THE CRYPTOPORTICUS
But Augustus honored peace no less than war. He thrice took the census of Rome, showing an increase of the inhabitants from four millions sixty-three thousand to nearly five millions. In the inscriptions, already referred to as existing in the ruins of the temple of Angora in Asia Minor, he tells us that in the year 13 B. C. the Senate ordered an altar to be built in the Campus Martius to the divinity Pax Augusta (Augustan Peace), upon which magistrates, priests, and vestal virgins might offer a yearly sacrifice. In after ages this altar became covered with rubbish and above the rubbish was accumulated in time a cemetery belonging to the adjoining church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. But this cemetery, it is said, was ten feet below the present level of the city. In the latter part of the thirteenth century, over it and over the altar of Peace beneath it Cardinal Evesham built a palace, which has since passed through various hands. In the early part of the sixteenth century five carved panels of remarkable beauty were brought to light from this ground. Other pieces were found, but were carried to various places,—even to Paris, Vienna, and England. It was not until about the beginning of the present century that it was proved that they belonged to the famous Augustan Altar of Peace. Excavations have since been made upon the original site, sixteen feet below the street level.
Vaulted passages have been constructed, so that it is possible to pass along two sides of the altar’s foundation; and at the end of one of these passages, practically embedded in earth and rubbish, may be seen to-day a most beautifully carved panel showing a sacrificial procession. The altar stood upon a platform three and one-quarter feet high and measuring nineteen and a half by eleven and one-half feet. It was approached by steps on four sides. All this was placed in the midst of a sacred area thirty-eight feet by thirty-five feet, enclosed by marble walls elaborately carved in relief on both sides. Among the representations is a procession moving toward a sacrificial scene. The figures are characterized by great dignity and their drapery is arranged to produce a graceful effect. Augustus himself and many of the persons high in rank and power during his reign are grouped as if in conversation. It is evident that the whole structure was a most highly wrought and artistic composition, a fitting monument to him whose boast it was that he had secured unity and peace throughout his empire and had caused the gates of Janus, the god of war, to be closed for a long time. Professor James C. Egbert, of Columbia University, in his description of this altar in the “Records of the Past” for 1906, to which I am indebted, thus described two of the panels, which are now in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence:
In one of these there are two family groups both marked by the presence of husband and wife. The tall young man on the left is Drusus, who died B. C. 9, greatly mourned by the emperor and the people. He wears a military cloak, as he has left his command in Rhætia to attend the dedication of the altar. His wife, the beautiful Antonia, stands immediately before him and their conversation is interrupted by the warning gesture of the figure between, who calls for silence lest they mar the sanctity of the occasion. The child at their feet is either Germanicus or the later emperor, Claudius. The group to the right may be Tiberius and his wife Julia, whom he, much to his disgust, was compelled to marry after the death of her former husband, Vipsanius Agrippa. The wife may be the sister of Antonia in the first group. Then the husband would be Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the grandfather of Nero. Vipsanius Agrippa played a very important part in bringing about the reign of peace and we should expect to find him among the members of the imperial group. The central figure in another panel has been recognized as Agrippa because of the distinction suggested by the repose of the countenance. Some see here a sadness of expression natural to one who has suffered much. He is preceded by a young man who bears on his shoulder the official ax, for Agrippa appears here as a high-priest. The boy grasping his toga is Lucius Cæsar, his son, and the beautiful woman on his left may be Julia, his wife, or Vipsania Agrippina, his daughter.
To this description we may add that such graceful and charming sculptures, with their portraits of leading personages, could not have been unveiled to the Roman public without awakening great admiration.
To the period of Augustus also belongs the foundation, at least, of the Pantheon. His prime minister and son-in-law, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, erected a temple, twenty-seven years before Christ, at the north end of the warm baths, which he had established here in the Campus Martius. It was dedicated to several gods. It has often been repaired and probably altered and enlarged by restorations. The emperors Hadrian, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla all contributed to its preservation and development. In antiquity the portico was reached by five steps, which are now covered by the rising of the ground. Since A. D. 609 it has been consecrated as a Christian church. Notwithstanding this, in A. D. 663 Constans II, emperor at Constantinople, carried away to his city the gilt-bronze tiles of the roof.
Throughout the middle ages this temple was prized as the palladium and emblem of Rome. The main part of the building is circular in form,—the height and diameter of which are said to be equal, each being one hundred and forty-two feet,—and is composed of that concrete that the ancient Romans knew how to make so lasting. It is lighted by an uncovered aperture, thirty feet in diameter, in the center of the dome, rimmed by an elegant ancient cornice of bronze. The rich columns of different kinds of marble and the other decorations of the interior are most imposing, and correspond well with the stately Corinthian portico which forms the front of the edifice and under which once stood colossal bronze statues of Augustus and Agrippa.
The five front steps by which it was entered in ancient times, are now covered by the raising of the ground all around the building. The entrance is still closed by the ancient massive, bronze doors. In 1632 Pope Urban VIII, one of the Barberini family, took away the bronze columns and ceiling of the portico to make out of them the elaborate pillars which support the canopy of the high altar in St. Peter’s, and also cannon for the Castle of St. Angelo. This occasioned the circulation of a popular epigram of Pasquin. “What the Barbarians did not do the Barberini did.”
The Pantheon is the noblest and best preserved building of ancient Rome,—the only one, indeed, having both its walls and vaulting intact, and it is still closed by its ancient heavy bronze doors. Lord Byron’s lines concerning it are well worth quoting because of the conciseness of his description.