Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the CampagnaBurn, Robert
History
Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
Burn, Robert
Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities; Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
Most of the antiquarian and artistic relics lately discovered here have
been deposited in the Capitoline Museum.
Unfortunately the necessary extension of the buildings attached to the
railway station has resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the
Servian Agger. Some large fragments of the huge blocks belonging to the
Servian wall may be seen at the back of the station. Traces of a road and
a gate were found which have been supposed to belong to the Via and Porta
Viminalis, and many confused heaps of ruins, the relics of private houses
built up against the side of the agger. In one of these the bricks bore
the date of the third consulship of Servianus, A.D. 134, and of that of
Niger and Camerinus, A.D. 138.
A Hermeracles in marble was found near the station, which is figured in
the _Bullettino della Commissione_ for March 1873, and numerous mosaic
pavements, one of which is laid on the floor of the waiting-room at the
station.
[Sidenote: Auditorium.]
One of the buildings attached to an ancient house in this neighbourhood
has been carefully preserved and walled in for protection. It stands near
the ruin called the Trophies of Marius, and not far from the Arch of
Gallienus, and consists of a semicircular recess with ledges rising one
above another in the form of a miniature theatre. A more correct
description of the site is given by stating that it stands where the
former gardens of the convent of the Redentoristi were situated. This
building has, on account of its resemblance to a theatre, and of its
position on a spot over which the famous Gardens of Mæcenas probably
extended, been called the Auditorium of Mæcenas, and romantic ideas have
been connected with it as having been the actual auditorium where Virgil
and Horace may have recited their poetry to their great patron. This view,
however, has been shown to be untenable by Signor Mau, who thinks with
more probability that the ruin in question is an ornamental recess for
decorative works of art and flowers or a fountain. Such recesses may be
seen in some of the houses at Pompeii. The paintings on the walls are of a
style similar to those in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, and the
building may therefore possibly belong to the Augustan age.
[Sidenote: Porta S. Lorenzo.]
The inscriptions on the Porta S. Lorenzo at the eastern side of the
Esquiline Hill tell the history of the several gateways here built by
Augustus and other emperors down to Honorius. The aqueducts run along the
walls from this gate to the Porta Maggiore.
[Sidenote: Porta Maggiore.]
[Sidenote: Tomb of Eurysaces.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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