Beyond the Triclinium is a disgusting memorial of Roman imperial life, in the _Vomitorium_, with its bason, whither the feasters retired to tickle their throats with feathers, and come back with renewed appetite to the banquet.

We now reach the portico which closed the principal apartments of the palace on the south-west. Some of its Corinthian pillars have been re-erected on the sites where they were found. From hence we can look down upon some grand walls of republican times, formed of huge tufa blocks.

Passing a space of ground, called, without much authority, _Bibliotheca_, we reach a small _Theatre_ on the edge of the hill, interesting as described by Pliny, and because the Emperor Vespasian, who is known to have been especially fond of reciting his own compositions, probably did so here. Hence we may look down upon the valley between the Palatine and Aventine, where the rape of the Sabines took place, and upon the site of the Circus Maximus. From hence, we may imagine, that the later emperors surveyed the hunts and games in that circus, when they did not care to descend into the amphitheatre itself.

Beyond this, on the right, is (partially restored) the grand staircase leading to the platform once occupied by the _Temple of Jupiter-Victor_, vowed by Fabius Maximus during the Samnite war, in the assurance that he would gain the victory. On the steps is a sacrificial altar, which retains its grooves for the blood of the victims, with an inscription stating that it was erected by "Cnaeus Domitius C. Calvinus, Pontifex,"--who was a general under Julius Caesar, and consul B.C. 53 and B.C. 40.

Now, for some distance, there are no remains, because this space was always kept clear, for here, constantly renewed, stood the _Hut of Faustulus and the Sacred Fig-tree_.

"The old Roman legend ran as follows:--Procas, king of Alba, left two sons. Numitor, the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Amulius to wrest the government from him, and reduce him to his father's private estates. In the enjoyment of these he lived rich, and, as he desired nothing more, secure: but the usurper dreaded the claims that might be set up by heirs of a different character.

He had Numitor's son murdered, and appointed his daughter, Silvia, one of the Vestal virgins.

"Amulius had no children, or at least only one daughter: so that the race of Anchises and Aphrodite seemed on the point of expiring, when the love of a god prolonged it, in spite of the ordinances of man, and gave it a lustre worthy of its origin.

Silvia had gone into the sacred grove, to draw water from the spring for the service of the temple. The sun quenched its rays: the sight of a wolf made her fly into a cave: there Mars overpowered the timid virgin, and then consoled her with the promise of noble children, as Posidon consoled Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus. But he did not protect her from the tyrant; nor could the protestations of her innocence save her. Vesta herself seemed to demand the condemnation of the unfortunate priestess; for at the moment when she was delivered of twins, the image of the goddess hid its eyes, her altar trembled, and her fire died away. Amulius ordered that the mother and her babes should be drowned in the river. In the Anio Silvia exchanged her earthly life for that of a goddess. The river carried the bole or cradle, in which the children were lying, into the Tiber, which had overflowed its banks far and wide, even to the foot of the woody hills. At the root of a wild fig-tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, which was preserved and held sacred for many centuries, at the foot of the Palatine, the cradle overturned. A she-wolf came to drink of the stream: she heard the whimpering of the children, carried them into her den hard by, made a bed for them, licked and suckled them. When they wanted other food than milk, a woodpecker, the bird sacred to Mars, brought it to them. Other birds consecrated to auguries hovered over them, to drive away insects. This marvellous spectacle was seen by Faustulus, the shepherd of the royal flocks. The she-wolf drew back, and gave up the children to human nature. Acca Laurentia, his wife, became their foster-mother. They grew up, along with her twelve sons, on the Palatine hill, in straw huts which they built for themselves: that of Romulus was preserved by continual repairs, as a sacred relic, down to the time of Nero. They were the stoutest of the shepherd lads, fought bravely against wild beasts and robbers, maintaining their right against every one by their might, and turning might into right. Their booty they shared with their comrades. The followers of Romulus were called Quinctilii, those of Remus Fabii: the seeds of discord were soon sown amongst them.

Their wantonness engaged them in disputes with the shepherds of the wealthy Numitor, who fed their flocks on Mount Aventine: so that here, as in the story of Evander and Cacus, we find the quarrel between the Palatine and the Aventine in the tales of the remotest times. Remus was taken by the stratagem of these shepherds, and dragged to Alba as a robber. A secret foreboding, the remembrance of his grandsons, awakened by the story of the two brothers, kept Numitor from pronouncing a hasty sentence. The culprit's foster-father hastened with Romulus to the city, and told the old man and the youths of their kindred. They resolved to avenge their own wrong and that of their house. With their faithful comrades, whom the dangers of Remus had brought to the city, they slew the king; and the people of Alba again became subject to Numitor.

