THE SACRA CLIVUS.
Horace was wont to come down the Sacred Way ("S." i. 9), and talks of Britons descending it in chains ("Ep." vii.). Now we are free to ascend it. Where the Sacred Way ascends the Velia ridge it will be noticed that the road is extraordinarily wide (45 feet). This was no doubt made after the great fire under Commodus, for four feet below the pavement was found the original and narrower street, and beneath that the drain in the reticulated work of the republic.
The right-hand side of the ascent was bordered with honorary monuments and inscriptions to Trajan, Hadrian, Titus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Constantine; but the most interesting, perhaps, was the monument with Greek inscription of Gordianus, erected to him by the citizens of Tarsus, St. Paul's city, and interesting as showing that the close friendship between Rome and Tarsus continued to this late period. Four columns of Porta Santa marble stood on a podium, 7 feet by 4 feet, and supported a canopy, under which was the emperor's statue. On the cornice was the inscription, ΤΑΡϹΕωΝ , filled in with bronze.