The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History and Romance of Crime; Italian Prisons, by Arthur Griffiths This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The History and Romance of Crime; Italian Prisons Author: Arthur Griffiths Release Date: May 28, 2016 [EBook #52175] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY AND ROMANCE OF CRIME *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) cover Contents. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. The spelling of Italian has not been corrected. List of Illustrations (In certain versions of this etext [in certain browsers] clicking directly on the image, will bring up a larger version.) (etext transcriber's note) Alexander VI and Machiavelli From the painting by Francesco Iacovacci In the National Gallery, Rome The distinguished author Machiavelli holding conversation with Pope Alexander VI, in whose reign a contemporary writer says: “There is nothing so wicked or so criminal as not to be done publicly at Rome.” Machiavelli was imprisoned and put to the torture in 1513, but was released and seems to have escaped the fate of many. Alexander VI died by poison, which he and his son Cesare Borgia had prepared for a cardinal, who was invited to dine with them in their garden. ST. ANGELO—THE PIOMBI—THE VICARIA PRISONS OF THE ROMAN INQUISITION by MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain Author of “The Mysteries of Police and Crime,” “Fifty Years of Public Service,” etc. THE GROLIER SOCIETY EDITION NATIONALE Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets. NUMBER 307 INTRODUCTION The Tomb of Hadrian, or Castle of St. Angelo, as it has been called since the famous vision of Gregory the Great, is a familiar object to every stranger in Rome. It stands above the yellow Tiber facing the ancient Aelian Bridge, now called also the Bridge of St. Angelo on the main road to St. Peter’s and the Vatican. It is connected with the latter by a subterranean passage built by Pope Alexander VI in 1500, and used by his successors as a path of retreat to the fortress in times of internal revolt or foreign attack. The great fortress prison, although dismantled of the marble that once covered its stones, is still a most imposing edifice and is second to none in the world in its historic memories, replete with strange and terrible interest. It is an epitome of Roman history, closely associated from the beginning of the Christian era down to the fall of the temporal power of the Popes, with the storms and struggles that have rent the Eternal City. Any account of Italian prisons must thus centre about this grim old relic of the Cæsars,—“this massive mausoleum, by turns a tomb, a fortress, a prison and a palace, a chapel and a treasure-house; now threatening the liberty of Rome, now defending its very existence; now the refuge of the Republic, now the hiding place of the Popes; through war and peace, from the Imperial days on through the Gothic and Mediæval epochs, down to the present hour never ceasing to be a living part of the history of Rome.” Since 1890 it has been used as barracks for a branch of the Italian army, but visitors may yet see the apartments of the Popes and those horrible dungeons into which, in former days, no ray of light could penetrate. Until the French occupation of Rome, when doors were cut into them, they were entered through holes in the vaulted ceiling. Through these the wretched prisoners were let down into the fetid depths of these “sepulchres without the peace of the dead.” In them languished Benvenuto Cellini, the wizard Cagliostro, beautiful, unhappy Beatrice Cenci, and many others famous in song and story. The records of this fortress-prison are largely the history of early and mediæval Rome, and in the severity of its punishments and the ruthless cruelty of its methods it stands as the type “writ large” of the prisons of Italy, for which, as it were, it set the pace. For centuries before its unification under Victor Emanuel I, Italy had been split into many small, independent, and ever-warring states, each with its own penal code and methods of punishment, but each emulating the other in the arbitrariness of its methods and the diabolical cruelty of its punishments. When the prisons were taken over by the present government, they were unspeakably foul and ill-ventilated, and frightfully overcrowded. When Mr. Gladstone, moved by the rumours of their condition at the time of the imprisonment of the Neapolitan patriots, Paerio and Settembrini, penetrated into them in disguise, “he found the prisoners, men of stainless life, ex-cabinet ministers, authors, barristers, chained to common criminals and living in hideous degradation.” In St. Angelo, subterranean cells, which could be entered only by crawling on all fours, often held thrice the number for which they were destined. Here were huddled the innocent and the guilty, the untried and convicted. At this time ordinary prisoners were often employed beyond the gaol, compelled to drag their chains as they worked in the streets or private houses. Within, they were hired out to contractors who were fined for every idle man. Discipline was maintained by confinement in a black hole, or by resort to starvation, irons or the stick. Many such instruments may still be seen by the visitor to St. Angelo. In the Roman prison food was very scarce, and to provide it and otherwise alleviate the sufferings of the wretched inmates, was the special vocation of many pious confraternities, of which some account is given in these pages. In marked contrast was the treatment of clerical offenders. For them a special building, beautifully located at Carneto, was set apart. Here the inmates were lodged in separate cells, were allowed to raise flowers in the garden, and, if so disposed, to pass their {2} {3} {4} days together. In Mr. Gladstone’s denunciation of the Neapolitan prisons he referred to them as “a self-governed community in which the real authority was vested in the worst members,”—those, in fact, who had been guilty of the most atrocious crimes. At that time, as at the present, these prisons were ruled by that powerful associated body of evil-doers, the “Camorra,” that hideous offspring of the union of Bourbon tyranny with Neapolitan want and depravity, which continues to terrorise the lower classes of southern Italy. The Mafia is of Sicilian origin and much older than the Camorra. A chapter is devoted to these great criminal societies. