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Indeed there is every reason to believe that this chamber was originally a well-house or a subterranean cistern for collecting water at the foot of the Capitol, from which circumstance it derived its name of Tullianum, from tullius, the old Etruscan word for spring, and not from Servius Tullius, who was erroneously supposed to have built it.
When the prisoners disappeared in the Tullianum and a herald shouted, "They have lived!" Domitian returned to the palace and hunted morosely for flies. The excesses of the festival in which Rome was swooning then had no delights for him.
And that happened four hundred years ago. Until our own time there were prisons deep down in the old Roman vaults. At first, as in old days, the place of confinement was in the Mamertine prison, on the southeastern slope, beneath which was the hideous Tullianum, deepest and darkest of all, whence no captive ever came out alive to the upper air again.
It is probable that the prison called Tullianum, from a jet of water, "tullus," which sprang from the rock, was originally a portion of this quarry.
Here also was put to death Simon Bar-Gioras, the governor of the revolted Jews during the last dreadful siege of Jerusalem, who was taken prisoner, and after gracing the triumph of the emperor Titus at Rome, shared the fate which usually happened to captives after such an exhibition. From the Tullianum or Prison of St.
Neither the vine nor the fig succeed well in the immediate environs, and there is a want of springs yielding a good supply of water; for neither the otherwise excellent fountain of the Camenae before the Porta Capena, nor the Capitoline well, afterwards enclosed within the Tullianum, furnish it in any abundance.
And still that prison was less terrible than the old Tullianum. The legs bent under Vinicius when he saw all this, and breath was failing in his breast. At the thought that Lygia was in the midst of this misery and misfortune, the hair rose on his head, and he stifled a cry of despair.
King Jugurtha in royal robes and in chains, along with his two sons, preceded the triumphal chariot of the victor, when he entered Rome on the 1st of January 650: by his orders the son of the desert perished a few days afterwards in the subterranean city-prison, the old -tullianum- at the Capitol the "bath of ice," as the African called it, when he crossed the threshold in order either to be strangled or to perish from cold and hunger there.
Go thou to the temple of Vesta, and ask the virgo magna to happen near the Tullianum at the moment when they are leading prisoners out to death, and give command to free that maiden. The chief vestal will not refuse thee." "But if Lygia dies of the fever?" "The Christians say that Christ is vengeful, but just; maybe thou wilt soften Him by thy wish alone."
I have just been told by them that the consul has sworn that he will begin to play Sulla this very day. Neither you, nor Antonius, Cassius, Curio, nor the other supporters of Cæsar will be alive to-night. Do not go into the Curia. Get away, quickly! Warn your friends, and leave Rome, or to-night you will all be strangled in the Tullianum!" The Tullianum!
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