SECTION III. THE PALATINE.

THE Palatine, the Coelian, and the Aventine had not been originally occupied, being so much less strong than the other hills. These were taken possession of by the new settlers: at first the Palatine only, and to make this secure it was necessary to have two wings to it; one to keep up the communication with the Tiber, then the highway for provisions and materials of all kinds. This wing was called the Velabrum, and it is probable that when the water in the Tiber was high enough, boats could sail up to the foot of the Palatine in a sort of port formed by the mouths of the small streams that run down from the Palatine on both sides, and from part of the Quirinal, passing between the Palatine and the Capitol, and by a branch of the small river Almo, now the Marrana, the small stream that runs round the base of the Cœlian, and then between the Palatine and the Aventine, where it formed a marsh, which served as a protection to the west side of that hill.

On the eastern side another protection was necessary, and another wing was formed by digging a great trench at the foot of the Esquiline, leaving a space for a fort, to defend the approach on that side. This wing was called the Velia, which was always considered as part of the Palatine. The trench outside of the Velia remains, with the earth, supported by a wall on each side of it, and in this trench is a road, now called Via del Colosseo. This trench is about twenty feet below the level of the ground on the hills on each side, and forty feet wide; it has a row of houses down the eastern side of it, and the present road or street on the western side. The cliffs are vertical, and supported by walls, and trees may be seen growing on the ground nearly level with the top of the wall on each side. On the east side it is behind the houses, and nearly level with the top of them. To the west of this trench is the Velia, an earthen fortress, which is nearly triangular, and one corner at the north end of it is cut away to admit the great Basilica of Constantine. This and the Arch of Titus opposite to it stood on the Summa Via Sacra, from which the Clivus Sacer descended to the Via Sacra, and thence to the Forum Romanum on the north.

The temple of the Lares was on the Summa Via Sacra, as men

tioned by Solinus ", and therefore on the platform to the north of the Colosseum, between that and the Forum Romanum.

To the south another road descends rapidly to the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine. This appears to have been afterwards made a covered way by the buildings over it, but the incline or clivus is probably natural or very ancient. The Arch of Titus, therefore, stands close to the natural position for the principal gate of the city of Romulus on the Palatine, and there are remains of a very early gate near this spot. From thence a zigzag road would turn at an angle up to the platform on the surface of the Palatine. This hill has so long been built over, and the buildings renewed so many times, that it is difficult to see the original plan. Nevertheless, the demolition of the buildings, and the excavations, have brought a great deal of it to light. It is easy to see that the upper part of the hill has had the edges cut into vertical cliffs, with terraces under them, as in other primitive fortifications. These cliffs are now visible in several places behind the walls, in which holes are made and left open for the purpose of shewing the natural rock, extending as high as the wall and the surface of the hill. The natural soil here being friable, the cliff required to be supported, and this would commonly be done at first with wood only; but the Romans appear to have begun a stone wall immediately; parts of this wall remain at the north end towards the west, on the west side near the church of S. Anastasia, and on the south side. The architectural character of this wall is exactly the same as that of Fiesole, Volterra, Perugia, and other Etruscan cities, where the building material is the same.

This kind of stone, called tufa, naturally splits into oblong blocks of large size, and of these blocks the walls are built; the stone has only been split off the rocks with wedges, not cut with the saw, and there is no original cement, or at least no lime-mortar. Along the north end of the hill, opposite to the Capitol, the foundations of towers of the same period remain at regular intervals, evidently left unfinished and built over in the time of the Republic, of the Empire, and in the Middle Ages; but all these buildings being now destroyed, the original foundations have been brought to light within the last few years. This north end of the Palatine was Roma Quadrata, the Arx or Citadel of the first city, that was betrayed by Tarpeia to the Sabines on the hill opposite.

u

"Ancus Martius (habitavit) in Summa Sacra Via, ubi ædes Larium est." (Solinus, c. i. 23.)

They are shewn in some of my photographs, with walls of the time

of the Republic and early Empire built upon them and against them.