"But love for the home which fate had assigned them drew the youths back to the banks of the Tiber, to found a city there, and the shepherds, their old companions, were their first citizens.... This is the old tale, as it was written by Fabius, and sung in ancient lays down to the time of Dionysius."--_Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome._

In the cliff of the Palatine, below the fig-tree, was shown for many centuries the cavern Lupercal, sacred from the earliest times to the Pelasgic god Pan.

"Hinc lucum ingentum, quem Romulus acer Asylum Retulit, et gelida monstrat sub rupe Lupercal, Parrhasio dictum Panos de monte Lycaei."

_Virgil, aen._ viii. 342.

"La louve, nourrice de Romulus, a peut-etre ete imaginee en raison des rapports mythologiques qui existaient entre le loup et Pan defenseur des troupeaux. Ce qu'il y a de sur, c'est que les fetes lupercales garderent le caractere du dieu en l'honneur duquel elles avaient ete primitivement instituees et l'empreinte d'une origine pelasgique; ces fetes au temps de Ciceron avaient encore un caractere pastoral en memoire de l'Arcadie d'ou on les croyait venues. Les Luperques qui representaient les Satyres, compagnons de Pan, faisaient le tour de l'antique sejour des Pelasges sur le Palatin. Ces hommes nus allaient frappant avec les lanieres de peau de bouc, l'animal lascif par excellence, les femmes pour les rendre fecondes; des fetes analogues se celebraient en Arcadie sous le nom de Lukeia (les fetes des loups), dont le mot lupercales est une traduction."--_Ampere, Hist. Rome_, i. 143.

In the hut of Romulus were preserved several objects venerated as relics of him.

"On conservait le baton augural avec lequel Romulus avait dessine sur le ciel, suivant le rite etrusque, l'espace ou s'etait manifeste le grand auspice des douze vautours dans lesquels Rome crut voir la promesse des douze siecles qu'en effet le destin devait lui accorder. Tous les augures se servirent par la suite de ce baton sacre, qui fut trouve intact apres l'incendie du monument dans lequel il etait conserve, miracle paen dont l'equivalent pourrait se rencontrer dans plus d'une legende de la Rome chretienne. On montrait le cornouiller ne du bois de la lance que Romulus, avec la vigueur surhumaine d'un demi-dieu, avait jetee de l'Aventin sur le Palatin, ou elle s'etait enfoncee dans la terre et avait produit un grand arbre.

"On montrait sur le Palatin le berceau et la cabane de Romulus.

Plutarque a vu ce berceau, le _Santo-Presepio_ des anciens Romains, qui etait attache avec des liens d'airain, et sur lequel on avait trace des caracteres mysterieux. La cabane etait a un seul etage, en planches et couverte de roseaux, que l'on reconstruisait pieusement chaque fois qu'un incendie la detruisait; car elle brula a diverses reprises, ce que la nature des materiaux dont elle etait formee fait croire facilement. J'ai vu dans les environs de Rome un cabaret rustique dont la toiture etait exactement pareille a celle de la cabane de Romulus."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ i. 342.

Turning along the terrace which overhangs the Velabrum we reach the ruins of the _Palace of Tiberius_,[113] in which he resided during the earlier part of his reign, when he was under the influence of his aged and imperious mother Livia. Here he had to mourn for Drusus, his only son, who fell a victim (A.D. 23) to poison administered to him by his wife Livilla and her lover the favourite Sejanus. Here also, in A.D. 29, died Livia, widow of Augustus, at the age of eighty-six, "a memorable example of successful artifice, having attained in succession, by craft if not by crime, every object she could desire in the career of female ambition."[114]

The row of arches remaining are those of the soldiers' quarters. In the fourth arch is a curious _graffite_ of a ship. In another the three pavements in use at different times may be seen _in situ_, one above another. On the terrace above these arches has recently been discovered a large piscina, or _fish-pond_, and the painted chambers of a building, which is supposed to have been the _House of Drusus_ (elder brother of Tiberius) _and Antonia_. Several of the rooms in this building are richly decorated in fresco, one has a picture of a street with figures of females going to a sacrifice, and of ladies at their toilette; another of Mercury, Io, and Argus; and a third of Galatea and Polyphemus. From the names of the characters in these pictures represented being affixed to them in Greek, we may naturally conclude that they are the work of Greek artists.

