At the top of the Velia stands the tasteful arch of Titus, as restored by Valadier more than a century ago. It commemorates the capture of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and is decorated with two of the best reliefs that Roman art produced ; the triumphal quadriga with the Dea Roma entering the city, and the floats that bore the chief objects of booty.
The Palatine hills according to tradition, was the site of the earliest settlement at Rome. Since the "hut of Romulus" stood Wan Deman, in Memoirs Am. Acad. vol. v.
'Whitehead, "The Church of S.S. Cosma e Damiano," Am. Jour. Arch., 1927.
Der Palatin (190i) ; jordan-Huelsen, Topographic (1907) ; Lugli, La Zona Archeologica di Roma (1924) ; Platner, Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome 0910 ; Huelsen, The Forum and the Palatine (with bibliography and illustrations, 1928).
on the southern brow of the hill above the Scalae Caci, farthest removed from the forum, that side was presumably the aristocratic quarter in the early day. Fragments of good terra-cotta revet ments of temples and palaces of the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. have been found in this area, two large cisterns of early workmanship, and cappellaccio blocks of an early town wall. After the second Punic War many of the nobles are incidentally mentioned as living on the Palatine, especially on the northern brow of the hill, which overlooks the forum. In Cicero's day the Clivus Victoriae, the street which ran near the crest of the hill above the house of the vestals, was lined with palaces of important men, e.g., Cicero, Ca tullus, Crassus, Metellus Celer, Scaurus and several members of the Claudian family. During the empire a large part of the hill was gradually covered by the expanding imperial palace. Augus tus' first palace arose south of the centre on property confiscated from republican nobles. The Claudian emperors, especially Tibe rius and Caligula, built extensively on the old properties of the family at the north-west corner. Nero enlarged the Augustan palace, connecting it with the Tiberian structure. Vespasian aban doned the Palatine palace for more modest quarters, but Domitian moved into the Augustan structure, enlarging it with magnificent State apartments and public halls. Septimius Severus finally threw out on massive substructures a vast complex of wings toward the south-east corner of the hills with a lofty façade on the Appian Way. As early as Augustus' day the word palatium began to be
used to designate the imperial palace.
We begin the topographical survey at the very south-west corner of the hill, where there may be seen a portion of the regal fortifi cations in grey tufa, as well as a large section of the 4th century town wall built in Grotta Oscura and Fidenae stone. Turning east wards we pass apartments of the Antonine period, perhaps those of the imperial guard. Ascending the hill by the old Scalae Caci we reach the confusion of walls that mark one of Rome's most venerated sites. From the area of Cybele's temple a few steps, made of brown tufa (2nd century B.c.), lead down to the stone platform on which the rethatched hut of Romulus apparently stood in Cicero's day. The stone water-trough around the platform indi cates that the building above was incapable of bearing its own water-gutter. South of this, and at a lower level, the native rock of the hill has borings that seem to mark the position of poles that supported an early straw hut. Then are found a few stones of the 4th-century fortification, and immediately beyond an early in humation grave. This is probably a grave of the very early period, since its position proves that it was there before the wall was built. The 4th-century urn found in it may have been placed there f or expiation when the grave was disturbed by the builders of the wall. Here then we have actual remnants of the primitive settle ment though much confused by later builders. The two cisterns near by probably belong to the same community. The one near the house of Livia has an interesting corbelled vault.
The concrete foundation overgrown with ilexes near by is a part of the temple of Cybele or Magna Mater, first built soon after the second Punic War. Here the first oriental cult gained entrance to Rome, and the orgiastic rites practised here probably inspired Catullus' remarkable poem, the Attis. The concrete podium and the peperino fragments from its stuccoed entablature date from a rebuilding in III B.C. Augustus' architects who reconstructed it in A.D. 3 seem to have used much of the old material, which they restuccoed in a new design. This temple became very important in the empire, being considered the "mother church" of a widely extended cult.