Pagan and Christian Rome. Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani
fourteen tiers of stone have disappeared. A portion of the same platform, discovered in 1865, by Herr Schloezer, Prussian minister to Pius IX., is represented on the next page.
The foundation walls, which Pliny and Livy enumerate among the wonders of Rome, have been, and are still being, discovered on the three sides of the hill which face the Piazza della Consolazione, the Piazza Montanara, and the Via di Torre de' Specchi. They are built of blocks of red tufa, with facing of travertine. The travertine facing is covered with inscriptions set up in honor of the great divinity of Rome by the kings and nations of the whole world. One cannot read these historical documents49 without acquiring a new sense of the magnitude and power of the city.
View of the Platform of the Temple of Jupiter.
These inscriptions are found mostly at the foot of the substructure, on the side towards the Piazza della Consolazione. The latest, found in the foundations of the Palazzo Moroni, contain messages of friendship and gratitude from kings Mithradates Philopator and Mithradates Philadelphos, of Pontus, from Ariobarzanes Philoromæus of Cappadocia and Athenais his queen, from the province of Lycia, from some townships of the province of Caria, etc.
As for the remains of the temple itself, the colossal column discovered November 7, 1875, in the Conservatori garden, is not the only one saved from the wreck. Flaminio Vacca, the sculptor and amateur-archæologist of the sixteenth century, says: "Upon the Tarpeian Rock, behind the Palazzo de' Conservatori, several pillars of Pentelic marble (marmo statuale) were lately found. Their capitals are so enormous that out of one of them I have carved the lion now in the Villa Medici. The others were used by Vincenzo de Rossi to carve the prophets and other statues which adorn the chapel of cardinal Cesi in the church of S. Maria della Pace. I believe the columns belonged to the Temple of Jupiter. No fragments of the entablature were found: but as the building was so close to the edge of the Tarpeian Rock, I suspect they must have fallen into the plain."
The correctness of this surmise is shown not only by the discovery of the dedicatory inscriptions, in the Piazza della Consolazione, just alluded to, but also from what took place in 1780, when the duca Lante della Rovere was excavating the foundations of a house, No. 13, Via Montanera. The discoveries are described by Montagnani as "marble entablatures of enormous size and beautiful workmanship, with festoons and bucranii in the frieze. No one took the trouble to sketch them; they were destroyed on the spot. I have no doubt that they belonged to the temple seen by Vacca on the Monte Tarpeo, one hundred and eighty-six years ago."
All these indications, compared with the discovery of the platform, the substructure, and the column of Pentelic marble in the Conservatori garden, leave no doubt as to the real position of the Temple of Jupiter. To that piece of marble we owe the opportunity and the privilege of settling a dispute on Roman topography which had lasted at least three centuries.
The temple, rebuilt by Domitian, stood uninjured till the middle of the fifth century. In June, 455, the Vandals, under Genseric, plundered the sanctuary, its statues were carried off to adorn the African residence of the king, and half the roof was stripped of its gilt bronze tiles. From that time the place was used as a stone-quarry and lime-kiln to such an extent that only the solitary fragment of a column remains on the spot to tell the long tale of destruction. Another piece of Pentelic marble was found January 24, 1889, near the Tullianum (S. Pietro in Carcere). It belongs to the top of a column, and has the same number of flutings,—twenty-four. This fragment seems to have been sawn on the spot to the desired length, seven feet, and then dragged down the hill towards some stone-cutter's shop. Why it was thus abandoned, half way, in a hollow or pit dug expressly for it, there is nothing to show.
The Temple of Jupiter is represented in ancient monuments of the class called pictorial reliefs. I have selected for my illustration one of the panels from the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius, near S. Martina, because it contains a good sketch of the reliefs of the pediment, with Jupiter seated between Juno and Minerva. The temple itself is most carelessly drawn, the number of columns being reduced by one half, that is, from eight to four.50
PANEL FROM THE ARCH OF MARCUS AURELIUS
There is one interesting feature of the Capitolium, which is not well known among those who do not make a profession of archæology. It was used as a place for advertising State acts, deeds, and documents, in order that the public might take notice of them and be informed of what was going on in the administrative, military, and political departments. This fact is known from a clause appended to imperial letters-patent by which veterans were honorably discharged from the army or navy, and privileges bestowed on them in recognition of their services. These deeds, known as diplomata honestæ missionis, were engraved on bronze tablets shaped like the cover of a book, the original of which was hung somewhere in the Capitolium, and a copy taken by the veteran to his home. The originals are all gone, having fallen the prey of the plunderers of bronze in Rome, but copies are found in great numbers in every province of the Roman empire from which men were drafted.51 These copies end with the clause:—
"Transcribed (and compared or verified) from the original bronze tablet which is hung in Rome, in the Capitolium"—and here follows the designation of a special place of the Capitolium, such as,—
"On the right side of the shrine of the Fides populi romani" (December 11, a. d. 52).
"On the left side of the ædes Thensarum" (July 2, a. d. 60).
"On the pedestal of the statue of Quintus Marcius Rex, behind the temple of Jupiter" (June 15, 64).
"On the pedestal of the ara gentis Iuliæ, on the right side, the statue of Bacchus" (March 7, 71).
"On the vestibule, on the left wall, between the two archways" (May 21, 74).
"On the pedestal of the statue of Jupiter Africus" (December 2, 76).
"On the base of the column, on the inner side, near the statue of Jupiter Africus" (September 5, 85).
"On the tribunal by the trophies of Germanicus, which are near the shrine of the Fides" (May 15, 86).
Comparing these indications of localities with the dates of the diplomas,—there are sixty-three in all,—it appears that they were not hung at random, but in regular order from monument to monument, until every available space was covered. In the year 93 there was not an inch left, and the Capitol is mentioned no more as a place for exhibiting or advertising the acts of Government. From that year they were hung "in muro post templum divi ad Minervam," that is, behind the modern church of S. Maria Liberatrice.
The Temple of Isis and Serapis. In the spring of 1883, in surveying the tract of ground between the Collegio Romano and the Baths of Agrippa, formerly occupied by the Temple of Isis and Serapis, and in collecting archæological information concerning it, I was struck by the fact that, every time excavations were made on either side of the Via di S. Ignazio for building or restoring the houses which line it, remarkable specimens of Egyptian art had been brought to light. The annals of discoveries begin with 1374, when the obelisk now in the Piazza della Rotonda was found, under the apse of the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, together with the one now in the Villa Mattei von Hoffman. In 1435, Eugenius IV. discovered the two lions of Nektaneb I. which are now in the Vatican, and the two of black basalt now in the Capitoline Museum. In 1440 the reclining figure of a river-god was found and buried again. The Tiber of the Louvre and the Nile of the Braccio Nuovo seem to have come to light during the pontificate of Leo X.; at all events it was he who caused them to be removed to the Vatican. In 1556 Giovanni Battista de Fabi found, and sold to cardinal Farnese, the reclining statue of Oceanus now in Naples. In 1719 the Isiac altar now in the Capitol was found under the Biblioteca Casanatense. In 1858 Pietro Tranquilli, in restoring his house,—the nearest to the apse of la Minerva,—came across the following-named objects: a sphinx of green granite, the head of which is a portrait of Queen Haths'epu, the oldest sister of Thothmes III., who was famous for her expedition to the Red Sea, recently described by Dümmichen;
See
The same illustration has been selected by Middleton:
See Clemente Cardinati: