ROMAN EXCAVATIONS. 



195 



order to govern must needs have been familiar 

 with its geography, could not be ignorant of the 

 value of maps ; they made constant use of them, 

 and even employed them in decorating their 

 public buildings. They would paint maps, or 

 trace them with the chisel on the walls of tem- 

 ples, or beneath the beautiful porticoes which 

 served as promenades for people of leisure. 

 Among these maps, plans of Rome, it is sup- 

 posed, were not wanting. One of these has 

 been found, of colossal proportions, dating from 

 the time of Septimius Severus. It was engraved 

 on slabs of Luna marble, which were made fast 

 to the wall by iron clamps ; in its perfect state 

 this map must have covered a surface of three 

 hundred square metres. What is left of it has 

 been carefully collected and fastened to the wall 

 of the staircase in the Capitol. On studying 

 this map, we may get some idea of what Rome 

 was in the second century. The streets appear 

 to be narrow and irregular, though tliey had 

 been greatly widened and straightened after the 

 great fire in Nero's reign. The theatres, baths, 

 basilicas, all the public monuments, are here 

 shown in their proper places, and oftentimes 

 they are named; the private houses, even, seem 

 to be represented exactly as they were, and the 

 artist has even portrayed the porticoes which 

 often adorned their frontage on the streets for 

 the benefit of promenaders. 



I need not dwell on the value of this plan to 

 those who study the topography of Rome. The 

 travelers' guides are no less useful. Such 

 " guides " there undoubtedly ware, and not few 

 in number, in a city to which people flocked from 

 every part of the world. Such works of this 

 class as have come down to us, all date from 

 toward the fall of the empire ; they are mostly 

 itineraries, such as are found in our present 

 guide-books. The traveler has his route marked 

 out for him from one end of the empire to the 

 other, and the names of all the edifices which he 

 will meet on the way are given. The older edi- 

 tions of these itineraries are dry and curt, but 

 the later ones are filled with marvelous stories, 

 intended to give the reader an interest in the 

 curiosities brought under his notice. After the 

 lapse of twelve or fifteen hundred years, they 

 may now render us the same service which they 

 rendered to the travelers in the time of the Lower 

 Empire or during the middle ages : they aid us 

 in finding our way through this labyrinth of tor- 

 tuous streets, and amid these oftentimes undis- 

 tinguishable ruins of monuments. With the aid 

 of these diverse resources— passages from ancient i 



authors, maps, and guide-books — the topography 

 of ancient Rome can be easily reconstructed, and 

 there is no longer any reason to fear that exca- 

 vations can lead only to finding insoluble enig- 

 mas. 



There is nothing that more clearly proves the 

 truth of this last remark, nothing that is better 

 calculated to encourage archaeologists in their 

 hopes and in their efforts, than the discoveries 

 made on the Esquiline within the last few years. 

 The success of these excavations is all the more 

 noteworthy, inasmuch as the enterprise was not 

 at all of a scientific character. The question was 

 simply the building of a new quarter ; but at 

 Rome it is impossible to disturb the soil, to exca- 

 vate to any depth for the foundations of a house, 

 without coming upon something of interest to 

 the antiquarian. This was the case here, and 

 Science has profited by works undertaken with- 

 out any reference to science. 1 



Still, the Esquiline is not one of those hills 

 which are most famous in the history of Rome. 

 Toward the end of the republic it was an uniu- 

 habited spot of evil repute. Capital executions 

 usually took place here, freemen being beheaded 

 on a block, and slaves hanged from a gibbet or 

 crucified. The bodies of these malefactors, when 

 no one claimed them, were allowed to remain till 

 they were devoured by birds of prey ; hence the 

 vultures of the Esquiline bore a sinister reputa- 

 tion at Rome. The hill was used as a burying- 

 place for the city's poor ; here, among the 

 wretched tombs, were to be seen those famous pit- 

 ticuli, or pits, a sort of public graves, into which 

 were cast the dead bodies of those who did not 

 leave money enough to defray the expense of 

 burial. Maecenas, who saw with regret one of 

 the most healthful quarters of Rome lying unin- 

 habited, resolved to introduce life there. He 



1 It must, however, be said, to the honor of the indus- 

 trial company that built the new quarter, that it has also 

 had excavation made at its own expense by a distinguished 

 archaeologist, Signore Brizio. and has published the resul f s 

 in a work entitled "Pitture e Sepolcri scoperti sulT Es- 

 quilino" (Roma, 187^). Signore Brizio has unearthed some 

 ancient tombs found in the vicinity of the company's 

 works. One of these tombs contained some very curious 

 paintings, representing the founding of Lavinium, and the 

 death of ./Eneas and of King Latinus. As these paintings, 

 in Signore Brizio's opinion, antedate the age of Augustus, 

 they have the advantage of acquainting us with the state 

 of those legends as they were found by Virgil when he 

 made them the groundwork of his poem. Signore Brizio 

 has also discovered a highly-important columbarium of 

 the family of the Statilii Tauri, who were prominert dur- 

 ing the first century of the empire. The inscriptions of 

 this tomb furnish us with some very interesting informa- 

 tion on the organization of slavery in ancient households. 



