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ROME From Its Foundation

to the Present

Stewart Perowne
Illustrated with 180 photographs and
line drawings; 24 pages of color plates

CIVILIZED Europe is a tale of three cities

Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome. It is 2,500

years since Athens bestowed upon mankind
immortal yifts of mind and spirit and an architec-

ture that expounded them. It is more than four cen-

turies since any masterpiece was erected in Jerusalem,

the earthly image of a kingdom not of this world.

Rome is different — the Eternal City we call it, as the

Romans themselves called it. They celebrated the

birthday of their mother city on April 2 1 ; they still

do. For us of the twentieth century, Rome is, as she

has long been, the child of a union between Athens

and Jerusalem, a center of the arts, and the focus of

the Christian faith, but her ancestry.^goes back to

the eighth century B.C. And Rome has never stopped.

No other city has done this, and therefore, to con-

template Rome is to contemplate mankind in

epitome.

This book is a search for the spirit of man through

the surviving testament of the city of Rome. Rome
has seen the birth of Romulus and the death of

Keats, the first official slaughter of Christians in

Nero's gardens close to the present Vatican, and the

triumph of the lirst Christian emperor at the Milvian

Bridge. It has been the seat of a great republic, of a

still greater empire, of a theocratic state, of a mon-

archy, and yet again of a republic. We can still won-
der at the monuments of Augustus, Nero and Trajan;
ROME
from its foundation
to the present
IIUIMHIWMMIB I BMMMUWMWIIMUIIIIHIIIIIBMIWIMMWIWI^^
Stewart Perowne

ROME
from its foundation to the present

photographs by Edwin Smith

Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc.


Frontispiece The Wolf of the
Capitol, asuperb Etruscan
bronze of the early fifth
century BC. The figures of
the infant Romulus and
Remus were added during
the Renaissance and are the
work of Pollaiuolo. Palazzo
dei Conservatori
To
Peter Newbold
with affection and gratitude
Scribitur ad narrandum non ad probandum
(Quintilian: Institutio Oratoria X 1.31)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All the photographs in this book were taken specially by Edwin Smith and are the copyright of
the publishers except for those listed below which were provided by the following:
Fratelli Alinari,Rome: 114, 169; Bertarelli Collection, Milan: rear end papers, 175; British Museum,
London: front end papers, 19, 20, 44, 119, 137, 138, 157, 159, 173; Mario Carrieri: 26, 27, 28, 31;
Civici Musei, Venice: 155, 156, 158; A. C. Cooper Ltd: 183; Courtauld Institute of Art (Witt Collec-
tion), London: 148, 153, 154, 160, 165, 179; map drawn by Vittorio Clementi, Rome, for EPT: 204,
John R. Freeman, London: 1, 20, 44, 137, 138, 157, 159; Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome:
126, 128, 129, 143; The Mansell Collection, London: frontispiece, 3, 8, 9, 34, 68, 69, 77, 95, 98, 99,
100, 101, 102, 105, 107, 113, 116, 118, 167; National Gallery, London: 112, 123, 149; National
Gallery of Art, Washington: 162; Peter Parkinson, London: front end papers; The Radio Times
Hulton Picture Library, London: 172, 177, 178, 180, 181, 191; David Talbot Rice: 70, 84; Rijks-
museum, Amsterdam: 120, 121-; Oscar Savio, Rome: 47, 49, 50; Scala, Florence: 5, 63, 81, 88, 89,
110, 111, 150, 176; Staatliche Munzsammlung, Munich: 97; Stadelesches Kunstinstituts, Frankfurt:
1 66 ;Thames Si Hudson 1 74 Times Literary Supplement 86 Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie
: ; : ;
Vatican: 23, 78, 109; Victoria and Albert Museum, London: 80; Wellington Museum, London: 15.
The publishers would like to express their gratitude to all museums, libraries and organizations
who have given permission for the reproduction of photographs of works of art in their collection.
Front end papers, 19, 20, 44, 119, 137, 138, 157, 159, 173, reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees
of the British Museum, London: 112, 123, 149 reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the
National Gallery, London.
First American Edition 1972
Copyright © 1971 by Stewart Perowne
All rights reservedunder International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions
Published in the United States by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., New York
This book was designed and produced by Elek Books Ltd.
2 All Saints Street, London, N.l.
Printed and bound by istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, Bergamo
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-171205
 1

Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

PART I BEGINNINGS 13

The Republic 510-31 BC 15

The Roman Constitution 20

The Senate 20

The Empire State 23

The Punic Wars 26

Republican Heyday 26

The Roman People 40

Recreation 49

The Emperors 52

PART 2 RUIN AND RENEWAL 97

The Middle Ages 119

The Great Captivity 135

Reformation and Counter-Reformation 153

Rome International 186

Fascism and After 234

INDEX 244
List of Plates

Frontispiece The Wolf of the Capitol

1 The city of Rome in the eighth century AD
2 The beginning of the Appian Way
3 The Lapis Niger
4 Terracotta sculpture from an Etruscan sarcophagus colour
5 Etruscan fibula or brooch colour

6 The Roman Forum colour

1 The Colosseum colour
8 Bronze bust of Scipio Africanus
9 Statue of M. Porcius Cato
10 One of the four republican temples in the Largo Argentina
11 S. Nicola in Carcere
12 The temple of Fortuna Virilis
13 The Ponte Fabricio with the Broken Bridge
14 The Via di Grottapinta (Pompey's Theatre)
15 Portrait bust of Cicero
16 The Forum from the temple of Saturn
17 The remains of the Basilica Aemilia
18 The Forum from the site of the Tabularium
19 Coin showing the head of Julius Caesar
20 Two sides of a coin showing Antony and Cleopatra
21 The Basilica Julia
22 The theatre of Marcellus
23 Statue of Augustus
24 The temple of Mars Ultor
25 Detail of decorative relief in the Via del Portico d'Ottavia
26 Marble relief from the Ara Pacis
27 Fresco from the House of Livia
28 Marble relief from the Ara Pacis
29 The tomb of Cecilia Metella
30 The tomb of Vergilius Eurysaces
31 Obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo
32 The Porta Maggiore
33 Nero's Cryptoporticus
34 Portrait bust of Nero
35 The inside of the Colosseum
36 One of the halls of the Domus Augustana
37 The arch of Titus
38 The remains of the fountain of the Domus Augustana
39 The stadium or sunken garden of the Domus Augustana
40 The colonnacce in the forum of Nerva
41 The base of Trajan's column
42 The market of Trajan
43 The temple of Venus and Rome
44 The Pantheon
45 The temple of Hadrian
46 The column of Marcus Aurelius
47 Marble relief triumphal arch erected to Marcus Aurelius
from a
48 on the temple of Antoninus and Faustina
Detail of the frieze
49 and 50 Marble reliefs from a triumphal arch erected to Marcus Aurelius
51 Bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
52 Detail of relief on the arch of Septimius Severus
53 The inside of the arch of the money changers
54 The baths of Septimius Severus
55 and 56 The baths of Caracalla
57 Aurelian's Wall
58 Detail of floor mosaics in the baths of Caracalla
59 The baths of Diocletian
60 The basilica of Constantine
61 The arch of Septimius Severus colour
62 The mausoleum of Hadrian (Castel Sant'Angelo) colour
63 Mosaic of charioteers colour
64 View of the Forum
65 The Portico of the Consenting Gods
66 The Curia and the column of Phocas
67 The arch of Constantine
68 Marble group showing Mithras killing a bull
69 Statue of the goddess Isis
70 Bronze head of Constantine
71 The lower church of S. Clemente
72 Apse mosaic of S. Pudenziana
73 SS. Giovanni e Paolo
74 Staircase leading to the church of St Agnes without the Walls
75 The vaulting of the circular nave of S. Constanza
76 Detail of the mosaic in the vaulting of S. Constanza
77 Statue of Christ the Good Shepherd
78 Leo I Repulsing Attila, fresco by Raphael
79 Detail of apse mosaic of SS. Cosma e Damiano
80 Half of an ivory diptych depicting Amalasuntha and her son Athalaric
81 Catacomb painting of a woman colour
82 Detail of apse mosaic in S. Maria in Trastevere colour
83 View of S. Sebastiano
84 Facsimile of a gold medallion depicting Justinian
85 The facade of S. Sabina
86 Manuscript representation of Charlemagne
87 The Torre delle Milizie
88 Manuscript sketch of an enthroned king colour
89 Manuscript illumination of Eugenius IV colour
90 The apse of SS. Giovanni e Paolo
91 The campanile of SS. Giovanni e Paolo
92 One of the ambones in S. Maria in Aracoeli
93 Fagade of S. Saba
94 The cloister of St Paul without the Walls
95 Detail of apse mosaic in S. Maria in Trastevere
96 Part of the fagade of S. Maria in Trastevere
97 Gold seal of Ludovic II of Bavaria
98 Fresco painting of the poet Petrarch by Andrea del Castagno
99 The Return from Avignon of Pope Gregory XI, fresco by Matteo di Giovanni Bartolo
100 Tomb of Martin V
101 Tomb of Nicholas V
102 Detail of the bronze doors of St Peter's by Filarete
103 The loggia of the Knights of Rhodes
104 Courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia
105 Detail ofSixtus IV nominating Platina prefect of the Vatican Library by Melozzo da Forli
106 S. Maria della Pace
107 The Apollo Belvedere
108 The Ponte Sisto
109 One wall of the Stanza d'lncendio painted by Raphael
110 Detail from The Disputation of St Catherine by Pinturicchio colour
111 Detail from The Last Judgement by Michelangelo colour
112 Ju/ius // by Raphael
113 Moses by Michelangelo
1 14 Fresco from the Sistine Library

115 The Campidoglio piazza

116 The Laocoon
117 The Palazzo Farnese
118 Paul III and his Grandsons by Titian
119 Clement VII and the emperor Charles V by Sebastiano del Piombo
120 A Scene in Rome by Paulus Brill

121 The Good Samaritan by Jan van Scorel

122 The dome of S. Ignazio
123 Detail of Interior of St Peter's, Rome by Pannini colour
1 24 The baldacchino in St Peter's colour

125 Detail of ceiling above the nave of S. Ignazio (

126 Self-portrait by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

127 The facade of the Gesii
128 Aeneas and Anchises by Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini
129 David by Bernini
130 The altar throne of St Peter's by Bernini
131 The nave of St Peter's
132 The facade of St Peter's
133 Detail of Bernini's colonnades in the piazza of St Peter's
1 34 St Peter's from the Castel Sant' Angelo
135 Facade of the Palazzo Propaganda Fide
136 The Palazzo Barberini
1 37 The Piazza di San Pietro, engraving by Piranesi
1 38 The Piazza del Popolo, engraving by Piranesi
1 39 The Fountain of the Tortoises
140 Detail from the Fountain of the Four Rivers colour
141 The Trevi Fountain co/our
142 The apse of S. Maria Maggiore
143 Innocent X by Velasquez
144 The Fontana dell'Acqua Felice
145 The Fontana Paolo
146 The gardens of the Villa Medici
147 The Villa Medici
148 The facade of Trinitd dei Monti by Salvi
149 View of Rome towards Trinitd dei Monti, attributed to Claude Lorrain colour
1 50 View of the Villa Medici (detail) by Gaspar Van Wittel colour
151 The Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps
152 The Trinity dei Monti obelisk
153 View of the Palatine with artists by Alessio da Napoli
1 54 View of Rome with an ox-cart by Gaspar Van Vittel
155 The Ancient Roman Forum surrounded by porticoes and colonnades, engraving by Piranesi
156 View of the remains of the forum of Nerva, engraving by Piranesi
157 View of the Ponte Molle, engraving by Piranesi
158 The Basilica of St John Lateran, engraving by Piranesi
1 59 The Temple of Concord, engraving by Cldrisseau
160 Roman Capriccio by Hubert Robert
161 The west front of S. Maria Maggiore
162 View towards S. Maria Maggiore, by Ingres
163 The fa(;ade of S. Croce in Gerusalemme
164 Courtyard of the Palazzo Doria
165 A machina, drawing by Posi
166 Portrait by Goethe by Tischbein
167 Portrait of Pius VII by David
168 The Pincio Gardens
169 Pauline Borghese, sculpture by Canova
170 Memorial to the last of the Stuarts by Canova
171 Replica of the statue of Byron by Thorvaldsen
172 Shelley in Rome after a painting by Severn
173 Scene in a Roman Tavern, engraving by Pirelli
174 Portrait of Granet by Ingres
175 and 176 Two views of Rome, one by Pannini and one by a nineteenth-century painter
177 Engraving of Louis Napoleon
178 Engraving of Guiseppe Mazzini
179 View of Rome from the gardens of the Villa Medici by Amico
180 Engraving of Victor Emmanuel II, Cavour and Garibaldi
181 Photograph of Pius IX
182 The Vittoriano
183 The Forum ('The Arch of Titus') by Turner colour
184 The piazza of St Peter's colour
185 The Ponte Sant'Angelo
186 The stone embankments of the Tiber
187 The Piazza Colonna and Marcus Aurelius' column
188 The Via della Conciliazione
189 Part of the colonnades of the Piazza della Repubblica
190 The Fountain of the Nymphs
191 Photograph of Mussolini
192 The Via Cristoforo Colombo
193 Bronze of a girl by Emilio Greco
194 The Palazzo dello Sport
195 The Termini station
196 The Stadio Flaminio
197 The Palazzo della Civilt^ del Lavaro
198 The piazza of St Peter's
199 View of Rome at night
200 and 201 Rome from the Pincio in the evening
202 Bronze relief from the new doors of St Peter's
203 The gallery leading to the Tabularium or Public Records Office
204 Map of present-day Rome

Front endpaperWoodcut of Rome from the Nuremburg Chronicle 1493

Back endpaper Engraved map of Rome showing the seven pilgrimage churches 1 600

A
PORTA S P£TM
Introduction

Civilized Europe is a tale of three cities: Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. Jerusalem
was, and will always be, the earthly image of a kingdom which is not of this
world, the hearth and heart of three great monotheistic religions, Judaism,
Christianity which sprang from a Jewish matrix, and Islam which has inherited
much from both its antecedents. Materially speaking, however, although
Jerusalem had known glory in the days of the Herods and the Byzantines, it is
as a monument of medieval Islam that it now attracts. Its last great masterpiece,
the Damascus Gate, was erected more than four centuries ago. Similarly with
Athens in little more than half a century it bestowed upon mankind immortal
:

gifts of mind and spirit, and architecture which still expounds them. But that
was two and a half thousand years ago.
Rome is different: 'the Eternal City' we call it, as tne Romans themselves
called it. They seemed to divine its immortal destiny from the very beginning.
They celebrated the birthday of their mother-city on 21 April; they still do.
For us of the twentieth century, Rome is, as she has long been, the child of a
union between Athens and Jerusalem, a centre of the arts, and the focus par
Rome's ancestry goes much further back, to
excellence of the Christian faith. But
the days when some shepherds and swineherds settled on what is now the
Palatine hill in the eighth century BC, the Palatine, from which we derive our
word palace, the embodiment of all that is august and commanding. And therein
lies the fascination of Rome. Unlike Jerusalem and Athens, Rome has never

stopped; for more than two and a half millennia Rome has lived. Again and
again, it has seemed that Rome must die, but always Rome has recovered, to
radiate unsullied some new shaft of her prismatic glory. No other city has done
this; and therefore to contemplate Rome is to contemplate mankind in epitome.
Across the wastes of time the very name of Rome tolls like a passing-bell; only
with this difference, that as we mourn the extinction of the old, we are continually
cheered by the birth of the new. It is to this procession of the spirit of man that
this study is dedicated.
What a procession it is indeed. Rome has seen the childhood of Romulus and
the death of Napoleon's mother; the first official slaughter of Christians in Nero's
gardens by the Vatican, and the triumph of the first Christian emperor at the
Milvian bridge. It has been the seat of a great republic, of a still greater empire,
1 The city of Rome in the
of a theocratic state, of a monarchy and yet again of a republic. Rome was the
eighth century AD: a
only power ever to unify the whole of the Mediterranean, to dominate every reconstruction of the map
inlet, every cape alike, be it on the shores of Europe, Asia or Africa; to guarantee (according to Ch. Huelsen)
which originally
the security of every citizen, the safety of every wayfarer, from the Euphrates
accompanied the Einsiedeln
to theTweed, from Vienna to Tunis. Relics of Rome, durable and majestic, are to Itinerary, a guide book for
be found in every country of western Europe; in southern France, the 'province' pilgrims.

11
2 The beginning of the
Appian Way, the first of the
great consular roads to be
buih, Hned by patrician
tombs which were sometimes
converted in the Middle
Ages to watchtowers.
jref—
V \ -.
above all others, which stillretains its Roman name of Provence; in Spain, where
the great Scipios are still commemorated and noble vestiges proclaim the birth-
place of two of Rome'sgreatest emperors. In Morocco, in Algiers, in Tunisia,
in Libya and in Egypt, relics of Roman grandeur have survived every assault of
time and man; in Turkey and in Romania stand the eloquent artifacts of this
astonishing mother-city. Even the Netherlands and Germany bear traces of
Rome. London and Jerusalem are separated by more than two thousand
kilometres, and yet both in their very fabric bear the impress of the very same
master of imperial Rome.
This vast and dazzling picture is the basic plan of all the later manifestations
of Rome: all are cast in this venerable and prolific mould. But the pattern is
overlaid and confused. Who, for instance, would look for the earliest waU of
Rome outside the railway station (one of Rome's latest and most beautiful
creations), for a temple of Hadrian beside the Bourse, for the earliest stone theatre,
that of Pompey, in a restaurant, or the setting of one of Shakespeare's most
famous scenes, Julius Caesar, 3, i, in a pedestrian subway?
First of all, therefore, we must piece together this foundation-picture, before
we can attempt to describe the manifold structures it was to bear; and to do that
we must start on a little hill rising above a sedge-fringed stream.
.*nw* 1
-? W^
Part 1 Beginnings

The origins of Rome are obscure. It is on tradition, checked and supplemented

by archaeological research, as tradition so often is nowadays, that we must
chiefly rely. The Romans themselves were perfectly clear about how they came
to be. Their poets and historians were all agreed about it. The first settlement,
as already noted, was on the Palatine hill overlooking the Tiber. The site was
dictated by geography — and fear. The city was founded during the second half
of the eighth century, the accepted year being 753 BC. The dominant power in
central Italy in those days was the Etruscan nation. The Etruscans are still a
mystery. They were highly civilized, as we can tell from the abundant remains
of their art, their painted tombs, their pottery, their exquisite bronzes. But we
do not know where they came from nor can we yet read their language. They
were lords of the land to the north of the River Tiber, and it was this historic
stream that the poor Latin peasants endeavoured to make the southern limit of
Etruscan expansion. To do this, they occupied the first hill on the southern bank
of the Tiber inland from the Mediterranean sea, that is the Palatine. It is just the
site on which we should expect to find a settlement. It rises up from the river

bank, and is isolated by steep slopes on every side except from the east, where
it is attached to the Esquiline by a narrow shoulder, which could easily be
blocked. It is in fact the classic position for a fortress — the isolated knoll joined
to the massif by a single defensible ridge, which would remain the standard
pattern right down to the days of the Crusades.
Rome possessed two additional attractions: it stood on the middle, and best,
of the three tracks which cross the mountain-spine of Italy, and it is sited at the
highest navigable point of the Tiber, a point at which it could be forded. It was
reasonably safe from pirates, and yet able to establish maritime communications.
The traditional founder of Rome was Romulus, who with his twin-brother
Remus was the offspring of Rhea Silvia, a virgin servant of Vesta, the hearth-
goddess, and Mars the god of war. Silvia's cruel uncle had the twins abandoned
on the flooded Tiber, but their little cradle-craft came to rest at the foot of the
Palatine, whence a kindly she-wolf rescued them. They were later fostered by a
shepherd and his wife in a hut on the hill. Romulus may well have existed (the
suffix -ulus is Etruscan and probably denotes a founder), despite the later
embroideries of the foundation story, such as the Cain-and-Abel legend of his
quarrel with his brother Remus, whom he kills, which is simply an adaptation
of a very ancient Indo-European myth. So is the traditiori that Romulus, the
fighter, was succeeded by Numa, the man of peace, as Mitra succeeded Varuna
or Zeus, Uranus. The most famous of all these myths, and a favourite subject for
patriotic art, was the suckling of the brothers by the she-wolf. All these
picturesque additions need not breed sceptism: the fact that Cyrus the Persian

13
 —

was said to have been suckled by a bitch is no proof that he never existed.
Alongside the Romulus story there came into existence another legend.
This was to the effect that Aeneas, fleeing from Troy after its destruction by

the Greeks, at length found his way to Italy, and so to Rome, where he was
hospitably received by Evander on the Palatine. This legend first appears in
the sixth century and is of Greek, not Roman, origin. But the Romans eagerly
adopted and the presence on the Palatine hill of the vestiges of ancient huts,
it;

dating from the beginning of the Iron Age, that is of the eighth or seventh
century BC, one of which was actually revered as that of Romulus, gave an air of
credibility to the story. The Romans were always the victims of an inferiority
complex when they were confronted by the Greeks (except on the field of battle),
and so their 'Trojan' ancestry was sedulously cultivated, to prove that, when it
came to breeding, they were at least 'as good as' the Greeks. The legend was
consecrated in one of the greatest poems of all time, Virgil's Aeneid. Thus we
have here in these twin legends a striking example of a typically Roman trait
their love of simplicity combined with forcefulness (Romulus), and their love
of grandeur (Aeneas).
Adjacent to the Palatine and, like that eminence, some 50 metres dbove sea-
level, there rises a twin hill, the Capitol. This too became a bulwark against
Etruscan pressure, being inhabited by another Latin tribe called Sabines, with
whom, after the famous and fruitful 'Rape', the Romans combined. From the
earliest days of Rome until the latest the Capitol remained the religious and
political centre of the community; even in the Middle Ages, as we shall see,
it retained mere memory of its political dignity.
more than a
To the east of the Capitol lay other hills, the Esquiline and the Quirinal, and
these also became inhabited by little communities of Latins, Sabines and others.
These hills, like the Capitol, were separated from the Palatine by a low-lying
marshy area. It was unfit for habitation, but useful as a cemetery, and also as a
meeting-place for the exchange of gossip and goods. Because it was out of doors,
it came to be known as the Forum (compare /oras, the Latin word for 'outside').

It was to become the most famous meeting-place in the world, in all history.

Already, at the very beginnings of Rome, we have three localities which have
bequeathed to us names which are still in use today palace, capitol, and forum.
:

The different communities on the little hills at first preserved their own customs,
which accounts for the fact that in the Forum cemetery we find evidence of
inhumation and cremation side by side. But gradually the tribes coalesced, as in
later epoch Dane and Saxon would coalesce in Britain and in the sixth century BC
;

they co-operated in draining the Forum, and in the construction of the world's
most famous sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. Its exit into the Tiber, though of a later
refashioning in 378 BC, may still be seen. Indeed there was actually in the
Forum a shrine of Venus Cloacina. To us, the association of love and sewers may,
even in this day and generation, seem strange; but the Romans deified a whole
range of mundane things.
Palatine settlement. Forum and Cloaca — is there any other visible remnant
of primitive Rome ? Yes, there are traces of an early wall. This used to be called
the Servian wall, because it was thought to have been built by Servius Tullius,
the last king of Rome save one; but it is now generally regarded as being a later
reconstruction, probably of the same year as the Cloaca, 378 BC.

14
 In the Forum, near the old Senate House, there is a small necropolis, underneath
the Lapis Niger, or Black Stone, which is the traditional tomb of Romulus, and
of Hostilius, third king of Rome (Plate 3). In 1899, an inscription was found near
the Lapis Niger, which contains a 'keep off notice, and mentions a king. This is

the oldest Latin inscription known, and is also evidence that at one time Rome
was ruled by kings.
According to tradition, there were seven kings of Rome, as follows
Romulus 753-617
Numa Pompilius 715-673
Tullus Hostilius 673-642
Ancus Marcius 642-617
Then the Etruscans seize the throne
Tarquinius Priscus 616-578
Servius Tullius 578-534
Tarquinius Superbus 534-509
We can thus say that a combination of archaeological findings and traditions
enshrined in literature shows two things: first, that the Etruscans were the

dominant power in central Italy, and that at one time they dominated even the
newly established Romans to the south of the Tiber; and secondly that the
Palatine, the Capitol and the Forum were the heart of Rome. They still are.

The Republic 510-31 BC

For two and a half centuries Rome was ruled by kings, Etruscan monarchs for 3 The Lapis Niger, an
ancient pavement of black
much of the last century. Meanwhile the primitive villagers of Rome had slowly
marble which indicated a
been developing a sense of nationality. They rose against the Etruscan oppressor, sacred place in the oldest
and expelled the last Tarquin in or about the year 509 BC. By that time Rome had part of the Forum.

15
 established her power in Latium, after destroying Alba Longa, the old Latin
capital from whose royal house Rhea Silvia had sprung, and becoming head of
the Latin League. In alliance with the Latins, Rome tounded colonies, or settle-
ments, in which Romans and Latins lived together, with the Latins enjoying
slightly curtailed rights. What remained of Sabine resistance was overcome and
they too were brought into league with Rome, as were the Volsci and the Gabii.
Meanwhile, strangers had settled in Rome, attracted by the expansionist
vigour of the young city-state. They constituted a new class, the plebs, or people.
At first they had no say in the government; but by the constitution of Servius
Tullius, the Latin king who ruled between the lasttwo Etruscan Tarquins, their
lot was eased entry
: into the army was henceforth to be based on landed property
instead of citizen birth, and plebeians were allowed to vote for office-holders,
though not to hold office themselves.
With the expulsion of the last Tarquin, Rome became a republic, and Rome
became Roman. Nevertheless, the dispossessed Etruscans fought back. The
Romans lost their footholds north of the Tiber, perhaps even in Rome itself.
It is to this epoch that the heroic saga of Horatius Codes belongs, the Roman who

'kept the bridge in the brave days of old'. (It was a wooden bridge just down-
stream from the Cloaca, below the Palatine.) Tarquin rallied thirty Latin towns
for a final onslaught. The kingly powers were now divided, under the new
republic, between two magistrates, called consuls, who were elected annually;
but the Romans would always be practical rather than theoretical, and thus
early they showed it the consuls relinquished their newly won rights to a single
:

commander, called a dictator. His name was Aulus Postumius. At the battle of
Lake Regillus, in 496, the Tarquins and their Latin collaborators were routed.
Itwas afterwards averred that the Heavenly Twins, Castor and Pollux, appeared
on their winged steeds to fight on the Roman side. After the battle was won, they
made for Rome, to announce the good news, watering their steeds in a fountain
in the Forum, called the Lacus Juturnae. Two years later Aulus' son built hard
by a temple to the Twins, in fulfilment of a vow made by his father during the
battle. Both the fountain and three columns of a later reconstruction of the temple
may be seen in the Forum to this day (Plate 6).

Within the next year a new Latin League had come into being, based on the
equality of Roman and Latin. Rome's next foes — for she was now set on the course
of her 'manifest destiny' — were the hill tribes who lived beyond the Latins.
Fifty years it took to humble them, the brunt of the fighting falling upon the
Latins, the Romans taking good care to claim their share of the advantages.
Thus did Rome grow almost unconsciously and steadily. But the growth was
achieved at the expense of Rome's kinsfolk and allies, a fact which was to cause
her and them infinite afflictions in the future. The seal on Rome's domestic
security, on her viability as the leading power in central Italy, was set by the
capture of Veii, after a ten-year siege, in 396, the centenary year of Lake Regillus.
The Etruscans were never again a force to be reckoned with.
4 Terracotta sculpture from Meanwhile, the internal structure of the Roman state was being developed.
the lid of an Etruscan The history of the Roman republic is in reality two histories in one, each of
sarcophagus found in
which has its parallel in the story of our own times. The first is the creation of
Cerveteri, representing a
couple taking part in a feast.
an empire, the first steps towards which have already been related; the second is
Villa Giulia the long class warfare, which came to its final crisis in the days of the Gracchi,

16
 :

which in its turn heralded the extinction of the republic. The contest was from
the beginning perpetuated by the obstinacy of the patricians in refusing to yield
equality of human rights to their plebeian fellow-citizens— a statement which
may well sound smug to any but English-speaking readers, because it must be
borne in mind that England and her successor states are almost alone in having
achieved equality through the ballot-box and not on the barricades.
The claims of the plebeians were as follows

1. The right to full equality of citizenship with patricians— a demand first

formulated in 509, but only fully conceded by the Licinian laws of 367.
2. The right to be secured against personal enslavement for debt— iirst claimed in

495, and finally conceded in 367.

3. The right to manage their own affairs and to appoint independent officers of
their own — first claimed 493 and conceded as early as 471.
in

4. The right to a fair share of conquered rernfory— repeatedly contested from

493 onwards.
5. The right to know the laws and rules of court— first claimed in 462, conceded
in principle in 450, but not finally assured until 304.
The first of these demands, all of them reasonable, to be granted was conceded
almost scornfully, namely that which allowed the plebeians to manage their own
affairs; but the right that went with it, namely that of electing annually two of

their own order as the legitimate champions of their rights against the arbitrary
power of the magistrates was to have a decisive influence in the last rounds of
the class struggle. These officers were called tribunes, perhaps because they were
chosen by the local 'tribes'. There were two of them to start with, to match the
consuls, but by the middle of the fifth century their number had increased to ten.
The tribunes' powers were peculiar. They were not magistrates, nor could they
bear command. Their function was simply and solely to protect the citizens,
especially the plebs, from arbitrary coercion. They might even veto a magisterial
decree or a bill or a decision of the Senate. They could lay before the assembled
plebs their own legislative proposals which if passed became plebiscites, binding
at first on the plebs only, but after 287 BC on the whole community. Their persons
were sacrosanct. Their authority extended up to one mile beyond the gates of
the city. In the later days of the republic the tribunician power, like every other
kind of political authority, was flagrantly abused; and yet so august had it

become that tTie emperors, in dating their inscriptions, regularly include the
years of their tribunician power alongside those of their consulates.
At the same time as the institution of the tribunes, the plebs were allowed to
appoint two aediles, or overseers, to supervise public works, weights and
measures and watchmen, thereby acquiring some control over those municipal
affairswhich were chiefly their own concern.
To us it may seem strange that such elaborate machinery was contrived to
grant so little; but even that little was only wrung from the patricians by what is
5 Etruscan fibula or brooch,
known as the 'first secession' of the plebs, when, returning from a war in which found in a tomb in Cerveteri.
they had helped to overcome the Volscians, and feeling themselves ill-treated by The lower part is ornamented
the Senate, they simply 'walked out' to a hill called the Sacred Mount, at the by tiny griffins and shows
how skilled in metalwork the
confluence of the Tiber and the Anio, some three miles from Rome. Twice again
Etruscans were. Museo
the plebs would 'secede', in order to consolidate their still imperfect rights. Gregoriano Etrusco, Vatican
In the year 462 a tribune proposed that following the example of many Greek Museums

19
states a commission of five plebians be appointed to define the powers of
magistrates and publish a generally applicable code of law. For years the patricians
resisted even 454 three commissioners, whose names are
this request; but in
known to us,were appointed to visit Greece and to copy the famous laws of
Solon in Athens, and to become acquainted with the customs and institutions
of other states.On their return, two years later, a new commission of ten was
appointed to draw up the famous 'Twelve Tables', 'the fountain-head of all law,
public and private' in Rome, as Livy calls them. Expanded and augmented over
the centuries, Roman law would eventually be codified definitively by Justinian
in the sixth century AD. It still serves as the basis of the legal systems of more
than one modern state.

The legislative system of Rome must now be examined in more detail. It was
extremely complicated.

The Roman Constitution

The Roman government was based on a conception of authority which resembles
nothing that found in the constitution of any other people, namely on
is to be
the imperium, or right to command, a right which was conferred on the magis-
trates by the people and controlled by them, after the overthrow of the monarchy
in which it had originally inhered.

In theory that is. In practice, popular control, far from 'broadening down from
precedent to precedent' was progressively restricted, diminished and finally
wholly abolished, as Rome's rulers became first the Senate, then competing war-
lords, and finally the sole emperor, the supreme autocrat (as the official Greek
translation of the word imperator called him).
The reasons for this development are twofold. First, the democratic assemblies
of the Roman people, known as the name implies,
as comitia, were simply,
'comings together'. There were three of them, designated according as the people
met by tribes, by parishes, or by classes [centuries) based on property
qualifications. These comitia met in the open air, in the Forum, at the foot of the
Capitol, in the cramped space between the Senate-house and the Rostra, the
being the platform, three metres high, twenty-four in length and twelve in
latter

breadth from which the speakers addressed their audiences. The platform took
its name from the rostra, or beaks, of ships taken from the Volscians at Anzio
in 338 BC. It originally stood even nearer to the Senate-house, but was moved to
its present position by Julius Caesar when he transferred the comitia to the
Campus Martius. The comitia were by their very nature haphazard affairs. They
might, and did, suffice for certain ancient judicial functions; but since they could
not debate, had no continuity, kept no minutes and could merely vote yea or nay
to propositions,the more complicated and extensive those affairs became,
the more incapable the comitia were shown to be. Thus it happened that the
Senate became more and more the governing body of Rome.

The Senate
For the general reader, the Senate is above all the chief and most august legislative
body of the Roman state. Senatus Populusque Romanus, or SPQR — it is the very
badge of Roman might and majesty. And so indeed it ultimately became. But

20
originally it was a purely advisory body, composed of elders, senes, and had no

active powers at all. The king was not bound by its advice.
Under the republic the Senate still remained in theory merely an advisory
body, without any power of enforcing its opinions; and it was only at the
invitation of the presiding magistrate that it could express an opinion, upon
which the magistrate could act or not as he willed. In practice however, the
Senate gradually drew into its hands the whole administration of the state,
encroaching almost unnoticed and without opposition upon the powers of
people and magistrates alike. During the best days of the republic, the Senate was
undoubtedly the best representative, and the chief cause, of Rome's greatness.
The reasons for this pre-eminence are not far to seek. The comitia were simply
mass-meetings, or as we might call them nowadays 'demonstrations'. Clearly no
co-ordinated or coherent policy could result from such gatherings; and, as
Roman authority increased and spread farther and farther afield, more and more
did she require just such co-ordination and coherence. Only the Senate could
supply them. For one thing, senators (there were 300 of them to start with)
were mostly ex-magistrates, and unlike the magistrates, whose tenure of office
was limited to a year, senators held their office permanently. Secondly, they met
not in the open air, but in their own chosen buildings, either in the Senate-house
in the Forum or in a convenient temple. They could and did keep records, and,
unlike the assemblies, they could discuss. Measures could be debated and
amended. Final decisions could be based on mature consideration. 'An assembly
of kings' was the description of the Senate given by a Greek emissary; and in
its prime the Senate must have seemed to be indeed that. The Senate controlled
finances, arranged what troops should be levied and where they should be sent,
gave out public contracts, and so became the chief employer of labour; framed
bills for the comitia centuriata (the comitia of the classes) and validated the
decisions of that assembly by their sanction. As the domains of Rome increased,
the control of the provinces was wholly in the hands of the Senate. Finally, a
resolution of the Senate, senatus consultum, if assented to by the tribunes, who
seldom refused, was virtually a law. These gigantic powers, usurped though
they might be, inevitably made the Senate the controller of the destinies of Rome,
and of those who came under her sway.
One of the keys to Rome's success was the efficiency of its executive machine.
The consuls have already been mentioned, and the dictator who in times of
emergency might temporarily take over from them. The law-courts were con-
trolled and administered by officers called praetors. As Rome's dominions
expanded, ex-praetors, like ex-consuls, were appointed to govern them. By the
time of Julius Caesar the praetors numbered sixteen.
Two censors were elected by the comitia centuriata every five years. They
held office for eighteen months. They acted as registrars, and could degrade a
citizen or exclude him from the Senate if found unqualified. They could act on
'moral' grounds. Cato, who was censor in 184, and a sour bigot even by Roman
standards, degraded a citizen for having kissed his wife in the presence of their
daughter.
There were four aediles,whose duties were to keep the records of the decisions
of the legislative bodies. They also had charge of public buildings and markets.
Above all, they superintended the public entertainments, and so were enabled

21
to court the favour of the mob by lavish display, and thus to aspire to higher
office.

Those in charge of the state finances and those of generals and provincial
governors were called quaestors. Like the praetors they increased in number as
the provinces proliferated.By the days of Julius Caesar there were forty of them.
The Valerio-Horatian laws of 449 were of cardinal importance because they
had established the right of every Roman citizen to appeal to the people against
the capital sentence of a magistrate within the city; the sanctity of the persons
of the tribunes and other plebeian officers was re-affirmed as a principle of public
law; above all it was by this legislation that the plebiscita gained the force of law.

Only four years later, marriage between patricians and plebeians, forbidden by
the Twelve Tables, was legalized by the Lex Canuleia. By acquiring the right to
stand as quaestors, the plebeians won the entree to the Senate, and in 400 the
first plebeian took his seat in that august body.
Having after so long a struggle attained so much, the plebeians felt more than
ever that they were entitled to complete equality. But in the years following the
law of Canuleius, the demand lost impetus. One reason was the wars, culminating
in the capture of Veil after a siege of ten years, in 396, as already recorded.
But another and far more potent factor was a national disaster of the first mag-
nitude, which not only 'froze' internal political development, but for some years
arrested Rome's march to the hegemony of Italy.
In the year 390 a horde of Gauls under their leader Brennus swept down into
Italy, hungry for land, as they themselves announced. On 18 July —a day for
ever after kept as 'black' by the Romans — they overwhelmed a Roman army on
the banks of the Allia, a tributary of the Tiber. The Gauls then occupied the city,
of which the sole bulwark consisted of a turf rampart and a ditch, looted it
and burned it. Only the Capitol held out, and a night attack on it was thwarted
by the cackling of Juno's sacred geese, who thus alerted the garrison. Just eight
centuries later, Rome was again entered by a northern invader. To Saint Augustine
that event recalled the earlier incursion, so vivid was its shameful memory,
and the night when, as he put it, 'the gods slept, but the geese stayed awake'.
Camillus, the victor of Veii, who had been banished for alleged peculation,
was recalled just in time to save his countrymen from utter ruin. Even so, after a
seven-months' siege of the Capitol, a sordid composition was made. The city,
as Livy says, which had been victorious for four and a half centuries and was
destined to become the mistress of the world, was sold for a thousand pounds of
gold.While the precious metal was being weighed out, the Romans complained
that the balancewas not fairly set. "Vae victis' (woe to the vanquished), cried
Brennus, contemptuously flinging his sword into the scale. He then made off
with his booty, taking his tribesmen with him.
Rome was devastated; it had almost ceased to exist: so much so that some of
the surviving citizens seriously advised that the site be abandoned, and Veii
be rebuilt as the Roman capital. But Roman resolution won the day. The city was
rebuilt, on a haphazard plan, like London and such was
after the fire of 1666;
Roman toughness were soon ready enough to resume their
that the citizens
aggressive destiny. Indeed, the real growth of Rome, its emergence as a power,
from being just one of many little city-states, is to be reckoned from this very
disaster.

22
 During the century which followed the Gaulish invasion, Rome was to fight
decisive wars with the Latins and the Samnites; she was also and this was a —
new departure — to treat with states outside Italy as an equal. The first Samnite
war, from 343 to 341, ended in a Roman victory. Meanwhile, Latin resentment
was increasing. They did much of the fighting, but Rome took all the winnings.
And in 348 Rome had made a treaty with a foreign power, her first : it was with
Carthage, the greatest maritime state of the age, and by it Carthage had recognized
Rome as ruler of all Latium ! This was too much for the Latins, who now demanded
that one consul should in future be a Latin. Rome gave a very Roman reply to this
request. In two years, 340-338, the Latins were completely subjugated, and their
future quiescence assured by the plantation of Roman 'colonies' in their territory.
The Latin League was for ever dissolved. The Samnites took longer to subdue.
The second Samnite war lasted from 327 to 304, and involved the Romans in the
disaster of the Caudine Forks, where both the consuls and their armies were
entrapped. The Senate repudiated the peace which was then extorted and
renewed the war. Although the Etruscans joined the Samnites hoping for revenge
against this upstart Rome, Roman doggedness detached and conquered the
Samnite allies one by one, and peace and an alliance were concluded in 304.
Four years later, the Samnites, seeing Rome occupied yet again, with the restless
Etruscans returned to the fray. They sought to form a grand alliance of all those
who were Rome's continued aggrandizement. Even the
feeling the pinch of
Gauls from beyond the Apennines were invited to join the confederacy. But
Rome was ready. Business was suspended; eight legions took the field. The Gauls
turned on the Etruscans. The Romans were able to concentrate on the Samnites.
They again seized, and this time sacked, the capital, Bovianum, and executed the
general who had inflicted on them the shame of the Caudine Forks, thus
demonstrating, as they would so often demonstrate in future years, that any
notion of chivalry was entirely alien to the Roman character. The league of the
Samnites with Rome was renewed; but the hillmen remained disaffected, and
would be a source of anxiety to Rome until Sulla devastated their country more
than two centuries later.