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction v I.The Castle of St. Angelo 9 II.The Leonine City 35 III.The Great Siege of St. Angelo 61 IV.Adventures of Cellini 83 V.Sixtus the Fifth 105 VI.The Story of the Cenci 132 VII.The Roman Inquisition 157 VIII.Later Days in Rome 187 IX.The Piombi of Venice 208 X.The Vicaria of Naples 248 XI.The Camorra and the Mafia 262 List of Illustrations Alexander VI and Machiavelli Frontispiece The Castle of St. Angelo in 1490 Page 18 Lucrezia Borgia Dancing “ 58 Sixtus V “ 106 Beatrice Cenci “ 142 The Grand Ducal Palace “ 210 ITALIAN PRISONS CHAPTER I THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO St. Angelo a living part of the history of Rome—Its origin and uses—Preceded in date by the Mamertine Prison—Mausoleum of Hadrian— Other ancient monuments in Rome—Description of mausoleum—Hadrian, his life and work—Antinous—Funeral procession—Antoninus Pius—Marcus Aurelius—Severus—The mausoleum as a fortress—Struggles with the Barbarians. A prison of great antiquity still exists in Rome and claims precedence in date over St. Angelo. This is the Mamertine Prison, situated just below the Capitol and on the way to the Forum, in which by common tradition St. Peter was confined A.D. 62. The pillar to which he is said to have been chained is still on view, and the well of water is shown which sprang up miraculously for use in the baptism of the converted gaoler and St. Peter’s forty-seven fellow prisoners. It is an appalling place even to-day when the light of heaven creeps down the stairs leading to its subterranean recesses. These were two cellars, one below the other, and access to them was only gained through a small aperture in the roof of the upper cellar, while a similar hole in the floor led down into the cell underneath; neither had any staircase. The upper prison was twenty-seven feet long by twenty wide, the lower, elliptical in shape, was twenty feet long by ten feet wide; the height of the former was fourteen feet and of the latter seven feet. They were used originally as state prisons and lodged only persons of distinction, Jugurtha being among the number. We read in Sallust: “In the prison called Tullian when you have gone a little way down, a place on the left is found sunk twenty feet; it is surrounded by walls on all sides, and above is a room vaulted with stone, but from uncleanliness, darkness and a foul smell the appearance of it is disgusting and terrific.” Livy tells us that this prison was built by Ancus Martius, and like the Cloacae, of large uncemented stones; it was also called “Robur” and seems to be identical with the carcer lautumiarum or the “prison of the stone quarries,” suggesting that after the excavation the empty space was utilised for the construction of a prison. The quarries at Syracuse were used for the same purpose. The Mamertine prison was constantly used for the confinement of the early Christian martyrs. A chapel was eventually built above it, consecrated to St. Peter. The site occupied by the castle of St. Angelo is identical with that of the tomb, mausoleum or mole erected by the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 135, for himself and his family. Powerful rulers from the earliest ages have been greatly concerned to raise fitting receptacles for their ashes. The famous pyramids of Egypt are perhaps the most striking illustration of this vanity, and the influence was felt in other countries, especially in Rome. Many fine monuments survive, some in still recognisable ruins, some in ever green memory, {9} {10} {11} perpetuating this desire. We may instance the tomb of Caius Cestius—the only specimen of a pyramid existing in Rome—which still stands near the Porta San Paolo, partly within the walls, partly without, for the Emperor Aurelian ran his wall exactly across it. It is 125 feet high, built of brick cased in white marble, now become black with age; and its chief modern interest is that the English cemetery is close at hand, the last resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats. The Cestian family was distinguished, but nothing very positive is known of this Caius except that he held office as praetor of the people in the seventh century B.C. Another tomb is that of Bibulus, who was also a tribune. It is still extant and to be found at the foot of the Capitoline Bridge. The tomb of Cecilia Metella is a very beautiful and well preserved monument of circular form, standing on the Appian Way near the Circus of Caracalla; she was a daughter of the Q. C. Metellus who conquered Crete, and was probably wife to Crassus who fell in the Parthian war. The most notable of all was the mausoleum of Augustus, once a magnificent structure, a small portion of which still remains, much built in, and hidden away in the Via Rippeta. It was originally of circular form crowned with a dome and surmounted with a statue of Augustus. Strabo records that “it was particularly worth noticing, built upon immense foundations of white marble and covered with evergreens.” It is probable that the Emperor Hadrian desired to imitate and rival Augustus in the erection of the mausoleum to himself. He was inspired also, it is believed, by his admiration of the magnificent monument erected by Artemisia to her brother and husband Mausolus, who originated the word mausoleum, and was king of Caria 377 B.C. This splendid tomb erected at Halicarnassus was the outcome of her inconsolable grief and ardent affection, which was further displayed by her drinking his ashes dissolved in fluid. This famous monument was counted one of the seven wonders of the world. The statue of Mausolus may be seen to-day among the art