CHAPTER XIX. THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS. It must seem singular that so little should be known of the two persons whose tombs were to survive those of so many illustrious names. Cestius is as little famous * 66 * Perhaps the same may be said of the tomb of Bibulusignoto pero è il soggetto che ebbe quest' onore," says Nibby in Roma nell' anno xxxviii. par. antic. p. 535. But Nibby identifies this Cestius with the Cestius mentioned by Cicero in his oration for Flaccus-" Stabilita la data del monumento circa l'anno 719 di Roma è chiaro che questo Cajo Cestio e quello medesimo ricordato da Cicerone pro Flacco e nella lettera scritta per Attico da Efeso l'anno 702."- Roma nell' anno 1838, p. 88, part. ii. antica, 1842. ADDITIONAL NOTE. A remarkable proof of the accretion of soil in this part of Rome is seen in the trench dug down to the old level of the Appian Way, near the Cestian Pyramid. The road is laid bare at the bottom of the trench, and an inscription records the work and the result of it (1854). The Protestant burying-ground is close to the Cestian Pyramid, and there may be seen memorials to men who did not obtain the same renown when alive as seems to be accorded to them after their death. It remains to be proved whether succeeding generations will confirm the judgment of their contemporaries, or of their im VOL. II. K as Metella, and his pyramid is no less conspicuous than her tower. Oblivion, however, has been kind perhaps to one who has left no other present to posterity than this ambitious sepulchre; if, as there is some reason to suspect, this Cestius, Tribune of the people, Prætor, and a Septemvir, is the same Cestius, a Prætor, and flatterer of the Augustan court, who was publicly scourged by the order of Marcus Cicero, the son, for presuming to defame his father in his presence.* A learned person who wrote a dissertation on this pyramid, and disproved the mistake of Panvinius in supposing Cestius to be the consul of that name mentioned in the annals of Tacitus, asserts that there is a total silence with respect to him in all ancient authors, but that he must have died, at least, as early as the middle of the reign of Augustus.‡ The Cestius above mentioned did not suggest himself to the antiquary, and perhaps may be the man we want. *M. Seneca. Suasor. 7. † Lib. vi. cap. 31. "Altissimum enim de illo apud scriptores veteres silentium est."-Octav. Falconierii, de pyramide C. Cestii Epulonis, dissertatio, ap. Græv. Antiq. Rom., tom. iv. p. 1475. mediate successors. The admiration of Byron has given place to the worship of Shelley, and to a fondness for Keats, and it seems to me somewhat unjust that the genius and literary merits of the first of these poets cannot be acknowledged without an attempt to depreciate the author of Childe Harold. THE EGERIAN GROTTO. The respectable authority of Flaminius ca induced me formerly to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto.* He assures us that he saw an inscription in the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines † of Ovid from a stone in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think had been brought from the same grotto. This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, * "Poco lontano dal detto luogo si scende ad un casaletto, del quale ne sono Padroni li Cafarelli, che con questo nome è chiamato il luogo; vi è una fontana sotto una gran volta antica, che al presente si gode, e li Romani vi vanno l' estate a ricrearsi; nel pavimento di essa fonte si legge in un epitaffio essere quella la fonte di Egeria, dedicata alle ninfe, e questa, dice l' epitaffio, essere la medesima fonte in cui fu convertita."-Memorie, &c. ap. Nardini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription "In villa Justiniana extat ingens lapis quadratus solidus in quo sculpta hæc duo Ovidii carmina sunt: Egeria est quæ præbet aquas dea grata Camœnis ; Illa Numæ conjunx consiliumque fuit. Qui lapis videtur ex eodem Egeria fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthunc comportatus."-Diarium Italic. p. 153. creeps down the matted grass into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aquataccio. The valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes of that name who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land. The Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, was by most of the satirist's commentators supposed to have been in the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the kings, as far as the Arician grove, and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city. The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk. * Modern topographers † found in the Caffarelli grotto the statue of the nymph and nine niches for the Muses, and Eustace discovered that the cave is restored to * De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Græv. Ant. Rom., tom. iv. P. 1507. † Echinard. Descrizione di Roma e dell' agro Romano corretto dall' Abate Venuti in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. "Simulacro di questo fonte, essendovi sculpite le acque a pie de esso." Classical Tour, chap. vi. p. 217, vol. ii. that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. But the headless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any individual cave.* Nothing can be collected from the satirist but that somewhere near the Porta Capena was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly consultations with his nymph, and where there was a grove and a sacred fountain, and fanes once consecrated to the Muses; and that from this spot there was a descent into the valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the decoration which the satirist thought misplaced in these caves; for he expressly assigns other fanes (delubra) to these divinities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had been ejected to make room for the Jews. In fact the little temple, now called that of Bacchus, was *"Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam, Hic ubi nocturnæ Numa constituebat amica. |