which it was sung. To me at last it has
become clear enough in all its main points; and I will give here my own
results, which do not altogether coincide with those of other recent
inquirers.

Before the discovery of the great inscription we knew that this hymn was
sung before the new temple of Apollo on the Palatine; we now know that
it was also sung on the Capitol,[947] thus uniting in one performance
the old religion of republican Rome with the new imperial cult of
Apollo. But this new fact has, in my opinion, led to misapprehensions
both of the manner of singing and the order of subjects in the hymn.
Mommsen thought that the first part was sung on the Palatine, the middle
part on the Capitol, and the last again on the Palatine, and he is
followed by Wissowa; and both seem to think it possible that there may
have been singing too during the procession from the one hill to the
other.[948] I think we need not trouble ourselves about the latter
point, for the Via Sacra, by which the procession must have gone, was
far too narrow and irregular to allow fifty-four singers, with the
_tibicines_ who must have been accompanying them, to walk and perform at
the same time.[949] The inscription, too, says plainly that the hymn was
sung on the Palatine and then on the Capitol, and by that plain
statement of fact we had better abide.

Now let us note that these two stations on the two hills were the best
possible positions for Augustus' purpose, not only because of their
religious importance, but because they afforded the most spacious views
of the city, now everywhere adorned with new or restored buildings. The
temple of Apollo was built upon a large and lofty area at the north-east
end of the Palatine.[950] Recent excavations have shown it to be some
hundred yards broad by a hundred and fifty in length, and Ovid, in a
passage of his _Tristia_[951] gives us an idea of its height:

inde tenore pari gradibus sublimia celsis
ducor ad intonsi candida templa dei.

On this area the choirs of boys and girls took their station, facing the
marble temple, on the _fastigium_ of which was represented the Sun
driving his four-horse chariot.[952] After singing, probably together,
the first two stanzas or exordium of the hymn, they addressed this Sol:

alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui
promis et celas, aliusque et idem
nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma
visere maius.

As they sang these last words, they would turn towards th