Albuquerque daily citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1895-1903, 1902-03-22
PALACES OF CAESARS
BY w.. {. CURTIS In Chicago Times Herald.

" tHO Sh1ot hAhJOlitN vi DtODlt llt
most interesting spots in Rome are st.
Peters cathedral, the Coliseum and
the Palatine Hill, that scene of impe-
rial splendor which is more closely
identified with the lives of the old Ro-
mans we have read so much about,
than any part of the city Their magni-
ficent but comfortless palaces stood
there, and they seem nearer and more
real to us when we visit them in their
homes, touch the walls which sheltered
them, and tread the floors that were
pressed by their golden sandals
used to think that Richard Couer
de Leon was merely a character in
fiction, until saw him in armor, han
died his sword and read his auto
graphs, and that Alfred the Great was
a NEUROLOGICAL idea until l went to
Winchester, where he lived There
is always more or less ~vagueness and
uncertainty in the mind about the he
o e of the ancient history, until you
run them down, as it were, and cor
ner them in their own haunts, and that
is the greatest benefits students derive
from the fountain head.
The Palatine is one of the seven
hills upon which Rome is built. and
the only one which is now practically
clear. The rest are covered with
modern buildings and the diggers and
graders, the superintendent of
streets and the architects of build
ings have taken such liberties with
the original topography that it
strains the Imagination to see them
as they used to be. But the Palatine
for various causes has been kept
clear, and we a now actually visit
the place where Evander, the shep-
herd king, is represented by Virgil as
entertaining Aeneas; where Hercules
lived, and where the Sylvan g~oddesses
of the primeval woods used to per-
form skirt dances for the entertain
ment of the fauns. We can see very
plainly in several places the parts of
wall which Romulus built to surround
the new city, tracing the lines at the
foot Of the hill with a pillow drawn by
a bull and a heifer, with the heifer
yoked to the near side to signify that
strength and courage were required
without and obedience and fertility
within the city. There is also a well,
which we are told is the oldest thing
in Rome, as it was there before Romu-
lus came.
For a century or more those exact
lhS 0tl Ildh IldtCli dllSlS udNS DCCh
trying to destroy our belief in the
beautiful legend about the two boys
who founded the Eternal City and
send them back into the NEUROLOGICAL
department, but Professor Lancianni,
the great German archeologist, who,
by the way, has an American wife,
has rescued them, and within the last
few years has found some inscrip-
tions or pottery or something of that
sort by which he is able to establish
their reality, although 1 fear the wolf
that sucked them was a fake. The
hut of ROmulus was preserved, until
the time of Nero. We are shown the
place on the brow of the hill where
the two brothers quarreled, like Cain
and Abel, and one slew the other.
From that date until the invasion of
the barbarians the Palatine Hill was
almost continuously smeared with
blood.
One of the first things you see af-
ter entering the Palatine is a block of
marble, beautifully sculptured as high
as the breast of a man, five feet long,
and three feet thick, standing alone
in a little am~phitheater. which the
guide tells us was an altar to an I'M
known god, perhaps the same that
Paul referred to-. 1t was discovered in
1920, where it stands, and the inscrip-
ton reads: "Sei Dec Sci Deivae Sac.
G. Saxatus C f. Calvinus Pr--
De Sanati Sententia Restivi."
Beyond us is the most interesting
thing Of all, one which touches ne
personality Of every visitor, the
anne of a lot of Roman school boys
scrubbed upon the walls of the peda'
gominm, or school house, at which the
sons of patrician families were edit
Gated. Human nature was about the
same then as now. Boys have been
boys from the time Ewes FIRST baby
was born. and these Roman young
sters more than 1000 years ago took
the liberty to express in words or
convictions their opinions of the
schoolmaster and the books they were
reuired to study, with the crayon or
lead pencils upon the walls OF what
might have been the vestibule of tie
schoolhouse. You will find the same
thing in every s~choolhouse in the
world. just The same at the cross roads
in Vermont or Iowa as in the palaces
of the Caesars.
What interests scholars more than
anything else, and one of the most
striking disclosures ever made in the
excavations of the Palatine, is a carl
cature of the crucifixion Among the
early followers of Christ were mem
bers of the noble families of Rome,
and Paul, in one of his epistles to
Timothy, | think, told him that the
Christians in Caesars household sa-
lutte him, or something of hat sort.
1t is the theory of the psychologists
that the young son of n of these
Christian families attended school at
the palace. and was leased about the
new religion by his playfellows, and
to make fun of him they drew a rude
sketch upon the wall of a school boy
worshipping his Savior upon the cross.
wearing the head of an ass. Beneath
is the inscription in Greek, "AleXame-
nus worships his god"
Upon the Palatine Hill were the
grandest temples and palaces the world
has ever seen. built when Rome was
a city of $500 900 people; when 400