e association of the Tarpeian Rock with the Capitoline
Hill. They were as closely correlated as the moot-hill and the Gallow
hill in our own country. The primitive method of execution derived a
sanctity from its antiquity, and was continued far on into the most
civilised times of the empire.

So densely crowded were the historical buildings and remarkable sites
in that part of the Forum which lay immediately behind the Capitol,
that it is almost impossible now to identify their position or
remains. This spot forms the great battle-ground of the antiquaries,
whose conclusions in many instances are mere guess-work. Below the
medieval tower of the Capitol is a wide space paved with fragments of
coloured marbles, and with indications of the ground-plan of a
building. This is supposed to mark the site of the Temple of Concord,
erected by the great general Camillus, after the expulsion of the
Gauls, to perpetuate the concord between the plebeians and patricians
on the vexed question of the election of consuls. It was placed beside
the old meeting-place of the privileged families. From the charred
state of some of its sculptures discovered on the spot, it is
supposed to have been destroyed by fire. It was restored and enlarged
a hundred and twenty years before Christ by the Consul Opimius
immediately after the murder of Caius Gracchus. To the classical
student it is specially interesting as the place where Cicero convoked
the senate after the discovery of the Catiline conspiracy, for the
purpose of fixing the punishment due to one of the greatest of crimes.
Among the senators present on that memorable occasion were men of the
highest political and philosophical renown, including Caesar, Cato, and
Cicero. They came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as
retribution beyond the grave, no future state of consciousness, no
immortality of the soul; consequently death was considered too mild a
punishment for the impious treason of the conspirators; and a penalty,
which should keep alive instead of extinguishing suffering, was
advocated. We learn from this extraordinary argument, as Merivale well
says, how utter was the religious scepticism among the brightest
intellects of Rome only thirty-seven years before the coming of
Christ. The very name of the temple itself, dedicated not to a divine
being as in a more pious age, but to a mere political abstraction, a
mere symbol of a compact effected between two discordant parties