Temple of Vesta, Tivoli

Listen first. Somewhere below you, out of sight, water is falling. It is a steady, low roar that rises out of the gorge and seems to come from the rock itself. Now look up. A ring of pale stone columns stands on the edge of the cliff, fluted and weathered, catching the light against the green of the valley. This is the Temple of Vesta, on the oldest high ground of Tivoli.

Before Tivoli was Tivoli, the Romans called this town Tibur. It is older than many people expect. Tibur was an independent hill town of Latium, the region around early Rome, long before it fell under Roman control. This rocky spur above the Aniene river was its acropolis — its sacred high point. Temples stood here because the place itself felt charged. A river crashing through a gorge was, to the ancient mind, a place where gods were close.

The round temple you see dates to the late Roman Republic, most likely the early first century before Christ. That makes it older than the Colosseum, and older than the villa of the emperor Hadrian on the plain below the town. Its design is Corinthian. That is the most decorative of the classical styles, with capitals carved like bundles of curling acanthus leaves. Step closer, and you can still make out those leaves, softened by two thousand years of rain.

Here is the first surprise. Nobody knows for certain that this temple belonged to Vesta at all. The name is traditional. Round temples in the Roman world were often linked to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, because her famous shrine in the Roman Forum was circular. So later visitors gave this one the same name. Some scholars connect it instead with the Sibyl of Tibur, or with Hercules, who was a major god here. The honest answer is that the dedication is uncertain.

That Sibyl deserves a moment. In the ancient world, a sibyl was a woman who spoke prophecies, believed to be inspired by the gods. Tibur had its own, known as the Tiburtine Sibyl, sometimes called Albunea. Legend has it that she lived near these waters and spoke her visions here. A medieval tale even claims she foretold the birth of Christ to the emperor Augustus. That story is folklore, not history — but it shows how long this cliff held on to its reputation as a place of voices and signs.

Now look at the columns themselves. Count them, if you like. The temple once had a full ring of eighteen. Today ten still stand, on the side facing the gorge. The rest fell or were taken away over the centuries. The columns are made of travertine, the creamy, pitted limestone quarried around Tivoli. You will see the same stone across Rome. In fact, much of the Colosseum is built from travertine from this area.

Lift your eyes to the band of stone just above the columns. This is the frieze, and it carries a repeating pattern. Look for the carved skulls of oxen, linked by hanging garlands of fruit and flowers, with small rosettes between them. These ox skulls recall animal sacrifice. In a Roman temple, decoration was not only for beauty. It reminded every visitor of the rituals that kept the gods content and the town safe.

Behind the ring of columns stands the cella. That is the inner chamber, the room where the cult statue would have stood. It is built of rough concrete and small stones, and it was once covered with smooth plaster so that it looked like solid marble. Today the bare core shows through. This is a quiet lesson in Roman building. Concrete did the heavy work, and a fine surface hid it from view.

Just beside the round temple, you will notice a second, rectangular temple. It is plainer, with a straight front instead of a circle. This one is often called the Temple of the Sibyl, though again the true dedication is debated. Having two temples side by side on one small terrace tells you how sacred this edge of rock was. And both survived partly because, in the Middle Ages, they were put to new uses, including service as churches.

Here is the second surprise. For centuries, the way to reach this temple has been through a garden next to an inn. A dining place has stood beside these columns for a very long time. Travellers have eaten and drunk here while looking at the ruins and the gorge. So when you visit, you are joining a very old habit. People have been sitting on this terrace and staring at these same columns, with a glass in hand, for generations.

Those travellers made the temple famous across Europe. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, young aristocrats on the Grand Tour — a long educational journey through Italy — came to Tivoli in great numbers. Painters drew this temple again and again, perched above the falls. Architects copied it at home. In London, the architect John Soane modelled a corner of the Bank of England on it, still known as the Tivoli Corner. A circle of columns on a cliff became a European idea of classical beauty.

The landscape below has changed since those painters came. In the early nineteenth century, a terrible flood of the Aniene damaged the town. Afterwards, the river was diverted through tunnels cut into the mountain, and a new great waterfall was formed. The wooded valley beneath you became a park, the Villa Gregoriana, named after the pope who ordered the works. Its paths run down through caves and grottoes to the foot of the falls. From down there, the temple looks tiny, like a crown on the rock.

As you stand here, notice how the town presses close around this ancient terrace. Houses lean together on the narrow streets. Laundry hangs at windows. Church bells mix with the sound of water. Tivoli never became a museum. The ruins and daily life share the same small hilltop, as they have for a very long time.

Before you leave, rest your hand for a moment on the cool travertine, if you are allowed to come close. Look once more at the empty spaces where the missing columns stood. Then listen again to the water below. That sound is the reason anyone climbed up here at all. The gods may have changed, and the names may be uncertain. But the river is still running through the gorge, just as it did when the first stones were laid.