"Quand du Ponte-Rotto on considere le triple cintre de l'ouverture par laquelle la Cloaca Maxima se dechargeait dans le Tibre, on a devant les yeux un monument qui rappelle beaucoup de grandeur et beaucoup d'oppression. Ce monument extraordinaire est une page importante de l'histoire romaine. Il est a la fois la supreme expression de la puissance des rois etrusques et le signe avant-coureur de leur chute. L'on croit voir l'arc triomphal de la royaute par ou devait entrer la republique."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ ii. 233.

In the bed of the river a little lower down may be seen, at low water, some massive fragments of masonry. Here stood the _Pons Sublicius_, the oldest bridge in Rome, built by Ancus Martius (B.C. 639), on which Horatius Cocles and his two companions "kept the bridge" against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsenna, till--

"Back darted Spurius Lartius; Herminius darted back: And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack.

But when they turned their faces, And on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would have crossed once more.

"But with a crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops Was splashed the yellow foam."

_Macaulay's Lays._

The name "Sublicius" came from the wooden beams of its construction, which enabled the Romans to cut it away. The bridge was rebuilt by Tiberius and again by Antoninus Pius, each time of beams, but upon stone piers, of which the present remains are fragments, the rest having been destroyed by an inundation in the time of Adrian I.

On the Trastevere bank, between these two bridges, half hidden in shrubs and ivy (but worth examination in a boat), are two gigantic _Heads of Lions_, to which in ancient times chains were fastened, and drawn across the river to prevent hostile vessels from passing.

Near this we enter the _Via S. Giovanni Decollato_, decorated with numerous heads of John the Baptist in the dish, let into the walls over the doors of the houses. The "Confraternita della Misericordia di S.

Giovanni Decollato," founded in 1488, devote themselves to criminals condemned to death. They visit them in prison, accompany them to execution, receive their bodies, and offer masses for their souls in their little chapel. Vasari gives the highest praise to two pictures of Francesco Salviati in the Church of S. Giov. Decollato, "before which all Rome stood still in admiration,"--representing the appearance of the angel to Zacharias, and the meeting of the Virgin and Elizabeth.

On the left is the _Hospital of Sta. Galla_, commemorating the pious foundation of a Roman matron in the time of John I. (523--526), who attained such celebrity, that she is still commemorated in the Roman mass by the prayer--

"Almighty and merciful God, who didst adorn the blessed Galla with the virtue of a wonderful love towards thy poor; grant us, through her merits and prayers, to practise works of love, and to obtain Thy mercy, through the Lord, &c. Amen."

On, or very near this site, stood the _Porta Carmentalis_, which, with the temple beside it, commemorated Carmenta, the supposed mother of Evander, a Sabine prophetess, who is made by Ovid to predict the future grandeur of Rome.[88] Carmenta was especially invoked by women in childbirth. The Porta Carmentalis was reached from the Forum by the Vicus Jugarius. It was by this route that the Fabii went forth to meet their doom in the valley of the Crimera. The Porta had two gates--one for those who entered, the other for those who left it, so that in each case the passenger passed through the "Janus," as it was called, upon his right. After the massacre of the Fabii, the road by which they left the city was avoided, and the Janus Carmentalis on the right was closed, and called the Porta Scelerata.

"Carmentis portae dextro via proxima Jano est Ire per hanc noli, quisquis es; omen habet."

_Ovid, Fast._ ii. 201.

Just beyond the Porta Carmentalis was the district called _Tarentum_, where there was a subterranean "Ara Ditis Patris et Proserpinae."

We now reach (left) the _Church of S. Nicolo in Carcere_. It has a mean front, with an inscription in honour of one of the Aldobrandini family, and is only interesting as occupying the site of the three _Temples of Juno Matuta, Piety(?), and Hope_, which are believed to mark the site of the Forum Olitorium. The vaults beneath the church contain the massive substructions of these temples, and fragments of their columns.

