meet and pass several resolutions: that the rules regarding the ceremonies shall be made known to the public by advertisement (albo propositæ); that the mornings of May 26, 27, and 28, shall be set apart for the distributio suffimentorum, in which the Quindecemviri were wont to distribute among the citizens torches, sulphur and bitumen, for purification; and the mornings of May 29, 30, and 31, for the frugum acceptio, or distribution of wheat, barley, and beans. To avoid overcrowding, four centres of distribution are named, and each of them is placed under the supervision of four members of the college, making a total of sixteen delegates. The places indicated in the programme are the platform of the Capitolium, the area in front of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, the Portico of the Danaids on the Palatine, and the Temple of Diana on the Aventine.
On May 23 the Senate meets in the Septa Julia—the ruins of which still exist, under the Palazzo Doria and the church of S. Maria in Via Lata—and passes two resolutions. Horace's hymn, vv. 17-20, alludes to the first: "O Goddess, whether you choose the title of Lucina or of Genitalis, multiply our offspring, and prosper the decree of the Senate in relation to the giving of women in wedlock, and the matrimonial laws." Among the penalties imposed on men and women who remained single between the ages of twenty and fifty years, was the prohibition against attending public festivities and ceremonies of state. The Senate, considering the extraordinary case of the Ludi Sæculares, which none among the living had seen or would ever see again, removes this prohibition. The second resolution provides for the erection of two commemorative pillars, one of bronze, the other of marble, upon which the official report of the celebration shall be engraved. The bronze pillar is probably lost forever, but the marble one is that recovered on the banks of the Tiber, September 20, 1890, the inscription on which I am endeavoring to explain.
The celebration in the strict sense of the word began at the second hour of the night of May 31. Sacrifices were offered to the Fates, on altars erected between the Tarentum and the banks of the Tiber, where S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini now stands; and the other ceremonies were performed on a wooden stage which was illuminated by lights and fires. This temporary theatre was not provided with seats, and the report calls it "a stage without a theatre." In the performances of the next day and in those of June 2 and 3, which took place on the Capitol and the Palatine, the following order was observed in the ceremonial pageant; first came Augustus as Emperor and Pontifex Maximus, next the Consuls, the Senate, the Quindecemviri and other colleges of priests, then followed the Vestal Virgins, and a group of one hundred and ten matrons (as many as there were years in the sæculum) selected from among the most exemplary matres familiæ above twenty-five years of age.
Twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls of patrician descent whose parents were both living (patrimi et matrimi) were enlisted on June 3, to sing the hymn composed expressly by Horace. "Carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus," so the report says (line 149). The first stanzas of the beautiful canticle were sung when the procession was marching from the Temple of Apollo to that of Jupiter Capitolinus, the middle portion on the Capitol, and the last on the way back to the Palatine. The accompaniments were played by the orchestra and the trumpeters of the official choir (tibicines et fidicines qui sacris publicis præsto sunt). The wealth of magnificence and beauty which the Romans beheld on the morning of June 3, 17 b. c., we can see as in a dream, but it baffles description. Imagine the group of fifty-four young patricians clad in snow-white tunics, crowned with flowers, and waving branches of laurel, led by Horace down the Vicus Apollinis (the street which led from the Summa Sacra Via to the house of Augustus on the Palatine), and the Sacra Via, singing the praises of the immortal gods:—
During those days and nights Augustus gave evidence of a truly remarkable strength of mind and body, never missing a ceremony, and himself performing the sacrifices. Agrippa showed less power of endurance than his friend and master. He appeared only in the daytime, helping the emperor in addressing supplications to the gods, and in immolating the victims.
Ara Pacis Augustae. Among the honors voted to Augustus by the Senate in the year 13 b. c., on the occasion of his triumphal return from the campaigns of Germany and Gaul, was the erection of a votive altar in the Curia itself. Augustus refused it, but consented that an altar should be raised in the Campus Martius and dedicated to Peace. Judging from the fragments which have come down to us, this ara was one of the most exquisite artistic productions of the golden age of Augustus. It stood in the centre of a triple square enclosure, on the west side of the Via Flaminia, the site of the present Palazzo Fiano. Twice its remains have been brought to light; once in 1554, when they were drawn by Giovanni Colonna,47 and again in 1859, when the present duke of Fiano was rebuilding the southern wing of the palace on the Via in Lucina. Of the panels and basreliefs found in 1554, some were removed to the Villa Medici and inserted in the front of the casino, on the garden side; others were transferred to Florence; those of 1859 have been placed in the vestibule of the Palazzo Fiano. They are well worth a visit.
The family of Augustus. Relief from the Ara Pacis, in the Gallery of the Uffizi, Florence.
Ara Incendii Neroniani. In the month of July, a. d. 65, half Rome was destroyed by the fire of Nero. The citizens, overwhelmed by the greatness of the calamity, and ignorant of its true cause, made a vow for the annual celebration of expiatory sacrifices, on altars expressly constructed for the purpose in each of the fourteen regions of the metropolis. The vow was, however, forgotten until Domitian claimed its fulfilment some twenty or twenty-five years later. One of these altars, which adjoined Domitian's paternal house on the Quirinal, has just been found near the church of S. Andrea del Noviziato, in the foundations of the new "Ministero della Casa Reale."
The altar, six metres long by three wide, built of travertine with a coating of marble, stands in the middle of a paved area of considerable size. The area is lined with stone cippi, placed at an interval of two and a half metres from one another. The following inscription has been found engraved on two of them: "This sacred area, marked with stone cippi, and enclosed with a hedge, as well as the altar which stands in the middle of it, was dedicated by the emperor Domitian in consequence of an unfulfilled vow made by the citizens at the time of the fire of Nero. The dedication is made subject to the following rules: that no one shall be allowed to loiter, trade, build, or plant trees or shrubs within the line of terminal stones; that on August 23 of each year, the day of the Volkanalia, the magistrate presiding over this sixth region shall sacrifice on this altar a red calf and a pig; that he shall address to the gods the following prayer (text missing)." The inscription has been read twice: once towards the end of the fifteenth century, when the cippus containing it was removed to S. Peter's and made use of in the new building, and again in 1644, when Pope Barberini was laying the foundations of S. Andrea al Quirinale, one of the most graceful and pleasing churches of modern Rome.
Let us now turn our attention to more imposing structures. The first temple in the excavation of which I took part was that of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill.48 Its discovery was due more to an intuition of the truth, than to actual recognition of existing remains. On November 7, 1875, while digging for the foundation of the new Rotunda in the garden which divides the Conservatori palace from that of the Caffarellis,—the residence of the German ambassador,—our workmen came upon a piece of a colossal fluted column of Pentelic marble, lying on a platform of squared stones, which were laid without mortar, in a decidedly archaic style. Were we in the presence of the remains of the famous Capitolium, or of one of the smaller temples within the Arx? To give this query a satisfactory answer, we must remember that the Capitoline Hill had two summits, one containing the citadel, or Arx, the other the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the Capitolium. Ancient writers never use the two names promiscuously, or apply them indifferently to either summit or to the whole hill. The name of the hill is the Capitoline; not the Capitol, which means exclusively the portion occupied by the great temple. Suffice it to quote Livy's evidence (vi. 20), ne quis in Arce aut Capitolio habitaret, and
See Rycquius:
