Claudius were also originally placed before the Mausoleum of Augustus. They are those which now stand, one before Sta. Maria Maggiore, and the other on Monte Cavallo. Augustus died at Nola A.D. 14. His body, having been brought to Rome, was carried into the Forum on a bier, and placed before the Temple of Divus Julius at its further extremity, where Tiberius read a panegyric over it. The same ceremony was repeated at the old Rostra by Drusus, the son of Tiberius; after which a number of senators carried the bier on their shoulders through the Porta Triumphalis into the Campus Martius, where the body was burnt; and the ashes having been collected with the usual rites by Livia, who remained on the spot five days, were deposited in the mausoleum.1 1 Suet. Aug. c. 100; Dion Cass. lvi. 34, 42. 221 SECTION IV. FROM THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS TO THE DEATH OF HADRIAN. WITH all his faults, Augustus was a wise and prudent ruler, and perhaps, under the circumstances, the best that the Romans could have had at that period. He was content with the substance of power, and sought to conciliate his subjects, and accustom them to his yoke, by the moderate use which he made of it. Nothing can prove more strongly the politic effect of his reign than that it tamed the Romans to endure the gloomy tyrant who succeeded him. The reign of Tiberius is almost a blank in the history of the city. He did not once amuse the people by the exhibition of games or spectacles, and was but rarely present at those given by others. He commenced, according to Suetonius, only two public works, both of which he left unfinished, or, at all events, undedicated. These were a TEMPLE OF AUGUSTUS, and the restoration of the scena of Pompey's theatre. The temple must have stood on the north-west side of the Palatine, as Caligula made it serve the purpose of a pier for the bridge which he threw over to the Capitoline Hill. While the temple was building, the golden statue of Augustus was deposited on a couch in the Temple of Mars Ultor. Suetonius also tells us that Tiberius dedicated the Temples of Concord and Castor in his own name and that of his brother 1 Suet. Tib. 47, Cal. 21 sq.; Tac. Ann. vi. 45. 2 Tib. 20; Dion Cass. lvi. 25. Drusus; but this he did before he became emperor, and these temples were probably among the eighty-two restored by Augustus. On the south-western side of the Palatine Tiberius enlarged the imperial palace by building, or adding to, the DOMUS TIBERIANA. This structure, overhanging the Velabrum, had probably been a family house before, as Tiberius is said to have been born upon the Palatine. It appears to have had a library distinct from that of the Augustan palace.1 Suetonius, in his enumeration of the works of Tiberius, has, however, omitted the TRIUMPHAL ARCH which he erected, A.D. 16, in commemoration of the recovery of the military ensigns which Varus had lost; a feat indeed performed by Germanicus, but under the auspices of Tiberius. The arch must have stood at the top of the Forum, near the Milliarium Aureum, and close to the Temple of Saturn,2 probably spanning the Sacra Via, which, as may be seen from the remains of the ancient pavement, ascended the Capitoline Hill in front of the portico of the temple. There are no remains of it, nor do we find it described by ancient authors. Tiberius also erected a Temple of FORS FORTUNA in the same year, and probably on the same occasion, in the Horti Cæsaris on the right bank of the Tiber. But though Tiberius undertook few public buildings, he must be allowed the merit of having assisted to restore the damage occasioned by two great fires which occurred in his reign. One of these appears to have destroyed all the buildings on the Calian Hill. A statue of Tiberius which stood in the house of a senator named Junius alone escaped the flames, on which account it was proposed to change the name of the hill to Augustus; but if this name was ever applied to the hill, it certainly did not remain long The other fire, which broke out near the Circus in use. 1 Vopiscus, Prob. 2. 2 Tac. Ann. ii. 41. Maximus, destroyed that part of it which lay contiguous to the Aventine, as well as the buildings on that hill. Tiberius is said to have reimbursed the owners the price of the houses destroyed in these conflagrations.1 When we add, what we have already mentioned, that Tiberius established the prætorian camp near the Servian agger, we have recorded everything notable that he effected for the city. Caligula, who ascended the throne on the death of Tiberius in B. c. 37, was half, if not quite, a madman; and nothing shows it more than his architectural feats. He extended the imperial palace towards the Forum, so as to include in it the Temple of Castor and Pollux as a sort of vestibule. The passage into the palace passed between the statues of the Dioscuri; and he boasted of having converted them into his janitors or doorkeepers. Sometimes he would take his stand just between the two, and thus appear to receive the adorations of those who came to worship.2 Another extravagant feat was that just mentioned, of throwing a bridge from the Palatine to the Capitoline Hill, making the Temple of Augustus serve as a kind of pier; for he affirmed that Jove had invited him to become his contubernalis, or comrade. And, to carry out this project fully, he began to build a residence on the Area Capitolina, but the work never proceeded beyond laying the foundations, being probably interrupted by his death. Nay, he wished to become, as it were, the rival of Jove, and to be worshipped instead of him as Jupiter Latiaris. With which view he ordered the statue of the Olympian Jupiter to be brought to Rome; when the head was to have been cut off and another substituted bearing his own likeness. A temple for this deity was hastily erected on the Palatine; but the Greek statue was hindered from being brought, the vessel built 1 Tac. Ann. iv. 64, vi. 45. 2 Suet. Cal. 22; Dion Cass. lix. 28. purposely for its conveyance having been destroyed by lightning. Caligula was very angry with Jupiter for this ill-natured act; but he would not be frustrated of his purpose, and caused a golden image of himself to be set up in the temple, clothed in his usual dress. He himself officiated as his own priest, or Flamen Dialis, in conjunction with his horse Incitatus. The richest people in Rome contended with one another to be admitted into the priesthood, and he made them pay handsomely for the honour.1 Caligula seems also to have made other extensive alterations by building at the north-western angle of the Palatine, and altogether his works were on so large a scale that Pliny compares them with those of Nero.2 Among them was a circus which he built in the district of the Vatican, in the HORTI AGRIPPINÆ, or gardens of his mother Agrippina, which probably occupied the site on which S. Peter's now stands. But this circus seems not to have been finished, or at all events never to have been used during the reign of Caligula. It was afterwards called the CIRCUS NERONIS, from its frequent employment by that emperor; though it appears to have been previously used by Claudius. The place, however, was also called CAIANUM, from Caligula,1 and is mentioned by that name in the Notitia. Caligula was assassinated after a short reign of four years, A.D. 41. He was at first hastily buried in the HORTI LAMIANI on the Esquiline, but his remains were afterwards burnt by his sisters and reinterred." The Horti Lamiani were probably the property of Elius Lamia, to whom Horace addressed one of his odes:6 at least we learn from Valerius Maximus that the Ælian family dwelt near the Trophies of Marius. Caligula was succeeded by Claudius, 1 Suet. and Dion Cass. ll. cc. 2 Bis vidimus urbem totam cingi domibus principum Caii et Neronis.' -H. N. xxxvi. 24, 5. 3 Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 15; Suet. Claud. 21. 4 Dion Cass. lix. 14. 6 i. 26. |