The Empire State

So far the interests and activities of Rome had been confined to the Italian
peninsula, and to the northern portion of it at that; but by her penetration of
the Samnite country, and her dominion over Lucania and Apulia, she was
inevitably brought into contact with the cities of what is called Magna Graecia,
or the Greek city-states in southern Italy and Sicily, Greek foundations as old as,

or older than Rome, richly cultivated, the heirs of the most humane and the
most highly developed civilization the world had yet seen. These city-states
were independent, for in the matter of colonization as in much else, the Greeks
and the Romans followed wholly different traditions. Wherever the Romans
went, it was Rome that controlled their destiny, be they on the Thames,
to be
Tyne The Greek colonies on the other hand were free and autonomous.
or Tigris.
Nevertheless, they maintained sentimental and cultural ties with the mother-state,
and often commercial links as well; so that it was inevitable that by coming into
contact, or collision, with the Greek states of southern Italy, Rome should become
involved with the politics and destiny of mainland Greece, and of the Greek

23
kingdoms in Syria and Egypt. She would also, above all, have to reckon with
Carthage herself. In all Italy, it was now clear, Rome was the one polity who would

be called on to deal with these venerable states. No longer a I'ttle midland town,
whose citizens spent their time squabbling with each other about privileges
and status, or browbeating their neighbours, Rome was now the paramount
power, or at least potentially so, in the whole peninsula. But recently, Rome had
been the child of destiny now Rome had come of age.
:

Despite the 'sacred egotism' of the individual Greek cities of Magna Graecia,
there was one which regarded itself as the champion and protector of the rest,
and that city was Tarentum, the modern Taranto, the chief port of the 'instep'
of Italy. Taras, or Tarentum, had been founded in 706 by a group of Spartans,
who maintained close relations with their motherland, and by reason of their
geographical position, enjoyed great commercial advantages. In the year 338,
while Rome was occupied with the Latin war, Tarentum had called on Archidamus
of Sparta for help against the Lucanians; he fell in battle, but not before he had
recognized the 'special position' of Rome by making a military alliance with her,
so as to threaten the Samnites with a pincer-movement from north and south
alike. Archidamus was the first Greek to realize the importance of Rome. Four

years later the king of Epirus, the part of Greece nearest to Italy, an uncle of
Alexander the Great, tried to organize a south Italian confederacy to counter
Rome, but he was assassinated by his suspicious Italian allies in 331.
Rome's success against the Samnites deeply disturbed Tarentum; colonies had
been planted at Luceria and Venusia, the latter within a hundred miles of
Tarentum; she had even become the protectress of the Greek cities in mid-Italy,
of Neapolis, or Naples, itself. Poseidonium, or Paestum, of which the Doric temples
still proclaim its Greek origin, was to receive a Latin colony. The Tarentines had

no alternative but to make terms with Rome. The treaty stipulated that no Roman
ship should pass eastward of the western extremity of the 'instep'. In 283 the
southern Greeks, harassed by Lucanian raiders, whom Tarentum was powerless
to check, turned to Rome, who at once sent garrisons to 'protect' key towns,
including Rhegium, or Reggio, the gateway to Sicily the : strait which divides the

island from the mainland is so narrow that today spanned by a power-cable.

it is

When some of the Roman ships stationed at Thurii, across the gulf from Tarentum,
appeared off their city, the Tarentines simply sank them, claiming that their
presence was a breach of the treaty.
A Roman embassy, sent to demand reparation, was rebuffed with indecent
insults. Rome declared war on Tarentum, and won the first round; whereupon
the Tarentines called in yet another soldier from the mainland, Pyrrhus, king of
Rome found herself arrayed against a Greek
Epirus, and thus for the first time
army, trained on the principleswhich had made Alexander invincible. From 280
to 275 Pyrrhus remained in southern Italy and Sicily. He may have thought that
his 20,000 men backed by his elephants (which the Romans, who had never seen
such creatures before, dubbed Lucanian oxen) would enable him to become the
Alexander of the West; but he had to admit that the Romans 'did not fight like
barbarians', and even when he won, so costly had been the fight, that he
confessed that a few more such successes would ruin him, whence our expression
'Pyrrhic victory'. The Senate was ready for an accommodation, but at this
juncture there emerges into the light of history the first Roman of whom we can

24
say we have a memorable, an individual, as against a typical picture. He is
Appius Claudius. He embodied the Roman qualities of practical common sense,
a far-seeing political eye, and a passion for efficiency, for salvation through
public works. Nearly forty years before, in 312, Appius Claudius as censor had
admitted Latins and even freedmen, the citizen-sons of slaves, into the Senate.
Old-fashioned Romans may have been horrified, but Appius saw that the future
lay with new-fashioned Romans, if Rome was to be the acknowledged mistress
of a contented and unified peninsula. In thesame year, 312, Appius constructed
the first of the famous Roman roads, the highway that led, and still leads, to the
south.It was called after its designer the Via Appia, and became known as the
Queen of Roads. It extended first as far as Capua, but was later prolonged to
Benevento, Taranto and Brindisi. We can still tread the polygonal blocks of the
roadway the To Appius, too, Rome owes its first
far-sighted censor built.
aqueduct. There were plenty of springs in Rome, twenty-five within the walls,
but their water was often polluted. Appius brought water from a source
sixteen and a half kilometres away, though only thirty metres above sea-level,
and so pioneered the great system which would eventually comprise fourteen
aqueducts.
By 275, Appius was an old man, and almost blind, but when he heard the
soft-marrowed proposals of the senators, he cried out that he wished he was deaf
as well. He shamed the craven fathers into continuing the struggle. In the year 275,
Pyrrhus, after being irretrievably defeated at Beneventum, finally quitted the
peninsula. By Tarentum itself, together with the whole of southern Italy,
272,
had submitted Rome. In the preceding year the Greek king of Egypt, Ptolemy,
to
had sought an alliance with the new power. Ptolemy was a man of wide culture,
the founder of the great university and library of Alexandria, his capital, and the
builder of its famous lighthouse. In accordance with Egyptian custom he had
married his sister, who thus became known as philadelphos, brother-lover, a title
afterwards bestowed on him as well, the many towns called Philadelphia up and
down the Levant being memorials of their union. If so powerful and gifted a
sovereign sought the approbation of Rome, it did indeed mean that, as an inter-
national power, Rome had 'arrived'. Pyrrhus had realized this too: as he was
leaving Italy he said to a companion, 'What a wrestling-ground we are leaving
for the Romans and the Carthaginians.' It is to that famous rivalry that we must
now turn. Before we do so, we must note an event which illustrates a fact of
political life which was to be basic with Rome until the end of her imperial days.
Between the years 272 and 269, Rome built a new aqueduct, her second. It was
much grander than the first. It brought water from the Anio, 280 metres above
sea-level, it was nearly 64 kilometres long and delivered more than twice the
volume of the Appia, entering Rome at a height of 48 metres. The construction
of such an amenity may not at first seem to be of any great political import.
It was, nevertheless; for the whole undertaking was paid for out of the spoils of

war. The Romans had learned a lesson which was valid throughout antiquity,
although it has now long ceased to be so: war paid, and paid handsomely.
The reasons for this economic fact are two. The first is that it was not unduly
costly to put an army in the field. The troops were paid on active service, but
equipment was simple, and the legionary provided his own transport. Once in
enemy territory, the army lived off the enemy's land. With victory came loot—

25

6 The Roman Forum seen
through the arch of Septimius
Severus with the temple of
Castor and Pollux in the
background, first built in
484 BC and reconstructed in
the reign of Augustus.
first, which might include a slave or two, besides portable articles
private booty,
of value. The was on a grand scale. First, the opponent's camp would
state loot
yield its treasure, in specie — solid coin. Then quantities of cash, and bullion too,
would be seized from the enemy treasury, hoarded as it might be for years in his
capital; for it must be borne in mind that in the absence of any developed credit
system, the only forms of wealth readily negotiable were bullion and coin
or vessels and other works of art made of precious metal. Add to these acquisitions
a host of slaves, and an idea can be formed of how lucrative a victory might be.
In fact, one has only to read an account of a Roman triumph to appreciate the
almost fabulous wealth, in gold, silver, works of art, arms and armour, with
thousands of slaves to bear them, which a successful campaign would bring to
Rome, to its and to its treasury. Above all, aggressive warfare
citizen-soldiers
could bring under Roman control new and opulent provinces, which would not
only pay tribute to the Roman treasury, but provide endless opportunities for
exploitation by Roman enterprise. The Punic wars were, after a life and death
struggle, to prove this grim theorem.
The Punic Wars '
Pyrrhus had been unable from Sicily; and Rome was
to expel the Carthaginians
now The inevitable clash was precipitated by the
established in southern Italy.
government of Messana (Messina) which was composed of a group of disreputable
Italian adventurers. The Carthaginians ousted them, and they appealed to Rome.
Popular agitation, and the lust for loot, overbore saner counsels, and the two
states were at war. The first Punic war lasted from 264 to 241. It was Rome's
dogged discipline that finally after twenty-three years gave them the victory.
Rome with no previous maritime experience had become a sea-power, and had
beaten the Carthaginians in their own element. Sicily became Rome's first
province. Sardinia-Corsica soon became its second. Carthage, exasperated by
Roman arrogance and cupidity, decided on revenge, and so the second Punic war
broke out in 218 — the contest which has been described as the war of a man
against a nation, for it was the great Hannibal which made it memorable by
nearly defeating Rome in Rome's homeland. But in the end Rome won, and
Carthage was defeated at Zama, 80 miles south of the Punic capital, in 202.
The third Punic war lasted for three years only, and ended with the complete
extinction of Carthage in 146. Her African possessions, like the intervening land
of Spain, were now in their turn but Roman provinces.
Meanwhile Rome had become involved with Greece, which after the conquests
of Alexander the Great had gradually disintegrated. In the same year, 146,
as saw the 'deletion' of Carthage, a Roman general dictated terms to Greece in
the city of Corinth, which like Carthage was utterly destroyed, and its priceless
treasures shipped to Rome. The last Greek, or rather Macedonian, army had been
obliterated at Pydna in 168.
Republican Heyday
The last century of the Republic holds a double fascination for the present era.
In the first place, in so many ways it is the presage of our own unstable epoch;
in the second, it is more brilliantly, luridly illuminated by contemporary records
than any era before the invention of printing, so that many of the actors in the
26
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great and doleful drama are personally known to us.

But before we come to survey that century, it is well to contemplate the
Republic in its golden age, for it did have one. That 'assembly of kings', as the
Greek envoy —he was one of Pyrrhus's — called the Roman Senate, what sort of
folk were they and their wives and children, and how did they come to win this
honourable appellation, and from a Greek, too?
The iron-hearted censor, Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149), has already been
mentioned: it was he who represented the old-fashioned Roman virtues
gravitas, that is firmness, weight, often carried to harsh extremes, and pietas,
dutiful conduct, towards one's gods, and parents and country. Cato was among
other things the earliest Roman prose writer whose work has survived in any
quantity, and one of his many books has come down to us. It is called simply
Agriculture, and is a handbook of farm-management. Cato was a rigid moralist.
He was censor in 184 and his actions would not have shamed a seventeenth-
century Connecticut puritan. More to be praised was the fearless rectitude
which made him strike the name of the brother of Flamininus, the 'liberator'
of Greece in 197, from the roll of Senators, for having slaughtered a suppliant
to please a favourite. As governor of Sardinia in 198 he obtained a great
reputation for pure morality and strict virtue, as a type of which he is always
represented in Latin writers. But Cato had another side to him he was vindictive :

and ruthless. It was Cato who raised the slogan 'Delenda est Carthago'
(Carthage must be wiped out) as indeed it was, three years after his death.
He despised the people, especially after the introduction of cheap and ever
cheaper corn from Sicily 'It is no wonder', he said, 'the burgesses no longer listen
:

to good advice —
the belly has no ears.' His book reveals the same insensitivity.
—
Slaves and cattle they are much of a kind. When a slave becomes old and worn
out, he must be sold, just as though he were an old horse being sent to the
knackers. His religion, like that of all primitive Romans, was simply a sort of
contractual magic. 'My will be done', was its prayer, and to induce the gods,
or fate, or fortune, to do what a man wanted, he simply gave them the price
in sacrifice or ceremony which he had been taught was the market value of the

desired favour. Of personal religion there was hardly a trace. Cato expressly says
that the housekeeper, for instance, must keep house, not go gadding about and
gossipping. And on no account may she attend any religious functions he, Cato, :

as head of the family, would look after all that, just as he would scrutinize the
accounts. There will be much more to say about Roman religion, or religions,
later on; but the bleak beginnings on which they were grafted are exemplified
by Cato. Like all puritans, he made the second best of both worlds. Virgil, who
was one of the loftiest spirits Rome ever produced, and one of mankind's greatest
poets, himself had a far more spiritual outlook but he fully understood the old
;

Roman attitude. In a famous scene in the seventh book of the Aeneid, he makes
Juno, 'the furious spouse of Jupiter', rage: 'If I cannot bend heaven, I will raise

hell.'She was simply, in her blind rage, behaving like a primitive Roman.
Against this Catonian puritanism, with its good and bad qualities, which would
remain Roman as long as Rome remained, we must now set the opposite trend, 7 The Colosseum, the most

towards humanism and famous monument of

a less rugged refinement. This tendency was represented
imperial Rome and the scene
by a famous family whom Cato personally loathed, the Scipios. of gladiatorial festivals,
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, to give him his full style and title. inaugurated in 80 AD.

29
8 Bronze bust of Scipio was born in 234. He saved his father's life in battle when only sixteen, and two
Africanus. Naples, Museo
years later commanded a detachment at Cannae, after which disaster he helped
Nazionale
to rally the broken Romans, and sternly rebuked those nobles who were leaving
Italy in despair. His youthful heroism and self-reliance made so deep an impression
on his countrymen that, on the death of his father and his uncle in Spain after
being defeated by Hasdrubal, he was appointed to this important command by
the enthusiastic populace, in 211, at the age of 23. His command in Spain, which
lasted five years, was, with only one blunder, strikingly successful, and it was

easy for him to be appointed consul before the proper age, and given the command
in Sicily. Volunteers flocked to his standard, so that despite the jealous opposition
of his timid seniors, he was able to cross into Africa and win the battle of Zama,
in 202. He was awarded a magnificent triumph, and was hailed as 'Africanus'.
It can be, and has been argued, that Scipio forestalled Flamininus in being Rome's
first 'popular general', — the type in which the prescient Burke cast the as yet
unknown Buonaparte. Both he and his brother were impeached in 187 for
peculation in Asia, their enemy Cato being prosecutor. His brother was fined,
but Africanus escaped on the strength of his reputation. It was an ominous
augury; if the Scipios could not keep their hands off eastern wealth, how could
lesser men be expected to be more honest?
The Scipios had now made their mark as leaders of Roman liberal society;
but it was to be an adopted son of the younger Scipio who gave their coterie
its fame. And it is to a Greek that we chiefly owe our knowledge of it. Polybius
(c. 204—122) was born in Arcadia, the son of a distinguished soldier and diplo-
matist. After Pydna, which saw the final overthrow of the Macedonian power,
more than a thousand persons were simply rooted up and taken off to Rome,
without any pretence of trial, as hostages. Polybius was one of them. He was a
far-sighted man, unbiased and uncommitted to any local loyalty. He had studied
geometry as well as literature. He was interested in medicine and surgery, in
astronomy and geography. He was in fact typical of the empirical Hellenism of
his day. He even devised a method of fire-signalling which employed an
alphabetical code instead of the limited phrases hitherto in use. He wrote a book,
the first attempt at writing a universal history, in which he set out to explain
Greek and Roman to each other. One of the longest sections of his work is devoted
to a minute description of the Roman army, its discipline, its armament, tactics
and camps. During the final campaign which culminated at Pydna, Polybius
had become acquainted with the Roman commander, L. Aemilius Paullus, an
upright but impoverished nobleman, who was a friend of the Scipios and a
member of their brilliant and liberal circle. The Greek deportees seem to have had
a hard time in Italy, because when after sixteen years' detention without trial

they were suffered to go home, less than three hundred had survived. Polybius
was among them, and he was allowed to stay on in Rome as tutor to Paullus'
two sons, whom he had met in Greece. He lent them books, which he discussed
with his charges. Not unnaturally the elder boy claimed the larger share of
Polybius' attention; but one day the younger — he was only eighteen
— 'in a quiet
and gentle voice and blushing slightly' asked Polybius why he always seemed
to address all his remarks to his brother: did he think that people were right in
saying he himself was listless and idle? Not at all, said Polybius, he would love
to help him in any way he could. The boy caught his hand, and begged him to

30
join lives with iiim. Polybius was pleased but embarrassed when he 'reflected on
the high position of the family and the wealth of its members', for the boy had
been adopted by the Scipios and was now one of that exalted breed, being
known as Publius Scipio Aemilianus. 'However, after this mutual explanation the
young man never side and preferred his company to anything else',
left his

and they became and son.

as father
This episode, besides being a touching example of gentle human relations,
is of intense interest as showing the feelings of even the most exalted Romans
when —
it was from first to last an instinctive feeling
confronted with Hellenism
of inadequacy, of reliance, what would now be called an inferiority complex.
His pupil was to achieve an eminence equal to that of his adoptive grandfather.
It was he who 'wiped out Carthage' with Polybius at his side and so in his turn

won the title 'Africanus'. In the same year Polybius witnessed the sack of
Corinth — Rome at its worst. He was with Scipio again in Spain twelve years
later — Rome at its best.

When Roman polity, he compares it with the only

he comes to discuss the
two states he thought worth considering — Carthage and Sparta. Athens was of
no account, 'a ship without a master'. Politically speaking Polybius was right.
Unlike modern theorists, he had had personal experience of both Carthage and
Sparta in the field and at the conference table, and he found Rome superior to
either. In the first place the Romans are practical people, theory means little to
them, results everything. Secondly their constitution is the ideal balance between
the three elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. 'The consuls are,
for their year of office, kings, the Senate is the organ of oligarchy, the comitia of
democracy. As each element in the state can either help or obstruct the others,
they act in perfect unity in any sort of emergency, from which one may declare
that it would be impossible to establish a better form of republic' Religion, says
Polybius, is a potent factor in the unity of the Roman people. He himself, as a
free-thinking Hellene, affects to despise any talk of gods or hell, which are not
'necessary' for men of sense; but a democracy is not composed of men of sense,

and therefore religion and its sanctions become a necessity. 'What in other
peoples may be regarded as a fault is what holds the Roman republic together,
I mean superstition.' It pays off, too: 'In other peoples it is very rare indeed to
find a man who from laying his hands on the public funds; among the
refrains
Romans on the contrary it is very seldom anyone is accused of peculation.'
Polybius, in his enthusiasm, seems to forget his adoptive grandfather and
great-uncle.
This picture seems indeed to be drawn from Polybius' native Arcadia, rather
than from real life; but Polybius is perfectly conscious that the real dynamic
force in Roman life is the army, which is why he gives such a precise description
of it.

Polybius is one of that rare breed of men who can recognize a new world
when they see one. At the very beginning of his history, he says he is writing
it because he sees in the rise of Rome a wholly novel phenomenon. 'The very
element of unexpectedness in the events I have chosen as my theme will be
sufficient to challenge and incite young and old alike to peruse these pages.
9 Statue of M. Porcius Cato,
Can there be anyone so gross and dull as not to want to know by what means, 'the Censor'. Museo
and by what sort of conduct, the Roman people subdued almost all the nations Gregoriano, Vatican Museums

31
of the world in fifty-three years ?' (That is by his reckoning from the beginning
of the second Punic war down to the battle of Pydna.) 'By what sort of conduct'
we have already discussed: a practical fortitude and adaptability which not
seldom declined into ruthlessness. 'By what means' too: it was the army. Even
today to read Polybius is to be convinced that the Roman army must vanquish
and overcome all its enemies, which with only a few setbacks was to do for it

the next six centuries, when the Roman dominion came The conduct,
to an end.
on the other hand, decayed far more quickly, and using the army as its instru-
ment, was to cause the suicide of Rome.
History records contemporary ideas as much as past events. During the sunlit
security of the nineteenth century, it was assumed that states, unlike people,
had only to be just to be immortal. Our own age knows that this is not true.
So did Polybius.
'Such is the cycle of political revolution,' he writes, 'the course appointed by
nature, in which constitutions change, disappear and finally return to the point
from which they started. Anyone who clearly perceives this may indeed in
speaking of the future of any state be wrong in his estimate of the time the process
will take, but if his judgment is not tainted by animosity or jealousy, he will very
seldom be mistaken as to the stage of growth or decline it has reached, and as
to the form into which it will change. And especially in the case of the Roman
state will this method enable us to arrive at a knowledge of its formation, growth
and greatest perfection, and likewise of the change for the worse which is bound
to follow one day. For as I said this state more than any other has been formed and

has grown naturally, and will undergo a natural decline and change to the
contrary.'
If we have to decide on one year which was to see the beginning of the 'decline',

we would choose the year 113 BC, for in that year began the social upheaval
which was to last for a century, and which ended with the extinction of the
republic and the birth of the Roman Empire.
During this century, there occurred external wars; but they were different
from those which Polybius had described, in that their chief interest is not in the
enlargement of the Roman dominion that they effected, but in the influence they
had on the domestic scene. This study is not intended as a military history, nor
yet as a political thesis it is designed to give some indication of the social and
:

psychological development of the Roman people throughout the centuries, and

of their contribution to learning and art. It so happens that this century we are
about to review bears a frighteningly close resemblance to our own troubled age,
a resemblance'due in large measure to the existence in both eras of the same social
solvents, and it is also true to say that the Romans who made the greatest
contribution to literature and the arts were born or flourished during this span
of time.
The government of Rome, even in the zenith of its republican achievement,
was never quite the harmony of the three elements of monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy that Polybius thought it to be. He knew only the topmost stratum
of Roman society, and those who are so placed are always liable to think that
whatever is, is best. Indeed, it was just because the Gracchi, who belonged to
that breed, thought otherwise that they were regarded as renegades and traitors
by their class. The government of Rome became ever more oligarchic, more

32
monolithic. The greatest Roman historian of the last century, the Danish-German
Theodor Mommsen is, in this context at least, unchallengeably accurate. 'The
Romans,' he says, 'had again arrived at the point whence they had started;

there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary
nobility — both of which in fact had never disappeared, but there was a governing
hereditary nobility.' The Senate had become to all intents and purposes
independent of the people.
The alliance of privilege and wealth— and Rome's conquests had, like the
colonial adventures of England, France, Portugal, Spain and Holland in later ages,
—
enormously increased the nation's riches always bodes ill for a state. Its influ-
ence on eighteenth-century England as on nineteenth-century America was
uniformly bad. But here we meet a basic difference between Rome and modern
democracies. In both England and the United States, corruption was eradicated
and honest government established by ordinary citizens using ordinary methods,
that is, by casting votes. The ordinary citizens of Rome had, as already explained,

no such recourse. The Senate alone had any continuity of purpose. Secondly,
representative government as we know and practise it was wholly unknown in
antiquity. In the ideal city-state, this was no drawback, because the ideal city-
state was one small enough for every citizen to be able to play his part in
governing it. But Rome now sprawled over three continents: only citizens
resident in Rome could have a hand in shaping policy, and by no means all of
them. Representative government as now understood was in fact invented only
in AD 1295, by King Edward I of England.

'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey.

Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'

For Roman economy, like that whose ruin the English poet laments, was
exclusively agricultural. Rome never produced
manufactures, even on the very
limited scale of a pre-industrial erawhich characterized the Greeks, who manu-
factured pottery, which was the staple from which so many household goods
were made, metalware, glass and textiles. The farm had been the self-sufficing,
all-providing unit. Corn, wine and oil for food, with now and then a joint of
meat or a fowl, oxen for ploughing, sheep for woollen clothing, hides for shoes
and shields — that was the basis of the economy which was now being under-
mined by two things. One was the increasing importation of corn already
mentioned; the other was slavery. The richer a man was, the more slaves he
could afford, and so the larger his holding became at the expense of the small-
holder. The slave owner was ruined morally, as slave owners always are. The
whole system was pervaded by the utter regardlessness characteristic of the
power of capital. Slaves and cattle stood on the same level; a good watchdog, it is
said by a Roman writer on agriculture, should not be on too friendly terms with
his 'fellow-slaves'. 'So many slaves, so many enemies' ran the Roman proverb.
So was Rome ruined in the interests of the rich and the rabble.

Yet it is against this sombre background that the first manifestations of Roman

art and architecture were displayed. At the outset, it is necessary to make a point
that until comparatively recently was generally overlooked or blurred. It is this:

33
 although Roman art derived much of its inspiration from Greek originals, it is a
great mistake to regard it purely as a reflection, or imitation of its predecessor,
to believe that earlyRoman is in fact little more than late Greek, as it was for so
long regarded as being. Roman art, in its most Roman examples, always bears
the stamp of individuality, even where the actual exponents of it may have been
Greek or Syrian. And in the term 'art' must be included the triumphs of Roman
architecture. That definition would have been inadmissable two centuries ago;
but since the advent of the railway age, engineering and art have become so
interfused, that we have now been forced to return to the Roman conception of
the engineer as-artist. Mention has already been made of the Roman roads and
the Roman aqueducts. The latter, especially, are magnificent works of art,

giving that effect of power in repose, energy in tranquillity, which marks the
best Roman work. Not only in Rome could these practical creations be admired,
but in the provinces as well. The Pont du Gard, near Nimes in France, still delights
us by its soaring virtuosity, as does the great aqueduct which spans the city of
Segovia in Spain, and still carries water to the citizens.

When we come to the temples, we must be particularly careful not to confound

Roman with Greek. Greek influence there undoubtedly was, just as there would
later be on the architecture of the Renaissance; but the Roman temple has in
Here again, the Etruscans
fact a style as typical of itself as a Renaissance chiurch.
come in. Copying them, and using Greek styles, the Romans evolved a temple
with the following characteristics, which we And repeated again and again
1. The temple stands on a high podium: sometimes, as at Ostia, almost a

miniature acropolis. Greek architecture never interested itself in height it was :

conceived horizontally. The Roman mind, on the contrary, liked its architecture
to soar. The podium helped to that end; but the Romans tended also to 'stretch'

the Greek column, with results that not seldom look stringy. Eventually, the
almost simultaneous invention of fire-hardened brick and cement, in the
Augustan age, enabled the Roman genius to construct the domes and vaults
which are their particular glory. The dome of the Pantheon is still the widest in
the world; nor does any Gothic vault equal the span of Rome's finest productions.
2. The temple is placed at the back of the podium, not in the middle of it.

3. It has a large, deep front portico.

4. Generally but not always, the outer colonnade of the actual shrine, instead
of standing free, as it always does in a Greek temple, is engaged in the wall of

the shrine. This is typically Roman: it gives strength and realizes economy.
Similarly, there are generallyno pillars at the back, and steps only in front.
Of Roman temples of the republican age, if we disregard the scanty vestiges
of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter below the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the
Campidoglio, we have the group of four in the Largo Argentina, known simply
as A, B, C and D, because no-one knows to whom they were dedicated (Plate 10).
They were built in the fourth and third centuries BC. Temple C is the oldest
dateable temple in Rome its masonry and its mason's marks are the same as those
:

of the 'Servian' wall; so can be dated to the year 378 BC.

it

10 One ofthe four republican Near the river bank is an oblong temple, dating from the end of the first
temples in the Largo
century BC, which exemplifies all the attributes listed above as characteristic
Argentina which represent -^ '^
r j u i

some of the earliest buildings of the Roman temple. It is a gem. It is the only building of its kind to have
in Rome. survived, having until recently been sheathed in other buildings and being at one

34
1

•1

1 S. Nicola in Carcere, a
twelfth-century church
which occupies the site of
three republican temples,
one built during the first
Punic war.
12 The temple of Fortuna
Virilis gives perhaps the best
impression of what many
Roman temples looked
like.
The so-called temple of
Vesta, also a republican
building, is in the
background.
13 The oldest working bridge
in Rome, the Ponte Fabricio,
built in 62 BC to link the city
with the Tiber Island. The
Broken Bridge in the fore-
ground dates from 179 BC.
time an Armenian church. Its dedication is unknown: probably it
was not to
Fortuna Virilis, by which name it is commonly known, but to Mater Matuta
I.e.Aurora (Plate 12).
Hard by stands the church of S. Nicola in Carcere. The church
incorporates
the vestiges not of one temple but of three.
Again, we do not know the dedications
but the smallest may have been a temple
of Janus dedicated during the first
Punic war. The other two may have been erected
to Juno Sospita in 197, and
the third, contemporary with the first, to
Hope (Plate 11).
The Republic saw also the erection of Rome's first
stone bridges, replacing the
old wooden one which Horatius defended. The oldest of
which only traces
remain, is Ponte Rotto, or broken bridge (Plate 1 3). It was
called the
built in 179 BC
So proud were the citizens of this wonderful
new creation, that they regarded it
as a holy thing; and pontifex, bridge-maker,
became a hallowed name for a priest
and has survived to our own day, as the only
pagan title still assumed by the
Popes. The oldest bridge still in use stands
a little higher upstream from the
Broken Bridge, and links Rome with the Island,
on which stood a temple of
Aesculapius. It was erected by L. Fabricius when
he was consul in 62 BC, and
we can still read his name upon it.
'
The Forum,
particularly the northern end of it, was becoming
more and more
the centre of Roman Hfe. Here were the Rostra,
the ancient platform from which
such as Cicero, addressed the people. The Rostra
orators,
were at the very centre
of Rome: on one side was the Umbilicus Urbis,
the navel of the city; on the other
Augustus was to place the 'Golden Milestone' which
marked the point of departure
of the grand roads of the empire.
all
Literature was slowly developing. Cato has
already been mentioned; and now
poetry was beginning to wear Latin dress. Of
Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of
Roman poetry, we possess only a few hundred lines from his
Annales, a national
epic in eighteen books on Rome's history, from
the earliest days until 179 BC, and
some fragments from his dramas.
Although the drama was brought to a high standard
by the comedies of
Plautus (254-184) and Terence (185-159), many
of which, themselves
based on
Greek originals, survive
and have been the models for imitators and adapters
down to our own day, Rome possessed no permanent stone
theatre until the
days of Pompey, whose theatre was completed in
52 BC. There was a strong
prejudice at Rome against the theatre, as in later puritan communities,
and even
a member of the liberal Scipio family felt bound to persuade the Senate to
annul
a contract made by the censors themselves for building a theatre in
155 BC,
on the ground that it was 'useless and harmful to
public morals'. Pompey only
contrived to erect his theatre by combining it with a
temple to Venus Victorious,
of which it could be construed as being an annexe
(Plate 14). It was here that
Pompey's rival and vanquisher, Julius Caesar, was murdered
during a meeting
of the Senate in 44 BC. Vestiges of this great
auditorium, which once held
12,000 spectators, may be descried in the curve of the Via
di Grotta Pinta, which
is precisely that of the cavea, and down below in a restaurant is part of the
foundations. It is constructed in the opus reticulatum, or network, so called
from
the bricks set in cement which constituted it-a purely Roman invention of
great architectural value.
Returning to the Forum (Plate
16), we may survey three more buildings of
36
 ••••••••••••••a ««i

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\m

5^-J

iimtiil%UV'aKM\V\\\\V«l<MMSSK

ijjj Iliu m ii ni il ttMWitiiiiii*if

1*"' '
""*« ««'*»***«^»^>vM>.v>x\N
;i^n
 republican foundation, two basilicas and the Tabularium, or Public Records
Office (Plate 203). This was erected in 78 BC, the year of Sulla's death, by the
consul Catulus. It is first building to combine
of particular interest because it is the
the Greek column with the Roman which was later to produce
arch, a conjunction
all the many triumphal arches throughout the empire, and was to become, as

on the outside walls of the theatre of Marcellus and the Colosseum, 'Rome's
canonical form of wall decoration'.
The two basilicas are known as the Aemilia (Plate 17) and the Julia. The word
basilica is Greek for 'royal' (short for royal house) and came to be used in
Hellenistic times to denote a law-court, or exchange, or any large building.
It was generally equipped with aisles, and had an apse at the end above a tribune,

in which sat the judge. It is of particular importance, because it was the model for
Christian churches. The first Christians met in private houses, as we learn from
Acts, and the relics of these 'house-churches' are among the most poignant
memorials in Rome. When the Faith became free and established, the Christians
would not imitate the style of pagan temples, which were in any case unsuited
to Christian worship. A pagan shrine housed only the image of the deity the —
worshippers stayed outside. The Christian congregation was a family gathering,
and when it left the family home, it was to the basilica that it migrated, where all
could assemble in the 'nave' [navis, ship, that is of salvation, like Noah's ark).
The word basilica is still applied to major Christian shrines, including the four
principal ones of Rome.
The older of the two basilicas in the Forum was founded by two censors in
179 BC, one of whom, Aemilius, gave it name. The second basilica, the Julia,
his
was not built by Julius Caesar: was the
gift of T. Sempronius Gracchus in
it

169 BC, the year in which he was censor. was intended to balance the Aemilia
It

on the other side of the Forum. Julius Caesar did it up, and so did Augustus, and
thus it came to be called Julian. This Gracchus married Cornelia, daughter of
Scipio Africanus and the model of Roman matronhood. She had twelve children,
of whom three survived, the two boys Tiberius and Gains, and a daughter
Sempronia. The brothers were to become famous as the authors of the most
interesting social experiment in the whole of Roman history. That it failed, that its
failure generated the party-strife which led to the fall of the republic, does not

14 The outline of Pompey's rob them of their glory. Before briefly reviewing those dismal events, it will be
great auditorium, the first well to attempt some description of the social scene in which the Romans lived,
stone theatre to be built in
against the background of the public amenities described above.
Rome, can still be traced in
the curve of the Via di
Grottapinta. The Roman People
One of the paradoxes of Roman history is the manner in which a people so
15 Marble bust of Cicero.
divided could have made the known world such a unity. Something has already
London, Wellington Museum
been said of the gulf that separated rich and poor, a division which has occurred
16 The Forum seen from the in many other societies. As time went on, that gulf widened. But there were other
temple of Saturn, once the
factors of fission. The first Romans were peasants, herdsmen and farmers; and
state treasury and restored
several times. The circular throughout their history, right down to the eclipse of Rome, it is country life
temple of Vesta, where the that seemed to them the ideal, whether it be a Virgil hymning the nobility of
Vestal Virgins kept the
nature, a Horace pining for his Sabine farm 'away from the noise and smoke of
sacred flame of Rome
continually burning, is to
Rome', or a Pliny describing the charms of his birthplace, Como. This villa life

the left. was already established in the first century BC: Cicero had villas in various parts

40

17 The remains of the
Basihca Aemiha, a rectangular
hall where business
transactions were conducted,
alongside the Forum. The
imperial temple of Antoninus
and Faustina and the Palatine
hill are in the background.
18 The Forum seen from the
siteof the Tabularium on the
edge of Capitol. The circular
temple of Vesta and the
three remaining Corinthian
columns of the temple of
Castor and Pollux lie behind
the single Column of Phocas
which was not erected until
608 AD.
of Italy, as Pliny had in the second century AD. In the fourth century such abodes
were to be found in North Africa, Tunis so vividly expound
as the mosaics in
to us. Even in the fifth century the nobles of southern Gaul and their friends
still contrived to live la dolce vita. Sidonius Apollinaris describes for us the
feudal chateau (yes, it was already It was called Burgus,
that) of Pontius Leontius.
that no longer an unprotected villa, situated near the confluence of the
is castle,
Garonne and Dordogne.
—
Rich and poor, town and country what other contraries co-existed in
ancient Rome? There were two: free and slave, Roman and alien. In early days,
a citizen might possess one slave but with the tide of conquest the stream of
;
captives swelled. By late republican days, rich citizens possessed scores, even
hundreds of slaves. It was these slaves that worked the latifundia, the vast ranches
of the rich, which slowly eroded the holdings of the yeomen, and by destroying
them, hastened the decline of Rome. More than once in the last two centuries of the
republic there were slave revolts. The first occurred in Sicily, and lasted from
135 to 132. Sicily was also the scene of the second, which took place thirty
—
years later and lasted for four years the terrain of Sicily, as our own age has
borne bitter witness, is particularly suited to the defiance of authority. Yet a
third outbreak occurred in the year 73, when Spartacus, the most famous of all
the slave leaders, established his headquarters on Mount Vesuvius, and with his
army of gladiators and slaves defied the Roman legions for two years before
being defeated and killed. The practical Romans had at last learnt their lesson;
and from this time on, after 6,000 slaves had been crucified along the Via Appia
between Rome and Capua, the treatment of slaves became progressively more
mild and humane. From the first century AD Martial has left us charming verses
expressive of his love for his houseborn slaves, or vernae, whence our word
vernacular, applied to a native tongue. Manumission became a general rule; the
freedman took an ever larger share in business, notably the business of govern-
ment, so that under the earlier emperors the 'household' was predominantly
composed of them. Horace writes with affectionate pride of his freedman father.
Yet another line of fission was drawn by the Roman reluctance to grant
citizenship to the Latins,and indeed to all Italians. It was only as a result of the
Social or Marsic war of 91-88 BC that they were compelled to do so.
With so much division it seems almost impossible that Rome should have
survived at all: but the tale is not yet told. First, the city was throughout the
last century BC almost incessantly engaged in foreign wars. There was war in
Africa, against Jugurtha, from 112 to 106; there was war in Gaul against the
northern tribes, Cimbri and Teutones; there was war in Asia against Mithridates,
which began in 88 and did not end until the conclusion of the so-called third
Mithridatic war in 63. Worse still there was internecine war in Italy itself, where
the war-lord now became a familiar and baneful figure. The first civil war was
precipitated by the enigmatic aristocrat Sulla. In 88 he was appointed to command
against Mithridates. The people transferred the command to Marius, a boorish
military genius of no origin, whereupon Sulla simply occupied the capital and
expelled the Marians, the first Roman to subdue Rome. In 82, on his return as
victor from Asia, he again took Rome by force and established himself as dictator.
He conducted a savage proscription against the persons and estates of his
opponents he tried to re-establish the ancient constitution of Rome, making the
;
42
^ 5r»5^'"V

.I..L 11.
lllilllllilil^l^^
 ^]^^^S
<r*-.1^
•>v»^.

•*•-
^

^
 —

Senate predominate, and curbing the powers of tribunes and comitia alike.
He died in 78; and an attempt by the consul Lepidus to repeal his laws was
unsuccessful. Marius had died in 86, consul for the seventh time.
Where Sulla and Marius had led — and it must be remembered that whatever
their political and moral shortcomings they were both very able generals
Pompey and were to follow. Of the two, Pompey was the more
Julius Caesar
likeable, Caesar the more capable. Pompey subdued the whole of Asia and the
Levant, and cleared the Mediterranean of pirates. In the year 60, Pompey,
Caesar and a millionaire tycoon called Crassus formed a junta which is generally
known as the 'first triumvirate' although it had no legal basis. Next year Caesar
was consul, and contrived to be given a command in Gaul this side of the Alps
(that is, north of the Rubicon at its eastern extremity), as well as in Transalpine
Gaul. Next year, Cicero, the great orator, and a true republican, was banished —
an ominous presage of the impending death of the republic. Cicero was soon
recalled, and at a conference at Lucca, the triumvirs agreed to patch up their
differences. Caesar's command was extended for another five years, Crassus went
off to Syria, where he suffered one of the most disastrous defeats in Roman
history at the hands of the Parthians and lost his life. In 52 Pompey was elected
sole consul: the final clash between him and Caesar was inevitable. During the
night of the 10-11 January, 49 BC, Caesar crossed the little stream south of
Ravenna which was the boundary of his legal jurisdiction, and so, in his turn,
set out on his 'march to Rome'. Pompey and his adherents fled to Greece, where

at Pharsalia in Thessaly he was defeated by Caesar. Pompey fled to Egypt where

he was treacherously murdered. Caesar now had only to mop up his remaining
enemies, in Asia, where the son of Mithridates was overcome in the lightning
campaign which Caesar described in the famous dispatch 'Veni, vidi, vici'
(Icame, I saw, I conquered) and in Africa where the younger Cato, committing
suicide at Utica, near Carthage, was to win from the poet Lucan the glorious
epitaph: 'Victrix causa dels placuit, sed victa Catoni' (the conquering cause
pleased the gods, the conquered Cato). The last Pompeians were humbled at
Munda, in Spain, in 45. Caesar was now supreme, or so he thought; but on
15 March in the following year, he fell murdered during a meeting of the Senate,
in the very temple which his rival Pompey had raised.
The struggle for power in Rome had now become an eliminating contest.
Round two saw Caesar's great-nephew and heir, Octavian, the future Augustus,
arrayed against the republicans, Brutus and Cassius. For a second time, Greece
was to see the fate of Rome decided on her soil, when Octavian and Antony,
already estranged but temporarily reunited, after forming another triumvirate
with the lightweight Lepidus, and proscribing 2,000 knights and 300 senators,
Cicero among them, defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42.
'And then there were two.' For a time the union of Antony with Octavia, the 19 Coin (enlarged) showing
saintly sister of Octavian, averted the final breach; but Antony's besotted the head of Julius Caesar.
British Museum, London
concubinage with Cleopatra led to the ultimate trial. Yet again, in the year 31,
the land and sea of Greece beheld the struggle of the Roman dynasts. The outcome 20 Two sides of the coin
of the battle of Actium left Octavian as sole master of Rome and its dominions. (enlarged) issued by Antony
Now indeed the republic was dead long
: live the empire.
as a gesture of solidarity with
Cleopatra in the face of the
That is what happened— the incredible. After a century of tumult within and Senate's declaration of war.
war without, of privy conspiracy and rebellion, of battle, murder and sudden British Museum, London

45
 death, massacre and confiscation which would have ruined any other state
three times over, Rome emerged stronger than ever before, and far more stable.
The great city — the poet Tibullus of this very epoch was the first to describe it

as 'eternal' — was to enter on greatest age, just when greatest age seemed
its its

to be over.
It was a motley scene, the Rome that Octavian, or Augustus as he has been
known ever since 27 BC, inherited and adorned. Fine temples there were, on the
Capitol and on the Palatine, and between them in the Forum below, where the
Twin Brethren were venerated, and the Vestal Virgins tended the sacred flame.
On the hills, rich men had built themselves villas, surrounded with beautiful
gardens — Caesar had bequeathed his to the people; others allowed the people
access to their pleasaunces. The greatest of them must have resembled Rome's
only surviving examples of the type, the villa and park of the Borghese family
just outside the walls, and those of the Dorias on the Janiculum.
Middle-class Romanslived in houses which appealed more by their symmetry
than their appointments, their style than their comfort. The general pattern has
continued in the Orient until this day. A blank- walled oblong, broken only by a
few narrow apertures, hardly to be designated windows, constituted the
exterior elevation of the Roman house. This enclosure was divided in as con-
ventional a style as a Parisian hotel, or a London dwelling-house of the nineteenth
century. First came the street entrance, with a double door opening inwards.
The rooms on either side of the door were often let off as shops. A short passage
gave on the atrium, or courtyard, the tiled roof of which collected the rain,
and delivered it through an aperture in the middle via the pavement below into a
subterranean cistern. The small rooms on either side of the atrium were used as
bedrooms, cramped and pokey by our standards. Next on the axis of the vestibule
stood the tablinum, used for dining in warm weather and as a reception room.
Beyond the tablinum was the peristyle, which with the spread of Greek customs
became more and more the centre of domestic life. There was generally a side-
or back-door giving on the peristyle, in the middle of which there would be a
garden.
The walls of the rooms might be decorated with frescoes, some of which were
of high artistic merit, such as the exquisite painted garden which covered all four
walls in the villa of Livia, Augustus' wife, at Prima Porta, now in the National
Museum Rome. In distinguished families, at either end of the atrium were
at

recesses to house the imagines, or portrait-masks, of their ancestors.

Such houses— and the remains of them which we see at Pompeii, Herculaneum,
Ostia or Rome itself give us a good idea of what they looked like — must have
possessed a certain charm. They furnished seclusion, and in the summer, fragrant
shade, with sufficient daylight in some of the apartments. But of comfort as we
understand it, they provided little. There was no artificial light, except for
portable candelabra (which is why even the richest Romans habitually arose at
dawn). There was no heating, unless the occupant was so well-off that he could
install his own bath. There was no sanitation. Rome's sewers, which in places
21 The vast Basilica Julia, were so large that a waggon laden with hay could pass through them, and some
which faces the Aemilia
of which could be navigated in a boat, collected the sewage from the public
across the Forum, was the
scene of civil trials in ancient latrines only. These were places of popular resort, of which many examples
Rome. have survived. Several score seats would be placed above a conduit of running

46
 '

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w"9 Tir

m
•^^^

jj^

V --
^

- w
X. .