The central temple is believed to be that of Piety, built by M. Acilius Glabrio, the duumvir, in B.C. 165 (though Pliny says that this temple was on the site afterwards occupied by the theatre of Marcellus), in fulfilment of a vow made by his father, a consul of the same name, on the day of his defeating the forces of Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, at Thermopylae. Others endeavour to identify it with the temple built on the site of the Decemviral prisons, to keep up the recollection of the famous story, called the "Caritas Romana,"--of a woman condemned to die of hunger in prison being nourished by the milk of her own daughter. Pliny and Valerius Maximus tell the story as of a mother; Festus only speaks of a father;[89]--yet art and poetry have always followed the latter legend. A cell is shown, by torchlight, as the scene of this touching incident.

"There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light What do I gaze on? Nothing. Look again!

Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight-- Two insulated phantoms of the brain: It is not so; I see them full and plain-- An old man, and a female young and fair, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein The blood is nectar:--but what doth she there, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

"But here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of his own gift:--it is her sire, To whom she renders back the debt of blood Born with her birth. No, he shall not expire While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river;--from that gentle side Drink, drink, and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

"The starry fable of the milky-way Has not thy story's purity; it is A constellation of a sweeter ray, And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where sparkle distant worlds:--Oh, holiest nurse!

No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe."

_Childe Harold._

A memorial of this story of a prison is preserved in the name of the church--S. Nicolo _in Carcere_. It was probably owing to this legend that, in front of the Temple of Piety, was placed the _Columna Lactaria_, where infants were exposed, in the hope that some one would take pity upon and nurse them out of charity.

A wide opening out of the street near this, with a pretty fountain, is called the _Piazza Montanara_, and is one of the places where the country people collect and wait for hire.

"Le dimanche est le jour ou les paysans arrivent a Rome. Ceux qui cherchent l'emploi de leurs bras viennent se louer aux marchands de campagne, c'est-a-dire aux fermiers. Ceux qui sont loues et qui travaillent hors des murs viennent faire leurs affaires et renouveler leurs provisions. Ils entrent en ville au petit jour apres avoir marche une bonne partie de la nuit. Chaque famille amene un ane, qui porte le bagage. Hommes, femmes, et enfants, poussant leur ane devant eux, s'etablissent dans un coin de la place Farnese, ou de la place Montanara. Les boutiques voisines restent ouvertes jusqu'a midi, par un privilege special. On va, on vient, on achete, on s'accroupit dans les coins pour compter les pieces de cuivre. Cependant les anes se reposent sur leurs quatre pieds au bord des fontaines. Les femmes, vetues d'un corset en cuirasse, d'un tablier rouge, et d'une veste rayee, encadrent leur figure halee dans une draperie de linge tres-blanc. Elles sont toutes a peindre sans exception: quand ce n'est pas pour la beaute de leurs traits, c'est pour l'elegance nave de leurs attitudes.

Les hommes ont le long manteau bleu de ciel et le chapeau pointu; la-dessous leurs habits de travail font merveille, quoique roussis par le temps et couleur de perdrix. Le costume n'est pas uniforme; on voit plus d'un manteau amadou rapiece de bleu vif ou de rouge garance. Le chapeau de paille abonde en ete. La chaussure est tres-capricieuse; soulier, botte et sandale foulent successivement le pave. Les dechausses trouvent ici pres de grandes et profondes boutiques ou l'on vend des marchandises d'occasion. Il y a des souliers de tout cuir et de tout age dans ces tresors de la chaussure; on y trouverait des cothurnes de l'an 500 de la republique, en cherchant bien. Je viens de voir un pauvre diable qui essayait une paire de bottes a revers. Elles vont a ses jambes comme une plume a l'oreille d'un porc, et c'est plaisir de voir la grimace qu'il fait chaque fois qu'il pose le pied a terre. Mais le marchand le fortifie par de bonnes paroles: 'Ne crains rien,' lui dit-il, 'tu souffriras pendant cinq ou six jours, et puis tu n'y penseras plus.' Un autre marchand debite des clous a la livre: le chaland les enfonce lui-meme dans ses semelles; il y a des bancs _ad hoc_. Le long des murs, cinq ou six chaises de paille servent de boutique a autant de barbiers en plein vent. Il en coute un sou pour abattre une barbe de huit jours. Le patient, barbouille de savon, regarde le ciel d'un il resigne; le barbier lui tire le nez, lui met les doigts dans la bouche, s'interrompt pour aiguiser le rasoir sur un cuir attache au dossier de la chaise, ou pour ecorner une galette noire qui pend au mur. Cependant l'operation est faite en un tour de main; le rase se leve et sa place est prise. Il pourrait aller se laver a la fontaine, mais il trouve plus simple de s'essuyer du revers de sa manche.

