It was at the Porta Trigemina that Camillus (B.C. 391), sent into exile to Ardea by the accusations of the plebs, stayed, and, stretching forth his hands to the Capitol, prayed to the gods who reigned there that if he was unjustly expelled, Rome might "one day have need of Camillus."

Passing the arch, the road skirts the wooded escarpment of the Aventine, crowned by its three churches--Sta. Sabina, S. Alessio, and the Priorato.

"De ce cote, entre l'Aventin et le Tibre, hors de la porte Trigemina, etaient divers marches, notamment le marche aux bois, le marche a la farine et au pain, les _horrea_, magasins de bles. Le voisinage de ces marches, de ces magasins et de l'emporium, produisait un grand mouvement de transport et fournissait de l'occupation a beaucoup de portefaix. Plaute[363] fait allusion a ces porteurs de sacs de la porte Trigemina. On peut en voir encore tous les jours remplir le meme office au meme lieu."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iv. 75.

From the landing-place for modern Carrara marble, a new road on the right, planted with trees, leads along the river to the ancient _Marmorata_, discovered 1867--68, when many magnificent blocks of ancient marble were found buried in the mud of the Tiber. Recent excavations have laid bare the inclined planes by which the marbles were landed, and the projecting bars of stone with rings for mooring the marble vessels.

In the neighbouring vineyard are the massive ruins of the _Emporium_, or magazine for merchandise, founded by M. aemilius Lepidus and L. aemilius Paulus, the aediles in B.C. 186. Upon the ancient walls of this time is engrafted a small and picturesque winepress of the fifteenth century.

The neighbouring vineyard is much frequented by marble collectors.

A short distance beyond the turn to the Marmorata the main road is crossed by an ancient brick arch, called _Arco di S. Lazzaro_, or Arco della Salara, by the side of which is a hermitage.

About half a mile beyond this we reach the _Porta S. Paolo_, built by Belisarius on the site of the Ancient Porta Ostiensis.

It was here, just within the Ostian Gate, that the Emperor Claudius, returning from Ostia to take vengeance upon Messalina, was met by their two children, Octavia and Britannicus, accompanied by a vestal, who insisted upon the rights of her Order, and imperiously demanded that the empress should not be condemned undefended.

"Totila entra par la porte Asinaria et une autre fois par la porte Ostiensis, aujourd'hui porte Saint-Paul; par la meme porte, Genseric, que la mer apportait, et qui, en s'embarquant, avait dit a son pilote: 'Conduis-moi vers le rivage que menace la colere divine.'"--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 325.

Close to this, is the famous _Pyramid of Caius Cestius_. It is built of brick, coated with marble, and is 125 feet high, and 100 feet wide at its square basement. In the midst is a small sepulchral chamber, painted with arabesques. Two inscriptions on the exterior show that the Caius Cestius buried here was a praetor, a tribune of the people, and one of the "Epulones" appointed to provide the sacrificial feasts of the gods.

He died about 30 B.C., leaving Agrippa as his executor, and desiring by his will that his body might be buried, wrapped up in precious stuffs.

Agrippa, however, applied to him the law which forbade luxurious burial, and spent the money, partly upon the pyramid and partly upon erecting two colossal statues in honour of the deceased, of which the pedestals have been found near the tomb. In the middle ages this was supposed to be the sepulchre of Remus.

"Cette pyramide, sauf les dimensions, est absolument semblable aux pyramides d'egypte. Si l'on pouvait encore douter que celles-ci etaient des tombeaux, l'imitation des pyramides egyptiennes dans un tombeau romain serait un argument de plus pour prouver qu'elles avaient une destination funeraire. La chambre qu'on a trouvee dans le monument de Cestius etait decoree de peintures dont quelques unes ne sont pas encore effacees. C'etait la coutume des peuples anciens, notamment des Egyptiens et des Etrusques, de peindre l'interieur des tombeaux, que l'on fermait ensuite soigneusement.

