Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/264

244 in Italy, especially in Etruria, Umbria, Latium, and Sabina, and decidedly belong, in point of design, to the most ancient buildings of Italy, although the greater portion of those now extant were probably not executed till a later age, several of them certainly not till the seventh century of the city. They are, just like those of Greece, sometimes quite roughly formed of large unwrought blocks of rock with smaller stones inserted between them, sometimes squared in horizontal layers Of this character were the Servian walls, the remains of which, recently discovered at the Aventine, both on the side towards S. Paolo in the Vigna Maccarana, and on the side towards the Tiber below S. Sabina, have been figured or described in the ''Annali dell' Inst. Rom. 1855, plates XXI.—XXV., p. 87, seq.'' The blocks of tufo are hewn in longish rectangles, and at some places, for the sake of greater solidity, are laid alternately with the long and with the narrow sides outermost. At one place, in the upper part of the wall, a large regular arch has been inserted, which is similar in style, but appears to have been added at a later date. The portions of the wall preserved consist of about fourteen courses; the upper portion is wanting, and the lower is for the most part concealed by later buildings, and often covered over with opus reticulatum. The wall evidently stretched quite along the edge of the hill. The continuation of these excavations inwards showed that mines and sewers traversed the Aventine hill just as they traversed the Capitoline in all directions. The latter belong to the system of cloacæ, the extent and importance of which in ancient Rome has been instructively discussed by Braun (Annali dell' Inst.1852, p. 331). Of another piece of the Servian wall found at an early date, not far from the Porta Capena, a representation is given in Gell (Topography of Rome, p. 494).

Essentially similar to the Servian walls are those discovered in the Vigna Nussiner, on the slope of the Palatine, towards the Capitoline (Braun, l. c.), which have been, probably with justice, pronounced to be remains of the primitive circumvallation of the Roma quadrata (P. 51). sometimes disposed in courses of polygonal dressed blocks fitting into each other. The selection of one or other of these systems was doubtless ordinarily determined by the material, and accordingly the polygonal masonry does not occur in Home, where in the most ancient times tufo alone was employed for building. The resemblance in the case of the two former and simpler styles may perhaps be traceable to the similarity of the materials employed and of the object in view in building; but it can hardly be deemed accidental that the artistic polygonal wall-masonry, and the gate with the road leading up to it universally bending to the left and so exposing the unshielded right side of the assailant to the defenders, belong to the Italian fortresses as well as to the Greek. It is a significant circumstance, that this wall-masonry was only usual in that portion of Italy which was neither reduced