ascribed to them by Virgil63, and made use of these little mountain fastnesses as places of refuge after their plundering excursions. The extensive walls of Alba, on the contrary, would point to the existence of a large, as well as strongly fortified, town, such as would obviously be required for the six thousand Roman colonists, but can hardly be supposed to have existed previously, without playing an important part in the country, and attracting the direct notice of historians at the time of its conquest 6. In the preceding observations, I have purposely refrained from citing an authority which appears at first sight strongly to support the views I have been endeavouring to establish: I mean that of the fragment, or rather collection of fragments, "De Coloniis," generally ascribed to Frontinus. In the enumeration of the colonies sent forth by the Romans-many of 63 Horrida præcipue cui gens, assuetaque multo En. vii. 749. The name of Cicolano still applied to this mountain district is evidently corrupted from Æquiculanum. 64 The only other remains of the polygonal style which I myself visited in this part of Italy were those near Lugo, on the Lago di Fucino, the ancient Lucus Angitiæ. Here there is a wall of wellfitted blocks, mostly trapezoidal, and not of very great size, but certainly not distinguishable in these respects from many others of the supposed Pelasgic vestiges. It appears to me probable, however, both from the unusually small thickness of this wall, and from its position directly under an abrupt hill of limestone, which would have completely commanded the space enclosed by it, that it was not a work of fortification at all; and it seems a natural conjecture that it was merely the boundary wall of the sacred grove from which the place derived its name. In the church of the modern village of Lugo I copied the following inscription, which has been already published by Nibby, in his Viaggio Antiquario, T. 1. p. 211, and from him by Orelli, No. 115, ET SEX PACCIVSIA.. — CONSVMTVMASOLOREST. The third line is evidently to be filled up with VETVST. for vetustate. Who shall assure us that the wall of which we now see the remains is not the very one the erection of which was thought worthy to be thus commemorated, and which appears to have replaced one of a similar construction, but of more ancient date? Such a supposition appears to me at least far more reasonable than to refer it to a Pelasgian race which had preceded the Æquians and Marsians in this part of the country. It may be added that as Angitia appears to have been a Marsian, that is to say a Sabellian divinity-she can hardly have been worshipped by the Pelasgians; and this difficulty is not removed, even if it be maintained that the wall now remaining belonged to the town and not the temple, as the former unquestionably grew up only in consequence of the latter. which, it is hardly necessary to observe, were not new settlements, but merely bands of emigrants sent forth to occupy towns long established, and either to recruit or to command the existing population—a considerable number are distinguished from the rest by the epithet "surrounded by a wall," muro ducta colonia. This expression would certainly primâ facie seem to imply that the colonies thus designated were fortified with walls at the time of their establishment, and thus to exclude the idea of their having previously possessed defences of such a massive character as those now existing. And on this view of the case, it would appear an important corroboration of the arguments already brought forward, that among the towns to which we find this distinctive epithet applied, there occur the names of Signia, Alatrium, Verulæ, Ferentinum, Setia, Aquinum, and several others, where we find the remains of walls usually ascribed to a Pelasgic origin. I must candidly confess, however, that after a careful examination of the authority in question, I cannot bring myself to attach any weight to its testimony. The little tract (if it deserve to be so called) that bears the name of Frontinus, is not only demonstrably not the work of that author 65, but it cannot, I conceive, be regarded as such an extract or epitome of his work as has in many instances preserved to us the substance of valuable authorities, when in their original form they have been totally lost. It would be difficult to conceive a stranger farrago of heterogeneous materials than this so-called treatise, or one bearing more unequivocal marks both of carelessness and ignorance on the part of the compiler, whoever he may have been. That it may contain notices of real value, derived either from a work on the same subject by Frontinus himself, or from that of the imperial antiquarian Claudius, I have little doubt; but it would require the sagacity of a Niebuhr to sift these grains of historic truth out of the mass of chaff: and it certainly does not seem to me safe to rely on its authority, in its present state, for any individual fact 66. 65 See Polenus in Vitâ Frontini, p. 36, ed. Bipont; Goesius, Antiquitates Agrariæ, p. 158. 66 See the remarks of the last editor of this little tract, Goesius (Notæ in Script. Rei Agrariæ, p. 156, ed. Amstel. 1674): "Hæc me tenet sententia, ut existimem nihil hic nos genuini habere, quod scripserit Frontinus, sed potius tum ex illo tum ex aliis excerpta, male et negligenter congesta ab homine indocto et harum rerum plane ignaro." A few It is singular that the force of this last authority, and indeed that of the evidence generally, which can be brought forward in support of the fact that the cities last referred to were first built, or at least first fortified, by the Romans, is most fully admitted by Sir W. Gell, who is nevertheless so wedded to the Pelasgian theory as to regard the employment of this style of construction by the Romans as owing to their Pelasgic extraction. Yet, even if we admit this extraction in a far greater degree than the researches of modern scholars would render probable, the Romans could have had no opportunity of building in this style for more than two centuries after the foundation of the city, any more than could their supposed Pelasgic ancestors for the two or three centuries previous to that event, during which they had been settled in the volcanic plains of the Campagna; almost time enough, one would have thought, to have forgotten the peculiar mode of building adopted by their forefathers. It appears to me far more reasonable to suppose that the Romans, when they came to establish