Ces peintures, souvent tres-considerables, n'etaient que pour le mort, et ne devaient jamais etre vues par l'il d'un vivant. Il en etait certainement ainsi de celles qui decoraient la chambre sepulchrale de la pyramide de Cestius, car cette chambre n'avait aucune entree. L'ouverture par laquelle on y penetre aujourd'hui est moderne. On avait depose le corps ou les cendres avant de terminer le monument, on acheva ensuite de la batir jusqu'au sommet."--_Ampere, Emp._ i. 347.

"St. Paul was led to execution beyond the city walls, upon the road to Ostia. As he issued forth from the gate, his eyes must have rested for a moment on that sepulchral pyramid which stood beside the road, and still stands unshattered, amid the wreck of so many centuries, upon the same spot. That spot was then only the burial-place of a single Roman; it is now the burial-place of many Britons. The mausoleum of Caius Cestius rises conspicuously amongst humbler graves, and marks the site where Papal Rome suffers her Protestant sojourners to bury their dead. In England and in Germany, in Scandinavia and in America, there are hearts which turn to that lofty cenotaph as the sacred point of their whole horizon; even as the English villager turns to the grey church tower, which overlooks the grave-stones of his kindred. Among the works of man, that pyramid is the only surviving witness of the martyrdom of St.

Paul; and we may thus regard it with yet deeper interest, as a monument unconsciously erected by a pagan to the memory of a martyr. Nor let us think they who lie beneath its shadow are indeed resting (as degenerate Italians fancy) in unconsecrated ground.

Rather let us say, that a spot where the disciples of Paul's faith now sleep in Christ, so near the soil once watered by his blood, is doubly hallowed; and that their resting-place is most fitly identified with the last earthly journey, and the dying glance of their own patron saint, the apostle of the Gentiles."--_Conybeare and Howson._

At the foot of the Pyramid is the _Old Protestant Cemetery_, a lovely spot, now closed. Here is the grave of Keats, with the inscription:

"This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraven on his tombstone: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'

February 24, 1821."

"Go thou to Rome--at once the paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of desolation's nakedness, Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread,

"And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid, with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath."

_Shelley's Adonais._

Very near the grave of Keats is that of Augustus William Hare, the elder of the two brothers who wrote the "Guesses at Truth," ob. 1834.

"When I am inclined to be serious, I love to wander up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. The Protestant burial-ground is there, and most of the little monuments are erected to the young--young men of promise, cut off when on their travels full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or children borne from home in search of health. This stone was placed by his fellow-travellers, young as himself, who will return to the house of his parents without him; that, by a husband or a father, now in his native country. His heart is buried in that grave.

"It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the winter with violets; and the pyramid, that overshadows it, gives it a classic and singularly solemn air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you were not prepared for. You are yourself in a foreign land; and they are for the most part your countrymen. They call upon you in your mother tongue--in English--in words unknown to a native, known only to yourself: and the tomb of Cestius, that old majestic pile, has this also in common with them. It is itself a stranger among strangers. It has stood there till the language spoken round about it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, can read the inscription no longer."--_Rogers._

The _New Burial Ground_ was opened in 1825. It extends for some distance along the slope of the hill under the old Aurelian Wall, and is beautifully shaded by cypresses, and carpeted with violets. Amid the forest of tombs we may notice that which contains the heart of Shelley (his body having been burnt upon the shore at Lerici, where it was thrown up by the sea), inscribed:

"Percy Bysshe Shelley, Cor Cordium. Natus IV. Aug. MDCCXCII. Obiit VIII. Jul. MDCCCXXII.

'Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange.'"

Another noticeable tomb is that of Gibson the sculptor, who died 1868.

From the fields in front of the cemetery (_Prati del Popolo Romano_) rises the _Monte Testaccio_, only 160 feet in height, but worth ascending for the sake of the splendid view it affords. The extraordinary formation of this hill, which is entirely composed of broken pieces of pottery, has long been an unexplained bewilderment.

"Le Monte-Testaccio est pour moi des nombreux problemes qu'offrent les antiquites romaines le plus difficile a resoudre. On ne peut s'arreter a discuter serieusement la tradition d'apres laquelle il aurait ete forme avec les debris des vases contenant les tributs qu'apportaient a Rome les peuples soumis par elle. C'est la evidemment une legende du moyen age nee du souvenir de la grandeur romaine et imaginee pour exprimer la haute idee qu'on s'en faisait, comme on avait imagine ces statues de provinces placees au Capitole, et dont chacune portait au cou une cloche qui sonnait tout-a-coup d'elle-meme, quand une province se soulevait, comme on a pretendu que le lit du Tibre etait pave en airain par les tributs apportes aux empereurs romains. Il faut donc chercher une autre explication."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 386.

Just outside the Porta S. Paolo is (on the right) a vineyard which belonged to Sta. Francesca Romana (born 1384, canonized 1608 by Paul V.).

"Instead of entering into the pleasures to which her birth and riches entitled her, Sta. Francesca went every day, disguised in a coarse woollen garment, to her vineyard, and collected faggots, which she brought into the city on her head, and distributed to the poor. If the weight exceeded her womanly strength, she loaded therewith an ass, following after on foot in great humility."--_Mrs. Jameson's Monastic Orders._

A straight road a mile and a half long leads from the gate to the basilica. Half way (on the left) is the humble chapel which commemorates the farewell of St. Peter and St. Paul on their way to martyrdom, inscribed:

"In this place SS. Peter and Paul separated on their way to martyrdom.

"And Paul said to Peter, 'Peace be with thee, Foundation of the Church, Shepherd of the flock of Christ.'

"And Peter said to Paul, 'Go in peace, Preacher of good tidings, and Guide of the salvation of the just.'"[364]

Passing the basilica, which looks outside like a very ugly railway station, let us visit the scene of the martyrdom, before entering the grand church which arose in consequence.

The road we now traverse is the scene of the legend of Plautilla.

"St. Paul was beheaded by the sword outside the Ostian gate, about two miles from Rome, at a place called the Aqua Salvias, now the 'Tre Fontane.' The legend of his death relates that a certain Roman matron named Plautilla, one of the converts of St. Peter, placed herself on the road by which St. Paul passed to his martyrdom, to behold him for the last time; and when she saw him she wept greatly, and besought his blessing. The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she would give him her veil to blind his eyes when he should be beheaded, promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked at such a promise, but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity, taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, St. Paul appeared to her, and restored the veil stained with his blood.

"In the ancient representations of the martyrdom of St. Paul, the legend of Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture by Giotto in the sacristy of St. Peter's, Plautilla is seen on an eminence in the background, receiving the veil from the hands of St. Paul, who appears in the clouds above; the same representation, but little varied, is executed in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St.

Peter's."--_Jameson's Sacred Art._

The lane which leads to the Tre Fontane turns off to the left a little beyond S. Paolo.

"In all the melancholy vicinity of Rome, there is not a more melancholy spot than the Tre Fontane. A splendid monastery, rich with all the offerings of Christendom, once existed there: the ravages of that mysterious scourge of the Campagna, the malaria, have rendered it a desert; three ancient churches and some ruins still exist, and a few pale monks wander about the swampy dismal confines of the hollow in which they stand. In winter you approach them through a quagmire; in summer, you dare not breathe in their pestilential vicinity; and yet there is a sort of dead beauty about the place, something hallowed as well as sad, which seizes on the fancy."--_Jameson's Sacred Art._

The convent was bestowed in 1867 by Pius IX. upon the French Trappists, and twelve brethren of the Order went to reside there. Entering the little enclosure, the first church on the right is _Sta. Maria Scala Cli_, supposed to occupy the site of the cemetery of S. Zeno, in which the 12,000 Christians employed in building the Baths of Diocletian were buried. The present edifice was the work of Vignola and Giacomo della Porta in 1582. The name is derived from the legend that here St.

