rescoes. The desire of finding the name and the
history of the first occupants of this noble tomb, whose memory seems
to have been so dear to the faithful, led the explorers to carefully
sift the earth which filled the place; and their pains were rewarded
by the discovery of a fragment of a marble coffin, inscribed with the
letters: ACILIO GLABRIONI FILIO.

[Illustration: Tablet of Acilius Glabrio.]

Did this fragment really belong to the [Greek: G] crypt, or had it
been thrown there by mere chance? And in case of its belonging to the
crypt, was it an isolated record, or did it belong to a group of
graves of the Acilii Glabriones? The queries were fully answered by
later discoveries; four inscriptions, naming Manius Acilius ... and
his wife Priscilla, Acilius Rufinus, Acilius Quintianus, and Claudius
Acilius Valerius were found among the debris, so that there is no
doubt as to the ownership of the crypt, and of the chapel which opens
at the end of the longer arm of the [Greek: G].

The Manii Acilii Glabriones attained celebrity in the sixth century of
Rome, when Acilius Glabrio, consul in 563 (B. C. 191), conquered the
Macedonians at the battle of Thermopylai. We have in Rome two records
of his career: the Temple of Piety, erected by him on the west side of
the Forum Olitorium, now transformed into the church of S. Nicola in
Carcere; and the pedestal of the equestrian statue, of gilt bronze,
offered to him by his son, the first of its kind ever seen in Italy,
which was discovered by Valadier in 1808, at the foot of the steps of
the temple, and buried again. Towards the end of the republic we find
them established on the Pincian Hill, where they had built a palace
and laid out gardens which extended at least from the convent of the
Trinita dei Monti to the Villa Borghese.[3] The family had grown so
rapidly to honor, splendor, and wealth, that Pertinax, in the
memorable sitting of the Senate in which he was elected emperor,
proclaimed them the noblest race in the world.

The Glabrio best known in the history of the first century is Manius
Acilius, who was consul with Trajan, A. D. 91. He was put to death by
Domitian in the year 95, as related by Suetonius (_Domit._ 10): "He
caused several senators and ex-consuls to be executed on the charge of
their conspiring against the empire,--_quasi molitores rerum
novarum_,--among them Civica Cerealis, governor of Asia, Salvidienus
Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio, who had previousl