treasures preserved in the British Museum. Hadrian’s work was undertaken A.D. 135 but he did not live to complete it, and it was finished by his successor, Antoninus Pius. The first detailed description of the mausoleum is to be found in the history of the Gothic wars written by Procopius in the sixth century. “Beyond the Aurelian Gate,” he says, “a stone’s throw from the walls is the tomb of Hadrian, a wonderful and remarkable work, built of large blocks of Parian marble, superposed and closely fitted together without cement or clamps to bind them. The four sides are equal, each about a stone’s throw in length, and the height is greater than the walls of the city. On the summit are admirable statues of men and horses of the same material, and as this tomb formed a defence to the city thrown out beyond the walls, it was joined to them by the ancients (the Roman emperors) by two arms built out to it, so that it seemed to rise out of them like a lofty turret.” To this brief description John of Antioch, the author of a book of antiquities in the eighth century, adds the fact that the mausoleum was surmounted by a statue of Hadrian in a car drawn by four horses and so large that a full grown man might pass through one of the horses’ eyes. And yet he says, that in consequence of the great height of the mausoleum, the horses as well as the statue of Hadrian, seen from below, have the effect of being quite small. This would seem to indicate that the horses were hollow, and if so, they must have been cast in bronze and not made of marble as stated by Procopius, and as were those on the tomb of Mausolus. Hadrian’s mausoleum was constructed of brickwork and square blocks of peperino-stone laid with such care and exactness that lightning, battles and earthquakes have failed to shake it from its perfect solidity. Inside and outside it was faced with courses of Parian marble. The basement was a square of about 340 feet each way and about 75 feet high. Above this rose a circular tower of some 235 feet in diameter and 140 in height, divided into two or three stories and ornamented with columns. Between these columns were statues executed by the ablest artists of the period; and as Hadrian was devoted to the fine arts and especially to that of sculpture, there can be little doubt that the statues and bas-reliefs which adorned this splendid structure were among the noblest works in Rome. Above the circular tower was a dome or a curvilinear roof which must have risen to the height of some 300 feet. This was probably crowned by the colossal group, above mentioned, representing Hadrian in a chariot drawn by four horses, after the plan of the tomb of Mausolus, its Grecian prototype. Rich friezes girdled it around, some storied with figures, some architectural with heads of oxen and festoons of flowers. On each of the four sides of the square basement was a massive door of gilt bronze and at each of these doors were four horses also of gilt bronze. Between the doors on the basement were large tablets, on which were inscribed the names and titles of the emperors who were buried within it. The walls were of immense thickness; not filled up in the centre with rubbish, but throughout of the most solid workmanship, as may be seen by a breach made for temporary purposes long after it was built. In the centre were two chambers in the shape of a Greek cross, one above the other, each cased in rich Paconazetto marble and illuminated by two openings which pierced the thickness of the giant walls. Here the ashes of the emperors were deposited, the post assigned to the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian being under the large arch on the southern side. Some of the art treasures bestowed upon the mausoleum by its founder are still to be traced. The colossal busts of Hadrian now in the Vatican are supposed to have come from it, and the porphyry basin which forms the baptismal font at St. Peter’s. None of the many other admirable sculptures are in existence with the exception of the Barberini Faun in the museum of Munich. A word or two about Hadrian and his immediate successors who found sepulture in his mausoleum. The emperor himself was not the first to be laid to rest in his gorgeous tomb. He was preceded by Ælius Verus, whose original name had been L. Ceionius Commodus, and whom he had adopted as son and heir, a gay and voluptuous nobleman whose uncommon good looks recommended him to the Emperor Hadrian, but who was sickly and in failing health. Ælius Verus at his death left an only son Lucius, who later was adopted by Antoninus Pius, and later still shared the imperial purple with the famous philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian was a man of brilliant parts, a far-seeing and astute statesman, a good soldier, who yet preferred peace to war. He was of restless disposition and a confirmed wanderer, ever on the move through his wide empire, the greater part of which he perambulated, literally, on foot. He visited Britain, and the great wall between the Solway Firth and the Tyne was his work. He lingered long at Athens for he was a devoted lover of art, a munificent patron who constantly acquired paintings and sculptures at home and abroad. “Under his reign,” as Gibbon tells us, “the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline and visited all his provinces in person.” There were features in his private life, however, repugnant to commonly accepted social ethics, and his deification of his favourite Antinous must ever dishonour his name. Yet Antinous sacrificed his life voluntarily to save his master. The augurs had told Hadrian that his destiny was inscribed on the entrails of a youth who was very dear to him, upon which Antinous offered to solve the mystery and drowned himself in the Nile. Hadrian built a city on the spot, named it after his favourite and ordered that he should receive divine honours throughout the empire. {12} {13} {14} {15} {16} Towards the end of his life Hadrian suffered tortures from a mortal malady, and in the paroxysms of pain was addicted to outbursts