The story is told by Theodoret (7) and Cassiodorus, (8) and seems worthy of credit notwithstanding its place in the Roman martyrology. (9) Besides the torrents of blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres, the circus, the forums, and other public places, gladiators were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to pieces amidst the supper tables, to the great delight and applause of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits himself to suppose the loss of courage, and the evident degeneracy of mankind, to be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody spectacles. (10)

XXIX.

GLADIATORS.

"He, their sire,

Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday."

Stanza cxli. lines 6 and 7.

Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled and voluntary; and were supplied from several conditions: -from slaves sold for that purpose; from culprits; from barbarian captives either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels; also from free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), others from a depraved ambition: at last even knights and senators were exhibited, -a disgrace of which the first tyrant was naturally the first inventor. (2) In the end, dwarfs, and even women, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian captives; and to this species a Christian writer (3) justly applies the epithet "innocent," to distinguish them from the professional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after his triumph, and the other on the pretext of a rebellion. (4) No war, says Lipsius, (5) was ever so destructive to the human race as these sports. In spite of the laws of Constantine and Constans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion more than seventy years; but they owed their final extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the shows in the Flavian amphitheatre, before the usual immense concourse of people. Almachius, or Telemachus, an Eastern monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to separate the combatants. The prætor Alypius, a person incredibly attached to these games, (6) gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abolished the shows, which were never afterwards re

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See Questiones Romanæ, etc. ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. v. p. 942. See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. tom. i. p. 88, 89; where there are three Latin and one Greek inscriptions to Nemesis, and others to Fate.

(2) Julius Cæsar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Furius Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arena.

(3) Tertullian, "certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in Judum veniunt, et voluptatis publicæ hostiæ fiant." Just. Lips. Saturn. Sermon. lib. ii. cap. iii.

Vopiscus, in Vit. Aurel. and in Vit. Claud. ibid.

"Credo imò scio nullum bellum tantam cladem vas

XXX.

Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd. Stanza cxlii. lines 5 and 6. When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted "he has it," "hoc habet," or " habet." The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people saved him; if otherwise, or as they happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They were occasionally so savage, that they were impatient if a combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death. The emperor's presence generally saved the vanquished; and it is recorded as an instance of Caracalla's ferocity, that he sent those who supplicated him for life, in a spectacle, at Nicomedia, to ask the people; in other words, handed them over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at the Spanish bull-fights. The magistrate presides; and after the horsemen and piccadores have fought the bull, the matadore steps forward and bows to him for permission to kill the animal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or three horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere with shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the animal is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are accompanied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of delight, especially from the female portion of the audience, including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depends on habit. The author of Childe Harold, the writer of this note, and one or two other Englishmen, who have certainly in other days borne the sight of a pitched battle, were, during the summer of 1809, in the governor's box at the great amphitheatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. The death of one or two horses completely satisfied their curiosity. A gentleman present, observing them shudder and look pale, noticed that un

titiemque generi humano intulisse, quam hos ad voluptatem ludos." Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii.

(6) Augustinus (lib. vi. Confess. cap. viii.) "Alypium suum gladiatorii spectaculi inhiatu incredibiliter abreptum," scribit. Ib. lib. i. cap. xii.

(7) Hist. Eccles. cap. xxvi. lib. v.

(8) Cassiod. Tripartita, 1. x. c. xi. Saturn, ib. ib.

Baronius, ad. ann., et in notis ad Martyrol. Rom. I. Jan.-See Marangoni delle Memorie sacre e profane dell' Anfiteatro Flavio, p. 25. edit. 1746.

(10) "Quod? non tu Lipsi momentum aliquod habuisse censes ad virtutem? Magnum. Tempora nostra, nosque ipsos videamus. Oppidum ecce unum alterumve captum, direptum est; tumultus circa nos, non in nobis, et tamen concidimus et turbamur. Ubi robur, ubi tot per annos meditata sapientiæ studia? ubi ille animus qui possit dicere, si fractus illabatur orbis?" etc. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. xxv. The prototype of Mr. Windham's panegyric on bull-baiting.

usual reception of so delightful a sport to some young ladies, who stared and smiled, and continued their applauses as another horse fell bleeding to the ground. One bull killed three horses off his own horns. He was saved by acclamations, which were redoubled when it was known he belonged to a priest.

