Wanderings in the Roman Campagna / by Rodolfo Lanciani.

  • Rodolfo Lanciani
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wanderings in the Roman Campagna / by Rodolfo Lanciani. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    scenery, and the fecundity of its soil began to be ap¬ preciated by the Roman villa-builders of the Augustan age. Atticus, Cicero, Lucullus, Maecenas, Brutus, and Cassius, the pioneers of Roman fashionable emigration, dotted the coast with exquisite structures, the remains of which are still to be seen in the bend of the bay near Nettuno. Antium, however, is essentially a city of Nero. Here he was born on December 15, a. d. 37; here the news was brought to him of the outbreak of the fire of July, 65; here he led Poppaea Sabina to be confined ubi ipse generatus erat, and here the child, born in the palace by the sea in the winter of 61, was taken away from her parents when only four months old. The grief of the citizens knew no bounds; the Senate came in a body from Rome to offer their condolences, and passed a resolution for the erection of a memorial, which must have vied in magnificence with that of the Gens Julia at Bovillae. Nero is still the popular hero, and the subject of many legends in the folk-lore of Antium. Nowhere does one feel more disposed to forgive his mis¬ deeds and to admit extenuating circumstances than in this city, which he beautified and cherished above all other imperial residences. Nowhere can one better appreciate his worth as an artist and as an engineer. The following considerations may give an additional interest to the visit which none of my readers should omit to pay to lovely Anzio. During the long period in which I have taken an active interest in antiquarian research some two thou¬ sand pieces of sculpture have been dug out of the soil of Rome and the Campagna, including statues, busts, heads, bas-reliefs, friezes, and sarcophagi. Busts and portrait heads are Roman works of Imperial times;