ART. II.-1. Analisi-storico-Topografico-Antiquaria della car ta de' dintorni di Roma. Da ANTONIO NIBBI. Roma: 1837. 2. Tentamen Geographicum exhibens Latium vetus et regiones conterminas Etruria, Sabinæ, Æquorum, Volscorumque juxta faciem hodiernam, etc., etc. A WILHELMO GELL et ANTONIO NIBBY. Roma: MDCCCXXVII. THAT broad tract of lowland on the western coast of central Italy, which extends from the Sabine and Alban mounts to the shores of the Mediterranean, is known by the name of the Campagna, or Agro Romano. To the modern traveller, as he hurries along the ancient Cassian or new Appian, on his way to the Eternal City, it presents the aspect of a desolate waste, faintly relieved at distant intervals by the dim traces of an inadequate cultivation. As the eye runs over its monotonous surface, it seems a level plain, bounded on one side by the horizon, or swelling up on the other into rough precipitous mountains. But as you proceed, you find it every where undulating, broken into hillocks and valleys, with here and there a rocky precipice, a small lake, or a streamlet, working its way through sedges and rank grass to where its waters mingle with the saffron waves of the Tiber. Noxious vapors arise from its stagnant pools, and at night its humid atmosphere is illuminated by the fitful gleam of myriads of fireflies. Temples, whose altars have long since sunk into the dust, or been replaced by a purer shrine; aqueducts, the long line of whose mouldering arches stretches for mile and mile, until it becomes lost in the distance; circuses, villas, tombs, and ruins, whose shapeless fragments retain no trace of their original destination, lie scattered at intervals and in every direction. Here you meet a monument of the republic; there, a tower of the middle ages; and then, again, both are mingled, and, as it were, lost in each other, till the mind, bewildered by the rapid succession, seems to lose sight of the great landmarks of time, and becomes wearied by the intensity of its own emotions. How different the appearance of this region at the dawn of the republic, or during the first years of the empire. The thirty cities of Latium, with their dependant villages; the territories of Veji, and its sisters of the Etruscan league; the Sabines, rough and hardy as the mountains on which they dwelt; names, many of which have survived every vestige of the spots that bore them: all were once comprised within this same compass. The Roman soldier, from the battlements of the Capitol, could distinguish the walls of the deadliest enemies of his name and of his country; and, as the dust rose above the ruins of Alba, and the torches gleamed in the last desperate charge of the Fidenæ, he could almost follow with his eye the triumph of his countrymen. It is in the length and obstinacy of these struggles, that we must seek the causes of the first desolation of the Campania. War followed upon war, and conquest upon conquest, and still the fight was to be won anew, and the conquest, that had seemed sure, repeated. Fields were laid waste, harvests destroyed, battles fought, sieges endured-there is not a field, scarce even a foot of ground, that has not been the scene of some daring enterprise, or of some desperate conflict. The great historian of Rome, fond as he was of embellishing the exploits of his countrymen, seems to have grown wearied with narrating these protracted contests, and to be at a loss how to account for the existence of a population adequate to such efforts.t Ten years were consumed in the siege of Veji; and were we to add to these all the wars previously waged against this great rival of the Roman name, the term would be more than doubled. Although the conquest of the Latins apparently bore a much earlier date, yet how many years passed, and how often was the war resumed, before they were really subdued. When at length the conquest had been completed, and the names of Veji, of Fidenæ, of Tusculum, were merged in the humbler denominations of allies and tributaries of Rome, little remained to the conquerors but depopulated villages and desolate fields. The mountain streams resumed their course, and swollen by the melting snows, spread unchecked over those spots, where the hand of man, confining * The beautiful exclamation of Horace applies here, with no less force, than to the civil strifes of his own age: Quis non Latino sanguine pinguior Hesperia sonitum ruinæ ? Qui gurges aut quæ flumina lugubris + V. T. Liv. 1. vi. c. xii. them to determined channels, had made them ministers of fertility and plenty. Pools and lakes were formed anew; a pestilential atmosphere hovered over them, and spread its baleful influence far and wide. Town and village gradually disappeared, till the site of many of these once formidable rivals of Rome, could only be distinguished by the ivy-grown fragments that lay scattered over the spots where they had stood. But when Rome, carrying its armies beyond the confines of Italy, became the centre of a great empire, the constant flow of wealth from all parts of her dominions was soon followed by its usual consequences. The senators, and the more luxurious and wealthy of all classes, began to display their taste and their riches in the erection of palaces and villas. Although the delightful coast of Baia was preferred during the summer heats, yet the Alban mount, the shades of Tibur, the high lands of the Campania, and the coast of the Mediterranean, were more suitable, from their convenient distance, for a short retirement from the cares of the senate and the forum, and afforded every attraction which variety of scenery could offer. From his own villa on the heights of Tusculum, a few minutes walk would carry Cicero to the seat of Cato. At the base of the mount, on the other side, and directly beneath his eye, waved the stately groves where Lucullus divided his hours, between eastern luxury, and pursuits worthier the taste of a Roman hero. On the acclivity beyond, the