There is a place in Rome—there is a place—reader, thou mayest have seen it—on the right hand as thou goest up the steps of the Asylum ascending from the forum to the capitol.
"There is a place," wrote Sallust, some nineteen hundred years ago—"There is a place, within the prison, which is called Tullianum, after you have ascended a little way to the left, about twelve feet underground. It is built strongly with walls on every side, and arched above with a stone vaulting. But its aspect is foul and terrible from neglect, darkness, and stench."
It is there now—thou mayest have seen it, reader. Men call it the Mamertine Prison. It was then called Tullianum, because it was so antique at that time, that vague tradition only told of its origin long centuries before, built by the fabulous King Tullius.
The Tullianum—The Mamertine Prison.
The bath, which Jugurtha found very cold, when the earrings had been torn from his bleeding ears, and, stript of his last vestment, he was let down to die by the hangman's noose.
The prison, in which, scarce one century later, Saint Paul was held in durance, what time "Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, had he not appealed unto Cæsar."
Unto Cæsar?
Cæsar the third Emperor, the third tyrant of the Roman people.
Lentulus had appealed unto Cæsar, and was cast likewise into the Tullianum.
The voice of the people, is the voice of God.