"Les ecrivains publics alternent avec les barbiers. On leur apporte les lettres qu'on a recues; ils les lisent et font la reponse: total, trois sous. Des qu'un paysan s'approche de la table pour dicter quelque-chose, cinq ou six curieux se reunissent officieusement autour de lui pour mieux entendre. Il y a une certaine bonhomie dans cette indiscretion. Chacun place son mot, chacun donne un conseil: 'Tu devrais dire ceci.'--'Non; dis plutot cela.'--'Laissez-le parler,' crie un troisieme, 'il sait mieux que vous ce qu'il veut faire ecrire.'

"Quelques voitures chargees de galettes d'orge et de mas circulent au milieu de la foule. Un marchand de limonade, arme d'une pince de bois, ecrase les citrons dans les verres. L'homme sobre boit a la fontaine en faisant un aqueduc des bords de son chapeau. Le gourmet achete des viandes d'occasion devant un petit etalage, ou les rebuts de cuisine se vendent a la poignee. Pour un sou, le debitant remplit de buf hache et d'os de cotelettes un morceau de vieux journal; une pincee de sel ajoutee sur le tout pare agreablement la denree. L'acheteur marchande, non sur le prix, qui est invariable, mais sur la quantite; il prend au tas quelques bribes de viande, et on le laisse faire; car rien ne se conclut a Rome sans marchander.

"Les ermites et les moines passent de groupe en groupe en quetant pour les ames du purgatoire. M'est avis que ces pauvres ouvriers font leur purgatoire en ce monde; et qu'il vaudrait mieux leur donner de l'argent que de leur en demander; ils donnent pourtant, et sans se faire tirer l'oreille.

"Quelquefois un beau parleur s'amuse a raconter une histoire; on fait cercle autour de lui, et a mesure que l'auditoire augmente il eleve la voix. J'ai vu de ces conteurs qui avaient la physionomie bien fine et bien heureuse; mais je ne sais rien de charmant comme l'attention de leur public. Les peintres du quinzieme siecle ont du prendre a la place Montanara les disciples qu'ils groupaient autour du Christ."--_About, Rome Contemporaine._

An opening on the left discloses the vast substructions of the _Theatre of Marcellus_. This huge edifice seems to have been projected by Julius Caesar, but he probably made little progress in it. It was actually erected by Augustus, and dedicated (_c._ 13 B.C.) in memory of the young nephew whom he married to his daughter Julia, and intended as his successor, but who was cut off by an early death. The theatre was capable of containing 20,000 spectators, and consisted of three tiers of arches, but the upper range has disappeared, and the lower is very imperfect. Still it is a grand remnant, and rises magnificently above the paltry houses which surround it. The perfect proportions of its Doric and Ionic columns served as models to Palladio.

"Le mur exterieur du portique demi-circulaire qui enveloppait les gradins offre encore a notre admiration deux etages d'arceaux et de colonnes doriques et ioniques d'une beaute presque grecque. L'etage superieur, qui devait etre corinthien, a disparu. Les _fornices_, ou voutes du rez-de chaussee, sont habitees encore aujourd'hui comme elles l'etaient dans l'antiquite, mais plus honnetement, par de pauvres gens qui vendent des ferrailles. Au-dessous des belles colonnes de l'enceinte exterieure, on a construit des maisons modernes dans lesquelles sont pratiquees des fenetres, et a ces fenetres du theatre de Marcellus, on voit des pots a fleurs, ni plus ni moins qu a une mansarde de la rue Saint Denis; des chemises sechent sur l'entablement; des cheminees surmontent la ruine romaine, et un grand tube se dessine a l'extremite.

