Nec me, quæ doctis patuerunt prima libellis
Atria, Libertas tangere passa sua est.[180]
In the same group stood the famous sanctuary of Juno Regina, vowed by Camillus during the siege of Veii, and to which the Juno of the captured city was removed after she had given a verbal consent when asked whether she wished to go to Rome and inhabit a new temple, much as the modern queen of heaven is apt to do in modern times at Rome.[181] The Temples of Liberty and Juno were both rebuilt under Augustus; some imagine that they were under a common roof. If they were distinct buildings, nothing of the former remains; some beautiful columns built into the church of Sta. Sabina are all that remain of the temple of Juno, though Livy thought that her reign here would be eternal—
... in Aventinum, æternam sedem suam.[182]
Also belonging to this group was a Temple of Minerva.
Sol abit a Geminis, et Cancri signa rubescunt:
Cœpit Aventina Pallas in arce coli.[183]
Here the dramatist Livius Andronicus, who lived upon the Aventine, was honoured after his death by a company of scribes and actors. Another poet who lived upon the Aventine was Ennius, who is described as inhabiting a humble dwelling, and being attended by a single female slave. The poet Gallus also lived here.
Totis, Galle, jubes tibi me servire diebus,
Et per Aventinum ter quater ire tuum![184]
On the other side of the Aventine (above the Circus Maximus), which was originally covered with myrtle—a shrub now almost extinct at Rome—on the site now occupied by Sta. Prisca, was a more important Temple of Diana, sometimes called by the Sabine name of Murcia,—built in imitation of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Propertius writes—
Phyllis Aventinæ quædam est vicina Dianæ;[185]