''V --

^„^~ Ui.1^ -i-*

water, and in winter they might even be heated. People met there, talked and
exchanged invitations to dinner, without embarrassment; and with them the
ordinary Roman had to be content. He might have a shallow cess-pit attached to
his house: it might even be an open trench. 'Such malodorous trenches', says
Carcopino, 'were extant in the days of Cicero and Caesar; Lucretius mentions
them in his poem De Rerum Natura. Two hundred years later, in the time of
Trajan, they were still there, and one might see unnatural mothers, anxious to rid
themselves of an unwanted child, surreptitiously taking advantage of a barbarous
law and exposing a new-born infant there; while matrons grieving over their
barrenness would hasten no less secretly to snatch the baby, hoping to palm it off
on a credulous husband as their own, and thus with a supposititious heir to still
the ache of a paternal heart.'
The picture is we have described only the
not an attractive one; but so far
abodes of the wealthy. The ordinary and the thousands of foreigners
citizens,
from all lands, especially the Levant and Africa, who made up Rome's million
inhabitants were far worse off. Not for them porticoes and peristyles. They lived
in tall, many-storeyed apartment-houses known as insulae, or islands. There were
less than 1,800 houses in Rome, more than 46,000 insulae. These were all too often

insubstantially built, miserably lighted (for glazing as we understand it was

—
denied even to the rich a solid wooden shutter which excluded at least some of
the rain and cold shut out all the light), but scantily furnished, unheated and
wholly lacking in sanitation. They were also death-traps in case of fire, and Rome
was swept by fire as often as the Constantinople of the Sultans. The inhabitants
of the upper storeys, like the inhabitants of Edinburgh, used to empty their
chamber-pots into the streets, not always as in the Scottish capital crying a

warning of 'Gardy-loo' {Garde a I'eau). Roman law did not disdain to take cog-
nisance of this hazard. The various clues by which the culprit might be traced
in a block where so many might be guilty were duly classified. If the blame can
be fixed on one person, the judge must proceed as follows 'When in consequence
:

of the fall of one of these projectiles from a house the body of a free man shall
have suffered injury, the judge shall award to the victim in addition to the medical
fees and other expenses incurred in his treatment and necessary to his recovery,
the total of the wages of which he has been or shall in the future be deprived by
the inability to work which has ensued.' Workmen's compensation — it has a
modern ring. So much in Roman life is like that, modern intermixed
the apparently
with antique barbarism. We shall do well mind when we turn to
to bear this in
the relaxations of the Roman people. But before we do so, let us work out
the manner in which a Roman divided his day. In general, the crowded, narrow
streets of Rome resembled a modern oriental city, say Jerusalem or Aleppo or
Damascus, where the multifarious callings of mankind are carried on amid much
pushing and shoving, chattering and chaffering, the calm of the great mosques
all the more intensified by contrast with the human hum of the suq. (In fact, in
the three cities named, the great sacred buildings and their tranquil courtyards
perpetuate Roman The professional classes were then as now
foundations.)
'above' this sort of happens that we have more than one description of
life. It

how they spent their Roman day. The poet Horace (65-8 BC) tells us how he was
wandering down the Sacred Way in the Forum one morning, bound, he says,
for Trastevere where he was to visit a sick friend, when he was accosted by a

48
 :

teazle-like bore, whom he only shook off by saying he was summoned to appear
in court, which took place about nine in the morning. Like other Romans Horace
must have got up at dawn. In another passage he says: 'I often in the evenings
wander about the Forum and the Circus which is always letting a man down;
I attend the evening service; then I go home to a bowl of
leeks, pulse and scones.

And so to bed, without a care in the world, without worrying that tomorrow
I may have to be up at dawn. I stay in bed until ten!
Then I go for a stroll; or
I spend the time in reading or writing, which I like to do in silence, and then have

a rub down. When the sun gets hotter and bids me now I'm tired to go and have
a wash, I leave the Field and the ball-court. After a moderate dinner, I idle about
athome.' In the next century, we have a description of 'my day' from Martial,
one of that brilHant breed of Spaniards who adorned Rome, during the first two
centuries of our era : it included, besides Martial, Seneca the elder, father of
Gallio (of Acts xviii, 12), and of Seneca the younger, grandfather of the poet
Lucan, and finally two of Rome's greatest emperors, Trajan and his cousin and
successor Hadrian. Martial, undisputed master of the epigram, writes as follows
'The first hour wears down callers, and so does the second. The third keeps the
hoarse lawyers busy. As far as the fifth Rome keeps at her manifold toil. The sixth

brings rest to the weary [sexta, from which our siesta], the seventh ends it.

From the eighth to the ninthenough for the shining sports-ground [shining,
is

from the oil the wrestlers used]. The ninth bids us crush the piled up couches
[i.e. of the dining-room]. The tenth hour is for composition.'

What exactly does Martial mean by 'hours'? In early republican times, the
Romans were content to divide the day into two halves, before mid-day and
after, the hour of the meridian being proclaimed by a herald. Whence
our 'a.m.'
and and post meridiem. By the time of the wars against Pyrrhus, each
'p.m.', ante

half was subdivided into two. Only at the beginning of the First Punic War was
a captured Greek sundial brought from Catania and set up on the comitium,
where it served for three generations to provide the Romans with an artificial
time, being engraved for another latitude than that of Rome. In 164 a properly
calibrated was introduced, and shortly afterwards a water-clock
sundial
joined it. show the time as it varied with the
This instrument could be marked to
months, and during the night hours as well. Even so, time was only approximate,

and the Romans, unlike us, were never slaves to it. The basic difficulty was that
only twice a year, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, were the day hours and
night hours equal. The discrepancy reached its maximum at the summer and
winter solstices. At the summer solstice the first hour ran from 4.27 to 5.42 a.m.
and the twelfth from 6.17 to 7.33 p.m. At the winter solsdce, the hour had con-
tracted to 44 minutes, the first hour running from 7.33 to 8.17 a.m. and the twelfth
from 3.42 to 4.27 p.m. The habit of getting up at dawn was so deeply ingrained
that even those who lay abed on a dark morning resumed their literary occupa-
tionsby the light of a candle or lamp. This flickering light was called lucubrum,

from which we get our word 'lucubration'.

Recreation
The more the wealth of Rome increased, the larger the supply of free food, the
greater became the demand for recreation. Apart from the exercises of the
palaestra, or sports-ground already referred to, in those days as in these the

49
 demand It was satisfied in three main
for 'spectator sports' steadily increased.
centres, the race-course, the theatre and the amphitheatre. There were three
race-courses in imperial Rome, one built by the censor Flaminius Nepos in
221 BC on the site of the present Palazzo Caetani, which was 400 metres by 90.
The emperor Gains (Caligula), 37-4 1 built on the Vatican the Circus Gaii, of which
,

the central obelisk (the only one in Rome which has always remained upright)
now adorns the piazza in front of St Peter'.?. This was 180 by 90 metres. The
oldest and largest was the Circus Maximus, which served as a model for the
other two. This circus was, and still is, situated in the natural depression between
the Palatine and Aventine hills. As finally arranged by Trajan it reached the grand
proportions of 600 by 200 metres. It accommodated rather more than a quarter of
a million spectators. The chariot-races ran anti-clockwise, seven times round the
oblong course, and the utmost skill was needed to avoid disaster at the end of the
'hairpin', the shape of which the track exactly resembled, either from the 'boring'
of competitors, or by collision with the stone marker or 'meta' which terminated
the 'spina' or backbone of the race course, on which stood the obelisk which is
now in the Piazza del Popolo, and seven bronze dolphins alternating with as
many eggs, which were reversed at each fresh lap. On the lip of the Palatine
above the course was a royal box — its vestiges may still be seen — which enabled
the imperial family to survey the whole course without the trouble of actually
attending the races. There were twelve races a day in the days of Augustus, but
the number was doubled under Caligula. Successful charioteers could become
rich men, and favourite horses, the best of which came from Spain, were popular
pets. Gambling amounted to mania. But it must be remembered, sadly enough,
that with the foundation of the empire, democracy was dead, and that only in
the race-course and the theatre or amphitheatre could the Roman mob find a
surrogate for the excitements of political contests.
By the end of the republic, the drama was in decline. Rome possessed three
permanent theatres. First there was that of Pompey already mentioned, modelled
on that of Mytilene in Lesbos, but disguised as an annexe to a temple, so as to
meet the puritan prejudice against theatres. It probably seated about 12,000
spectators. Next came the theatre of Balbus in 13 BC with some 7,700 seats.
Finally there was the theatre of Marcellus, designed by Julius Caesar's architects
and completed by those of Augustus in honour of his nephew and adopted heir,
Marcellus, whose premature death was universally deplored. This theatre,
of which imposing remains are still visible (Plate 22), held perhaps 20,000.
Compared with the largest modern theatres, these Roman examples are large
enough. The Palais Garnier [Opira) in Paris has 2,156 seats, the Scala in Milan
3,600, the Colon in Buenos Aires 5,000. The theatre was too big for the play, in
Carcopino's words. Only ballet and pantomime could make headway in what had
become a music-hall. Many of the mimes presented were obscene or revolting;
but although the centre of interest shifted to the amphitheatre, and the theatre of
22 The imposing remains of
Marcellus was abandoned in the middle of the third century, that of Pompey
the theatre of Marcellus
which originally had three was still in service in the days of Theodoric the Ostrogoth between 507 and 511.
tiers of arches and pilasters. Popular actors, like the charioteers, became not only rich but influential in the
A fragment ot the
counsels of empire, the darlings of their masters — and mistresses.
contemporary temple of
Apollo stands in the
The word amphitheatre is Greek, but it connotes a wholly Roman conception.
background. 'Revisiting the arenas of Rome after nearly two thousand years of Christianity,

50
v^^
•-^

23 Statue of Augustus,
inspired by a Greek original,
showing him as a god-like
general addressing his troops.
Museo Chiaramonti Braccio
Nuovo, Vatican Museums
we feel as if we were descending into the Hades of antiquity. The amphitheatre
demands more than reproach.' It does indeed: it was wholly vile. The word is
—
Greek but the thing hardly caught on in Greece, for with all their bird-witted
waywardness, the Greeks respected man, if nothing else. In Rome, the first
amphitheatres were of wood, like modern travelling circus-rings, the first
permanent one being constructed was swept away in the great fire
in 29 BC. This
of AD 64, whereupon the Flavians, Vespasian and his son Titus, as soon as they
came to power decided to replace it by a larger one of the same design, to be
described below.
The Emperors
The vestiges of grandeur that we behold in Rome today are nearly all relics
of the empire, and of the two centuries of it. As we have mentioned, at the
first
beginning of the imperial period two new valuable building materials were
perfected, namely kiln-baked brick and concrete, so that Roman architecture
becomes henceforth an art in its own right, wholly emancipated structurally
from Greek originals, though Greek decorative themes remained in use.
For Vitruvius, the famous Roman architect and engineer of the days of
Augustus, marble is the preferred material; but Vitruvius was brought up in the
Hellenistic tradition — he hardly refers to any of the great buildings of the
Augustan epoch. Augustus himself boasted, so Suetonius tells us, that he had
found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. True, the buildings were
more often than not faced with marble, but it is their brick structure knit together
by concrete that enabled the Romans to fashion vaults which have never been
surpassed. The throne-room of Domitian on the Palatine had a span of about
100 feet. The span of the largest existing Gothic vault, that of the cathedral of
Gerona in Spain, is only 73 feet. From the same epoch dates the Roman taste for
imported marbles. These were of every hue, plain or veined, and were brought
from as far away as Asia Minor and North Africa. Many of the beautiful columns
that now embellish Roman churches at one time adorned imperial buildings.
The buildings of the emperors and near Rome furnish an almost complete
in
catalogue of Rome's rulers. Julius Caesar had seen the necessity of expanding
the area of the city devoted to public and monumental buildings: the Forum
was already choked. He therefore laid out his own forum on the ground to the
north-east, below the Quirinal. Since 1932, portions of this forum have been
visible, including traces of the temple of Venus the Mother, traditional foundress
of the Gens Julia, which stood within it.
The fashion by Julius was to be followed by Augustus and his successors.
set
Little remains of the forum laid out by Augustus, but enough to let us see how
grand was its conception and that of the temple of Mars Ultor, or Avenger, which
stood within it (Plate 24). It was consecrated in 2 BC. By that time, Augustus had
done a great deal of building. Let him tell the story himself; for with his usual
canny foresight he had drawn up an autobiography for public consumption,
and not only deposited it together with his will and other documents with the
Vestal Virgins — the normal procedure — but also had it engraved on two bronze
tablets outside his mausoleum. His circular mausoleum is still there, and on the
walls of his Altar of Peace on the river-bank nearby is a copy of the Res Gestae
Augusti, as it is known, transcribed from the version found at what is now Ankara
52
in 1555. In the course of this record he says: 'I built the Senate House and the

Chalcidicum chamber on either side of the tribunal in a basilica) which adjoins

(a

it, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine with its colonnades, the temple of the

deified Julius, the Lupercal, the colonnade near the Circus Flaminius which I
allowed to be called the Porticus Octaviae [see Plate 25] after the Octavius who
had built an earlier colonnade on the same site [in reality dedicated to his sister
Octavia, mother of the Marcellus who gave his name to the adjacent theatre],
the imperial box in the Circus Maximus [see Plate 1], the temples of Jupiter
Feretrius and Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol, the temple of Quirinus, the temples
^^
of Minerva, Juno Regina and Jupiter t ^.: J,^ ..v^nL.ne, the temple of
the Lares at the head of the Sacred Way, the temple of the Penates on the Velia,
the temple of Juventas, the temple of the Great Mother [Cybele, the first foreign
importation into the Roman pantheon who arrived from Asia in 205-204 BC].
I repaired the Capitol and the theatre of Pompey, both at great expense, without

24 The temple of Mars Ultor

built by Augustus in his new
forum to commemorate his
victory at Philippi, when the
assassination of Julius
Caesar was avenped.
 any inscription in my name. I repaired the water conduits which were in many
places collapsing through age. I doubled the flow of the Marcian aqueduct by
connecting to a new source. I completed the Forum Julium and the Basilica
it

[see Plate 21]which was between the temple of Castor and the temple of Saturn,
which had been begun and partially built by my father [i.e. Julius, his adoptive
father]. When the basilica was destroyed by fire, I began to rebuild it on a larger
site under the names of my sons [i.e. grandsons Lucius and Gaius, by his daughter

Julia's marriage to Agrippa] and ordered my heirs to complete it if I did not live
long enough to do it. In my sixth consulate [28 BC] I repaired at the bidding of
the Senate eighty-two temples of the gods within the city On land which I . . .

personally owned I built the temple of Mars Avenger and the forum of Augustus
from the spoils of war. I built the theatre near the temple of Apollo on land
mostly purchased from private citizens which should bear the name of my
son-in-law [and nephew, first husband of Julia].'
The splendid catalogue contains no reference to Augustus' own house on the
Palatine. This was ostentatiously modest. The remains of the so-called 'House
of Li via' now incorporate the typically patrician dwelling which from its site
was to give us our generic word for palace. The dwelling is by no means grand;
but the villa of Augustus' second wife, Livia, at Prima Porta north of the city
has yielded the frescoed chamber, now in the National Museum, which is one
of the glories not merely of European but of all pictorial art (Plate 27). Others
besides Augustus adorned the Augustan Age. The Senate voted the erection of
the great Ara Pads, the altar of peace, which by a miracle of research and ingenuity
has now been re-assembled opposite the mausoleum (Plate 26). It is a glorification
of Augustus and of the Italy he had regenerated ; but it is at the same time one
of the masterpieces of sculpture. Agrippa, too, made his contribution. His
Pantheon has been replaced by the building we now see, the gift of Hadrian.
His adjacent baths have disappeared. But his second aqueduct, the Aqua Vergine,

25 Detail of decorative relief

in the Via del Portico

d'Ottavia.

26 Marble relief from the

enclosure wall of the Ara
Pads showing Italia

enjoying the blessings of a

golden age flanked by
representations of air and
water.

27 Fresco of a garden scene

from the walls of the
Empress Livia's villa at
Prima Porta outside Rome,
testifying to the Roman love
of nature and the simple life.

Museo Nazionale Romano

54
55
 Ml^
28 Marble relief from the
enclosure wall of the Ara
Pads showing a procession
of priests, senators and
magistrates at the ceremony
of the consecration of the
altar which took place in
13 BC.
29 The tomb of Cecilia
Metella, a vast circular
edifice with a frieze of bull's
skulls.
fourteen miles long, still after many vicissitudes and restorations supplies the
famous Fountain of Trevi, which for a century after 1453 was Rome's only pure
source of water.
Together with the great writers of the age, notably the poets Virgil and Horace,
it is these buildings which have given the name Augustan to the era inaugurated
by Octavian, a word which has become almost synonymous with 'golden'.
The general grandeur was augmented by the tombs of private persons. One of
the best known memorials in Rome is the tomb on the Appian Way of Cecilia
Metella (Plate 29), a lady who was the wife of one of Caesar's generals in Gaul.
This belongs to the last years of the republic, and set a trend for spectacular
sepulchres. Even the baker Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces erected for himself and
his wife Atistia the quaint memorial which still stands by the Porta Maggiore
56
 1:^

'

1.,, / 1
^
^^^m
EsTl-lOCMLnsll MavlTX/KA M/l

:-^

%
 30 The tomb of the baker
Vergilius Eurysaces built to
represent a vast oven, with
a band of reliefs at the top
showing bakers at work.

31 One of the obelisks which

Augustus brought from
Egypt to give Rome the
cachet of antiquity. It was
moved from the Circus
Maximus to its present site

in the Piazza del Popolo in

the late sixteenth century.

(Plate 30).The inscription makes it clear that Marcus was baker 'by appointment'
to the state.The monument is adorned, if the word can be used in such a context,
by representations of nine oven-mouths which look like drain-pipes. Despite
the lack of any aesthetic appeal the monument is in its Roman way, touching:
the prosperous baker wanted to leave the memory of his name to after ages.
He has his reward. The pyramid of Cestius (Plate 160), by the Porta San Paolo,
was raised to commemorate a public servant who died in 12 BC. It is very
picturesque, and was a great favourite with nineteenth-century water-colourists,
more especially because at its foot are the graves of the English poets Keats
[d. 1821) and Shelley [d. 1822).

Augustus ruled Rome for forty-one years, from 27 BC to AD 14 — for longer,

that is, than any of his successors. What now remains of his constructions?

59
 The answer his town plan. This was an innovation. The new tbrums,
is, first,

Caesar's and his own, have already been mentioned. Augustus went farther.
He divided the whole city into fourteen 'regions', introduced police and fire
services, and together with Agrippa, following the precedent of Pompey who
had built his theatre there, brought the Campus Martius, formerly outside the
'Servian' wall, within the city limits and adorned it with open spaces, in addition
to buildings, some of which have been mentioned above; such as the Mausoleum
of Augustus, the Pantheon and the Altar of Peace. Also in the Campus Martius,
Augustus erected a monumental sun-dial, of which the gnomon was an obelisk of
Psammetichus II, of the twenty-sixth dyn?'^^'/ of Pharaohs (594—589 BC).
By means of bronze rods let into the pav ^Id not only the hours but

the days and months as well. This obelisk Monte Citorio, and has
recently been cleaned and restored effective ^-itus imporlcu another and
older obelisk, which dates from the time of Sen I (nineteenth dynasty) and his
son Rameses II (1 348-1 282 BC). It was erected in the middle of the spina, or
median ridge of the Circus, 'as a gift to the sun', so the inscription reads. It now
stands in the Piazza del Popolo (Plate 31). These obelisks were the forerunners
of many others. They bore witness to Rome's might, as the mistress of Egypt
from which she was able to transport even such massive monoliths as these;
and they also gave Rome the cachet of antiquity, which so many other cities in
later ages have striven to acquire.
Where Augustus led, others followed; but 'oblivion blindly scattereth her
poppy', and so the inventory of greatness appears to be drawn up haphazard.
Augustus was succeeded by his stepson, Tiberius, the Caesar of the Gospels,
the emperor who appointed Pontius Pilate to be procurator of Judaea. In Rome,
he interests us as being the first ruler to promote the Palatine to its palatial status.
As might be expected, he built his dwelling next to that of his step-father.
He worked outwards, that is from the sacred nucleus of Rome, by erecting the
first of those mountainous brick and concrete piles which were soon to crown

both knolls of the Palatine. Unfortunately the palace of Tiberius is almost wholly
covered by the Farnese gardens. Rome does however possess the remains of a
great if sinister public work of Tiberius, and that is the barracks built for the
Praetorian Guard, the personal guard of the emperors, who not seldom in later
days sold the imperial diadem to the highest bidder. The barracks were built
in the year AD 23, and measure 380 by 400 metres. They are still in use, by the
troops of the Italian Republic. From Tiberius to NATO: it is a typically Roman
continuity.
Tiberius' great-nephew and successor. Gains, known as Caligula, or Little Boot,
from the nickname given him by his father's troops, greatly increased the imperial
precinct and started the construction of the daring and magnificent vaults which
supported the soaring palace above. These substructures were to be added to
and embellished down to the end of the second century. Even in ruin, they inspire
a sense of dominion which is inescapable. Caligula had only four years in which

32 The Porta Maggiore, built to indulge his taste for building, because in AD 41 he was murdered, and was
by Claudius in 52 AD, not succeeded by his uncle Claudius, a man of 51, who had proved himself an able
only as an impressive gate
general in the campaign to conquer Britain. Claudius was a great promoter of
into the city but to support ,. u ^ ^ cn ^-
public works, including a new, artifical harbour at Ostia, the port ot Rome at
, ,.
, •
-r-
, ^i. ^ i i

two aqueducts the Aqua

Claudia and the new Anio. the mouth of the Tiber. In Rome itself the principal memorial of Claudius which

60
 TT^

SBiW'Srs

^ST'
 still stands is the Porta Maggiore, or the Gate of Praeneste (Palestrina) (Plate 32).
It was built in the year 52, partly to support the twonew aqueducts which entered
the city at this point — the Claudia, which dates from 47, and the new Anio built
in the same year as the gate. It is an excellent example of Roman ingenuity —
making what is necessary into something grand. Both Vespasian and Titus
restored the aqueducts —
within a generation, good evidence of the constant
care these precious conduits demanded — and the monumental inscription over
the Gate records the names of Claudius, Vespasian and Titus. Also of Claudius'
reign is most probably the exquisite but mysterious hypogeum (tomb) between
the railway station and the Porta Maggiore. Its decoration is an outstanding
example of the stucco-work which the Romans of the early empire brought to
such a pitch of excellence.
Claudius was succeeded in AD 54 by his great-nephew and son of his fourth
wife by a former marriage, Nero, the most glamorous and depraved of all the
'Twelve Caesars' as the first twelve imperial rulers are known. He was only

33 Nero's Cryptoporticus,
a vaulted passage decorated
in parts with fine stucco,
built toconnect his palace,
the Golden House, with
other imperial palaces on the
Palatine (those of Augustus,
Tiberius and Caligula).

,m h
seventeen when he became master of the Roman world, and at first bore himself
modestly, as his tutor the famous Seneca had taught him; but he soon showed
the viciousness which underlay his handsome and indeed winning exterior.
His first crime was to murder Claudius' son Britannicus. Racine's masterpiece-
one of the finest studies of a soul in decay ever written — ends with the line:
'Plutaux dieux que ce fut le dernier de ses crimes!' It was but the first. In 59 his
mother Agrippina followed Britannicus. Seneca himself was one of the many
victims of Nero's judicial murders. In 64 a fire ravaged Rome, destroying half
the city. Nero not only made the Christians the scapegoats of the disaster, and
displayed them as living torches in his Vatican gardens; but he took the
opportunity of this calamity to squander money on the construction of his
'Golden House'. This stood on the site beyond it,
of the Colosseum and the hill

the Esquiline. In order to join the new which Nero

creation to the Palatine, on
had already erected considerable additions to the palace, mostly overlaid by his
successors, he built a vast subway, or Cryptoporticus, which still impresses the
visitor (Plate 33). He also had a project for linking the Palatine with the Capitol
by means of an overhead way, but this was never completed, if indeed it was ever
undertaken. The Golden House consisted of a sumptuous palace erected by Nero's
architects Severus and Celer, with paintings by a painter called Fabullus, an
academic type, who always worked in full dress, that is a toga, even when
painting the rather raffish subjects which his master commissioned. There was
also within the precincts a colossal statue of Nero himself of gilded bronze,
99 feet high.
With the downfall of Nero (he committed suicide in 68 to avoid assassination)
and the triumph of the Flavians (see below) every effort was made to obliterate
the memory of the last of the Julio-Claudians, for with Nero the rather rickety
succession from Julius Caesar came to an end. Vespasian, the first Flavian, built
the Colosseum on the site of the lake, and Trajan built his baths on top of the
palace, filling the chambers and corridors below with rubble. Fortunately he did
not destroy them. The baths, except for their ground-plan, have entirely
disappeared: they are of interest today because they were created by one of
the world's great architects, ApoUodorus of Damascus, and remained the model
for later baths in Rome, notably those of 'Caracalla' and Diocletian, and in the
provinces.
For us, though, the chief value of the Golden House is the very thing that the
Flavians and Trajan hoped to make impossible: it has survived, and is in fact
Nero's one really valuable bequest to posterity. Just before he killed himself,
he is reported to have exclaimed, 'W^hat an artist dies with me!' The reason why
its survival is of particular importance is as romantic as anything in Rome.
In the year 1488 a hardy spirit discovered a hole in the half-buried structure
then miscalled the Baths of Titus (which were in fact a small nucleus nearer to
the Colosseum, and between it and the church of St Peter in Vincoli). In he
crawled — and found himself in the Golden House. him withWhat he saw filled

amazement and delight. Here was the antique world revealed, like Rip Van
Winkle, after a slumber of nearly fourteen hundred years! No wonder artists
flocked to this brilliant underworld. Raphael, Caravaggio, Velasquez, Perugino,
Michelangelo— they all visited Nero's buried palace. Fabullus' wall-paintings 34 Portrait bust of Nero.
and the stucco decorations of the ceilings gave these painters a wholly new Museo Nazionale Romano

63
 horizon — light shone for them out of darkness. The result may be seen most
strikingly in Raphael's loggia in the Vatican. Where, the visitor asks himself,
can Raphael have acquired these motifs, which seem to belong to Pompeii or
Herculaneum, cities which in his day and for centuries after him lay buried?
The answer is, in one word, Nero. These vaults, as they had become, were styled
'grottoes', hence the word in most European languages 'grotesque' for the
paintings they bore (Plate 109).
Nero's death was followed by a year of chaos, known as 'the year of the four
emperors' because no less than four men attempted to seize the supreme power.
The fourth, the ultimate winner, was a blunt but capable soldier called Vespasian.
He had done well in Claudius' British campaign and had later been attached to
Nero's staff. He incurred the emperor's displeasure by going to sleep while
his lord was singing; but when the Jewish revolt broke out in 66, Vespasian
was sent to quell it, because it was thought that a former horse-coper whose
father had been a money-lender in Switzerland would never aspire to the purple.
Nero was wrong. Vespasian occupied Egypt, and so held Rome to ransom for its
food-supply. Tacitus tells us that after the death of Nero 'the great secret was
divulged that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome' — that is by the
army. Vespasian was the first of many, if we except Galba's brief adventure,
and certainly one of the best; but the method whereby he had achieved the throne
set a disastrous precedent.
It might be thought that so humdrum a ruler as Vespasian would not care much
for architecture. On and so were both
the contrary, he was extremely keen on it,

his sons. Vespasian's first contribution to Rome was an enormous forum with a
temple of Peace in it. The forum was almost square, with sides over 100 metres
long. Its extent can be judged by the fact that its north-east corner lay just
beside the Torre dei Conti, on the Via Cavour, and its south-west corner by the
church of SS Cosmas and Damian, near the modern entrance to the Forum
Romanum.
We know about the forum of Vespasian, as we know about much of ancient
Rome (e.g., Pompey's theatre), from a fascinating marble jigsaw puzzle, called
the Forma Urbis. This is, or rather was, a map or plan of Rome which the
emperor Septimius Severus had made early in the third century. It was 18 metres
wide and 20 metres high, carved on marble, the scale being 1 250. At various :

times since 1562, more than 1,000 fragments of it have come to light. It seems to
have been erected originally on the wall of the library of Vespasian's temple of
Peace. The surviving fragments are now preserved in the Palazzo dei Con-
servator! on the Capitol. It was in his temple of Peace that Vespasian deposited
the spoils of the Judaean campaign, including the famous seven-branched
candelabrum and the table of shewbread from the Temple in Jerusalem.
Vespasian's chief memorial is still the most astounding and most disgusting
monument in Rome, namely the Flavian amphitheatre, or Colosseum (Plate 7).
35 The inside of the Flavian
This vast building, dedicated to the slaughter of men and women and of rare
amphitheatre (Colosseum)
seen from the top gallery, and beautiful beasts, has become the symbol of pagan Rome, just as St Peter's
showing the subterranean is that of Christian Rome. It emphasizes the streak of coarseness and cruelty
passages where the wild Roman
which from first to last disfigured the character.
animals were penned before
It is an interesting and revealing historical fact that Greek 'games'— athletic
they appeared in the arena
above. contests — never caught on in Rome, despite several imperial initiatives, and

64
I %'i§ B
,r^>rt

llkJBI.iM^-vVii'
L^t

i4i|
 that Roman 'games' — organized killing — never caught on in Greece. It is noi
unusual to see on the periphery of the Graeco-Roman world, theatres built by
Greeks for drama, altered by Romans to provide arenas for slaughter and later
What the Greeks and the Romans did
restored by Greeks to their original office.
share, and what the Byzantines inherited from them jointly, was the hippodrome,
the scene of thrilling (and often crooked) chariot-races, even though neither
Greek, Roman nor Byzantine knew how to harness a horse so as to allow it to
exert maximum efficiency.
its

The Colosseum was elliptical, and its external dimensions were 188 by 156
metres, with a circumference of just over a half a kilometre. The arena measured
76 by 46 metres. Originally the Colosseum was to have been of three storeys,
as shown on the coins of Vespasian, who started the construction in 72, and
dedicated the two lower storeys in 79. Titus, who succeeded his father in that

year, inaugurated the complete building the year after.The fourth storey was an
afterthought. was originally of wood. This was burned in 217, and replaced
It

by the tasteless and shoddy stone addition we now see. It is reckoned that the
amphitheatre had seating accommodation for 45,000, with another 5,000
standing above the top gallery. Entrance was obtained through 80 archways,
76 of which were numbered. The other four were for privileged persons, who
had special boxes allotted to them. That of the emperor was on the north side.
It was the Venerable Bede, the scholar and historian of the eighth century,

who is first known to have used the name 'Colosseum' for the Flavian amphi-
theatre — 'Colysaeus' as he writes it in Latin. 'As long as the Colosseum stands,'
he declared, 'Rome will stand, and when the Colosseum falls, Rome will fall,

and the world with it.' In Bede's day, the great amphitheatre is believed to have
been still intact. The name was probably derived from its size the amphitheatre
:

at Capua was also called Colossus. The vast building has been repeatedly damaged

by earthquake, and in the Middle Ages the ruins simply became a quarry:

36 One of the halls of the

Domus Augustana, the palace
of the emperors, which was
built for Domitian on the
Palatine by his architect
Rabirius and later occupied
by invading rulers such as
Theodoric the Goth.

37 The arch of Titus, erected

posthumously to honour the
exploits of the 'world's
darling' in Jerusalem, stands
at the head of the Sacred
Way on the edge of the
Forum.

66
 '\ Wif?

(»)hlll-'!rC

i^.f?r
'
-«i' -

.-> \
 the Palazzo Venezia, the Cancelleria and St Peter's itself all drew on the
Colosseum. At one period it narrowly escaped total demolition at the hands of a
pope who was planning a grand boulevard to join the Vatican with St John
Lateran, but was reprieved at the instance of a cultivated cardinal. Like other
buildings it served its turn as a fortress, of the Frangipani and Annibaldi families.
Since the days of Benedict XIV (1740-1758) the building has been held sacrosanct,
owing to a pious fiction that it had witnessed the shedding of martyrs' blood.
As late as 1873 an Englishman was able to publish a book listing no less than
420 different plants which flourished in the ruins; but between 1893 and 1896
it was given its present tidy aspect.
Titus was known as 'the world's darling'. He must have been a very attractive
man, besides being a very capable one; but he was to rule for two years only.
His principal memorial is like that of his father, posthumous, namely the famous
arch which the Senate raised to his memory (Plate 37). It is one of the best-known
monuments in Rome, and one of the most dignified as well. It is perfectly sited
at the head of the Sacred Way. Apart from its famous reliefs, the arch is important
for two reasons: its columns are an early example of the 'composite' order,
that is a blending of Ionic and Corinthian styles in one capital; secondly, because
the arch, which had also been used by the Frangipani as a fortress, was finally
freed in 1821 — one of the first of many such liberations excellently carried out in
Rome during the nineteenth century.
Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian. He was a vicious lout, but we
may be retrospectively grateful to him, because in the fifteen years of his reign,
among other architectural achievements, he transformed the Palatine. His
architect, Rabirius, was a man of talent, and on the mount of the Caesars he
showed his greatest virtuosity. Making a break with the austerity of his father
and brother, Domitian let himself go. Why, he argued, stick to the old methods
and models? Why not use this wonderful new material, concrete, to create new
patterns of delight? So it was that vaults of a hitherto undreamed-of daring arose
in the new palace. This is known as the Domus Augustana, meaning not the house
of Augustus, which we have already described, but the house of the Augusti
or emperors, for as such it was used right down to Byzantine times (Plate 36).

38 The remains of the

fountain which played in the
imperial gardens of the
Domus Augustana.
Itwas of the utmost splendour, and even in ruin impresses us by its vitality
and originality of design. That Rabirius had a hand in it we know from the
personal 'signature', rather like a pair of spectacles, which he left on parts of
this as of other monuments in the city. The buildings were of two storeys.
The western elevation towards the Circus Maximus was formed of a graceful
semicircular portico, such as the Romans loved. Of this little remains, but enough
to demonstrate the scale and style of its imposing mass. Above, on the ground
level of the Palatine, rose an intricate series of chambers and piazzas. Among
the vestiges may be descried those of a nymphaeum, or fountain (Plate 38).
The Romans were very fond of running water — it was one of their most attractive
traits. Besides washing in it — and they would erect elaborate baths on the very 39 The stadium or sunken
garden of the Domus
seashore itself as at Baiae, Carthage, Lepcis or Salamis in Cyprus, rather than have
Augustana which used to be
a dip in the ocean — they liked looking at it and listening to it. The model was surrounded by double
probably eastern. Hadrian brought the idea to perfection in his 'villa' at Tivoli. porticoes.

69
The object, as we may discern here on the Palatine, was to contrast and harmonize
the fluidity and shimmer of water with the rhythm and stabihty of an architectural
structure.
Another part of the great palace which today gives us special pleasure is the
sunken garden (Plate 39); the so-called stadium or hippodrome. It is built of
brick, with a marble integument, and was surrounded by a two-storeyed
portico, with a tribunal in the middle of the east side. The enclosure remained in
use until the Dark Ages, when one of the Gothic rulers, perhaps Theodoric,
constructed the little manege or garden at its southern end.
—
Domitian gave Rome a stadium the only one of its kind outside the Greek
world. This occupied the area of what is now the Piazza Navona or Circo Agonale,
an oblong space down on the Campus Martius, which in its name (a corruption
of agonali, contests) recalls the ancient function of the area whose original
dimensions and shape it almost exactly preserves. Happily, now that wheeled
traffic is excluded from it, the Piazza Navona is one of Rome's most tranquil

precincts.
Domitian was assassinated at the age of forty-four in the year 96. To succeed
him the Senate chose an honest but feeble old gentleman called Nerva. He ruled
for only two years, so that his sole architectural memorial is his name attached to
the small oblong forum between those of Augustus and Vespasian (Plate 156).
It was built by Vespasian and Domitian, but it was Nerva who inaugurated it.

In 1932 the two columns which marked the south-east corner of this forum
were cleared to their bases. They are the famous colonnacce (Plate 40), subject of
countless Victorian water-colours. The frieze is adorned with a figure of Minerva
among the nine Muses, scenes of feminine occupations of which that goddess
was the patroness, and the myth of Arachne, a Lydian maiden whose rivalry with
Athena at the web brought about her doom: she was changed into a spider.
As his heir Nerva chose a popular and successful young general called Trajan.
It was a 'long shot' — but never was a successor better chosen. Trajan was born

near modern Seville, in Spain. He was to rule for twenty glorious years, during
which he would carry the might and influence of Rome to the widest bounds
they would ever know, and was to bequeath to the capital the last and most
splendid of its forums, and the column which still stands to expound the story
of his greatness and achievements.
As his architect, Trajan employed the great ApoUodorus of Damascus. What
form should Trajan's memorial take? The Palatine was now almost wholly
built over, the old Forum nearly full. Between the Capitol and the Quirinal there
was still an open space. Viewed from either the Palatine or the Capitol therefore
the 'new' forums, of Augustus, Nerva and Vespasian, and above all the Colosseum,
gave an unsymmetrical aspect, almost a haphazard one, to the 'old' Forum, and
indeed to the whole of what should be one splendid and ordered unity.
ApoUodorus realized that if this open space were filled in such a way as to
impart axial symmetry to the entire vista from the Flavian amphitheatre to the
confines of the Campus Martius, he would give Rome a 'backbone' which would
support the now fully-grown body of its grandeur — something with which the
glories of the old Forum, the Capitol and the Palatine would harmonize organically.
(There is a close parallel between this project and the layout of modern Paris,
where the vista from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe fills the same grand

70
role, with the Palais Royal, the Place de la Concorde and the view towards the
Madeleine furnishing an analogy with the Capitol, the old Forum and the
Palatine. No more vivid impression of imperial Rome than post-
city gives a
imperial Paris.) The result was superb. The new constructions consisted of four
principal members, each contrived to contrast with and complement the others.
First there was the great forum, almost as large as that of Vespasian, but with a
longer axis. It was more than 620 feet wide. In the middle was an equestrian
statue of Trajan. To the east of the forum, Apollodorus excavated the hillside,
and built a range of shops, in the form of an exedra, or curved recess. These were
freed in 1928, and we can once again admire the grace and convenience of a
commercial centre such as modern cities are just striving to create. They might

40 The colonnacce in the

forum of Nerva, built to
give an illusion of width to
the narrow boundary wall
and decorated with a frieze
devoted to Minerva and the
household arts.
well take Trajan's market as a model. The curved design, enlivened by alternate
rounded and angular 'split' pediments, is not only aesthetically pleasant but
allows of a longer frontage and so of more shops than a straight one yet another —
example of the Roman gift for combining convenience with elegance. The shops
are disposed in three communicating tiers (Plate 42).
Then came the basilica, called Ulpia after Trajan's family name. It was a
magnificent five-aisled building about the size of St Paul's outside the Walls.
Its axis was transverse to the main axis of the complex, and at each end there was
an apse. This was an innovation in Roman basilicas: both the Julia and the
Aemilia were plain quadrilaterals. The introduction of the apse by Apollodorus
(ofwhich there are examples in the Levant, e.g. at Samaria) was to prove very
important.Its object was to give the judge an elevated and dignified throne.

When the Christians adopted the basilica as the model for their churches, the
apse became the setting for the bishop's throne, with the altar in front of it.
By the fourth century apses were being used in transepts, too, the earliest
known example being at Bethlehem. Here, in Trajan's basilica we have the
prototype of many a Christian church.
Next comes the famous column It was erected in AD 113, that is
(Plate 41).
four years before the death of Trajan, whose ashes would repose in a golden
urn in its base. It is 42 metres high, of marble. It was originally surmounted by a

statue of Trajan. In 1587 the vanished emperor was replaced by St Peter. The
carvings seem to emulate a gigantic papyrus-roll, and they tell the story of
Trajan's campaigns against the Dacians, Dacia being the most valuable of the
territorieswhich Trajan added to the Roman dominions owing to its goldmines,
and the only one which his prudent successor Hadrian did not relinquish.
The column was flanked by two libraries, one Latin, the other Greek, from the
balconies of which the story on the column could be studied with greater ease.
Beyond it, at the end of the grandiose vista, Trajan's temple, erected by Hadrian,
eventually stood, raised on its podium and occupying the space between the

sites two churches of the Name of Mary and St Mary of Loreto. (Plate 199).
of the
This creation of Trajan's has been described in some detail, because just as
Trajan's conquests brought the empire to its widest extent, so this memorial
marked the apogee of Roman monumental construction. It remained famous
until the very end of the empire — even beyond it. In AD 356 Constantius II
visited Rome. Ammianus tells us how astonished he was by it, by the temples,
the baths, 'the huge bulk of the amphitheatre ... to whose top human eyesight
hardly ascends, the Pantheon like a rounded city precinct vaulted over in lofty
beauty' . 'But when he came to the Forum of Trajan, a construction unique
. .

under the heavens in my opinion and admirable even in the view of the gods,
he stopped spellbound, looking round over the whole huge complex, which
defies either description or emulation by mortal men.' In 410 Alaric looted Rome,
in 455 Gaiseric; yet in the following century Cassiodorus could write: 'However
often one sees the Forum of Trajan it always seems a miracle'; and late in the sixth
century Venantius Fortunatus, the famous hymn-writer bishop of Poitiers,
implies that even then Virgil and contemporary poets were read aloud in the hall 41 The base of Trajan's
of one of the libraries. column showing the
beginning of the spiral frieze
Trajan was succeeded in 117 by his cousin, ward and adopted heir Hadrian. which narrates Trajan's
Like Trajan, Hadrian was born in Spain, which during the early empire gave exploits against the Dacians.