Plutarch in Romulo says that Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol and not the Palatine to the Sabines, and that for

SECT. III.]

The Palatine.

37

There was a zigzag road up the cliff, at the north end of the hill, leading from the junction of two streams which still run underground near where S. Giorgio in Velabro now stands, and where the Janus or Arcus Quadrifrons is placed. This was the boundary of the Palatine fortress in that direction, and the zigzag path led up from that to the Porta Romana, near the east end of the north front'. On the west side there are remains of the old stone wall in several places, over S. Anastasia as well as under it. After passing the south end of that church the wall turns to the east, across the Palatine, towards the Arch of Titus. Part of this wall on the south side of the Citadel (Roma Quadrata) is visible below the cliff, on the terrace, and another part above in what were long the Farnesi gardens, afterwards occupied by the Emperor of the French, and excavated at his expense; it supports the cliff on the north side of the foss. The Villa Mills stand on the cliff on the south side of this foss, and on that side of the foss the earth is for the most part supported by a concrete wall only; but a fragment of the ancient tufa wall has recently been brought to light in the lower part against the side of the road of the time of the Empire, which goes up to the level on this side. In this great foss (which Signor Rosa considers to be a natural intermontium) various buildings had been erected in the time of the Republic and down to the time of Augustus. The later Emperors carried their great palace where the state apartments for the grand ceremonies were situated, over the foss on the level of the surface of the hill, and made subterranean chambers of the old buildings that stood there before.

The zigzag road leading up to the ARX at the north end of the Palatine opposite to the Capitol is still in use for carts part of the way, along one branch, passing from the site of the lake of Curtius at the foot of the lofty bridge for the Aqueducts, up the slope to the terrace on which stands the altar to the unknown god or goddess, in front of the wall of Roma Quadrata against the cliff, behind which is the ancient cistern. The house of Romulus, or cottage of Faustulus, is said to have stood near this, on the angle of the platform not far from the church of S. Anastasia. The road turns at an angle just where that piece of the old wall is situated, and goes on nearly

this reason the Capitol was called Rupes Tarpeia. It was really because she was buried at the foot of it. The portion of the rock so called was the place of public execution, and this name was given to it to perpetuate her infamy.

A remarkable confirmation of this

has been shewn by the excavations of 1871 remains of an ancient wall of tufa have been found close to the Arch of Janus, the stones of which correspond exactly in size and in character with those of the Wall of Roma Quadrata against the cliff on the hill above.

on a level to the gate called the Porta Romana or Romanula, which is just over that end of the bridge of Caligula, of which two of the tall brick piers remain in situ. Passing through that gate, the pavement of the old road continues up to the corner of the hill under a part of the palaces of the Cæsars of the first century. The lower part of the road has been altered, and raised from ten to twenty feet above the old level. The tops of the arches of the arcade, or of shops (?) by the side of it, are visible close to the ground near the round church of S. Theodore (supposed to stand on the site of the temple of Augustus). This road, coming from the south, evidently went originally to the Janus or Arcus Quadrifrons, which was the entrance into the Forum Boarium to the west; the Forum Romanum was to the east, and the Capitol to the north. The silversmiths' quarter was near the Forum Boarium, where stands the arch of Sept. Severus, called of the silversmiths by the inscription. The Aqua Argentina, coming from the fountain of Egeria and passing through the Lupercal, or Wolf's Cave, falls into the Cloaca Maxima, near to the south side of this Janus Quadrifrons. The modern road is called the Via dei Fienili, and leads into the Via de' Cerchi, made on the side of the Circus Maximus, under the west side of the Palatine, parallel to the old street which is now subterranean, but which led in the same direction to the Septizonium and the Porta Capena. The cave called the Lupercal is nearly under the angle of the present Via dei Fienili and the Via de' Cerchi, almost in the Circus Maximus".

