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

by Robert Burn

With the exception of a small portion which has been discovered in the depression between the north-western and south-eastern parts of the Aventine, another portion upon the Servian Agger, and a few remnants on the Quirinal in the Barberini and Colonna Gardens,[113] no remnants of the Servian walls are now to be seen, and we have to infer their probable extent from the nature of the ground, the rough estimate given by Dionysius of the space which they enclose, and the positions of the gates as described by various ancient authors. It may be safely concluded that, wherever it was possible, advantage would be taken of the sides of the hills, and the wall would be made to run along their edges. Thus the course of the wall on the outer side of the Capitoline, Quirinal, Esquiline and north-eastern part of the Aventine can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, and the agger serves as a guide along the back of the Viminal and Quirinal. The principal difficulty lies in the portions between the Capitoline and Aventine along the river bank, in the space to the south of the Cælian, and at the Hill of S. Saba and S. Balbina, where there is but little indication in the nature of the ground to guide us.

In the time of Dionysius, who died about B.C. 10, the Servian Wall was already so much covered with buildings of various kinds, that he speaks of it as difficult to trace, and therefore, naturally enough, we find at the present day that nearly the whole has disappeared under heaps of rubbish. The portion brought to light in 1855 under the south-eastern slope of the Aventine was accidentally discovered by digging in the vineyards not far from the Porta S. Paolo, for the purpose of clearing the ground from masses of brickwork. This portion, some of which has since been covered with earth again, was 104 feet in length, 50 feet high, and 12 broad. The breadth shows the great solidity and strength of the construction. The original height was probably greater, as Mr. Braun remarks, and a parapet was placed upon the top. Some parts of this ruin are covered with reticulated work, and on others great masses of masonry have been placed which belonged to dwelling-houses. Mr. J. H. Parker has since been able to clear this fragment of wall, thus doing a very great service to Roman Archæology. No monumental antiquities have been found in these excavations earlier than the imperial times. A stamp bearing an inscription was discovered near one of the more modern arches, and dates from the reign of Trajan.

At the time when these walls were built, the stone generally used for such purposes was the hard tufa. The greater part of the Cloaca Maxima, and the remnants of these Servian walls, are composed of this material. It is hewn into long rectangular blocks, which are placed (in builders’ phrase alternately headers and stretchers) sometimes across and sometimes along the line of the wall, in order to gain greater strength. No cement is used, but the stones are carefully fitted together and regularly shaped.

It must here be observed that the rectangular shape and horizontal position of the blocks in this stonework by no means disprove its high antiquity. It is true that the so-called Pelasgian walls are built in a totally different style, for the stones in them are polygonal. But this difference of shape in the stones arises from a difference in the material. All the so-called Pelasgian walls in Italy are built of a stone which naturally breaks into polygonal masses; but tufa stone is found in the quarry in horizontal layers, and is most easily cut into a rectangular shape. The inference sometimes drawn from horizontally laid masonry that it indicates a more advanced state of art than polygonal cannot be relied upon as certain. The arch in this ruin is of a later date and may have been an embrasure for a catapult.[114]

Porta Capena.

The situation of no gate in the Servian Avails can be determined so completely as that of the Porta Capena. We know that part of the Aqua Marcia passed over it, whence it was called the dripping gate (Madida Capena) by Martial and Juvenal. It was therefore in the valley below the Cælian Hill, and we should, judging from the form of the ground, naturally place it where the hill, on which S. Balbina stands, approaches the Cælian most nearly. A striking confirmation of this conjecture has been discovered. The first milestone on the Appian Road was found in 1584 in the first vineyard beyond the present Porta S. Sebastiano—the Vigna Naro—and, measuring back one mile from it, we come exactly to this spot. This milestone is now placed on the steps leading up to the Capitoline Museum. Milestones and horse-blocks were erected on all the great roads by Caius Gracchus before the milliarium aureum was put up in the Forum by Augustus, and it is probable that the distances were always measured from the gates. Mr. Parker carried on excavations for some time to find the exact position of the Porta Capena, and he discovered some of the piers of the aqueduct which passed over the gate in the garden of the Convent of S. Gregorio. These excavations have unfortunately been more or less filled up again.

Monte Testaccio.

Near the Porta S. Paolo, between the Aventine and the river, stands the hill called Monte Testaccio from its being composed almost entirely of potsherds mixed with rubbish. The hill is 150 feet high, and one-third of a mile in circumference. Many conjectures have been hazarded about its origin, which still, however, remains a mystery.

The hypothesis which has gained most credit rests upon a passage in Tacitus, in which that historian, after giving an account of the Neronian fire, proceeds to say that Nero intended to have the rubbish carried to the Ostian marshes, and, therefore, gave orders that the corn-ships, after discharging their freight at the Emporium, should take a load of rubbish on their return to Ostia. This explanation appears satisfactory until the peculiar composition of the hill is examined. Nearly the whole mass consists of pieces of broken earthenware, and is not such as we should expect the rubbish left after a fire to be. The absence of bricks may perhaps be explained by the supposition that they were saved in order to be used a second time; but the immense quantity of potsherds still remains to be accounted for. Further, it is said that a coin of Gallienus has been found in such a position on the smaller portion of the hill as to leave no doubt that the accumulation of that part could not have been anterior to Gallienus. A medal of Constantine has also been found in the interior of the larger portion. Bunsen’s explanation that the hill is composed of the rubbish cleared away by Honorius when he restored the walls of Aurelian, and other ingenious hypotheses of the same kind, do not sufficiently account for the peculiar composition of the hill.

M. Reifferscheid, in a paper communicated to the Roman Archæological Institute, has propounded the most natural and proper solution of the problem.[115] He observes that it is not necessary to go farther than the magazines of the neighbouring Emporium for an explanation of this immense mass of potsherds. Every kind of provisions brought to Rome in ancient times was stored in earthenware jars, not only wine, but corn, oil, and other articles of commerce. A fire, therefore, which consumed any part of the Emporium would leave rubbish composed in great part of fragments of earthen jars (dolia); and, since many such fires must have taken place in the course of ages, and immense quantities of earthen jars must have been broken in the process of unloading, it does not seem at all impossible that so large an accumulation of matter should have taken place. At Alexandria and at Cairo similar heaps of potsherds are to be seen outside the walls, and their extent, though less, as might be expected, than that at Rome, is such as to create astonishment in the traveller’s mind when he sees them for the first time. An attempt has been made by M. Reifferscheid to determine the earliest date at which we can suppose this gradual deposition of potsherds to have taken place, but the data upon which he builds his conclusion, that the accumulation forming the Monte Testaccio first began to be deposited in the time of the decay of the Empire, about the third century, are not by any means such as to produce conviction.