Bernard had a vision of a ladder which led to heaven, its foot resting on this church, and of angels on the ladder leading upwards the souls whom his prayers had redeemed from purgatory. The mosaics in the apse were the work of _F. Zucchero_, in the sixteenth century, and are perhaps the best of modern mosaics. They represent the saints Zeno, Bernard, Vincenzo, and Anastasio, adored by Pope Clement VIII. and Cardinal Aldobrandini, under whom the remodelling of the church took place.

The second church is the basilica of _SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio_, founded by Honorius I. (625), and restored by Honorius III. (1221), when it was consecrated afresh. It is approached by an atrium with a penthouse roof, supported by low columns, and adorned with decaying frescoes, among which the figure of Honorius III. may be made out. The interior, which reeks with damp, is almost entirely of the twelfth century. The pillars are adorned with coarse frescoes of the apostles.

"S. Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane so far deviates from the usual basilican arrangement as almost to deserve the appellation of gothic. It has the same defect as all the rest--its pier arches being too low, for which there is no excuse here; but both internally and externally it shows a uniformity of design, and a desire to make every part ornamental, that produces a very pleasing effect, although the whole is merely of brick, and ornament is so sparingly applied as only just to prevent the building sinking to the class of mere utilitarian erections."--_Fergusson's Handbook of Architecture,_ vol. ii.

The two saints whose relics are said to repose here were in no wise connected in their lifetime. S. Vincenzo, who suffered A.D. 304, was a native of Saragossa, cruelly tortured to death at Valencia, under Dacian, by being racked on a slow fire over a gridiron, "of which the bars were framed like scythes." His story is told with horrible detail by Prudentius. Anastasius, who died A.D. 628, was a native of Persia, who had become a Christian and taken the monastic habit at a convent near Jerusalem. He was tortured and finally strangled, under Chosroes, at Barsaloe, in Assyria. He is not known to be represented anywhere in art, save in the almost obliterated frescoes in the atrium of this church.

The third church, _S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane_, was built by Giacomo della Porta for Cardinal Aldobrandini in 1590. It contains the pillars to which St. Paul is said to have been bound, the block of marble upon which he is supposed to have been beheaded, and the three fountains which sprang forth, wherever the severed head struck the earth during three bounds which it made after decapitation. In proof of this story, it is asserted that the water of the first of these fountains is still warm, of the second tepid, of the third cold. Three modern altars above the fountains are each decorated with a head of the apostle in bas-relief.

"A la premiere, l'ame vient a l'instant meme de s'echapper du corps. Ce chef glorieux est plein de vie! A la seconde, les ombres de la mort couvrent deja ses admirables traits; a la troisieme, le sommeil eternel les a envahis, et, quoique demeures tout rayonnants de beaute, ils disent, sans parler, que dans ce monde ces levres ne s'entr'ouvriront plus, et que ce regard d'aigle s'est voile pour toujours."--_Une Chretienne a Rome._[365]

The pavement is an ancient mosaic representing the Four Seasons, brought from the excavations at Ostia. The interior of this church has been beautified at the expense of a French nobleman, and the whole enclosure of the Tre Fontane has been improved by Mgr. de Merode.

"As the martyr and his executioners passed on (from the Ostian gate), their way was crowded with a motley multitude of goers and comers between the metropolis and its harbour--merchants hastening to superintend the unlading of their cargoes--sailors eager to squander the profits of their last voyage in the dissipations of the capital--officials of the government charged with the administration of the provinces, or the command of the legions on the Euphrates or the Rhine--Chaldean astrologers--Phrygian eunuchs--dancing-girls from Syria, with their painted turbans--mendicant priests from Egypt, howling for Osiris--Greek adventurers, eager to coin their national cunning into Roman gold--representatives of the avarice and ambition, the fraud and lust, the superstition and intelligence, of the Imperial world.