The north-eastern corner of the area is entirely occupied by the vast ruins of the _Palace of Caligula_, built against the side of the hill above the _Clivus Victori_, which still remains, and consisting of ranges of small rooms, communicating with open galleries, edged by marble balustrades, of which a portion exists. In these rooms the half-mad Caius Caligula rushed about, sometimes dressed as a charioteer, sometimes as a warrior, and delighted in astonishing his courtiers by his extraordinary pranks, or shocking them by trying to enforce a belief in his own divinity.[115]

"C'est dans ce palais que, tourmente par l'insomnie et par l'agitation de son ame furieuse, il passera une partie de la nuit a errer sous d'immenses portiques, attendant et appellant le jour.

C'est la aussi qu'il aura l'incroyable idee de placer un dieu infame.

"Caligula se fit batir sur le Palatin deux temples. Il avait d'abord voulu avoir une demeure sur le mont Capitolin; mais, ayant reflechi que Jupiter l'avait precede au Capitole, il en prit de l'humeur et retourna sur le Palatin. Dans les folies de Caligula, on voit se manifester cette pensee: Je suis dieu! pensee qui n'etait peut-etre pas tres-extraordinaire chez un jeune homme de vingt-cinq ans devenu tout-a-coup maitre du monde. Il parut en effet croire a sa divinite, prenant le nom et les attributs de divers dieux, et changeant de nature divine en changeant de perruque.

"Non content de s'elever un temple a lui-meme, Caligula en vint a etre son propre pretre et a s'adorer. Le despotisme oriental avait connu cette adoration etrange de soi: sur les monuments de l'Egypte on voit Ramses-roi presenter son offrande a Ramses-dieu; mais Caligula fit ce que n'avait fait aucun Pharaon; il se donna pour collegue, dans ce culte de sa propre personne, son cheval, qu'il ne nomma pas, mais qu'il songea un moment de nommer consul."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 8.

Here "one day at a public banquet, when the consuls were reclining by his side, Caligula burst suddenly into a fit of laughter; and when they courteously inquired the cause of his mirth, astounded them by coolly replying that he was thinking how by one word he could cause both their heads to roll on the floor. He amused himself with similar banter even with his wife Caesonia, for whom he seems to have had a stronger feeling than for any of his former consorts. While fondling her neck he is reported to have said, 'Fair as it is, how easily I could sever it.'"--_Merivale_, ch.

xlviii.

After the murder of Caligula (Jan. 24, 794) by the tribune Cheraea, in the vaulted passage which led from the palace to the theatre, a singular chance which occurred in this part of the palace led to the elevation of Claudius to the throne.

"In the confusion which ensued upon the death of Caius, several of the praetorian guards had flung themselves furiously into the palace and began to plunder its glittering chambers. None dared to offer them any opposition; the slaves or freedmen fled and concealed themselves. One of the inmates, half-hidden behind a curtain in an obscure corner, was dragged forth with brutal violence; and great was the intruder's surprise when they recognised him as Claudius, the long despised and neglected uncle of the murdered emperor.[116]

He sank at their feet almost senseless with terror: but the soldiers in their wildest mood still respected the blood of the Caesars, and instead of slaying or maltreating the suppliant, the brother of Germanicus, they hailed him, more in jest perhaps than earnest, with the title of Imperator, and carried him off to their camp."--_Merivale_, ch. xlix.

In this same palace Claudius was feasting when he was told that his hitherto idolised wife Messalina was dead, without being told whether she died by her own hand or another's,--and asked no questions, merely desiring a servant to pour him out some more wine, and went on eating his supper.[117] Here also Claudius, who so dearly loved eating, devoured his last and fatal supper of poisoned mushrooms which his next loving wife (and niece) Agrippina prepared for him, to make way for her son Nero upon the throne.[118]

The Clivus Victoriae commemorates by its name the _Temple of Victory_,[119] said to have been founded by the Sabine aborigines before the time of Romulus, and to be the earliest temple at Rome of which there is any mention except that of Saturnus. This temple was rebuilt by the consul L. Posthumius.

