Academy.

To the south-west of the Canopus rise the immense substructions, 1755 feet in length, which supported the highest terrace on this side of the villa. They extend as far as the square tower called Rocca Bruna in Ligorio’s plan. This terrace and hill are supposed to have been the imitation of the Athenian Academy mentioned by Spartianus. There was a gymnasium here, the ruins of which are to be seen in a vineyard at the southern end of the hill, consisting of a large court, a circular temple, and a large recess. Beyond these there was a large square block of buildings supposed by Nibby to have been used for the students and masters of the School of Art maintained by Hadrian, and beyond this again was a spacious Odeum or theatre for musical performances. The raised seat of this is now converted into a vineyard, but the stage is still well preserved. There were, as in the Odeum of Catania, two divisions, and at the top of the central division was a round temple dedicated to the presiding genius of the Odeum; just as in the Theatre of Pompey the Chapel of Victory stood above the seats.

Close to this Odeum are the vast subterranean passages supposed to be the Inferi which Spartianus mentions. The depth at which these lie is only fourteen feet, but they occupy a trapezoidal area, the longest side of which is about one thousand and fifty feet, and the shortest two hundred. Most of these corridors are excavated like catacombs in the natural rock. A brick stamped with the name Cynosarges was found near the aqueduct which runs to the south of the Inferi. There are two other names found in Spartianus, the Lyceum, and the Prytaneum, and Piranesi identifies the Lyceum with a ruined portico at a little distance to the south of the Inferi, and the Prytaneum with some more extensive ruins to the south-east.

After Constantine’s time, the Villa of Hadrian remained in a desolate state, and was abandoned to the caprices of the imbecile Cæsars, who tormented the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, and to occasional visits from the plundering hordes of Goths, Vandals, and Heruli, who successively ravaged the neighbouring country. In the middle of the sixth century it was completely pillaged and ruined. In the Gothic wars of 546-556 Totila took Tibur after a siege of some months, and revenged himself for the resistance of the Isaurian garrison by putting all to the sword without sparing even the bishop. At the same time Totila broke down all the bridges on the Anio. During that long siege, the Villa of Hadrian with its enormous halls, its vast ranges of rooms, and its advantageous and commanding site at the junction of several roads, offered convenient quarters to the barbarian king and his host. It may be imagined what devastation such tenants would inflict upon the place. In the sixth century the villa fell more and more into ruins; to the disasters of the Gothic wars were added those incurred during the Lombard wars under Astulf. The Lombards were a more savage horde than the Goths, and their object was to destroy the Roman empire utterly, and to divide Italy into dukedoms. These barbarians attacked Rome many times, and ravaged the Campagna, but Astulf distinguished himself above all the rest in these incursions, massacring and burning everywhere without distinction. As we hear that he was encamped near Tivoli, we may conclude that the Villa of Hadrian suffered severely in or about the year 755.

The wars between emperors and popes, and the quarrels between the factions in Rome itself which followed, injured Rome perhaps rather more than the cities of the Campagna. But the greatest damage of all was done to the villa by its being made the quarry whence the churches, the monasteries, and the houses of the wealthy Tiburtines were decorated with marbles, columns, and costly stonework, and when these were filled and could hold no more of the innumerable marble sculptures and statues, they were condemned to the lime-kiln and converted into mortar. After the revival of letters and arts in the fifteenth century, the lamentations poured out in the time of Pius II. (A.D. 1458) over the ruins of the villa are most pathetic. “The lofty vaults of the temples are still standing, and the wonderful columns of the cloisters and magnificent porticoes. The swimming-baths and Thermæ can be traced, where the water of the Anio once mitigated the summer heats. But the hand of time has defaced all these, and the walls once draped with embroidered tapestry and cloth of gold are now clad with ivy; the thorns and briar grow where tribunes sat in purple robes, and serpents crawl, in their kings’ chambers.” In spite of the existence here and there of such love of antiquity, the burning of the Tiburtine marbles into lime continued throughout the sixteenth century, and the levelling of the ground for cultivation has gone on even to the present century.[159]

The same fate attended all the other grand monuments of the Campagna. Rutilius Numatianus, writing probably in 417 in the reign of Honorius, speaks of the buildings of Rome and the aqueducts of the Campagna as if they were still uninjured, but he prefers to return to his native home in Gaul by sea, on account of the bad state of the roads on the coast caused by the Gothic devastations.

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Tibur.

Ascending from Hadrian’s Villa to the point where the Anio issues from a valley dividing the Æquian from the Sabine Mountains, we find the river winding round a considerable hill, partly clothed with groves of olive, and rising to the height of 830 feet. At the back of this hill the river has forced a passage for itself through the limestone rocks which threaten to impede its exit from the upper valley, and falls in a tremendous cataract down a precipitous cliff of 320 feet in height to the lower level. The water is strongly charged with carbonate of lime, which is constantly being deposited in the shape of masses of travertine in the channels through which the stream runs, especially where the water, in consequence of the violent agitation caused by its rapid descent, parts quickly with the carbonic acid gas contained in it. The course of the stream is from time to time blocked up by its own formations of stone, and it is forced to open new passages for itself. From this cause the city of Tibur, which stands on the hill, close to the point where the river falls to its lower level, has always been subject to violent and dangerous inundations. The great inundation of 1826 proved so formidable that it was at once resolved to divert the course of part of the river and provide it with an artificial outlet. This was effected by boring two tunnels through Monte Catillo on the east of the city, through which any rush of water can be allowed to pass and fall harmlessly into the lower valley. A part of the river water is always allowed to pass through these tunnels, and forms at their lower end a magnificent cascade. Another part passes under the bridge called Ponte S. Gregorio and then rushes through a fantastic grotto of travertine blocks called by the local guides Grotta di Nettuno, and joins the stream from the tunnels at the bottom of the valley. A third portion of the Anio is diverted just above the bridge into canals apparently of very ancient date, which, passing completely through the centre of the town, are used as the motive power of watermills and factories of various kinds, and then fall again into the main stream at various points of the romantic cliffs on the western hill side. These form the wreaths of “snow white foam” so celebrated as the cascades of the Anio, and explain perfectly the expression of Horace: