The direct road--which leads to Albano--reaches, about two miles from the gate, a queer building, called the Casa del Diavolo, on the outside of which some rude frescoes testify to the popular belief as to its owner. Just beyond this a field track on the left leads to the _Via Latina_, of which a certain portion, paved with huge polygonal blocks of lava, is now laid bare. Here are some exceedingly interesting and well-preserved tombs, richly ornamented with painting and stucco. The view, looking back upon Rome, or forward to the long line of broken arches of the Claudian aqueduct, seen between these ruined sepulchres, is most striking and beautiful.

Close by have been discovered remains of a villa of the Servilii, which afterwards belonged to the Asinarii. Here also, in 1858 (on the left of the Via Latina), Signor Fortunati discovered the long buried and forgotten _Basilica of S. Stefano_. It is recorded by Anastasius that this basilica was founded in the time of Leo I. (440--461) by Demetria, a lady who escaped from the siege by the Goths, with her mother, to Carthage, where she became a nun. It was restored by Leo III. at the end of the eighth century. The remains are interesting, though they do little more than show perfectly the substruction and plan of the ancient building. An inscription relating to the foundation of the church by Demetria has been found among the ruins.

Not far from this is the _Catacomb of the Santi-Quattro_.

Three and a half miles from Rome is the Osteria of _Tavolato_, near which is one of the most striking and picturesque portions of the Claudian Aqueduct. It is on the rising ground between this aqueduct and the road, that the _Temple of Fortuna Muliebris_ is believed to have stood. This was the temple which Valeria, the sister of Publicola, and Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, claimed to erect at their own expense, when the senate asked them to choose their recompense for having preserved Rome by their entreaties.

"As Valeria, sister of Publicola, was sitting in the temple, as a suppliant before the image of Jupiter, Jupiter himself seemed to inspire her with a sudden thought, and she immediately rose, and called upon all the other noble ladies who were with her, to arise also, and she led them to the house of Volumnia, the mother of Caius (Coriolanus). There she found Virgilia, the wife of Caius, with his mother, and also his little children. Valeria then addressed Volumnia and Virgilia, and said, 'Our coming here to you is our own doing; neither the senate nor any mortal man have sent us; but the god in whose temple we were sitting as suppliants put it into our hearts, that we should come and ask you to join with us, women with women, without any aid of men, to win for our country a great deliverance, and for ourselves a name, glorious above all women, even above those Sabine wives in the old time, who stopped the battle between their husbands and their fathers. Come, then, with us to the camp of Caius, and let us pray to him to show us mercy.' Volumnia said, 'We will go with you:' and Virgilia took her young children with her, and they all went to the camp of the enemy.

"It was a sad and solemn sight to see this train of noble ladies, and the very Volscian soldiers stood in silence as they passed by, and pitied them and honoured them. They found Caius sitting on the general's seat, in the midst of the camp, and the Volscian chiefs were standing round him. When he first saw them he wondered what it could be; but presently he knew his mother, who was walking at the head of the train, and then he could not contain himself, but leapt down from his seat, and ran to meet her, and was going to kiss her.

But she stopped him, and said, 'Ere thou kiss me, let me know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my son; whether I stand in thy camp as thy prisoner or thy mother?' Caius could not answer her; and then she went on and said, 'Must it be, then, that had I never borne a son, Rome never would have seen the camp of an enemy; that had I remained childless, I should have died a free woman in a free city? But I am too old to bear much longer either thy shame or my misery. Rather look to thy wife and children, whom, if thou persistest, thou art dooming to an untimely death, or a long life of bondage.' Then Virgilia and his children came up to him and kissed him, and all the noble ladies wept, and bemoaned their own fate and the fate of their country. At last Caius cried out, 'O mother, what hast thou done to me?' and he wrung her hand vehemently, and said, 'Mother, thine is the victory; a happy victory for thee and for Rome, but shame and ruin to thy son.' Then he fell on her neck and embraced her, and he embraced his wife and his children, and sent them back to Rome; and led away the army of the Volscians, and never afterwards attacked Rome any more. The Romans, as was right, honoured Volumnia and Valeria for their deed, and a temple was built and dedicated to 'Woman's Fortune' just on the spot where Caius had yielded to his mother's words; and the first priestess of the temple was Valeria, into whose heart Jupiter had first put the thought to go to Volumnia, and to call upon her to go out to the enemy's camp and entreat her son."--_Arnold's Hist. of Rome_, vol. i.

"Il y a peu de scenes dans l'histoire plus emouvantes que celle-la, et elle ne perd rien a la decoration du theatre; en se placant sur un tertre a quatre milles de Rome, pres de la voie Latine, dans un lieu ou il n'y a aujourd'hui que des tombeaux et des ruines, on peut se figurer le camp des Volsques, dont les armes et les tentes etincellent au soleil. Les montagnes s'elevent a l'horizon. A travers la plaine ardente et poudreuse defile une foule voilee dont les gemissements retentissent dans le silence de la campagne romaine. Bientot Coriolan est entoure de cette multitude suppliante dont les plaintes, les cris, devaient avoir la vivacite des demonstrations passionees des Romaines de nos jours. Coriolan eut re siste a tout ce bruit, il eut peut-etre resiste aux larmes de sa femme et aux caresses de ses enfants; il ne resista pas a la severite de sa mere.

"Le soir, par un glorieux coucher du soleil de Rome qui eclaire leur joie, la procession triomphante s'eloigne en adressant un chant de reconnaissance aux dieux, et lui se retire dans sa tente, etonne d'avoir pu ceder."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ ii. 402.

The return drive to Rome may be varied by turning to the right about a mile beyond this, into a lane which leads past the so-called temple of Bacchus to the Via Appia Vecchia.

We may now follow the lines of white mulberry-trees across the open space in front of St. John Lateran, which is a continuation of the ancient papal promenade of "the Mirror," to Sta. Croce. The sister basilicas look at each other, and at Sta. Maria Maggiore, down avenues of trees. On the left are the walls of Rome, upon which run the arches of the Aqua Marcia.

"Few Roman churches are set within so impressive a picture as Santa Croce, approached on every side through these solitudes of vineyards and gardens, quiet roads, and long avenues of trees, that occupy such immense extent within the walls of Rome. The scene from the Lateran, looking towards this basilica across the level common, between lines of trees, with the distance of Campagna and mountains, the castellated walls, the arcades of the Claudian aqueduct, amid gardens and groves, is more than beautiful, full of memory and association. The other approach, by the unfrequented Via di Sta. Croce, presents the finest distances, seen through a foliage beyond the dusky towers of the Honorian walls, and a wide extent of slopes covered with vineyards, amid which stand at intervals some of those forlorn cottage farms, grey and dilapidated, that form characteristic features in Roman scenery.

The majestic ruins of Minerva-Medica, the so-called temple of Venus and Cupid, the fragments of the Baths of St. Helena, the Castrense Amphitheatre, the arches of the aqueduct, half concealed in cypress and ivy, are objects which must increase the attractions of a walk to this sanctuary of the cross. But the exterior of the church is disappointing and inappropriate, retaining nothing antique except the square Lombardic tower of the twelfth century, in storeys of narrow-arched windows, its brickwork ornamented with disks of coloured marble, and a canopy, with columns, near the summit, for a statue no longer in its place."--_Hemans' Catholic Italy_, vol. i.

The site of the _Basilica of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme_ was once occupied by the garden of Heliogabalus, and afterwards by the palace of the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, whose residence here was known as the Palatium Sessorianum, whence the name of Sessorian, sometimes given to the basilica.

The church was probably once a hall in the palace of Helena, to which an apse was added by Constantine, in whose reign it was consecrated by Pope Sylvester. It was repaired by Gregory II. early in the eighth century; the monastery was added by Benedict VII. about 975, and the whole was rebuilt by Lucius II. in 1144. The church was completely modernized by Benedict XIV. in the last century, and scarcely anything, except the tower, now remains externally, which is even as old as the twelfth century. The fine columns of granite and bigio-lumachellato, which now adorn the facade, were plundered from the neighbouring temple in 1744.

The interior of the church is devoid of beauty, owing to modernizations.

Four out of twelve fine granite columns, which divided its nave and aisles, are boxed up in senseless plaster piers. The high altar is adorned with an urn of green basalt, sculptured with lions' heads, which contains the bodies of SS. Anastasius and Caesarius. Two of the pillars of the baldacchino are of breccia-corallina. The fine frescoes of the tribune by _Pinturicchio_ have been much retouched. They were executed under Alexander VI., on a commission from Cardinal Carvajal, who is himself represented as kneeling before the cross, which is held by the Empress Helena.

"The very important frescoes of the choir apsis of Sta. Croce (now much over-painted) are of Pinturicchio's better time. They represent the finding of the Cross, with a colossal Christ in a nimbus among angels above,--a figure full of wild grandeur."--_Kugler._

"Near the entrance of the church is a valuable monument of the papal history of the tenth century, in a metrical epitaph to Benedict VII., recording his foundation of the adjoining monastery for monks, who were to sing day and night the praises of the Deity; his charities to the poor; and the deeds of the anti-pope Franco, called by Baronius (with play upon his assumed name Boniface) Malefacius, who usurped the Holy See, imprisoned and strangled the lawful pope, Benedict VI., and pillaged the treasury of St.

Peter's, but in one month was turned out and excommunicated, when he fled to Constantinople. The chronology of this epitaph is by the ancient system of Indictions, the death of the pope dated XII.

Indiction, corresponding to the year 984: and the Latin style of the tenth century is curiously exemplified in lines relating to the anti-pope:

'Hic primus repulit Franconis spurca superbi Culmina qui invasit sedis apostolicae Qui dominumque suum captum in castro habebat Carceris interea auctis constrictus in uno Strangulatus ubi exuerat hominem.'"

_Hemans' Catholic Italy._

The consecration of the Golden Rose, formerly sent to foreign princes, used to take place in this church. The principal observances here now are connected with the exhibition of the relics, of which the principal is the Title of the True Cross.

"In 1492, when some repairs were ordered by Cardinal Mendoza, a niche was discovered near the summit of the apse, enclosed by a brick front, inscribed 'Titulus Crucis.' In it was a leaden coffer, containing an imperfect plank of wood, 2 inches thick, 1 palm long, 1 palm broad. On this, in letters more or less perfect, was the inscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, _Jesus Nazarene King_.

It was venerated by Innocent VIII., with the college of cardinals, and enclosed by Mendoza in the silver shrine, where it is exposed three times a year from the balcony. The relics are exposed on the 4th Sunday in Lent. On Good Friday the rites are more impressive here than in any other church, the procession of white-robed monks, and the deep toll of the bell announcing the display of the relics by the mitred abbot, are very solemn, and it is surprising, that while crowds of strangers submit to be crushed in the Sistine, scarcely one visits this ancient basilica on that day."--_Hemans'

Catholic Italy._

"The list of relics on the right of the apsis of Sta. Croce includes, the finger of St. Thomas Apostle, with which he touched the most holy side of our Lord Jesus Christ; one of the pieces of money with which the Jews paid the treachery of Judas; great part of the veil and of the hair of the most blessed Virgin; a mass of cinders and charcoal, united in the form of a loaf, with the fat of St. Lawrence, martyr; one bottle of the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; another of the milk of the most blessed Virgin; a little piece of the stone where Christ was born; a little piece of the stone where our Lord sate when he pardoned Mary Magdalen; of the stone where our Lord wrote the law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai; of the stone where reposed SS. Peter and Paul; of the cotton which collected the blood of Christ; of the manna which fed the Israelites; of the rod of Aaron, which flourished in the desert; of the relics of the eleven prophets!"--_Percy's Romanism._

Two staircases near the tribune lead to the subterranean church, which has an altar with a pieta, and statues of SS. Peter and Paul of the twelfth century. Hence opens the chapel of Sta. Helena,[285] which women (by a perversion especially strange in this case) are never allowed to enter except on the festival of the saint, August 18. It is built upon a soil composed of earth brought by the empress from Palestine. Her statue is over the altar. The vault has mosaics (originally erected under Valentinian III., but restored by _Zucchi_ in 1593) representing, in ovals, a half-length figure of the Saviour; the Evangelists and their symbols; the Finding of the True Cross; SS. Peter and Paul; St.

Sylvester, the conservator of the church; and Sta. Helena, with Cardinal Carvajal kneeling before her.

Here the feast of the "Invention of the True Cross" (May 3) is celebrated with great solemnity, when the hymns "Pange Lingua" and "Vexilla Regis" are sung, and the antiphon:--

"O Cross, more glorious than the stars, world famous, beauteous of aspect, holiest of things, which alone wast worthy to sustain the weight of the world: dear wood, dear nails, dear burden, bearing; save those present assembled in thy praise to-day. Alleluia."

And the collect:--

"O God, who by the glorious uplifting of the salvation-bearing cross, hast displayed the miracles of thy passion, grant that by the merit of that life-giving wood, we may attain the suffrages of eternal life, &c."

The adjoining _Monastery_ belongs to the Cistercians. Only part of one wing is ancient. The library formerly contained many curious MSS., but most of these were lost to the basilica, when the collection was removed to the Vatican during the French occupation and the exile of Pius VII.

The garden of the monastery contains the ruin generally known as the _Temple of Venus and Cupid_, but considered by Dr. Braun to be the Sessorian Basilica or law-court, where the causes of slaves (who were allowed to appeal to no other court) were wont to be heard. Behind the monastery is the _Amphitheatrum Castrense_, attributed to the time of Nero, when it is supposed to have been erected for the games of two cohorts of soldiers, quartered near here. It is ingrafted into the line of the Honorian walls, and is best seen from the outside of the city.

Its arches and pillars, with Corinthian capitals, are all of brick.

(On the left of the Via Sta. Croce, which leads hence to Sta. Maria Maggiore, is the gate of the _Villa Altieri_, chiefly remarkable for its grand umbrella pine, the finest in the city. Further, on the right, is a tomb of unknown origin, now used as a farm-house and a wine-shop.)

Turning to the right from the basilica, we follow a lane which leads beneath some fine brick arches of an aqueduct of the time of Nero, cited by Ampere,[286] as exemplifying the perfection to which architecture attained in the reign of this emperor, "by the quality of the bricks, and the excellence and small quantity of the cement." These ruins are popularly called the Baths of Sta. Helena.

Passing these arches we find ourselves facing the _Porta Maggiore_, formed by two arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, formerly known as the Porta Labicana, and Porta Prenestina, of which the former was closed in the time of Honorius, and has never been re-opened. Three inscriptions remain, the first relating to the building of the aqueduct by the Emperor Tiberius Claudius;--the second and third to its restoration by Vespasian and Titus. Above the Aqua Claudia flowed a second stream, the Anio Novus.

Outside the gate, only lately disclosed, upon the removal of constructions of the time of Honorius (the fragments of those worth preserving are placed on the opposite wall), is the _Tomb of the Baker Eurysaces_, who was also one of the inspectors of aqueducts. The tomb is attributed to the early years of the Empire. Its first storey is surmounted by the inscription: "EST HOC MONUMENTUM MARCEI VERGILEI EVRYSACES PISTORIS REDEMPTORIS APPARET." Its second storey is composed of rows of the mortars used in baking, placed sideways, and supporting a frieze with bas-reliefs telling the story of a baker's work, from the bringing of the corn into the mill to its distribution as bread. In the front of the tomb was formerly a relief of the baker and his wife, with a sarcophagus, and the inscription: "FUIT ATISTIA UXOR MIHEI--FEMINA OPTVMA VEIXSIT--QUOIVS CORPORIS RELIQUIae--QUOD SUPERANT SUNT IN--HOC PANARIO." This has been foolishly removed, and is now to be seen upon the opposite wall.

From this gate many pleasant excursions may be taken. The direct road leads to Palestrina by Zagarolo, and at 1 mile from the gate passes, on the left, _Torre Pignatarra_, the tomb of Sta. Helena, whence the magnificent porphyry sarcophagus, now in the Vatican, was removed. The name is derived from the _pignatte_, or earthen pots, used in the building. Beneath it is a catacomb, now closed. The adjoining _Catacomb of SS. Pietro e Marcellino_ contains some well preserved paintings; the most interesting is that of the Divine Lamb on a mound (from which four rivers flow as in the mosaics of the ancient basilicas), with figures of Petrus, Gorgonius, Marcellinus, and Tiburtius. At three miles from the gate the road reaches _Centocellae_, whence, near the desolate tower called _Torre Pernice_, there is a most picturesque view of the aqueduct _Aqua Alexandrina_, built by Alexander Severus, with a double line of arches crossing the hollow. At five miles, on the right, is the Borghese farm of Torre Nuova, with a fine group of old stone pines.

