io-s.ii.JcLv23.i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
BROWNING'S "THUNDER-FREE" (10 th S. i.
504). The note on this phrase by F. J. F.
tempts me to ask readers of * N . & Q.' to
add any further references they know to the
few following :
(1) "Ex his quse terra gignuntur, lauri fruticem
non icit [fulmen] yitulos marines non percutit,
nee e volucribus aquilara." Plin., ' H. N.,' ii. 55, 56.
(2) "Tonitrua ["Tiberius] prater modum ex- pavescebat, et turbatiore coelo nunquam non coro- nam lauream capite gestavit, quod fulmine afflari negetur id genus frondis." ISuet., ' Tib./ 69.
(3) Plutarch, ' Quoest. Conv.,' book iv. ii. cap. 1, 5, mentions as immune from light- ning " the proverbial bulb " (what is the allusion ?), the fig-tree, the hide of the sea- calf, and that of the hyaena.
(4) Kabelais, * Pantagruel,' book iv. cap. 62, gives laurels, fig-trees, and sea-calves, "be- cause of their smell," a truly .Rabelaisian reason why
Lightnings should go aside The just man not to entomb,
who is fortified with any of these odours.
(5) Swinburne, 'To V. Hugo,' 'Poems and Ballads, 'First Series:
In the old days, when God
By man as godlike trod, Ana each alike was Greek, alike was free,
God's lightning spared, they said,
Alone the happier head Whose laurels screened it.
H. K. ST. J. S.
[M. P. H. also quotes Mr. Swinburne.]
ROMAN TENEMENT HOUSES (10 th S. i. 369). I am indebted to 'Rome in the Nineteenth Century,' by Charlotte A. Eaton (Bohn, I860), vol. ii. p. 292, for the following information on the above subject :
" The people here live in flats and have a com- mon stair, as in Edinburgh. Though by no means conducive to cleanliness or comfort, it is highly favourable to grandeur of appearance and archi- tectural effect : for by this means the houses are built upon so much larger a scale that their exterior is susceptible of fine design and ornament, and even when plain, or in bad taste, it is scarcely possible they should not have a more noble air than the mean, paltry, little rows of houses in England and Holland, where everybody must have one of his own."
Augustus J. C. Hare's 'Walks in Rome' states :
' ' When we have once known Rome,' wrote Haw- thorne, ' and left her where she lies left her, tired
of the sight of those immense seven-storied yellow- washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and uiulti-
- Readers of the late lamented Mr. R. D. Black-
more will be pleased to note how such wits as Tiberius and Mr. Gaston jump.
plied, and weary of climbing those staircases which
ascend from a ground-floor of cook-shops, cobblers'
stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry to a middle
region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and
to an upper tier of artists, just beneath the un-
attainable sky left her, in short, hating her with
all our might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which her crimes have unmistakably brought down : when we have left Rome in such a mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by-and-by, that our heartstrings- have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born.'" Vol. i. p. 12.
Byron expressed his appreciation of Rome in the following words : The Niobe of nations, there she stands Childless'and crqwnless, in her voiceless woe j An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose sacred dust was scattered long ago ; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her dis- tress.
It may not be out of place to add that in ' Rome,' by Francis Wey (Chapman <fc Hall, 1875), at p. 3, there is an illustration entitled ' The Fountain of the Triton,' in which ap- pears a fine-looking house of six stories.
HENRY GERALD HOPE. 119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.
There does not seem to be any evidence that either the Roman private house (domus) or the cluster of contiguous houses known as the insula consisted of more than two upper stories more generally but one besides the- basement. Adam, however, in his 'Roman Antiquities,' says that the Roman houses, "for want of room in the city, were commonly raised to a great height by stories (contignationibus v. tabulate), which were occupied by different families, and at a great rent, Juvenal, iii. 166. The upmost stories or garrets were called ccenacula."
And again he says,
" private houses were not only incommodious, but even dangerous from their height, and being mostly built of wood, Juvenal, iii. 193, &c. Scalis habito tribus, zed altis, three stories high, Martial, i. 118."
What may have afforded some ground for supposing that they were many-storied, after the fashion of the American sky-scraper, is the magnificent seven-storied edifice known as the Septizone of Severus, three stories of which were standing in a ruinous state in the time of Sixtus V., who caused them to be demolished to use the marble in other build- ings. The Septizonium consisted of seven stories of columns, one above the other, supporting seven distinct entablatures or zones. Two such structures are especially