of savage cruelty. Weary of life, he begged a gladiator to end it, but in vain. At last he succumbed to dropsy at the age of seventy-two, according to one account, in the arms of his successor, Antoninus Pius. Some say that his body was burned and afterward buried at Pozzuoli; others that his ashes were conveyed to Rome for interment in the family vault. The striking picture which W. W. Story has drawn of the funeral ceremony, in his “Castle of St. Angelo,” deserves quotation. “The magnificent Ælian Bridge (Hadrian’s work), resting on massive arches and adorned with statues, formed the splendid stone avenue by which the mausoleum was approached.... Facing the bridge was one of the great golden gates, which swinging open let through the train into a long dark sloping corridor arched above, cased in marble at the sides and paved in black and white mosaic. Over this gentle rise the train passed in, its torches flaring, its black robed praeficae chanting the dirge of the dead and its wailing trumpets echoing and pealing down the hollow vaulted tunnel. Next came the mimes declaiming solemn passages from the tragic poets and followed by waxen figures borne aloft representing ancestors of the dead emperor and clad in the robes they had worn in life. Behind them streamed great standards blazoned with the records of the emperor’s deeds and triumphs. Last came the funeral couch of ivory draped with Attalic vestments embroidered with gold, over which a black veil was cast. It was borne on the shoulders of his nearest relatives and friends, and followed by the crowd of slaves made free by his will, and wearing the pilleus[1] in token of the fact. Over the bridge they slowly passed, in at the golden gate and up the hollow sounding corridor till, after making the complete interior circuit of the walls, they entered the vast cavernous chamber where they laid at last the ashes of him who, living, had ruled the world.” The third occupant of the imperial tomb was Antoninus Pius, who had been named by Hadrian as his successor after the disappointing death of Ælius Verus. He had been deeply desirous to find some man of exalted merit to ascend the Roman throne, and his choice fell upon a senator of irreproachable character and blameless life, Titus Antoninus Pius, the elder of the two Antonines, under whom the empire enjoyed good government for forty-two years. As a condition of this appointment Antoninus Pius was ordered to associate with himself a youth of seventeen in whom Hadrian had discovered marked promise of noble virtues and profound ability. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the youth in question, more than fulfilled the high expectations he had thus raised. As he grew in years, he steadily improved his natural qualifications and cultivated his mental gifts by unremitting study and the earnest adoption of the highest philosophical principles. “The united reigns of the two Antonines,” The Castle of St. Angelo in 1490 The Meeting of St. Ursula and the Pope From the painting by Carpaccio, In the Academy of Fine Arts, Venice St. Ursula and her bridegroom are kneeling to receive the benediction of the Pope, who stands in the foreground, his train of cardinals and bishops stretching behind him. This ancient castle is intimately connected with the criminal history of Rome from the earliest days, by turns a tomb, a chapel, a prison and a fortress. says Gibbon, “are probably the only periods of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.” Antoninus Pius “has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice and peace was the distinguishing {17} {18} {19} characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of these virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighbouring villages from plundering each other’s harvests; Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greater part of the earth.... In private life he was an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity and affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune and the innocent pleasures of society; he was fond of the theatre and not insensible to the charms of the fair sex, and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.” The manner of his death was of a piece with his life. He had fallen ill at his villa and “after ordering the golden statue of fortune to be transferred to his successor, he gave the countersign ‘Equanimity’ to the tribune of his guard, turned over as to sleep and passed calmly out of life at the ripe age of seventy-four—a cheerful, dignified man, the calm and noble philosopher, the generous and clement ruler, who said to himself ‘Malle se unum civem servare quam mille hostes occidere.’ ‘I had rather save one citizen than kill a thousand enemies.’ ” At the death of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius took Lucius Verus into partnership with him as emperor. This Lucius Verus was the son of the Ælius Verus already mentioned, who died prematurely. Lucius married Lucilla, the eldest daughter of Antoninus Pius. He was a vicious, unworthy creature, sunk in dissipation and self-indulgence, but he possessed one cardinal virtue, that of dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the onerous cares of ruling. He was wholly unlike his colleague, being entirely given over to luxury and ease, averse to strenuous labour, a fop and voluptuary; he dressed extravagantly, sprinkled his hair with gold dust and took his midday siesta on a couch stuffed with rose leaves, with lilies strewn over him. He prefigured that notorious sybarite Heliogabalus, who liberally rewarded the inventor of a new sauce, and if it failed to please him, ordered its author to eat nothing else until he had discovered another more agreeable to the imperial palate. The highest aim of Lucius Verus seemed to be the concoction of a pasty which should become a favourite dish at the imperial table. Nevertheless, when occasion arose he acquitted himself well as a soldier, showing courage and skill as a leader in the field. Marcus Aurelius, to wean him from his consuming