H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 135 
its sack and destruction by the Gauls in 390 B.c., houses were built pell- 
mell, without the lines of the streets being properly drawn, so that the 
old drains passed under private buildings, and the city had all the 
appearances of hasty construction. 
All this grew out of very small beginnings. The Palatine, the nucleus 
of the City of Rome upon the Seven Hills, had great natural advantages of 
position ; it was an almost flat-topped hill, with two distinct summits and 
a slight depression between them, protected by lofty cliffs, far more 
formidable than they seem at present, and almost entirely surrounded by 
two marshy valleys traversed by winding streams. Its neighbourhood to 
the Tiber enabled it to command the crossing, which, no doubt, existed 
in some form long before the foundation of Rome, probably just below 
the island, where the Pons Sublicius stood later. This crossing was of 
great importance, for it was the only permanent one over the whole lower 
course of the river. 
Even in the palmiest days of Rome there were no bridges over the 
Tiber below the city, and those that there are now are all quite modern ; 
while if we look upstream we find that above the city the only bridge for 
forty miles was that by which the Via Flaminia recrossed the river into 
Umbria just below Otricoli—and of that the last traces were obliterated 
by a flood some twenty years ago, which led to a complete change of 
course of the river. The traffic between the two banks was probably 
carried on by ferries, as at present. 
Tradition-ascribes the building of the Cloaca Maxima to a powerful 
race of foreign kings, the Tarquins, from the city of Tarquinii in Southern 
Etruria. A noticeable feature in Etruscan cities was the attention paid 
_ to drainage. Not only are rock-cut sewers a feature of Etruscan sites, but 
the system of tunnels for draining the territory to the north of Veii is 
one of the most remarkable in existence and well deserves study. The 
Tarquins are said to have ruled over Rome in the sixth century B.c., and 
this chronological statement is supported in a remarkable way by the 
_ discovery of tombs, the latest of which are dated down into the sixth 
century B.c., proving that the valley of the Forum was used as a burial- 
place until that time. It is not certain whether this cemetery belonged 
to the Palatine or the Septimontium ; but in any case burials must have 
ceased to take place here after the valley of the Forum was drained and 
had become the common market-place of the Latin-Sabine settlements on 
the Palatine and the Quirinal1 The valley of the Circus Maximus must 
have been drained at the same time, for tradition ascribes the beginnings 
of the circus and the assignment of definite places to the Senate and the 
ights (where they could erect wooden platforms twelve feet high from 
hich to view the games) to the Tarquins. It is, indeed, only reasonable 
_ to suppose that, after the separate communities had been knit into one, 
these two valleys no longer served as the defences of one hill only, but 
became sites of supreme importance for the development of the life of 
the whole; and the first wall which enclosed the enlarged city, Rome of 
_ the Seven Hills, is ascribed by tradition to Servius Tullius, the immediate 
‘predecessor of Tarquinius Priscus, and from its remains may with fair 
certainty be assigned to the sixth century B.c. We may suppose, if we 
will, that the Aventine was at first left out of the enceinte, and the wail 
1 Hiilsen, Roman Forum, 4, 216. 
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