Via Appia

“ The solitude seems boundless, yet gentle and familiar; little blind winds come wandering across from the south and lose their way among the flowers; for the Via Appia leads due south, and one knows that it goes on into the war-ploughed Kingdom of Naples, that “hothouse of Saints and Sinners,” with its fierce suns burning down on castles whose very stones cry tragedy, on scorching hillsides where the black grapes ripen into fiery wine, on flats seething in the heat under the man-high crops of maize. ”

“ And at this point, the Church and the commonwealth are the only rivals; the remains of earlier times do not come into view. For them we must seek, but at no great distance. Go down from the central height, and stand on the bridge which spans the Via Appia of Perugia, a strange namesake for the Via Appia of Rome. There the walls of the Etruscan city, rising on the one side above the houses, on the other above one of the deep valleys, form the main feature. ”

“ When their money was almost exhausted, they smiled and went back to Rome and resumed their former lives: she in her rooms and he, now, in his studio; and they took their meals together. But they pursued their dream among the ruins in the Via Appia, around and near Frascati, beyond the Ponte Molle, on the slopes of the Monte Mario and in the gardens of the villas, among the statues and paintings, mingling their happiness with the Roman atmosphere: he interweaving his new-found love with his love for Rome; she growing to love Rome because of him. ”

“ POPILIA (or Popillia) , VIA, the name of two ancient roads in Italy. (1) A highroad running from the Via Appia at Capua to Regium, a distance of 321 m. right along the length of the peninsula, and the main road through the interior of the country, not along the coast. It was built in 159 B.C. by the censor M. Popilius Laenias or in 132 B.C. by the consul P. Popilius. (2) A highroad from Ariminum to Aquileia along the Adriatic coast. It no doubt originally came into use when Aquileia was founded as a frontier fortress of Italy in 181 B.C., and Polybius gives the distance correctly as 178 m. ”

“ Soon after six, Sterzl and his seconds set out. The carriage bore them swiftly along, through the gloomy, stuffy streets which lead to the Forum, along the foot of the Palatine, and past the Colosseum, through the arch of Constantine into the Via Appia, on and on, between grey moss-grown walls, over which they caught glimpses of ruins and tall dark cypresses. ”

“ Through this death-breeding district, which appeared like a huge sore on the fair plains of Campania, led the Via Appia, connecting Terracina with Forum Appii. Over the road the dust had drifted like snow, but unlike snow it did not melt under the burning sun.
At midday the road was always deserted. The beasts of burden and their drivers would rest in [243] the inns and taverns until the sun slanted its rays. But on this day a cloud of dust moved slowly along the road. From time to time there appeared in the cloud the glitter of a helmet, the flash of a spear. ”

“ The old Romans, like the ancient Egyptians, seem to have had no shrinking from keeping death well in view, as this Via Appia, which was the patrician cemetery of Rome, was also a military highway and a pleasure-drive, and from it still branches a road leading to the race-course. ”

“ When Augustin landed at Ostia, he saw rise before him, closing the perspective of the Via Appia, the Septizonium of Septimus Severus—an imitation, doubtless, on a far larger scale, of the one at Carthage. This huge construction, water-works probably of enormous size, with its ordered columns placed line above line, was, so to speak, the portico whence opened the most wonderful and colossal architectural mass known to the ancient world. Modern Rome has nothing at all to shew which comes anywhere near it. ”

“ Passing under the wall of the government-garden for raising shrubs for the public walks, a door on the left of the Via Appia, with a sculptured marble frieze above it, is that of Guidi, the antiquity vendor, who has a small museum here of splendid fragments of marble and alabaster for sale. Opposite is the Vigna of Signor Guidi, who has unearthed a splendid mosaic pavement of Tritons riding on dolphins, and who has here also a collection of antique fragments to be disposed of. ”