An Englishman, who can be much pleased with seeing two men beat themselves to pieces, cannot bear to look at a horse galloping round an arena with his bowels trailing on the ground, and turns from the spectacle and the spectators with horror and disgust.

XXXI.

THE ALBAN HILL

"And afar

The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
The Latian coast," etc. etc.

Stanza clxxiv. lines 2, 3, and 4. The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cited stanza; the Mediterranean; the whole scene of the latter half of the Eneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina.

The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata, or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Buonaparte.

The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as may be seen from Middleton's Life of Cicero. At present it has lost something of its credit, except for the Domenichinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the adjoining villa is a cardinal's summer-house. The other villa, called Rufinella, is on the summit of the hill above Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been found there, besides seventy-two statues of different merit and preservation, and seven busts.

From the same eminence are seen the Sabine hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There are several circumstances which tend to establish the identity of this valley with the" Ustica" of Horace; and it seems possible that the mosaic pavement which the peasants uncover by throwing up the earth of a vineyard may belong to his villa. Rustica is pronounced | short, not according to our stress upon-"Usticæ cubantis." It is more rational to think that we are wrong, than that the inhabitants of this secluded valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition of the consonant prefixed is nothing: yet it is necessary to be aware that Rustica may be a modern name which the peasants may have caught from the antiquaries.

The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll covered with chestnut-trees. A stream runs down the valley; and although it is not true, as said in the guide-books, that this stream is called Licenza, yet there is a village on a rock at the head of the valley which is so denominated, and which may have taken its name from the Digentia. Licenza contains 700 │inhabitants. On a peak a little way beyond is Civi

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tella, containing 300. On the banks of the Anio, a little before you turn up into Valle Rustica, to the left, about an hour from the villa, is a town called Vicovaro, another favourable coincidence with the Varia of the poet. At the end of the valley, towards the Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town called Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza flows, and is almost absorbed in a wide sandy bed before it reaches the Anio. Nothing can be more fortunate for the lines of the poet, whether in a metaphorical or direct sense:

"Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, Quem Mandela bibit rugosus frigore pagus." The stream is clear high up the valley, but, before it reaches the hill of Bardela, looks green and yellow, like a sulphur rivulet.

Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's walk from the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does seem to be the site of the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription found there tells that this temple of the Sabine Victory was repaired by Vespasian. (1) With these helps, and a position corresponding exactly to every thing which the poet has told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our site.

The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Campanile, and, by following up the rivulet to the pretended Bandusia, you come to the roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. Singularly enough, the only spot of ploughed land in the whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia rises:

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"To trace the Muses upwards to their spring," by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in search of the Bandusian fountain. It seems strange that any one should have thought Bandusia a fountain of the Digentia-Horace has not let drop a word of it; and this immortal spring has in fact been discovered in possession of the holders of many good things in Italy, the monks. It was attached to the church of St. Gervais and Protais, near Venusia, where it was most likely to be found. (2) We shall not be so lucky as a late traveller in finding the occasional pine still pendent on the poetic villa. There is not a pine in the whole valley, but there are two cypresses, which he evidently took, or mistook, for the tree in the ode. (3) The truth is, that the pine is now, as it was in the days of Virgil, a garden tree, and it was not at all likely to be found in the craggy acclivities of the valley of Rustica. Horace probably had one of them in the orchard close above his farm, immediately overshadowing his villa, not on the rocky heights at some distance from his abode. The tourist may have easily supposed himself to have seen this pine figured in the above cypresses; for the orange

(2) See Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Child: Harold, p. 43.

(3) See Eustace's Classical Tour, etc. chap. vii. p. 230. vol. ii.

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