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jecture; just as the neighbouring S. Martina is more likely to have been formerly devoted to Mars than to the "Secretarium Senatus," a name given to it on account of an inscription found near it, and copied by Gruter. The church of St. Hadrian is the Temple of. Saturn in one guide book, and the Basilica of Paulus Emilius in another.†

SS. COSMAS AND DAMIANUS.

Next comes the church of St. Cosmas and Damianus, which was once set down to Castor and Pollux, then to the goddess Rome, afterwards to Romulus and Remus, then to Romulus alone, then to Remus alone. The round vestibule is ancient, as are the bronze doors, although they did not originally belong to this structure, but were added by Pope Hadrian I. together with the porphyry columns. Even the modern objects change in Rome: for the famous picture in this church of the Mother of God,§ which said to Saint Gregory, "Gregorie,

*It is called in tribus foris, from the contiguity of the Roman, Augustan, and Julian forums, a proof of its high antiquity. These names of churches are the great help in adjusting topography. †The same Vasi and Manazzale.

Nardini, lib. iii. cap. iii. Fabric. Descrip. Rom. cap. ix. Venuti, Roma Moderna, rione x. tom. ii. p. 354. Donatus, lib. iii. cap. iv. He thinks the round temple might have belonged to one, and the rectangular one behind to another.

§ "They show us here an image of the Virgin which reprimanded Gregory the Great for passing by her too carelessly.”—Middleton's Letter from Rome.

quare me non salutasti?" is become God the Father, with a globe in his hand, and two fingers held up in papal benediction.*

The plan of ancient Rome, now in the Capitoline Museum, was found, not in the ancient temple, but in

* Here there are three levels,—that of the modern church, of the old church, and of ancient Rome. The vestibule has a modern flooring raised upon rude pilasters standing on the ancient level. The subterranean chamber is worth visiting. It is decorated with old paintings and arabesques. The well, which in the middle ages was usually sunk in the crypts, now remains. The bronze doors are thought to be ancient, although known to have been transferred hither by Pope Hadrian I.; but the doorway is modern, and not where the ancient entrance was placed-that entrance is believed to have been more in the position of the grated window which now lights the subterranean chamber. I have previously noticed the many names given to this structure. The papal biographer Anastasius calls it the temple of Romulus, and so it was called generally in 1817. The inscription in the annexed church of Cosmas and Damianus shows that in the time of Urban VIII. it was thought to have belonged to Romulus and Remus. In 1822 I found it transferred to Remus alone; but both the legendary founders have been pushed from their shrines by recent topographers, and the last critic agrees with Bunsen and Becker in " assuming that this was really the temple of the Trojan household gods." a Yet Mr. Dyer, not being able to reconcile this opinion with the acknowledged fact that on this spot the house of Valerius Publicola stood, is obliged to confess that the "situation does not correspond with the description given by Cicero, Livy, and other writers." This writer thinks the objection overcome by supposing there were two temples of the Penates-one at the top, the other at the bottom of the Velian eminence perhaps there were, although Bunsen and Becker say there were not.b-1857.

a Smith's Dict., art. Rome,' p. 808.

b Ib., p. 807.

the wall of the subterranean chamber beneath the church of SS. Cosmas and Damianus. Perhaps this plan, which seems to belong to the reign of Severus, and is very incorrect, was, in former times, the pavement of the temple, but removed when the church was built by Pope Felix IV. in the year 526. I will add another perhaps from Professor Nibby. The two half-buried cipolline columns, now before the contiguous oratory of the Via Crucis, might have been part of the portico of the circular temple.

Some other ancient edifice, besides this temple, was employed by Felix in building his church. Remains of it, consisting of quadilateral blocks of tufo and peperine, put together without cement, exactly similar to the wall called the inclosure of the Forum of Nerva, are seen from behind the oratory of the Via Crucis, flanking the sides of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damianus. A brick wall of ancient construction joins these remains at right angles. The name arbitrarily applied to the peperine and brick ruins is the Inclosure of the Forum of Cæsar.

ST. LORENZO IN MIRANDA.-ANTONINUS AND

FAUSTINA.

The inscription, DIVO ANTONINO ET DIVÆ FAUSSTINAE, on the portico of S. Laurence in Miranda, would appear decisive; the antiquaries, however, are cautious to

remark that there were two Antonines, and two Faustinas.*

TEMPLE OF PEACE.

The three vaults, formerly thought to be part of the Temple of Peace, would certainly seem part of that structure which astonished Hormisdas,† and which Herodian calls the greatest and most beautiful work in the whole city. Even Nardini § had no doubts here. Succeeding antiquaries disputed about what part of the temple these huge vaults might be said to represent; a

*The eight Cipollino marble columns, with the architrave and part of the cella attached to the church of St. Lorenzo in Miranda, still continue objects of controversy. The claims of M. Antoninus and the younger Faustina were in 1828 thought superior to those of their elder namesakes; but the latest authority has decided otherwise. The inscription recording the dedication to Faustina is of a prior date to that which gives a share of the temple to the god Antoninus. The ascent to the temple from the Sacred Way was by a flight of twenty-one steps, fifteen feet in height; and there was a half-subterranean staircase to the lower part of the building, the entrance to which, through the wall, was discovered in 1810. The government of the day was afraid to keep the excavation open, on account of the water which rapidly accumulated in the hole. The arabesque candelabras and griffins on the architrave are much admired (1858).

+ Amm. Marcell. lib. xvi. cap. x. in loc. cit. forumque pacis.

* Herodian, lib. i. πᾶν τὸ τῆς Εἰρήνης τέμενος κατεφλέχθη, μέγισ τον καὶ κάλλιστον γενόμενον τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἔργων, p. 58, edit. Basil. The fire by lightning happened in the reign of Commodus.

§ Lib. iii. cap. xii.

a Dr. Smith's Dict., art. Rome,' p. 795.

treasury, a Pinacotheca, perhaps a bath, or any other building of the Forum of Peace. The great excavations in 1812 discovered immense masses of marble, which awakened further conjecture.

The rubbish and soil which, in 1817, encumbered the area of these vast ruins, and covered the huge fallen fragments of the building, were cleared away before my second visit in 1822. Some excavations beneath the present level had, at that time, discovered a flight of eleven steps, a portion of the Sacred Way, and the old pavement of the edifice itself. To these may be added some vestiges of an ancient chamber with paintings in an inferior style, belonging, it seems, to some buildings, the upper part of which were destroyed in order to give place to the great structure.

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In 1822, a controversy still raged in regard to these ruins. Abate Fea maintained that they belonged to the Temple of Peace, although obliged to confess that they were not a part of the temple built by Vespasian, which was entirely destroyed by fire, but of some restoration to which no certain epoch could be assigned. The name, "Basilica of Constantine," is principally due to the author of the Essay on the Forum;' Antonio Nibby trampled with contempt on the conjecture which mistook a Christian Basilica for a Pagan temple, and which assigned to the age of Vespasian architecture that betrays the decline and degradation of the arts.

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