"Unde Coroniden circumflua Tibridis alveo
Insula Romuleæ sacris adsciverit urbis."
Ovid, Metam. xv. 624.
"Accepit Phœbo Nymphaque Coronide natum
Insula, dividua quam premit amnis aqua."
Ovid, Fast. i. 291.
of Jupiter:
"Jupiter in parte est, cepit locus unus utrumque:
Junctaque sunt magno templa nepotis avo."
Ovid, Fast. i. 293.
and of Faunus:
"Idibus agrestis fumant altaria Fauni,
Hic ubi discretas insula rumpit aquas."
Ovid, Fast. ii. 193.
Here also was an altar to the Sabine god Semo-Sancus, whose inscription, legible in the early centuries of Christianity, led various ecclesiastical authors into the error that the words "Semoni Sanco" referred to Simon Magus.[357]
In imperial times the island was used as a prison: among remarkable prisoners immured here was Arvandus, Prefect of Gaul, A.D. 468. In the reign of Claudius sick slaves were exposed and left to die here,—that emperor—by a strange contradiction in one who caused fallen gladiators to be butchered "for the pleasure of seeing them die"—making a law that any slave so exposed should receive his liberty if he recovered. In the middle ages the island was under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Bishop of Porto, who lived in the Franciscan convent. Under Leo X. a fête was held here in which Camillo Querno, the papal poet, was crowned with ivy, laurel, and cabbage (!). In 1656 the whole island was appropriated as a hospital for those stricken with the plague,—a singular coincidence for the site of the temple of Æsculapius.
The first building on the left, after passing the bridge, is a fine brick tower, of great historic interest, as the only relic of a castle, built by the family of the Anicii, of which St. Gregory the Great was a member, and two of whom were consuls together under Honorius: