Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna

by Robert Burn

The inscriptions which are most remarkable are the following. On the right-hand wall near the entrance the name HILARUS, followed by the letters MI. V. D. N., which have been interpreted to mean “miles veteranus domini nostri,” a veteran soldier of our Lord. Numerous other inscriptions with the letters V. D. N. will be found in the chamber to the left of the central recess. One of these in the triangular room records the name of two soldiers who belonged to the foreign troop of Peregrini: BASSUS ET SATURUS PEREG.[11] Other inscriptions allude to a pædagogium, or training school, as for example, CORINTHUS EXIT DE PEDAGOGIO. Most of these are in the triangular rooms behind the central semicircular recess, or in the furthest room on the left of it. In this last is to be seen the figure of an ass turning a mill, with the inscription, LABORA ASELLE QUOMODO EGO LABORA VI ET PRODERIT TIBI. But the most famous of these graffiti is that now shown in the Kircherian Museum representing the crucified ass, with the title “Alexamenus worshipping his god,” which was taken from the room on the right of the central semicircular recess, and has been the subject of much comment. Another record of the same Alexamenus was found here in 1870, in which he is called Alexamenus fidelis.

Stadium.

Passing now beneath the Villa Mills which occupy the site of the Augustan library, and the Temple of Apollo, built by Augustus, we turn to the left up the slope of the hill and find a large open space in which the later excavations have disinterred the relics of a stadium, consisting of a curved series of walls, surrounding the foundation of a meta or goal, and two lines of bases of columns, which ran along the sides and the end of the stadium.[12]

A large building in the form of a semicircular recess of exedra, a stand for viewing the races, is still partially remaining, and also the foundation of two entrances on the southern side. That this was a stadium connected with the imperial palace is evident from its shape and its length, which corresponds to that laid down by the ancient writers as the proper length of a stadium for foot-races. The large exedra at the southern side contains on the ground-floor a vast central saloon, and two side rooms. A few decorative paintings of the latest and least valuable kind of art remain on the walls, among which are some geographical and astronomical figures. A coat of foreign marbles covered the walls, and the pavement was of marble. This part of the Palatine buildings was probably occupied by the Frangipani in the 13th century. The right-hand chamber was apparently without decoration, but in the one on the left the wall is ornamented with fresco paintings of elegance, and the pavement is of fine mosaic. A list of names with numbers attached to them, which seem to be those of combatants in the stadium, was found among the graffiti here.

The upper level of the semicircular exedra was filled by a large chamber, the side of which, towards the stadium, was occupied by a line of granite columns, fragments of which remain in the arena below. The interior of this chamber was also ornamented with marbles and statues. Some statues of Amazons and the Hercules of Lysippus now in the Pitti at Florence, were found here according to Vacca, who wrote at the end of the sixteenth century. The brickwork and the architecture of this exedra seem to be of the time of Hadrian, and the bricks found here with labels give the date of A.D. 134, the third consulship of Ursus Servianus. The portico which ran round the stadium was apparently of later construction than the exedra, as the date on its bricks seems to refer to Tertullus Scapula, Consul in A.D. 195, in the reign of Septimius Severus, under whom great alterations and extensions were carried out in this wing of the palace.

The vast ruins which remain on the south of the stadium belong chiefly to the works of Septimius Severus, and have long been celebrated as the most picturesque among the Cæsarean relics. The curved wall behind the great exedra, and the numerous passages and chambers which stand near it, seem to have belonged to a bath supplied with water from the branch of the Aqua Claudia, four arches of which are still remaining on the hill below, opposite to the church of S. Gregorio. This was a branch from the Claudian aqueduct, and crossed the valley from the opposite Cælian Hill.

Palatine Belvedere.

The lofty wing of the palace, which extends along the slope of the Circus Maximus, opposite to the Aventine, is reached by a modern bridge from the ruins adjoining the stadium. From the top of this huge ruin a splendid view of the Cælian, the Aventine, and the Alban Hills may be seen, and the spot has been sometimes called the Palatine Belvedere. What the exact nature of the buildings placed upon these lofty ranges of arches was cannot be easily determined, but they correspond in some degree to the arched walls of the side between the arches of Titus and Constantine and to those of the palace of Caligula near the Capitoline, and were mainly intended to raise the imperial saloons to the higher level of the northern end of the hill. Spartianus in his ‘Life of Severus’ says that Severus bestowed particular pains on this part of the Palatine Hill in order to make it the chief entrance to the imperial palace, and that his reason for so doing was to produce an impression of his magnificence upon his African fellow-countrymen, who, when visiting Rome, would naturally enter at this point by the Porta Capena, which was the gate just below. The Septizonium was an imperial building near this part of the hill probably built by Severus, views of the ruins of which are to be seen in the books of the topographers Du Perac and Garrucci who wrote before the end of the sixteenth century, when the Septizonium was pulled down by Sixtus the Fifth.[13] At the western end of the long and lofty ruin, and near the end of the stadium, is a projecting portion of ruined chambers which has been generally supposed to have contained the emperor’s private pulvinar, or box whence he viewed the games in the Circus Maximus. But the construction of this edifice, including its round tower, seems to be of a very late style, and it may have been built as late as the sixteenth century.

We now return along a modern path which runs under the grounds of the Villa Mills towards the domus Gelotiana described above. A curved terrace occupies the upper edge of the hill, along which probably ran a portico commanding a view over the southern part of Rome and the Trastevere. At the back of this are the buildings called the Villa Mills from their former possessors, now occupied by a nunnery, and therefore inaccessible to the public. In the year 1777, the plan of the ancient buildings which stood here was explored by Rancoureuil. They consist of a court surrounded with columns and suites of chambers. Parts of the main front looking towards the circus remained till the year 1827. The brickwork of these ruins has induced Cav. Rosa to assign them to the Augustan Age and to call them Domus Augustana. No sure evidence has, however, been discovered for this, and it seems more probable that the Domus Augustana was nearer to the Forum Romanum.[14]

Academia and Bibliotheca.