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

by Robert Burn

The Circus of Maxentius and Temple of Romulus.

On the left of the Appian Road, where it dips suddenly into a valley near the Church of S. Sebastian, lies a group of ruins, the principal of which consist of a circus, a building enclosed in a large square court, and some remains of rooms apparently belonging to an ancient villa. The walls of the circus are still in such preservation that they can be easily traced round the whole enclosure, and are in some parts nearly of the original height. They are built of rubble mixed with brickwork, and with jars of terra-cotta to lighten their weight, as in the case of the masonry in other walls of the same date. The towers at each side of the Carceres, or starting post, the curved line of Carceres themselves, and the spina, or central division line, can be easily traced. An inscription in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, found here in 1825, and now placed at the entrance to the ruins, seems to show the circus was built in honour of Romulus, son of Maxentius, who died before his father, A.D. 309. This is confirmed by a statement in one of the ancient chronicles published by Roncalli, in which it is said that Maxentius built a circus near the catacombs, evidently referring to the neighbouring catacombs of S. Sebastian and others, and also by the style of masonry used in the circus. The adjoining ruined temple, with its enclosing court, seems to belong to a somewhat earlier style of construction, but some reasons derived from the coins of Maxentius and Romulus have been given for supposing that it was the temple dedicated to Romulus after his apotheosis by his father.[131] The ruins are not sufficiently preserved to make it certain that the building was a temple, and there is nothing to contradict the hypothesis that it was a tomb. Nor is anything whatever known about the adjoining villa.

Tomb of Cæcilia Metella.

On the end of the mound formed by the great lava stream which ages ago flowed down from the Alban Hills, and along the top of which the Via Appia runs from this point, stands the conspicuous Tomb of Cæcilia Metella, the daughter of Metellus Creticus, and wife of Crassus, but whether of the Triumvir Crassus, or of the orator, or of some other less well known Crassus is uncertain. The inscription on the tomb is Cæciliæ, Q. Cretici Filiæ, Metellæ Crassi. The shape of the tomb is the same as that of the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and the Tomb of the Plautii at Tivoli; a cylindrical towerlike edifice, resting on a square base of concrete with massive blocks of travertine. The upper part has been destroyed, and the marble casing stripped off, with the exception of a band of ox skulls and garlands which surrounds it, and some trophies carved in relief above the inscription. The roof was probably conical. Mediæval battlements, erected by the Caetani family, who held it as a fortress in the 13th century, now crown the upper edge. The remains of their castle are still visible on each side of the road beyond the tomb.

Roma Vecchia, Villa of Seneca.

After passing the third milestone, the Appian Road is fringed with ruins of innumerable tombs, and here and there the relics of a suburban villa. Scarcely any of these can have names attached to them with any certainty. The spot is now called Roma Vecchia, and the Campus sacer Horatiorum, the Fossa Cluilia, and the Villa Quintiliana Commodi lay here. The suburban villa in which Seneca committed suicide by opening his veins was at the fourth milestone, as we learn from Tacitus, and near this was found in 1824, by Nibby, a marble slab with the name of Granius, a military tribune. A tribune of this name was employed by Nero to compel Seneca to kill himself, but whether the stone refers to him or not is of course doubtful.

Tomb of Atticus.

At the fifth milestone on the right hand of the road is a round mass of ruins with a rectangular chamber inside, which has been supposed to be the tomb mentioned by Cornelius Nepos, as the burial place of Atticus, Cicero’s friend. Near this is the great platform of peperino blocks which are thought to have been used as a burning place (ustrina) for the bodies interred at the sides of the road.

Villa Quintiliana.

On the left hand, a little way beyond the fifth milestone, the remains of the Villa Quintiliana of Commodus begin, and reach along the side of the road for at least half a mile, extending also towards the left into the adjoining fields as far as the edge of the great lava current, on the top of which the Via Appia is here carried. The whole of this space, nearly two miles in circumference, is covered with fragments of costly marbles, of sculpture, and bits of mosaic, showing that it was covered with handsomely decorated buildings. The style of construction, says Nibby, belongs to three different epochs. The buildings nearest to the Appian Road, comprising the great reservoir, on the foundation of which the farmhouse of S. Maria Nuova is built, are of brickwork and reticulated work of the time of Hadrian, the great mass of the ruins which lies on the left towards the new road to Albano, exhibits workmanship of the Antonine era, and amongst them have been found numerous fragments of sculpture, also belonging to the reigns of the Antonines. The third style of building is that called opera mista by the Italian antiquarians, which prevailed in the Constantinian times, at the beginning of the fourth century. The buildings of the Antonines have been repaired and overlaid in many places by this later work. The stamps of most of the bricks found here belong to the reigns of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus, and were made chiefly in the imperial brickyards. Thus the date of the principal parts of the building is decided, and it is seen that the villa was most probably an imperial villa. But all doubt on this point was completely cleared away by the discovery in 1828, of a number of large leaden pipes bearing the inscription, II. QUINTILIORUM CONDINI ET MAXIMI, from which it became evident that the villa was the same place which Vopiscus and Dion Cassius mention as the property of the Quintilii, consuls in the year A.D. 151, under Antoninus Pius, and victims of the spite of Commodus in A.D. 182.[132] Commodus seized their property, and the villa became one of his favourite residences. The great extent of the ruins explains the circumstance related by Herodian, that the emperor, being in the back part of the villa, could not hear the shouts of the infuriated mob on the Appian Road, who were demanding the life of Cleander.[133]