CHAPTER VIII.

GABII AND ZAGAROLO.

(Gabii, 11 miles from Rome, is a pleasant short-day's excursion in a carriage (which, with two horses, ought not to cost more than 15 francs). On horseback Gabii, Collatia, and Lunghezza, may be visited in the same day.)

THE

HE road which leads to Gabii is the Via Prænestina, sometimes called Via Gabina, which emerges from the Porta Maggiore, and turns to the left (the central road of three). On the left, about half a mile from the walls, we pass a tomb said to be that of T. Quintus Atta, A.U.c. 678. Then, crossing a small streamlet in a hollow, believed to be the Aqua Bollicante, which marked the limits of ancient Rome, where the Arvales sang their hymn, we reach the ruins of the Torre degli Schiavi, the villa and temple of the Gordian Emperors (see Walks in Rome, ii. 133), which, in their richness of colour, backed by the lovely mountains of the Sabina, present one of the most beautiful scenes in the whole Campagna.

At the foot of the little hill upon which the ruins stand, The Campagna Here and there a

the road to Lunghezza turns off on the left. now becomes excessively wild and open. tomb or a tower breaks the wide expanse. Far on the left is the great castle of Cervaretto, and beyond it Cervara and

Rustica; further still is the Tor dei Pazzi. To the left the valley is seen opening towards the Hernican and Volscian hills, between the great historic sites of Præneste and Colonna. All is most beautiful, yet unutterably desolate :"The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers."

Now, on the left, rises, on a broad square basement, the fine tower called Tor Tre Teste, from the three heads (from a tomb) built into its walls. Beyond, also on the left, is the Tor Sapienza.

The eighth mile from Rome is interesting as the spot where Roman legend, as narrated by Livy (v. 49), tells that Camillus overtook the army of the Gauls laden with the spoils of Rome, and defeated them so totally, that he left not a single man alive to carry the news home to their countrymen.

"Among the fictions attached to Roman history, this was one of the first to be rejected."-Niebuhr.

"Such a falsification, scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of any other people, justifies the strongest suspicion of all those accounts of victories and triumphs which appears to rest in any degree on the authority of the family memorials of the Roman aristocracy.”—Arnold.

At the ninth mile the road passes over the magnificent viaduct called Pontenona, consisting of seven arches, built of the gloomy stone called "lapis gabinus." The pavement of the bridge, and even part of the parapet, exist, showing what it was when entire.

"C'est certainement à la plus belle époque de l'architecture republicaine qu'appartient le pont de Nona, sur la voie Prenestine, probablement à l'époque du Tabularium, c'est à dire au temps de Sylla. Il est bati en peperin dont les blocs ont quelquefois dix ou douze pieds de longueur ; au-dessous des arches, qui ont de dix-huit à vingt-quatre pieds de hauteur, est un pont beaucoup plus petit, qui a précédé l'autre. Ce

petit pont primitif était sans doute l'œuvre des habitants du lieu et leur suffisait; mais Rome est venue; elle a élevé le niveau du pont jusqu'au niveau de la voute, à laquelle il était lié, et a laissé subsister à ses pieds son humble prédécesseur comme pour servir à mesurer sa grandeur par le contraste."-Ampère, iv. 71.

More and more desolate becomes the country, till at the Osteria del Osa, 11 miles from Rome, the road to Gabii, now exceedingly rough for carriages, leaves the Via Prænestina to the right, and, skirting the edge of the crater-lake of Gabii, now almost dried up, reaches the few huts which mark the site of the town, and a low massive ruin, which might easily pass overlooked, but which is no less than a fragment-the cella-of the famous Temple of Funo, celebrated by Virgil:

quique arva Gabinæ Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis Hernica saxa colunt."

and by Silius Italicus;

En. vii. 682.

".... nec amœna retentant Algida, nec juxta Junonis tecta Gabinæ."

xii. 5, 36.

"The temple (the cell of which remains almost entire, but rent in certain parts apparently by lightning) is built of rectangular blocks of peperino. It has the same aspect as that of Diana at Aricia; that is, the wall of the posticum is prolonged beyond the cella, to the width of the portico on each side:

'Columnis adjectis dextrâ et sinistrâ ad humeros pronäi.'