The road which turns left from the gate leads by the _Aqua Bollicante_, where the Arvales sang their hymn, to the picturesque ruins of the _Torre dei Schiavi_, the palace of the Emperors Gordian (A.D. 238), adjoining which are the remains of a round temple of Apollo. This is, perhaps, one of the most striking scenes in the Campagna and--backed by the violet mountains above Tivoli--is a favourite subject with artists.

"Les Gordiens, tres-grands personnages, furent de tres-petits empereurs. Ils montrent ce qu'etait devenu l'aristocratie romaine degeneree. Le premier, honnete et pusillanime, comme le prouvent son election et sa mort, etait un peu replet et avait dans l'air du visage quelque chose de solennel et de theatral (_pompali vultu_).

Il aimait et cultivait les lettres. Son fils egalement se fit quelque reputation en ce genre, grace surtout a sa bibliotheque de soixante mille volumes; mais il avait d'autres gouts encore que celui des livres: on lui donne jusqu'a vingt-deux concubines en titre, et de chacune d'elles, il eut trois ou quatre enfants. Il menait une vie epicurienne dans ses jardins et sous des ombrages delicieux: c'etaient les jardins et les ombrages d'une villa magnifique que les Gordiens avaient sur la voie Prenestine, et dont Capitolin, au temps duquel elle existait encore, nous a laisse une description detaillee. Le peristyle etait forme de deux cents colonnes des marbres les plus precieux, le cipollin, le pavonazetto, le jaune et le rouge antiques. La villa renfermait trois basiliques et les thermes que ceux de Rome surpassaient a peine. Telle etait l'opulence d'une habitation privee vers le milieu du troisieme siecle de l'empire."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 328.

The road which continues in a straight line from hence passes, on the left, the Torre Tre Teste. The eighth mile-stone is of historic interest, being described by Livy (v. 49) as the spot where the dictator Camillus overtook and exterminated the army of Gauls who were retreating from Rome with the spoils of the Capitol.

At the ninth mile is the _Ponte di Nono_, a magnificent old bridge with seven lofty arches of lapis-gabinus. This leads (twelve miles from Rome) to the dried-up lake and the ruins of Gabii (Castiglione), including that of the temple of Juno Gabina.

"Quique arva Gabinae Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis Hernica saxa colunt."

_Virgil, aen._ vii. 682.

The road which branches off on the left leads (twelve miles from Rome) to _Lunghezza_, the fine old castle of the Strozzi family, situated on the little river Osa. Hence a beautiful walk through a wood leads to Castello del Osa, the ruins of the ancient _Collatia_, so celebrated from the tragedy of Lucretia. Two miles beyond the Torre dei Schiavi, on the left, is the fine castellated farm of _Cervaletto_, a property of the Borghese. A field road of a mile and half, passing in front of this (practicable for carriages), leads to another fine old castellated farm (five miles from Rome), close to which are the extraordinary _Grottoes of Cerbara_,--a succession of romantic caves of great size, in the tufa rocks, from which the material of the Coliseum was excavated. Here the "Festa degli Artisti" is held in May, which is well worth seeing,--the artists in costume riding in procession, and holding games, amid these miniature Petra-like ravines. Beyond Cerbara are remains of a villa of Lucius Verus, and, on the bank of the Anio, the romantically-situated castle of _Rustica_.

From the Porta Maggiore we may follow a lane along the inside of the wall, crossing the railway--whence there is a picturesque view of the temple of Minerva Medica--to _The Porta S. Lorenzo_, anciently called the Porta Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli passes through it), built in 402, by the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, on the advice of Stilicho, as we learn from an inscription over the archway of the Marcian, Tepulan, and Julian Aqueducts, now half buried within the later brick gateway.

The road just beyond the gate is connected with the story of the favourite saint of the Roman people.

"When Sta. Francesca Romana had no resource but to beg for the sick under her care, she went to the basilica of _S. Lorenzo fuori_ Mura, where was the station of the day, and seated herself amongst the crowd of beggars, who, according to custom, were there assembled. From the rising of the sun to the ringing of the vesper-bell, she sate there, side by side with the lame, the deformed, and the blind. She held out her hand as they did, gladly enduring, not the semblance, but the reality, of that deep humiliation. When she had received enough wherewith to feed the poor at home, she rose, and entering the old basilica, adored the Blessed Sacrament, and then walked back the long and weary way, blessing God all the while."--_Lady G. Fullerton._