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PALATINE HILL] fig-tree and the statue of Marsyas are repeated. Other explanations of these reliefs have been given, but the above appears the most probable. Towards the other end of the Forum are remains of a large concrete pedestal. It may possibly have supported an equestrian statue of Constantine, which was still standing in the 8th century. A smaller foundation, laid bare by Comm. Boni's excavations in 1905, is thought by him to have supported the equestrian statue of Q. Marcius Tremulus, the conqueror of the Hernici, set up before the temple of Castor in 305 (Liv. ix. 43).

In addition to the early walls described above, only a few remains now exist earlier in date than the later years of the republic; these are mostly grouped near the Scalae Caci (see fig. 10, in Plan), and consist of small cellae and other structures of unknown use. They are partly built of the soft tufa used in the “wall of Romulus,” and partly of hard granulated tufa so called. Various names, such as the “hut of Faustulus” and the “Auguratorium,” have been given to these very ancient remains, but with little reason. On thing is certain, that the buildings were respected and preserved even under the empire, and were probably regarded as sacred relics of the earliest times.

From the Summa Sacra Via a road led to the Area Palatina in the centre of the hill. Here was the sanctuary called Roma quadrata,

containing the mundus, a pit in which the instruments used in the founding of the city were deposited. To the east was the Area Apollinis, the entrance of which led through lofty propylaea into a very extensive peristyle or porticus, with columns of Numidian giallo; the temple was of white Luna marble. In the centre of this enclosure stood the great octostyle peripteral temple of Apollo Palatinus. The splendour of its architecture and the countless works of art in gold,