passion for debauchery, employed him at the head of the Pannonian legions at a distance from Rome, but after the few first successes, his vicious cravings regained their ascendency, and this although Marcus Aurelius surrounded him with wise senators and competent comrades. Lucius Verus preferred to leave the conduct of operations to his generals. While they won victories in the East, he went slowly through Greece and Lesser Asia dancing and feasting and revelling at Corinth, Athens, and the various pleasure-loving cities he found by the way. He spent his summers at Daphne and his winters at Laodicea. The dissolute life he lived in Syria was checked but not cured by his marriage with Lucilla, who came to Ephesus to meet him: he still loved his old debauched life; passed whole nights at the gaming table or in rambling through the streets disguised, frequenting the lowest haunts or the worst quarters. He was passionately devoted to the sports of the circus and was a noted chariot driver. An ardent worshipper of horses, he was fond of feeding a favourite horse with raisins and nuts. He took the horse everywhere with him, gorgeously bedecked with purple trappings, until its death, when he buried it with great solemnity in the Vatican and raised a golden statue to its memory. When he returned from the East he was accompanied by a train of actors, musicians and buffoons, and shared a great triumph and all its attendant honours, to which he had no claim, with his brother emperor. He brought also from the East the pestilence we now know as the plague, which ravaged Rome and greatly weakened the Roman army. Lucius Verus died suddenly of apoplexy on his return from a campaign against the Marcomanni which had been far from successful. Beyond doubt he paid the last penalty for his excesses which had become more and more shameless and ungovernable. Marcus Aurelius strongly disapproved of his conduct but did not go beyond silent reproof; he must be quite exonerated from the charge that was laid against Lucilla, who was said to have poisoned her worthless husband from shame at his misconduct, not unmixed with jealousy of Faustina, the base wife of Marcus Aurelius, whose amours were barefaced and innumerable. Lucius Verus died at Altinun in Venetia, but his ashes were brought to Rome for interment in the mausoleum of Hadrian. Marcus Aurelius afterwards reigned alone, and with prudent energy faced successfully many serious trials,—insurrections in distant provinces, pestilence at home, inundations and earthquakes which devastated large sections of the Imperial City and ruined the great granaries on which depended the food supply of the teeming population. Fierce, intractable enemies threatened the empire closely and persistently throughout his life. Although by predilection a man of peace, he was a resolute soldier who fought many strenuous campaigns and brought many savage races into absolute submission. He could act with the sternest severity, but he showed extraordinary magnanimity to one insubordinate lieutenant, and treated rebellious provinces with extreme gentleness. He was so mild and merciful that under no provocation did he lose his temper, and his humanity showed itself in his concern for his fellow creatures; even for the gladiators whom he would not allow to practise fencing with sharp swords. His labours were incessant; his campaigns most arduous. For eight successive winters he warred upon the frozen banks of the Danube, and seriously injured his originally weak constitution by the hardships and unending anxieties he endured. With all his great achievements and the conspicuous services he rendered to his country, his fame rests mainly on that delightful book of meditations embodying his serene philosophy which is still read and admired by the whole world. This “noblest, wisest, purest, most virtuous and self-denying gentleman that ever in any age wore the imperial robes,” died at Vienna A.D. 180, after a reign of twenty years. He met death quietly and with dignity, not as a calamity but as a blessing: “Turn me to the rising sun for I am setting,” he said to his attendants, and covering his head he composed himself for sleep. No man bore crosses with more fortitude and no man was more sorely tried. Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, lives in history as the most abandoned of her sex, and his son, Commodus, although educated with the utmost solicitude, was one of the most glaring instances of wasted effort. “The monstrous vices of the son,” says Gibbon, “have cast a shade on the purity of the father’s virtues.” It has been said that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy, when he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the republic. Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful lesson of a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a profligate favourite, and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this laboured education by admitting his son at the age of fourteen or fifteen to a full participation of the imperial powers. Yet {20} {21} {22} {23} {24} Commodus was not as he has been represented, a tiger, born with an insatiate thirst for human blood and capable from his infancy of the most inhuman actions. “Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit and at length became the ruling passion of his soul.” He was wasteful and weakly extravagant, prodigal in his expenditure on his personal amusements, especially in gladiatorial exhibitions in which he himself engaged. He liked to pose as the Roman Hercules, and entered the arena to slay ostriches and panthers, the camel, leopard, elephant and the rhinoceros; he fought hundreds of times as a retiarius in combat with a secutor and stooped to receive a salary from the common fund for the gladiators in proof of his preëminence. He was slavishly fond of singing, dancing and playing the buffoon; he was a glutton and profligate who wallowed in the most sensuous abominations, and after the life of this monster and madman had been threatened by many plots, he was at last