"Romulus dwelt close by the steps, as they call them, of the fair
shore, near the descent from the Mount Palatine to the Circus Maximus.
There, they say, grew the holy blackthorn tree, of which they report
that Romulus once, to try his strength, threw a dart from Mount
Aventine, which struck so deep that no one could pluck it up, and grew
into a trunk of considerable size, which posterity preserved and
worshipped as one of the most sacred things, and therefore walled it
about.
"But, they say, when Caius Cæsar was repairing the steps about it,
some of the labourers digging too close, the root corrupted, and the
tree quite withered."
Now, in this passage, we think we have an explanation of why it is
called the Stairs of Caius, _not_ Cacus. This name does not refer to
Cacus, the shepherd robber, who had his cave on the Aventine, but, as
we learn from the above passage from Plutarch, to Caius the emperor,
who was nicknamed Caligula from his having worn the sandals so-called
of the Roman troops--he having been brought up in the camp on the
banks of the Rhine, Caius being his proper name. He, as we have seen,
repaired these steps, and so they were called after him; but that was
not their previous name. The question arises, What was that name? Why,
none other than the Porta Carmenta, the missing third gate of Roma
Quadrata, "the gate _since_ called Carmental by the Roman state."
It was up this gateway that the Romans brought the Sabine women when
they ran off with them in the Circus Maximus. Valerius Antias says
they were five hundred and forty-seven in number; Plutarch says there
were six hundred and eighty-three, and that the event took place on
the 18th of August.
But before this the gate had another name, the original name in the
Arcadian period. We know from Virgil and Diodorus Siculus that it
existed before the time of Romulus, and was incorporated by him into
his city. Let us see what that name was.
"Hercules, after he had gone through Liguria and Tuscany, encamped on
the banks of the Tiber, where Rome now stands, built many ages after
by Romulus, the son of Mars. The natural inhabitants at that time
inhabited a little town upon a hill, now called Mount Palatine. Here
Potitius and Pinarius, the most eminent persons of quality among them,
entertained Hercules. There are now at Rome ancient monuments of these
men; for the most noble family, called the Pinarii, remains still
among the Romans, and is accounted the most ancient at this day. And
there are Potitius's stone stairs to go down from Mount Palatine
(called after his name), adjoining to that which was anciently his
house" (Diodorus Siculus, iv. 1). Thus we see that the spot was
originally called the Stairs of Potitius.
Virgil ("Æn.," viii.) informs us that Potitius, the Arcadian high
priest, instituted the worship of Hercules; and that the priests were
selected from the Pinarian house.
"When the new walls were built by Servius Tullius, one of his gates
was named Carmentalis after the above tradition; the original Porta
Carmenta having become obsolete."
The valley between the Palatine and Aventine, the site of the Circus
Maximus, was formerly the Murzian Lake or bay, formed by an arm of the
Tiber, and these stairs led down to the fair shore (Pulcrum Littus,
Καλὴ Ἀκτή)--that is, to the shore of the lake, where Æneas
landed--and this had nothing to do with the banks of the Tiber, which
would hardly be called a fair shore by Plutarch. Virgil calls it "the
strand."
_The above name was also given to one of the temples._