East of this temple area is the house of Livia, the wife of Augustus. Its very low level is due to the desire of later emperors to preserve this house intact when the other palaces about it were being raised on lofty substructures. It was built about 5o B.C., and contains excellent wall paintings (now badly faded) which corre spond to the ;`second style" of decoration at Pompeii. The house is the best preserved of Roman houses of its period. South of this house is a level platform laid over the ruins of republican houses not yet excavated. On this platform, according to a plausible con jecture,' may have stood Augustus' first palace. The house at any 'Richmond, Jour. Roman Studies (1q14).
rate was Lunnected with Livia's.
The temple foundation that projects into this platform at the southern corner has recently been identified with plausible argu ments as that of the great temple of Apollo erected by Augustus in 28 B.C.' (cf. Horace Odes I. 28 and Propertius' description in Bk. II. 30. The final proofs have not yet appeared. The temple, octostyle and peripteral, was of Luna marble, with Numidian col umns. The acroterion represented the sun-god in his chariot, the pediment group Apollo with Artemis and Leto ; the doors were covered with ivory reliefs of the defeat of the Gauls at Delphi and the death of the Niobids—two themes reminding of Apollo's power. This too became a museum of splendid works of art. Ad joining the temple area—in the space on the south-east of the temple, if the identification is correct, was the extensive portico of the Danaids into which Augustus built the first great public library of Rome.
The centre of the Palatine is occupied by the ruins of Domi tian's palace (usually called the domus Augustiana) which faces northwards. At the front are the audience and public chambers : (I) a "basilica" with an apse in the rear for the emperor's tribunal, used when he acted as judge in political cases; (2) on the east of this room, the aula or large audience room where foreign legations were heard and meetings of the senate were held; (3) farther to the right a smaller room which is incorrectly called the lararium.
The centre of the palace was occupied by an extensive peristyle containing a garden with an elaborate fountain. In the rear was the large dining room flanked on both sides with curious f ountain chambers.. The emperor's table apparently stood on a dais at the end. All of these rooms were decorated with coloured marbles and floor mosaics, and the architectural carving reveals the exquisite designing of the Flavian architects. The large central audience
chamber was roofed with concrete vaulting, the earliest example of such a vault employed on a large scale.
Under this vast palace there are buried many houses of earlier periods which have recently been excavated in part but not yet Under the basilica one enters the segments of a large room that has not only wall paintings of the second style but also stuccoed reliefs of bold design. The masonry is not unlike that of the house of Livia. If this is not a part of Octavian's first palace it must have belonged to one of his powerful friends. The room was later abandoned for the construction of a large reservoir and finally cut through by a solid curved wall which must be a part of the foundations of Nero's palace. Deep under the lararium are five rooms of an even earlier period ; the oldest frescoes and mosaics of this house point to a period of about 75 B.C. Some important family of Cicero's time lived here. Under the dining room there are remains of two previous periods of the palace, the lower rooms pertaining apparently to the reign of Claudius. The delicate dec orations of a fountain-house and the very charming wall-decora tions in coloured stucco plaques that resemble those of the "golden house" of Nero are as successful as anything in their kind at Rome.
Of the Domus Tiberiana which occupied a large part of the north-west corner of the Palatine and which is now covered with pleasing gardens very little remains but the substructures with their dark rooms. Many of these rooms have not even been ex cavated, and since they must have been used for servant quarters it is not likely that things of importance would be found here. Tiberius' palace did not extend to the Clivus Victoriae on the brow of the hill because this street still retained several of its republi can mansions when the palace was built. Caligula seems to have connected this corner of the palace with a new wing on the forum level behind the temple of Castor. The magnificent ramp that zigzags down to the forum seems to belong to the Flavian period. The splendid arches thrown over the Clivus Victoriae to carry the palace grounds forward to the very edge of the hill above the forum are attributed to the architects of Trajan and Hadrian. These lend much to the picturesqueness of the Palatine as seen from the forum and to the long vistas over Rome when viewed Bull. Com. (1910 and 1913) ; Richmond, Jour. Rom. Stud.