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 CAPITOLIUM VETUS.

To the right from the gardens, the Via Quirinale brings us to the new Via Nazionale. Where this winds round is a piece of a wall of the kings. Plutarch ("Numa," xiv.) and Solinus (i. 21) tell us that Numa lived upon the Quirinal, where he built an arx (Hieron. i. 298), called, after the Capitoline Hill was so named, Capitolium Vetus. In it was a temple to Jupiter (Varro, "L. L." v.; Martial, v. 22). In those days a tongue jutted out here towards the Capitoline Hill, and this piece of wall bars the way to it, so it is probably a piece of the arx that defended the tongue.

The lofty brick tower is