poisoned in his own palace by Marcia, his mistress, who, finding the drug too slow in action, caused him to be strangled by one of his gladiators. His body was refused burial by the Senate and thrown into the Tiber, but the Emperor Pertinax recovered it and had it secretly conveyed to the mausoleum. The memory of Commodus was branded with eternal infamy; it was ordered that his honours should be reversed; his titles erased from the public monuments; his statues thrown down; his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the gladiators and exposed to public contumacy. The last occasion on which the tomb was used was for the interment of the Emperor Septimus Severus A.D. 211, an able, vigorous and just ruler who fought his way to the throne against two competitors; all three of them were generals of armies which supported their pretensions. Severus was at the head of the Pannonian legions, and occupied the country between the Danube and the Adriatic. He was nearest to Rome, so that, by using almost incredible expedition, he made successful head against his competitors, and was the first to advance and seize the city. He secured his position by many acts of cruelty, but when once safe, governed with justice and showed himself a man of character. He took Marcus Aurelius for his model, and was devoted to philosophy and study, but not averse to war. His last campaign was in Britain, and he undertook it in the vain hope of putting an end to the fierce quarrels existing between his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, who hated each other almost from birth. They were both poor commonplace creatures, devoid of talent and implacably jealous of each other, although their father treated them with studied impartiality and associated both with him on the throne so that Rome had three emperors at one and the same time. He carried both sons with him into Britain, where at an advanced age and suffering acutely from gout, he laid himself out for the complete conquest of the islands, even to their most northern extremities, but death overtook him at York. His remains were taken back to Rome to be honoured with a magnificent funeral and his ashes were laid in Hadrian’s tomb. With the burial of Septimus Severus ended the first purpose which this great monument was intended to serve. When next it appears in authentic writings, it is in a military character, as part and parcel of the defences of Rome. Troublous times were at hand for the Eternal City and its very existence was threatened by the rising tide of more stalwart peoples. Hordes of barbarians from northern and central Europe were about to overflow the remote barriers and far flung frontiers of the empire; Goths, Visigoths, Franks, Lombards and Huns swept south in an irrepressible stream of invasion. The mausoleum became a fortress and was incorporated in the circumvallation given to the city by Aurelian in 271 A.D., when he enclosed the Campus Martius within its limits and the left bank of the Tiber. The strength and commanding position of the mausoleum constituted it a place of great importance, a citadel and central point in the city walls. It was to play a great part now in the many fierce struggles for the possession of Rome. By this time the separation had taken place between East and West and Byzantium had become the seat of empire in the East, while in the West the court was fixed at Milan. Rome, deserted and neglected, saw ruin impending, and only escaped destruction at the hands of the barbarians by the victories of Stilicho, a distinguished general of the Western emperor, Theodosius. Honorius, his son, made a triumphal entry into Rome and sought to revive its splendours; but the barbarian menace drove him to strengthen the fortifications. Ere long the Goths under Alaric advanced in great force to besiege the city. After three distinct and determined attacks the Goths at length captured and sacked it, but voluntarily withdrew with the spoils of war. The fall of Rome horrified the whole world and the shock was repeated when the Hun, Attila, the “scourge of God,” descended upon it in all his brutal fury. He retreated, it was said, impelled by superstitious terrors. Rome yielded, however, to Genseric, the wild and terrible king of the African Vandals, who pillaged the defenceless city for fourteen days, making frightful havoc and sweeping away all that the Goths had spared. The damage inflicted in these devastating attacks was incalculable. Rome was nearly depopulated; within forty-five years she lost through slaughter, flight and slavery some 150,000 inhabitants. Many ancient families entirely disappeared, others only survived to lead a miserable existence, falling, like the deserted temples, rapidly into decay. Huge palaces stood forsaken and empty, and the people stalked like spectres through the silent and nearly deserted streets of the desolate city. Rome recovered slowly, but the Western Empire was surely dying; feeble emperors reigned like shadows, and at length the throne fell to an adventurous barbarian soldier, Odoacer, a king of mercenaries, who ruled wisely and gave Rome thirteen years of tranquillity and peaceful progress. He was nevertheless a usurper, a foreign soldier hated and feared by the people, to be set aside as soon as a stronger man appeared. This was Theodoric, leader of the war-like Austro-Goths, a heroic people who had assimilated the civilising processes of East and West. Theodoric invaded Italy and made himself king; but he did not interfere with existing institutions and ere long won the respect, if not the affection, of the Roman people. He was not a Christian but he esteemed the Catholic faith; he knelt at the great basilica of St. Peter, approaching it in a triumphal procession across Hadrian’s bridge. He fed the populace with free food, amused them with games and spectacles in the Amphitheatre and Circus Maximus, and was deeply anxious to restore and care for the ancient monuments and buildings of the city. He was the noblest barbarian that ever ruled Italy, and his memory still lingers in