This northern part of the hill only, it is now evident, has been Roma Quadrata, the Arx or Citadel of Romulus separated

• It is nearly under S. Anastasia, with the springs of water, as described in the Curiosum Urbis, "Aqua cernens quatuor scaros sub æde." This ædes must have been the very early temple on the corner of the hill, above S. Anastasia (excavated in 1871). By some it is con. sidered to have been on the same site as those that were rebuilt in the second century on a higher level, now called by Signor Rosa the Basilica Jovis. The structures of the time of the Republic under that platform, whatever their purpose was, were originally built in the great foss of Roma Quadrata, across the middle of the Palatine. The passage in Tacitus is thus reconciled with that of Solinus (c. i. p. 18): "Dictaque est primum Roma quadrata, quod ad æquilibrium foret posita. Ea incipit a sylva quæ est in area Apollinis, et ad supercilium scalarum Caci habet terminum

ubi tugurium fuit Faustuli. Ibi Romulus mansitavit, qui auspicato fundamenta murorum jecit."

Dr. Fabio Gori (in his work entitled Sugli Edificii Palatini. Studi topografico storici, Rome, 1867, 8vo.) claims to be the first person to point out this manner of reconciling two passages in the classical authors which had long been considered as inconsistent one with the other, and inexplicable.

Solinus, cap. I, says that Rome first was called quadrata, because it was equipoised (quod ad æquilibrium fore posita), thus applying the epithet quadrata to the whole town; Salmasius endeavoured to shew that the author of the Polyhistor was mistaken. (Claudii Salmasii Plinianæ Exercitationes, &c. p. II, col. I, B. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1689, folio.)

SECT. III.]

The Palatine.

39

from the southern part by the wide and deep trench or foss. Excavations made in 1869 and 1870 have brought to light remains of the tufa walls and towers on both sides of the trench supporting vertical cliffs, and at the west end of the arx there are other remains. The wall on the north side is that now called the Wall of Romulus.

The traces of the ancient earth-works are an important part of the evidence on this subject. We find in many of the excavations that are made in Rome, the old pavement of the street at the depth of from fifteen to twenty feet below the level of the soil, because they were made at the bottom of the old fossa or trenches. These old pavements remain on all sides of the Palatine, and are left open in several places.

1. Under the Arch of Janus, traditionally the starting-point of the bull and the cow. 2. Under the church of S. Anastasia, in the street called after Julius Cæsar, who perhaps rebuilt the houses or shops under the terrace there. This was part of the infima nova via, under the porticus or arcade that supported the lower terrace of the Palatine, on the side of the Circus Maximus, and it can be traced all along that side to the sites of the Septizonium and the Porta Capena. 3. Under the Arch of Constantine, and round the Meta Sudans. 4. In the Forum Romanum also, at the same level d as the others.

The southern part of the Palatine, with the Velia and the Velabrum, formed the first city of Rome as distinct from the citadel. The construction of the Wall of Roma Quadrata is of earlier character than that of any other wall in Rome.

The regular square surface of the Palatine, and its steep cliffs on all sides, justifies its choice in preference to the larger Aventine, which was also of greater extent than was required for the original settlement, and would not so easily be fortified and defended.

"It was the design of Romulus to found a city upon the Palatine, both for other reasons, and on account of the good luck of the place, which had been the means of saving and rearing himself and his brother. But Remus desired to found it on what is called from him Remuria. This is a spot suitable for receiving a city, an eminence not far from the Tiber, and distant from Rome about thirty stadia '."

The form of this Arx is oblong, not square; but the stones in the walls called by Vitruvius Opus Quadratum are also oblong, not square.

The Italian Government began in (1871) excavating the whole of the Palatine Hill down to the level of the old pavements, and there is every probability that all these long-disputed

and doubtful questions will now be settled beyond dispute.

The construction of the walls of Fiesole, of Perugia, of Gabii, and of Alba Longa (the small portion that remains), Tusculum, and other ancient cities, is the same as that of Roma Quadrata.

f

Dionys. Hal. Ant., i. 85.