No record has been preserved of the burial of M. Aurelius, but it seems probable that his ashes were deposited here, as the Mausoleum of Hadrian continued to be the tomb of the Antonines till the time of Severus, who built a third imperial monument, the Septizonium, on the Appian Road.[106] Four children of M. Aurelius were buried here, who died during their father’s life, named Aurelius Antoninus, T. Ælius Aurelius, and Domitia Faustina, and also his miserable son and successor the Emperor Commodus. The inscriptions recording all these burials, were copied by the anonymous writer of Einsiedlen in the ninth century, when they were apparently still legible upon the south wall of the square basement. The inscriptions recording the names Hadrian and M. Aurelius may have been placed upon the upper part of the tomb, like those on the Plautian Tomb and the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, and may therefore either have escaped the notice of the above-mentioned anonymous traveller, or have been stripped off with the marble casing of the exterior.
After the burial of M. Aurelius the tomb was closed until the sack of Rome by Alaric in A.D. 410, when this barbarian’s soldiers probably broke it open in search of treasure, and scattered the ashes of the Antonines to the winds. From this time for a hundred years the tomb was turned into a fortress, the possession of which became the object of many struggles in the wars of the Goths under Vitiges A.D. 537 and Totilas who was killed A.D. 552. From the end of the sixth century, when Gregory the Great saw on its summit a vision of St. Michael sheathing his sword in token that the prayers of the Romans for preservation from the plague were heard, the Mausoleum of Hadrian was considered as a consecrated building under the name of S. Angelus inter nubes, usque ad cælos, or inter cælos, until it was seized in A.D. 923 by Alberic, Count of Tusculum and the infamous Marozia, and again became the scene of the fierce struggles of those miserable ages between popes, emperors, and reckless adventurers.[107] The last injuries appear to have been inflicted upon the building in the contest between the French Pope Clemens VII. and the Italian Pope Urban VIII. The exterior was then finally dismantled and stripped. Partial additions and restorations soon began to take place. Boniface IX., in the beginning of the fifteenth century, erected new battlements and fortifications on and around it, and since his time it has remained in the possession of the Papal Government. The strange medley of Papal reception rooms, dungeons, and military magazines which now encumbers the top was chiefly built by Paul III. The corridor connecting it with the Vatican dates from the time of Alexander Borgia (A.D. 1494), and the bronze statue of St. Michael on the summit, which replaced an older marble statue, from the reign of Benedict XIV.[108]
CHAPTER VII.
THE QUIRINAL HILL—BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN—AGGER OF SERVIUS—CASTRA PRÆTORIA.
Baths of Diocletian.
The broad flat space to the N.E. of the Quirinal Hill, was occupied by the Thermæ of Diocletian, now converted into the great Church of S. Maria degli Angeli. This enormous group of buildings was the most extensive of all the gigantic edifices of the empire, and the ground plan is not difficult to trace by the aid of the existing ruins. Some idea of their dimensions will be given by remarking that the grand court enclosed a space once occupied by the church, monastery, and spacious garden of the Monks of S. Bernard, the great church and monastery of the Carthusians, two very large piazzas the large granaries of the Papal Government, part of the grounds of the Villa Montalto Negroni, and some vineyards and houses besides. The north-western side of this grand court is now only marked by the remains of two semicircular tribunes in front of the railway station. The rest of the foundations of this side are hidden under the great cloister of the Carthusian monastery, and in the district beyond. The principal entrance was on this side. The south-eastern side is now occupied by the buildings of the railway station, at the back of which were discovered the ruins of a large reservoir now destroyed (K), in the shape of a right-angled triangle. The peculiar form of this building seems to have been necessitated by the course of a public road of some importance confining it on the south side, and it has been supposed, not without reason, that this was the principal road leading out of the city at the Porta Viminalis. The interior was filled with pillars like those which still stand in the ancient reservoirs at Baiæ and Constantinople.