"Dans les jeux celebres a l'occasion de la dedicace du theatre de Marcellus, on vit pour la premiere fois un tigre apprivoise, _tigrim mansuefactum_. Dans ce tigre le peuple romain pouvait contempler son image."--_Ampere, Emp._ i. 256.

In the middle ages this theatre was the fortress of the great family of Pierleoni, the rivals of the Frangipani, who occupied the Coliseum; their name is commemorated by the neighbouring street, Via Porta Leone.

The constant warfare in which they were engaged with their neighbours did much to destroy the building, whose interior became reduced to a mass of ruins, forming a hill, upon which Baldassare Peruzzi (1526) built the _Palazzo Savelli_, of which the entrance, flanked by the two armorial bears of the family, may be seen in the street (Via Savelli) which leads to the Ponte Quattro Capi.

"Au dix-septieme siecle, les Savelli exercaient encore une jurisdiction feodale. Leur tribunal, aussi regulierement constitue que pas un, s'appellait Corte Savella.[90] Ils avaient le droit d'arracher tous les ans un criminel a la peine de mort: droit de grace, droit regalien reconnu par la monarchie absolue des papes.

Les femmes de cette illustre famille ne sortaient point de leurs palais sinon dans un carosse bien ferme. Les Orsini et les Colonna se vantaient que pendant les siecles, aucun traite de paix n'avait ete conclu entre les princes chretiens, dans lequel ils n'eussent ete nominativement compris."--_About._

The palace has now passed to the family of Orsini-Gravina, who descended from a senator of A.D. 1200. The princes of Orsini and Colonna, in their quality as attendants on the throne (_principi assistenti al soglio_), take precedence of all other Roman nobles.

"Nicolovius will remember the Theatre of Marcellus, in which the Savelli family built a palace. My house is half of it. It has stood empty for a considerable time, because the drive into the courtyard (the interior of the ancient theatre) rises like the slope of a mountain upon the heaps of rubbish; although the road has been cut in a zig-zag, it is still a break-neck affair. There is another entrance from the Piazza Montanara, whence a flight of seventy-three steps leads up to the same story I have mentioned; the entrance-hall of which is on a level with the top of the carriage-way through the courtyard. The apartments in which we shall live are those over the colonnade of Ionic pillars forming the third story of the ancient theatre, and some, on a level with them, which have been built out like wings on the rubbish of the ruins. These enclose a little quadrangular garden, which is indeed very small, only about eighty or ninety feet long, and scarcely so broad, but so delightful! It contains three fountains--an abundance of flowers: there are orange-trees on the wall between the windows, and jessamine under them. We mean to plant a vine besides. From this story, you ascend forty steps, or more, higher, where I mean to have my own study, and there are most cheerful little rooms, from which you have a prospect over the whole country beyond the Tiber, Monte Mario, and St. Peter's, and can see over St. Pietro in Montorio, indeed almost as far as the Aventine. It would, I think, be possible besides to erect a loggia upon the roof (for which I shall save money from other things), that we may have a view over the Capitol, Forum, Palatine, Coliseum, and all the inhabited parts of the city."--_Niebuhr's Letters._

Following the wall of the theatre, down a filthy street, we arrive at the picturesque group of ruins of the "Porticus Octaviae," erected by Augustus, in honour of his sister (the unhappy wife of Antony), close to the theatre to which he had given the name of her son. The exact form of the building is known from the Pianta Capitolina,--that it was a parallelogram, surrounded by a double arcade of 270 columns, and enclosing the temples of Jupiter and Juno, built by the Greek architects, Batracus and Saurus.[91]

With regard to these temples, Pliny narrates a fact which reminds one of the story of the Madonna of Sta. Maria Nuova.[92] The porters having carelessly carried the statues of the gods to the wrong temples, it was imagined that they had done so from divine inspiration, and the people would not venture to remove them, so that the statues always remained where they had been placed, though their surroundings were utterly unsuitable.

