Various / 2008-09-04 00:00:00

There are undertakers in Rome who often purchase the
digging of fields, gardens, or vineyards, where they find any likelihood
of succeeding, and some have been known to arrive at great estates by
it. They pay according to the dimensions of the surface they are to
break up; and after having made essays into it, as they do for coal in
England, they rake into the most promising parts of it, tho they often
find, to their disappointment, that others have been beforehand with
them. However, they generally gain enough by the rubbish and bricks,
which the present architects value much beyond those of a modern make,
to defray the charges of their search.
I was shown two spaces of ground, where part of Nero's golden house
stood, for which the owner has been offered an extraordinary sum of
money. What encouraged the undertakers, are several very ancient trees,
which grow upon the spot, from whence they conclude that these
particular tracts of ground must have lain untouched for some ages. It
is pity there is not something like a public register, to preserve the
memory of such statues as have been found from time to time, and to mark
the particular places where they have been taken up, which would not
only prevent many fruitless searches for the future, but might often
give a considerable light into the quality of the place, or the design
of the statue.
But the great magazine for all kinds of treasure, is supposed to be the
bed of the Tiber.
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