"Malgré la garde volontaire de chevaliers qui avait accompagné Cicéron et qui se tenait à la porte du temple, Catilina y entra et salua tranquillement l'assemblée; nul ne lui rendit son salut, à son approche on s'écarta et les places restèrent vides autour de lui. Il écouta les foudroyantes apostrophes de Cicéron, qui, après l'avoir accablé des preuves de son crime, se bornait à lui dire: 'Sors de Rome. Va-t-en!'
"Catilina se leva et d'un air modeste pria le sénat de ne pas croire le consul avant qu'une enquête eût été faite. 'II n'est pas vraisemblable, ajouta-t-il, avec une hauteur toute aristocratique, qu'un patricien, lequel, aussi bien que ses ancêtres, a rendu quelques services à la république, ne puisse exister que par sa ruine, et qu'on ait besoin d'un étranger d'Arpinum pour la sauver.' Tant d'orgueil et d'impudence révoltèrent l'assemblée; on cria à Catilina: 'Tu es un ennemi de la patrie, un meurtrier.' Il sortit, réunit encore ses amis, leur recommanda de se débarasser de Cicéron, prit avec lui un aigle d'argent qui avait appartenu à une légion de Marius, et à minuit quitta Rome et partit par la voie Aurélia pour aller rejoindre son armée."—Ampère, Hist. Rom. iv. 445.
Nearly opposite the foundations of Jupiter Stator, on the left,—are some remains considered to be those of the Porta Palatii.
The valley is now blocked by a vast mass of building which entirely closes it. This is the palace of Augustus, built in the valley between the Velia and the other eminence of the Palatine, which Rosa, contrary to other opinions, identifies with the Germale. The division of the Palatine thus named, was reckoned as one of "the seven hills" of ancient Rome. Its name was thought to be derived from Germani, owing to Romulus and Remus being found in its vicinity.[106]
The Palace of Augustus was begun soon after the battle of Actium, and gradually increased in size, till the whole valley was blocked up by it, and its roofs became level with the hill-sides. Part of the ground which it covered had previously been occupied by the villa of Catiline.[107] Here Suetonius says that Augustus occupied the same bed-room for forty years. Before the entrance of the palace it was ordained by the Senate, B.C. 26, that two bay-trees should be planted, in remembrance of the citizens he had preserved, while an oak wreath was placed above the gate in commemoration of his victories.
"Singula dum miror, video fulgentibus armis
Conspicuos postes, tectaque digna deo.
An Jovis hæc, dixi, domus est? Quod ut esse putarem,
Augurium menti querna corona dabat.
Cujus ut accepi dominum, non fallimur, inquam:
Et magni rerum est hanc Jovis esse domum.
Cur tamen apposita velatur janua lauro?
Cingit et Augustas arbor opaca fores?"
Ovid, Trist. i. 33.
"State Palatinæ laurus; prætextaque quercu
Stet domus; æternos tres habet una deos."
Fast. iv. 953.
It was before the gate of this palace that Augustus upon one day in every year sate as a beggar, receiving alms from the passers-by, in obedience to a vision that he should thus appease Nemesis.
Upon the top of this building of Augustus, Vespasian built his palace in A.D. 70, not only using the walls of the older palace as a support for his own, but filling the chambers of the earlier building entirely up with earth, so that they became a solid massive foundation. The ruins which we visit are thus for the most part those of the palace of Vespasian, but from one of its halls we can descend into rooms underneath excavated from the palace of Augustus. The three projecting rostra which we now see in front of the palace are restorations by Signor Rosa.
The palace on the Palatine was not the place where the emperors generally lived. They resided at their villas, and came into the town to the Palace of the Cæsars for the transaction of public business. Thus this palace was, as it were, the St. James's of Rome. The fatigue and annoyance of a public arrival every morning, amid the crowd of clients who always waited upon the imperial footsteps, was naturally very great, and to obviate this the emperors made use of a subterranean passage which ran round the whole building, and by which they were enabled to arrive unobserved, and not to present themselves in public till their appearance upon the rostra in front of the building to receive the morning salutations of their people.