“ Tres Tabernæ was a mutatio, or halting-place, 11 miles from the Porta Capena on the Via Appia, at the place now called Frattocchie. It is 10 miles from the Porta S. Sebastiano and 11 from the Porta S. Giovanni on the Via Appia Nova, or 9 English miles 326 yards from the Porta Appia. Here the four roads from Rome, Tusculum, Alba Longa, and Antium met and continued southwards as one road. It is still a halting-place, and taverns necessarily grace it. Its exact location is explicitly pointed out by Cicero. ”

“ The road system of Apulia, which touched all the important towns, consisted of three main lines, the Via Appia (see Appia, Via) , the Via Traiana, and the coast road, running more or less parallel in an east-south-east direction. The first (the southernmost) , coming east from Beneventum, entered Apulia at the Pons Aufidi, and ran through Venusia to Tarentum, and thence, 236 turning north-east, to Brundusium. The second, coming north-east from Beneventum, turned east at Aecae, and ran through Herdoniae, Canusium, Butuntum, Barium and Gnathia (Gnatia) to Brundusium. ”

“ The powerful families of ancient Rome loved to build monuments to their dead by the side of the public road, probably to exhibit at once their affection for their relations and their own power and affluence. Most of these monuments are now nothing but heaps of ruins, upon which are placed the statues and sculptures which have been found in the earth or amongst the rubbish. Those inscriptions which have been found on the Via Appia bear witness to the grief of the living for the dead, but never to the hope of reunion. ”

“ The gate on the north-east still exists, and bears the inscription of three aediles who erected the gate, the towers and the wall. A similar inscription of three different aediles from the N.W. gate still exists, but not in situ. In the neighbourhood are the remains of several ancient villas, and along the Via Appia still stands an ancient wall of opus reticulatum, with an inscription, in large letters, of one Varronianus, the letters being at intervals of 25 ft. The engineering of the ancient Via Appia between Fondi and Formia, where it passes through the mountains near Itri, is remarkable. ”

“ Land was no longer the sole basis of property; it became possible for a man to become rich by trade, and accordingly landless citizens were now drafted into the ancient tribes for the first time. To this great censor also belongs the first of the famous Roman military roads, the Appian Way, which led southwards to the Greek cities of Campania. Even to-day the Via Appia, flanked with its ruined tombs—for the Romans often buried their dead along the highways—running like a dart across the barren Campagna, is one of the most striking spectacles which modern Rome has to offer. ”

“ It is true that there have been the famous captures—those in the Colosseum, and in the Baths of Caracalla; moreover a less conspicuous running to earth takes place on the Appian Way, in some miles of the solitude of the Campagna, where men are employed in weeding the roadside. They slowly uproot the grass and lay it on the ancient stones—rows of little corpses—for sweeping up, as at Upper Tooting; one wonders why. The governors of the city will not succeed in making the Via Appia look busy, or its stripped stones suggestive of a thriving commerce. ”

“ As we are living in the north-eastern part of Rome and the Via Appia is in the southern part, leading toward the Pontine Marshes and ancient Brundusium, we had a long drive across the city. We drove through the Corso as far as the Piazza Colonna, with its towering column erected by the Senate and the people in honor of your hero Marcus Aurelius, and then by smaller streets and squares to the Porta Capena. ”

“ Appius Claudius, censor, 310 B. C. An episode which illustrates the growing democratic tendencies of the time is the censorship of Appius Claudius, in 310, whose office is memorable for the construction of the Via Appia and the Aqua Appia, Rome’s first aqueduct. In his revision of the Senate, Appius ventured to include among the senators persons who were the sons of freedmen, and he permitted the landless population of the city to enroll themselves in whatever tribal district they pleased. ”

“ Neapolis could also be reached by a branch from the Via Popillia at Suessula, which passed through Acerrae. From Suessula, too, there was a short cut to the Via Appia before it actually entered the mountains. ”

“ The site of the town being in a perfectly flat plain, without natural defences, it was possible to lay it out regularly. Its length from east to west is accurately determined by the fact that the Via Appia, which runs from north-west to south-east from Casilinum to Calatia, turns due east very soon after passing the so-called Arco Campano (a triumphal arch of good brickwork, once faced with marble, with three openings, erected in honour of some emperor unknown) , and continues to run in this direction for 54131/2 English feet (= 6000 ancient Oscan feet) . ”

