could view the sports. However, as you can
see, the greater part of the palace is still buried under that big garden
up above, the garden of the Villa Mills. When there's money for fresh
excavations it will be found again, together with the temple of Apollo
and the shrine of Vesta which accompanied it."

Turning to the left, he next entered the Stadium, the arena erected for
foot-racing, which stretched beside the palace of Augustus; and the
priest's interest was now once more awakened. It was not that he found
himself in presence of well-preserved and monumental remains, for not a
column had remained erect, and only the right-hand walls were still
standing. But the entire plan of the building had been traced, with the
goals at either end, the porticus round the course, and the colossal
imperial tribune which, after being on the left, annexed to the house of
Augustus, had afterwards opened on the right, fitting into the palace of
Septimius Severus. And while Pierre looked on all the scattered remnants,
his guide went on chattering, furnishing the most copious and precise
information, and declaring that the gentlemen who directed the
excavations had mentally reconstructed the Stadium in each and every
particular, and were even preparing a most exact plan of it, showing all
the columns in their proper order and the statues in their niches, and
even specifying the divers sorts of marble which had covered the walls.

"Oh! the directors are quite at ease," the old soldier eventually added
with an air of infinite satisfaction. "There will be nothing for the
Germans to pounce on here. They won't be allowed to set things
topsy-turvy as they did at the Forum, where everybody's at sea since they
came along with their wonderful science!"

Pierre--a Frenchman--smiled, and his interest increased when, by broken
steps and wooden bridges thrown over gaps, he followed the guide into the
great ruins of the palace of Severus. Rising on the southern point of the
Palatine, this palace had overlooked the Appian Way and the Campagna as
far as the eye could reach. Nowadays, almost the only remains are the
substructures, the subterranean halls contrived under the arches of the
terraces, by which the plateau of the hill was enlarged; and yet these
dismantled substructures suffice to give some idea of the triumphant
palace which they once upheld, so huge and powerful have they remained in
their indestructible massiveness. Near by arose the fam