The municipal authorities have lately pulled down a house on the Vicus
Jugarius which obstructed the view of the far end of the Tarpeian Rock
from the Forum. We use the title Tarpeian Rock as applied to the place
of execution and not to the whole hill. They have exposed to view not
only the rock, but likewise one side of the Temple of Ops, composed of
large blocks of tufa stone surmounted by later brick structures. The
earliest mention we have of this temple is in B.C. 183, when Livy says
(xxxix. 22): "By order of the pontiffs a supplication, of one day's
continuance, was added on account of the Temple of Ops, near the
Capitol, having been struck by lightning." This temple is also
mentioned by Cicero, from whom we learn that it was where the clerks
kept the accounts of the treasury: "Would that the money remained in
the Temple of Ops! Bloodstained, indeed, it may be, but still needful
at these times, since it is not restored to those to whom it really
belongs" (First "Philippic," 7). "Who delivered yourself from an
enormous burden of debt at the Temple of Ops; who, by your dealings
with the account-books there, squandered a countless sum of money"
(Second, 14). "Where are the seven hundred millions of sesterces
which were entered in the account-books which are in the Temple of
Ops? A sum lamentable indeed as to the means by which it was procured,
but still one which, if it were not restored to those to whom it
belonged, might save us from taxes" (Second, 37). "And that accounts
of the money in the Temple of Ops are not to be meddled with. That is
to say, that those seven hundred millions of sesterces are not to be
recovered from him; that the Septemviri are to be exempt from blame or
from prosecution for what they have done" (Eighth, 9).
Ops was the daughter of Cœlus and Terra, and the wife of Saturn;
hence her connection with the treasury. The temple was turned into a
church, and called S. Salvatore in Ærario, or in Statera (the Saviour
in the Treasury), which lapsed into S. Maria in Portico. It has now
become a fruit shop; and a small fresco of the Crucifixion, very much
obliterated, marks its former use. The west wall of the temple has
been exposed in the recent changes, and part of the eastern wall can
be seen by entering the court-yard by the flight of steps through the
wall, No. 57, opposite the end of S. Maria di Consolazione.
_The Via Consolazione and the Via Montanara to the right bring us to_