Pagan and Christian Rome

by Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani

The shoemakers formed a powerful corporation from the time of the kings; their club called the Atrium sutorium was the scene of a religious ceremony called Tubilustrium, which took place every year on March 23. They seem to have been also an irritable and violent set. Ulpianus[131] speaks of an action for damages brought before the magistrate by a boy whose parents had placed him in a boot-shop to learn the trade, and who, having misunderstood the directions of his master, was struck by him so heavily on the head with a wooden form that he lost the sight of one eye.

Via Salaria. Visitors who remember the Rome of past days will be unpleasantly impressed by the change which the suburban quarters crossed by the viæ Salaria, Pinciana and Nomentana have undergone in the last ten years. In driving outside the gates the stranger was formerly surprised by the sudden appearance of a region of villas and gardens. The villas Albani, Patrizi, Alberoni, and Torlonia, not to speak of minor pleasure-grounds, merged as they were into one great forest of venerable trees, with the blue Sabine range in the background, gave him a true impression of the aspect of the Roman Campagna in the imperial times.

The scene is now changed, and not for the better. Still, if any one has no right to grumble, it is the archæologist, because the building of these suburban quarters has placed more knowledge at his disposal than could have been gathered before in the lapse of a century. I quote only one instance. Famous in the annals of Roman excavations are those made between 1695 and 1741 in the vineyard of the Naro family, between the Salaria and the Pinciana, back of the Casino di Villa Borghese. It took forty-six years to dig out the contents of that small property, which included twenty-six graves of prætorians and one hundred and forty-one of civilians.

In 1887, in cutting open the Corso d' Italia, which connects the Porta Pinciana with the Salaria, eight hundred and fifty-five tombs were discovered in nine months. The cemetery extends from the Villa Borghese to the prætorian camp, from the walls of Servius Tullius to the first milestone. The gardens of Sallust were surrounded by it on two sides; a striking contrast between the silent city of death on the one hand, and the merriest and noisiest meeting-place of the living on the other.

Although the cemetery was mostly occupied by military men, the high-roads which cross it were lined with mausolea belonging to historical families. Such is the tomb of the Licinii Calpurnii, discovered in 1884, in the foundations of the house No. 29, Via di Porta Salaria, the richest and most important of those found in Rome in my lifetime.[132] Its history is connected with one of the worst crimes of Messalina.

There lived in Rome in her time a nobleman, Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, ex-prætor, ex-consul (a. d. 27) ex-governor of Mauritania, the husband of Scribonia, by whom he had three sons. There was never a more unlucky family than this. The origin of their misfortunes is curious enough. Licinius Crassus, whom Seneca calls "stupid enough to be made emperor," committed, among other fatuities, that of naming his eldest son Pompeius Magnus, after his great-grandfather on the maternal side: a useless display of pride, as the boy had titles enough of his own to place him at the head of the Roman aristocracy. Caligula, jealous of the high-sounding name, was the first to threaten his life; but spared it at the expense of the name. Claudius restored the title to him, as a wedding-present, on the day of his marriage with Antonia, daughter of the emperor himself by Ælia Pætina. His splendid career, his nobility and grace of manners, and his alliance with the imperial family, excited the hatred of Messalina, a foe far more dangerous than Caligula. She extorted from her weak husband the sentence of death against Pompeius and his father and mother. The execution took place in the spring of 47.

The second son, Licinius Crassus, was murdered by Nero in 67.

The third son, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus, who was only eleven at the time of the executions of 47, spent many years in banishment, while the extermination of his family was slowly progressing. Being left alone in the world, at last Galba took mercy upon him, adopted him as a son, and heir to the Sulpician estates, and lastly, in January, 69, named him successor to the throne. If he had but spared him this honor! Only four days later he was murdered, together with Galba, by the prætorian rebels; and his head, severed from his body, was given to his young widow, Verania Gemina.

History speaks of a fifth unfortunate member of the family, who died a violent death even under the mild and just rule of Hadrian. His name was Calpurnius Licinianus, ex-consul a. d. 87. Having conspired against Nerva, he, and his wife, Agedia Quintina, were banished to Tarentum. A second conspiracy against Trajan brought upon him banishment to a solitary island, and an attempt to escape from it was the cause of his death.

Such was the fate of the seven occupants of this sepulchral chamber. When I first descended into it, in November, 1884, and found myself surrounded by those great historical names of murdered men and women, I felt more than ever the vast difference between reading Roman history in books, and studying it from its monuments, in the presence of its leading actors; and I realized once more what a privilege it is to live in a city where discoveries of such importance occur frequently.