med in Rome in a more effective way
than they are now exhibited at Oberammergau. They took place, not on a
wooden stage, so suggestive of conventionality, but in a quarter of
the city most wonderfully adapted to represent the Via Dolorosa of
Jerusalem, from the houses of Pilate and Caiaphas to the summit of
Calvary.

The passion-play began at a house, Via della Bocca della Verita, No.
37, which is still called the "Locanda della Gaiffa," a corruption of
_Gaifa_, or _Caiaphas_. From this place the procession moved across
the street to the "Casa di Pilato," as the house of Crescenzio was
called, where the scenes of the Ecce Homo, the flagellation, and the
crowning with thorns, were probably enacted. The Via Dolorosa
corresponds to our streets of the Bocca della Verita, Salara,
Marmorata, and Porta S. Paolo; there must have been stations at
intervals for the representation of the various episodes, such as the
meeting with the Virgin Mary, the fainting under the cross, the
meeting with Veronica and with the man from Cyrene. The performance
culminated on the summit of the Monte Testaccio, where three crosses
were erected. One is still there.

Readers who have had an opportunity of studying the Via Dolorosa at
Jerusalem will be struck by the resemblance between the original and
its Roman imitation. The latter must have been planned by crusaders
and pilgrims on their return from the Holy Land towards the end of the
thirteenth century. Every particular, even those which rest on
doubtful tradition, was repeated here, such as that referring to the
house of the rich man, and to the stone in front of it on which
Lazarus sat. A ruin half-way between the house of Pilate, by the Ponte
Rotto, and the Monte Testaccio, or Calvary, is still called the Arco
di S. Lazaro.

The Mausoleum of Augustus was explored archaeologically for the
first time in 1527, when the obelisk now in the Piazza di S. Maria
Maggiore was found on the south side, near the church of S. Rocco. On
July 14, 1519, Baldassarre Peruzzi discovered and copied some
fragments of the original inscriptions _in situ_; but the discovery
made in 1777 casts all that preceded it into the shade. In the spring
of that year, while the corner house between the Corso and the Via
degli Otto Cantoni (opposite the Via della Croce) was being built, the
_ustrinum_, or sacred enclosure for the cremation of the members of
the imperial family, came to light, lined with a profusion of
histor