Vitruvius.

The number of columns could scarcely be less than six in front; those of the flanks have not been decided. The columns were fluted, and of peperino, like the rest of the building; but it might perhaps be hazardous to assign them to a very remote period. The pavement is a mosaic of large white tessera."—Sir W. Gell.

"The form of this temple was almost identical with that at Aricia. The interior of the cella was twenty-seven feet wide, and forty-five feet

REMAINS OF GABII.

157

long. It had columns of the Doric order in front and at the sides, but none at the back. The surrounding area was about fifty-four feet at the sides, but in front a space of only eight feet was left open, in consequence of the position of the theatre, which abutted closely upon the temple. On the eastern side of the cella are traces of the rooms in which the priests in charge of the temple lived."-Burn, The Roman Campagna.

From the temple we look across the grey-green crater of the lake-which has lately been drained by Prince Torlonia, to whom it belongs, to the great destruction of its beauty, and the improvement of his property-to the medieval tower of Castiglione (which is mentioned in a deed of 1225) Occupying the highest part of the ridge, and marking the site of the citadel of Gabii. Slight remains of wall exist near the tower, and small fragments of ruins with scattered pieces of marble may be found all along the ridge. Near the temple remains of semi-circular seats, perhaps indicating a Theatre, have been discovered, and nearer the high-road it has become possible to trace the plan of the Forum, a work of imperial times, surrounded on three sides by porticoes, and adorned with statues.

These fragments, ill-defined and scattered at long intervals in the corn or rank weeds with which the Campagna is overgrown, are all that remains of Gabii.

Virgil and Dionysius say that Gabii was a Latin colony of Alba. Solinus asserts that it was founded by two Siculian brothers Galatios and Bios, from whose united names that of the city was formed. Dionysius says that it was one of the largest and most populous of Latin cities. It seems to have been the university of Latium, and Plutarch and Strabo narrate that Romulus and Remus were sent there to learn Greek and the use of arms. In the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, Gabii gave refuge to exiles from Rome

and other cities of Latium, and so aroused the hostility of

the King.

"Ultima Tarquinius Romanæ gentis habebat

Regna; vir injustus, fortis ad arma tamen.
Ceperat hic alias, alias everterat urbes ;

Et Gabios turpi fecerat arte suos."

Ovid. Fast. ii. 687.

"The primeval greatness of Gabii is still apparent in the walls of the cell of the temple of Juno. Dionysius saw it yet more conspicuous in the ruins of the extensive walls, by which the city, standing in the plain, had been surrounded, and which had been demolished by a destroying conqueror, as well as in those of several buildings. It was one of the thirty Latin cities: but it scorned the determination of the confederacy-in which cities far from equal in power were equal in votes to degrade themselves. Hence it began an obstinate war with Rome. The contending cities were only twelve miles apart; and the country betwixt them endured all the evils of military ravages for years, no end of which was to be foreseen: for within their walls they were invincible.

"But Sextus, the son of Tarquinius Superbus, pretended to rebel. The king, whose anger appeared to have been provoked by his wanton insolence, condemned him to a disgraceful punishment, as if he had been the meanest of his subjects. He came to the Gabines under the mask of a fugitive. The bloody marks of his stripes, and still more the infatuation which comes over men doomed to perish, gained him belief and goodwill. At first he led a body of volunteers: then troops were trusted to his charge. Every enterprise succeeded; for booty and soldiers were thrown in his way at certain appointed places; and the deluded citizens raised the man, under whose command they promised themselves the pleasures of a successful war, to the dictatorship. The last step of his treachery was yet to come. None of the troops being hirelings, it was a hazardous venture to open a gate. Sextus sent to ask his father in what way he should deliver Gabii into his hands. Tarquinius was in his garden when he received the messenger: he walked along in silence, striking off the heads of the tallest poppies with his stick, and dismissed the man without an answer. On this hint, Sextus put to death, or by means of false charges banished, such of the Gabines as were able to oppose him. By distributing their fortunes he purchased partisans among the lowest class; and, acquiring the uncontested rule, brought the city to submit to his father."-Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome, i. 491.