Chief of a group of small temples, the famous _Temple of Cybele_, "Mother of the Gods," stood at this corner of the Palatine. Thirteen years before it was built, the "Sacred Stone," the form under which the "Idaean Mother" was worshipped, had been brought from Pessinus in Phrygia, because, according to the Sibylline books, frequent showers of stones which had occurred could only be expiated by its being transported to Rome. It was given up to the Romans by their ally Attalus, king of Pergamus, and P. Cornelius Scipio, the young brother of Africanus--accounted the worthiest and most virtuous of the Romans--was sent to receive it. As the vessel bearing the holy stone came up the Tiber it grounded at the foot of the Aventine, when the aruspices declared that only chaste hands would be able to move it. Then the Vestal Claudia drew the vessel up the river by a rope.

"Ainsi Sainte Brigitte, Suedoise morte a Rome, prouva sa purete en touchant le bois de l'autel, qui reverdit soudain. Une statue fut erigee a Claudia, dans le vestibule du temple de Cybele. Bien qu'elle eut ete, disait on, seule epargnee dans deux incendies du temple, nous n'avons plus cette statue, mais nous avons au Capitole un bas-relief ou l'evenement miraculeux est represente. C'est un autel dedie par une affranchie de la gens Claudia; il a ete trouve au pied de l'Aventin, pres du lieu qu'on designait comme celui ou avait ete opere le miracle."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iii. 142.

In her temple, which was _round and surmounted_ by a cupola, Cybele was represented by a statue with its face to the east; the building was adorned with a painting of Corybantes, and plays were acted in front of it.[120]

"Qua madidi sunt tecta Lyaei Et Cybeles picto stat Corybante domus."

_Martial, Ep._ i. 71, 9.

This temple, after its second destruction by fire, was entirely rebuilt by Augustus in A.D. 2.

"Cybele est certainement la grande deesse, la grande mere, c'est-a-dire la personnification de la fecondite et de la vie universelle: bizarre idole qui presente le spectacle hideux de mamelles disposes par paires le long d'un corps comme enveloppe dans une gaine, et d'ou sortent des taureaux et des abeilles, images des forces creatrices et des puissances ordonnatrices de la nature. On honorait cette deesse de l'Asie par des orgies furieuses, par un melange de debauche effrenee et de rites cruels; ses pretres effemines dansaient au son des flutes lydiennes et de ses _crotales_, veritables castagnettes, semblables a celles que fait resonner aujourd'hui la paysanne romaine en dansant la fougueuse _saltarelle_. On voit au musee du Capitole l'effigie bas-relief d'un _archigalle_, d'un chef de ces pretres insenses, et pres de lui les attributs de la deesse asiatique, les flutes, les crotales, et la mysterieuse corbeille. Cet archigalle, avec son air de femme, sa robe qui conviendrait a une femme, nous retrace l'espece de demence religieuse a laquelle s'associaient les delires pervers d'Heliogabale."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 310.

We have the authority of Martial[121] that in the immediate neighbourhood of the temple of Cybele, stood the _Temple of Apollo_, though Signor Rosa places it on the other side of the hill in the gardens of S. Buonaventura. Its remains have yet to be discovered.

"Nothing could exceed the magnificence of this temple, according to the accounts of ancient authors. Propertius, who was present at its dedication, has devoted a short elegy to the description of it, and Ovid describes it as a splendid structure of white marble.

'Tum medium claro surgebat marmore templum, Et patria Phbo carius Ortygia.

Auro solis erat supra fastigia currus, Et valvae Libyci nobile dentis opus.

Altera dejectos Parnassi vertice Gallos, Altera mrebat funera Tantalidos.

Deinde inter matrem Deus ipse, interque sororem Pythius in longa carmina veste sonat.'

_Propertius,_ ii. _El._ 31.

'Inde timore pari gradibus sublimia celsis Ducor ad intonsi candida templa Dei.'

_Ovid, Trist._ iii. _El._ 1.

"From the epithet _aurea_ porticus, it seems probable that the cornice of the portico which surrounded it was gilt. The columns were of African marble, or _giallo-antico_, and must have been fifty-two in number, as between them were the statues of the fifty Danaids, and that of their father, brandishing a naked sword.

'Quaeris cur veniam tibi tardior? aurea Phbi Porticus a magno Caesare aperta fuit.

Tota erat in speciem Pnis digesta columnis: Inter quas Danai fmina turba senis.'

_Propert._ ii. _El._ 31.

'Signa peregrinis ubi sunt alterna columnis Belides, et stricto barbarus ense pater.'

_Ovid, Trist._ iii. 1. 61.