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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



purchased at a low price the untenanted lands, 

 and planted magnificent gardens — the Horti 

 Maeceniani, so famous in antiquity — and in the 

 middle of the gardens built him a palace. This 

 charming mansion, which commanded a view of 

 the entire plain, was so famed for its salubrity 

 that the Emperor Augustus took up his abode 

 there whenever he was ill. The ancient hill, 

 hitherto shunned by all, was now soon covered 

 with noble mansions, and the poet Horace took 

 pleasure in celebrating in verse the metamorpho- 

 sis wrought by his illustrious friend. 



It is not surprising, then, that remains of sep- 

 ulchres should be found in a spot which was so 

 long used as a burying-place. In digging for the 

 foundations of new houses, the pickaxe would 

 every moment hit upon bones or tombs. Among 

 these tombs, some of which were interesting on 

 account of the inscriptions they bore or the 

 objects of art they contained, it was not difficult 

 to recognize the puticuli. These were small, rec- 

 tangular chambers, excavated down to the rock, 

 with thick, rude walls. They were ranged in a 

 line, but without intercommunication ; hence they 

 opened only above. When a slave had been un- 

 able to save money enough to buy a place in a 

 poor columbarium, or if he had neglected to be- 

 come a member of a burial society, his body was 

 thrown into one of these puticuli. These cham- 

 bers are still found filled with dust, bones, and 

 human remains, which have blackened the soil 

 and the walls in the process of decomposition. 



While the work of clearing these chambers 

 out was going on, a quite unexpected discovery 

 was made. Inasmuch as the natural rock formed 

 the floor of the puticuli, it was natural to expect 

 that nothing would be found beneath. But it 

 was noticed that in some places the rock itself 

 had been excavated, and that sepulchral cham- 

 bers had been hollowed out in it. Not only are 

 these sepulchres anterior to the puticuli overlying 

 them, but, from certain indications which exist, 

 it has been supposed that they even antedate the 

 wall of Servius, which belongs to the time of the 

 kings. The people who hollowed out these sep- 

 ulchres, therefore, lived in the time of the kings, 

 «ind only a few years after the founding of Rome, 

 and hence they possess a very high degree of 

 interest for the historian. Alongside of the graves 

 have been found remains of rude pottery, vases, 

 cups, lamps ; and all of these objects appear to 

 be of Etruscan workmanship. The walls, too, 

 are built of large, square stones, exactly the same 

 as are seen in the walls surrounding ancient Tus- 

 can cities. Have we not here a fresh proof of 



the relations existing between Etruria and Rome 

 in those ancient times, and an argument against 

 Mommsen, who will not admit that the Romans 

 borrowed from any other people but the Latins 

 and the Greeks ? 



It was upon these two tiers of tombs — the 

 one contemporaneous with the earliest period of 

 Rome, and the other dating from republican 

 times — that Mascenas laid out his gardens. He 

 had carried thither all sorts of rubbish from the 

 burned quarter, and to this he added a quantity of 

 loam, and so he covered over with five metres of 

 debris all these ancient burying-places of slaves. 

 He then built his palace, surrounding it, doubt- 

 less, with thermae, stadia, exedra?, porticoes — in 

 short, with all those different structures with 

 which the ancients were wont to embellish their 

 residences. These have all in their turn disap- 

 peared under the soil of the modern city, and, as 

 they have perished little by little, it might be 

 supposed that they would have left no trace be- 

 hind. Nevertheless, an important discovery, the 

 most curious, perhaps, of all that have been 

 made on the Esquiline, enables us to form an 

 idea of what these surroundings of Maecenas's 

 palace must have been. 



In March, 18*74, while digging for the founda- 

 tions of a house, the workmen, just below the 

 surface of the soil, came upon the summit of an 

 ancient wall of curved form, on which were still 

 to be seen some traces of painting. The earth 

 was removed with the utmost care, and then it 

 was found that this wall belonged to a great hall 

 still in a good state of preservation, which meas- 

 ured twenty-four metres in length by ten metres 

 in width. This hall must have been decorated 

 with considerable magnificence : on the floor 

 were still to be seen some traces of a marble 

 pavement, and the vaulted roof rested on a stucco 

 cornice. The walls, on being exposed to the 

 light, were seen to be colored with a fine bright 

 red. At the two extremities along the cornice 

 and near the floor they are framed as it were in 

 two casings with a black ground, which serve as 

 a border, and on which are painted, by skillful 

 hands, mythological subjects grave or gay, genii 

 and nymphs, pleasant landscapes, many of them 

 still preserving their original freshness of color. 

 Along the whole length of the walls, at intervals, 

 are large niches resembling walled-up windows ; 

 in these niches, too, are some very fine paintings. 

 Here we see standing out from a background of 

 azure sky masses of verdure, flowers, and trees, 

 with birds flying through the air or perched on 

 the branches. These frescoes, in the opinion of 