73
3aa^ .«

SO many brilliant Romans Rome. Hadrian, 'the universal genius' as a great

to
historian has called him, was in many ways un-Roman. From his earliest days,
he was a Philhellene, 'the Greekling' as his contemporaries dubbed him. For Rome
he did much, but Rome never loved him. His greatest memorials are to be found
outside the city, in his fabulous 'villa'— —
it is a small town really below Tibur
(Tivoli), in northern England, where his famous 'Wall' rides the moors from

sea to sea, and in Jerusalem, where the historic city still perpetuates the town-
plan of his Aelia Capitolina. In Rome itself, Hadrian erected many buildings which
42 The market of! rajan
which, under the direction of have disappeared, notably the temple of the 'deified' Trajan already mentioned.
Apollodorus of Damascus, But today we can still see in Rome three of Hadrian's creations, one almost perfect,
was built into the slopes of
the Pantheon, one in good preservation, his mausoleum, or Castel Sant' Angelo,
the Quirinal hill to torm a
graceful part of Trajan's the third a ruin, his temple of Venus and Rome. Hadrian was his own architect,
great new forum. which is why some of his creations display a charmingly unacademic, amateur

74
quality. But he could profit by the advice of Apollodorus whom he had known 43 The temple of Venus and
Rome built by Hadrian to
since his childhood.
face the Colosseum.
The temple of Venus and Rome (Plate 43) stood opposite the Colosseum. It is

the only 'back-to-back' temple ever built. Little alas remains of it; it was the
largest temple in Rome, set in a thicket of no less than sixty-six columns of grey
granite. A
few of these survive, the rest being suggested by ingenious topiary.
One of the vaults of the twin celiac can still be admired, in a third-century
restoration. It was to clear the site for this temple that Hadrian had to move
Nero's colossal statue of himself, 99 feet high. It took twenty-four elephants
to shift it, keeping it upright all the time. Hadrian replaced Nero's head with one
of the sun-god. The traces of the image's foundations can still be seen.
The Pantheon (Plate 44) is in an altogether different category.
It is one of the

most beautiful, most important buildings happens to be one of

in the world. It
the very few buildings of antiquity which has retained its roof, and therefore its
exquisite proportions. But this is only a secondary excellence. The whole
conception of the building, the contrast of the vertical static of the portico with
the cylindrical rhythmic of the rotunda, mark it not only as a masterpiece of its

»*IV'" y^' >¥s .^ M. jn. m .^. A.— AK

75
 designer, the emperor Hadrian, but as the culmination of Roman national,
imperial architecture. The diameter of 43.30 metres is the same as its height, and
.78 metres wider than that of St Peter's. The building is Hadrian's creation, but
it was not his custom to put his own name on his buildings. Thus the Pantheon

bears an inscription recording its original foundation by Marcus Vipsanius

Agrippa. It was only in 1892 that the French architect, Georges Chadanne, by
making soundings in the fabric, established that the whole of it is built of bricks
stamped (as was the Roman custom) with indications of dates between the years
120 and 125, and in particular 123 'in the consulship of Paetinus and Aproprianus'.
The columns of the portico are monoliths of grey granite, brought from a quarry
in the eastern desert of Egypt which had been opened only during the principate

44 The Pantheon, 'the visible of Hadrian's predecessor, Trajan. Hadrian, taking the good brickwork and the
image of the universe', scientific vaulting of 'functional' work, evolved his own beautiful
Roman
shown in this Piranesi print
rhythmic version of and varied and elevated a science into an art. 'It is, as it
it,
with the unfortunate towers
added by Bernini in the
were, the visible image of the universe' Shelley has the last word.
:

seventeenth century. Hadrian's mausoleum (Plate 62) was modelled on that of Augustus; but

76
Hadrian went one better than his predecessor: he placed his sepulchre on the
other side of the Tiber, so that the river, and the bridge over it, should form the
forecourt, as it were, to the majestic monument on the further bank. As Castel

Sant' Angelo the building has had a vivid and sombre history, and as the setting
of the last act of Puccini's Tosca is familiar to thousands who have never been to
Rome. Its design is based on that of the mysterious royal tombs of Egypt, by
which Hadrian had been so tragically impressed, for it was on a visit to Egypt
that he lost his beloved Antinoiis by drowning in the Nile. Once again, Hadrian
adapted the traditional to the novel he converted the descending angular ramp of
:

a Pharaonic tomb into the ascending spiral of his own. Once again, he produced a
masterpiece. In the gloomy core of this building the visitor is possessed not only
by the grandeur of Rome, but by the mastery of death.
Before the icy breath of dissolution began to smite Rome, it was to enjoy a
brief respite, in the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, that is from
138 to 180. Both of these princes had been nominated by the far-sighted Hadrian.
There are two memorials of Antoninus in Rome. Just as Hadrian had built a
temple to Trajan, so now Antoninus raised one to Hadrian, the equivalent of a
medieval chantry. Part of this temple has survived and may be seen to this day,
incorporated in the old Bourse building (Plate 45).
Antoninus' wife Faustina died three years after his elevation, in AD 141.
The Senate thereupon 'deified' her and erected a fine temple in her honour
(Plate 17). Whenin 161 Antoninus died also, he was granted a share in this

distinction by the economical device of inserting his name before that of the
empress in the dedication. This temple has survived and is still to be admired
beside the Sacred Way. The podium is there, with ten of the cipollino columns,
which have bases and capitals of white marble. The cella of the temple is now the
church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda. The pediment has gone, having been used in the
fifteenth century to provide marble for the Lateran; but the sculpture of the
frieze has survived and is among the best in Rome (Plate 48).
Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus' successor, is famous as the philosopher-emperor,
most of whose reign was perforce devoted to frontier warfare. His chief Roman
memorial is his great column in the Piazza Colonna to which it has given its
name (Plate 46). In the year 166 Marcus and his adoptive brother Lucius Verus
celebrated a triumph for their victory over the Parthians on the very same day,
12 October, on which Augustus had consecrated, on his return from Syria,
the altar of Fortune restored. Alas for Rome! This time the armies had brought
back not only victory, but the plague as well. The pestilence raged for some years,
Marcus himself being apparently one of its victims, in 180. The sculptures on
the column seem to bear witness to the general debility with which the plague
had infected Rome. The column, of Carrara marble, is, like that of Trajan,
42 metres high. It tells the story of Marcus' campaigns against the northern
barbarians, between 171 and 175. It is now surmounted by a statue of St Paul.
Other memorials of Marcus are to be found on the Campidoglio, the ancient
Capitol. In the Palazzo dei Conservatori may be found on the grand staircase three
eloquent marble reliefs, from a monument to the emperor, representing Marcus 45 The temple of Hadrian

sacrificing before the temple of Capitoline Jupiter (Plate 50), the triumph of dedicated to his adoptive
father by Antoninus Pius in
Marcus, and Marcus sparing defeated enemies. In the middle of the square 145, now partly incorporated
outside stands the famous equestrian statue of Marcus, still bearing traces of into the old Bourse.

77
 It owes its preservation to the fact that in the Middle Ages it
gilding {Plate 51). 4«

was mistaken for a representation of Constantine, the first Christian emperor.

This statue was to be the model for many works of the Renaissance and later
ages in many lands.
With the death of Marcus Aurelius, the golden age of Rome, as a Roman
historian puts it, gave way to one of 'iron and rust'. The philosopher was succeeded
by his son Commodus, one of the worst rulers Rome was ever to know. In the
year 192, the last of his reign, Rome was ravaged by one of the fires which
periodically scourged it. The Tabularium, much of the Palatine, Vespasian's
temple of Peace, were all gutted. Their restoration was undertaken by Rome's
new master, Septimius Severus, a Punic African from Lepcis in Libya, and his
capable wife Julia Domna, a Syrian princess from Homs. In 203 Septimius put
up the triumphal arch which stiU stands in the Forum between the Senate-house
and the Rostra (Plate 61). In the space between the Capitol and the Tiber is
another monument of this reign, the so-called arch of the money-changers

46 The column of Marcus

Aurelius, emulating Trajan's.

47 Marble relief from a

triumphal arch erected to
Marcus Aurelius on the
Corso and pulled down in
the name of progress by
Alexander VII. Palazzo dei
Conservatori

48 Detail of the marble frieze

from the temple of Antoninus
and Faustina, one of several
imperial buildings to
encroach on the old Forum,
showing a pattern of vases,
candelabra and griffins.

49 Marble relief from a

triumphal arch erected to
Marcus Aurelius depicting
Marcus, the philosopher-
emperor, showing mercy to
his defeated enemies.
Palazzo dei Conservatori.
r\

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50 Marble relief from a
triumphal arch erected to
Marcus Aurelius showing
him making a sacrifice
against the background of
the temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol. Palazzo dei
Conservatori

51 Bronze equestrian statue

of Marcus Aurelius, which
was moved to the Capitol in
the sixteenth century and
owes it survival in the
Middle Ages to the fact that
it was mistaken for
Constantine the Great, the
first Christian emperor.

52 Detail of relief on the

arch of Septimius Severus
showing dejected barbarians
doing homage to Rome.

5 3 The inside of the arch

built by the money changers
in honour of Septimius
Severus and his empress,
showing them sacrificing,
their heads covered as
Roman practice required.
 (Plate 53). It represents Septimius and his empress sacrificing, their heads covered 56

as Roman The
practice required. setting is marked by the oriental exuberance
which was now invading Rome.
Septimius also restored the portico of Octavia, near the theatre of Marcellus,
and repaired the Pantheon, as an inscription on it still records. Julia Domna
restored the temple of Vesta, the pretty little rotunda in the midst of the Forum.
It was on the Palatine that Septimius constructed his greatest works. Facing the

Appian Way, he built what was called the Septizonium. The last traces of this
monument, which seems to have been modelled on the still surviving nymphaeum
at Lepcis, were demolished by Pope Sixtus V, in 1588-1589; but we have
engravings of it, and it appears in one of Botticelli's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.
On the Palatine itself, Septimius not only restored, but also built the vast range
of brick buildings at the southern end which raised the hill to the very apogee

54 The baths of Septimius

Severus, built by means of
enormous brick vaults over a
foundation formed by
enlarging the south corner
of the Palatine.

55/56 The baths of

one of the
Caracalla,
mightiest ruins in the world.
They were opened in 217,
restored by Aurelian and
remained in use until the
sixth century when the
invading Goths wrecked the
aqueducts. With their
coloured marble, mosaics,
fountains and statues they
surpassed all the other baths
of Rome in luxury and
splendour. In addition to
facilities for 1,500 bathers
(changing rooms, hot and
cold rooms, pools), there
were palaestrae, a stadium,
Greek and Latin libraries,
a picture gallery and
assembly rooms.
^7^^;
ml'
 of imperial grandeur (Plate 54). Those great brick vaults seem to be carved out of
cliffsof jasper, so compact are they. The new additions included a bath, watei
for which was conveyed in a branch of the Aqua Claudia which spanned the
valley between the Celian and the Palatine. To the south arose the Antoninian
Baths, commonly called after Caracalla, who succeeded to the purple when his
father died at York in 211. They constitute one of the mightiest ruins in the
world (Plates 55, 56 and 58).

We are now nearing the end of the tale of imperial Rome. Aurelian (270-275)
heralds its dusk; for his gift to Rome was a defensive wall (Plate 57). No longer
could Rome depend on walls in Germany or England to exclude the barbarians
they were encroaching on the fairest provinces of the empire and might soon be
at is still wellnigh complete. It was
the gates of the capital. Aurelian's great wall
and shows signs of its hurried construction.
built in five years,
The last great ruler of Rome as an imperial capital was Diocletian who was
emperor from 284 to 305, when he retired, the first emperor to do so, and went
home to what is now Split, in Dalmatia. In Rome Diocletian's bequest is his great

57 Aurelian's Wall, built to

exclude the invading
barbarians, and still almost
complete. Many of the gates
are still in use.

58 Detail of floor mosaics in

the baths of Caracalla.

59 The baths of Diocletian,

the largest of the ancient
Roman baths, and now part
of the Museo Nazionale
Romano. Part of the
frigidarium (cold bath) was
incorporated by
Michelangelo in the church
of St Mary of the Angels
where eight huge columns
from the original building
still stand.
-,'y^>

tM
60 The vast basilica of baths, even more spacious than the Antoninian ones (Diocletian's are 356 by
Constantine, begun by
316 metres, the Antoninian 330 square). They are up by the Termini railway
Maxentius and completed
by Constantine who
station, and now house the national museum (Plate 59). It is natural to think
modified the plans. Today that the railway station takes the name Termini from its being a grand terminus.
we see only one side aisle:
This is not so. The word comes from Terme meaning baths, and the Piazza
there was originally aneven
Termini was in existence years before railways were thought of. Part of
loftier central nave, with
another aisle as well. Diocletian's baths were incorporated by Michelangelo in the years 1563-1566
in the church of St Mary of the Angels, the transept of which still retains in situ
61 The arch of Septimius which belonged to the baths, and thus gives us
eight colossal granite columns
Severus which dominates
the Roman Forum, was built
some idea of what one of the great chambers looked like originally. Diocletian
to commemorate Roman also restored the Curia, or Senate-house in the Forum as we now see it (Plate 66).
victories in the east in late between the old Rome and the
Finally we come to Constantine, the living link
imperial times.
new, for it was Constantine who liberated the Christian faith by his famous Edict
of Milan, as it is called, in AD 313. Henceforth Rome was to be the centre and
hearth of Christianity as it still is. As a new secular capital Constantine built his
New Rome on the Bosphurus, which as Constantinople was to endure for more
than a thousand years.

88
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 Constantine is remembered in Rome for two structures. First there is the gigantic
basihca which overshadows the Sacred Way (Plate 60). This was begun by
Constantine's rival Maxentius, whom he defeated and killed at the battle of the

Milvian Bridge in 312. Constantine altered the plan and completed the building.
The amazing thing about it to our eyes is that vast as it is, it is only one side aisle

of the originalwe must imagine an even loftier central nave, and another
: aisle

as well.
The other memorial is Constantine's arch down by the Colosseum, a graceful,
dignified memorial of his victory (Plate 67).
As a footnote to the Empire there are two structures that merit record. The first

is the Portico of the Consenting Gods, erected by a friend of Julian the Apostate
in the year 367 at the foot of the Capitol in the Forum (Plate 65). It scores a
'double last' : it was the last pagan monument erected in Rome, and the last pagan
monument to be restored by a Christian Pope, Pius the Ninth, in 1858. Last of
all comes a single column, a sort of full stop. It is the Column of Phocas, near the
Rostra, put up by Smaragdus, the Exarch of Italy, in honour of the emperor
Phocas, in 608 (Plate 66).

62 The superbly sited

mausoleum of Hadrian, later
known as Castel Sant'Angelo,
which the emperor himself
originally designed (viewed
from across the Tiber, with
St Peter's in the distance).

63 Mosaic showing
charioteers of four factions
distinguished by the colour
of their tunics. Museo
Nazionale Romano

64 View of the Forum,

showing the arch of
Septimius Severus in the
foreground, the temple of the
Vestals in the middle ground
and the arch of Titus in
the background.

65 The Portico ot the

Consenting Gods, the lasi
pagan monument to be built
in Rome, erected in the time
of Julian the Apostate.

66 The Curia, one of the

earliest foundations of the
Forum where the Senate
originally assembled (later
restored by Diocletian) and
the Column of Phocas,
added in Byzantine times
in 608 AD.
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Part 2 Ruin and Renewal

The poet who in the days of Augustus first called Rome 'the eternal city' was a
true prophet. Unlike any other city in the world, Rome has possessed the spirit
of renewal. We have already seen how she had laid violent hands on herself in
the last days of the republic. And yet she survived, to shine once again in imperial
lustre which still dazzles us. On that occasion, it is true, Rome could hardly help
surviving in some sort, even if not as the bright star she was to become, simply
because she had no rivals. Parthia, Rome's secular foe, was quiescent; Pompey
had tranquillized the east, Julius Caesar had ravaged the north. The whole world
therefore could bask in what Pliny called 'the infinite majesty of the Roman
peace.' Things were quite different in the fifth century. First, Rome, though still
the titular capital of the empire, had yielded primacy as a political head to
Constantinople. Secondly, Aurelian's walls were all too soon to be put to practical
use: they were to be the very bulwarks of Rome. Worse was to come — those same
walls would twice be breached, Rome twice sacked by barbarians, Rome the
inviolate, Rome the almighty mistress, humbled by northern hordes. And yet
Rome survived, Rome did more: she triumphed, and set out upon a course of
supremacy which abides to this day. This astonishing transformation and
resurrection must now be examined, and if possible accounted for.
The first Romans, as has already appeared, were an earthy, materialist lot;
they could hardly be called mystics or even religious adepts, and yet because
of this very deficiency, they were to become the spiritual leaders of mankind.
It happened thus. To quote Carcopino:

'One great spiritual fact dominates the history of the empire: the advent of
personal religion which followed the conquest of Rome by the mysticism of
the East.The Roman pantheon still persisted, apparently immutable; and the
ceremonies which had for centuries been performed on the dates prescribed by
the pontiffs from their sacred calendars continued to be carried out in accordance
with ancestral custom. But the men had fled from the old religion;
spirits of
it still commanded no longer their hearts or belief. With its
their service but
indeterminate gods and colourless myths, mere fables concocted from details
suggested by the Latin topography or pale reflections of the adventures which
had overtaken the Olympians of Greek epic with its prayers formulated in the
; 67 The arch of Constantine,

style of legal contracts and as dry as the procedure of a lawsuit; with its lack of erected in 315 AD to
celebrate his victory at
metaphysical curiosity and indifference to moral values; with the narrow- Milvian Bridge which
minded banality of its field of action limited to the interests of the city and the followed upon his conversion
development of practical politics— Roman religion froze the impulses of faith to Christianity. Most of the
reliefs on it were taken from
by its coldness and its prosaic utilitarianism. It sufficed at most to reassure a
earlier (and better) triumphal
soldier against the risks of war or a peasant against the rigours of unseasonable arches.

97
68 Marble group showing
Mithras killing a bull. Museo
Vaticano
69 Statue of the Egyptian
goddess Isis represented as
Roman matron. Museo
Capitolino
weather, but in the motley Rome of the second century it had wholly lost its
power over the hearts of men.'
It was eastern which won them. The new religions came trom the
religions
a Levant, from Asia, above all from Egypt, where the river Nile, mysterious and
bountiful, annually performed her miracle of rebirth. There were dozens of these
religions. None of them made exclusive claims —it was simply a matter of choice.
Some were more popular than others. Attis from Phrygia, Cybele from Asia,
Isis and Sarapis from Egypt and Mithras from Persia were among the smartest.
Isis indeed was so powerful that for many generations Jews and Christians
would bear the name Isidore, or gift of Isis, as easily as Theodore, gift of God.
From time to time these foreign cults aroused xenophobic prejudice: they
were 'banished' but they always got back.
'The oriental religions,' says the great Belgian authority Franz Cumont, 'by
appealing at one and the same time to the senses, the reason and the conscience,
gripped the entire personality. They seemed to offer, by comparison with those
of the past, more beauty in their ceremonies, more truth in their teaching, a
higher standard in their moral outlook. The splendid rites of their festivals,
their devotions, now grand, now moving, sad or triumphant, captivated the
mass of the simple and lowly. The progressive revelation of an antique wisdom,
inherited from the old and distant orient, won the minds of the educated.
The emotions which these religions stimulated, the consolations which they
98
ottered, chiefly attracted women: it was in them that the priests of Isis and
Cybele found their most ardent and most generous adherents, their most
enthusiastic propagandists. Mithras on the other hand gathered round him only
men, on whom he imposed a rough sort of moral discipline. Every soul, in short,
was vanquished by the promise of spiritual purification, and the infinite vista
of eternal bliss.'

Among these eastern cults there were two which require special mention,

because they were to prove by far the most potent and enduring, and one of
them was to change the basis of Roman polity. Of all the manifold religions which
flourished then, they are the only ones which still today guide and nourish
millions of souls throughout the world, the two monotheistic religions, Judaism
and Christianity. In the context of the later Roman empire a third must be added,
because although it has long since perished, it served as a sort of handmaid to
Christianity, namely the worship of the unconquered sun. This too was a species
of monotheism, and in the third century became almost the official state religion.
The fact that Constantine's mother had been a priestess of the sun-god, and that
the future emperor had himself been brought up to venerate that single and
omnipotent deity made his conversion to Christianity an easy and natural step.

It is also a guarantee of his sincerity.

The Judaeo-Christian ethic, as embodied in Catholic Christianity, took three

centuries to prevail. Before examining that process, we must take note of an

apparently contradictory phenomenon, namely that during that long period,
when the state was ardently repressing the Christian faith, an atmosphere was
nevertheless developing in Rome, and among its rulers, which seemed to have
marked affinity with the cult aim to eradicate. Conduct became more
it was their

moral, legal sanctions progressively more humane, society more decent. Again
and again, we find an emperor writing to a subordinate that such and such an
act would be 'unworthy of our times', the assumption clearly being that what
would have passed muster in former ages could now no longer be countenanced.
What was responsible for this change? To some extent, undeniably, the Christian
leaven was at work, and even those who would most hotly deny being Christians
were nevertheless subject to Christian influences. But the chief instrument in the
elevation of public and private standards was the Stoic philosophy, of which
indeed one of Rome's best emperors, Marcus Aurelius, was one of the most
famous exponents. Stoicism is regarded and rightly regarded as being a Greek
philosophical system: it takes its name from the Stoa, or porch in Athens in
which its founder, being too poor to hire nis own hall, used to teach. But that
founder was not Greek, he was Zeno, from Kitium in Cyprus. He was a Semite,
the son of a shipowner, who had reached Athens as a shipwrecked pauper.
Now the mark of all Semitic doctrine from Isaiah to Muhammad is an uncom-
promising belief in eternal order, combined with an intolerance of the imperfect
amounting to a sense of sin. In the eyes of a Stoic, the universe is governed by an
immutable law which it is wicked to transgress. It was primarily this insistence
on the rule of law that commended Stoicism to the disciplined Roman mind.
Stoicism is a chilly creed; it could never satisfy a Horace or inspire a Lucretius,
both of whom in different degrees favoured the rival. Epicurean, school; but
in the first century AD Stoicism would be the guide of Seneca, and in the second,

99
as already noted, of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and the slave Epictetus, both
of whom have bequeathed to us expositions of their thought which are still
studied. That Stoicism did clear the way for a universal religion there can be
no doubt, and St Paul himself could quote a Stoic hymn in proclaiming that
religion. What Stoicism lacked was what all puritan creeds lack, a really active
enthusiasm for human beings as such. Most philosophies lack that, which is why
philosophical systems are so transitory. Philosophy is a battery, religion a dynamo.
Stoicism was bound by the limitations inherent in its nature; but it was a big
step forward, on a firm stepping-stone.
Just when Judaism reached Rome, it is not possible to say. A Jewish embassy
concluded a rather vague treaty with the Senate in 191 BC and the fact that the
Jews were expelled from Rome in 139 gives us a 'terminus a quo'. By the end of
the Republic the Jews in Rome were numerous and influential, respected by
those whose respect worth having, resented and feared by baser minds. It is
is

recorded that at the funeral pyre of Julius Caesar no mourners were more
assiduous than the Jews, for whom Julius, recognizing their merits, had done
so much. The moral standards of the Jews were far higher than those of the
peoples among whom, since the days of the Ptolemies, they had beerj dispersed.
The Ten Commandments enjoined a code of conduct far in advance of any
contemporary set of sanctions, both in public and personal morals, including
sexual attitudes and commercial dealings. To this, the sojourn of the Jews 'beyond
the river' in Babylon had added a conception of eternity and a theory of world
history.
In Asia, apart from the Jewish communities, there were numbers of individuals
who adopted a largely Jewish point of view, without becoming Jews. Thus
indirectly no less than directly Rome received the benediction of the God of
Jacob. By the time of the empire, we find a haute juiverie established in Rome.
Poppaea, Nero's empress, favoured the Jews, and it was through a Jewish actor
who was one of her favourites that the great Jewish historian Josephus obtained
the entrei. It was a Jewish prince, Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, who

was largely instrumental in securing the elevation of Claudius to the purple.

Queen Berenice, Agrippa's daughter, captivated the future emperor Titus.
It was this Jewry, so diverse and penetrating, that was to be the matrix of the

first Christian church in Rome, founded by two immigrant Jews, named Peter

and Paul.
The first documentary reference to Roman Christians relates to the year 49,
when Claudius, despite his favourable attitude towards Jewry, felt constrained
to banish Jews from Rome, because, says Suetonius, 'at the instigation of Chrestus
[that is, From this passage we must
Christ] they continually raised tumults.'
infer that, as in Jerusalem and elsewhere, the majority of Jews rejected the
Christian faith and opposed those among them who accepted it; for this faith
maintained two tenets which were stumbling-blocks to traditionalist Jews,
namely that Messiah had already appeared, and secondly that Gentiles might
be admitted to his fellowship. From St Paul's Letter to the Romans, written a few
years later, it is clear that the Christian community in Rome contained a Gentile
element, although the new faith was hardly recognized apart from Judaism.
On the other hand by the time of the fire of 64, that is four years after the arrival
in Rome of Paul himself, the existence of Christians as such was well known in

100
the city. Whether they were actually accused of being incendiaries is not certain,
but that they were accused of being Christians and used by Nero as scapegoats
for a disaster of which he and they were equally innocent is beyond question.
Thus was started the long, savage, if sporadic, struggle between Caesar and
Christ, from which both were to emerge victorious nearly three hundred years
later. Why, it may be asked, in a city which either welcomed or was indifferent

to so many strange gods from so many foreign lands, a city in which moreover
the matrix of Christianity, namely Judaism, was if not welcomed, at least (save
for periodical outbursts of spite) tolerated, should Christianity alone be feared
and proscribed? To this question there is no one answer, which is why the
attitude of the state was so un-Romanly vacillating and ambivalent. There were,
nevertheless, two clear reasons for the opposition of the state. The first was that
the Founder of the new Faith had been condemned and executed for a political
offence. It followed that those who not merely venerated but actually worshipped
a criminal must themselves be criminal. The second reason was that the Christians,
like the Jews, could not admit the divinity of Caesar, a divinity which was
increasingly accorded to, and in some cases demanded by, the emperors. They

would, they and did pray for Caesar, thus rendering unto him his due,
said,

as their Founder had taught them, but pray to him they could not. It is hard to
imagine two more contrary notions of divinity than that of a man made god by
the will of man, and that of God made man by the will of God. The collision was
inevitable. A miasma of slander still further poisoned the atmosphere. It was
known that the Christians held 'love-banquets', at which they partook of the
'body and blood of the Son of Man', and at which they addressed one another
as brother and sister. Cannibalism? Incest? Both were imputed to the Christians.
But the leaven was at work. The infant Church produced an astonishingly
brilliant line of defenders of the Faith. Some did it with ink, some with blood,
many with both. In the end the Faith, thus fortified, not only survived but
triumphed. The last great persecution, at the end of the third century and the
beginning of the fourth, was a failure. It so happened that at precisely that
juncture a young man who had been brought up by a pious mother in a

monotheistic tradition was hailed in the city of York as Augustus by his father's
legions. His name was Constantine. By the year 312 he was master of Rome, by
330 not only undisputed and sole lord of the empire, but the founder of the New
Rome which was to bear his name, as a Christian and imperial capital for more
than a millenium.
Constantine's actions profoundly affected, indeed, for ever transformed, Rome
of the Caesars. Never again was it become (what it had already in fact ceased
to
to be) the capital of a pagan empire. It was to emerge centuries later what in germ
it already was, the Christian capital of the western world. Churches, not temples,
would be its Pope not a Caesar its master. Links there would be between
shrines, a
old and new, of which not the least significant is the title of Pontifex Maximus,
or Supreme Pontiff, still borne by the Holy Father today, thus perpetuating in
his office the authority of pagan Rome's chief hierarch. The Christianization of 70 Bronze head of
Rome was a gradual process. Paganism lasted well into the fifth century and Constantine, found at
Niassus, Constantine's
even beyond. The aristocracy of Rome remained largely pagan. It was not until
birthplace, but probably
the year 392 that the statue of Victory was finally removed from the Senate- cast in Constantinople.
house (Plate 66), and that paganism was officially proscribed. But it lived on. Belgrade Museum

101
 II

V -N.

,N.,

«^6SfiilR^-'
Constantine had forbidden gladiatorial games in 325, but although they never
sullied his New Rome, they continued to be held in the west. Augustine himself
described their polluted fascination. Honorius again proscribed them in 405,
after a brave monk called Telemachus had been done to death by the populace,
for daring to try to separate two gladiators in the Colosseum. Butchery of
animals was still permitted in the days of Theodoric a century later. As late as

the year 523 the great amphitheatre was once again restored.
Small wonder therefore that the oldest Christian churches, erected as such,
were, even after the edict of Constantine which established Christianity, built
outside the walls. Originally the Christians met not in churches but (as we learn
from Acts) in houses.Of these consecrated places of assembly several survive
below later edifices. The most famous is that underneath S. Clemente, near
71 The lower church of
the Colosseum, its interest being enhanced by the presence in its vaults, besides
S. Clemente, built in the
the primitive Christian meeting-place (Plate 71), of a temple of Mithras, the eastern fourth century on the site of
sun-god of whom Renan said that if Christ had not prevailed, Mithras would an early Christian meeting
house. The wall painting was
have done so in The lower of the two churches, obliterated in 1108
his stead.
carried out in the eleventh
by the erection of the upper, was in existence in the days of St Jerome. It was century and shows a miracle
built before 385, and may well incorporate vestiges of a dwelling-house. The from the life of St Clement.
church of S. Martino ai Monti clearly does from the crypt a passage (when open)
:

72 The apse mosaic of

descends to a still lower level, where recent excavation has brought to light the Pudenziana showing
S.
remains of the house of a priest called Equitius. Pope Silvester (314—335) built Christ enthroned before the
an oratory over this rare example of a second-century domestic church, and city of Jerusalem with
apostles on either side of
Pope Symmachus (498-514) transformed it into a basilica dedicated to St Martin
him. Although the mosaic is
of Tours, the apostle of Gaul. Not far away is the church of S. Pudenziana, one greatly restored it dates
of the oldest in Rome, which stands, by tradition, on the site of the house of the from the sixth century.

103
 senator Pudens who was the host of St Paul (Plate 72). The church of SS. Giovanni
e Paolo is built over extensive subterranean remains, which include considerable
traces of a two-storey house (Plate 73). Mr Joseph Kennedy, father of the late

President, made these substructures available for inspection in honour of his

friend Cardinal Spellman, whose titular church this was.
Two more very early churches may here be mentioned. St Agnes without
the Walls was built in 342 by Constantia, daughter of Constantine, over the
catacombs which harboured the body of the saint (Plate 74). It is one of the purest
and most illustrious of the early Christian basilicas. Nearby is the church dedicated
to Constantia herself (Plate 75). It was originally the mausoleum of that princess
and of her sister Helena, wife of Julian the Apostate. It was soon transformed into
a baptistery, and then in 1254 it became a church. It is a most beautiful building,
notable for its mosaic ceiling, one of the first examples of a whole roof (rather
than a floor) decorated in this manner. It is also, in its grave architectural style,

the latest 'Roman' building still extant in Rome.

73 ThechurchofSS.Giovanni Catacombs, basilicas — what were their functions in the life of the primitive
e Paolo, founded by a
Church? Catacombs were simply burial-places. Like all burial-places, they were
Roman senator in the late
fourth century but rebuilt in
required to be outside the walls of the city, within which burials were prohibited.
the Middle Ages. In the porous rock of Rome's environs, excavation is easy; and thus one plot of

104
74 Staircase leading down
to thechurch of St Agnes
without the Walls, which is
built over the catacombs in
the hillside where St Agnes
is buried.
75 The vaulting of the ground may be economically used by digging gallery under gallery. In this, as
circular nave of S. Constanza, in other matters, the Christians simply followed Jewish example: three Jewish
which unlike other early
is not a
catacombs may still be identified, that of the Villa Torlonia extending for no
Christian churches
basilica but looks back to a less than 9 kilometres in all. The prevalent idea that catacombs were 'secret
more sophisticated Roman meeting-places', just because they are underground, is completely false. For one
design.
thing, it would be hard to imagine any locality less secret than a catacomb,
lying several furlongs outside the walls, in open country, its entrance being
visible to any watcher on the city ramparts. Secondly, the cramped and unlighted
galleries of a catacomb are wholly unsuited to gatherings of any kind. There are,
it is true, one or two mortuary chapels in the catacombs, and some of these still

contain frescoes which are of outstanding value for the comprehension of

primitive Christian art (Plate 81), but not even these would be suitable for regular
worship. On one occasion during the persecutions of the third century when a
bishop was rash enough to meet his flock in a catacomb, the whole group were
at once arrested and executed out of hand.
When it was no longer necessary to meet in private
the Faith was liberated,
houses, and was possible to build churches which would be consecrated shrines.
it

What form should these buildings take? The synagogue was not deemed a
suitable model, still less the pagan temple, partly because of its associations,
and partly because the function of a pagan temple, in which only the cult-statue
and its priests would ordinarily be found, with even the altar outside, was
 wholly different from that of a church, which was the home of a Christian family. 76 Detail of the mosaic in the
vaulting of S. Constanza
The Christians therefore turned to a secular model, namely the basilica, or law-
showing amongst fruitful
court. This had the advantage of being spacious, and of having at one end, often vines a portrait of the
set in an apse, or on a podium, a seat for the presiding magistrate, which was easily princess for whom it was
built.
adapted to become the chair of the bishop. Such chairs may still be seen in ancient
churches. That of Torcello near Venice is probably the best known; and there is
even one in England, at Norwich.
The Christian Church, by its institutions, by its doctrine, above all by its
leaders, was well equipped not merely to withstand the internal shocks of
heresy, but even more the external onslaughts that assailed Rome during the
fatal fifth century. It is to the secular scene, therefore, that we must now return.

Already, in the days of Aurelian, as related above, the barbarian menace was
looming on the frontiers of the empire. In 272 the Alamans and Franks ravaged
not only Gaul, but northern Italy and even Spain as well. Two years later, the
Roman command of the Mediterranean, unchallenged for three hundred years,
was flouted by the Goths, who boldly sailed down the coast of Asia Minor and
attacked Ephesus, wrecking the world-famous temple of Artemis. Seven years
later they were in Athens itself.
So the erosion by the barbarians went on, and so with it went on the recruitment
of barbarians to prevent it. The Roman armies were increasingly not merely
recruited from beyond her frontiers, but actually commanded by naturalized

RTTfiifnav
 northerners. At the court of Constantius, son ot Constantine, the Franks were
numerous and influential; and twenty years later we are told that it was a rare
event that all the generals in one region should be Romans. During the siege of
Adrianople by the Goths in 378, three hundred 'Roman' infantry deserted to the
enemy. In the same year the emperor Valens was killed in battle there. Julian
had already met his death fighting the Persians. One emperor killed in battle in
the east, one in the west; barbarians settled within the empire: powerful at
court, dominant in the army: when barbarian arms challenged the inviolability
of Rome itself, could the Eternal City withstand these mortal enemies? The fifth

century was to supply the terrible answer.

The year 410 is as it were inscribed in black on the Roman calendar. It was in
that year that Alaric, a Gothic leader driven south by pressure from the Huns,
who had been alternately appeased and repulsed by Roman arms, who had twice
been bribed to leave Rome unmolested, at last, rejected and frustrated, approached
her ramparts. This time he did not parley he assaulted, took and sacked the city.
:

was no savage. He was a tribal king, in search of a home and a living for
Alaric
his tribe. He and his 40,000 were in Rome for three days only. They were all
nominal Christians, even if not orthodox, and by Alaric's orders, behaved with
humanity and decency. In three days they were unable to carry off more than
a moderate burden of loot. Rome was to know occupations far more destructive,
savage and wanton. Yet it is this violation by Alaric that is always cited as the
great turning-point. At the time, Jerome, writing in distant Bethlehem, bewails
it as almost the end of the world. In a sense he was right: it was the end of a world.
On the other hand, for Augustine, who at Carthage was much nearer the scene,
Alaric's victory was an act of God, to punish the godless Romans, and Alaric
far more humane than any previous marauder, such as the savage Radagaisus,
who in 405 had been defeated and killed while on his way to assault Rome.
Damage and loss were certainly inflicted, citizens were displaced and made
—
refugees two aspects of violence with which our own age is only too well
acquainted. But what really made 410 uniquely awful was the appalling
inconceivability of the disaster. The mere idea that Rome could fall was prepos-
terous. Christian and pagan alike were convinced of it. Only a few years before,
the poet Claudian had written, 'Nor will there ever be a limit to the empire of
Rome.' And now the unimaginable had happened; and men had the dread
prescience that what had happened once, might happen again. And they were
right: it did
The Vandals and the Huns were the next intruders to try conclusions with
Rome. The word 'Vandel' only acquired its present significance at the end of the
eighteenth century; it is nevertheless clear that these invaders, under their king
Gaiseric, did treat their victims with great savagery. In 430, they were in North
Africa, and St Augustine died while they were actually at the gates of Hippo
of which he had become bishop. Establishing himself in Carthage, Gaiseric
raided far and wide, adding Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia to his dominions.
77 Statue of Christ the Good Finally in 455 he landed with his horde at Ostia, and seized Rome. For fourteen
Shepherd, a rare piece of days, compared with Alaric's three, they looted the city. They did far more
Roman sculpture with a
damage than the Goths, even stripping the gilded tiles from the temple of
Christian subject from the
early fourth century. Museo Jupiter. As part of his booty he carried off the empress Eudoxia and her daughters.
Gregoriano, Vatican Museums Finally, that is the last invaders before the extinction of the western empire.

108
 These sallow, brutish nomads 78 Leo I Repulsing Attila,
came the Huns, under their dread leader Attila.
one of four wall paintings by
never got farther than Lombardy; and the manner in which they were repulsed Raphael in the Stanza
is of cardinal historical importance. It was no emperor, nor any general who made d'Eliodoro in the Vatican
Attila turn back. was the bishop of Rome, Pope Leo I, the Great, the Saint.
It Palace which look back to
moments in history when the
The consolidation of the Christian Church has already been briefly outlined. Faith triumphed over its
It was in the person and actions of Leo that it first became manifest to tne world. enemies. The pope is painted
Leo was the only dominating personality of the age. He became pope in 440, in the likeness of Leo X,
Raphael's patron in 1514.
and adorned the Roman see for twenty-one years. It was he who first unequivo-
cally claimed that the bishop of Rome was not merely primus inter pares but by
right the wielder of an appellate jurisdiction over all other sees. Great as
theologian, as administrator, and as Christian Leo certainly was. That he was
sometimes overbearing is undeniable: his treatment of St Hilary of Aries shows it.
But when it came to the point he could be 'the daring pilot in extremity'. When
Attila approached, he hastened to the north, and confronted the Hun on the
bank of the river Mincio. What passed between them was never known; but
Leo's presence and authority were enough to induce the barbarian to retreat.
Legend has battened on the incident. It is the subject of a famous picture by

109

79 Detail of the apse mosaic
of SS.Cosma e Damiano, one
of the finest in Rome,
showing Peter and Paul
presenting the two martyrs
to Christ. St Theodore is on
the right of this section.
Raphael (Plate 78), and forms the finale of the first act of Verdi's Attila.
Corneille's Attila concerned with the choice which Attila is represented as
is
having to make between decadent Rome and nascent France, and in that respect
he showed, as great French genius habitually does, an insight which others lack
'L'empire, je I'avoue, est encor quelque chose
Mais nous ne sommes plus au temps de Th^odose.'
Leo realized that. He was the master-spirit, the one all-important character in
that period of history which is the meeting-point of the old world and the new.
It is a period of which the significance can hardly be overrated. It has a double
aspect, looking before and after: it looks back upon the all-but-exhausted
civilization of which it still wears the garb and bears the name it looks forward :
into the dawning age, and is pregnant with prophecy and promise, laying down
the lines and shaping the destinies of the world which is to be.
In the year 476 the German Odoacer deposed and pensioned the boy who bore
as his names the pathetically appropriate diminutives Romulus Augustulus.
Rome's empire was at an end. /
The Roman empire in the west was dead, but Rome lived on that is the most :
arresting fact of this arresting century. BarbarianRome the phrase sounds like:
a contradiction in terms. Sixty years between the occupation of Rome
were to pass
by Odoacer and its 'liberation' by Belisarius; but they were by no means sixty
lean years. Odoacer ruled for thirteen, to be succeeded by Theodoric the Amal,
that is Goth. He was an excellent ruler. Under him, after the century of competitive
chaos which had preceded his accession, Italy knew peace. Rome itself once again
seem to date from his
raised her head, and the latest additions to the Palatine
reign (Plate 36). Theodoric was an Arian was prudent enough
Christian, but
and humane enough to maintain excellent relations with orthodox prelates.
Indeed in a now Christian Rome what else could he do? Wherever he looked
he beheld the magnificent shrines of the Catholic Church. In the Imperial Forum
itself arose that of SS. Cosma e Damiano in the year 527, as if tocommemorate
Theodoric who had died the year before (Plate 79). was formed from a part
It
of Vespasian's forum of Peace, as its lower structure still proclaims. At much
the same time, below the Palatine, the church of S. Maria Antiqua takes over
from the hall of Minerva. The faded wal!-paintings show a marked develop-
ment from those of the catacombs, just as the mosaics of SS. Cosma e Damiano
are a halfway house between those of SS. Pudenziana and Agnese. On the
Aventine stood the grand basilica of S. Sabina (Plate 85), in which for the first
time in a Roman church the arches spring directly from the capitals of the columns,
without any transverse beam, or even the 'cushions' of S. Costanza. (A similar
treatment is to be found in secular buildings, e.g. in Lepcis and Spalato up to
two centuries earlier; but ecclesiastical architecture always tends to be conserva-
tive). The primitive basilicas of St Peter, St John Lateran, S. Maria Maggiore
and St Paul without the Walls had also been established. Rome was already a
city of churches. To be precise, the city possessed 28 parish churches, besides
numerous chapels. Besides the five great basilicas (SS. John, Peter, Paul without
the Walls, Lorenzo and Maria Maggiore), the churches of Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme (Plate 1 63) and San Sebastiano (Plate 83), erected over the catacombs
110
 '„l '.'/.

^#

'^
.-^ ^.
w

80 Half of an ivory diptych,
a Roman copy of a Byzantine
original, depicting the heads
of Amalasuntha and her son
Athalaric in the medallions
above the figure of the
consul. London, Victoria and
Albert Museum
81 Catacomb painting of a
woman with outstretched
arms an attitude of prayer
in
Catacomb of Vigna Massimo,
S. Sebastiano
Of the Appian Way,enjoyed special veneration. These
formed the 'seven churches'
to which pxlgrxms now flocked from every
part of western Christendom
number of monasteries steadily increased. The
So did poverty
As early as the fourth century the
cultivation of the Roman Campagna
to fall into decay; and in an began
official document of the year
395 it is stated that
upwards of 500 square miles of arable land
had been abandoned and de enerted
mto swamps. These harboured the malarial
mosquito, and so the dread fever
(whose origin was only understood
at the end of the nineteenth century)
accelerated the decline. The
upheavals of the barbarian irruptions
greatfy
aggravated the misery. The Vandals and
Goths have often been saddled with
odium of destruction of the monuments of the
antiquity, and the impoverishment
Italy^On the contrary, Theodoric did of
his utmost to preserve and
restore Roman
grandeur, not only in Rome itself but
in Verona, Ravenna, Pavia and
other cities
Outside the towns, the newcomers
from the north revived the prosperity
the countryside, for now that the of
traditional sources of the grain
supply were
in alien hands, the Italian
harvest became once again a prime
factor in the life
of the country; so much so that,
stimulated by this necessity, Italy which had
for centuries imported corn as a tribute was soon able
to export,it at a profit
It IS also true that, as
we shall see, it was the Romans themselves
who were the
prime agents in the denudation of Rome.
Nevertheless, Rome had suffered terribly
from having been the scene of so many
sieges and battles. It was soon to
suffer
even more cruelly. When Theodoric died
in 526, to be buried in the
mausoleum at
Byzantine Ravenna which still excites
our wonder, the foundations of his
remarkably successful bi-national state soon
crumbled. His widowed daughter
Amalasuntha (Plate 80), whom he had left as
regent for her young son, Athalaric'
was an able woman, bred in Roman culture,
but like her father committed to the
integration of Roman and Goth.
Persistent and unscrupulous in
pursuit of this
aim, she antagonized the reactionary
Gothic nationalists in her entourage
contrived to alienate her loutish child
who
from
and to have him brought up as a
her,
lusty barbarian, from which uninhibited
regime he died at the age of eighteen
His indignant and vengeful mother,
disgusted with the Goths, turned to
the
emperor of New Rome. This was none other
than Justinian, the first really great
Byzantine monarch, who at that very season,
seconded by his briUiant empress
Theodora, was contemplating the reconquest
of Italy. This enterprise he com-
mitted to one of the greatest generals
ofall time, Belisarius. When
Athalaric died
.'"''?''' '" °''''' *° """"P '^^ '^^°""' "^^^"^'^ shifty coward called
T^l tK
Theodahad, who, despite Justinian's remonstrances,
^
imprisoned and then
first
murdered Amalasuntha. This gave Justinian,
who was still the legal overlord
of Italy the opportunity he had
been waiting for. Belisarius, who had
already
humbled the Vandals and recovered north
Africa, took Sicily, seized Naples
and entered Rome unopposed in December
536. The astonished Goths speedily
deposed the craven Theodahad and replaced
him with an enterprising warrior
called Witigis. The new king, bribing
the hostile Franks by the cession to
them
of Provence, swept down through Italy
and laid siege to Rome. The siege lasted
a year, from March 537 until
March 538, during which the city suffered not only
from extreme privation but from material
devastafion as well. Witigis was unable
to invest the circle of the walls,
more than ten miles in extent, completely, so that
some supplies were occasionally introduced
into the beleaguered city but by
112
'i>a^>

^^
*(
 !^,

/ '
/.
in

^m

'"\ •''
'v)'^

r\vJ

:l^..
cutting the aqueducts he reckoned on reducing the inhabitants to extreme
distress. In fact, this act of destruction recoiled to his own hurt. When the
water-mills were deprived of their motive-power, Belisarius rigged up millstones
82 Detail of the apse mosaic
on rafts in the stream of the Tiber, and so the supply of flour was continued, the in S. Maria in Trastevere
enemy's attempts to destroy the floating mills by launching heavy baulks of showing the Madonna
enthroned with Christ. This
timber into the stream being frustrated by Belisarius' vigilance. When its waters
belongs to a period of
were polluted by corpses similarly employed, Belisarius relied on the wells that renaissance in mosaic under
existed in certain regions of the city. Meanwhile the wrecking of the aqueducts, the influence of Byzantine

although it had inflicted damage upon Rome which would not be made good for artists in the thirteenth
century.
centuries, and never completely, had worked to the Goths' undoing by greatly
increasing the extent of the malaria-breeding swamps. The city suffered more 83 View of S. Sebastiano,
directly, too. In his first onslaught Witigis had been routed, but he returned to the one of the seven pilgrimage
churches, sited over
attack, and assailed what he judged to be a weak outpost, namely Hadrian's
important catacombs on the
tomb. This great mausoleum, now Castel Sant' Angelo (Plate 62), stands on the Appian Way. It was restored
right bank of the Tiber, near the Vatican. A chain had been thrown across the in the seventeenth century.

