he Aventine, and also the Janiculum;(14) the Palatine,
as the oldest and proper city, was enclosed by the other heights
along which the wall was carried, as if encircled with a wreath,
and the two castles occupied the middle.

The work, however, was not complete so long as the ground, protected
by so laborious exertions from outward foes, was not also reclaimed
from the dominion of the water, which permanently occupied the
valley between the Palatine and the Capitol, so that there was
perhaps even a ferry there, and which converted the valleys between
the Capitol and the Velia and between the Palatine and the Aventine
into marshes. The subterranean drains still existing at the
present day, composed of magnificent square blocks, which excited
the astonishment of posterity as a marvellous work of regal Rome,
must rather be reckoned to belong to the following epoch, for
travertine is the material employed and we have many accounts of
new structures of the kind in the times of the republic; but the
scheme itself belongs beyond doubt to the regal period, although
presumably to a later epoch than the designing of the Servian wall
and the Capitoline stronghold. The spots thus drained or dried
supplied large open spaces such as were needed by the new enlarged
city. The assembling-place of the community, which had hitherto been
the Area Capitolina at the stronghold itself, was now transferred to
the flat space, where the ground fell from the stronghold towards
the city (-comitium-), and which stretched thence between the
Palatine and the Carinae, in the direction of the Velia. At that
side of the -comitium- which adjoined the stronghold, and upon the
stronghold-wall which arose above the -comitium- in the fashion
of a balcony, the members of the senate and the guests of the city
had the place of honour assigned to them on occasion of festivals
and assemblies of the people; and at the place of assembly itself
was erected the senate-house, which afterwards bore the name of the
Curia Hostilia. The platform for the judgment-seat (-tribunal-),
and the stage whence the burgesses were addressed (the later rostra),
were likewise erected on the -comitium- itself. Its prolongation in
the direction of the Velia became the new market (-forum Romanum-).
At the end of the latter, beneath the Palatine, rose the
community-house, which included the official dwelling of the king
(-regia-) and the common hearth of the city, the rotunda form