view is intercepted by a thick growth of trees, but you fancy that you almost see the shrubbery that crowns the summit of Pompey's tomb, rising higher than their highest branches, and marking with melancholy accuracy, the site of his once magnificent villa. The Campania was again repeopled; the fields restored to cultivation; the water courses guided into their proper channels; village and town arose from their ruins, with new beauty; the whole intermingled with pompous aqueducts, with temples, sacred groves, villas, parks, and the sumptuous suburban palaces of the lords of the universe. The reign of Augustus was peculiarly favorable to the repopulation of the Agro Romano, and under his successor we find only three places in the Campania, and a part of the Pontine marshes, mentioned as being still unhealthy. As long as Rome remained the seat of government, the Campania seems to have continued in the possession of those advantages, which the immediate vicinity of a great capital always gives. Still there are some circumstances connected with the history of that period, from which it would seem, that at least for the poorer classes, the tenure by which those advantages were held, was feeble and insecure. Immense as was the number of slaves, which the triumphs of the Roman arms brought into the markets of the capital, it was not sufficient for the rapacious luxury to which the higher classes had abandoned themselves, even before the fall of the republic. So that as early as Augustus, it was found necessary to direct the attention of the legislator to those subterranean prisons, of which the abuse seemed to keep pace with the decay of morals. In these, the incautious husbandman, the defenceless traveller, and frequently even the citizen of Rome itself, were confined, and compelled to wear out their days in hard labor and in chains. Ruffians were employed to entice or force the victim to these horrid dens, where the light of day never penetrated, and where the voice of lamentation and entreaty would only be exchanged for the stern silence of despair. Driven to desperation by the outrages of the rich, the poor had at length recourse to the only resource which nature has given, and taking their defence into their own hands, infested the highways, in turn, and cut off all communication except for such as travelled with a powerful train of armed attendants. With the change of the seat of empire began a new period of decay. The wealth which had formerly flowed in one channel was now divided between two, and the innumerable resources which the immediate presence of the sovereign offers in every situation, were at once diverted from Rome and its Campagna by this fatal blow. The villas were abandoned to the charge of agents and slaves, and suffered to fall gradually to decay. Many of the villages were deserted, while others lingered along in a doubtful and precarious existence. The inroads of the barbarians completed the work of destruction. The reigns of Odoacer and of Theodoric, were of too short duration to exercise any permanent influence upon the state of the Campagna, although the first measures of both were directed to the repeopling of the whole of the peninsula. The period which followed was more disastrous than any which this territory, the theatre of so many vicissitudes, had ever witnessed. During forty days, Rome herself was abandoned, and except perhaps a lingering invalid or straggling bandit, the birds of the air were the sole occupants of her forums and her palaces. From this epoch, it becomes difficult to follow with accuracy the history either of the town or of the country. During the short interval that elapsed between the Greek conquest and the Lombard invasion, no important change could have taken place in either. The history of the Campania is lost in that of the city, and the fullest mention that we find of it, is in some of those dry paragraphs, in which the chroniclers of the middle ages so often compressed the record of a long period of suffering and of devastation. The invasions of the Saracens, and the havoc of the German wars, though they could have added but little to a measure of suffering already so full, must have been an insuperable obstacle to the return of a better order of things. When the population of Rome itself had dwindled to seventeen thousand souls, it is easy to judge what that of the Campania must have been. And so pestilential had the atmosphere grown, that the average term of human life is said to have scarcely exceeded forty; rare, very rare, were those cases in which it was drawn out to sixty. At the return of the Papal court from Avignon, in 1377, the city and Campagna had reached the lowest point of desolation to which they had ever fallen. The monuments of both had been converted into fortresses, where the bandit noble, secure in the strength of his position, set law and humanity equally at defiance. The whole district had become once more the theatre of petty wars, waged with all the relentlessness of personal animosity. But this too passed away. The reins of government were gradually drawn with a firmer grasp. Some grew wearied with their wild and lawless life. Others were allured by the attractions of town, and the softer pleasures of society. A few were crushed by the strong hand of a resolute sovereign. From that epoch, there has been a gradual improvement throughout the Agro Romano, too slow perhaps to be measured by well defined steps, but still suf ficiently perceptible in its results. The towns of the Alban mount, became once more the summer retreats of the rich and the noble. Extensive villas arose on the sites of ancient villages, and in some parts, villages have been formed by the gradual extension of a villa. The immediate vicinity of the city was reduced to cultivation, and filled with vineyards and gardens. The fertile valleys and low lands, that line the rivers, or girdle the base of the mountains, were redeemed |