When Nero perished by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroyed,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,
Of nations freed and the world overjoyed,
Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb,—
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.
The stone slab on which is inscribed the simple epitaph of Ecloge is in the Capitoline Museum. Perhaps it was by her own request, in tender recollections of earlier days and also of her part in the preparations of his body for its cremation, that she was buried on the scene of her infamous nurseling’s death.
There is an old tradition that the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo was founded by Pope Pascal II in the early part of the eleventh century on the site of the tombs of the Domitii and the burial place of Nero, because he would thus free the place from the demons that were supposed to haunt it. In the sixteenth century it was the Augustinian Convent (now suppressed) adjoining this church that was the lodging place of the monk Martin Luther on his visit to Rome. On his arrival he prostrated himself on the earth and exclaimed in the language of an old pilgrim hymn:
“I salute thee, O holy Rome, sacred with the blood of the martyrs.”
Then he celebrated mass in the church. Before he departed from Rome,—having very different feelings from those with which he had entered it, and soon to become a great reformer,—he celebrated mass in this church again. It contains many grand old tombs and fine works of art. In the center of the square, between four spouting lions, rises the Egyptian obelisk, which the Emperor Augustus erected in B. C. 10, in the ancient Circus Maximus to commemorate the subjugation of Egypt. Its hieroglyphic inscription is said to mention the names of Meneptah and Rameses III (1326 and 1273 B. C.).
Hawthorne in his “Marble Faun,” that book which has become a very classic for its reproduction of modern Roman life and spirit, says:
All Roman works and ruins, whether of the empire, the far-off Republic or the still more distant Kings, assume a transient, visionary and impalpable character when we think that this indestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance on beholding the cloudy pillar and the fiery column they whispered awe-stricken to one another: “In its shape it is like that old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile.”
And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the first thing that the modern traveler sees after entering the Flaminian gate. Egyptian monarchs, Roman emperors, the leader of the Protestant Reformation:—what widely different historic names are conjured up for us by these adjacent memorials. Near the church the carriage driveway now leads up from terrace to terrace to the public garden on the Pincian Hill. Here the modern landscape artists have laid out a charming resort, reminding us of the ancient and luxurious gardens of Lucullus which stood near the same spot. Until 1840 this beautiful park had been for centuries a desolate waste; and here in the middle ages the ghost of Nero was believed to be forever wandering. On pleasant afternoons, and especially on Sunday afternoon, many fine equipages may now be seen moving along its avenues, for it is the fashionable promenade of the Roman aristocracy, and from it a fine view over the city, taking in the dome of Saint Peter’s, may be enjoyed. The military band discourses excellent music. The occupants of the carriages greet each other with bows and smiles. Pedestrians loiter and converse. In this strange old city, including so many strata of memories and so cosmopolitan in its society, modern gayeties and venerable antiquities jostle one another. In the midst of the living and festive throng one’s mind can rove back through history and think of this and that famous event, significant or tragic and widely separated in time, which have occurred upon the ground over which he is passing.