THE IMPERIAL ATRIUM OF THE SECOND PERIOD. 25 
in which were found many broken amphorez and other vessels.‘ The only 
entrance to these rooms was from the temple precinct.” 
No change took place in the shops on the north, except that by the closing 
of the door into the Atrium® one was added to their number. It is possible 
that the shops along the Nova Via‘ were added at this time, but the scanty 
remains belong to a later period. 
The Sacellum Larum: The rooms on the southwest,* though structurally a 
part of the building, formed, as has been said, a distinct group by them- 
selves. The stairway on the west,. by which the Atrium was connected 
with the ramp leading to the Palatine, though affording admission to the 
other parts of the building, was designed especially to give direct access to 
these rooms. The communication with the outer world, especially with the 
Palatine, was at a later time made still more easy by the erection of a second 
stairway,’ by which the court was connected directly with the Nova Via. At 
the further end of the court was a large apse. In the wall at the end of 
the court toward the east, by the building of which the rooms were still 
further cut off from the Atrium, there were added also three niches for 
statues.’ The group of rooms must, therefore, have had a religious purpose® 
and have been designed for some cult over which the Vestals had special, 
though not exclusive, oversight. The remoteness of the rooms from the 
temple and their lack of any direct communication with it, as well as the 
freedom of intercourse with the outer world indicated by the stairways, for- 
bid the identification of this cult with that of Vesta and the Penates, the 
center of which was the temple. A close connection, however, must have 
existed between them. Of the various cults connected with, though distinct 
from, that of Vesta and the Penates, the most nearly allied is that of the 
Lares Publici. Their shrine, which was known as the Sacellum Larum, 
in distinction from the edes Larum, was recognized by the Romans as one 
of the determinative points in the line of the Pomerium of the Palatine city.® 
It must have been situated, therefore, within a short distance of this corner 
of the Atrium, since in this vicinity the line of the Pomerium, which on the 
north followed in general the course of the later Nova Via, turns abruptly 
toward the west. It has seemed to me probable, therefore, that in this group 
of rooms, under the same roof with, though distinct from, the shrine of the 
other gods of the state hearth, is to be found the hitherto unplaced Sacellum 
Larum. 
1 Bull. comun., xxx1, 70f. Huelsen-Carter, Roman * The so-called libation-bowl in the pavement of the 
Forum, 216. court had no connection with religious rites, 
2 The door connecting these rooms with the Atrium for which it was wholly inappropriate on 
is not original. account of both its size and construction. 
3 Plan A, n. It was probably, as Professor Mau has 
alan. ©,.9n!/7 « suggested, connected with the cleaning of 
5 Plan B, 16-19. the pavement, since it leads directly into 
6 Plan E, 44. the sewer below, 
7See plan E, 47. ® Tac., Ann., x11, 24. Cf, Richter, Top., plate 2. 