115

84 A facsimile of a gold
medallion depicting
Justinian, the Byzantine
emperor who tried to
re-unite the two halves of
the Christian empire.
85 The facade of S. Sabina
which gives an excellent
impression of what a fifth-
century Christian basilica
looked like.
Tiber, the walls had been hastily reinforced, the arches of the aqueducts, where
they were contiguous to the walls, were filled up, and the great sepulchre for
the first time was converted into a defensive citadel. When the Goths attacked,
its defenders wrenched from their bases the numerous statues that adorned its
summit, and some of the choicest examples of Greek sculpture were broken into
fragments and hurled down upon the barbarian invaders. In March 538 Witigis
retired, leaving Belisarius and.his five thousand in possession of Rome. But Rome's
respite was short. Belisarius and another great general, Narses, found themselves
at odds. The Goths rallied, and all Italy was plunged into the horrors of war.
Witigis had been captured at Ravenna in 540, and honourably imprisoned.
In 541 the Goths elected as their king one of the few real heroes of the age,
the chivalrous, brave and brilliant Totila. He marched south, while the Byzantine
generals attempted no concerted opposition. Naples fell to him in 543. Totila
neither looted nor oppressed his even-handed justice became proverbial.
:
Belisarius was sent back to Italy, but without an army could only hold Ravenna
in the north and reprovision Otranto in the far south. Rome surrendered in
December 546. This date, far more than 410, is the great divide in the history of
Rome, because Totila, who is said to have found no more than 500 ^ouls within
the city, expelled even these, and left Rome a desert. Spiritually, this was the end
of classic Rome its ancient, cultured society, with its cherished traditions, was
:
for ever dead and gone. But Rome had been well named Eternal. The city lived on.
Totila left its ramparts, its monuments, its buildings untouched. Thus Belisarius
was able to re-enter Rome and to repair its defences. In 547 he sustained a second
siege. In 549 Totila acquired it for the second time, only to lose it yet again to
the Byzantine general Narses, Belisarius having been recalled at his own request
the previous year. At this period Rome, ravaged by war, poverty, pestilence
and famine, sunk to a nadir which it would never know again until the absence
of the popes at Avignon in the fourteenth century. No complete restoration was
possible, nor was any attempted, for Rome meant little to the lords of Byzantium
it was but the shadow of a name. And yet Rome, when any other city might well
have sunk into obscurity and dissolution, to become the dwelling of owls and
jackals, as so many great cities have — Rome the immortal was to rise again in a
new style of splendour; but not before she had suffered even more tribulation.
In the year 663, the emperor Constans II visited Rome. It was 306 years since
a Byzantine emperor had entered it, and Constans marked the occasion by
carrying off the last remnants of the bronze, much of it gilded, with which the
ancient monuments were decorated, including the roof-covering of the Pantheon,
notwithstanding that after being denuded by the barbarians it had been
dedicated as a Christian church by Pope Boniface IV more than fifty years before.
Truly when a Christian emperor could pillage the metropolis of western
Christendom, the Dark Ages had begun. The seal of desolation was impressed
upon her by the iron heel of the Lombards. These barbarians had entered Italy
in 568. They were destined to found there a new and mighty kingdom, and alone
of the northerners to stamp their name on a province of Italy which still bears it,
and from which in a later age it was transferred by the bankers who dwelt in it
London.
to the City of
The kingdom of the Lombards lasted for more than two centuries, from 568
to 774. Throughout this period Italy no longer had one capital, but three, Pavia
116
 .«gr

,« n^H»i^^^H

^M "
ri_.,^.^„ '•'-

-._
' —« -aOWiMMMSX. -i-

:€::^^
of the Lombards, Ravenna of the Byzantines and Rome of the popes. Just as Leo
had laid the foundations of the independent papacy, so now another bishop of
Rome who, reaHzing that the Lombards had come to stay, and that hke
arose,
himself they were opposed to the pretensions of Byzantium in Italy, decided to
become the intermediary between Lombard and Italian. His name was Gregory,
and he ruled the Holy See from 590 until 604. He belonged to the Roman nobility
(the Senate had disappeared, but aristocracy lived on, as aristocracy generally
does) and was the grandson of a pope and son of a wealthy patrician. He became
prefect of the City in 573, but two years later he obeyed the call of piety, always
strong within him, and became a monk of St Andrew's in Rome, once his palace,
which he founded along with six other monasteries in Sicily out of his own funds.
In 579 Gregory was sent to Constantinople as the Pope's envoy, thus gaining
personal insight into the creed and politics of Byzantium. On his return to Rome
in 585 he became abbot of his monastery and was thence unwillingly elevated to
the throne of St Peter in 590.
Between Gregory and the men of light and learning who wrote and taught
before the Gothic wars, there is a gulf; and the gulf which separates antiquity
it is

from the Middle Ages. '

It was to Gregory that the defence of Rome from the attacks of the Lombards

inevitably fell, both the emperor and his Italian representative. Exarch as he was
called, being impotent to repel them. Thus perforce Gregory became a statesman
and It was he who made truces with neighbouring rulers, the
a secular ruler.
Lombard Duke of Spoleto and the Lombard king himself, however much the
emperor might resent it. Thus Gregory, rather than any imperial officer, became
the real ruler of the city, and so in essence the founder of the Papal States; for
already pious donors had enriched the Roman see not only with money but
with land. Gregory, besides being an administrator and ruler, was an upholder
of Leo's conception of the Holy See as possessing an authority above all others,
a universal jurisdiction. Finally, he was a theologian and author of such eminence
as to warrant his being acknowledged as the fourth of the great Doctors of the
Catholic Church, the other three being Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. It was
Gregory who in the slave-market of Rome recognized in the fair-haired lads from
the north 'not Angles, but Angels', and in the year 597 despatched St Augustine
of Canterbury to convert the English. Gregory's most questionable act arose from
his hostility to the emperor Maurice. When that ruler was murdered and
succeeded by the ruffian Phocas, Gregory addressed to the usurper a letter of

flowery adulation which was in fact a disaster for the empire.

at this 'dispensation',

The column erected in his honour by Smaragdus the Exarch of Italy in the Forum
has already been mentioned. Phocas was a rascal, and yet to him we owe the
Christianization, and thus the survival, of the Pantheon.
Only a professional few would now claim to be familiar with Gregory's
voluminous writings, his tracts, his homilies, his commentaries. (He employed
the years in Constantinople in the composition of a commentary on the Book of
Job, a task which reveals, even though unconsciously, his attitude to the East
and its Church: he never learned Greek.) Seen in retrospect his greatness consists
in his genius for government, and in his evangelization of England, which was
to become one of the most ardently loyal provinces of the Catholic Church and
the nursery of saints such as St Boniface, who were to have incalculable influence

118
on the faith and destiny of Europe.
Gregory's successors were men of far less abihty and vision. In 727 Gregory II,

to whom the Lombard king had presented the town of Sutri, 40 kilometres north
of Rome, headed a revolt against the Byzantine regime. Elected dukes replaced
imperial nominees. The was suppressed, the imperial officials returned and
revolt
the papacy suffered severely. Its estates outside Italy were confiscated, and

Illyricum, Sicily and the south were temporarily transferred to the Patriarch
of Constantinople. In 751 the Byzantine Exarchate fell to the Lombards, and the
Pope, like the dukes of Naples and Venice, assumed full powers of government
in the duchy of Rome, or as it now became the Patrimony of St Peter. The pope
still acknowledged the emperor as his sovereign and dated documents by his

regnal years. Inevitably the papacy saw its interests threatened by Lombard
expansion. By this time, as will already have become evident, it was a powerful
and beneficent overlord. Its vast estates furnished the resources with which it
was able to repair the walls and aqueducts of Rome, to support the proletariat
by its charities in succession to the vanished imperial dole, to supervise the civil
administration, and to maintain troops. Even before 751, it far outweighed the
'dukes' appointed by the Exarch. With so much to lose, it was essential for the
pope to find a counterbalance to the Lombard. And it was the Lombard king
Aistulf who rashly showed him where it was to be found. He threatened Rome,
whereupon the pope turned to Pepin, king of the Franks, whom he met in 754.
At this very time there came into circulation a convenient, and to that age
convincing, forgery which purported to demonstrate that Constantine, on with-
drawing to his new capital, had surrendered the rule of Italy to the pope.
In return for Pope Stephen's benediction and unction, that is, recognition as
king by the grace of God, Pepin moved against Aistulf, who was forced to sur-
render at Pavia, his own capital. He died in 756. The pope now ruled an enlarged
dominion under Prankish protection. In 771, Pepin's elder son, known to history
as Charlemagne, became sole ruler of the Franks. In 774 he was in Rome, and
confirmed all his father's rich donations to the papacy. The last link with
Byzantium was now snapped; and the pope dated his documents by his own
pontificate, not by the years of the emperor. The Lombard power was extin-
guished. Charlemagne was now paramount in the whole peninsula, and the pope
was his protdg^. On Christmas Day, in the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned
Charlemagne in St Peter's, hailing him as 'Charles Augustus crowned by God,
the great and peace-bringing Emperor of the Romans.' The western empire
was restored.

The Middle Ages

Or so it seemed. As Mommsen succinctly puts it, all restorations are revolutions.
The Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne was in fact a wholly new creation.
True, he was anxious to obtain, and finally did obtain, the agr6ment of Constanti-
—
nople he had disapproved of the pope's precipitate action in crowning him
and was determined to be a legitimate sovereign, not an upstart usurper but his —
empire was a wholly new creation. His dominions included not only the whole of
what is now France, but a large part of Germany as well, besides his protectorate
of papal Italy. When he died in 810, in his seventy-second year, he left behind
him an empire, it is true; but far more important, even if only because more

119

86 Manuscript representation
of Charlemagne from the
Rolandslied of Konrad of
Regensberg.
abiding, he bequeathed an idea. His theocracy was a model for the later papacy.
His political and social theories were the foundation of the Middle Ages, which
now dawned to extinguish the Dark Ages. Charlemagne was buried in the great
basilica atAachen, always his favourite residence. The church, enriched with
marbles wrenched from buildings in Ravenna, on one of which, the church of
San Vitale, it is modelled, has a definitely Roman aspect: it recalls in a striking
and apparently 'anachronistic' manner the palace of Diocletian at Split so —
powerful was the 'Roman' conception of this remarkable man, who could not
write, but loved to have read to him the City of God of Augustine and old
Prankish lays. In the treasury at Aachen is a famous jewel which proclaims better
than any written document the outlook of the new dynasty. It is called the Cross
of Lothair, from the rock-crystal of Lothair II of Lotharingia (855-869) which
it bears. Between the two arms of the cross, which is encrusted with precious
stones, is a cameo of Augustus the founder of the first Roman empire set in the
:
emblem of the founder of the second.
The papacy was now established as a great temporal power, a position it was
to occupy for centuries; moreover its spiritual authority had been greatly
enhanced. Yet Rome was to suffer still further degradation. The Holy City was
soon to be assaulted from two new quarters, from the east, and, most lethally
of all, from within, by her own greedy and unworthy citizens, if such they could
still be called.
Nothing and expansion of Islam had ever been seen
like the explosive rise
before in recorded history, nor has it ever been witnessed again. In little more
than a century, the Muslims had humbled Persia and the Levant, had occupied
North Africa and the greater part of Spain as well. It was only the victory of
Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, at Poitiers in 732 that saved Europe.
In or about 831 the Muslims conquered Sicily, and Bari shortly afterwards. Allied
briefly to the Duke of Naples, they devastated southern Italy. From their secure
bases they proceeded to raid far and wide. And not only to raid : place-names,
always a significant indication of ethnic movements, such as Maida in Calabria
(the word means 'table' in Arabic), or Margalina near Naples (Merj-al-'ain, or
meadow of the spring in Arabic) still bear witness to a Muslim presence. So does
Saracinesco within 50 kilometres to the east of Rome, where until the middle of
the last century the Arab names, including Almanzor
— 'Victor' — were commonly
bestowed. Such, then, was the Muslim grip on Italy that in 846 they were actually
able to sack the suburbs of Rome and the basilica of St Peter's,which being on the
right bank of the Tiber was outside the enceinte. The seat of the pope was, as it
technically still is, the Lateran Palace, which Constantine had presented to the
Bishop of Rome; and the basilica of St John Lateran is still styled omnium urbis et
orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput, mother and head of all the churches of the city
and the world. The old palace of the Plautii Laterani, on the ruins of which and
of the adjoining barracks the new edifice arose, was much larger than the present
one. The baptistery may well have been the nymphaeum of the former dwelling.
It suffered the usual vicissitudes of Roman buildings, having been devastated
by the Vandals, by Leo the Great in the fifth century and Adrian in the
rebuilt
eighth. St Peter's, on the other hand, was still, like S. Lorenzo or St Paul, one of
the extra-mural basilicas. Its destruction at the hands of the 'infidel' was a shock
to Christendom. St John Lateran might be the official seat of the Roman metro-
120
 :

politan, but St Peter's enshrined the mortal remains of the Prince of the Apostles,
and it was here that Charlemagne had received the crown and the chrism from
Pope Leo III. Leo IV, who became pope in 847, thereupon decided not only to
restore St Peter's but to enclose the adjoining district within a defensive wall
forty feet high. This new quarter was called the Borgo, or Leonine City. The name
Borgo still adheres to part of the district. It contained not only a subsidiary papal
residence, but a number of chapels and churches and monasteries and hospitals.
Foreign pilgrims soon established settlements here, which were called scholae or
borghi. In the eighth century there were four: those of the Frisians, Franks,
Lombards and Saxons, who in time of war formed separate
that is English,
companies of soldiers. The English are commemorated by the Baroque church
and hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia, originally built by King Ine of Wessex
(689-726), who died as a pilgrim in Rome. The Liber Pontificalis or Book of the
Popes, a tenth century compilation, records that in this same year 847 a terrible
fire broke out in the Borgo, only to be stayed by Pope Leo's making the sign of

the Cross. This is the subject of Raphael's famous fresco in the Vatican, which
includes the facade of the old St Peter's, still existing in his time (Plate 109).
Henceforth the Leonine City (linked with Castel Sant' Angelo, that is Hadrian's
mausoleum) was to be the papal citadel — the indirect bequest of Islam to the
hearth of Christendom.
Meanwhile the ruination of Rome by the Romans proceeded. As we have seen,
during the Dark Ages, specially after the ravages of Totila, the last links with
antiquity had been severed, so that men neither remembered who were the
creators of the grandeurs of the City, nor, in consequence, revered them. The
great chronicler of Rome in the Middle Ages, Gregorovius, thus laments the
obliteration of so much of 'Romanitas'

'Charlemagne had already set the example of carrying off ancient columns and
sculptures to adorn his cathedral at Aachen, and the popes, who regarded the
greatest monuments of Rome as the property of the state, possessed neither taste
nor time nor ability to take measures for their preservation. The plundering of
ancient buildings became the order of the day. The
were indefatigable priests
in transferring antique columns and marbles and
to their churches; the nobles,
even the abbots, took possession of magnificent ancient edifices which they
disfigured by the addition of modern towers; and the citizens established their
work-shops, rope-walks, and smithies in the towers and circuses of imperial
87 The Torre delle Milizie,
Rome. The fisherman selling his fish near the bridges over the Tiber, the butcher built by Gregory IX in the
displaying his meat at the theatre of Marcellus, and the baker exposing his bread thirteenth century, typical of

for sale, deposited their wares on the magnificent slabs of marble which had once the defensive fortresses
erected in many parts of
been used as seats by the senators in the theatre or circus and perhaps by Caesar,
Rome in the Middle Ages.
Mark Antony, Augustus and other masters of the world. The elaborately
sculptured sarcophagi of Roman heroes were scattered in every direction and 88 Manuscript sketch of an
enthroned king from a
converted into cisterns, washing-vats, and troughs for swine; and the table of
treatise on falconry which
the tailor and the shoemaker was perhaps formed of the cippus of some the emperor Frederick II is

illustrious Roman, or of a slab of alabaster once used by some noble Roman reputed to have written.
matron for the display of her jewellery. For several centuries Rome may be said This figure could even be
Frederick himself, the
to have resembled a vast lime-kiln, into which the costliest marbles were
'Stupor Mundi'. Vatican
recklessly cast for the purpose of burning lime; and thus did the Romans Library

121
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incessantly pillage, burn, dismantle and utterly destroy their glorious old city.'

Gregorovius might have added the wholesale removal or liquidation of any

bronze subject, however beautiful, of which examples have already been given,
and will be given again; and the destructive search for iron, to obtain which from
the dowells of ancient structures, range after range of masonry was wantonly
prized apart. Of the private towers which the German historian mentions, the
most famous survivor is which still frowns,
the Torre delle Milizie (Plate 87),
slightly limping, over the imperial forums. by Gregory IX (1227-
It was built

124 1), and was held successively by the Annibaldi and the Caetani. In 1312
Henry VII of Luxemburg chose it as his base of defence against the Guelphs
when he came to Rome to be crowned. Only less familiar are two other towers,
both equally visible from the Via dei Fori Imperiali, both of the thirteenth
century, the Torre dei Conti, which was known to Petrarch, and the Torre del
Grillo, which still commands one of the finest views in Rome. These three are

known to every visitor to the city; but there still stand thirteen others, in whole
or in part, within the ancient walls (one on the Island), and one in Trastevere.
Then there are five on the Via Appia, one of which is Saracen, and one on the
road to Palestrina. These extra-mural towers are erected on the remains of
ancient sepulchres. Within the walls, not only were towers constructed on new
foundations or, as outside, on the relics of Roman buildings, but those very
buildings themselves were transformed into fortresses. The mausoleum of
Hadrian, as already described, was the first to be so degraded. The tomb of
Augustus followed, and the theatre of Marcellus. Even the arch of Titus, at the
head of the Sacred Way, was burdened with a breastwork of the Frangipani,
a desecration with which it was to be painted by Turner among others (Plate 183),
because it was not until 182 1 that it was liberated and restored.
Medieval Rome suffered not only from the internecine strife of rival barons
external aggression continued as before.
The foundation of the Holy Roman Empire (it only became such in the tenth
century, but the retrospective use of the title is convenient) had established the
union of Church and State, but not their unity; and the centuries following
Charlemagne were often agitated by the efforts of one or the other to disturb
the balance in its own favour. The papacy, weak or strong, remained one, but
the empire did not: it was often rent by faction, and partition. In 962 Pope John
XII invited Otto I of Germany to renew once more the Roman empire. He was
crowned by the pope on Candlemas (2 February) 962, and thus (in Sir Ernest
Barker's words) 'was begun the Holy Roman empire, which lasted until 1806 . . .

The relationship of the empire to the papacy is indeed the cardinal fact in its
history for the three centuries which followed the coronation of Otto I (962-1250).'
In 1001 the Romans rose against Otto III and besieged him in his palace on the
Aventine. He died when preparing to besiege the city he had been compelled to
vacate, and a patrician usurper became master of Rome, a sign of the disordered
times. In 1081 Henry IV, of Canossa fame, appeared before Rome, whose citizens 89 Manuscript illumination
rallied to their pope, who was none other than the redoubtable Hildebrand, of Eugenius IV (1431-47)

St Gregory VII. In 1083 Henry captured the Leonine city and St Peter's. Next year, surrounded by cardinals,
showing the influence of a
softened by bribery, the Romans surrendered, while Gregory held out in
Lombardy style of decoration.
St Angelo. Henry humiliated the pontiff who had humiliated him by installing Vatican Library

125
 his own anti-pope, who duly crowned him emperor in March 1084.
But now appeared yet another northern newcomer. As every schoolboy
knows, itwas in the year 1066 that England became a Norman province. Equally
dramatic were the exploits of the Normans in the south. Beginning with the year
1016, a steady stream of Norman adventurers found their way to southern Italy,
among them men as capable as they were determined. Robert Guiscard was one
of them. Excommunicated by the pope, he saw his opportunity in the discord
90 The apse of SS. Giovanni between emperor and Gregory. He posed as the 'ally' of the latter. Henry retired
e Paolowith its decorative
and Guiscard entered Rome, which endured one of the most harrowing devasta-
arcade, a direct importation
from Lombardy. tions it has ever known. It was brutally sacked, and a large part of it, as far as
the Capitol itself, was left in ruins. Never again could Rome be the glittering city
91 The campanile of
which had awed and charmed conqueror and pilgrim alike. In the following year,
SS. Giovanni e Paolo, one of
several Romanesque towers 1085, both Gregory and Henry died, the pope an exile, the king fighting the
in Rome. Byzantines.

126
 '

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A£jL£JL±^A*mii',a M?t ^m i

92 One of the ambones
S.Maria in Aracoeli
decorated with formal
mosaic patterns by two of the
Cosmati family in the
thirteenth century. Similarly
formalized patterns appear in
the floor paving.
93 The church of S. Saba,
a refuge for oriental monks
in the seventh century,
rebuilt in the tenth, and
decorated with mosaics in
the thirteenth. The loggia
dates from the fifteenth.
94 The cloister of St Paul
without the Walls, finished
in the twelfth century and
remarkable for the superb
workmanship of the carving
and mosaics.
Hildebrand's achievements were twofold. He reformed and invigorated the
Church, by suppressing simony, bracing the moral structure, and enforcing the
celibacy of the clergy. He also took issue with Henry over what is known as the
'Investiture' dispute. In short, to Gregory it seemed intolerable that a layman
should invest a churchman with the symbols of office. Henry thought it highly
undesirable that the perquisites and revenues accruing from lay investiture
should be surrendered : it was reasonable, he claimed, that ecclesiastics should
receive investiture of temporalities from their temporal suzerains. There was
righton both sides, and as is usual in such cases, the struggle was long. It was
ended by a compromise reached at Worms in 1 122, and ratified by a Lateran
Council in 1123, by which, as was seemly, the things which were Caesar's were
rendered unto Caesar, and the things which were God's, to God's vicegerent.
As so often before and after, the charmed life of the Eternal City seemed
quickened by adversity. The twelfth century saw a notable revival of civic life.
Much work was done for the restoration of the churches, many of which were
radically reconstructed. Those of S. Clemente, SS. Quattro Coronati, S. Maria in
Trastevere, S. Crisogono, S. Maria in Cosmedin are specially notable. The influence
of the Lombard Romanesque style is clearly visible in certain structural and
decorative details, such as the apse of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Plate 90), which looks
as though it had been imported stone by stone from Lombardy itself, and above
all in the campanileswhich now began to rise among the secular towers of the
had been the boast of Augustus that he had found Rome a city of brick,
city. It
and had left it a city of marble. The marble, alas, was gone now; but the twelfth
century could, and did, at least restore the brick. These beautiful square towers
depend on a subtle combination of elements for their attraction. First, the material,
the russet glow of the brick, which in the ever-changing light of Rome seems to
take on a living lustre; secondly the proportions of height to volume, and thirdly
the disposition of the arcaded fenestration, the variation of the arches in number
and width. There no doubt that the development of the medieval campanile
is
owes much to the Islamic minaret, a debt which in the Roman campaniles is
in stressed by the use of ceramic insets in the fabric. The highest campanile in Rome
(75 metres) is that of S. Maria Maggiore, which dates from the fourteenth century
(Plate 162). That of S. Maria in Cosmedin, of the twelfth, is one of the most
beautiful. That of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, of the same epoch, can compare with
it (Plate 91).
Another original contribution to the art of the twelfth century is the style of
mosaic, of marbles and gold tesserae combined generally known as 'Cosmatesque'
from the name of a Roman family called Cosmati, seven members of which, for
four generations practised as sculptors, architects and above all mosaicists.
Here again a strong Islamic influence, probably mediated through Sicily, is
evident. Their principal works in Rome are the ambones in S. Maria in Aracoeli
(Plate 92), the portal of S. Saba (1205) (Plate 93), the door with mosaics of the litde
church of Tomaso in Formis up on the Celian hill, signed by a
S. father and son
of the family which date it to between 1205 and 1210, tombs in S. Maria sopra
Minerva (Rome's only 'Gothic' church) and finally the magnificent cloisters of
St Paul without the Walls (Plate 94) and St John Lateran, both of which date
from the last quarter of the thirteenth century. A great many other unsigned
works of this gifted family have survived in Rome. The style spread, not only
128
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 in Italy and Sicily, but even as far as England : the shrine of the Confessor in
Westminster Abbey is a work of this school (c. 1268).
Another important artistic development was the evolution of the figurative
mosaic used in wall decoration, what we generally call 'Byzantine' in distinction
from the more formal, architectural 'Cosmatesque' style. The pictorial mosaic
now became less 'Byzantine', more free and realistic. To what extent the Roman
artists really had 'liberated' the art from the trammels of Constantinople is

much harder to define than it was twenty years ago, because mosaics have come
to light there, notably in the church of S. Saviour in Chora, which display a vivid
realism, the work of early fourteenth-century artists, who are clearly the heirs
of a well-established tradition. From the middle of the thirteenth century,
we have in Rome the vault of the apse in S. Maria in Trastevere (Plate 82).
Even earlier is the work of three Roman artists : Jacopo Torriti (apse of S. Maria
Maggiore, 1295, and St John Lateran), Filippo Rusuti (the fagade of S. Maria
Maggiore), and Pietro Cavallini (the apse of S. Maria in Trastevere and perhaps
the unique golden mosaics of the west fagade) (Plate 96). Cavallini, Giotto's senior
by a few years, is the author of the frescoes in S. Cecilia, which mark the

beginning of a more lifelike art, and the transition from the Middle Ages to
the Renaissance.
Before we enter on that great and splendid epoch, we must briefly resume the
political history of Rome during the late Middle Ages. The story is, as usual,
one of disaster and distress.
The struggle for power became more and more complicated and bitter,

throughout the twelfth century. Pope, emperor and Norman — the triangular
match went on interminably, with ever-changing alliances of two of them against
the third. That was bad enough; but in the middle of the century, yet another
contender entered the field. This was none other than the people of Rome itself.

It happened that in the north of Italy those great republics which were to be its
glory were already being born — popular municipalities or communes (the word
is still current in Italy), as foils to the pretensions of rapacious 'barons'. The same

desire for life and liberty stirred in Rome. Despite the city's location in the desolate,
unhealthy and unproductive campagna, despite the factions of its rude so-called
nobility, despite the claims upon it of an absentee emperor and a resident pope,
the Romans were determined that they, too, should administer their own com-
mune. The final breach with the pope came about in 1143. Innocent II, himself a
member of a powerful Roman house, had concluded peace with the town of
Tivoli, of which the Romans were the sworn enemies, without consulting them.
The citizens, spurred on by Arnold of Brescia, a fiery agitator, and pupil of the
95 Detail of the apse mosaic
great Abelard, thereupon proclaimed on the Capitol the constitution of a republic,
in S. Maria in Trastevere
showing Innocent II
renewed the Senate, excluding from it the Prefect, the traditional warden of
30^3) holding a model
( 1 1
order. They recognized the emperor, who was far enough away not to be tiresome,
of the church which he but declared themselves independent of the pope, whom they wished to strip
rebuilt.
of his temporal power: he ought to live on tithes and alms, they said. Innocent
96 Part of the facade of died in September 1143, to be succeeded by two transients and then in 1145
S. Maria in Trastevere by Eugenius III, a Pisan, who was compelled to quit Rome almost as soon as he
showing the gold mosaic of
was elected.
the Madonna flanked by
wise and foolish virgins with In the year 1154 a new era opens, for it was then that the House of Swabia
two donors at her feet. entered the scene, to be inextricably bound up with the papacy for the next

132
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centur\\ It was to produce two famous men, Frederick I Hohenstaufen,
'Barbarossa' or red-beard, and his even more famous grandson, Frederick II,
'stupor mundt'. the wonder of the world, both of whom ruled Sicily. A new pope
was consecrated in 1 154. He was an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, and took
the title of Hadrian IV. He soon shewed his mettle. One day a cardinal was
attacked and wounded by some of Arnold of Brescia's creatures. Hadrian replied
by placing Rome under an interdict, a punishment without precedent. It brought
the Romans to their knees. Arnold was banished, and Hadrian celebrated Easter
with confident pomp. His first reconciliation with Frederick Hohenstaufen had
the odious result that Arnold was handed over, burnt at the stake, and his ashes
thrown into the Tiber. Frederick then had to bow to the Englishman's insistence
on what he claimed to be his prerogatives, and to serve him publicly as groom
and squire. Hadrian now crowned the German as emperor, which infuriated the
Romans, %vho after heavy fighting compelled both pope and emperor to leave
Rome. Thev quarrelled, and were still at enmity when Hadrian died in 11 59.
A new pope, and a rival, anti-pope (he was not the first) were consecrated.
Frederick was still in the ascendant. In 167 he again appeared outside Rome,
1

on Monte Mario above the Vatican. Once again Rome saw bloodshed, with
Frederick holding the right bank of the Tiber, and the pope the left. He soon ficd.
Frederick w^as now master not only of Rome, but of all Italy. 'The Empire of
Charlemagne was on the point of revival in all its pristine majesty. But the
decrees of history *vere othervsise written.' His host, like that of the Assyrians of
old, *vas smitten with a sudden and lethal fever. 'The powerful monarch who had
descended on Italy certain of victory returned to his own country alone, disarmed,
a fugitive.' But the troubles of the pope, Alexander III. were by no means at

an end. In 1 1 74 Barbarossa entered Italv for the fifth time Three years later peace
between Church and Empire was solemnly ratified, as was also a truce with the
Lombards and Sicily. Alexander died in 1 181, after a pontificate of twenty-two
years. Frederick was drowned while on a crusade in southern Turkey on
10 June. 1 190.
The thirteenth century, in politics as in art, was a continuation of its pre-
decessor except that as already noted the
: development was homogeneous,
artistic

if meagre: art is always less halting than statecraft, which is why the medieval

process has already been treated as the unity it was. Not so the political scene.
The first half of the centurv' was dominated by Frederick II, the greatest ruler
in Europe (and of roost of it) between Charlemagne and Napoleon. As a child he
was committed by his mother, widow of Barbarosva's son Henry VI, to the care
of the pope. Innocent III. Voung Frederick soon showed his independence
From his mother he had inherited the kingdom of Sicily. In 1215, at the age of
ne he was crowned king of Germany, and emperor three years later

death in 1 250 Frederick was to be the constant adversary- of the papacy

Materially no pope could match the emperor. He had no army of his own, and
the Guelphs who
adhered to him were generally too busy fighting their
Ghibeihne. pro-impenal. rivals. As we have seen, the Romans liked to govern
themselves and to appoint their own officials and senators. Many a pope, as
Runciman reminds us. had to spend half his reign in exile.
With Frederick's death, affairs became worse, not better First, the one power
which could have united all Italy, by cancelling the temporal power of the

IM
popes, was gaoc SeoondiT. die necrwieseoce ot iMer-ojMinwil stnfe not onhr
i l r J tjhe coaMij iMt opened Ae vny for fore^ inTaden. Tliirdly.
I

A
wi& R edtri . iIk HoIt ITiiiw Bapire as « firing s^stta of p»TeiiuneaK c«Me
to an **«i Fill III IT the gip in die jjuuggk for powcs- btiwtta Manfred.
I

« ai^^Mioiv son of Rcdenck. and Charles of Aiqou. champion of dte pofv.

ffis alh w ^y ^-^ *"< Mwliitirim t-— '"^^^ >ir«i«giiic>i#«i in Tftp^ grilSMi Ve-spers'
i r

of 30 Mxch 1282 v^cb dae exasperated inhabitants of Palenno massacred the

Reach gBTisan mi Noraan power in Stcaly. Thus in
so gvpe the death kneO to
129a hafy was ilsdf bat a nKKaic HohenstauCcn enqperors, Manfred. Charies of

Aiqon—aB had tiied to ante the land and all in turn had failed. The pope^
^ebo since the great i^wM^ttti* m, the guardian of the infant Frederick II. had
:-cv^ -e- --f -:> 'vicar of Onst' (no knger moely the successor of St Peter)

iheir power to supervise the perunsuU, but their political

ex moce Haiaging to dieir spiritual authorirk' in Eun>pe.
::i-ropes'. of iidioin during the twdfth CMiiurv- there had
-.e^;
- zirested : in 1 199 IniK>cent had instituted dirtvi papal
- — >? .>f die most ariminal assaults in historv". the taking
- ;
- ~ Crusade, until 1261. Latin catholics had ruled
, ^cnnir\- had seen the lives and ministries of St Francis
France. The great monastic orders had increased and
-
r. r r. : : well seem, xs-ith the pope as its ruler, was aKnit to
vtahilirv- and splendour. In fac: ii was .iKnii to
-

:.ny in its histoni'.

The Great Captivity

In the year 1300 Pope Boniface VBI proclaimed a Jubilee, the first such event.
It was celebrated with great pomp, and Dante has described the long lines ot
pilgrims crossing the bridge to the Vatican. In 1305 Boniface's short-lived
successor. Benedict XI. died. For the election of the new pope the conclave was
held not in but at Perugia, and the man elected was not an Italian but a
Rome
Frenchman, Bertrand de Got. archbishop of Bordeaux, who not being a cardinal
had not attended the conclave but had remained in France, where he was
constrained to stay bv the French king. PhiHp the Fair. The new pope was duly
crowned as Clement V at Lvon. King Philip attended the ceremony and by one of
most
histon,''s prescient coincidences the officiating cardinal was named
Napoleone Orsini, thus uniting names which would again be associated in
tivo

the interlocked destinies of France and Italy more than five centuries later.
Clement set up his court at Avignon, and thereby inaugurated the Babylonian
Captivity' in which he and his six successors would exist, until in 1377
Gregors' XI went back to Rome.
The absence of the pontiff was disastrous for Rome, which became a city of
the dead. The Capitol became 'monte caprino'— goat hill, the Forum 'campo
vaccino'. cow pasture. As already noted, the sack of 1084 by die Normans had
permanently altered the character of the city had transformed it from an 'ancient' :

to a 'medieval' to\NTi. The core of the city on the left bank was now confined to the
'U' formed by the bend of the river, which lies between Sant' Angelo and the
Ripetta (the Uttle riverside quay on the left bank of the Tiber)— what we still
call 'old Rome'.

135
 The number of the inhabitants fluctuated between seventeen and fifty
thousand in imperial days it had been over a miUion. The right bank, that is
:

Trastevere and the Vatican Borgo, formed what was virtually a separate city,
although by the thirteenth century it had been officially reunited with the rest
as the thirteenth region of the city. (Augustus had divided it into fourteen).
The and Palatine were still inhabited in some measure. The
Capitol, Quirinal
Aventine had been depopulated since the eleventh century, its famous convents
abandoned or turned into fortresses. Churches and convents stood isolated in
gardens. St Paul, S. Lorenzo, St Agnes, S. Maria ad Presepe, had become
autonomous nuclei, fortified like feudal castles. St John Lateran maintained a
tenuous link with the shrunken city via the Celian hill, but stood aloof from the
commune or the barons.
Trade was diminished : stonecutters, ropemakers (whose trade the church of
S. still found employment. The grain-
Caterina dei Funari today recalls), smiths,
97 Gold seal of Ludovic II
sellerseven preserved a pathetic memento of imperial opulence the painted —
of Bavaria showing the elephant which adorned their market, a relic of the days when Rome was fed
characteristic features of
from the land of the elephant, Africa. But even in this decline, some of the
Rome in the fourteenth
century. Munich, Staatliche monuments of antiquity seem to have survived. The Via Lata, the Corso of today,
Miinzsammlung still served as the chief thoroughfare of the city, still spanned by three triumphal

136
 :

arches, all now perished. Other roads ledand to the Tiber. Of ancient
to the Celian 98 Fresco painting of the
poet Petrarch by Andrea del
monuments, the survivors were reduced almost to those we now see. A golden Castagno. Florence, Convent
seal of Ludovic II shows the city in relief (Plate 97).
of Bavaria, of 1328, of Sant'Apollonia
Aurelian's walls, complete with towers and gates, encircle it. Among the
monuments clearly identifiable are the Colosseum, apparently whole, St John
:

Lateran, the pyramid of Cestius, the arch of Constantine, Trajan's column,

the Torre delle Milizie, the fortified Capitol, the Pantheon (a bit misplaced) the
mausoleum of Hadrian (Sant' Angelo), old St Peter's, and S. Maria in Trastevere.

In 1 346 an earthquake shook Rome, two years later the Black Death enfeebled it,

and 1349 yet another earthquake, the worst in the whole history of the city
in
made Rome's ruin yet more ruinous. Could such a wreck survive, so cold a corpse
breathe again ?
Once more, the Eternal City was to prove itself undying. The fourteenth century
was to see the dawn of humanism, the recovery of many ancient Greek and Roman
writers — in fact, nearly all of whom we have knowledge today — and in Rome
itself, not only, amid the almost continuous strife and bloodshed, a vivid

enthusiasm for the greatness of ancient Rome, but the rise, decline and fall of
one of the most remarkable, and tragic, Romans who ever lived.
The feeling for the bygone grandeur of Rome had been born in the preceding
century, if not before. Frederick II, who always declared that Palermo was his
real home, nevertheless had inscribed on his seal:

'O fior d'ogni citta, donna del mondo,

O degna, imperiosa monarchia'

meaning Rome. But the man who is generally regarded as the 'begetter' of the
Renaissance is the poet and humanist Petrarch, who was born at Arezzo in 1304,

seventeen years before Dante's death, and lived until 1374. His life is thus almost
conterminous with the 'Babylonian captivity', and it is the poet, rather than any
pope, who was to restore the consciousness of Rome. Petrarch wrote both in
Italian and in Latin. It was in the former tongue that he immortalized his Laura.
In it, too, he apostrophized Rome

'L'antichp mura che ancor teme e ama

E trema il mondo quando si remembra
Del tempo andato .'
. .

Bold and beautiful words, brave, too for the age in which they were uttered.
Petrarch visited Rome at least three times. He was thirty-three when he first
went there. Four years later, in crowned on the Capitol
1341, he returned to be
as poet laureate. In a letter written a few months later to his Roman friend
Giovanni Colonna, he recalls how the two of them had roamed over the 'immense
circuit of the city', and had rested on the broken vault of the Baths of Diocletian,
and had divided history into two great episodes. Petrarch, like so many great
spirits, was a devoted disciple of Saint Augustine. The dividing point for him,

between ancient and modern, was the recognition of Christianity by the emperors ;

but that in no way inhibits this good Augustinian Christian from extolling pagan

137

99 The Return from Avignon
of Pope Gregory XI, a fresco
by Matteo di Giovanni
Bartolo. Siena, Ospedale di
S. Maria delta Scala
Rome, and bestowing upon it an existence in its own right. Thus did Petrarch
introduce a new chronological demarcation in history.
An ong those who were in Rome at the time of Petrarch's coronation on the
Capitol was a young man of twenty-eight, who, like Petrarch, was aflame for
Rome, Rome's greatness, above all Rome's liberty.
His name was Nicola, son of a very poor man called Lorenzo, but he is known to
history and to fame as Cola di Rienzo, or simply Rienzi. He was born in 1313, in
the old Rione Regola, down by what is now the Ponte Garibaldi. His childhood
was unhappy, and he was thrown in upon himself, as sensitive spirits generally
are. Caught up in the current of the time, he came to love the classics and antiquity
and to hate the upstart nobles of contemporary Rome, his hatred being sharpened
when his younger brother was wantonly killed in a faction-fight. At the beginning
of the reign of Clement VI, he suddenly came to the forefront, astonishing the
Romans not only by his erudition but by his grandiose schemes for the recreation
of a free Rome, and the destruction of the barons. The pope must come back to
St Peter's shrine, the Eternal City must once again be the world's metropolis.
Above all, the people must be sovereign, subject only to God. In 1342, not yet
thirty, he was sent by the Romans as one of an embassy to the pope, and returned
as the newly-appointed notary of the Camera urbana. This office he used to
prepare for the revolution which he knew to be inevitable. What is so remarkable
about Cola is that not only did he dream of revolution, he actually achieved it.
On the morning of 20 May 1347, the 'Roman People' were summoned to the
Capitol, by the tolling of the great bell, and having assembled duly conferred on
Cola the widest dictatorial powers, and from him received back a new constitution.
Arms were rounded up, the barons were curbed, and confined to their castles
and lairs. The Campagna was safe for wayfarers. It was an extraordinary achieve-
ment. On 1 August, amid romantic and pompous imagery (which some considered
blasphemous) Cola was dubbed knight. On 15 August he assumed, remembering
the Gracchi, the title of Tribune of the People.
The pope, who had at first favoured the brilliant youth, now saw him as a rival,
and from September 1347 began to oppose him. The Colonna family, with one of
whom Cola was friendly, revolted. They were overcome; but with fatal clemency
Cola, after an unnecessarily humiliating 'trial', reprieved them and others of their
class. They at once made new head. The fickle people turned against their idol.
On 15 December Cola abdicated and fled to the south. There he passed two years
in meditation in a Franciscan convent. Thence he set out to visit the emperor
Charles IV at Prague. Charles who took little interest in Italy, was affronted by
Cola's summons that he go to Rome. Contemptuously, he imprisoned him, and
then (the archbishop of Prague's instruction having proved unfruitful) packed
him off to the pope. Clement VI, in terrified spite, condemned his former protdg^ to
death, but fortunately himself died before the sentence was carried out.
Innocent VI set him free and dispatched him with Cardinal Albernoz, a gifted
statesman, to aid in pacifying the papal states. On I August 1354 he re-entered
Rome with the title of Senator. Despite the enthusiastic friendship of Petrarch
his new reign was shortlived. Corrupted by absolute power. Cola shewed himself
vindictive and dissolute. The people turned against him once again, and he was
killed ("again like the Gracchi) in a riot amid the citizens who had betrayed him.
But the spirit of Cola di Rienzo lived on. He was hailed as 'the Last of the
138
139
100 Tomb of Martin V who Tribunes', but in truth he was the First of the Liberators, even if five hundred
set himself up as an Italian
years were to pass before his work was completed. That he should have left as
prince and restored papal
prestige. St John Lateran
his sole architectural memorial the staircase which leads up to the Ara Coeli,
the altar of heaven, on the Capitol, is fittingly symbolical.
Cola, too, was symbolical the torch which he and his friend Petrarch lit might
:

smoulder, but it could not be put out. The light of humanism shone ever brighter.

