Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna

by Robert Burn

Palatine temples.

On the other side of this street is an entrance to the subterranean caves which have been cut in this part of the hill. These hollows were mainly stone quarries and wells. A puteal, or well-cover, has been placed over one of these in front of the house which we have described. On this side of the street also stand the foundations which have been supposed to have belonged to the priests of the Temple of Jupiter Propugnator on the Palatine, some portions of the fasti of whose college have been found near the Basilica Julia and the Marforio.[23] There is also the foundation of a temple, called by Rosa the Temple of Jupiter Victor, to be seen extending from this street towards the viridarium of the ædes publicæ of Domitian before mentioned, and towards the edge of the hill which looks over the Circus Maximus. These ruins consist of masses of tufa work mixed with later brickwork of the Antonine times. The pedestal with the name of Gnæus Domitius Calvinus which is placed here came, as we have said, from the spot called the Area Palatina before mentioned. The Notitia also places the Temple of Jupiter Victor in the Area Palatina, and for these two reasons the name seems to be wrongly applied to this ruin. We can trace in it the remains of a building raised on a basement with lofty flights of steps, alternating with terraces in front, towards the Circus Maximus, just as we find at Tibur and at Tusculum temples, placed on the side of a hill with high flights of steps ascending to them.[24]

Germalus and Scala Caci.

The remainder of the upper level of this north-western corner of the hill is occupied by numerous ruins of squared tufa stone, which evidently belonged to some of the most ancient and venerated relics of Rome. This was, no doubt, the part of the Palatine to which the name Germalus was given, in memory of the Germani, or twin-brothers, Romulus and Remus, who were cast ashore at its foot from the flooded waters of the Tiber. Two distinct edifices have been disclosed here, from the first of which, a rectangular foundation of tufa stones, a passage bearing marks of great antiquity descends towards the church of Anastasia and the gas works. This rectangular ruin has been called by many various names, such as the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, the Tugurium Faustuli, the Temple of the Magna Mater Cybele, or of the Lares Præstites. The descending passage to the Vallis Murcia has been supposed to be the Scala Caci mentioned by Solinus,[25] and it is possible that the legend of Cacus refers to this point of the Palatine next to the Aventine. The marks on the stones of this descent are probably only quarry marks. No brickwork is found here in the lower ruins nor any marbles. But in the mass of fragments there are remains of the republican and of the imperial restorations of the many venerated buildings and altars which must have stood upon this corner of the hill. On the right hand of this descent a small rectangular court was discovered in 1872, with a staircase and a channel for water running through it. This is thought by Lanciani to have been possibly the fifth Argean Chapel, which was somewhere on the Germalus. A statue found here bears some marks of having represented the goddess Cybele.

Auguratorium.

The most conspicuous ruin at this end of the hill is a mass of concrete and tufa blocks, apparently of the republican era, in the shape of a rectangular basement. This has the form of a temple in antis, i.e. with projecting wings, and faces the south, commanding a view over the Aventine and Tiber valley. Cav. Rosa has conjectured that this is the ruin of the auguratorium mentioned by the Notitia as situated near the other most ancient sacred spots on the Palatine. But an inscription which records the restoration of the auguratorium by Hadrian does not support this view, as the work now remaining is mostly republican.[26] Lanciani thinks that this may have been the Ædes Matris Deum, to which the statue found as before mentioned in front of it belonged.

At the back of the so-called auguratorium we find a long series of rooms running in a line across the hill from north-west to south-east, which have vaulted roofs and are similar to those found below in the domus Gelotiana, before described. Cav. Rosa has inferred with reason from this and from the graffiti in these rooms that they formed a part of the offices and guard-rooms attached to that large portion of the palace which lay on the site now occupied by the gardens and the vast masses of brickwork at the northern corner of the hill. The graffiti to be seen here are chiefly the scribblings of soldiers’ names, rude sketches of ships and animals, and combats of gladiators.

Tiberiana domus.

Several passages of the Roman historians lead us to conclude that the suite of rooms occupied by Tiberius were situated here. It was from the Tiberiana Domus, as Tacitus relates, that Vitellius surveyed the conflagration of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and the engagement between his adherents and the Flavian party under Sabinus. The Tiberian part of the palace was also that through which, as Tacitus also tells us, Otho descended into the Velabrum, after joining Galba at the sacrifice in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine.[27] Afterwards, the Tiberiana Domus became the favourite residence of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, and it was probably during their reigns that the library which we find mentioned by Gellius was established here.[28]

We now pass through the garden grounds which lie over the remains of the Domus Tiberiana, and descend on the side which looks over the Forum, by a long staircase through the immense masses of brickwork and concrete which are said to have been part of the insane additions of Caligula to the imperial palace. He is declared to have made a passage from this wing of the palace to the back of the Temple of Castor below in the Forum, in order that he might appear in that sacred shrine as an equal of the twin gods and an object of worship when the Senate met there. He also joined this corner of the palace with the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter by a huge viaduct, which passed over the Basilica Julia, in order that he might thus make himself the contubernalis of Jupiter.[29] Some of the substructions of this viaduct are to be seen near the back of the church of S. Maria Liberatrice. We now leave the Palatine by the Clivus Victoriæ, along which we entered, and turn to the arch of Titus and the ruins which stand near it.