Behind the Santa Scala, a narrow lane leads to the Villa Wolkonski (a "permesso" may be obtained through your banker), a most beautiful garden, running along the edge of the hill, intersected by the broken arches of the Aqua Claudia, and possessing exquisite views over the Campagna, with its lines of aqueducts to the Alban and Sabine mountains. No one should omit to visit this villa.
"Where the aqueducts, just about to enter the city, most nearly converge, and looking across the Campagna—which their arches only seem able to span—towards Albano and the hills, stands the Villa. Embosomed in olive and in ilex trees, it is rich in hoar cypresses, in urns, and in those pathetic fragments of old workmanship which an undergrowth of violets and acanthus half hides, and half reveals."—Vera.
About a mile beyond the Porta S. Giovanni, a road branches off on the left to the Porta Furba, an arch of the Aqua Felice, founded on the line of the Claudian and Marcian aqueducts. Artists may find a picturesque subject here in a pretty fountain, with a portion of the decaying aqueduct. Beyond the arch is the mound called Monte del Grano, which has been imagined to be the burial-place of Alexander Severus. Beyond this, the road (to Frescati) passes on the left the vast ruins, called Sette Bassi.
The direct road—which leads to Albano—reaches, about two miles from the gate, a queer building, called the Casa del Diavolo, on the outside of which some rude frescoes testify to the popular belief as to its owner. Just beyond this a field track on the left leads to the Via Latina, of which a certain portion, paved with huge polygonal blocks of lava, is now laid bare. Here are some exceedingly interesting and well-preserved tombs, richly ornamented with painting and stucco. The view, looking back upon Rome, or forward to the long line of broken arches of the Claudian aqueduct, seen between these ruined sepulchres, is most striking and beautiful.
Close by have been discovered remains of a villa of the Servilii, which afterwards belonged to the Asinarii. Here also, in 1858 (on the left of the Via Latina), Signor Fortunati discovered the long buried and forgotten Basilica of S. Stefano. It is recorded by Anastasius that this basilica was founded in the time of Leo I. (440—461) by Demetria, a lady who escaped from the siege by the Goths, with her mother, to Carthage, where she became a nun. It was restored by Leo III. at the end of the eighth century. The remains are interesting, though they do little more than show perfectly the substruction and plan of the ancient building. An inscription relating to the foundation of the church by Demetria has been found among the ruins.
Not far from this is the Catacomb of the Santi-Quattro.
Three and a half miles from Rome is the Osteria of Tavolato, near which is one of the most striking and picturesque portions of the Claudian Aqueduct. It is on the rising ground between this aqueduct and the road, that the Temple of Fortuna Muliebris is believed to have stood. This was the temple which Valeria, the sister of Publicola, and Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, claimed to erect at their own expense, when the senate asked them to choose their recompense for having preserved Rome by their entreaties.
"As Valeria, sister of Publicola, was sitting in the temple, as a suppliant before the image of Jupiter, Jupiter himself seemed to inspire her with a sudden thought, and she immediately rose, and called upon all the other noble ladies who were with her, to arise also, and she led them to the house of Volumnia, the mother of Caius (Coriolanus). There she found Virgilia, the wife of Caius, with his mother, and also his little children. Valeria then addressed Volumnia and Virgilia, and said, 'Our coming here to you is our own doing; neither the senate nor any mortal man have sent us; but the god in whose temple we were sitting as suppliants put it into our hearts, that we should come and ask you to join with us, women with women, without any aid of men, to win for our country a great deliverance, and for ourselves a name, glorious above all women, even above those Sabine wives in the old time, who stopped the battle between their husbands and their fathers. Come, then, with us to the camp of Caius, and let us pray to him to show us mercy.' Volumnia said, 'We will go with you:' and Virgilia took her young children with her, and they all went to the camp of the enemy.
"It was a sad and solemn sight to see this train of noble ladies, and the very Volscian soldiers stood in silence as they passed by, and pitied them and honoured them. They found Caius sitting on the general's seat, in the midst of the camp, and the Volscian chiefs were standing round him. When he first saw them he wondered what it could be; but presently he knew his mother, who was walking at the head of the train, and then he could not contain himself, but leapt down from his seat, and ran to meet her, and was going to kiss her. But she stopped him, and said, 'Ere thou kiss me, let me know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my son; whether I stand in thy camp as thy prisoner or thy mother?' Caius could not answer her; and then she went on and said, 'Must it be, then, that had I never borne a son, Rome never would have seen the camp of an enemy; that had I remained childless, I should have died a free woman in a free city? But I am too old to bear much longer either thy shame or my misery. Rather look to thy wife and children, whom, if thou persistest, thou art dooming to an untimely death, or a long life of bondage.' Then Virgilia and his children came up to him and kissed him, and all the noble ladies wept, and bemoaned their own fate and the fate of their country. At last Caius cried out, 'O mother, what hast thou done to me?' and he wrung her hand vehemently, and said, 'Mother, thine is the victory; a happy victory for thee and for Rome, but shame and ruin to thy son.' Then he fell on her neck and embraced her, and he embraced his wife and his children, and sent them back to Rome; and led away the army of the Volscians, and never afterwards attacked Rome any more. The Romans, as was right, honoured Volumnia and Valeria for their deed, and a temple was built and dedicated to 'Woman's Fortune' just on the spot where Caius had yielded to his mother's words; and the first priestess of the temple was Valeria, into whose heart Jupiter had first put the thought to go to Volumnia, and to call upon her to go out to the enemy's camp and entreat her son."—Arnold's Hist. of Rome, vol. i.