[Illustration: TARPEIAN ROCK.]
After the name of the hill was changed for the last time, one part, we
are told, retained the name of the Tarpeian Rock, from being the
burial-place of Tarpeia, and the spot from which the traitors were
hurled off in sight of the people assembled in the Forum. The house in
front of us is built upon a ledge of the rock below, and has upon it
the following inscription:--
"Hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem, et Capitolia ducit,
Aurea nunc, olim, silvestribus horrida dumis."
VIRGIL, _Æn._ viii. 347.
GREGORIUS XIII. PONT. MAX. VIAM TARPEIAM APERINT
HIER. ALTERIUS AEDILIS SECUNDO } CURABANT
PAULUS BUBALUS AEDILIS SEXTO }
ANNO DOMINI MDLXXXI.
"The quæstors led the man [Spurius Cassius] to the top of the
precipice that commands the Forum, and in the presence of all the
citizens threw him down from the rock. For this was the established
punishment at that time among the Romans for those who were condemned
to die"--A.U.C. 269--(Dionysius, viii. 78).
_If we look back up_ the street we came down, the height will be seen
in the garden above us. It must be remembered that the top of the hill
has been levelled, and the valley below filled in thirty feet;
allowing for this there would have been a fall of upwards of 160 feet.
The steps on our left formed the third ancient approach to the arx,
the _Centum Gradus_, up which the Vitellians climbed when they took
the citadel. On the site of the garden above stood