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Tarpeian rock, the citadel

       Of great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth,

       So far renown'd, and with the spoils enriched

       Of nations."

       Paradise Regained.

      "The steep

       Tarpeian, fittest goal of treason's race,

       The promontory whence the traitor's leap

       Cured all ambition."

       Childe Harold.

      The dirty lane, with its shabby houses, and grass-grown spaces, and filthy children, has little to remind one of the appearance of the hill as seen by Virgil and Propertius, who speak of the change in their time from an earlier aspect.

      "Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem, et Capitolia ducit,

       Aurea nunc, olim, silvestribus horrida dumis,

       Jam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestes

       Dira loci; jam tum silvam saxumque tremebant."

       Virgil, Æn. viii. 347.

      "Hoc quodcumque vides, hospes, qua maxima Roma est,

       Ante Phrygem Aeneam collis et herba fuit."

       Propertius, iv. eleg. I.

      It was on this side that the different attacks were made upon the Capitol. The first was by the Sabine Herdonius at the head of a band of slaves, who scaled the heights and surprised the garrison, in B.C. 460, and from the heights of the citadel proclaimed freedom to all slaves who should join him, with abolition of debts, and defence of the plebs from their oppressors; but his offers were disregarded, and on the fourth day the Capitol was re-taken, and he was slain with nearly all his followers. The second attack was by the Gauls, who, according to the well-known story, climbed the rock near the Porta Carmentale, and had nearly reached the summit unobserved—for the dogs neglected to bark—when the cries of the sacred geese of Juno aroused an officer named Manlius, who rushed to the defence, and hurled over the precipice the first assailant, who dragged down others in his fall, and thus the Capitol was saved. In remembrance of this incident, a goose was annually carried in triumph, and a dog annually crucified upon the Capitol, between the temple of Summanus and that of Youth.[42] This was the same Manlius, the friend of the people, who was afterwards condemned by the patricians on pretext that he wished to make himself king, and thrown from the Tarpeian rock, on the same spot, in sight of the Forum, where Spurius Cassius, an ex-consul, had been thrown down before. To visit the part of the rock from which these executions must have taken place, it is necessary to enter a little garden near the German Hospital, whence there is a beautiful view of the river and the Aventine.

      "Quand on veut visiter la roche Tarpéienne, on sonne à une porte de peu d'apparence, sur laquelle sont écrits ces mots: Rocca Tarpeia. Une pauvre femme arrive et vous mène dans un carré de choux. C'est de là qu'on précipita Manlius. Je serais desolé que le carré de choux manquât."—Ampère, Portraits de Rome.

      This side of the Intermontium is now generally known as Monte Caprino, a name which Ampère derives from the fact that Vejovis, the Etruscan ideal of Jupiter, was always represented with a goat.[43] On this side of the hill, the viaduct from the Palatine, built by Caligula (who affected to require it to facilitate communication with his friend Jupiter), joined the Capitoline.

      We have still to examine the north-eastern height, the site of the most interesting of pagan temples, now occupied by one of the most interesting of Christian churches. The name of the famous Church of Ara-Cœli is generally attributed to an altar erected by Augustus to commemorate the Delphic oracle respecting the coming of our Saviour, which is still recognised in the well-known hymn of the Church:

      Teste David cum Sibylla.[44]

      The altar bore the inscription "Ara Primogeniti Dei." Those who seek a more humble origin for the church, say that the name merely dates from mediæval times, when it was called "Sta, Maria in Aurocœlio." It originally belonged to the Benedictine Order, but was transferred to the Franciscans by Innocent IV. in 1252, since which time its convent has occupied an important position as the residence of the General of the Minor Franciscans (Grey-friars), and is the centre of religious life in that Order.

      The staircase on the left of the Senators' palace, which leads to the side entrance of Ara-Cœli, is in itself full of historical associations. It was at its head that Valerius the consul was killed in the conflict with Herdonius for the possession of the Capitol. It was down the ancient steps on this site that Annius, the envoy of the Latins, fell (B.C. 340), and was nearly killed, after his audacious proposition in the temple of Jupiter, that the Latins and Romans should become one nation, and have a common senate and consuls. Here also,[45] in B.C. 133, Tiberius Gracchus was knocked down with the leg of a chair, and killed in front of the temple of Jupiter.

      It is at the top of these steps, that the monks of Ara-Cœli, who are celebrated as dentists, perform their hideous, but useful and gratuitous operations, which may be witnessed here every morning!

      Over the side entrance of Ara-Cœli is a beautiful mosaic of the Virgin and Child. This, with the ancient brick arches above, framing fragments of deep blue sky—and the worn steps below—forms a subject dear to Roman artists, and is often introduced as a background to groups of monks and peasants. The interior of the church is vast, solemn, and highly picturesque. It was here, as Gibbon himself tells us, that on the 15th of October, 1764, as he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers, the idea of writing the "Decline and Fall" of the city first started to his mind.

      "As we lift the great curtain and push into the church, a faint perfume of incense salutes the nostrils. The golden sunset bursts in as the curtain of the (west) door sways forward, illuminates the mosaic floor, catches on the rich golden ceiling, and flashes here and there over the crowd (gathered in Epiphany), on some brilliant costume or closely shaven head. All sorts of people are thronging there, some kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna, which gleams with its hundreds of silver votive hearts, legs, and arms, some listening to the preaching, some crowding round the chapel of the Presepio. Old women, haggard and wrinkled, come tottering along with their scaldini of coals, drop down on their knees to pray, and, as you pass, interpolate in their prayers a parenthesis of begging. The church is not architecturally handsome, but it is eminently picturesque, with its relics of centuries, its mosaic pulpits and floors, its frescoes of Pinturicchio and Pesaro, its antique columns, its rich golden ceiling, its gothic mausoleum to the Savelli, and its mediæval tombs. A dim, dingy look is over all—but it is the dimness of faded splendour; and one cannot stand there, knowing the history of the church, its great antiquity, and the varied fortunes it has known, without a peculiar sense of interest and pleasure.

      "It was here that Romulus in the grey dawning of Rome built the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Here the spolia opima were deposited. Here the triumphal processions of the emperors and generals ended. Here the victors paused before making their vows, until, from the Mamertine prisons below, the message came to announce that their noblest prisoner and victim—while the clang of their triumph and his defeat rose ringing in his ears, as the procession ascended the steps—had expiated with death the crime of being the enemy of Rome. On the steps of Ara-Cœli, nineteen centuries ago, the first great Cæsar climbed on his knees after his first triumph. At their base, Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes, fell—and if the tradition of the Church is to be trusted, it was on the site of the present high altar that Augustus erected the 'Ara Primogeniti Dei,' to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the coming of our Saviour. Standing on a spot so thronged with memories, the dullest imagination takes fire. The forms and scenes of the past rise from their graves and pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled together in strange poetic confusion."—Roba di Roma, i. 73.

      The floor of the church is of the ancient mosaic known as Opus Alexandrinum. The nave is separated from the aisles by twenty-two ancient columns, of which two are of cipollino, two of white marble, and eighteen of Egyptian granite. They are of very different forms and sizes, and have probably been collected from various pagan edifices. The inscription "A Cubiculo Augustorum"

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