Rambles in Rome / An Archæological and Historical Guide to the Museums, Galleries, Villas, Churches, and Antiquities of Rome and the Campagna

by S. Russell Forbes

THE ASYLUM OF ROMULUS.

This was between the Clivus Capitolinus and the Pass of the Two Groves (Via Arco di Septimo Severo), under the Capitoline Hill, and served afterwards as an advanced fort to the citadel. "He opened a sanctuary, in the place where the enclosure now is, on the road down from the Capitoline [Temple], called the Pass of the Two Groves" (Livy, i. 8). "He surrounded it with a high stone wall" (Ovid, "Fasti," iii. 231). The gate leading into it was called the Porta Pandana—"ever-open gate" (Solinus, i. 13. See Plutarch, in "Romulus;" Dionysius, ii. 15; Florus, i. 1; Varro and Festus). The remains of the tufa wall exist on the left of the Clivus, in front of the Temple of Saturn.