[605]. G. Boni, in Notizie degli Scavi, May 1900, pp. 161, 172; id., Aedes Vestae, p. 14 (extract from the Nuova Antologia, 1st August 1900). Copies of these and other papers containing Commendatore Boni’s account of his memorable excavations and discoveries were kindly given me by him during my stay in Rome in the winter of 1900-1901. That the fire in question was a sacrificial one is proved by the bones, potsherds, and rude copper money found among the ashes. Commend. Boni thinks that the charred remains of the wood prove that the fire was extinguished, probably by libations, and that therefore it cannot have been the perpetual holy fire of Vesta, which would have burned up completely all the fuel. But a new fire was annually lit on the first of March (Ovid, Fasti, iii. 143 sq.; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 12. 6), which may imply that the old fire was ceremonially extinguished, as often happens in such cases.
[606]. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 37.
[607]. O. Richter, Topographie der Stadt Rom, 2nd Ed., p. 211.
[608]. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 237. The inscription was probably not in the Etruscan language, but only in an archaic alphabet like that employed in the inscription on the pyramidal stone which has been found under the Black Stone in the Forum.
[609]. G. Boni, “Bimbi Romulei,” Nuova Antologia, 16th February 1904, pp. 5 sqq. (separate reprint); E. Burton-Brown, Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum (London, 1904), p. 150.
[610]. Festus, s.v. “Oscillantes,” p. 194, ed. C. O. Müller.
[611]. Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. iv. 49; A. Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, i. 341; H. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, ii. 580. It is to be observed that Dionysius does not here speak of the dedication of a temple to Jupiter; when he describes the foundation of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter by Tarquin (iv. 59 and 61) his language is quite different. The monastery, founded in 1777 by Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, has now been converted into a meteorological station and an inn (K. Baedeker, Central Italy and Rome, 13th Ed., p. 400). It is fitting enough that the atmospheric phenomena should be observed by modern science on the spot where they were worshipped by ancient piety.
[612]. Livy, i. 31. 3.
[613]. According to tradition, the future site of Alba Longa was marked out by a white sow and her litter, which were found lying under evergreen oaks (Virgil, Aen. viii. 43), as Mr. A. B. Cook has pointed out (Classical Review, xviii. 363). The tradition seems to shew that the neighbourhood of the city was wooded with oaks.