Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1268

 1244 TUSCULUM. and must therefore have belont^ed to those noticed by Strabo. The scholiast on Horace (^Epod. i. 30) describes Cicero's as being " ad latera superiora " of the Tusculan hill; and if this authority may be re- lied on, it dispo.ses of the claims of Grotta Ferrata. The plural " latera " also determines us in favour of the W. side of the town, or Villa Rufinella, where the hill has two ridges. At this spot some valuable remains were discovered in 1741, especially a beau- tiful mosaic, now in the 3hiseo Pio Clementino. The villa belonged originally to Sulla (Plin. ssii. 6. s. 6). It was, as we have said, close to that of Lu- cullus, from which, in neighbourly fashion, Cicero was accustomed to fetch books with his own hand. (^De Fin. iii. 2.) It was likewise near that of the fousul G:ibinius (wo Dom. 24, post lied. 7), which also stood on the Tusculan hill {in Pis. 21), pro- bably on the site of tiie Villa Falconieri. In his oration ;;ro Sestio (43), Cicero says that his own villa was a mere cottage in comparison with that of Gabinius, though the latter, when tribune, had de- scribed it as "pictam," in order to excite envy against its owner. Yet from the particulars which we learn from Cicero himself, his retirement must have been far from deficient in splendour. Tlie money which he lavished on it and on his villa at Pompeii brought him deeply into debt. (Ep. ad Alt. ii. 1.) And in another letter {lb. iv. 2) he com- plains that the consuls valued that at Tusculum at only qicingentis millibus, or between 4000?. and 5000/. This would be indeed a very small sum, to judge by the description of it which we may collect from his own writings. Thus we learn that it contained tv!o gymnasia (iJir. i. 5), an upper one called Lyceum, in which, like Aristotle, he was ac- customed to walk and dispute in the morning {Tiisc. Disp. ii. 3), and to which a library was attached {Div. ii. 3), and a lower one, with shady walks like Plato's garden, to which he gave the name of the Academy. (Tiisc. iJisp. ii. 3.) The latter was perhaps on the spot now occupied by the Casino of tlie Villa Rnfinclla. Both were adorned with beau- tiful statues in marble and bronze. {Ep. ad Att. i. 1, 8, 9, 10.) The villa likewise contained a little atrium (atriolum, Ih. i. 10, ad Quint. Fr. iii. 1), a small portico with exedria {ad Earn. vii. 23), a bath (76. xiv. 20), a covered promenade ("tecta am- bnlatiuncula," «(/ yl<t. xiii. 29), and an liorologium {ad Earn. xvi. 1 8). In the excavations made in the time of Zuzzeri, a sun-dial vras discovered here, and placed in the Collegia Romano. The villa, like the town and neighbourhood, was supplied with water by the Aqua Crabra. {De Leg. Agr. iii. 31.) But of all this magnificence scarce a vestige re- mains, unless we may regard as such the ruins now called Scuola di Cicerone, close to the ancient walls. Tliese consist of a long corridor with eight chambers, forming apparently the ground floor of an upper building, and if they belonged to the villa they were probably granaries, as there is not the least trace of decoration. We will now proceed to consider the remains at Erascati. Strabo (v. p. 239) indicates where we must look for Tusculum, when he describes it as situated on the high ridge connected with Mount Albanus, and serving to form with it the deep valley which stretches out towards Jlount Algidus. This ridge was known by the name of the Tusculani Colles. We have already seen that Tusctdum was composed of two distinct parts, the town itself and the arxor citadel, which was isolated from it, and TUSCULUM. seated on a higher point; so elevated, indeed, that when the Aequi had possession of it, as before narrated, they could descry the Roman army de- filing out of the gates of Rome. (Dionys. x. 20.) It was indeed on the veij nut, or pinnacle, of the ridge, a point isolated by cliffs of great elevation, and approachable only by a very steep ascent. Ac- cording to Sir W. Gell {Topogr. (fc. p. 429) it is 2079 French feet above the level of the sea. Here a few traces of the walls of the citadel remain, from which, and from the shape of the rock on which the town stood, we may see that it formed an irregular oblong, about 2700 feet in circumference. There must have been a gate towards the town, where the ascent is less steep; and there are also vestiges of another gate on the E. side, towards La Molara, and of a road which ran into the Via Latina. Under the rock are caves, which probably served for sepulchres. The city lay immediately under the arx, on the W. side. Its form was a narrow oblong approaching to a triangle, about 3000 feet in length, and varying in breadth from about 1 000 to .500 feet. Thus it is represented of a triangular shape on the coins of the gens Sulpicia. Some vestiges of the walls remain, especially on the N. and S. sides. Of these the ancient parts consist of large qu.adrilateral pieces of local tufo, some of them being 4 to 5 feet long. They are repaired in places with opus incertum, of the age of Sulla, and with opus reticulatum. Includint; the arx, Tusculum was about Ij mile in circumference. Between the town and the citadel is a large quadrilateral piscina, 86 feet long by 674 broad, divided into three compartments, probably intended to collect the rain water, and to serve as a public washing- place. One of the theatres lies immediately under this cistern, and is more perfect than any in the vicinity of Rome. The scena, indeed is partly de- stroyed and covered with earth ; but the benches or rows of seats in the cavea, of which there are nine, are still nearly entire, as well as the steps cut in them for the purpose of commodious descent. There are three flights of these steps, which consequently divide the cavea into four compartments, or cimei. The spectators faced the W., and thus enjoyed the magnificent prospect over the Alban valley and the plains of Latium, with Rome and the sea in the distance. Abeken {iMittel-ltalien, p. 200), considers this theatre to belong to the early times of the Em- pire. Sir W. Gell, on the other hand, pronounces it to be earlier. {Topogr. of Rome, p. 429.) Near this edifice were discovered in 1818, by Lucieu Buonaparte, the beautiful bronze statue of Apollo and those of the two Rutiliae. The last are now in the Vatican, in the corridor of the Museo Chiara- monti. At the back of this structure are vestiges of another theatre, or odeum ; and at its side two parallel walls, which bounded the street leading to the citadel. On the W. of the theatre is an ancient road in good preservation, leading to one of the gates of the city, where it is joined by another road. Close to the walls near the pLscina is an ancient cistern, and at its side a small fountain with an in- scription; a little further is a Roman milestone, recording the distance of 1 5 miles. Besides these objects, there are also remains of a columbarium and of an amphitheatre, but the latter is small and not of high antiquity. Blany fragments of architecture of an extremely ancient style are strewed around. Within the walls of the town, in what appears to have been the principal street, several inscriptions