So did the beacon on imperial Rome, because now that more and more of its
ancient authors were being rediscovered, in forgotten libraries, remote mon-
asteries, in dank cellars even, the minds of men were inflamed with the glories

of the reborn past. In January 1377, Gregory XI, a Frenchman who had been
elected pope in 1370, ventured back to Rome. Disorders at once broke out — they
—
had become endemic by now and even the sacred college was rent by faction.
Gregory died in March 1378. His successor. Urban VI, was hastily and irregularly
chosen, and so there was still no peace. What is known as the Great Schism of
the West now began, and lasted until 1417. At one time there were not two rival
popes, but three, one of them being styled 'John XXIII', a stigma which was only
removed when in 1958 the saintly Roncalli chose the same title on his election to
the papal throne.
The prospects were bleak indeed and ; yet, such is the resilience of Rome, it is

from the Return that the great age of the papal city and state begins, that age
during which Rome was to assume the aspect it wears today, and to become the
unrivalled centre of art and learning which it has ever since been.
The most abiding development came about almost by chance. As already
related, St John Lateran, the mother church of Rome, and the official residence of
the popes since the days of Constantine, was now isolated and desolate. It is even
said that the church had become a shelter for sheep and goats. It was therefore
deemed prudent to transfer the residence of the pope to the Vatican, which was
protected by the fortifications of the Borgo, and by Sant' Angelo. Thus 'The
Vatican' came into being. Despite the bloody rivalries of empire, commune and
papacy, this precinct had always remained under the jurisdiction of the pope.
It, too, was in ruinous state, but was soon to arise like the phoenix.

When in 1417, after the third Council of Constance, a Roman of the Romans,
Cardinal Odo Colonna was elected pope as Martin V, it was possible to think of
rebuilding and embellishment. The results were surprising. The pope, despite
the damage done to papal prestige by exile, schism and the manoeuvres of the
Councils, of which Constance was but the last, now established himself as an
Italian prince; the power of the commune was curbed and Rome was the undis-
puted capital of the western Christian world.
His successor, Eugenius IV, a man of wide culture, started work on the restora-
tion of the Borgo and the embellishment of St Peter's; but schism broke out once
again — fortunately for the last time— and a rival was acclaimed by the Council of
Bale in 1439. Thus it fell to his successor, Nicholas V, elected in 1447, to be the
real founder of the new Rome. who had studied for
Nicholas was a humanist,
seven years at Bologna, and was at home and knew the leading
in Florence
scholars of Italy. He had two ruling passions, building and books. He rebuilt
the walls and a great part of the Capitol, he restored several churches, he planned
and partly carried out extensive additions to the Vatican, and he actually started
to rebuild St Peter's from the foundations. His bronze doors (Plate 102), executed

140
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by the Florentine Filarete, were the very first example of Renaissance art in
Rome. They were made between 1433 and 1445, and still stand in the new
basilica. His chief claim to gratitude is that he practically founded the Vatican
Library, the greatest of all Renaissance libraries. When he died in 1455 it con-
tained 353 Greek manuscripts and 824 Latin ones. It was a golden age for
copyists, until the introduction into Rome of printing in 1467. The cult of the

antique had been pressed by Eugenius IV's distinguished secretary Biondo.

who was the father of classical archaeology. The influx of Greek scholars, long
before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, specially at the time of the Council of
Florence in 1439, had powerfully stimulated it. It reaches its apogee in the paint-

ings of Mantegna: his Triumph of Julius Caesar (I484-I492), now at Hampton

Court, is the epitome of the century. From 1458 was
to 1464 the papal throne 101 Tomb of Nicholas V,
humanist, builder and
occupied by the celebrated Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who
honour of the
in
scholar, the founder of
first Aeneas, took the name Pius II. His fame is personal rather than official. He was Renaissance Rome.
constantly absent from Rome, which once again was harrowed by strife. Vatican Grottoes

141
 zjh^^-y^i^^^^'^^it^^
102 Detail of the bronze
doors of St Peter's executed
by the Florentine Filarete
in 1439^5, showing
Eugenius IV and the
emperor Sigismund entering
Rome.
103 The Loggia of the
Knights of Rhodes
overlooking the market of
Trajan.
104 Courtyard of the
Palazzo Venezia built for
Pope Paul II, when he was a
Venetian cardinal, with
stones taken from the
Colosseum.
105 Detail oi Sixtus IV
nominating Platina prefect of
the Vatican Library by
Melozzo da Forli. The
cardinal behind is one of the
pope's relations. Pinacoteca
Vaticana
tu^^-.i
Towards the end of the century two successive popes shed new lustre on Rome.
Paul II was a Venetian, with the Venetian's love of splendour. It was Paul who
granted to cardinals the right to wear the red biretta and damask mitre previously
restricted to the pope himself. It was Paul who started the famous horse-races
down the main street of Rome, the old Via Lata, which has henceforth for that
reason been known as the Corso. Most important of all, Paul when still a cardinal
built at theend of the Corso, with stones taken from the Colosseum, the great
secular building of the new Rome, namely the Palazzo Venezia (Plate 104).
He liked to live there as pope and to fling coins to the populace from the same
balcony from which in a later age Mussolini flung threats. It remained papal
property until 1564, when it was assigned to the Venetian republic as its Rome
embassy, together with the titular cardinalate of the neighbouring church of
S. Marco (which is in fact incorporated in the palace). This cardinal was always a
Venetian. It was Paul who introduced printing. He overhauled the finances and
the food supply. He had the laws codified. He conferred on the French king the
title 'most Christian'; but he himself was indeed Rome's first, modern, secular
antique bronzes formed the nucleus of the Capitoline
ruler. His collection of
collection.Maiano and Alberti, the architects of S. Marco also appear to have
erected the charming Loggia of the Knights of Rhodes which overlooks the
imperial fora (Plate 103).
In 1471 Paul was succeeded by Sixtus IV. He was General of the Franciscans.
142
 X

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106 S. Maria della Pace
which Sixtus IV had built in
fulfilment of his vow to
build a church when the
war with Florence came to
an end.

107 The Apollo Belvedere,

which was found just
outside Rome in the fifteenth
century and taken into
Julius ll's collection. It is a
Roman copy of a Greek
bronze from 400 BC.
Vatican Museums

108 The Ponte Sisto, the

only bridge in Rome to be
built by a pope, by the same
architect as originally
designed S. Maria della Pace,
Baccio Pontelli.

109 One wall of the Stanza

d'Incendio in the Vatican
Palace showing in the panel
on the right how Raphael
drew on the 'grotesque'
As he came from a humble family of Savona he had no grand relations to appoint
motifs he had seen in Nero's
buried palace. to key offices. He therefore had the practical idea of creating them by nepotism,
which he was the first pope to organize as an administrative machine.
'In the sphere of Art, Rome owes more to the lowly family from Savona,' says

the Cambridge Mediaeval Historv, 'than to any other papal house, for Julius II
did but continue the work begun in his uncle's reign. The Sistine Chapel, built
from 1473 to 1481, and expressly designed for internal decoration, brought
together a group of artists such as the modern world has never seen.' On a first
visit to the Vatican it is easy to regard the Sistine Chapel (named after Sixtus)

as a sort of annexe to the great basilica, if only because it is generally entered after
St Peter's; but the chapel (Plate 111) is the senior of the two by more than a
century. Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Roselli, Signorelli, Perugino, Pinturicchio,
Melozzo all contributed to its enrichment. Part of their work was to be obliterated
in the next century by the destruction of three of the fifteen panels to make way
for Michelangelo's Last Judgement, which replaced the key of the whole design,
the Ascension with the kneeling figure of Sixtus. Sixtus also built the churches
of S. Maria della Pace (Plate 106), and S. Maria del Popolo, the family church
of the Delia Roveres. The streets of Rome were paved, its squares opened out
in preparation for the next Jubilee of 1475. Once again, the Trevi fountain,
though not in its present famous guise, gave fresh water to the city. The old
'ponte rotto' was repaired, and the two banks of the Tiber linked by the Ponte
Sisto, the firstbridge to be built for more than a millenium, and the only one to
thisday to be built by a pope (Plate 108). It stands on the site of a bridge built by
Marcus Aurelius and gave access to Sixtus' rebuilt Hospital of Santo Spirito.
His Via Sistina joined Castel Sant' Angelo and the piazza of old St Peter's.
In 1484 Innocent VIII succeeded Sixtus. With him it was no longer nephews
who reaped the harvest, but illegitimate children he had seven. The brother-in-
:

146
 i
f^l^^iiMLi
.jpHI^I^^ 1^"^

-H,.

ti#- *--

10 Detail from the
1
Disputation of St Catherine
by Pinturicchio, one of
several frescoes painted for
the Borgia apartments.
The figure of the saint
disputing with the
philosophers is supposed to
be a contemporary portrait
of Lucrezia Borgia,
Alexander VI's daughter
Vatican Palace
law of one ot them was made a cardinal at the age of fourteen (he was later
Pope Leo X). Innocent built the Vatican Belvedere, which was shortly to give its
name to the famous statue of Apollo placed there by Julius II. It was in 1488 that
the grottoes of Nero's Golden House were rediscovered, and many painters
them awestruck, including Raphael, whose loggia in the Vatican repro-
visited
duces many of the stucco themes.
Innocent made two curious acquisitions: a Turkish sultan and the most
precious Christian relic. Bayezid II's brother Jem had sought refuge with the
Knights of Rhodes, whose grand master handed him over to the king of France.
Finally, in 1489 he came into the possession of Innocent, together with the Holy
Lance, with which the side of the Saviour was believed to have been pierced at the
Crucifixion, as a sort of bonus from Bayezid. Innocent is the only pope who
presided in the old St Peter's to be buried in the new, and the first to be
148
 3
1

represented enthroned as a secular monarch. When Innocent died in 1492,

Rodrigo Borgia (who had been disappointed of the tiara at the last election)
bribed his way to the throne of St Peter as Alexander VI. His reign is still a
byword for infamy. His children, Cesare and Lucrezia, two of the four got while
he was openly with his mistress Vanozza Cattanei, were worthy
a cardinal living

of their was Alexander who in 1493, the year after Columbus' discovery
sire. It

of America, divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. The grateful
Queen Isabella sent Alexander the first American gold brought by her ships.
It was used to give S. Maria Maggiore a gilt coffered ceiling, in which the Borgia

bull shines prominently. In 1499, the year in which Savanorola was burnt,
another Florentine came to Rome to carve a Pietd for a French cardinal. He was
only twenty-three, his name was Michelangelo, and his Pietd is world-famous.
By a rare conjunction of fate, Julius II (1503-1513), nephew of Sixtus IV, was
to be served by three geniuses of the first rank Bramante, Michelangelo and
:

Raphael. Since all three were to be employed on the rebuilding of St Peter's,

and since that vast creation took more than a century to complete, it will be well

to tabulate the various stages of construction, one by one, since only thus can
they be even generally comprehended.
1. Julius II decided, on coming to the throne, to rebuild St Peter's from its

foundations, intending thus to provide himself with a worthy mausoleum. With

this task he entrusted Bramante, who was born in 1444 near Urbino, Raphael's
birthplace. Bramante had already, in 1502, built the exquisite tempietto of
S. abandonment of the
Peter in Montorio on the Janiculum, therein showing his
He started work on St Peter's
traditional basilican pattern in favour of the rotunda.
by completely demolishing the existing structure, monuments and all, thereby
earning the nickname 'Ruinante'. On 18 April 1506, work began on the new
basilica, which was to be in the form of a Greek cross, i.e., a cross with four
equal arms. The Pantheon, he explained, was to be superposed on the basilica
of Constantine.
2. Julius and Bramante both died while the work was in its first stages (1513

and 1514). Raphael, aged thirty-four, was now called on to continue the work.
He preferred a Latin cross, i.e. a building with nave, transepts and apse.
3. On Raphael's death in 1520, Peruzzi (who built the lovely Farnesina)
1 1 Detail from The Last
returned to a Greek cross. Judgement, Michelangelo's
4. After Peruzzi's death in 1536, Sangallo the Younger (d. 1546) again favoured gigantic fresco which
dominates the Sistine Chapel.
a Latin cross.
The figure of St Bartholomew
5. In 1546, Michelangelo returned to the Greek cross of Bramante, finding holds his flayed skin on
inspiration not in the Pantheon but in Brunelleschi'sdome in Florence. which an anguished self-

portrait of iVIichelangelo is
Michelangelo carried out much of his plan (the drum was almost finished at his
painted.
death in 1564), which was furthered after his death by Vignola, Ligorio, and
specially in the cupola (finished in 1588-89), by Delia Porta and Fontana. 112 Portrait of Julius II

Only at the beginning of the seventeenth century did Paul V, Borghese, once by Raphael. London,
National Gallery
again, and finally, insist on the Latin cross, for liturgical reasons and so that the
new basilica should cover the same extent as the old. Maderno extended the 1 1 Moses, the central figure
nave back to its actual front (the 'west end' faces east). The work was completed in from the tomb of Julius II

intended for the new St

1 6 14, although the inscription says 161 2. Urban VIII consecrated the basilica on
Peter's, which Michelangelo
18 November 1626, the thirteen hundredth anniversary of the first consecration. left unfinished in the church
6. The central feature of the vast interior, the bronze baldacchino, a master- of S. Pietro in Vincoli.

151
 7

piece of Bernini,was inaugurated by Urban VIII, Barberini, on the 28 June 1633.

It ismade of bronze taken from the roof of the portico of the Pantheon, which
gave rise to the best known of all Pasquinades: 'Quod non fecerunt barbari
fecerunt Barberini' — what the barbarians left undone, the Barberini did.
7. Bernini erected his famous colonnade, of 284 columns and 88 pilasters,
in 1656-1667.
to be re-erected in
obelisk, brought from Nero's gardens near by, was the first
The
Rome. The work took four months in 1586. Of the two foun-
tains, that on the right was erected by Maderno in the reign of Paul V, 1605-1621,

that on the left by Bernini in 1677.

I
Reformation and Counter-Reformation
^M. ^^
The heyday of Renaissance Rome was now over. The Laocoon brought to light
in 1 506 seems to symbolize the struggles and agony of the age to come. The new
! rail
^^^^^^^H
era is proclaimed in the austere lines of the historic Cancellaria, in which Pt^^***'^^^
BISX
Bramante designed the courtyard (1483-1517) and Palazzo Farnese (Plate 117),
erected by the future Pope Paul III. Sangallo, Michelangelo and Delia Porta all ^^JM' '!.- v.jm
had a hand in it. The stone of both buildings, like that of the Palazzo Venezia,
was looted from the Colosseum. The Farnese closes the story of secular Renaissance
architecture opened by the Palazzo Venezia. It is the best known Roman palace, 114 Fresco from the Sistine
if only because it has served as the model for countless imitations all over Europe Library showing the piazza
of St Peter's as it was during
and America.
the coronation of Sixtus V
The discovery of the New World, and of the Cape Route to the East, was bound (1585).The old Constantinian
to affect the horizons of men's minds, not least in the hearth and centre of the fagade remains amongst
Renaissance buildings while
Old World, namely Rome. The form which the re-orientation actually took, the
the supporting walls of the
movement known as the Reformation, was undoubtedly stimulated by the life new dome start to rise.
and methods of such popes as Alexander VI, from which it was in large measure
a reaction. When, on the 31 October 1517, Luther hung his famous theses on the 115 The Campidoglio piazza,
the architectural complex on
church door of Wittenburg, the great struggle was begun. Only ten years later,
the Capitoline hill which was
Rome was subjected once more to secular devastation. In 1527, Clement VII planned by Michelangelo for
Medici could not decide whether to back the French king Francis I or the emperor the arrival in Rome of the
emperor Charles V. The
Charles V. Charles decided for him. He descended on Rome with a horde of forty
bronze statue of Marcus
thousand men, most of them rough German mountaineers, and Lutherans at that, Aurelius in the middle was
the rest half-starved Spaniards. The pope, retreating along the covered corridor moved from the Lateran
which with ironical prudence Alexander had constructed between the Vatican Palace to give dramatic focus
to the centre of the piazza.
and St Angelo, shut himself up in the castle. Armies are never patrons of the arts.
Charles' troops camped and made fires in Raphael's stanze, they pillaged, burned,
116 The Laocoon, a marble
destroyed, tortured and raped. Sacrilege became the theme for a blasphemous group dating from the
masquerade which paraded through the streets of the city. second century BC, made in
Rhodes and mentioned by
Clement died in 1 534, to be succeeded by Paul III, who was to enjoy the longest
Pliny, was acquired by
reign of the century, fifteen years. Titian's portrait of him as an old man, with Julius II soon after its

two of his grandchildren, is one of the world's most dramatic representations of discovery in Rome. Vatican
Museums
senility still clinging to life like a barnacle (Plate 118). In 1545 Michelangelo
abandoned the tomb of Julius II (Plate 113), not in St Peter's but in S. Pietro in 1 1 The Palazzo Farnese,
Vincoli, where the great Moses perpetuates the features of Julius. But it is in his a superb example of a High
Renaissance palace, created
Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel that he castigates his epoch. He was over
for Paul III and his family by
sixty when he finished his fresco — he refused to paint in oils — in 1541, after the Sangallo, Michelangelo and
labours of seven years. Its theme proved not only timeless but topical too: Delia Porta from 1514-89.

153
 it was a denunciation of the horrors of the recent sack of Rome, and of the evils
of heresy and schism represented by the Reformation.
was now that Rome began to appeal to northern Europeans as a romantic
It

tragedy. As early as 1537 a Dutch painter of the school of Jan van Scorel, in his
118 Paul III and his picture of the Good Samaritan now in the Rijksmuseum, uses the remains of
Grandsons by Titian.
imperial Rome in his background (Plate 121). By the end of the century, Paulus
Naples, Museo Nazionale
Brill not only gives us the temples of the Forum and the buildings of the Palatine,

119 A drawing of Clement but also the cattle-market that took place in the Forum on Tuesdays and Fridays
Vll and the emperor Charles V (Plate 120). Other Dutch artists imitated him.
by Sebastiano del Piombo.
Poets, too, found inspiration in Roman ruins. Joachim du Bellay (1525-1560)
London, British Museum
wrote his famous sonnet sequence, Antiquitez de Rome, of which the third was
120 A Scene in Rome by translated into English by Spenser. Shakespeare set two of his most famous plays
Paulus Brill (1554-1626),
in the dawn of imperial Rome, and a third in the days of its republic.
showing the Forum being
used as a cattle market. Meanwhile the Church was fighting back. In 1540 Paul III gave his approval
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum to the Society of Jesus, which for two years under the influence of Ignatius
Loyola had been promoting religious renewal in Rome. In 1542 he created the
121 The Good Samaritan by
Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) Holy Office. On 13 December 1545, the opening of the Council of Trent gave the
who uses the remains of signal for the Counter-Reformation. For eighteen years the Council did little,
ancient Rome as a largely because Charles V wanted it ground of agreement with the
to furnish a
background. Amsterdam,
Lutherans, rather than a council of war against them. When finally Pope Paul IV
Rijksmuseum
closed it and confirmed its findings in 1564, a new age was inaugurated, an age
122 The trompe I' oeil dome in which order, the old Roman feeling for 'gravitas', was to be paramount.
of S. Ignazio, dedicated to
Passion there would be, but it was to be controlled passion. Thus came into
the founder of the Jesuit
order St Ignatius of Loyola. existence the style we know as Baroque, which bears to what had gone before
something of the relationship of the Hellenistic age to Classical Greece. One of
123 Detail of /«renor o/
the earliest manifestations of the new style in architecture is the Villa Giulia,
St Peter's, Rome by Giovanni
Paolo Pannini. London,
now the Etruscan Museum, built by Vignola in 1555.
National Gallery The foundation of the Society of Jesus has already been mentioned. In a

156
PWf^'
123
12'j
124 The baldacchino over
the papal throne in St Peter's,
commissioned from Bernini
when he was only twenty-six
and made from the bronze
beams of the portico of the
Pantheon.
125 Detail of the ceiling
above the nave of S. Ignazio
representing one of the four
quarters of the world,
painted by a Jesuit priest,
Andrea Pozzo.
126 Self-portrait by Gian
Lorenzo Bernini. Galleria
Borghese
127 The facade of the Gesii,
the mother church of the
Jesuits, the first example of
the austere yet splendid
congregational churches
from which the Counter-
Reformation was launched.
manner never achieved by any of the four monastic orders (Benedictine,
Dominican, Franciscan, Cistercian) or later congregations, as they are correctly
styled, the Society of Jesus influenced architecture profoundly, radically and
widely. The Jesuits needed a roomy auditorium, in which they could preach to
large congregations, flanked by chapels in which Mass might be offered and
meditation fostered. The church, now, must be functional, and all the pretty
trimmings of the previous age eliminated. In theory, that is. In fact, the interiors
of the 'Jesuit' churches all to often suffer from a flaw which is detrimental to
their message, the use of shams. Marble is carved to look like lace, trompe I'oeil
is employed to suggest space, as in the famous ceiling of S. Ignazio (Plate 122).
Even where the domes are real, the west elevation is all too often designed to
look as though it were that of a two-storey building. It is surmounted by a
tympanum, which in reality supports nothing. The grand original of all such
facades, and they are to be found all over Europe, is the church of the Gesu
(Plate 127). This was designed by Vignola in 1568, the fagade having been added
by Delia Porta in 1575. He also built the dome. This church is of great importance
not only ecclesiastically and liturgically, but architecturally as well^ because it
is the first example of this type of fagade, which bears the stamp of the Counter-
Reformation and blends the austere with the splendid, thus marking the transition
from the Renaissance to the Baroque.
The high priest of Roman Baroque is Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1598-1680.
His father Pietro, creator of the charming boat-fountain in the Piazza di Spagna
(to commemorate an inundation of the Tiber, during which a boat was said to
have reached the site) (Plate 151), was, like many of those who helped to form
the new Rome, a Florentine. His mother was Neapolitan; and Gian Lorenzo
shewed the influence of both strains in his amazingly prolific output as sculptor
and architect. His self-portrait in the Borghese gallery is eloquent of his ardent,
energetic and inventive nature (Plate 126). He seems to be on fire with genius.
Rome as we see it bears the stamp of it. What Wren was to London (and Wren
too could shew himself a master of fake, as in St Paul's it was part of the virtuosity
:
which the age admired), what Rossi and Cameron were to St Petersburg, Haussman
to Paris, all that and far more Bernini was to Rome, so that Rome as we see it
today is largely the creation of this one man. Bernini dominated art for more
than a century, because he had that supreme and rare gift of being able to give
form to the ideas of his epoch. He interpreted the imperial glories of the papacy,
which now that the Reformation had robbed it of universality needed more than
ever the reassurance of glory. Bernini was six when he first went to Rome.
He was a sculptor at fifteen. It was the discerning cardinal Scipio Borghese who
gave him his first commissions, and in the Villa Borghese they may still be seen.
His Aeneas and Anchises (Plate 128), in which his father assisted him (1616),
his David (1619) (Plate 129), a self-portrait in marble, the bust of Paul V
(1620), cardinal Scipio's uncle. The Rape of Proserpine (1621) and his Apollo
and Daphne (1623-24) shew a mastery over his material, an inventiveness,
which are quite overwhelming. In the next decade, he made busts of Charles I
of England, and later of Cardinal Richelieu and of the Sun King himself, who
actually deigned to write to Bernini in his own hand.
But it is as an architect that Bernini is most widely known. His first commission
was the baldocchino in St Peter's f Plate 124), which he started in 1624, at the age
162
B&- ^

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Fi«'-:i.ki'>''m^
SSL 1
^H
- Mi 9M.^.
128 Aeneas and Anchises of twenty-six. As already noted it was finished in 1633. In his architectural
by Pietro and Gian Lorenzo
creations, Bernini had two models, imperial Rome and Michelangelo. His first
Bernini. Galleria Borghese
building ( 1 624—1626), a restoration, was the tiny church of S Bibiana, hard by the
.

129 David by Gian Lorenzo long wall of the Termini station. This already shows a break with the flat
Bernini. Galleria Borghese correctness of the Renaissance in favour of the plastic strength of chiaroscuro.

130 The altar throne of

More familiar is his palace of the Propaganda Fide in the Piazza di Spagna, which
St Peter's by Bernini shows exhibits Bernini, still only twenty-nine, as a mature artist (Plate 135). Two years
Italian Baroque, a hundred later, in 1629, Bernini was appointed architect of St Peter's. During the next
years after the church of the
fifty years, churches, palaces, fountains sprang into being beneath Bernini's
G6su, turning exuberantly
into Rococo. all-creating hand. The Palazzo Barberini (Plate 136), now the National Gallery
of Art, begun by Maderno and Borromini in 1625, and finished by Bernini in 1633,
is of interest because it is a Baroque analogue of the Farnese built more than a
century earlier, and because its fagade is an echo of the outer wall of the Colosseum.
Nearby, the gay Tritone fountain in the street of that name, and the wholly
different little Barberini 'Bee' fountain show the artist as master of two wholly
different moods. His famous Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona is an example of
yet a third, and more grandiose style (Plate 140). Borromini has been mentioned.
He was a one-time assistant and later rival of Bernini; but the often repeated
quip that the rivers of Bernini's fountain are displaying disgust at Borromini's
church of S. Agnese in front of which it stands overlooks the fact that the fountain
was erected before the church. Poor Borromini! He was for long underrated.

4i^
 1

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\

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131 The main nave of
showing Bernini's
St Peter's,
enormous putti contributing
to the scale of the whole
basilica,with his baldocchino
in the far distance, and his
altar throne beyond that.
132 The facade of St Peter's,
designed by Carlo Maderno,
was criticized as looking too
wide and obscuring the view
of the dome.
133 Detail of Bernini's
colonnades in the Piazza
di San Pietro which give
amplitude and dignity to the
famous square as well as
shelter from the sun and
rain.
His churches of S. Andrea della Fratte, S. Carlo alle Quatro Fontane and above all
S. Agnese possess great charm. His work in St John Lateran is chilly and chilling;
but at his best he could certainly rival if not surpass Bernini, who is known to
have profited by Borromini's ideas. To cite but a single example, it is generally
considered that one of Bernini's masterpieces, the Scala Regia in the Vatican
Palace, was inspired by a similar perspective gallery in Borromini's Palazzo
Spada. From the historical point of view Borromini's most arresting building is
his church of S. Ivo, with its fantastic tower, a premonition of the Rococo.
Tragically, Borromini committed suicide in 1667, aged 68. Three centuries later,
in 1967, the Swiss government issued a stamp to commemorate and vindicate this
great son of Ticino. But Bernini and Borromini were by no means the only
architects practising in this prolific age. To mention only three other masters.
Carlo Maderno (1 556-1629) also from Ticino, had led where Bernini was to follow.
His church of S Susanna (1603) marks a new departure, and is one of the very first
.
essays in Baroque. Pietro da Cortona (1596—1669) in 1658 built the enchanting
fagade of S. Maria della Pace (Plate 106), which has the additional distinction
of having inspired Wren's colonnaded apses of St Paul's, and St Mary le Strand in
London by Gibbs, who knew Rome and was a pupil of the great Fontana.
Martino Longhi the younger (1602-1660) was the architect of the noble SS.
Vincenzo e Anastasio near the Trevi fountain. None of these artists, competent
and often original as they were, can be compared with Bernini, not that even he
was always right. His little towers added to the Pantheon were a blunder they :
were called the 'ass's ears' and were removed in 1883. (Curiously enough, the
similar turrets which Palladio had placed on his tempietto at Maser in the Veneto
in the preceding century look wholly in place it was a question of proportion,
:
and the widest dome in the world makes such additions look silly.) Nor would
everyone today relish the 'ecstasies' which Bernini loved to carve, notably that
famous one of St Teresa of Avila (1646), in Maderna's S. Maria della Vittoria,
although they were true expressions of his genuine religious feeling. To us,
they seem theatrical but we must not forget that all his life Bernini was interested
;
in the theatre, which was now becoming popular, specially opera. Pope Clement
IX wrote his own librettos, and his Sant' Alessandro was staged by Bernini in 1634.
To return to the outward aspect of Rome, there remain to be mentioned two
of Bernini's greatest achievements, the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza S. Pietro
(Plates 137 and 138).
As already explained, the street plan of Rome had been largely regulated in
the previous century, notably by Sixtus V, who had a special feeling for obelisks,
of which he rescued and re-erected a number at focal points of the city, that
outside St Peter's being his first (Plate 137). There are altogether thirteen granite
obelisks in Rome, of which eight are genuine Egyptian and five Roman imitations.
The oldest and tallest — 31 metres, though it was originally even taller — was the
last to arrive, in 357. Ithad stood before the temple of Ammon in Egyptian
Thebes in the days of Tutmoses III in the fifteenth century BC. On arrival in Rome
it was placed in the Circus Maximus, whence it was retrieved in three pieces in
1537 and by order of Sixtus placed where it now stands, displacing the bronze
Marcus Aurelius which was transferred to its present position on the
Campidoglio. Another of Sixtus' restored obelisks stands in the middle of the
Piazza del Popolo, and is the focus of the three streets which lead into the square.
166
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134

13
the Corso, the Ripetta and Via Babuino (Plate 138). In Bernini's day, the square
had little form, it had kept much of its ragged medieval aspect, and the gate
which led to the great Flaminian Way, was simply, like any other, a vaulted

aperture in the Aurelian wall. Alexander VII suggested that it be tidied up.
First, from the design of Rainaldi in 1662 the church of S. Maria di Montesanto

was placed at the intersection of Via Babuino and the Corso. As soon as it was
finished in 1675, its twin on the other side of the Corso, S. Maria dei Miracoli
again designed by Rainaldi was begun, and finished four years later, the year
before Bernini died. He had a hand in both churches, being assisted by Fontana;
but his chief contribution to the Piazza del Popolo, and not all that happy either,
was the inner face of the Porta del Popolo, which he reconstructed for the formal
entry into Rome, in 1655, of the valuable convert Queen Christina of Sweden,
daughter of the great Protestant champion Gustavus Adolphus. The new gateway
had to incorporate a Latin welcome to the Queen, and also the heraldic star of
her apostolic host, Alexander VII. It bears the impress therefore of a 'command
performance'. Another of Alexander's commands produced the fantastic altar-
throne at the end of the apse of St Peter's (Plate 1 30). For the admirer of Baroque,
here again on the very verge of Rococo, its exuberance may be allowed to
overcome its almost epileptic vulgarity.
Bernini's Scala Regia in the Vatican Palace, to the upper chambers of which
it provides access, has already been mentioned. As an exercise in perspective and
dignity it has never been equalled. But Bernini's best-known work is also his
greatest: the colonnades and piazza of St Peter's. An open space had always
existed in front of the old basilica, the traditional paradise, or parvis, in which
pilgrims assembled. A fresco in the Sistine Library shews it, as it appeared when
Sixtus V was being crowned (Plate 1 14). It is a priceless documentary, shewing
Constantine's facade. Renaissance buildings, the unfinished dome of the new
basilica, and the obelisk still in its original position at the side of the old cathedral.

During the Jubilee of 1 500, Cesare Borgia, son of Alexander VI, created a bull-
ring (the Borgias were Spanish) on this parvis, and slew six bulls with his own
hand.
Alexander VII, who became pope once commissioned Bernini to
in 1665, at
fashion a piazza which would set and enhance, the great new basilica. The
off,

central problem was posed by the fact that the extension of the nave to its present
length had obscured the dome, which is invisible from the immediate vicinity
1 34 St Peter's seen from the
of the main entrance. Bernini realized therefore that his new square must begin bastions of Castel Sant'
as far away as possible from the basilica itself, and yet must avoid the monotony Angelo-
which a mere rectangle would produce. That would have the effect not of
135 Thefagadeof the Palazzo
enhancing the cathedral, but of diminishing it. He hit on the brilliant idea
Propaganda Fide in which
of flanking the great fagade (Plate 132) with two corridors 130 metres long, Bernini continued to break
but only 54 feet high, and incHned towards each other trapezoidally. They thus with the flat correctness of
the Renaissance in favour of
have the effect of making Maderno's facade seem higher, and less wide than it did
the plastic strength of
when it was free-standing. Next, the famous obelisk and a fountain to the right chiaroscuro.
of it, created for Paul V by Maderno, had to be incorporated, despite the fact that
36 The Palazzo Barberini,
the obelisk having been erected before completion of the basilica is slightly off 1

now the Galleria Nazionale,

centre. Bernini therefore designed his great elliptical colonnades, each of four
on which both Borromini
rows of columns, which provide amplitude, dignity, and, not least important, and Bernini worked with
shelter from sun and rain. The ellipse is 240 metres wide. To complete the considerable inventiveness.

173
137

138
symmetry, when the whole complex was finished in 1667, the year in which
Alexander VII died, its creator added a second fountain.
Whence had Bernini taken the inspiration for this original plan (Plate 137)?
The nearest model, and only a skeleton at that, is to be found in Jerash, in Trans-
jordan, in the desert; but it is most unlikely that Bernini had ever received any
report of the remains in that remote Graeco-Roman city. It is just possible that the
Colosseum might have influenced him in his choice of an oval overall shape.
He might have studied existing plans of ancient buildings incorporating
also
exedrae, such as the temple of Augustus and the markets of Trajan, if not the
originals themselves. But the wind of genius blows where it lists, and to Bernini
alone must be accorded the palm for one of the great architectural conceptions
of all time.
we say farewell to this grand si^cle of Roman architecture and planning,
Before
we may mention a few other works, which in any other place and age would have
been regarded as masterpieces hors concours. First comes the church of S. Andrea

della Valle near Pompey's theatre. Begun by Grimaldi and Delia Porta in 1591,
it was continued in 1608 by Maderno, to whom is due the great dome (1622-1625),

inferior in height and width, 16.10 metres, only to St Peter's. In 1655, Rainaldi
undertook the sumptuous facade. The church contains the tombs of the Picco-
lomini popes, Pius II (Aeneas Silvius) and Pius 111 but it owes its contemporary
;

fame to the fact that it is the setting of the first act of Puccini's opera Tosca, of 137 The Piazza di San
which the second is placed in the Farnese palace and the third on Sant' Angelo. Pietro, showing Bernini's
colonnade and the obelisk
Borromini's uninspired work at St John Lateran has already been mentioned
moved to the centre of the
S. Maria Maggiore was also to undergo embellishment during the seventeenth square. Engraving by
century. The most interesting ornament is the pillar which stands in front of Piranesi.

the main entrance. It is of cippolino, is 14.30 metres high and is the only survivor
1 38 The Piazza del Popolo,
of the eight columns of the basilica of Constantine. The fact that Maderno could showing Carlo Rainaldi's
remove it, even more that all the other seven have disappeared, without any brilliant mise en seine of the
two churches S. Maria di
damage shews that by the fourth century classical columns
to the structure,
Montesanto and S. Maria
had become, as they were to become again in the twentieth, mere ornaments dei Miracoli. Engraving by
appliquis to concrete structures. This one was erected in its present position in Piranesi.

1614. But the chief modification was carried out not at the west end but in the
1 39 The Fountain of the
apse, the exterior of which as we now see it is chiefly the work of Rainaldi. Is it
Tortoises in the Piazza
wholly suitable, dignified enough for a major basilica? It has a certain villa-like Mattei, a late Renaissance
prettiness about it which raises doubts in conservative minds (Plate 142) work executed by Taddeo
Landini in 1585
As a colophon to the richly illuminated scroll of this age must be cited one of
Rome's most prominent and beautiful memorials, the Fontana Paolo above 140 Figure of a river god
Trastevere (Plate 145), a work of which the name embodies those of its creator from the Fountain of the
Paul V and one of its architects Giovanni Fontana, whose collaborator was Four Rivers designed by
Bernini for the Piazza
Flaminio Ponzio. It was already an age of fountains. The charming Fountain of
Navona, once the site of
the Tortoises, down in old Rome by the Palazzo Mattei is a product of the late Domitian's Circus Agonalis
Renaissance (1581-1584, Landini and Delia Porta) the tortoises being creatures and the centre of recreation
in Rome.
of the next century (Plate 139). If is a gay little toy. The first monumental
fountain, that is the fountain conceived as an architectural feature, as it had been 141 The Trevi Fountain, the
in imperial days, was the slightly later (1585-1587) Fontana dell' Acqua Felice final fling of an architecture
directed purely to pleasure,
(Plate 144), the work of Dom. Fontana at the bidding of the indefatigable Sixtus V.
designed by Nicol6 Salvi in
It consists of three grand apertures — they are too imposing to be called 'niches' — 1732 and finished after
separated by columns, with Biblical scenes depicted in high relief at the sides. his death.

175
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139 »

140

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 Aaron bidding the Children of Israel quench their thirst and Joshua leading them 144

across the river Jordan, the composition crowned by a colossal Moses.

The Fontana Paolo is built on the same pattern, the red granite columns having
been supplied from the temple of Minerva in the Forum of Nerva. In front
of it IS a great semicircular basin, provided in 1690 by yet another Fontana, Carlo
(there were twelve of them altogether), into which the triple cascade majestically
plunges. It is noble by day, and by night, when the waters are illuminated from
within the castello, ravishing. It transports the beholder into an intimate world
of his own imagining, of the solid and the fantastic, which is just
compounded
what Baroque is about.
Rome had already attracted artists from the north. Two Dutchmen have been
mentioned. Rubens came to Rome to study the works of Michelangelo and
Caravaggio; and it was Rubens who persuaded Velasquez to pay a second visit
in 1650, where he painted his famous portrait of Innocent X Pamphilj (Plate 143),
which now shares a chamber in the Doria-Pamphilj palace with Bernini's bust
of the same pope, one of the most striking collocations to be found anywhere,
even in Rome. Foreign communities now also had their own priests to serve them.
Then in 1666 the first foreign academy was founded, the French, by Colbert.
Since 1803 it has inhabited the great Villa Medici on the Pincio (Plate 147).
Down below, the Piazza di Spagna (Plate 151) so called from the Spanish embassy

143

142 The apse of S. Maria

Maggiore designed by Carlo
Rainaldi, looking here more
austere than it does from a
distance.

143 /«nocenf A by Velasquez.

Galleha Doha Pamphilj

144 The Fontana dell'Acqua

Renaissance
Felice, the first
fountain to be conceived as
an architectural feature since
imperial times.
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which had its quarters there, had become, what is still largely, the international
quarter. Rome's influence was now to be increasingly literary and pictorial,
particularly among peoples who no longer recognized her spiritual authority.
The process had got off to a flying start as it were when, in 1638, a young scholar-
poet from the dim north had visited Rome. He was a Puritan, worse, he was an
Englishman, an inhabitant of that island formerly so loyal to Holy Church whose
loss had been one of the most grievous wounds of the Reformation. He could
hardly have expected a very warm welcome; nor was he wholly convinced that
he had done right to visit the modern Babylon. The
visit was an enormous

success. The young Englishman found that 'Italy, instead of being, as you suppose,
the general receptacle of vice, was the seat of civilization and the hospitable
domicile of every species of erudition John Milton was the name of the new-
'

comer. If Rome charmed him he dazzled Rome. He was entertained, waited on,
by Cardinal Barberini, Pope Urban VIII's brother, he discussed manuscripts
with the Vatican librarian, he exchanged Latin and Italian verses with the Romans.
Thirty years later, old, neglected and blind, Milton recalled those brilliant
days. In the beginning of the Fourth Book of Paradise Regained he places the
temptation of Jesus in Rome (which for Milton was still theologically the abode
of the abominable), and describes the City in the forty-six lines beginning

'The City which thou seest no other deem

Than Rome, Queen of the Earth
great and glorious
So renowned, and with the spoils enriched
far
Of nations there the Capitol thou seest
;

Above the rest lifting his stately head

On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine
The imperial palace, compass huge, and high
The structure, skill of noblest architects.
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far.
Turrets and terraces, and glittering spires;
Many a fair edifice besides, more like
Houses of gods (so well I have disposed
145 The Fontana Paolo, one
My airy microscope) thou mayest behold of Rome's most beautiful
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs memorials, built by Giovanni
Carved work, the hand of famed artificers Fontana for Pope Paul V
with stone from the forum
In cedar, marble, ivory or gold.
of Nerva.
Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth or entering in 146 The gardens of the Villa
Medici, Renaissance in style
Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
and painted memorably by
Hasting or on return, in robes of state; Velasquez during his visit
Lictors and rods the ensigns of their power; to Rome.
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
147 The Villa Medici, a
Or embassies from regions far remote
sixteenth-century palace
In various habits on the Appian road. which houses the French
Or on the Aemilian, some from farthest south, Academy, with St Peter's in
the distance below. Antique
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
plaques are incorporated
Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to west. into the wall.

183
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 The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea,
From the Asian kings and Parthian among these.
From India and the golden Chersonese,
And utmost Indian isle Taprobane,
Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed.
From Gallia, Gades, and the British west,

Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north

Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.
All nations now to Rome obedience pay.
To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain
In ample territory, wealth and power.
Civility of manners, arts, and arms.
And long renown thou justly mayest prefer
Before the Parthian. These two thrones except.
The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight.

Shared among petty kings too far removed;'

It was this picture of Rome Regained that was increasingly to lure men and
women of other races and climes to the city which was more and more becoming
recognized as eternal.

Rome International
The arrival of France in Rome has already been described. Throughout the
eighteenth century French influence would irradiate the city, culminating in a
climax that no-one could have predicted. The first manifestation of the French
presence was peaceful : it was to give Rome one of its most loved monuments.
148 The facade of Trinitd In 1585 the ever-active Sixtus V had consecrated, on the hill to the east of the
dei Monti by Salvi, showing
it decorated with candles
Piazza di Spagna, a church originally initiated by command of Louis XII of
to celebrate the recovery of France, as one of the churches of the French community in Rome. It was called
Louis XIV of France from an S. Trinity dei Monti. (The principal one is S. Louis of the French, consecrated
illness. London, Courtauld
four years later. It was finished by Fontana and adorned, c. 1597, with three
Institute of Art
masterpieces of Caravaggio.) Close to this church both Poussin and Claude had
149 View of Rome towards lived. What more fitting therefore than that a Frenchman should embellish and
Trinitd dei Monti attributed
as were bind together the whole precinct? And it was M. Gueffier, secretary
it
to Claude Lorrain. London,
National Gallery
of a French ambassador to Innocent XIII (1721-1724), who left the money to
do just that. The famous Steps are the work of Francesco de Sanctis, inspired
1 50 View of the Villa Medici by the harbour of the Ripetta (demohshed in 1874), designed by Alessandro
(detail) by Caspar Van Wittel
Specchi, who also built the Quirinal stables and the Banco di Roma on the Corso.
(Vanvitelli). Galleria
Nazionale The steps (Plate 151), with their rhythm and contrasting planes, introduced for
the first time the consciously 'picturesque' into Rome. Although no longer the
151 The Piazza di Spagna
rendezvous of 'models', the steps are still a favourite haunt of young and old,
and the Spanish Steps,
which were financed by a and are at their most beautiful at Eastertide, when they are transformed into an
French legacy, leading up to avalanche of colour by hundreds of azalea purple and white, the city
trees,
Trinity dei Monti. At the
of Rome's colours, placed there by the municipality, which maintains a special
base of the steps is the boai
fountain designed by
nursery for them on the slopes of the Celian Hill. The whole mise-en-scdne (only
Bernini's father. a theatrical term defines it) was completed in 1789 on the orders of Pius VI,

186
149
150
Mti
--ii

i
1

-4
I
152
 152 The Trinity dei Monti
obelisk which was originally
made for the gardens of
Sallust.

153 View of the Palatine

with artists sketching by
Alessio da Napoli. London,
Courtauld Institute of Art

1 54 View of Rome with an

showing the so-called
ox-cart
Temple of Vesta, by Caspar
Van Vittel (Vanvitelli).
London, Courtauld Institute
of Art

155 The Ancient Roman

Forum surrounded by porticoes
and colonnades, a
reconstruction by Piranesi.

