Walks in Rome. Augustus J. C. HareЧитать онлайн книгу.
palace was the residence of the late noble-hearted vicar-general, Cardinal Altieri, who died a martyr to his devotion to his flock (as Bishop of Albano) during the terrible visitation of cholera at Albano in 1867.
The Piazza del Gesù is considered to be the most draughty place in Rome. The legend runs that the devil and the wind were one day taking a walk together. When they came to this square, the devil, who seemed to be very devout, said to the wind, "Just wait a minute, mio caro, while I go into this church." So the wind promised, and the devil went into the Gesù, and has never come out again—and the wind is blowing about in the Piazza del Gesù to this day.
CHAPTER III.
THE CAPITOLINE.
The Story of the Hill—Piazza del Campidoglio—Palace of the Senator—View from the Capitol Tower—The Tabularium—The Museo Capitolino—Gallery of Statues—Palace of the Conservators—Gallery of Pictures—Palazzo Caffarelli—Tarpeian Rock—Convent and Church of Ara-Cœli—Mamertine Prisons.
THE Capitoline was the hill of the kings and the republic, as the Palatine was of the empire.
Entirely composed of tufa, its sides, now concealed by buildings or by the accumulated rubbish of ages, were abrupt and precipitous, as are still the sides of the neighbouring citadels of Corneto and Cervetri. It was united to the Quirinal by an isthmus of land cut away by Trajan, but in every other direction was isolated by its perpendicular cliffs:—
"Arduus in valles et fora clivus erat."
Ovid, Fast. i. 264.
Up to the time of the Tarquins, it bore the name of Mons Saturnus,[19] from the mythical king Saturn, who is reported to have come to Italy in the reign of Janus, and to have made a settlement here. His name was derived from sowing, and he was looked upon as the introducer of civilization and social order, both of which are inseparably connected with agriculture. His reign here was thus considered to be the golden age of Italy. His wife was Ops, the representative of plenty.[20]
"C'est la tradition d'un âge de paix représenté par le règne paisible de Saturne; avant qu'il y eut une Roma, ville de la force, il y eut une Saturnia, ville de la paix."—Ampère, Hist. Rom. i. 86.
Virgil represents Evander, the mythical king of the Palatine, as exhibiting Saturnia, already in ruins, to Æneas.
"Hæc duo præterea disjectis oppida muris,
Reliquias veterumque vides monumenta virorum.
Hanc Janus pater, hanc Saturnus condidit arcem:
Janiculum huic, illi fuerat Saturnia nomen."
Æn. viii. 356.
When Romulus had fixed his settlement upon the Palatine, he opened an asylum for fugitive slaves upon the then deserted Saturnus, and here, at a sacred oak, he is said to have offered up the spoils of the Cæcinenses, and their king Acron, who had made a war of reprisal upon him, after the rape of their women in the Campus Martius; here also he vowed to build a temple to Jupiter Feretrius, where spoils should always be offered. But in the mean time, the Sabines, under Titius Tatus, besieged and took the hill, having a gate of its fortress (said to have been on the ascent above the spot where the arch of Severus now stands) opened to them by Tarpeia, who gazed with longing upon the golden bracelets of the warriors, and, obtaining a promise to receive that which they wore upon their arms, was crushed by their shields as they entered. Some authorities, however, maintain that she asked and obtained the hand of king Tatius. From this time the hill was completely occupied by the Sabines, and its name became partially merged in that of Mons Tarpeia, which its southern side has always retained. Niebuhr states that it is a popular superstition that the beautiful Tarpeia still sits, sparkling with gold and jewels, enchanted and motionless, in a cave in the centre of the hill.
After the death of Tatius, the Capitoline again fell under the government of Romulus, and his successor, Numa Pompilius, founded here a Temple of Fides Publica, in which the flamens were always to sacrifice with a fillet on their right hands, in sign of fidelity. To Numa also is attributed the worship of the god Terminus, who had a temple here in very early ages.
Under Tarquinius Superbus, B.C. 535, the magnificent Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which had been vowed by his father, was built with money taken from the Volscians in war. In digging its foundations, the head of a man was found, still bloody, an omen which was interpreted by an Etruscan augur to portend that Rome would become the head of Italy. In consequence of this, the name of the hill was once more changed, and has ever since been Mons Capitolinus, or Capitolium.
The site of this temple has always been one of the vexed questions of history. At the time it was built, as now, the hill consisted of two peaks, with a level space between them. Niebuhr and Gregorovius place the temple on the south-eastern height, but Canina and other authorities, with more probability, incline to the north-eastern eminence, the present site of Ara-Cœli, because, among many other reasons, the temple faced the south, and also the Forum, which it could not have done upon the south-eastern summit; and also because the citadel is always represented as having been nearer to the Tiber than the temple: for when Herdonius, and the Gauls, arriving by the river, scaled the heights of the Capitol, it was the citadel which barred their path, and in which, in the latter case, Manlius was awakened by the noise of the sacred geese of Juno.
The temple of Jupiter occupied a lofty platform, the summit of the rock being levelled to receive it. Its façade was decorated with three ranges of columns, and its sides by a single colonnade. It was nearly square, being 200 Roman feet in length, and 185 in width.[21] The interior was divided into three cells; the figure of Jupiter occupied that in the centre, Minerva was on his right, and Juno on his left. The figure of Jupiter was the work of an artist of the Volscian city of Fregellæ,[22] and was formed of terra-cotta, painted like the statues which we may still see in the Etruscan museum at the Vatican, and clothed with the tunica palmata, and the toga picta, the costume of victorious generals. In his right hand was a thunder-bolt, and in his left a spear.
"Jupiter angusta vix totus stabat in Æde;
Inque Jovis dextra fictile fulmen erat."
Ovid, Fast. i. 202.
At a later period the statue was formed of gold, but this figure had ceased to exist in the time of Pliny.[23] When Martial wrote, the statues of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, were all gilt.
"Scriptus es æterno nunc primum, Jupiter, auro,
Et soror, et summi filia tota patris."
Martial, xi. Ep. 5.
In the wall adjoining the cella of Minerva, a nail was fastened every year, to mark the lapse of time.[24] In the centre of the temple was the statue of Terminus.
"The sumptuous fane of Jupiter Capitolinus had peculiar claims on the veneration of the Roman citizens; for not only the great lord of the earth was worshipped in it, but the conservative principle of property itself found therein its appropriate symbol. While the statue of Jupiter occupied the usual place of the divinity in the furthest recess of the building, an image of the god Terminus was also placed in the centre of the nave, which was open to the heavens. A venerable legend affirmed, that when, in the time of the kings, it was requisite to clear a space on the Capitoline to erect on it a temple to the great father of the gods, and the shrines of the lesser divinities were to be removed for the purpose, Terminus alone, the patron of boundaries, refused to quit his place, and demanded to be included in the walls of the new edifice. Thus propitiated he was understood to declare that henceforth the bounds of the republic should never be removed; and the pledge was more than fulfilled by the ever increasing circuit of her dominion."—Merivale, Romans Under the Empire.
The gates of the temple were of gilt bronze, and its pavement of mosaic;[25] in a vault beneath were preserved the Sibylline books placed there by Tarquin. The building of Tarquin lasted 400 years,