ference is assigned to this district", it will be difficult, with every allowance for sinuosities, to make out more than 8000 or 9000. Within so small a space, however, there stood many objects of interest and magnificence; and amongst the streets of ancient Rome the Via Sacra was pre-eminently distinguished. The region contained 2,758 insulæ, 138 houses, eight streets, and nine temples; to which might be added forums and basilicas, and things of less importance. Out of this list not a little still remains to excite the curiosity of the stranger, and to exercise the patience and learning of the antiquary. The first object within the limits of the fourth region is a small ruin of brick-work, whose original shape resembled a Meta of the Circus. This was anciently a fountain for the use and ornament of the adjoining amphitheatre, as appears from several medals extant, which represent it as an appendage to that edifice 28: it is called by Victor and Rufus the Meta Sudans, or "sweating goal." The epithet is supposed to be taken from the perpetual issue of foaming water; or, as Andreas Fulvio imagines 29, because it contributed in abundance wherewithal to satisfy the thirsty crowds assembled for the games of the Colosseum. It was surmounted, as 27 66 Regio in circuitu continet pedes xviii. millia." Sextus Rufus. "Regio in ambitu continet pedes xiii. M. alias xiiii. M. P. Victor. "Continet pedes tredecim millia.” - Notitia. 28 Engravings of some of those medals are given in Nardini, tom. i. Nos. 6. & 7. 29 Fulvio delle Antichità di Roma, &c. tradotto per Rosso, carta 137. some say, by a statue of Jupiter; and if the water conveyed up the cavity, which is still visible, was made to issue out at the top, the ancients must have had a more perfect knowledge of hydraulics than is usually allowed them. Indeed, since the last excavations, the whole construction is manifest: we see the channels which conveyed and carried off the water, and also the circumference of the reservoir, which, very like a modern fountain, received the falling streams. It was probably supplied with water from the large reservoir of Nero on the Cælian hill. It was first erected by Titus 30, and its original form is preserved on the reverse of a medal of that emperor 31; it was repaired or renewed by Domitian 32; and it is men 31 30 See the following notes; and consult the ground plan of Hadrian's temple. Our description was written before the thorough repair which this ruin has lately undergone! 31 Vide Imperator. Romanorum Numismata, &c. per Carolum Patinum, p. 149., where this medal is well delineated and illustrated it will suffice to give a rough sketch. The superscription round the head of Titus is, IMP. T. CAES. VESP. AVG. P. M. 32" His Coss. [scilicet, Domitiano IX. et Clemente II. ] insignissima Romæ FACTA sunt opera, Forum Trajani, Thermæ Titianæ, Senatus, Ludus Matutinus, Meta Aurea, Meta Sudans, et Pantheon.” —Vide Cassiodor. Consules cum Comment. Cuspinian. p. 412. edit. Basiliæ. It is evident that facta means renewed. 83 tioned, under its classical appellation, in an ecclesiastical record as late as the twelfth century 33 : the brick-work attests a good age of building, and affords an additional proof of its antiquity. Seneca mentions a Meta Sudans near his own dwelling, where noisy people assembled and disturbed him. (A modern picture of this may often be seen near the principal fountains of Rome.) But Seneca is speaking of Baiæ 34, and his words have been erroneously quoted to show that the Meta Sudans existed before Titus: they rather show the name was generally applied to a certain description of fountain. We have now to trace the ground-plan of an enormous temple, whose substructions extend in length from near the Meta Sudans to the arch of Titus, comprising all that space now occupied by the church and monastery of S. Francesca Romana, and exhibiting an elevated platform in front of the Colosseum. In the middle of the site still exist some striking ruins of the interior of the fabric, consisting in two large niches or tribunals, reversed to one another, together with a portion of the lateral walls and the vaults. The recent excavations have attracted the special attention of the antiquary and the architect to these ruins, and 33 Ordo Romanus, anno 1143. 34 See Seneca, Epist. lvii. with the notes of Lipsius. He says he had got accustomed to the noise, and regarded it as the waves of the sea, which seems to indicate he was writing from Baiæ. The beginning of the following epistle renders it still more positive. Nardini is puzzled with the passage (vol. i. p. 305.), as well he might if he did not consider Seneca as writing from Baia. have equally excited the curiosity of the stranger and indifferent Roman; so that, if such a term may be used without a solecism, the temple of Venus and Rome is now the fashionable antiquity of the city. It is not, however, on this account that we are about to give it more than an ordinary share of attention, but because it furnishes us with materials for acquiring a general idea of an heathen temple, and points us to a period when the arts ascended the throne 35, and the world was subservient to the imperial architect and sculptor. Apollodorus having built the Forum of Trajan, and thereby excited the envy of Hadrian, was driven into exile on some frivolous pretext. The emperor, in order to convince him how easily his services could be dispensed with, sent him his own architectural design of the temple of Venus and Rome, which he was building, desiring to have his opinion upon it. Apollodorus answered, that he ought to have made it more lofty; and with subterraneous accommodations for receiving, as occasion might require, the machines of the adjoining amphitheatre, and for giving it a more imposing aspect towards the Via Sacra. That, as to the statues (in a sitting posture), they were so disproportionate, that if the goddesses desired to get up and walk out, they would not be able. The architect, as may be supposed, paid the penalty of his criticism with his head. From this account, given by Dion Cassius 36, the position of the temple is 35 Spartian. in vit. Hadrian. cap. xiv.; and Dion Cassius, lib. lxix. p. 1151. 36 Histor. Roman. lib. lxix. p. 1153. identified with these ruins. It is moreover enumerated in the Regionaries in the fourth region, and seems to have been called, indifferently, Templum Urbis," "Templum Veneris," or "Templum Romæ et Veneris;" the first was perhaps the more common appellation. It is mentioned by a minor poet 37 as being before the Via Sacra; and, except the authority of medals, this is all the classical notice we have of it. In Spartian and Marcellinus 38 it is barely mentioned; but the former equally points to the environs of the Via Sacra. Although we are thus without any written description of this edifice, sufficient remains to afford a just idea of its splendour, and to exhibit the true form of, perhaps, the finest temple Rome ever possessed. Signor Guiseppe Pardini, architect of Lucca, the author of the annexed drawings, has remarked, with great ingenuity, the particularities of the ground-plan and elevation. It is to him we owe the architectural observations which will now be 37 "At sacram resonare viam mugitibus ante Delubrum Romæ, colitur nam sanguine et ipsa Prudentius contra Symmach. lib. i. 214. 38 Spartian. in Hadrian. cap. xiv.; and Marcellin. lib. xvi. cap. 10. They both call it "Templum Urbis." "His consulibus [scilicet, Pompejano et Atiliano], templum Romæ et Veneris factum est, quod nunc Urbis appellatur." Cassio dor. in Chronicon, A. D. 135. 66 But the Chronicon of Eusebius makes a difference of three years. Templum Veneris ab Hadriano Romæ factum, A.D. 132." Vide Chronic. Trium Illustrium Auctor. &c. p. 169. edit. Burdigal. 1604. |