THE PRÆTORIAN CAMP,
founded by Sejanus, the minister of Tiberius Cæsar, and destroyed by Constantine. The walls consist of brickwork, and have corridors on the inside, decorated with stucco and paintings. The camp was between the Portæ Viminalis and Nomentana, and forms a square projection in the present wall. It was outside the agger of Servius Tullius. The north wall is of the time of Tiberius; the east was rebuilt in the fourth century; the south has been reconstructed out of old square stones, probably material taken from the west or city wall (which has never been found), or from fragments of the Agger of Servius Tullius. To write the history of the Prætorian Camp would be equivalent to writing the history of Rome from Tiberius to Constantine. Here murderers were made emperors, and the empire put up to auction. Hence the Prætorians sallied out to attack the citizens, who in their turn assailed the camp. Here the guilty found asylum, and the innocent death.
Near the camp stood
THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.
Its site is now occupied by the Piazza del Macao. Fragments of the temple were found in August 1873, and an inscription to the goddess; also the statue of a female member of the Claudian family.
"Quintus Marcius Ralla, constituted commissioner for the purpose, dedicated the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia on the Quirinal Hill. Publius Sempronius Sophus had vowed this temple ten years before, in the Punic War, and, being afterwards censor, had employed persons to build it," A.U.C. 558 (Livy, xxxiv. 53).
Returning past the station, we come to the open space of the
PIAZZA DI TERMINI,
a rather pleasant garden square, surrounded with trees, in the midst of which spouts up the Aqua Marcia.
Passing along our right, we come to the