The modern Via Cassia, now as in antiquity the great arterial road up through the heart of south-eastern Etruria, after crossing the Fosso dell'Olgiata less than a kilometre to the west of the north-western gate of Veii, climbs steadily for about 7 km. to cross the Monti Sabatini, the line of extinct volcanic craters that runs eastwards from Lake Bracciano, forming a natural northern boundary to the Roman Campagna. After cutting through the southern crest of the crater of Baccano, with its magnificent views southwards and eastwards over Rome towards Tivoli, Palestrina and the Alban Hills, the road drops into the crater, skirts round the east side of the former lake, and climbs again to the far rim, before dropping once more into the head of the Treia basin, on its way to Monterosi and Sutri.From this vantage-point a whole new landscape is spread out before one (pl. XLVII). To the west and north-west, the tangle of volcanic hills that forms the northern limit of the Monti Sabatini, rising at its highest point to the conical peak of Monte Rocca Romana (612 m.); beyond and to the right of those, past Monterosi and filling the whole of the north-western horizon, some 10–15 km. distant, the spreading bulk of Monte Cimino (1053 m.), with its characteristically volcanic, twin-peaked profile; to the north and north-east, the gently rolling woods and fields of the Faliscan plain, deceptively smooth, stretching away to the distant Tiber.
The Limes Tripolitanus, the easternmost of the series of limites protecting the Latin provinces of Roman Africa, ran for some 1,000 km. from Turris Tamalleni (the modern Telmine, on the edge of the Chott el Djerid) to its eastern terminus at Arae Philaenorum (Muktar, near ‘Marble Arch’) on the border of ancient Cyrenaica. Of this total length the western 300 km. lie within the confines of the French Protectorate of Tunisia, and for this sector Cagnat's admirable summary of the archaeological evidence, although written in 1912, has not been seriously outdated by any more recent explorations. The eastern sector, also of 300 km., from the great salt-marsh of Sebcha Tauorga to Arae Philaenorum, is still completely unknown, and its character cannot be profitably discussed until exploration has been carried out : it should, however, be observed that in this eastern zone the limes must have followed the bleak shores of the Greater Syrtis, where there were few coastal centres of importance, and virtually no Romanized hinterland.
The notes that follow are the first results of a programme of field-survey undertaken by the writer and by various members of the British School during the autumn of 1954 in the area that lies immediately to the north of Rome, between the Tiber and the sea. This area is one that has been strangely neglected by modern students of Italian topography. Ashby's published work is concerned mainly with those parts of the Campagna that lie to the south and east of Rome; and Tomassetti's work, invaluable as a repertory of manuscript and published sources, lays no claim to be a comprehensive survey of the material remains surviving on the ground.Such a survey is badly needed today. The romantic desolation of Southern Etruria is being transformed from one day to the next under the impact of a scheme of landreform comparable in scale to the great reforms of classical antiquity, and vast estates which for centuries have been used for stock-breeding and seasonal pasture are being broken up and brought into cultivation with all the devastating thoroughness that modern mechanical equipment entails. Whole regions are accessible today as they have never been before, and within them the bulldozer and the mechanical plough are busy destroying whatever lies in their path.
The Roman villa on Lockleys Estate, Welwyn, was discovered accidentally in 1930. On that occasion a small portion of it was uncovered; but it was not until 1937 that, by the permission, and with the very generous co-operation, of the Welwyn Garden City Company, it proved possible to examine the site scientifically. The building was completely cleared; and although it was not sufficiently well preserved to justify the expense of preservation, the Garden City Company have undertaken to keep the site free of building, and the complete plan has been laid out on the surface in turf and brick. Of the many persons who by their help made the excavation possible I can only here record the work of Mr. W. R. Hughes, the secretary of the excavation committee, who bore the whole burden of the preliminary arrangements and gave invaluable help in the actual work of excavation and later in the preparation of this report; of Mr. A. E. Hick, who did nearly all the photography; and of Mr. Clarke, who undertook the whole of the surveying. My debt to Dr. Wheeler at all stages of the work is so apparent as hardly to need statement. To Dr. Davies Pryce also, to Mr. K. P. Oakley, and to Mr. Derek Allen I am deeply indebted for reporting respectively upon the Samian, the foreign stone, and the coins; to Mr. Hawkes for much help and advice, particularly in relation to the Colchester material; to Miss Kenyon for examining the fourth-century pottery; to Miss Scott for her collaboration upon many points of detail; and to all others who have given me their advice.
The peopling of floral scrolls with living creatures is a decorative device which enjoyed unrivalled popularity throughout the whole history of Imperial art and in almost every country of the Empire. Its full cultivation and flowering were achieved in the Roman age; but its roots, like those of nearly every Roman art-motif, are in the late classical Greek and Hellenistic worlds. These roots were varied and complex. The primitive notion of spirits indwelling in trees and plants, and at a later stage personified in visible shape, may have played a part; some of the constituent elements can certainly be traced back to religious symbolism; and more immediate was the influence of the naturalistic trend of fourth-century art, which favoured the idea of rendering birds, insects, and small beasts in their native setting. In Hellenistic and Imperial times, as these elements mingled and the motif became more widespread, fancy came gradually to outweigh fact; and a delight in incongruity for its own sake found ready expression in the peopling of vine- and acanthus-rinceaux with mythological and genre scenes and figures, framed in the foliage or poised on slender stems, or with human figures and such solid quadrupeds as dogs, bulls, horses, bears, panthers, and lions, careering through the leafy whorls or springing from the hearts of flowers.
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