the great cities he founded or restored. He endowed the capital with many great works, such as the restoration of the Appian Way and the drainage of the Pontine marshes. It is sufficient for my purpose to record that he made the mausoleum of Hadrian the model for his own tomb, which he erected at Ravenna and was at great pains to strengthen. The Roman castle was known for centuries as the house or prison of Theodoric, owing the second title no doubt to the security its walls afforded. Rome was undoubtedly a strong place of arms when the Goths under Vitiges, after the death of Theodoric, again attacked it. They were met and repelled by Belisarius, the great general appointed by the emperor Justinian, who had already won fame in Persian wars and who made very strenuous preparations to meet the attack, repairing the walls of Rome, which in spite of Theodoric’s restorations were still damaged and in parts ruinous. He added {25} {26} {27} {28} {29} {30} trenches and provided flank defence by a projecting guard house; above all, he filled the public granaries and fully victualled the place. Vitiges when he arrived saw that he could not take the city by a coup de main and must make a regular siege. The skill of the Goths, accustomed to fight in the open field, was of little avail in laying siege to a city, and Vitiges, overlooking this fact, staked his entire kingdom against the walls of Rome, with the result that his heroic people here found their overthrow. The Goths formed six entrenched camps before these defences, all on the left side of the river; a seventh they erected on the right bank of the Tiber on the Neronian Field, or the plain which stretches under Monte Mario from the Vatican Hill as far as the Milvian bridge. They thus not only protected the bridge itself but at the same time threatened the bridge of Hadrian and the entrance to the city through the inner gate of Aurelian. This gate, already named St. Peter’s, stood outside the bridge of Hadrian and beyond the wall which, from the Porta Flaminia on the inner side of the river, surrounded the field of Mars. Vitiges at length was ready to deliver a decisive assault. Wooden towers sufficiently high to overlook the defences, were set on strong wheels; projecting battering rams of iron were hung by chains to be thrust against the walls, each manned by fifty men, and long scaling ladders were constructed to be attached to the battlements. To these preparations (at the rude simplicity of which modern military science may smile) Belisarius opposed measures all his own. He set upon the walls skilfully contrived catapults or balistae, and great stone slings (onagri) called “wild asses” were constructed to throw a bolt with such force as to pin a mail-clad man fast to a tree. The gates were themselves defended with so-called “wolves” or drawbridges fashioned out of heavy beams and furnished with iron pins which were to be released at a given moment to fall on the assailants with overwhelming force. Belisarius had entrusted the guard of the mausoleum to his most valued lieutenant, Constantinus, ordering him also to cover the neighbouring walls of the city, which (perhaps on the left of the Aurelian Gate) remained undefended save by small outposts, the river in itself affording some protection. Meanwhile the Goths attempted to cross the Tiber in boats and Constantinus, leaving the more numerous forces in the Aurelian Gate and at the mausoleum as garrison, was forced to appear in person on the menaced spot. The Goths next advanced against the mausoleum. Should they be able to take this main work, they might hope to make themselves masters of the bridge and gate. They brought no machines, nothing but scaling ladders which they covered with their broad shields. A portico or covered colonnade led to the Vatican basilica from the neighbourhood of the tomb, and in this colonnade the approaching party sheltered themselves from the missiles rained down by the men stationed in the mausoleum. They crept along the narrow streets which surrounded the ruined circus of Hadrian so cautiously that the besieged in the fortress were unable to use the catapults against them. Then dashing forward, they shot a cloud of arrows on the battlements of the tomb and leaned their scaling ladders against it. Pressing forward on all sides they had nearly surrounded and scaled the mausoleum when despair suggested to the defenders to make use, as projectiles, of the many statues with which it was decorated, and forthwith they hurled these statues down upon the Goths. The broken masterpieces, statues of emperors, gods and heroes, dropped in heavy fragments upon the devoted heads of the assailants who were routed utterly. This wild scene around the grave of an emperor—a conflict which recalls the mythic battles of the giants—ended the struggle by the Aurelian Gate. His unsuccessful attack cost Vitiges the flower of his army. The cost to Rome was terrible. The mausoleum was robbed for ever of her rich and incomparable artistic treasures. Priceless statues chiselled by the hands of Praxiteles and Polycletus, things of great beauty, divine creations of gods and heroes, had been used as mere projectiles with which to crush barbarian soldiers, and lay broken and blood-bespattered beneath the rescued walls. They remained for long years where they fell, untouched, unearthed even, until in the seventeenth century Pope Urban VII, a Barberini, designing to improve the fortifications, deepened the ditch of the castle of St. Angelo, and the workmen discovered the famous statue of the Barberini Faun, now in the Glyptothek of Munich, where it still remains to prove how richly Hadrian had originally endowed and adorned his tomb. History repeats itself, and ten years later Belisarius again defended Rome, now against the Goths under Totila, a masterful soldier who ascended the throne of Theodoric in 541 and renewed the war against the Byzantine Empire. He in turn besieged Rome and took it before it could be relieved. The great monuments were spared, although he had threatened to “turn the whole