great antiquity, as testified by its rude nature. The work consists of oblong blocks of Tufa stone, which, as was said, when split by wedges, cleaves readily into rectangular blocks. Such material would be used by a primitive people, not possessed of iron tools, for the fortification of their newly-founded city. Accordingly, we find round three sides of their fortress remains of walls, built of stones four feet long by two feet wide, or more exactly, as a competent authority states, twenty-three inches wide, being the regular Etruscan measure; each stone is about a ton weight, or, as Dionysius says, a load for a one-horse cart. On the fourth side, looking south-east, any possible remains are concealed by the Palaces of the Cæsars. These stones are laid together against the cliff alternately lengthwise and crosswise, for greater strength. For such interlacing work the name Emplecton has been proposed. No mortar is used between the courses, and the blocks are placed so artlessly that the vertical joints between them frequently occur immediately over each other, so that there is a continuous open fissure through the wall, running down past two courses of stones. Moreover, not having been sawn out, or dressed with a chisel, their surfaces are not smooth and close-fitting, so that a cane can be passed through the openings between the blocks. This, the earliest type of Opus quadratum, is best seen on the north-west face of the hill; and these peculiarities of ancient rudeness are easily recognised upon the photograph supplied to illustrate them. Such simple remains are of the utmost importance in estimating the antiquity of the city's foundation. The legends preserved by historians attribute to the founder a continuous wall round the settlement on the Palatine. There must of necessity be a wall of considerable strength from the commencement of the colony, for its existence depended on its defences, and the Palatine was neither high enough nor steep eno by nature to dispense with earthworks and walls. ☐ people believed the walls to have been built, and bef the concrete work of the Republic had re-faced a gr part of the hill-side looking towards the Capitol, t must have seen the continuous line of wall. Indeed is probable that the primitive line of defence was alw partly visible: for it is indicated by Theodoric the Ost goth, in a letter preserved by Cassiodorus, his minis that a portion of the founder's wall was still in existen That prince had a jealous veneration for the monuments the city's fame; but the seat of government had be already transferred elsewhere, and Rome being who deserted and neglected by its masters, the process of cay set in, the cliffs of the Palatine in many places slipp and covered the masonry round the foot of the hill. Fr ments of this ancient work are now again exposed to vie and to understand and estimate them rightly, they must compared with the remains of other cities, known to be the same or of earlier date. Such are Tusculum, and t Sabine town, Varia, which have well-defined walls, left considerable masses, of Opus quadratum, consisting of lar stones, rudely fitted, and without any mortar. Simi structures are found, as was said, in Etrurian cities; th at Fiesole, close to Florence, there is a wall built of sp tufa-stone, closely corresponding with that of Romulu Such buildings are classed as Etruscan in style, and th is admitted to be a right nomenclature; it was Etrusca influence that brought in this early architecture, and cause it to be widely distributed over the fortified places of a cient Italy.

Such, then, was the first wall of Roma Quadrata. Whe it is considered how small a portion of the whole hill wa thus enclosed at first, and that all very old towns in simila

positions were surrounded with exceedingly strong and massive stoneworks, many of which still exist, and that effectual ramparts were a first necessary condition of existence, we can find nothing incredible in the statement that, from the first, Rome's citadel was made a strong place of arms. The tradition says this, and the examination on the spot of what must be, from their nature, primitive structures, confirms the tradition.

It has been noticed that it was usual to construct round the hill-towns of old Italy a kind of ledge, or terrace, or more than one such, out of the earth, which was thrown down the face of the slope in the process of scarping the cliff, with the design of making the upper part of it vertical. This ledge against the western side of the Palatine, called Germalus, was at about half the height of the hill. It was usual also to make a zig-zag roadway up an inclined slope of the hill, so as to render the ascent more easy. All the hills of Rome had these zig-zag approaches formerly; traces of them exist, and that on the Palatine, opposite the Capitoline, may be still made out, and is still in use to some extent for carts. It has been ascertained that the distance between these two hills is short enough to allow a man to be struck down by missiles hurled from the opposite eminence: a Roman on the Palatine was not safe from being wounded by a stone shot from the Tarpeian rock. Therefore, it was necessary to make the defences on that side stronger than elsewhere, especially at the point where the northern angle of the hill juts out towards the Forum. When Rome was colonised, the Capitoline Hill, or Mons Saturnius, a very strong position, was already occupied by tenants of the Sabine race; and on the outbreak of wars, the natural fruit of such proxiniity, the legends say that the Romans thought it necessary to raise the walls of their fortress, and began to do so. Precisely at this point, where we should e to find them, we do find a series of bastions built as the wall, to serve as buttresses, for raising the wall h These are of the same early construction as the other walls, but they have been carried only to the height o or twelve feet from the ground, on the Germalus, and are suddenly left unfinished. They have not beer turbed, but have been afterwards used as foundation other buildings. It is evident that they belong to a d begun, but afterwards suddenly abandoned; and ther of this was, according to the family legend, a sudden clusion of peace. And when, through the interventi the women, hostilities were suspended between Sabin Roman, and the fusion of the two peoples into one place, the contemplated addition to the fortification that side was felt to be useless, and therefore was doned, especially when, according to the tradition, two hills were united into one city, and enclosed v one wall." There is a difference in the character o piece of walling from the very earliest specimen farth the south; for here, at the corner of Roma Quadrata joints are closer fitted, and the surface of the stones b dressed.

There is another evidence of the truth of these ear lations between the settlers on the two hills in the covery near the north-west corner of the Palatine of a reservoir for rain-water, with a peculiar kind of wel scending into it, having a hollow cone at the bottom. Romans naturally drew their water from the co spring in the cave, called Lupercal, under the north corner of the valley near the church of S. Anastasia the Circus Maximus. Running down that face of the are primitive gigantic steps, leading straight to the sp the women going to fetch water would go down

steps, but their steepness would hinder the return of the water-carriers with full pitchers on their heads. The way back to the hill-top would, therefore, lie along the zig-zag path that was cut from the terrace above the foss to the summit, and they would enter the Arx at the Porta Romana, close to the northern apex of the fortress. But this passage would expose them to danger from missiles off the Saturnian mount: the reservoir of rain-water was, therefore, a precaution for the Romans when at war with the Sabines, but would be useless at any other time. A singular confirmation of the tradition that Rome's founders came from Alba Longa is found in the fact, that there exists at that place another well similarly formed, and that these are the only two of the kind known to exist in Italy.

The Gates by which the fortress of the Palatine was entered, three in number, were named Porta Romana, or Romanula, Porta Mugonia, or Mugionis, and Porta Janualis. The first stood at the northern apex of the Palatine, where it projects towards the Forum, and two ways issued from it. One went down by the zig-zag descent to the Germalus, the terrace under the cliffs on the northwestern face, and from it to the bottom of the valley: this was a road for horses, and, as was stated, is still traceable and partly useable. The second way went down on the north-east face, turning the corner towards the Forum, and had a steep descent by steps for foot-passengers only. This was the Porta Romana, and stood at the foot of the road called Clivus Victoriæ, still existing, with its basaltic pavement, passing underneath the lofty remains of the palace attributed to Caligula. This Clivus was the highest portion of the road made by Augustus on the south side of the Forum, and called the Nova Via.

The Porta Mugonia is said by Varro to have been so named from the mugitus, lowing of the cattle in the pasture

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