“ The road at our feet is the Via Appia Nuova, which leads to Naples, and which immediately passes through the modern gate of Rome, known as the Porta San Giovanni (built in the sixteenth century by Gregory XIII.) . Nearer to us, on the right, is an ancient gateway, the finest on the Aurelian wall, bricked up by Ladislaus, king of Naples, in 1408. By this gate, known as the Porta Asinaria, from the family of the Asinarii, Belisarius entered Rome in 505, and Totila, through the treachery of the Isaurian Guard, in 546. ”

“ It lay just above the older road from Velitrae to Terracina, which followed the foot of the Volscian hills, but was 6 m. from the Via Appia, and it is therefore little mentioned by classical writers. It is comparatively often spoken of in the 4th century, but from that time to the 13th we hear hardly anything of it, as though it had almost ceased to exist. The remains of the city walls are considerable: three different enceintes, one within the other, enclose the upper and lower town and the acropolis. ”

“ There must too have been a road, along the line of the later Via Appia, to Bovillae, Aricia, Lanuvium and Velitrae, going thence to Cora, Norba and Setia along the foot of the Volscian Mountains; while nameless roads, which can still be traced, led direct from Rome to Satricum and to Lavinium.
We can trace the advance of the Roman supremacy with greater ease after 387 B.C., inasmuch as from this year (adopting the traditional dating for what it is worth) until 299 B.C. every accession of territory is marked by the foundation of a group of new tribes ”

“ SATRICUM (mod. Conca) , an ancient town of Latium, situated some 30 m. to the S.E. of Rome, in a low-lying region to the S. of the Alban Hills, to the N.W. of the Pomptine Marshes. It was accessible direct from Rome by a road running more or less parallel to the Via Appia, to the S.W. of it. ”

“ Hardly a man had done more than gather a few valuables together: property, children, wives—all these were left to the avenger. Down the Via Appia, toward Campania, where was their only safety, poured the panic-stricken company. ”

“ The branch over the Via Appia to the Piscina Publica and the Aventine was not made until the time of Trajan and Hadrian. A great deal of work was done to the aqueducts at that period. The amazement of the people at seeing copious streams of water pouring over the arid heights and slopes of the Aventine, is recorded by a contemporary author. This was the branch of which a portion remains near Santa Prisca. The branch from the Palatine to the Capitol, of which two of the tall piers remain [148] , was made by Caligula; this is sometimes called a bridge across the Forum. ”

“ He wondered why the fugitives had selected the road through Ardea. The Via Appia would have been wider, more convenient, and safer for strangers unfamiliar with the district, while the road to Ardea, with its many inequalities and turnings, would seem to give the pursuers, who were more familiar with them, an appreciable advantage. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became that Antium must have been the goal of their hopes. But, in that case, the refugees must have intended to sail from Antium and reach one of the neighboring islands, or perhaps even Sardinia or Corsica. ”

“ In history Bovillae appears as the scene of the quarrel between Milo and Clodius, in which the latter, whose villa lay above the town on the left of the Via Appia, was killed. The site is not naturally strong, and remains of early fortifications cannot be traced. It may be that Bovillae took the place of Alba Longa as a local centre after the destruction of the latter by Rome, which would explain the deliberate choice of a strategically weak position. ”

“ On the left, where the Via Appia crosses the brook of the Almo, now called Maranna, the Via di San Sisto Vecchio leads to the back of the Cœlian behind S. Stefano Rotondo. Here, in the hollow, in the grounds of the Villa Mattei, under some picturesque farm-buildings, is a spring which modern archæology has determined to be the true Fountain of Egeria, where Numa Pompilius is described as having his mysterious meetings with the nymph Egeria. ”

“ We cannot do in Rome as the Romans do, for they have to live, not look at Ruins. And let us not expect the Romans to do in Rome as we do. If tramways must run along the Via Appia, at least Fever will retire before them. ”