The _Portico of Octavia_ built by Augustus, occupied the site of an earlier portico--the Porticus Metelli--built by A. Caecilius Metellus, after his triumph over Andriscus in Macedonia, in B.C. 146. Temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno existed also in this portico, one of them being the earliest temple built of marble in Rome. Before these temples Metellus placed the famous group of twenty-five bronze statues, which he had brought from Greece, executed by Lysippus for Alexander the Great, and representing that conqueror himself and twenty-four horsemen of his troop who had fallen at the Granicus.[93]

The existing fragment of the portico is the original entrance to the whole. The building had suffered from fire in the reign of Titus, and was restored by Septimius Severus, and of this time is the large brick arch on one side of the ruin.

"It was in this hall of Octavia that Titus and Vespasian celebrated their triumph over Israel with festive pomp and splendour. Among the Jewish spectators stood the historian Flavius Josephus, who was one of the followers and flatterers of Titus ... and to this base Jewish courtier we owe a description of the triumph."--_Gregorovius, Wanderjahre in Italien._

Within the portico is the _Church of S. Angelo in Pescheria_. Here it was that Cola Rienzi summoned, at midnight--May 20, 1347--all good citizens to hold a meeting for the re-establishment of "the good estate;" here he kept the vigil of the Holy Ghost; and hence he went forth, bareheaded, in complete armour, accompanied by the papal legate, and attended by a vast multitude, to the Capitol, where he called upon the populace to ratify the Good Estate.

It is said that one of the causes which most incited the indignation of Rienzi against the assumption and pride of the Roman families, was the fact of their painting their arms on the ancient Roman buildings, and thus in a manner appropriating them to their own glory. Remains of coats of arms thus painted may be seen on the front wall of the Portico of Octavia. It was also on this very wall that Rienzi painted his famous allegorical picture. In this painting kings and men of the people were seen burning in a furnace, with a woman half consumed, who personified Rome,--and on the right was a church, whence issued a white-robed angel, bearing in one hand a naked sword, while with the other he plucked the woman from the flames. On the church tower were SS. Peter and Paul, crying to the angel, "Aquilo, aquilo, succurri a l'albergatrice nostra,"--and beyond this were represented falcons (typical of the Roman barons) falling from heaven into the flames, and a white dove bearing a wreath of olive, which it gave to a little bird (Rienzi), which was chased by the falcons. Beneath was inscribed: "I see the time of great justice, do thou await that time."

"Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shame-- The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy-- Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it be-- The forum's champion, and the people's chief-- Her newborn Numa thou--with reign, alas! too brief."

_Childe Harold._

Through the brick arch of the Portico we enter upon the ancient _Pescheria_, with the marble fish-slabs of imperial times still remaining in use. It is a striking scene--the dark, many-storied houses almost meeting overhead and framing a narrow strip of deep blue sky,--below, the bright groups of figures and rich colouring of hanging cloths and drapery.

"C'est une des ruines les plus remarquables de Rome, et une de celles qui offrent ces contrastes piquants entre le passe et le present, amusement perpetuel de l'imagination dans la ville des contrastes. Le portique d'Octavie est, aujourd'hui, le marche aux poissons. Les colonnes et le fronton s'elevent au milieu de l'endroit le plus sale de Rome; leur effet n'en est pas moins pittoresque, il l'est peut-etre davantage. Le lieu est fait pour une aquarelle, et quand un beau soleil eclaire les debris antiques, les vieux murs sombres de la rue etroite ou la poisson se vend sur des tables de marbre blanc, et a travers laquelle des nattes sont tendues, on a, a cote du monument romain, le spectacle d'un marche du moyen age, et un peu le souvenir d'un bazar d'Orient."--_Ampere, Emp._ i. 179.

"Who that has ever been to Rome does not remember Roman streets of an evening, when the day's work is done? They are all alive in a serene and homelike fashion. The old town tells its story. Low arches cluster with life--a life humble and stately, though rags hang from the citizens and the windows. You realize it as you pass them--their temples are in ruins, their rule is over--their colonies have revolted long centuries ago. Their gates and their columns have fallen like the trees of a forest, cut down by an invading civilization."--_Miss Thackeray._