1 56 View of the Remains of

'iiiJ'k.i^, the Forum of Nerva.
Engraving by Piranesi.
BMl
1 57 View of the Ponte Molle
(the Milvian Bridge in its
by the erection of the obelisk (a home-made one) formerly in the gardens of fifteenth-century restoration).
Sallust by the Salarian Gate, having lain prostrate outside St John Lateran for Engraving by Piranesi.
fifty-four years before that. An additional French touch was given to the region
1 58 The Basilica of St John
by the twin clocks of the church, one of which shewed the Roman day, of Lateran. Engraving by
twenty-four divisions beginning a quarter of an hour after sunset, the other the Piranesi.

191
157
 French day, which was of twelve hours and ran from midday to midnight
(Plate 148).
The number of Rome-fanciers grew year by year; and three artists in particular,
among a host of lesser practitioners, catered for their taste. The first was Giovanni
Paolo Pannini (1691-1765) from Piacenza. His attitude to antiquity was delib-
erately romantic. He made no pretence of accurate representation : he composed
'striking' set pieces, bringing together in theatrical landscapes, arches, columns,
vaults. Few artists have so well succeeded in calling up and embodying the spirit
of classical antiquity, even if the actual settings are imaginary. His finest work
in Rome itself — most of his masterpieces are in other lands — are the frescoes in
the library of S. Croce in Gerusalemme.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was like Pannini a northerner, from
near Treviso. His approach to 'ruins' was different from that of his predecessor.
He could be far more fantastic ; but his fantasies were drawn from his own brain,
159 The Temple of Concord. and resulted in almost Kafka-like scenes of prisons and suchlike terrors. When it
an engraving by Charles- came to antiquity, Piranesi, who was an engraver rather than a painter, preferred
Louis Cl^risseau, who acted
to produce a record, a romantic record it is true, but a reasonably accurate one.
as architectural guide to
Robert Adam during his Perspective might be altered here and there, but the general layout was faithful
time in Rome. to the site (Plate 155). For Piranesi had been one of those who actually worked on

194
the excavation of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, at the instance of Cardinal Albani, 160 Roman Capriccio by
Hubert Robert, which freely
whose great collection of sculpture is now in the Capitoline Museum. This was
combines elements to make a
bought by Clement XII in 1734, and installed in the museum, which thus became striking set piece; in this
the first of its Europe to be opened to the public. Piranesi's engravings
kind in chalk study the pyramid of

are known, and prized, throughout the world. There is a magnificent collection, Cestius, the temple of Castor
and Pollux, the Laocobn and
with examples of almost every plate he made, some 1,200 of them, in the
an obelisk are all brought
Calcografia Nazionale down by the Trevi Fountain. together. London, Courtauld
The third artist to brood over Rome was the Frenchman Hubert Robert (1733- Institute of Art

1808), a pupil of Pannini and admirer of Piranesi. Brood he did, for his canvases
are clouded by a sensitive melancholy which Pannini simply would not have
understood (Plate 160). Like Pannini's, they are a blend of the real and the
imagined: together with Fragonard, Robert lived in the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.
The excavations at Tivoli were accompanied by those at Pompeii, begun in 1738.
Ruins were all the vogue, now. 'How can one tell good architecture?' Piranesi
used to ask. 'It is the kind that makes fine ruins'— a remark the late Bernard ^^w<^''
Berenson was fond of echoing.
The Forum and the Palatine had still to await redemption but the eighteenth
;

century saw the final rescue of the Colosseum. As already recorded it had seen
many vicissitudes. It served as a quarry not only for the Palazzo Venezia and the
Cancelleria, the Ripetta quay, which alone made away with three arches of the
second ring, which had conveniently been overthrown by an earthquake in 1703,
and not least for St Peter's itself. It had been a fortress of the Frangipani and the
Annibaldi, it had been damaged by at least five earthquakes, Sixtus V had tried
to turn it into a textile factory, indeed he wanted to demolish it altogether to
improve the approach to the Lateran. In the eighteenth century it was used for
the manufacture of saltpetre. At last Benedict XIV (1740-1758) relying on a pious
fiction that the amphitheatre had witnessed the martyrdom of Christians pro-
claimed the building sacrosanct. It was to be tidied up by successive popes, and
given its present aspect in the years 1893-1896. The eighteenth century was to
witness three or major architectural achievements. For too long St John Lateran
had lacked dignified fagade. In 1735, under Pope Clement XII, Corsini, while
the sovereigns of Naples, Madrid, Vienna and Paris were all harassing the papacy,
and Spanish troops encamped round Rome, looting and killing as they listed, it was
decided that the great mother church should be clothed in dignity. The grand
task was entrusted to a Florentine, Alessandro Galilei, who introduced into the
Baroque ambience of Rome a touch of that Florentine austerity which had
informed such buildings as the Farnese palace and the Cancelleria. Despite the
stone ballet on the roof (the figures are twenty-one feet high) the general effect
is heavy (Plate 158). It was on this occasion that the bronze doors were brought

from the ancient Senate-house in the Forum to serve as the central portal of the
basilica, a clear indication of how contemporary Rome still regarded the monu-

ments of pagan antiquity.

Meanwhile S. Maria Maggiore was undergoing similar treatment. Again, the
operator was a Florentine. The fact that the pope was, too, must have been a
mere coincidence; for had not nepotism been scotched once and for all by the
bull Romanum decet Pontificem of Innocent XII, at the end of the preceding
century? But perhaps the ban did not extend to architects. Ferdinando Fuga

195
 f '*^'
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161
in the course of his long hfe — he Hved from 1699 to 1781 — enjoyed considerable
vogue. As a young man of thirty-three he had been given the commission by the
newly elevated Corsini pope of reconstructing the family palace in Trastevere.
He worked on a number of churches and on the Quirinal (Plate 174). His west
front of S. Maria Maggiore has an elegance and lightness which the Lateran
wholly lacks; but it can hardly be called a masterpiece. The truth is that the style
itself was getting tired. Fuga also created the grand baldacchino inside for

Benedict XIV, who ruled from 1740 to 1758 and was admired by such divers
characters as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Macaulay and Pitt the elder. He was much
loved by the Romans for his affability and his humour. Towards the end of his
long reign he is recorded to have said '1 thought I was the Holy Father, not the
:

Eternal Father.' It was under this pope that S. Croce in Gerusalemme was given
a new face (Plate 163). A Roman, Domenico Gregorini and a Sicilian, Pietro 161 The west front of
Passalacqua, neither of them otherwise famous, created this last, flamboyant S.Maria Maggiore which
was given its Baroque
manifesto of ecclesiastical bravura. appearance by Fernando
The Corso, too, was being embellished with a number of secular buildings, Fuga in 1741^3.
palaces mostly, of which the largest and most sumptuous is the Palazzo Doria
162 View towards S. Maria
(Plate 164) built by Gabriele Valvassori in or about 1731. At the same time not
Maggiore by Jean-Auguste-
far away the most famous, the most theatrical and also — a winning point in Dominique Ingres.
Italian ears — the most noisy of all Rome's fountains was conceived, the Fontana Montauban, Musie Ingres
di Trevi (Plate 141). It was the masterpiece of a Roman called Nicol6 Salvi.
163 The fa?ade of S. Croce
He started work on it in 1732, when he was still comparatively young. He died inGerusalemme, the last
before it was finished, but he had left a detailed wooden model of it, now in the flamboyant manifesto of
Museo di Roma, and it was completed in 1762. The fountain is supplied by the papal bravura under
Benedict XIV.
Aqua Virgine, the aqueduct which Vipsanius Agrippa built to bring water from
20 kilometres' distance for his baths by the Pantheon, the oldest in Rome. The 164 Courtyard of the Palazzo
water was Rome's purest, and until modern times citizens would fill pitchers Doria, the only great Roman
palace still owned by the
at the Trevi for their own use. The aqueduct, destroyed like the others during
family after which it is
the Dark Ages, was repaired by Nicholas V in 1453. Urban VIII, Barberini, made named but also open to
the water available to the citizens from the proceeds of a tax on wine, a paradox the public.

197
,1

1^
>s

165 A drawing by Paolo
Posi of a machina, an
ephemeral structure
representing the Castel
Sant'Angelo erected in the
Piazza Farnese to celebrate
a festival in 1755.
London, Courtauld Institute
of Art
which did not escape the lash of Pasquino. The reason this fountain is the most
famous in the world is that it is built purely for delight, with no pretence at being
'correct' or 'classical' or anything else. Architecture and sculpture simply
coalesce in one delicious romp. Gods, horses, symbolic ladies all contribute to
the general roundabout of majesty on the move, of solidity going liquid. By day
and by night the waters thunder and glisten, for ever alive. Nor is their task
confined to this one spot on their way through Rome they supply the fountains
:
of the Navona, Farnese, Spagna, and the Villa Giulia, 80,000 cubic metres a day.
The Trevi was the final fling, in architecture that is, of an art directed purely
to pleasure. Already, in the work of Galilei, not only in his west elevation of
St John Lateran, but in his Corsini Chapel within, the chill current of conformity
was beginning to blow. It was fanned by the increasingly frequent discoveries
of relics of antiquity, which led to a desire to build 'in keeping' —
the death throe
of creative art.
But leaving the structure aside for the moment, if we contemplate eighteenth
century Rome, as we can in the Roma, we are struck by two things.
Museo di
The first is how small the city still was. Parts of it, notably below the Pincio and
on the Esquiline, were still open country, under vineyards or market gardens.
G. B. Nolli's plan of 1748 shows some two-thirds of the enceinte completely un-
built on This was to last well into the nineteenth century. The earliest photographs
.
show a country scene, with farm carts lying in the
of the Piazza Barberini (1847)
empty sun-baked streets. Shepherds watered their flocks there much later,
and in early summer the square, which now reeks of diesel fumes, was fragrant
with the smell of hay. The Prince Camillo Borghese, in the inscription over the
entrance to his park, immediately outside the Porta del Popolo describes it
accurately as his villa suburbana. Indeed the Valle Giulia and Monte Parioli
remained almost countrified well into the present century.
Alter the rusticity of Rome, what strikes us as we study the models, the
animated tableaux, the pictures in this wonderful municipal museum, is what
fun the inhabitants had, poor no less than rich. The 'nobles' vied with each other
in providing entertainments in which every device of fantasy was brought into
play — youths with head-dresses of ostrich-feathers banked ten tiers high, and
dyed blue and red. Others were arrayed as Roman soldiers. Dragons breathed fire,
gods radiated light, while the nobility and gentry applauded from tiers of boxes.
Carnival lasted eight days, during which the Corso really was a race-course,
with riderless Barbary steeds racing wildly from the Piazza del Popolo to the
other end of the Corso where they were arrested by a curtain drawn across the
highway. Every balcony, every roof was occupied with cheering Romans and
their guests. Bowls was a favourite game of the ordinary folk, who for lack of
greens played it in the streets. Cardinals would sweep by in coaches apparently
designed for Cinderella. A special band of expert acrobats, called the Sanpietrini,
was responsible for the illumination of the fagade and dome of St Peter's with a
myriad of lamps. Their drill was perfect, and it seemed as though the whole vast
edifice had been lit up by a single hand. The effect must have been thrilling, in a
way the cold glare of neon-lights can never emulate.
The influences which brought this jolly epoch to an end were external.
In 1735 a young Prussian, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, came to Rome, was
converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and became the proteg^ of prelates.
200
 :

including Cardinal Albani. Winckelmann reacted against southern sensuality.

He He contemplated, assessed, measured
preferred the austerity of the Greeks.
and classified with true German thoroughness almost every statue to be found in
Italy. He visited Pompeii, Herculaneum too, then almost completely an under-

ground city. He was among the first to examine the Greek temples (they are
genuine Doric of the sixth and fifth century BC) at Paestum. His findings and

theories were embodied book Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, which
in a

marks the beginning of art history as such, and of the Neo-classical revival.
In 1764 Edward Gibbon was 'musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol' which in
fact were not ruinous at all: what Gibbon actually saw was one of the most
harmonious architectural symphonies in Europe, a masterpiece of Michelangelo;
but Gibbon was bent on 'decline and fall', and he gave it to England and Europe
with a gusto and acidity which has left its taste in many a mouth to this day.

In 1784 Goethe was Rome. He was thirty-seven. He was steeped in Winckel-

in
mannship. He induced Tischbein to paint him in a long white robe (Tischbein
said Goethe looked like the Belvedere Apollo) and a floppy hat, lolling on an
obelisk, against a background which shows the tomb of Caecilia Metella and a
bit of broken aqueduct. It is one of the silliest portraits ever painted —
only two
Germans could have taken it seriously (Plate 166). But worse was to befall Goethe
166 Portrait of Goethe by
his statue in the Borghese park, by Gustav Eberlein (1902-1904) is not only Tischbein. Frankfurt,
ridiculous but almost enthrallingly hideous. I Stadelesches\Kunstinstitut\

201
 :

The reign of Pius VI, Braschi, which lasted from 1775 to 1799 wasto see Rome

once again the centre of turbulence and theft, and yet in the end Rome was to
be the gainer. Before we come to those troublous days, let us note two amenities
which we owe to Pius. The first is the sacristy adjoining St Peter's, which he
had taken in hand as soon as he became pope. It was finished in 1784, and contains
not only many treasures, but also a discreet and comforting caf^ and bar. The
second is the final arrangement of the statues of the horse-tamers on the Quirinal.
Inevitably it was Sixtus V who had first brought them from near the baths of
Constantine, but he simply placed them side by side. It is to Pius that we owe their
present aspect, and the obelisk taken from the mausoleum of Augustus. The
fountain was added in 1818 by Stern, who appropriated for it the great granite
trough which stood at the base of the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum.
The Swiss Angelica Kauffmann (174I-I807), the Saxon Mengs (1728-1779),
and above all the Frenchman Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) whose brilliant
and sycophantic pictures of Napoleon are known to thousands from brandy
advertisements, all helped in the re-establishment of the 'antique' just when
modernity was to break in on Rome in the person of Napoleon, or rather of his
underlings, and relations, because despite all his triumphs, and although he
kidnapped two popes Napoleon never entered Rome. The truth of De Tocque-
ville's summing-up on Napoleon, 'as great as a man can be without virtue',

is illustrated by his dealings with Rome and the papacy. The first appearance of

Napoleon in Italy had raised hopes throughout the peninsula that Italians were
to acquire the unity and nationality for which they had longed so ardently through
the centuries. There were therefore many, even in Rome itself, who welcomed
the French as liberators, when on 21 January 1798, Berthier's troops occupied
Castel Sant' Angelo. The majority of the inhabitants however resented the
The French diplomatic agent was murdered,
irruption of the foreign atheists.
and then a French general. The pope, Pius VI, was brutally deported and sent
to Valence in France where he died as an exile. The so-called 'Roman Republic'
was short-lived, and in 1800 Pius VII was again in possession of the temporal
power. Like his predecessor the new pope came from Cesena, in Emilia; but he
had been elected not in the Sistine chapel, but perforce in the church of S. George
at Venice. Given the equivocal position and attitude of Napoleon who was not

only the successor to the godless creators of his regime but also the ruler of
millions of devout Roman Catholics, a collision between him and Pius was
inevitable. It many phases. The pope was constrained to go to
passed through
Paris for the unction ofNapoleon as emperor in 1804, a ceremony he would only
attend on condition that Napoleon and his empress, Josephine, who had only
been married in a civil ceremony, should be united by a Catholic rite. This was
performed in secret on the evening before the coronation by Napoleon's uncle.
Cardinal Fesch, with only two witnesses, Berthier and Talleyrand. Next day,
in Notre Dame, Napoleon got his own back: when it came to the moment for
the actual crowning, he took the diadem from the hands of the pope and himself
placed it on his head, afterwards crowning the empress. This sort of petty
behaviour seems trivial in retrospect; but it was symboHcal of the relations
between the successor of St Peter and the Corsican upstart. In Fisher's words
167 Portrait of Pius VII
'Inevitably the name and example of Charlemagne captured the imagination
by Jacques-Louis David.
of the new Emperor of the French. In February 1808, French troops again Paris, Louvre

203
 *• i

C^2

^ .^w-

«.- »I
occupied Rome, and the Papal States became French in everything but name.
On 17 May 1809, Napoleon issued an imperial decree annexing Rome to the
empire. On 10 June the tricolour replaced the papal flag on Sant' Angelo. The next
day Pius issued a bull which excommunicated the despoilers of the Church.
On 6 July, he was kidnapped and bundled off to Avignon, and thence to Savona.
Napoleon even deprived him of writing materials and the very ring on his hand.
But Pius would not yield. He survived, and on 19 March 1814, after a captivity
of nearly five years, he left Savona to return to Rome.'
Meanwhile the city had received benefits at the hands of the French. Pius was
brave and devout, but he was no administrator. In many ways, bad ways, Rome
was still medieval. Under French administration (which is among the most
world) Rome's streets were paved, and illuminated; the populace
efficient in the
was inoculated, the brigands were driven away. The courts, formerly conducted
exclusively in Latin, were reformed, the famous Codes introduced, and the use
of torture and right of asylum abolished. The draining of the Pontine Marshes
was begun (Mussolini finished it), the regulation of the Tiber attempted (Garibaldi
saw it completed) the Appian Way was restored, agriculture and the arts
generally improved. Prizes were offered for the best compositions in Italian
prose and verse. Napoleon enthusiastically furthered a plan for the restoration
of Roman ancient monuments. Strong family connections were formed between
Rome and the now imperial house. Cardinal Fesch lived in the Via Giulia,
Napoleon's mother, Madame Mere, at the corner of the Corso facing the Palazzo
Venezia. She died there in 1836, only a year before Queen Victoria's succession.
When Napoleon's long-awaited heir appeared in 1811 he was proclaimed King
of Rome. Most famous of all was Napoleon's sister Pauline, who married Prince
Camillo Borghese. Pauline longed for the virile gallantry of Paris, and her brother,
in a letter which came to light in 1969, had to write and tell her that when in

Rome she must do as the Romans did. In 1805, two years after her marriage,
Canova (1751-1822), created his famous statue of her, still in the Borghese gallery
in the guise of Venus Victorious (Plate 169). Pauline is represented half naked
on a couch, the artist having cunningly disposed her head-bandeau and her right
hand so as to conceal the one flaw in her person, her protruding ears. Her peasant
family were shocked at the lack of clothing, and asked her how she could have
allowed Canova to exhibit her thus. 'Oh, there was a stove in the room,' she
answered.
There was a debit side to the French occupation. With the papal court went
employment in and around it. The population had been diminished by forty
thousand according to a French estimate. Taxes had doubled, conscription had
been introduced. And looting had been conducted on an imperial scale. From
the Villa Albani alone 294 statues were stolen, and a special company was
created to transport the spoils. After the fall of Napoleon, Canova, who was not
only the last classical sculptor of genius, the founder of a distinguished school,
but a diplomatist as well, was sent to Paris to obtain the return of the booty.
He wrote 'I now have in my care the two masterworks of Greek
to a friend 168 The Pincio Gardens,
statuary, the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvedere.' laidout in their present form
in the early nineteenth
The great legacy of the French occupation apart from making life more orderly
century but known as the
and civilized was the organized beginnings of archaeological research, in which Hill of Gardens even in
Napoleon's savants had already shewn themselves so adept in Egypt. The great ancient republican times.

205

169 Pauline Borghese, sister
of Napoleon, sculpted by
by Canova in the guise of
Venus Victorious. Galleria
Borghese
170 Memorial to the last of
the Stuarts by Canova in
St Peter'swhere they lie
buried. The Old Pretender
and Bonnie Prince Charlie
are shown wearing armour
while the latter's brother
wears cardinal's robes.
—
proponent of the Neo-classical style in architecture, as Canova was in sculpture,
was a Roman with a French name, Valadier (1762-1839). It is to him that we owe
the elegant Piazza del Popolo as we now see it — that is, if we can see it at all.
The majestic effect is marred, blurred, by wires overhead and cars on the ground,
except very early in the morning or very late at night. The triple prospect from
the obelisk, down the Corso flanked by the two churches in the middle to the
glistening Vittorio Emmanuele monument, along the shorter via del Babuino to
the and the Ripetto to the right, each with its own eloquent vista, is the finest
left
in Rome. Valadier had started the designs for it as early as 1 784 but it was only ;
in 1816 that he was able to begin work, which took him four years. The exedras
with their sculpture (the fountains within them and those with the lions at the
base of the obelisk were added later) above all the magnificent double causeway
up to the Pincio, inspired no doubt by the great terraced temple of Fortune at
Palestrina, constitute one of the most satisfying harmonies of architecture,
sculpture and landscape ever achieved. The summit of this creation, the Piazzale
Napoleon, provides Rome with its favourite belvedere, from which the view,
specially at sunset, when the soft light shines through the windows in the dome
of St Peter's below, is unforgettable. Nearby is Valadier's own Neo-classical
villa, now a stylish restaurant, from which also the famous view may be enjoyed
at a price.
The aged pope must have been delighted that his restoration should have
produced such noble beauty. When he died in 1823, his memorial in St Peter's
was entrusted by his devoted and gifted aide Cardinal Consalvi, who had
practically administered the papacy since the restoration, to a Dane called
Thorvaldsen, a pupil of Canova, who had died the previous year. The choice was
206
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much criticized, on the ground that Thorvaldsen was a Protestant; and Pius
VII's monument remains the only Protestant work in St Peter's to this day.

Another memorial had been presented by a Protestant, namely that to the last of
the Stuarts, a masterpiece of Canova (1817-1819). 'James III', Charles Edward,
known as the Count of Albany, and his brother Cardinal York, Bishop of
Frascati, are all represented (Plate 170). This monument was the gift of King
George IV, as Prince Regent, whose magnificent portrait by Lawrence is one of
the best things in the Vatican picture-gallery. That he should have presented the
monument and that Pius VII should have accepted it is to the credit of both.
who had promised
But Pius VII always liked to show his gratitude to the English,
him bodyguard of English soldiers. To this day, one English regiment plays
a
the papal anthem; and when an English steam ship, a wonderful novelty,
appeared at the Ripetta, the pope went down to welcome it. The scene was
painted, the scarlet of the pope's garments contrasting brilliantly with the
workaday rig of the sailors.
Another of Thorvaldsen's famous subjects was George Gordon Lord Byron.
A replica of this statue (which having been rejected by W^estminster Abbey is
now at Trinity College Cambridge) was placed on the Pincio in 1959 (Plate 171),
the original having been made from the life during Byron's visit to Rome in 1817.
He was twenty-nine. He wrote in a letter: 'I have been some days in Rome the
Wonderful. I am delighted with Rome. As a whole Ancient and Modern it — —
beats Greece, Constantinople, everything —
at least that I have ever seen . . .

As for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St Peter's, the Vatican, Palatine &c, &c, they are
quite inconceivable, and must be seen.'
Byron had finished his Manfred three months before, but at Rome he wrote a
new third act, which contains a romantic passage on the vestiges of ancient
Rome, specially the Colosseum, 'a noble wreck in ruinous perfection'. Byron's
most famous 'Roman' verses are to be found in Childe Harold, Canto IV, beginning
at stanza LXXVIII, which is inscribed on the Pincio statue

'Oh Rome my country

! ! city of the soul
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee.
Lone mother of dead empires and control !

In their shut breasts their petty misery.

What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye
Whose agonies are evils of a day
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The Niobe of nations there she ! stands.

Childlessand crownless in her voiceless woe
An empty urn within her wither'd hands.
171 Replica of the statue of
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago; Byron by Thorvaldsen which
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; was made from the life
The very sepulchres lie tenantless during Byron's visit to Rome
in 1817. The original is in
Of their heroic dwellers dost thou : flow.
Trinity College, Cambridge
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? and this replica is on the
Rise with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.' Pincio.

209
 Later stanzas allude to thetomb of Cecilia Metella, the Forum, the Colosseum,
the 'Dying Gladiator' — he —
was a Gaul really 'butcher'd to make a Roman
holiday', Hadrian's tomb and the Pantheon. The whole sequence is well worth
the study of the modern Pilgrim.
One of those who were studying Rome when Byron was there was a little
French boy, who lived in the Ruspoli palace on the Corso, not far from Madame
Mdre. She was his grandmother. The little boy's name was Louis Napoleon,
and he lived with his mother, ex-Queen Hortense of Holland. His early acquain-
tance with Rome was to exercise a dramatic influence on the fortunes both of the
city and of himself.
Byron's brother poet Shelley was in Rome in 1818 and 1819. His letters are not
only beautiful, but of great interest, because they show that despite all the money
that had been spent on excavation (the Accademia di San Luca had been granted
100,000 pounds by the French, and it was reported that 12,000 men had worked
for four years at the great task) many ancient monument*; "Juch as the Colosseum,
the Baths of Caracalla, and the Forum were still unscraped. The Colosseum 'has
been changed by time into the image of an amphitheatre of rocky hills/ overgrown
by the wild olive, the myrtle, and the fig-tree, and threaded by little paths, which
wind among its ruined stairs and immeasurable galleries the copse-wood over-
:

shadows you as you wander through its labyrinths, and the wild weed of this
climate of flowers blooms under your feet'. Those were the happy days. As late
as 1873 Richard Deakin could write his Flora of the Colosseum of Rome, listing

420 plants. Of the Baths of Caracalla, Shelley writes:

172 Shelley in Rome alter a

painting by Joseph Severn,
the friend of Keats, who
Rome. Keats-Shelley
lived in
Memorial House

210
 .

'Never was any desolation more sublime and lovely. The perpendicular wall of
ruin is cloven into steep ravines filled up with flowering shrubs, whose thick
twisted roots are knotted in the rifts of the stones.
'There grow on every side thick entangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the
myrletus, and bay, and the flowering laurustinus, whose white blossoms are just
developed, the wild fig and a thousand nameless plants sown by the wandering
winds.'
Even the Forum is still 'a kind of desert full of heaps of stones and pits, and
though near the habitations of men is the most desolate place you can conceive . .

Rome is a city, as it were, of the dead, or rather of those who cannot die, and who
survive the puny generations which inhabit and pass over the spot which they
have made sacred to eternity.'
In the Keats Memorial house at the foot of the Spanish Steps, there is a romantic
and composing Prometheus Unbound in the ruins of
fictional portrait of Shelley
the baths. Poor Keats reached Rome only in time to die on 2 February 1821. 'Here
lies one whose name was writ in water', says his epitaph on the grave in the

Protestant cemetery. He was only twenty-five.

Pius VII had shown himself the paragon of forgiveness and tolerance he : would
have no reprisals against those who had injured him. The recovered art treasures
were housed with dignity, and the Vatican galleries enlarged by the addition of
the Braccio Nuovo, by Stern, 1817-22. The chief architectural event of the
pope's last years was a disaster of the first order, the destruction by fire as the
result of an explosion in a neighbouring gunpowder-factory of St Paul without
the V^alls, on 15-16 July 1823. Only the columns and the external walls remained
of the work of fourteen centuries, the least changed and restored of the great
basilicas. Itsdimensions were almost identical with those of Trajan's Basilica
Ulpia, of which it used to give an almost perfect impression. The terrible news
was kept from the dying pontiff, who left this troubled world on 20 July, having
outlived his tormentor by three years. The basilica was rebuilt, but only after
much of the original building which could have been saved and consolidated was
demolished, including the priceless mosaics of Cavallini. The new shrine was
consecrated by Pius IX in 1854. Among its embellishments are pillars of alabaster
contributed by Mehmet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, and malachite columns given by the
emperor Nicholas of Russia. Because the basilica was formerly under the pro-
tection of the sovereigns of England, as St John Lateran under those of France,
and S. Maria Maggiore those of Spain, the emblem of the Order of the Garter may
still be seen among its decorations. It possesses neither warmth nor heart.
Consalvi was not allowed to succeed the gentle Pius. Instead a narrow-minded
aristocrat from near Ancona took the Chair as Leo XII. He opposed frivolity,
and ordered the osterie to be surrounded with grilles, through which the customers
could be served standing up. 'Now even wine is imprisoned', Pasquino com-
plained, 'This law is worthy of Mahomet!' Leo XII was unloved, deservedly.
He forbade vaccination against smallpox, and condemned the Jews to forced
residence in the Ghetto or emigration.
Besides the poets, paintersnow flocked to Rome, including the two great
French and Corot. The Museo Napoleonica was founded on the
artists Ingres

bank of the Tiber by one of Napoleon's descendants. Among other treasures it

211

173 Scene in a Roman
Tavern showing tourists
coming in at the door.
Engraving by Achilla Pirelli.
174 Portrait of Granet by
Jean- Auguste- Dominique
Ingres, one of several
portraits he painted in Romt
where he stayed for eighteen
years, having meant to stay
three. Granet was also an
artist and may have had a
hand in the painting of the
Quirinal Palace in the
background. Aix-en-
Provence, Musie Granet
contains a rare portrait of Stendhal, whose famous Promenades dans Rome
appear in 1829, two years after Chateaubriand had returned to Rome as ambassador
to the Holy See.
Where did the ever-growing multitude of visitors stay? Stendhal himself
lodged at what used to be the papal guest-house, now the Hotel Minerva, down by
the Pantheon, as a plaque on its exterior records. The building still retains the
high entrance-arch, through which in days gone by the high-loaded coaches and
wagons could pass into the courtyard, now glazed over and used as a lounge.
The Minerva has preserved much of its cloistral dignity. Only senior clerics,
amplissimi porporati, stayed here. Their juniors were housed in a less elegant
hostelry opposite the papal milliner's round the corner. (The same firm still
dresses the Holy Father.)
Other ecclesiastics would find shelter in their national convents or colleges.
Lay folk generally hired apartments; and early guide-books abound in ad-
monitions of what to seek and what to refuse. Wooden floors were preferable to
stone: cork-soled shoes must not be forgotten. Rooms with northern aspects
must be 'resolutely refused'. Windows must be firmly sealed at night to exclude
the lethal 'bad air' or malaria, a disease which had ravaged Rome for centuries,
but of which the true nature was only discovered by Sir Ronald Ross in 1897.
Some folk preferred the cosy little hotels, such as may still be found near the
Piazza di Spagna. They would visit the famous Cafd Greco nearby, and gaze
upon the great in literature and the arts. In the course of the nineteenth century
212
the word 'tea-room' became part of every European language. Miss Babington's,
at the foot of the Spanish Steps, is still a thriving Roman rendezvous.
Leo XII died in 1829. His successor Pius VIII reigned for eighteen months.
Gregory XVI was elected in 1830, when the barricades of Paris were kindling
revolution throughout Europe. He was the last pope to reign in undisturbed
possession of his throne and his patrimony, for when he died in 1846 a new age
had begun not only for Italy, but for Rome, and for the whole estate of Christ's
Church as well.
He himself was to feel its effects. His accession coincided with the final stages
of the liberation of Greece, and the foundation, for the first time in history, of
a sovereign, albeit small and protected, Hellenic kingdom. This result had been
achieved largely by English arms and diplomacy, aided by the dramatic advocacy
of Byron who had died on Greek soil in 1824, but French and American volunteers
had played a gallant part, and French troops had been stationed in the Pelo-
ponnese, before the arrival of the Bavarian boy-king in 1830. The Greek revolu-
tion had naturally stimulated Italian aspirations and it was no surprise when in
;

1831 unrest broke into open defiance in Central Italy. The secret association of
the Carbonari, the charcoal-burners, was at work, and among its recruits was
none other than the future Napoleon 111, now a lad of twenty-three (Plate 177).
The insurrection did not reach the city, but it did involve the papal states, and
it was at Civita Castellana, less than 50 kilometres north of Rome, that Napoleon

and his brother saw action on the side of the rebels. The town had evil associa-
tions: it had been a Borgia stronghold and was used as a prison for political
prisoners. Napoleon's brother died of measles contracted on this campaign:
Napoleon escaped. The insurrection was put down, but the pope's northern
provinces underwent a double occupation first by Austrian and then by French
troops. Gregory, this northern monk who regarded the railroad as the highway of
the devil, could not read the signs of the times : as he moved in his medieval
pomp, the ostrich plumes that waved above his head became ever more fatally
symbolic.
When Gregory died in 1846, the Risorgimento was already under way. Ten
years before, the English novelist and future statesman, Bulwer Lytton, had
foreseen the inevitable course of events. In the preface to his Rienzi, which had
been begun in the Rome of Gregory XVI, he had proclaimed his belief that no
175/176 Two views of Rome:
the picturesque, as seen by
progress was to be expected from the hands of either pope or kings of Naples, Pannini in the eighteenth
but only from the house of Savoy, a prophecy history was to fulfil. The election, century and engraved by a

therefore, of a successor to Gregory was bound to be fraught with daunting London publisher, and the
realistic, a View of the Siege
difficulties. Few saw as clearly as Lytton had seen the logical, the inevitable
Rome by an unknown
of
procession of liberty. The crucial question was could unity be achieved, for
: all nineteenth-century painter
Italy, in spite of the Church, or worse still, in opposition to the Church? Mazzini in the Museo del
Risorgimento.
(1805-1872), the anti-clerical son of a Genoese doctor, preached the Republic,
one and indivisible : in Fisher's words he is 'the saitit'of the republican movement' 177 Engraving of Louis
(Plate 178). Mazzini was a conspirator. He founded the Association of Italian Napoleon, later Napoleon III,
here drawn by Count d'Orsay
Youth Even if he did not live to see an Italian
in 1831 in a Marseilles garret.
a few years after his
Republic, was his fervour that was the inspiration of the nationalist movement.
it
Carbonaro activities.
Whatever form the United Government might take — and it is to the fervid
1 78 Popular engraving of
Mazzini that we owe the dictum that 'politics is the science of the attainable' — it
Guiseppe Mazzini, 'the saint
was unthinkable that Italy should be cut in two by Papal States, wholly out of of the republican movement'.

215
 sympathy with secular ambitions, or that the united state should be deprived of
Rome.
its capital,

179 View of Rome from the
gardens of the Villa Medici
by Domenico Amico.
London, Courtauld Institute
of Art
Twice before, the Temporal Power had been suspended, and twice it had been
restored. Thus the 'Roman Question' was already a burning one when the
conclave met in 1846 to appoint Gregory's successor. There were two likely
papabili, the reactionary Lambruschini, the Austrian candidate, and Gizzi, a
reformer. The election must surely be long drawn out. To the general surprise
it was not: within forty-eight hours Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti was elected and
took the title Pius IX. He implored to be excused, this unknown, humble prelate,
whom Pius VII had ordained despite his feeble health; and he had been elected
largely by votes cast for him, well-nigh cast at him, in order to exclude one or
other of the favourites. His health was to withstand the longest papal reign on
record (1846-1878), longer even than the twenty-five years of St Peter; his
election, however obtained, was to establish him as one of the most individual
and masterful pontiffs ever to occupy the Holy See. He would start as a liberal
sovereign, he would end as ^reactionary captive. Such was to be the paradoxical
career of this most remarkable man.
The new pope began well. He seemed to be in harmony with the mood of
liberal Catholicism then prevailing. He amnestied patriotic Italians who had been
imprisoned for political offences. He protested against the Austrian occupation
of Ferrara, a town within his own dominions. He set up a civic guard. He was
taking in hand the reformation of the Papal State. He appointed a council of
ministers who gave his regime the semblance of constitutional progress.
Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, the popular sonneteer, whose statue, with its stone

216
 :

top-hat graces a fountain in Trastevere, had said of Gregory XVI that in his day
the hallowed initials 'SPQR' stood for 50/0 preti qui regnano, only priests rule
here; but even he welcomed 'Pio Nono' as he has always been known. Belli
even became adviser to the censor of stage plays. It is a remarkable fact that

throughout the reign of Pio Nono the theatre flourished in Rome; even more
remarkable that so many of the operas of Verdi, an Italian patriot if ever there
was one, were performed, sometimes for the first time, in the papal capital.
The chief survivor of that epoch is the gracious Teatro Argentina, built in 1730
and rebuilt in 1837 by Pietro Camporese the younger who also gave the
Venerable English College its present aspect. It was in the Argentina that in 1816
Rossini's Barber of Seville was first produced. In accordance with what seems to
be an operatic law, it was a flop the first night and a resounding success the
second.
This happy primavera spirit was soon quenched. In 1848, the whole of Europe
was ablaze for freedom. Pio Nono was in a quandary: liberal though his sym-
pathies might be, he could not declare war on the chief Catholic power of Europe,
namely Austria, the chief oppressor of Italy. In May, the Lombards rose and
expelled their Austrian garrison; but the pope had already in his Allocution of
the preceding month made it clear that he could never countenance any such
enterprise. Deadlock the pope from being a leader became an adversary over-
:

night. Rossi, the enlightened minister whom the pope had commissioned to
carry out a liberal, moderate programme of reforms, was murdered in broad
daylight, and the pope fled to Gaeta, leaving events in Rome to run their course.
The English offered him asylum in Malta. 'The brutal logic of the new situation
was felt by the brutal Roman mob.' A Constituent Assembly was summoned,
which deposed the pope from his temporal sovereignty. On 8 February 1849,
a republic was proclaimed on the Capitol, where Rienzi had proclaimed his, and
Mazzini was appointed as head of a triumvirate to govern the Roman state.
For the third and last time within fifty years the temporal power was to be
restored, and by the very power, France, which on the two earlier occasions
had suspended it. Napoleon the Carbonaro was now Prince President of France
he could not afford to alienate his Catholic voters, nor did he want to see Austria
in the role of saviour. The republic was crushed by French troops; but by the
mere fact of its existence it had shown that Rome could be, must be, and
eventually would be the capital of Italy. Then too, the defence had been conducted
by one of the noblest and most romantic heroes of all time, Giuseppe Garibaldi
(1807-1882) (Plate 180). He had led a gang of irregulars in South America, then
as now the training-ground of liberators, and had dressed them in some odd
shirts which had been discarded by a slaughter-house. So as not to show the
blood of the animals, they were dyed red, and as Garibaldi's Redshirts they were
to become immortal. Garibaldi was an ardent republican, who worshipped liberty
and hated priests; but it was as the self-abnegating servant of the House of Savoy
that he was to further the cause of Italy. The train of events was as follows.
In 1858, a man called Orsini threw a bomb at Napoleon, as he was entering
the Opera. To Napoleon the meaning of his action was clear. Since the days of
Rienzi, the Orsinis had kept up their reputation for assassination: in the very
palace where Napoleon had lived in Rome as a boy, the central entrance towards
the Corso had been walled up when one of the Caetani was murdered by an

217
 Orsini on the threshold, and never used since. If an Orsini was now active in
Paris, he must be heeded. Napoleon was a Carbonaro once more. In July 1858,
he summoned Cavour to meet him, secretly, in the Vosges mountains, and with
him sketched out a plan for Italy without the Austrians. The price of French
support was to be the cession of Nice (unfortunately the birthplace of Garibaldi)
and Savoy (the home of the liberating dynasty). Austria played straight into their
hands by demanding that the government of Turin, now the capital of Victor
Emmanuel II, should disarm. Napoleon could thus enter Italy as the ally of an
aggressor's victim. The ensuing campaign is chiefly remarkable for the battles
of Magenta (which is commemorated by a new aniline colour) and Solferino,
which saw the birth of the Red Cross. After these two victories. Napoleon
suddenly broke off the campaign and made peace at Villafranca. In view of
180 Popular engraving of German menaces of which Cavour was ignorant. Napoleon was wise to act as
the three makers of modern he did; but from that day France was never to be trusted again.
Italy Victor Emmanuel II of
:

Once launched, the movement for unity could not be withstood. In 1860,
Piedmont, his prime minister
Cavour and Garibaldi, leader Central Italy declared for Piedmont, the little principalities rose against their
of the Redshirts. rulers. Thanks to a far-sighted patriot, Ricasoli, Florence gave a lead in the

218
acceptance of Savoyard rule, and thus for a brief period became the capital of
Italy. Meanwhile, Garibaldi by an exploit which still thrills those who contem-

plate it, had conquered Sicily and had then swept on to Naples, which he entered
not as a republican dictator, but, owing to Cavour's persuasion, as the partner
of the king, with whom he drove in triumph into the Bourbon capital. It was a
triumph, too, for Cavour— his last. The great architect of unity, who had defeated
Mazzini and wonover Garibaldi, died in 1862. During his long administration
(1851-1859 and 1860-1862) the practice of responsible government took root in
Italy. 'Of the foreign conquests of English Liberalism, none has been so important

as the mind of Cavour.'

But the struggle was not yet over. Twice did Garibaldi with his Redshirts
and Bersaglieri make thrusts at Rome. In August 1862, he was turned back by
the very Piedmontese whose cause he had advanced, but whose sagacious
sovereign realized precipitate events would be to lose the prize.
that to
Again in November 1867, he was defeated by the French, while the royal army
of Italy which had undertaken the defence of the Papal State, remained a neutral
spectator.
The drama depended less on the efforts of the Italians than
final stages of the

on European power structure. Prussia's defeat of Austria in 1866,

shifts in the

in which the Italians by a prudently concluded alliance took part on the winning
side, at last gave them Venice. Four years later the last French troops were
withdrawn from Rome— most had already gone— to face those same Prussians,
and the victorious legions of Victor Emmanuel entered Rome by a breach in the
Aurelian wall near the Porta Pia, on 20 September 1870. By a plebiscite held on
2 October, the Romans voted in favour of the new regime.
We must now, after this brief but necessary excursion into Italian politics,

return to Rome itself, and see how it had fared under the man who was to be its

last papal ruler.

The unique length of Pio Nono's reign has already been mentioned but even ;

so, given the chaos through which Italy, indeed Rome itself, was fated to pass

during those years, the pope's achievements in both the ecclesiastical and secular
spheres are remarkable. To start with thelatter. In the year 1854, on 8 December,

Pope Pius solemnly declared ex cathedra that belief in the Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin Mary was a dogma of faith, an event commemorated by the antique
column in the Piazza di Spagna. In 1864 Pius issued his Syllabus Errorum,
which condemned almost the whole of post-French Revolution civilization.
The grand finale was worthy of Rossini himself: in 1870, a Vatican Council was
in session. With the troops of the new, secular monarchy almost at the gates of
Rome, and amid the thunders of an electric storm, the Council passed the decree
which made the pope, speaking ex cathedra on a question of faith and morals,
infallible. Only the bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas, dissented; the assembled

prelates dispersed, the Council suspended but never formally terminated.

The new rulers of Rome and of Italy, of which Rome was declared the capital
de jure, in accordance with a resolution taken a decade earlier, were not only
patriots but Catholics as well. The pope was offered honourable immunity.
He replied by excommunicating the sovereign; and in 1874 the Bull Non expedit
forbade Catholics to take an active part in the politics of the new kingdom.
He lived his last years in self-imposed captivity in the Vatican.

