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

by Robert Burn

Behind this front building, on the eastern and western sides, are long ranges of building, the eastern consisting of two suites of rooms, probably intended for baths or for gymnasia, and the western forming a long ambulacrum terminated by an exedra. On the south side there is a cryptoporticus and a reservoir for water which was supplied by a branch of the Claudian aqueduct.

About a quarter of a mile farther south, near the Latin road, there is an outlying building which seems to have been intended to command a view of that road. The railway to Frascati now runs between the Claudian aqueduct and these ruins.

The castella of the Aqua Marcia, the Tepula, the Julia, the Claudia, the Anio Vetus, and the Anio Nova lie on the right of the old Latin road here, at the sixth milestone, where the arcades make a right angle. The old road then runs to the right of the present road to Frascati, nearly on the line of the modern Strada di Grotta Ferrata, and ascending the slopes of the Alban Hills, passes behind Tusculum and Corbio, along the valley called Vallis Albana.

Tusculum.

Since the excavations carried out by Lucien Bonaparte at the beginning of this century, there has been no doubt left as to the site of the ancient city of Tusculum. The ruins lie from about a mile and a half to two miles above Frascati, upon the ridge forming the edge of the most ancient crater of the Alban Hills. Between this ridge, which bore the name of Tusculani Colles, and the hills upon which Marino and Rocca di Papa stand, the great Latin road ran. Tusculum stands just over this road and was approached from it by a steep path ascending the northern side of the valley. The main road entered the city on the other side, from the direction of Frascati and Rufinella, leaving the Via Latina at the tenth milestone, between Morena and Ciampino. The ancient pavement of this road can be clearly traced on the slope of the hill above Frascati, and it leads us along the top of the hill through what has plainly been the main street of the town to the citadel, which stood at the eastern extremity.

Theatre.

The site of the citadel is a platform nearly square and 2700 feet in circuit, standing about 200 feet above the level of the surrounding parts of the hill. Its walls were completely demolished By the Romans in 1191 and not a vestige of them is left. Sir William Gell thought, however, that he could discover the traces of four ancient gates, one on the west, another on the side of the Alban valley, a third on the eastern side, and not far from this last, a postern communicating with a steep and rocky path which descended to the Alban valley. Most of the ruins now visible belong to the mediæval fortress of the Dukes of Tusculum, and a few only of the quadrilateral blocks of the ancient enclosure are visible. In the Æquian and Volscian wars this citadel played an important part. It must therefore have been a fortress of considerable strength from very early times. Dionysius describes it as a very strong position, requiring but a small garrison to hold it, and adds that the whole country as far as the gates of Rome, is plainly visible from it, so that the defenders could see the Roman forces issuing from the Porta Latina. The city itself lay on the ridge of the hill westwards from the citadel. The area which it occupied is an oblong strip of ground about 3000 feet long, and from 500 to 1000 feet in width. On the north and south sides the limits of the city are clearly marked by the edges of the hill, but on the west they are not so easily defined. At the foot of the descent from the citadel are the ruins of a large water tank of an oblong shape divided into four compartments by three rows of piers, and immediately under this tank is a small theatre built of peperino, which was excavated by the dowager Queen of Sardinia Maria Christina in 1839 and 1840. This, with the exception of the theatres at Pompeii, is the most perfectly preserved in Italy. The walls of the scena are unfortunately destroyed, but the ground plan of it can still be traced. The stage, which abuts closely on the western side of the semicircular cavea, is 110 feet in length, and 20 feet in depth. It has the three usual entrances from the back, and one at each end. These open into a corridor and communicate with two chambers, probably used as dressing rooms by the actors. Nearly the whole of the fifteen rows of seats in the lower division are still preserved unbroken, but the upper part which contained, to judge by the height of the outer walls still remaining, about nine rows of seats, is entirely destroyed.

Other ruins.
Gate and walls.

The curved walls on the northern side of the theatre were supposed by Nibby to have belonged to another theatre, but are now generally believed to have been a part of a fountain connected with the above-mentioned reservoir. Along the northern side of the reservoir are two parallel walls, which apparently enclosed the street leading to the citadel. The roadway must have been here carried by an arched corridor under the side of the theatre. Near the ancient road from the theatre westwards is a mass of ruins the plan of which cannot be determined, and beyond these, not far from the point where the road divides, and on its right-hand branch, is one of the gates of the city, marked by two fragments of ancient fluted columns which perhaps formed a part of its architecture. Near this are the remains of the ancient north wall of the city, consisting of blocks of peperino of great size more or less regularly laid, and of restorations here and there in reticulated work, partly of the later republic, and partly of more modern times. The pavement of the street is here perfectly preserved, and near the gateway there is a wide space left, probably as a turning place for carts or carriages.

Tank and fountain.