colonies on the limestone hills of the Apennines, constructed their walls of polygonal blocks, simply because they could not well build them of any thing else; the hard limestone was an excellent material and close at hand; but its nature rendered it all but impossible to reduce into masses of that more regular form which they had been accustomed to employ in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. That the same causes would have operated with whatever people established themselves in regions of a similar physical character appears most probable; and therefore, when we find constructions of this style in regions occupied by Sabellian and Oscan races, we can hardly hesitate to ascribe them to those tribes, in all cases where there are no historical grounds for referring them to their Roman conquerors. Even if the first introduction into Italy of the polygonal style be assigned to the Pelasgians-a point of which there exists no historical evidence whatever, but which is certainly rendered probable by the abundance of such remains on the opposite side of the Adriatic, especially in Epirus—it seems incredible that the example should not have been imitated by all the neighbouring tribes, wherever the materials were found to afford facilities for such a mode of construction, in preference to any other. Before quitting the subject of these polygonal remains, it may be as well to advert briefly to those cases where we find this style of construction applied to other purposes than those of walls of defence. And though we are unfortunately still more destitute of any positive testimony concerning the age of such remains than in the case of the fortifications of cities, it must be at least admitted that no argument can be derived from them unfavourable to the conclusions that I have endeavoured to establish. It has been already pointed out that the Romans employed this mode of building in the substructions of their great roads, as late at least as the fifth century of the city, and in all probability at a period long subsequent. When therefore we find a similar style made use of in the substructions or basements which support the temples at Segni and Alba Fucense, it must not be hastily inferred that these polygonal works are necessarily far older than the buildings they support, though the latter being constructed of softer materials present a very different and much more regular style. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the fondness for retaining the spot once consecrated to religious purposes, observable in so many instances, renders it far from improbable that the Roman temples in question may have replaced others of a more ancient date and character, just in the same manner as their own walls now form part of those of Christian churches. The foundations therefore may have belonged originally to these more ancient temples; but so far as a judgment can be formed concerning them from the style of their construction, I should have no hesitation in believing them to be contemporary with the buildings they support 67. Those at Segni in particular have nothing whatever Cyclopean in their character in the sense usually attached to that term; 67 The temple at Segni is built of tufo, and in its general style of construction resembles those of Juno at Gabii and of Diana at Aricia; but the masonry is more regular, the correspondence of the joints in the alternate courses being strictly observed. This is not the case in that at Alba, which is built of a soft limestone found in the neighbourhood, but quite distinct from that used for the polygonal substructions (Promis, Ant. di Alba, p. 97). The temples at Gabii and Aricia, which have been commonly regarded as very ancient, have been shewn by Abeken (Ann. d. Ist. T. XII.), to be referable to the later ages of the Roman republic, and there seems no reason for assigning those of Alba or Segni to an earlier period. they are indeed of polygonal forms, but by no means of very large size, and put together with much skill and care, so as to form three successive ledges, rising like steps one above the other, but not exceeding in the whole the height of ten or twelve feet. Substructions of polygonal, but much more massive blocks, occur also on the hill close to Civitella (between Subiaco and Olevano), in a situation where they can hardly have been designed for any other purpose than to support a temple, which would have directly fronted the town. As however all traces of the superstructure have disappeared, and we have no clue to the history, or even to the ancient name of Civitella, it would be idle to speculate on the probable date of these ruins. Similar substructions occur in such numbers over the whole site of the ancient Norba, that it seems difficult to suppose them all to have served to support temples or other public buildings, at the same time that we can hardly conceive such massive works to have been designed merely to uphold private houses, at least in a place which could never have been the residence of the great and luxurious. With regard to these structures, the question as to the period of their erection cannot be separated from that relative to the walls of the same city. The only remaining instances which may be thought to throw any light upon the points under discussion are those mentioned by Sir W. Gell, in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, where walls of the polygonal style are found supporting or united with the remains of Roman villas. Not having myself examined any of these, I must refrain from expressing a decided opinion upon the subject; but they do not seem to afford any conclusive evidence that the polygonal constructions are coeval with the reticulated walls with which they are associated 68. I have dwelt so much at length upon the polygonal style of Cyclopean building, as being both that of most frequent occurrence in Italy, and concerning which the most discussion has arisen, that I shall touch but very briefly upon the walls of the third, the supposed Etruscan style. I have already stated my 68 Figures of some of them are given by Dodwell, Pl. 122-126. The work with which they are associated appears to be in some cases the regular opus reticulatum, which came into general use towards the end of the Roman republic, and was universal in the time of Augustus (Vitruvius, lib. II. c. 8); in others, the more ancient opus incertum, which is so extensively employed in the principal ancient buildings at Tivoli itself. |