huge
earthen rampart sloped towards the city and imposing even at the
present day--supplied the want of natural means of defence. From
thence it ran to the Capitoline, the steep declivity of which towards
the Campus Martius served as part of the city-wall, and it again
abutted on the river above the island in the Tiber. The Tiber
island with the bridge of piles and the Janiculum did not belong
strictly to the city, but the latter height was probably a fortified
outwork. Hitherto the Palatine had been the stronghold, but now
this hill was left open to be built upon by the growing city; and on
the other hand upon the Tarpeian Hill, standing free on every side,
and from its moderate extent easily defensible, there was constructed
the new "stronghold" (-arx-, -capitolium-(10)), containing the
stronghold-spring, the carefully enclosed "well-house" (-tullianum-),
the treasury (-aerarium-), the prison, and the most ancient place
of assemblage for the burgesses (-area Capitolina-), where still in
after times the regular announcements of the changes of the moon
continued to be made. Private dwellings of a permanent kind,
on the other hand, were not tolerated in earlier times on the
stronghold-hill;(11) and the space between the two summits of the
hill, the sanctuary of the evil god (-Ve-diovis-), or as it was
termed in the later Hellenizing epoch, the Asylum, was covered with
wood and presumably intended for the reception of the husbandmen
and their herds, when inundation or war drove them from the plain.
The Capitol was in reality as well as in name the Acropolis of Rome,
an independent castle capable of being defended even after the city
had fallen: its gate lay probably towards what was afterwards the
Forum.(12) The Aventine seems to have been fortified in a similar
style, although less strongly, and to have been preserved free from
permanent occupation. With this is connected the fact, that for
purposes strictly urban, such as the distribution of the introduced
water, the inhabitants of Rome were divided into the inhabitants
of the city proper (-montani-), and those of the districts situated
within the general ring-wall, but yet not reckoned as strictly
belonging to the city (-pagani Aventinensis-, -Ianiculenses-,
-collegia Capitolinorum et Mercurialium-).(13) The space enclosed
by the new city wall thus embraced, in addition to the former
Palatine and Quirinal cities, the two federal strongholds of the
Capitol and t