_To the right from the gardens, the_ VIA QUIRINALE brings us to the
new Via Nazionale. Where this winds round is a piece of a wall of the
kings. Plutarch ("Numa," xiv.) and Solinus (i. 21) tell us that Numa
lived upon the Quirinal, where he built an arx (Hieron. i. 298),
called, after the Capitoline Hill was so named, CAPITOLIUM VETUS. In
it was a temple to Jupiter (Varro, "L. L." v.; Martial, v. 22). In
those days a tongue jutted out here towards the Capitoline Hill, and
this piece of wall bars the way to it, so it is probably a piece of
the arx that defended the tongue.