THE LATERAN MUSEUM.
Ring the bell on the right in the passage, if the custodian is not at the door. The custodian will conduct you over, if desired; and he can give a good account of the objects of interest. It is open every day from 9 till 3, and is comprised in sixteen rooms. Fee, half a franc each person. The principal objects are as follows:—
First Room.—Bas-reliefs: Procession of Lictors and Senators, with figure of Trajan, found in his forum; Dares and Entellus, boxers, a fragment, found near the Arch of Gallienus; part of a sarcophagus, with the history of Mars and Rhea Sylvia, Diana and Endymion; a Circus Race; Helen and Paris; Soldier and Wife Parting; Leucothea feeding the Infant Bacchus. Bust of Marcus Aurelius; pavement mosaic of Boxers, from Baths of Caracalla.
Second Room.—Portions brought from the Forum of Trajan, representing arabesques, children, chimeras, griffins.
Fourth Room.—Faun of Praxiteles, copy; bust of the Young Tiberius; bas-reliefs, Medea and Pelias's Daughters; statue of Mars; Germanicus; sepulchral cippi and bas-reliefs, found on the Via Appia.
Fifth Room.—Stag in gray marble; a Cow; Mithraic group; mutilated figure of a lynx; bust of Scipio; an altar with bas-reliefs, one representing cock-fighting.
Sixth Room.—Statues of members of the family of Augustus, found at Cervetri, 1839: Drusus, Agrippina the elder, and Livia, full figures; Tiberius and Claudius, sitting; Germanicus and Britannicus, in armour; Head of Augustus. Inscriptions to the members of the family; a bas-relief of an altar; recumbent statues of Silenus.
Seventh Room.—Statue of Sophocles, the best object in the museum; a Dancing Faun; female draped figure; Apollino; sepulchral inscriptions, from the Columbaria of the Vigna Codini (see [page 283] ), to Musicus Scuranus of Lyons, a tourist to Rome, who died there, with the names of the persons of his suite, on jamb of door.
Eighth Room.—Statue of Neptune; curious bas-reliefs, a man surrounded with masks; Cupid and Mars.
Ninth Room.—Fragments from the Forum.
Tenth Room.—Bas-reliefs from the tomb of the Aterii, representing a temple, with a crane moved by a tread-wheel for hoisting stones. Opposite, monuments in Rome, the Arch of Isis, Colosseum, Arch of Titus, and the Temple of Jupiter Stator. (See [page 95].) Cupid and Dolphin.
Eleventh Room.—Bas-reliefs of Boxers; Diana Multimammæ.
Twelfth Room.—Three large sarcophagi; Niobe and her Children; Orestes and the Furies; festoons and masks. A very interesting well-head, not unlike that represented on a denarius of Scribonus Lebo, and which stood in the Forum Romanum.
Thirteenth Room.—Busts of the Furia family, found on the Via Appia; statue by Dogmatius; alto-relief of Ulpia Epigoni; fragments of a colossal porphyry statue; two fluted spiral columns of pavonazzetto marble.
Fourteenth Room.—Unfinished statue of a captive barbarian, with the measuring points still in; mosaic masks, with the name of the artist, HERACLITUS, in Greek. On each side is a distinct mosaic representing an unswept floor after a banquet, such as Pliny (xxxvi. 60) ascribes to Sosus, "who laid, at Pergamus, the mosaic pavement known as the 'Asarotos Œcos,' from the fact that he there represented, in small squares of different colours, the remnants of a banquet lying upon the pavement, and other things which are usually swept away with the broom, they having all the appearance of being left there by accident." In a corner of this room is a terra-cotta siphon.
Fifteenth Room.—Objects found at Ostia, in the window-cases, between a mosaic niche of Silvanus and his dog. Opposite are, Agrippina; Head of Atys; Woman, unknown.
Sixteenth Room.—Fragments found at Ostia, in case in window; sepulchral urns; recumbent statue of Atys; leaden water-pipes. On the walls are frescoes: a pagan funeral banquet, time of Hadrian; Pluto carrying off Proserpine; Orpheus; Ops giving Saturn stones to swallow instead of his sons; a guinea-fowl and fruit. There is also a very beautiful bronze statuette of one of the Three Fates.