Hills. The Palatine, once so celebrated, has no modern building on it of any importance. It runs the length of the Campo Vaccino, towards the south-west. Though the ground in this spot is high, it evidently forms only part of what was called in the time of the Romans the Palatine Hill. The latter extended itself to the spot where now stands the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, and the Arch of Titus, and also to the site of San Lorenzo in Miranda, and Santa Maria Nuova. The Palatine had formerly several small hills attached to it; but the whole is so changed at present, by the leveling of high lands and the filling up of valleys, that the Palatine Hill is now only a gentle emi

nence.

The Capitol, or Capitoline Hill, was the first acquisition made by Romulus after the buildings on the Palatine. This hill is of an oval shape. It has two summits between the Piazza Montanara and the Marcel de Corvi. The one is now occupied by the church of the Araceli; and the other, covered by ordinary houses, is called the Monte Caprino.

Great part of the ancient Capitol has fallen into the adjoining plains; for we know, from the authority of Livy, that it was once surrounded with lofty stone walls, towers, and gates, and formed an almost impregnable cita

del, enclosing within it several temples and other edifices; but the Tarpeian Rock, which was near the Piazza Montanara, and required neither prop nor support, was not within these limits. The greater part of this precipice has been leveled: a strong cliff of some height still remains, but hidden by a number of houses, near the Piazza della Consolazione; but the rest of the mountain has been buried under the ruins of houses destroyed during the several sieges to which Rome has been exposed, and more particularly by the attack of Robert Guiscard, in the time of pope Gregory the Seventh, when the buildings of the Capitol were entirely destroyed, and all that part of the city demolished which stood between the Capitol and the church of St. John of Latran.

This hill was first called the Saturnian Hill, on account of an ancient city which had been built here and consecrated to Saturn. It next received the denomination of Tarpeian, from a young female killed by the Sabines and buried here; but both these names were abandoned, in the reign of the elder Tarquin, when, in digging the foundations of a temple of Jupiter, a human head was discovered. The augurs, with happy confidence, declared that the skull was a propitious sign, and denominating the spot where it was found Caput Mundi (whence

came the word Capitol), prophesied that it should become the mistress of the world.

The third hill of Rome is the Celius, or Celian, of which the church of St. John of Latran occupies the highest point. The Celius has a long and narrow shape. It begins near the Coliseum, which stands on its western extremity, and extends eastward, with some windings, by the road leading from the churches of St. Clement, St. Peter, and S. Marcellino, to the Porta Maggiore. It ends on one side between the church of St. John and that of Santa Croce of Jerusalem; and extends on the other, towards the west, following the walls of the city, as far as the spot where the Marrana enters Rome; and approaching, with that rivulet, the Aventine Hill, ends near the church of S. Georgio, opposite the Palatine. The spot where stands the Santa Croce of Jerusalem, more properly belongs to the Celian than to the Esquiline; but the Amphitheatrum Castrense, immediately adjoining that church, being within the precincts of the latter, it has been thought expedient to place the neighbouring church also in that division.

The fourth hill of Rome is called the Aventine; on the top of which stands the modern church of Santa Sabina. It is bounded on one side by the Tiber, and on the other by the

Palatine and the Celian Hills. Its extent is considerable, beginning with the Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and ending to the south-west with the walls of Rome, which run beyond the Great Circus, the therma of Antonínus, and, the Monte Testacio. The Aventine is divided

into two small hills, by a plain which commences at the Porta di San Paolo, and ends in the gardens of the Great Circus.

The Quirinal (forming the fifth hill of Rome), begins with Trajan's Pillar, at the spot now called Monte Bagnanapoli; and thence extending itself to the west, passes, through the garden of the Colonna palace, to the pontifical mansion of Monte Cavallo (which is also sometimes, called the Quirinal palace), and beyond the ancient Campus Martius; thence stretching it. self towards the north, by the palace, of Barberini and the church of St, Susannah, ends near the Porta Salara, and near another hill called the Colle degli Ortuli, where now is the Trinita del Monte.

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The other side of the Quirinal extends from the Monte Bagnanapoli to the churches of San Caio and San Bernardo, almost in a parallel line with the Viminal, which seems joined to it. near San Bernardo; but it is not difficult to discover that the separation formerly wass dis stinctly marked, The therma of Dioclesian

(now the convent of the Carthusians) stand in the valley which separates the Quirinal from the Viminal Hill; the ground of which is now so much raised, that the ancient pavement of the thermæ is eight feet lower than the present surface. The Quirinal had formerly several eminences, but they have all been leveled; particularly one in the garden of Colonna, which pope Urban VIII. ordered to be destroyed, because it commanded (and consequently interrupted the privacy of) his palace.

The Viminal was the sixth hill of Rome. The most remarkable object which it now possesses is the church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, situated in the street which runs from the Pillar of Trajan to the basilick of S. Maria Maggiore. Its form is long and narrow. It begins with the church of the Madonna de Monte, three hundred feet to the north of San Francesco di Paolo, and runs towards the west, opposite the Quirinal, as far as the thermæ of Dioclesian, where these hills now appear to join. On the east it spreads itself in a parallel line with the Esquiline Hill; whence it is separated by the street called by the ancient Ro mans Vicus Patritius, running from the church of San Lorenzo in Fonte, which is near the Suburra, as far as the Santa Pudenziana.