Parker, John Henry: The archaeology of Rome (1,text): I. The primitive fortifications (Oxford [u.a.], 1874)

The Mamertine Prison.

hi

third century, mentions the large stones in a description of the
prison as he saw it x. These chambers are sixty feet above the level
of the sea, but not much above the level of the Tiber at Rome,
and they were all full of water at the time of the great flood in
1871. The present vaults are brick, of the time of the Empire,
and there is an opening in the vault of each chamber for letting
down prisoners and provisions; there is no original staircase. Two
of the chambers have a sort of triangular apse at the end, divided
by the wall of partition, which runs into the centre of the triangle,
this is supposed to have been for some purpose of torture. This
floor has been raised about six feet by filling it up with earth, with
a bed of plaster on the top, and the upper floors were raised in
the same proportion, the put-log holes for the beams remain visible
in the walls. This raising of the level was probably done in the
time of Tiberius, when the prison was rebuilt, in order to make the
floor high enough to be above the ordinary floods of the Tiber, or
the land-springs which abound in Rome, and are high in the spring,
low in the autumn and early winter. The prison has evidently been
more extensive, we have not been able to find any external walls.
Velleius Paterculus mentions a stone bridge at the gate of the
prison, against which the son of Falvius Flarius knocked his head
and killed himself; this was probably over the steps, and carried
a passage from one part of the prison to the other.
The Robur Tullianum seems to have been an addition to this
prison7, and only one wall of it remains visible ; this is distinguished

1 Calpurnius Flaccus in Declamat.
iv. apud Gori, p. 8.
? The curiosity of Signor Gori and
his friend Signor Ernest de Mauro was
further excited by the popular story
that there is an underground passage
from this prison to the catacomb of
S. Sebastian, about five miles distant.
This made them explore all the pas-
sages as far as possible, but they could
trace them only to the Cloaca Maxima,
as might have been expected. The
legend probably originated from the
custom of bringing the relics found in
the catacombs into the city in the eighth
and ninth centuries, and building crypts
under the churches to receive them,
which were called by the old name of
Catacombs. They did, however, trace
the subterranean passage so far as to
hear over their heads the rolling of
the carriages in the Via della Con-
solazione before they reached the Cloaca

Maxima, near the Basilica Julia. In
the direction towards the Vicolo del
Ghettarello, the passage was much
choked up. The excavations made in
the spring of 1873 in the Via di Mar-
forio, towards the northern end of it, on
the ridge that crosses the street there,
shewed that the passage did not ex-
tend to that point, as we arrived at the
tufa rock. We found the junction with
the Capitoline rock of a wall of the
early Kings, going across the valley
or great foss in the direction of the
small street at the south end of the
Forum of Trajan, ancl to the great
Wall of the Kings, which formed the west
side of the Forum of Augustus. There
would naturally have been an inner
foss within the agger that forms the
ridge, and it is probable that the pas-
sage terminates there. The great pri-
son was between the Capitolium and
the Forum of Julius Ccesar, but on the