ROME — How do we understand the antiquity of a place? It can often be measured in strata — the mound of Hisarlik, the site of ancient Troy, has more than 40 distinct layers of habitation, which means the city was damaged or destroyed and rebuilt at least 40 times. In Rome, one feels a sense of ancient time upon seeing the ruins of the Forum. For me, however, the most evocative ancient site is set into the base of the Capitoline Hill beneath the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami just outside the Forum, almost entirely unvisited. It’s a prison predating the foundation of the Republic in 509 BCE, making it the oldest building in Rome.
Archaic Rome, the Rome of Romulus and his six legendary successors to the Roman monarchy, is said to be founded in 753 BCE. The Capitoline Hill was an obvious defensible site, and its eastern peak was the location of the Arx, or citadel. Wells provided potable water, but the nearest spring was in the valley at the southeastern corner below the Arx. This spring still survives, running through the city’s oldest surviving building and thus forming a central part of the structure’s story. The building was a round, low-domed cistern made from the local stone of the hill called tuff, volcanic ash that hardens when exposed to air.
The ancient historian Livy wrote that the fourth king of Rome in the archaic period, Ancus Marcius (thought to have ruled from 640 to 616 BCE), disturbed by the level of lawlessness in the city, built a prison. The Carcer — the Latin “c” is hard, so the word sounds like “car care” when spoken — was constructed in what must have been one of the lautumiae or quarries cut into the side of the Capitoline. This gave its name to the street, Vicus Lautumiarum or “Quarry Rise,” that led past it into the political center of the Republican city, the Comitium. The Carcer stood on a level above the cistern, dubbed the Tullianum or “spring house.” There were other quarry caves adjoining this one, which were also adapted for use as temporary confinement space for those deemed lesser criminals. Quarry Rise must have caused a shiver of anxiety for the Romans passing along it.
Ancient Roman law did not sanction imprisonment as a penalty, but the Romans were certainly punitive. The best you could hope for was a damnum, a fine, but things got worse from there: You could be thrown in chains, beaten, exiled, enslaved, sent to the mines, and killed in various inventive ways. (The punishment for patricide, for example, was to be sewn into a sack containing a rooster, a dog, and a viper.) Once their punishment was decided, the unfortunates within the Carcer would be taken out; rarely were they released unharmed.
The Carcer had the specific function of holding enemies of the Roman state. The cruel Appius Claudius, a decemvir or one of 10 men chosen to write down the laws of the city, was thrown into the Carcer in 449 BCE and killed himself; his is the Carcer’s earliest known illustrious cadaver. Pontius, leader of the Samnites, a tribe that would not yield to Roman control, was also kept here in 290 BCE. “Decapitated,” says an on-site list succinctly. Other enemies, home-grown and foreign, are listed as well; according to the plaque they were mostly strangled or beheaded. In 60 BCE, two Roman senators, Lentulus and Cethegus, were strangled after being found guilty of plotting to overthrow the state during the Catilinarian conspiracy.
The Tullianum cistern, built before the Carcer and pre-existing it, was incorporated into it sometime in the 3rd century BCE, adding an extra element of horror. The water, no longer needed for drinking, formed part of the punishment instead. A circular hole was cut in the roof of the Tullianum through which prisoners could be thrown down into the freezing, knee-high water. Arguably, the most brutal death was that of Jugurtha, king of the Numidians, in 104 BCE. Jugurtha was betrayed by his father-in-law and handed over to the Romans, who had been fighting him for seven years. After being paraded triumphantly through the streets of Rome in a ceremonial procession, Jugurtha’s royal robes were torn off and even his earrings were ripped from him, taking off one of his earlobes in the process. He, however, was still laughing and joking with his guards when he was taken into the Carcer and then thrown down the hole into the water below. “By Hercules,” he exclaimed, “how cold you Romans like your baths!” But this bravado did not serve him very long. He died there soon after.
The Romans themselves were justifiably terrified of this place. In the 1st century BCE, the historian Sallust wrote, “There is a place called the Tullianum, about 12 feet below the surface of the ground. It is enclosed on all sides by walls, and above it is a chamber with a vaulted roof of stone. Neglect, darkness, and stench make it hideous and fearsome to behold.”
A visit to this dreaded place is possible today because it ceased to be used as a prison under the Christians of late antiquity, who believed it to be where saints Peter and Paul, patrons of Christian Rome, were kept before their execution and transformed it into a site of pilgrimage. This, in fact, was not true — Peter and Paul were not important enough to be kept there.
Recent excavation projects have uncovered the structures beside it that also sat along Quarry Rise, and the Carcer and Tullianum have been liberated of much of the pious detritus of centuries. Even successive levels of flooring have been removed so that the oldest surviving level, the pavement of the Tullianum from the 5th century BCE, can be seen again. The spring water now wells forth from a gash in the pavement. The centuries roll back, and though we can descend into the pit that was the site of so many deaths via a metal staircase, rather than the hole in the ceiling which is still there, the Tullianum remains much as Jugurtha saw it. It says something about humanity that of all the beautiful buildings of Ancient Rome, the oldest survival is this site of punishment and terror, where, as the 2nd-century rhetorician Calpurnius Flaccus put it, “Culprits cast into this prison look forward to the execution cell, and whenever the creaking of the iron-bound door stirs those helpless, sprawled out people, they are terrified, and by viewing someone else’s punishment, they learn of their own, soon to come.” All that remains on the bare stone walls is a fragment of fresco from the 7th century CE: a rendering of the hand of God, pointing downward.