219
 In the secular field Pio Nono's activities had happier issues. His administration,
goaded rather than guided by the obscurantist Antonelli, was lamentable, and his
police methods and the cruelties of his priestly minions led to international
protests. But the social life of the city went on, with ever-increasing harvests
of visitors and pilgrims. The theatres and opera-houses remained open. On 6 July
1856, Rome's first railway line was opened. It linked the capital with Frascati.
The coach, built in Paris and presented to the pope by the Pio-Latina Society,
is now preserved in the Rome Museum (Plate 181). In 1863 the pope presided

at the inauguration of an ugly and practical iron bridge, the gift of Great Britain,
which carried the new Rome-Civita Vecchia line over the Tiber, while allowing
river traffic to pass by means of a drawbridge. Soon the central railway station
was finished, though at that time and for some years afterwards it stood amid
fields and gardens.
As befitted this dernier cri of the Middle Ages, its most noticeable progress
was towards the past: archaeology flourished as never before. Excavation of the
Forum had begun early in the century under the stimulus of the English Duchess
of Devonshire. Valadier made a cardinal contribution in 1821, when he freed the
Arch of Titus from its encroachments and restored it to its pristine form. This he
did in a manner that was to become standard Italian practice. He made no attempt
to fake, to make the new look old. He left the marble core as it was, and replaced
the missing portions in travertine. This has the admirable result that the monu-
ment gives the overall effect of its original construction, while clearly demon-
strating to the enquiring spectator just how much of that construction remains.
This rule, which might be called 'Valadier's Law' is still the guiding principle of
the world-famous Istituto del Restauro in the Via Cavour. A relay of experts
gradually isolated and identified the monuments of the Forum, the Via Sacra

181 Photograph of Pius IX

standing in a. railway
carriage of the first train to

serve the Vatican in 1863.

182 The Vittoriano, the

memorial to Victor
Emmanuel, the first king
of united Italy, dominates
the centre of Rome.

220
*i^p^ ^^••.-.

>^a

sMKW^^
 was exposed, the temple of the Vestals, the temple of Castor and Pollux made
accessible. The work is still going on; and the recovery of the ancient fabric
has been accompanied with the planting of trees, shrubs and flowers, so that the
Forum is now as pleasant, and as thronged, a resort as it was when Horace strolled
in it. The Palatine has fared even better. In 1860, Napoleon III bought from the
Farnese the gardens which crowned it. These were purchased from him by the
Italian government ten years later, just before his downfall. Rosa, Lanciani and
above all Boni (1859-1925) who is buried there, have similarly transformed the
Palatine into one of the most glorious, yet tranquil, outdoor museums in the
world wanderer can contemplate the relics of imperial
(Plate 153). There, the
splendour, or wander through the groves where the urban noises give way to
birdsong, or watch the asparagus growing wild, or the hay being mown, just as
John Milton did when he conceived his apocalyptic vision of imperial Rome
and the Temptation of Christ.
In this work Pio Nono took part. He restored in 1858, as an inscription informs
us, the Portico of the Consenting Gods below the Capitol — the last pagan monu-
ment to be preserved by a pope.
On 10 September 1870, the Pope left the Vatican for the last time. He went to
inaugurate a new fountain, in front of the church of St Mary of the Angels.
Pio Nono and admired the crystal jet which sent it, alive and
tasted the water,
pure, soaring to the sky. Ten days later came the end. The Middle Ages were over.
As explained below, the 'Roman question' had to wait nearly sixty years for
a solution. Its most harmful effect on Italy was that, during a period when every
energy should have been devoted to the creation of a truly unified state, out of
diverse regions and regimes which had not known unity for more than a
millenium, men's minds were distracted by this local squabble. North and south
remained at odds, as they to some extent are even to this day. The politician who
dominated the end of the century was Francesco Crispi. He had started as a
disciple of Mazzini; but it was he who said: 'the republic would divide us, the
monarchy unites us'. Being a Sicilian, he saw more than the mainlanders how
fragile, and how essential, was a feeling of true nationality, of Italianitd. He
governed Italy from 1881 until the colonial disaster of Adowa overthrew him
in 1896. His most unfortunate mistake, pregnant with calamity, was his abandon-
ment of a pro-French alignment and a rapprochement with Germany. From its
genesis, therefore, the new Italian polity contained the germs of the two maladies
which were to bring upon it so much bale the leaning towards Germany and the
:

lack of cohesion between north and south.

With the advent of the new regime, Rome as it were, awoke from a long sleep,
rubbed its eyes, looked about it and got to work. Not all its vigour was wisely
directed. To start with, there was an immediate increase in the population.
In 1870 Rome had a population of about 200,000: in 1897 it had expanded to
489,965. In the first forty years of this century the pace was even more rapid:
by the 1930s the population had risen to over 900,000, and today it is over
2,000,000. To find homes, offices, factories for such an ever-expanding populace,
it is obvious that new quarters, new suburbs, must be provided. This is what

183 The Forum ('The Arch had happened and is still happening. Only ten years ago, Tivoli was divided from
of Titus') by Joseph Mallord
William Turner. London,
Rome by open country. Now it is linked by ignoble urbanization. Unfortunately
Tate Gallery this process began as soon as ever Rome became the Italian capital.

222
 New streets and squares there had to be. The Via Nazionale, the Via Cavour,
the Corso Vittorio Emmenuele, all these main arteries were necessary and also
dignified. Necessary, too, was the construction of the great stone embankments
which Tiber (Plate 186), which ever since the foundation
at last controlled the

of the city had been wont to inundate it all too frequently, and, as plaques in
several parts of Rome record, to a depth which makes it seem impossible that any
ancient buildings should have survived at all. These embankments, as in London
and Paris, have also become invaluable highways, even though they inevitably
destroyed much of the 'picturesque' old Rome, including the charming Ripetta.
Bridges were built, so that in the reaches of the Tiber between the historic
Milvian Bridge, and the region of St Paul without the Walls, where four bridges
(counting the two Island bridges as one) had formerly spanned the stream,
today there are twenty. Some of these structures are handsome, others ugly.
By far the most remarkable, and the most pleasing aesthetically is the simple
Ponte del Risorgimento. This graceful arc is the only bridge to cross the river
in one single span, with a chord and a rise of ten. It is hard to
ot 100 metres,
where reinforced concrete was to be so daringly and superbly
believe that, in a city
used in the 1950s, this bridge was built in I9I0, by Frangois Hennebique, a
pioneer in the employment of that material. The Hennebique bridge did mark the
beginning of an awakening civic conscience; but in the preceding forty years
great crimes had been committed. Gaunt, jerry-built squares, Potemkin-like

—
facades plaster imitation-Renaissance for the most part concealed unsanitary —
blocks of apartments. Long, helminthoid boulevards wound their dreary ways
through what had been green fields. Within fifteen years of the 'Sardinian
occupation' as the famous perambulator Augustus Hare disdainfully calls it,
irreparable damage had been done. 'The construction of houses in the new part
of the city,' wrote the London Times on 15 June 1887, 'and especially in those
sections which have been demolished and rebuilt, has been carried on under
regulations so bad, or so easily evaded, that the new quarter is the most dis-
graceful appendix to a great city to be found in all Europe.' The wretched tenement
houses were so flimsy — the picture reminds one of the Rome of Martial, eighteen
hundred years earlier — that 'one hears the common domestic sounds from
apartment to apartment . . . There is the least possible attention to the sanitary
requisites which decency would Next year The Times was still
permit'.
thundering. 'A will, with a genius,' it article on 10 January
wrote in a leading
1888, 'might have grasped the idea embodied, or hidden, in medieval Rome, and
unfolded it, beautiful and dignified, over the vacant spaces of the Seven Hills' (the 184 The piazza of St Peter's
last seven words are of great significance Rome was still not wholly 'a built-up
: with cabs waiting for tourists.
area'). 'Italy was ready, within generous limits, to be paymaster. Italians longed
185 The Ponte Sant' Angelo,
for Rome as Rome was. The Roman Town Council had bestowed upon them for
basically an ancient bridge
their royal capital a paltry and spurious copy of Paris boulevards. Nothing so built by Hadrian, adorned by
pretentious, commonplace, unspiritual and dull has ever been produced as Bernini in the seventeenth
century and restored in the
neo-regal Rome. In addition to a display of poverty of artistic ideas almost
twentieth.
amounting to genius, the Roman municipality is, moreover, acknowledged to
have set at defiance all the rules of recent sanitary science in a manner incom- 186 The stone embankments
of the Tiber which were
parably its own.' It was not only the bossy English who were complaining
erected against floods late
(and their own country, if it possessed nothing as beautiful as the old Rome last century and gave scope
was disfigured by plenty of towns as shocking as the new), but the Italians for invaluable highways.

225
186

187 The Piazza Colonna, and
Marcus Aurelius' column,
seen from the halls of a
government building.
themselves. The great Lanciani, who was one of those who restored the Forum
Romanum Rome, wrote: 'The blame must be cast especially on the members of
to
the Roman aristocracy We have seen three of them sell the very gardens
. . .
which surrounded their city mansions, allowing these mansions to be contami-
nated by the contact of ignoble tenement houses. We have seen every single one
—
of the patrician villas the Patrizi, the Sciarra, the Massimo, the Lucernari,
the Miraflori, the Wolkonsky, the Giustiniani, the Torlonia, the Campana, the
—
San Faustino destroyed, their casinos dismantled, and their beautiful old trees
'
burnt into charcoal
As examples of really ugly, un-Roman, creations may be cited the Piazza
VittorioEmmanuele, on the Esquiline, laid out at the end of the nineteenth century
by Koch and others. It was intended to be national shrine of all the Risorgimento
heroes (beginning with Machiavelli). Today it harbours an open-air market and
a colony of cats.
The picture drawn by Lanciani, Augustus Hare, The Times and a multitude of
others is dark indeed. All the more meritorious therefore was the action of
King Vittorio Emmanuele III in buying the Villa Borghese and presenting it to
the city in 1902, which in the same year acquired the magnificent art collections
of the villa. United to Valadier's Pincio, the Borghese furnishes Rome with its
largest and most beautiful park, indeed one of the most beautiful in any city in
the world. It is six kilometres in circumference. Other open spaces have been
reclaimed or created, on both sides of the Tiber. The gardens of the Palatine,
the Oppian (Domus Aurea), Celimontana, brighten the centre of Rome. The
Janiculum, despite the intrusion of the Monteverde quarter, is still largely an
open space, from the ridge of which Garibaldi gazes out over Trastevere to the
city. Beyond lies the great Doria-Pamphilj park, the patrimony of a great noble
family who have lived up to the obligations of their noblesse. Indeed, compared
with other capitals, Rome, with its now tree-lined streets and its frequent groves
and gardens, is well endowed with breathing-spaces. Despite the relentless
thrust of the suburbs, which have admittedly brought drab ruin to many a
green acre, even outside the walls efforts have been made to preserve the ancient
amenities. The most notable achievement here has been the preservation of the
Appian Way, with its ancient funerary memorials, along the first eight kilometres
(Plate 2). The civic trust, Italia Nostra, which now has a membership of over
forty thousand members, acts as a most vigilant and energetic watchdog in Rome
as in the rest of the country.
Before reviewing the planned development of extra-mural areas, as contrasted
with conservation of what was there before, it will be well to return to the city
itself, and what the new government created apart from the distressing
to enquire
'development' described above. The answer is, not much. One of the worst rapes
committed by the new Aediles was that of the Prati, the vast area on the right
bank of the Tiber between the Vatican and Monte Mario. As its name implies,
this was a region of fields, of gardens and vineyards. It is now a rectilinear jungle,
dull and depressing. As an ill-mannered gesture of defiance to the imprisoned
pope, the oblong Piazza del Risorgimento was laid out at his very door;
and on the bank of the river was erected the elephantine Palace of Justice
(Guglielmo Calderini, I889-I9I0). The pretty little 'gothic' church of S. Cuore del
Suffragio crouched next door (1890) serves to throw the monster into brazen
228
lAlLIS.

-rrrrrmm-
s.
relief. The rear elevation is more tranquil. It overlooks the Piazza Cavour, which
is planted with palm-trees, and a garden amid which rises the monument to

Cavour by Stefano were gone now. Cavour had

Galletti (1895). All the heroes

died in 1861, Mazzini in 1872, Garibaldi in 1882. Pope and king, Pio Nono and
Vittorio Emmanuele II had been buried with their differences in the same year,
1878. The pope's successor, Leo XIII, Pecchi, was a cultivated man of letters.
Like his predecessor he was to last the Petrine span of twenty-five years, dying
new cardinal in 1879 was
in 1903 at the age of ninety-three. Leo's first choice for a
John Henry Newman. Under Leo's wise administration the old rancours were
alleviated. He issued a spate of encyclicals, of which the most famous was and yet
is Rerum Novarum, of 1891 This pronouncement, reinforced by the Quadragesimo
.

Anno issued by Pius XI in 1931, is still one of the best antidotes to communism
ever penned.
The Palace of was not the only monument of grandiose pretensions
Justice
to find a place in the Italy, like other states, was now committed to
new Rome.
colonial adventures in Africa: something imperial must be erected. It was.
The Vittoriano, as it is called, the memorial to Vittorio Emmanuele II, was begun
in 1885, and finished in 191 1 (Plate 182). It is the most inescapable memorial in

the world. You cannot not see it: you must either admire it or condemn it.

As the Guida d' Italia drily puts it : 'The stone of Botticino (Brescia) used in its

construction, of a cold and dazzling white, does not harmonize with the warm,
golden tint of Travertine, the prevailing stone of Rome; nor does the monument,
despite the classical inspiration of its architecture, succeed in acclimatizing itself
to the scenic layout of the older buildings and the ruins which surround it.'

Best leave it at that.

The one indisputable success of the planners of new Rome (if we except the
tunnel under the Quirinal opened in 1902) was a fitting link with the old, in fact
with Pio Nono's last secular appearance. The fountain outside the church of
S. Mary of the Angels (Plate 190) was to be amplified thrice over. First of all,

in 1885, it was provided with a great circular bowl, then in 1 90 1, Mario Rutelli,

the Sucilian sculptor who also created the romantic memorial to Anita Garibaldi
on the Janiculum, embellished the fountain with Nereids disporting them-
selves with marine monsters. Finally (as though to correct the undue levity of
the ladies) in I9I4 Rutelli added another group in the centre symbolizing Man
Victorious over the Brute Forces of Nature. Meanwhile, between 1896 and 1902,
Koch had designed the two graceful colonnades (Plate 189), following the trace
of the exedra of the baths of Diocletian, which since 1889 had housed the National
Archaeological Museum. Koch's colonnades are the finest thing of their kind
in Rome since Bernini. The piazza, now renamed della Repubblica, with the
fountain in the middle sending its cypress-like column of water heavenwards
before the curved portal of the church, as seen, whether by day or by night,
from the axis of the Via Nazionale, provides one of Rome's most satisfying 188 The Via della
Conciliazione, designed in
spectacles.
1929 by Marcello Piacentini
Near the top of the Via Nazionale is one of two churches built, this one in 1879, to symbolize the
by the English architect George Edmund Street (I824-I88I). It is the shrine of the reconciliation of Italy with
the new Vatican State, and
Episcopal Church of America, designed in the Romanesque style, complete with
to open up the way between
campanile. It has good mosaics by Sir Edwin Burne-Jones. Street's Anglican St Peter's and the Castel
church of All Saints is in the Via Babuino. It is a fine example of English Sant' Angelo.

231
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Gothic Revival. The steeple was added in the present century, and is the
little 189 Part of the colonnades
of the Piazza della
only one of its kindRome. It used to catch the eye of the late Pope John XXIII,
in
Repubblica, designed by
who said that whenever he saw it he prayed for those who worshipped in it. Koch to follow the traces of
Near the piazza is the Opera House, one of the world's most famous. It is not the exedrae of the baths of

beautiful, but acoustically it is wellnigh perfect. It is connected by means of an Diocletian and in themselves
reminiscent of Bernini's
underground passage with the Quirinale Hotel, because the Opera-house was seventeenth-century
originally built in 1880 by the inn-keeper, Costanzi, and kept his name for several colonnade before St Peter's.
decades. It was last renovated in 1 959-1 960. It is one of the very few buildings in
190 The Fountain of the
Rome which still bears the name of Mussolini. With the coming of the Republic
Nymphs in the Piazza della
in 1946, the crown was removed from above the royal box, leaving two putti Repubblica designed in two
holding nothing at all; but no-one apparently could be found daring enough to stages by Mario Rutelli.

climb up over the proscenium and delete the inscription there.


191 Photograph of Mussolini
being sketched, probably on
the terrace of his villa
outside Rome.
192 The Via Cristoforo
Colombo, the spine of the
garden city of EUR, flanked
by congress halls and
ornamental water.
Fascism and After
It is just that Mussolini's name should stand on the Roman record, for he and the
era he created are part of the Roman story. He was to bring untold tribulation
upon himself and upon his country; but during the twenty years of his domina-
tion, not all thatwas done was evil. On the contrary some of it was enduringly
good. His greatest achievement was the solution of the 'Roman Question'.
When Leo XIII died in 1903, it was generally expected that his able Secretary of
State and counsellor. Cardinal Rampolla would succeed him. But (for the
last time) the Habsburg emperor interposed his veto. It is generally said that he
did so because he disliked Rampolla's French sympathies; but he cannot have
failed to bear inmind that it was Rampolla as Secretary of State who had very
rightly demurred at the story put out officially after the death of the Crown
Prince Rudolph at Mayerling in 1889. The reluctance of the Vatican to believe
the unbelievable cannot have pleased the emperor. And thus a conservative,
Pius X, an echo of Pius IX, was elected in Rampolla's stead. In 1914 Benedict XV
succeeded him, but even had Benedict wished to negotiate with the Quirinal,
the war and its aftermath made any such move unpropitious. With Achille
Ratti, who took the title Pius XI, the papacy acquired a man of great force, who
was at the same time an ardent Italian patriot, a character he lamentably overdid
in his patronage of the Ethiopian aggression. But against that must be put his pact
with Mussolini in 1929. This was his own work; and it was only when his
Secretary of State was bidden to sign the famous document that he knew its
contents. The Lateran Treaty, as it is called, created a tiny but sovereign Vatican
State, and thus restored the freedom of action and movement of the Pope.
Pope Pius XII, who succeeded in 1939 and reigned until 1958, greatly increased
the prestige of the Holy See. His saintly successor John XXIII, during his short
pontificate of two and a half years revolutionized the whole attitude of the
papacy towards the Church, and even more important, to those outside the
Church. The Vatican Council which he summoned presented a number of
challenges, with which Paul VI, formerly archbishop of Milan, had to deal.
Thus, from being a disgruntled prisoner, the Pope has become in forty years a
234
 sovereign with an incalculable influence throughout the world. For this the
credit must go to Benito Mussolini (named by his socialist father after the
assassin Benito Juarez who killed a Catholic sovereign, Maximilian of Mexico)
and the patriot pope.
To symbolize the reunion of Church and State, a grand avenue appropriately
named the Via della Conciliazione was opened linking St Peter's Square with the
open space before Sant' Angelo (Plate 188). The new approach to the basilica has
been criticized on the ground that it has robbed the pilgrim or visitor of the
sudden delight of coming on the greatest shrine in Christendom, unheralded
as it were, by the narrow lanes and streets which shrouded it in a certain mystery.
But in truth the project was by no means a novelty. Three hundred years before
it had been adumbrated, and Fontana had drawn up a definite plan in 1694.

The new avenue, with a slight entasis in its sides, is some 400 metres long and
50 metres wide, closing to 30 metres at the threshold of the Piazza. Besides being
noble, it is necessary modern
: traffic could not move without it.

Another grand and essential urban link was designed to unite the Piazza
Venezia — the nerve-centre of Mussolini's Rome — with the Colosseum, the symbol
of an earlier Roman empire. The splendid boulevard which now joins them was
opened in 1932, and called the Via del Impero, but is now more modestly, and
accurately, known and 42). It is nearly one
as the Via dei Fori Imperiali (Plates 7
kilometre long, and 30 metres wide. While was being constructed, the oppor-
it

193 Statue of a girl by Emilio
Greco outside the Palazzo
dello Sport.
194 The Palazzo dello Sport,
perhaps the most famous
building of Pierluigi Nervi,
now slightly spoilt by its
outer casing but superb
inside.
195 Rome's Termini station,
named after the baths of
Diocletian, brilliantly
designed by seven
tunity was taken to reveal the markets of Trajan, and to provide access to the
other imperial fora. This avenue, besides being a boon to the student or the sight-
seer, also provides access to the ever-increasing suburbs beyond the Celian hill
and the Lateran. It is one of Rome's most imposing amenities.
Three more additions to the Roman scene, all of them good, must be credited to
the Fascist regime, although in each case they have been completed by others.
In the year 1942, it was intended to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the
new order, which dated from the 'March on Rome' of 30 October 1922, by
holding 'the Olympiad of Civilization', or 'E42' for short. The Olympiad was
never held, but the great complex of buildings and avenues and squares which
were to accommodate it is still there, and constitutes the greatest town-planning
achievement in Rome since the days of Trajan. The site was admirably chosen
outside the walls, on a hill rising above the Tiber, not far from the basilica of
St Paul without the V/alls, and skirting the V^ay of the Sea, the splendid artery
which joins Rome with Ostia, now its seaside suburb, and the international air-
port named after Leonardo da Vinci at Fiumicino. The layout was entrusted to
Marcello Piacentini (1881-1960) the versatile and talented architect who had
already designed the Via della Conciliazione. The spine of the garden city (for
such it is), the Via Cristoforo Colombo (Plate 192), stretches for nearly three
kilometres, flanked by congress halls, ornamental water, an open-air theatre and
banks of greenery and flowers. Like the rest of Rome, the E.U.R. [Esposizione
Universale di Roma) suffered during the war, first from German occupation, then
that of the Allies, but it has now been restored. For the 1960 Olympic Games it
received not only the addition of a cycle-track, but of a Palazzo dello Sport
(Plate 194), which is among the most notable works of the great Pierluigi Nervi.
This genius was born at Sondrio in 1 89 1 . When he left Bologna university in 1 9 1 3,

architects and engineers. Hennebique was nearing the end of his days. Nervi was to succeed and surpass

236
 him. Like his predecessor, Nervi finds the processo inventivo the guide for his
work. His book Scienza o arte del costruire gives the clue to his attitude, which is
one of bold empiricism, regulated by an instinctive comprehension of what his
material is capable of. That material is prestressed concrete sometimes as here in
conjunction with glass, and Nervi, in his manipulation of it, has created new
harmonies of science and art. Among the buildings that impress the newcomer
to E.U.R., two are certainly outstanding —
the church of SS. Peter and Paul, by
Arnaldo Foschini (born 1884) and others, a successful adaptation of traditional
forms to new materials, and the Palazzo della Civilta del Lavoro, by Giovanni
Guerrini (born near Ravenna in 1887) and others, popularly known as 'the square
Colosseum' (Plate 197). There is yet a fourth section of the E.U.R. which attracts
the student of thingsRoman more than any of them, namely the Museo di Civilta
Romana. This was erected by a colleague of Piacentini's called Pietro Aschieri
(1889-1952) and others. It is a gift to the city from the firm of Fiat. The collection
is unique, in that it consists wholly of reproductions, designed to illustrate the
history of Rome, the various aspects of Roman civilization, and the traces left by

Rome in various parts of the world. Fortunately, material used ai two former
exhibitions, the Archaeological Exhibition of 1911 (which first gave to the Valle
Giulia its prevailing aspect of international 'culture') and the Augustan Exhibition
of Romanitd of 1937, was intact, and is incorporated in this great storehouse.
The exhibits are arranged chronologically, and cover all aspects of life from eating
to bridge-building, and every country visited by the Eagles from Romania to
Wales. One of the most illuminating halls is number XXXVII, for there, on a scale
of 1 250 is a vast plastic model, the work of Italo Gismondi, of Rome as it was in
:

the days of Constantine. No Rome-fancier can afford to miss this greatest of all

assemblies of the 'props' of the immortal drama.

At the other end of the by the Milvian Bridge, other fine manifestations
city,

of contemporary Roman architecture have arisen.

Valadier had originally wanted
to make the plain which lies on the curving bank of the Tiber below the Par ioli
hills into a sort of Bois. This plan, alas, was frustrated by greed, and the area was

extensively 'developed'. But now both what is left of it, and the area on the right

196 The Stadio Flaminio,

also designed by Nervi for
the 1960 Olympic Games.

197 The Palazzo della

Civilta del Lavaro, known
as the 'square Colosseum'
and designed by Giovanni
Guerrini and others.

198 The piazza of St Peter's

with some priests in
conversation.

199 A view of Rome at night

showing Trajan's column
and the church of S. Nome
di Maria, built on the site of
Trajan's forum.
197

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 198

199

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 bank betVN-een Monte Mario and the Milvian Bridge has been laid out as a centre
of sport and politics alike. The latter form of exercise is housed in the vast white
block of the Ministn,- of Foreign Affairs, inconveniently far from the centre of
the cirv. built bv Foschini and others in 1935. The original sp>orting centre
is now called the Foro Itahco. but a great white marble monolith bearing the
name of Mussolini bears witness to its origin. It contains Del Debbio's already
famous StjJio di Marmi, holding 20,000 spectators and graced by the statues
of 60 athletes, given bv various pro\"inces of Italv. Hard bv is the even grander
Olympic Stadium, in which on 25 August 1960, the seventeenth Olympiad was
formally inaugurated. This stadium holds 100.000 spectators. But the most
memorable of all the Olympic constructions are on the left bank of the Tiber,
in the Olympic Village. Here again the genius of Ner\-i has blossomed in the
Stadio Flaminio (Plate 196) and the daring Palazzetto dello Sport.
And so we leave Rome. We can say farewell to her either at Fiumicino air port
or at the most beautiful, commodious, and welcoming railway-station in the
world. Rome's Termini (Plate 195), finished in 1950, the product of collaboration
among seven of Rome's outstanding architects and engineers. But whichever
exit we may we are bound to take a return ticket, for in any account,
choose,
however however inadequate, of the ever-lixing, ever-growing Eternal
brief,

200201 Romeinthecvenire Citv. the two words that can never be written are . . .

seen ^m the Pincian Hill.

THE END
 "

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.-»<!
Author's Note on Sources and Index

For any book of this kind about Rome it would be futile to supply a bibliography because to be
adequate the bibliography would have to be longer than the book.
Some of the main beacons are mentioned in the text, notably Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903)
whose Romische Geschkhte appeared in 1854; Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) who published
his Geschkhte der Stadt Rome in Mittelalter between 1859 and 1874 both these great works have —
for long been available in English; and Roderigo Lanciani (1847-1929) who wrote in both Italian
and English.
Anyone who wants further guidance may consult the Cambridge Histories, Ancient, Mediaeval
and Modern, and their copious bibliographies, or an encyclopaedia, of which, for Rome, the
Enciclopedia Italiana is by far the best. Every monument mentioned in this book ^s to be found
noticed in the current edition of the Guida d'ltalia, Roma e Dintorni, published in Milan by the
Touring Club Italiano.

Aeneas 14, 141, 164 Borghese family 162, 200, 205, 206
Alaric 108 Borgia family 149, 151, 173, 215
Alexander VII, pope 173, 175 Borgo 121, 136. 140
Amalasuntha 114 Borromini, F. 164, 172
Annibaldi family 68, 195 Bourse 12, 77
Anti-popes 126, 134, 135 Bramante, D. 151, 153
Antoninus Pius 77, 79 156, 157
Brill, P.
Apollo Belvedere 146, 148, 201, 205 Byron, Lord 208, 209, 215
Apollodorus of Damascus 63, 70, 71, 75 Byzantine empire 110, 116, 118, 119, 126
Appian Way 12, 25, 38, 56, 205, 228
Appius Claudius 25 Caft Greco 212
Aqueducts: Caligula 50, 60
Appia 25, 34 Campagna 114, 132, 138
Anio 25, 61, 62 Campus Martius 20, 49, 60, 70
Claudia 61, 62, 86 Canova, A. 205, 206, 207, 209
Virgine 54, 197 Capitol (Campidoglio) 14, 20, 22, 46, 53, 63, 70, 77, 82, 94,
Ara Pacis 52, 54, 56, 60 126, 132, 135, 136. 137, 140, 152, 166, 201
Archaeology 141, 205, 210, 220, 222 Caravaggio 63, 180, 186
Arches Carbonari movement 180, 186
Constantine 94, 96, 1 37 Castel Sant'Angelo 77, 91, 115, 121, 125, 135, 137. 140, 146.
Marcus Aurelius 78, 80, 81 153, 170, 175, 203. 205. 236
money changers 78, 83 Catacombs 104. 106. 113
Septimius Severus 78, 83, 89, 93 Cato 21. 29, 30, 31, 36
Titus 93, 125, 220, 223 Cavalhni, P 132, 211
Ar chitectural innovation 3 4, 48, 52, 76, 1 28, 1 5 1 , 225, 2 38 Cavour. Count 218, 219
"Rrnoid "ot 132, 1T4
firescJa Celianhill 136, 186. 228, 236
Athalaric 112 Charlemagne 119. 120. 121, 134,203
Attila 109, 110 Charles V, emperor 153, 156
Augustine, saint 22, 103, 108, 118, 120, 137 Churches:
Augustus 40, 45, 46, 50, 52, 53, 54, 56, 59, 60, 120, 128 St Agnes without the Walls 105. 136
Auius Postumius 16 S. Agnese in Agone 164. 166
Aurelian wall 86, 97, 136, 137, 173, 219 S. Andrea delle Fratte 166
Aventine hill 110, 136 S. Andrea della Valle 175
Avignon 135, 139 S. Bibiana 164
S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane 166
Babington's tea rooms 215 S. Caterina dei Funari 136
Barbcrini family 153, 164, 183, 197 S. Cecilia 132
Basilicas: S. Clemente 102. 103, 128
Aemilia 40, 43 S. Constanza 104, 106. 107
Christian 40, 107, HO SS. Cosma e Damiano 64. Ill
Constantine 88, 94, 151 S. Crisogono 128
Julia 40, 47, 54 S. Croce in Gerusalemme 110. 195. 197. 198
Ulpia 73, 211 S. Cuorc del Suffragio 228

Baths: SS. Giovanni e Paolo 104. 126. 127, 128

Caracalla 84, 85. 86, 211 S. Ignazio 158, 161, 162
Diocletian 87, 88, 92, 137 S. Ivo 166
Septimius Severus 84 St John Lateran 68, 110, 120, 128. 132, 136, 137, 140. 166,
Belisarius 110, 112. 116 175. 191. 193. 195. 197. 200
Bercnson, B. 195 S. Lorenzo 110, 136
Bernini, G. L. 76, 153, 160, 162, 163, 164. 169. 173 St Louis of the French 186
Bernini, P. 162. 190 S. Marco 142

244
 : 1

S. Maria of the Angels 88, 222, 231 Frederick II Hohenstaufen 128, 134, 135, 137
Antiqua 10 1 Frescoes 102, 104, 110, 113, 132, 137, 139, 145, 153, 17 3, 195
in Aracoeli 128, 129, 140 Fuga, F. 197
in Cosmcdin 128
Maggiore 110, 128, 132, 175, 179 Garibaldi, G. 205, 217, 218, 219, 228
sopra Minerva 128 Gauls 22, 42, 209
dei Miracoli 173 Gibbon, E. 201
di Montesanto 173 Goethe 201
della Pace 146 Golden-House 63, 148
del Popolo 146 Goths 107, 112, 115, 116
in Trastevere 114, 128, 132, 133, 137 Gracchi family 16, 32, 40, 138
della Villoria 166 Greeks
S. Martino ai Monti 103 reactions to Rome 29, 30, 31
S. Nicola in Carcere 36 culture of 14, 23, 33, 34, 52, 66, 74, 116, 137, 141, 156
St Paul without the Walls 128, 131, 136, 211 Gregory I, pope 118
S. Pietro in Montorio 151 Gregory VII, pope 125, 126, 127, 128
in Vincoli 63, 153
S. Pudenziana 103, 104 Hadrian 49, 50, 54, 69, 75, 76, 77
SS. Quattro Coronati 128 Hadrian IV, pope 134
S. Saba 128, 130 Hennebique, F. 225, 236
S. Sabina 1 17 Holy Roman Empire 119, 125, 135, 138
S. Spirito in Sassia 121 Horace 40, 42, 48, 56, 99
S. Susanna 166 Hotel Minerva 212
S. Tomaso in Formis 128 House of Livia 46, 54, 55
S. Trinita dei Monti 186, 190, 191
SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio 166 Ingres, J. A. D. 197, 213

Anglican church 231 Innocent II, pope 1 32

Cicero 36, 40, 45, 46 Innocent X, pope 180
Circus Maximus 10, 50, 53, 60, 69, 166 Istituto del Restauro 220
Claude Lorrain 186, 187 Italia Nostra 228
Claudius 60, 62, 63, 64, 100
Clement VII, pope 153, 155 Janiculum hill 151, 228, 231
Cleopatra 45 Jerome, saint 108
Cltrisseau, C. L. 194 Jews 99, 100, 211
Cloaca Maxima 14 Julius II, pope 151, 153
Colonna family 137, 138, 140 Julius Caesar 12, 20, 21, 22, 36, 40, 45, 50, 52, 97
Colosseum 28, 40, 52, 63, 64, 65, 66, 103, 137, 153. 164, 175, Justinian 20, 112, 116
195, 209, 210, 236
Columns:
Marcus Aurelius 77, 78, 229 Keats, J. 59, 211

Phocas 94, 95, 118 Koch 228, 231, 232

Trajan 72, 73
Commune 132, 140 Lacus Juturnae 16
Constantine 11, 78, 88, 94, 101, 103, 104, 119 Laocoon 153, 205
Constantinople 88, 112, 132, 135, 141 Lapis Niger 15
Cortona, P. da 166 Lateran palace 120, 153, 195
Cosmati family 128 Leo I, pope 109, 110
Counter-Reformation 156, 162, 173 Leo IV, pope 121
Cryptoporticus 63 Livy 22
Loggia of the Knights of Rhodes 142, 143
David, J. L. 202, 203 Lombards 116, 118, 119, 125, 128, 217
Deakin, R. 210 Longhi, M. 166
Della Porta, G. 151, 153, 162, 175
Diocletian 86, 87, 88 Maderno, C. 151, 153, 166, 173, 175
Domitian 68, 70 Marcus Aurelius 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 99
Domus Augustana 66, 68, 69, 70 Martial 42, 49, 225
DuBellay, J. 156 Martin V, pope 140
Mazzini, G. 215, 219, 222
Einsiedein Itinerary 10 Michelangelo 63, 88, 146, 150, 151, 152, 153, 164, 201
Esquiline hill 13, 14, 63, 200, 228 Milton, J. 183, 222
Etruscans 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24 Mithraism 98, 103
Eugenius IV, pope 124, 140, 141 Mosaics 103, 106, 107, 128, 129, 132
E.U.R. 235, 236 Museums:
Capitolino 142
Fabullus 63 di Civilti Romano 238
Filarete, A. 141, 142
Etrusco 156, 162
Fontana. C. 166, 180, 236 Napoleonico 2 1
Fontana, b. 151, 175 Nazionale Romano 92
Fora, imperial: del Risorgimento 214
di Roma 200
Augustus 52, 54
Caesar 52 Muslims 120, 128

Nerva 70, 71, 180, 192

Mussolini 142, 205, 233, 234, 236
Trajan 71, 73
Vespasian 64 Napoleon 203
Forii, M. da 146, 147 Napoleon III 210, 215, 217, 218
Foro Italico 243 Napoh, A. da 191
Forum Romanum 14, 15, 16, 20, 36, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48, 49, Nero 62, 63, 64, 75
52, 64, 70, 88, 89, 135, 192, 195, 211, 220, 228 Nerva 70
Fountains: Nervi, P. L. 236, 237, 238
Acqua Felice 175, 181 Nicholas V, pope 140, 141, 197
Bee 164 Normans 126, 132
Four Rivers 164, 177
Paola 175, 182 Obelisks 50, 59, 60, 166, 190, 203
Tortoises 175, 176 Odoacer 110
Trevi 56, 146, 178, 197 Olympics 243
Tritone 164 Opera house 233
Frangipani family 68, 125, 195
Franks 108, 119 Palatine hill II, 13, 14, 16,43,46, 50, 52, 5 3, 54,60,63,66,68,
Frederick I Hohenstaufen 134 69, 70, 78, 84, 136, 191, 195, 223, 228

245
 Palazzos Spanish Steps 186, 189, 211
della Civiiti e Lavoro 238 St Peter's 64, 68, 90, 100, 120, 121, 125, 140, 146, 148, 151,
Canoelleria 68, 153, 195 153, 159, 162, 164, 165, 173, 174, 200, 203, 206, 209, 224,
dei Conservator! 77 230, 240
Doria Pamphilj 180, 197, 199 Stendhal 212
Farnese 15 3, 154, 197 Stoicism 99
Farnesina 151 Stadia 70, 238
dc Justicia 228 Sulla 23, 40, 42, 45
Propaganda Fide 164, 171
Quirinal 197 Tabularium 40, 78, 247
dello Sport 236 Temples;
Venezia 68, 142, 144, 153 Antoninus and Faustina 43, 77, 79
Pannini, G. P. 167, 195, 214 Capitoline Jupiter 34, 77, 81
Pantheon 34, 54, 60, 73, 74, 75, 76, 84, 118, 137, 151 Castor and Pollux 16, 27. 54, 220
Papal power 118, 119, 120, 125, 128, 132, 134, 135, 140, Fortuna Virilis 36, 37
217, 219, 236 Hadrian 12, 77
Pasquinades 153, 198, 200, 211 Mars Ultor 53, 54
Paul II, pope 142 Saturn 41, 54
Paul III, pope 153, 155 Venus and Rome 74
Paul, saint 100, 104 of the Vestals 25, 44, 46, 84, 93, 222
Peter, saint 100, 121, 135, 203 of Vesta (so called) 37, 191
Petrarch 125, 137, 138 Republican 34, 35, 36
Piacentini, M. 236, 238 Tarquin kings 15, 16
Piazza Teatro Argentina 217
Barberini 200 Termini station 12, 88, 164, 220, 237, 243
Colonna 77, 229 Theatres:
Navona 70, 164 Balbus 5 3
del Popolo 50, 60, 166, 174, 200, 206 Marcellus 40, 50, 51, 53, 54, 125
della Repubblica 231, 232, 233 Pompey 12, 36, 38, 50, 53, 60, 64
del Risorgimento 228 Theodoric the Ostrogoth 50, 70, 103, 10^ 12 1 1

di Spagna 164, 180, 186, 189, 212 Thorvaldsen 206, 208

St Peter's 166 50, Tiber 14. 15, 16, 22, 36, 38, 60, 77, 115, 116, 125. 146, 162,
Piazzale Napoleon 206 205, 209, 225, 226, 227
Pincian hill 180, 200, 184, 208, 228, 242, 243 Tiberius 60
Pinturicchio 146, 149 Tischbein 201
Piombo, S. del 156 Titian 153, 155
Piranesi 174, 192, 193, 195 Titus 52, 62, 66, 67, 68
Pius VII, pope 202, 203, 205, 206. 209, 211 Tombs
Pius IX, pope 216, 217, 219, 220 Augustus 52, 125
Pliny 40, 97 Cecilia Metella 56, 57, 201
Pompey 36, 45, 97 Hadrian (see Castel Sant' Angelo)
Ponte Vergilius Eurysaces 56, 58, 59, 61
Fabricio 36, 38 Torre
Molle (Milvian) 11, 94, 193 dei Conti 64, 125
del Risorgimento 225 del Grillo 125
Rotto (Broken) 36, 38, 146 delleMilizie 122, 125. 137
Sant'Angelo 226 Totila 116
Sisto 146, 147 Torriti, J. 132
Ponzio, F. 175 Turner, J. M. W. 125
Porta Trajan 49, 50, 63, 70, 71. 72, 73, 76
Maggiore 56, 61 Trajan's market 71, 7 3. 74, 175. 2 36
del Popolo 173, 200
S.Paolo 59 Valadier, G. 206, 220, 238
Portico of the Consenting Gods 95, 222 Valerio-Horatian laws 22
Pyramid of Cestius 59, 1)7 Vandals 108, 112
Vanvitelli, G. (Van Wittel) 188, 191
Quirinal hill 14, 52, 70, 1 36, 203, 231, 233 Vatican 11, 50, 64, 68, 121, 134, 135, 1)6, 140, 141, 149,
153, 166, 173, 219, 220
Rabirius 69 Vatican State 234
Rainaldi, C. 173, 175 Velasquez 63, 180, 183
Raphael 63, 64, 109, 121, 148, 151, 153 Vespasian 52, 62, 63, 64, 66, 70
Reformation 5 i, 156, 162, 183
1 Vestal Virgins 25, 41, 44, 46, 52
Religion 1 !, 29, 34, 46, 97, 98, 99, 103 Via:
Republic 15,26,29, 32, 34,40.45, 132,203,217,233 delCorso 136, 142, 17 3, 186, 197, 200, 206
Res Gestae 52, 5 3, 54 delle Conciliazione 2)0,2)6
Ricnzi, C di 138, 140, 215, 217 Cristoforo Colombo 2)5.2 36
Risorgimento 205, 228 dei Fori Imperial! 2 16
Robert, H. 195 Nazionale 225, 2il
Roman army, 25, 26, 32 Sistina 146
202 Bronze relief of a •Roman Question' 216, 222, 234 Victor Emmanuel, king 218, 219, 221, 2)1
Romulus 13, 14, 15 Vignola 156
hedgehog from the new Rostra 20, 36, 78, 94 Villas:
doors to St Peter's made by Rusuti, F 1 i2 Borghese 162, 200, 206, 228
Rutclli, M. 2 51 Giulia 17, 156
Giacomo Manzii.
IVlcdici 180, 184, 185, 188
Sacred Way 43, 48. 5 5, 67, 68, 77, 220 Virgil 14, 29, 40, 56. 7i
203 The gallery leading to Salvi, N. 197
Sanctis, F. de 186, 189 Western empire 119, 140
the Tabulariumor Public Sangallo, A. 151. 153 Winckelmann. J. J. 200
Records Office, the only Scipio family 12, 29, 30, 31, 36, 40 Witigis 112, 115, 116
Scorel, J. van 156, 157
building from republican 32
Senate 19, 20, 21, 2 3, 24, 29, 31, 33, 36, 45, 54, 68, 70, 1

times still standing on the
Capitol (beneath the Palazzo
del Senatore) and the earliest
to display a characterislicalK'
Roman arch.
Senate-house 15, 20, 53, 78, 88, 101, 197
Scplimius Sevcrus 64, 78, 84
Seven churches' 1 10, 1 12, endpaper
Shelley. P B 59, 76, 210, 211
Sistinc Chapel 84, 146, 20)
SI.MUS IV, pope 142, 145, 146
Society of Jesus 156, 162, 16)

246
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 at the earliest ..s built as simple meeting
places for the 1 i and adorned in later ages; at

the sixteenth , the age of Raphael and

Michelangelo rebuilding of St. Peter's; at

the succeedin,! /, the age of Bernini, which

furnished nearly every street with some Baroque

palace, facade, and fountain. The sheer beauty uf
Rome acts as a magnet on us, as it did to the poets,

painters, and travelers of the age of the Grand Tour.

. The Author
Stewart Perowne has an almost unrivaled
knowledge of Rome and he describes its history

here, the good times and the bad, with equal au-
thority. As the author of a dozen books, including

Caesars ami Saints and The End of the Roman

World, he is particularly well equipped to describe

how Christianity took root in the last bankrupt days

of the Empire. And as a historian he makes alive

the whole question of Rome's special place in the

political struggles of modern Europe.

The Photographer
All the manifestations of the city, including the
exciting architectural achievements of the last few

years, are captured in Edwin Smith's photographs,

which were specially commissioned for this volume.
In addition, there are color reproductions of works

of art and documentary illustrations of the historical

personalities who helped shape Rome's destiny.

Altogether this book provides a full and rich ac-

count for the general reader and traveler.

Jacket illustrations

Front: Statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio

Back: Detail of "View of the Villa Medici" by Vanvitclli

COWARD, McCANN
Sr GEOGHEGAN, INC.
Fi hlishers
2 )0Madison Avenue
Ttmr-imrrzTrrrjj New York, N.Y. 10016

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