city into pasture for cattle,” and he presently withdrew to return and reoccupy it a second and a third time. A brave soldier, Paulus, trained by Belisarius, had retired into the mausoleum, which he held obstinately till reduced by famine, when he and his followers resolved to cut their way out, preferring death to surrender. Totila, however, offered them liberal terms if they would lay down their arms, and took them into his service. Then, having suffered severely himself in the fight, he entered the mausoleum, renewed its defences, stored his valuables within and sallied forth to face a new attack from the side of Ravenna. He was killed there and the tomb reverted to the Byzantine emperor. CHAPTER II THE LEONINE CITY Growth of the Papacy—Popes gain territory and wealth—Gregory the Great—Boniface subsequently erected the chapel of St. Angelo—Rome the centre of conflict—The Leonine city and Leo IV—Castle frequently changed hands—Theodora and Marozia—Romans, maddened by misgovernment, entrust power to Crescentius—He is murdered—Three popes in Rome at the same time—Cencius—Castle much strengthened—Constant fighting for St. Angelo—Rome a prey to violence and crime—An epidemic of murder—Pope Alexander VI—A reign of terror—St. Angelo the scene of dire atrocities. The growth of the papacy steadily progressed as the empire declined and a long hierarchy of elected priests, beginning with St. Peter, occupied the episcopal chair from generation to generation. The first popes were the chiefs of a secret society of believers in a new cult which was to transform the world, and by their undying courage, willing martyrs to their faith, fought on till the Christian Church won an independent position as the spiritual leader of many peoples. Their pious converts continually endowed the Church with estates and treasures until the bishop of Rome became the largest landowner in the empire, and as early as the fifth century began to exercise material influence in the city. While the city of Rome was impoverished, the Church grew more and more wealthy and the pope-bishop was far richer than the patriarch of Constantinople or Alexandria. The head of the Church in the West was a personage {31} {32} {33} {34} {35} {36} of much authority. His power was also extended to the East; he was backed by the Gothic kings of Italy and was by degrees recognised as the head of all Catholic Christendom. When the right of arbitration between clergy and laity was conceded to the pope, the political power of the papacy was finally established. The election of Gregory, called the Great, at the end of the sixth century, came at a time when Rome was at her lowest ebb and opened the way to the consolidation of the temporal power of the popes. Gregory was a faithful steward of the revenues of the Church and his charities were unceasing to all classes, noble and pauper. The city was ravaged by famine and pestilence, but the latter was averted, says tradition, by the pious intercession of Gregory. The answer came to him from heaven as he headed a vast penitential procession. The whole populace joined, divided into seven groups according to age and class, each starting from their own quarter, abbots and monks and presbyters, nuns and widows, all bound for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. As they marched through the ruins of the deserted city, they filled every echo with their solemn chants, while the pestilence still raged and deaths occurred on the road. When passing the mausoleum of Hadrian, so the legend runs, the Pope looked up and saw the figure of the Archangel Michael, surrounded by the holy choir, with a flaming sword which he sheathed significantly as he alighted upon the pinnacle of the monument. Gregory interpreted the heavenly vision as a promise that the plague would cease, and indeed it presently began to abate. The incident was of special interest to the monument, for in gratitude, another pope, Boniface, probably the fourth, founded a chapel on the highest part of the mausoleum, which he dedicated to St. Michael, and it was afterward known as the chapel of St. Angelo, inter nubes, or inter caelos. Of course the whole story is purely apocryphal and it is not mentioned by either of the pope’s biographers. A bronze statue of St. Michael, erected by Pope Benedict XIV, about 1740, to this day hovers over the castle with outstretched wings. The energy and pertinacity with which the early popes asserted their dignity and authority won the respect and devotion of the inhabitants of Rome, who relied upon them as their best protectors and defenders against the incursive barbarians. To this the papacy owed its strong position as the years went on, and its power to hold its own was more fully recognised by the nominal rulers of the people. Kings and emperors further endowed it with cities; Pepin gave it Rimini, Ravenna, and Urbino; Charlemagne, his son, was no less liberal; the Normans enlarged the papal dominions, and before the end of the thirteenth century many free states acknowledged the papal authority. As the centuries passed Rome was still a constant centre of conflict. Other invaders, both Franks and Vandals, had succeeded to the Goths. The Lombards, in the eighth century, besieged the castle of St. Angelo, but the city was preserved by the defences of Gregory the Great. Next, the Saracens attacked it but recoiled before the fortifications of Pope Leo IV, who created the Leonine city by enclosing the Vatican with a long wall, which began at St. Angelo and ran round St. Peter’s, turned then to the left and completed the circuit by regaining the river below the gate of S. Spirito. The wall was forty feet high and nineteen feet thick, built with forty-one towers. It was pierced by three gates, a small one near St. Angelo, a larger one, the St. Peregrini, afterwards the Porta Vindaria, and a third at S. Spirito. The castle itself was reconstructed and strengthened and became the key to the whole line. It was closed at one end by an iron chain across the Tiber. When finished, the work was solemnly dedicate...