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The Lion
The third fountain in the trio of the Campidoglio is to be found in the upper garden of the Palazzo dei Conservatori -
the building to the right hand in the ascent of the Cordonata. It can hardly be called a fountain, since it is merely a
large basin of water surrounding some rockwork on which stands an old bit of sculpture of a character manifestly inappropriate
to the sentiment of a fountain. It represents a lion tearing out the
vitals of a horse which it has sprung upon and borne to the ground. This much-restored fragment is of real importance from an
artistic standpoint, while as a Roman antiquity it has extraordinary interest. The marble bears distinct traces of having
been subjected to the action of water, and, as a matter of fact, it was found more than a thousand years ago in the bed of
the River Almo. Nothing is known of its history previous to that discovery.
The Almo is a little brook in the Campagna not far from Rome, rising in the hills between the Via Appia and Via Latina and
emptying into the Tiber. Its modern name is Acquataccio. The Almo was connected with the ancient worship of the goddess Cybele,
whose sacred image was ceremonially washed in it each year on the 27th of March by the priests. This religious ceremony,
doubtless, preserved the channel of the stream so that it would have been quite possible to hide successfully a great piece of
statuary in its depths or in some reedy pool along its banks. River-beds were not uncommon hiding-places for treasures during
the Dark Ages which followed the breaking-up of the Roman Empire, and it is quite possible that this group may have been so hidden
by its owner whose great villa, situated near the stream, was threatened with pillage or destruction by some barbarian incursion.
The high value evidently placed upon it by its original possessor was also given to it by its discoverers. It belonged to that
remote museum of antiquities kept in or near the Lateran Palace during the Middle Ages and dating back at least to the days when
Charlemagne first visited Rome, in 781, bringing with him his little son Pepin, aged four, to be anointed King of Italy by Pope
Hadrian I. This museum contained also the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, now standing in the centre of the piazza of the
Campidoglio, together with the two river-gods, placed later onby Michelangelo where they now lieone on either side of the central
fountain of the Campidoglio; and other marbles and bronzes of great value.
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