THE REGIA.

By S. RUSSELL FORBES.

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Some most interesting remains of the Regia, the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus of ancient Rome have been discovered during the past summer. was partly exposed in the excavations of 1882, and covered up again. I argued at the time that it was part of the original Atrium Vestæ, but in 1886 Mr. F. M. Nichols, a member of the Institute, demonstrated that the remains then visible were those of the Regia. Mr. Nichols's hypothesis is correct.

Servius, En., viii, 363, gives the exact location. He says, "Who is ignorant that the Regia, where Numa lived, was at the foot of the mount of Romulus (Palatine hill) at the end of the Forum Romanum?" Plutarch, Numa, 14, says, "Numa erected a royal palace called the Regia, near the Temple of Vesta, where he passed most of his time." Ovid, Tristia, III, i, 30, speaks of it as a small edifice. "This was the little palace of the ancient Numa." This little palace has been found occupying the space between the Temple of Vesta and the Sacra Via in front of the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, having its north side of 63 feet parallel with the Sacred Way. Its west side, towards the Forum, is 79 feet 10 inches. The south side, separated from the Temple of Vesta by a vicus, is 83 feet long; 20 feet of this at the south-west corner seems to have been an addition. The east side, which was the front, is 39 feet long. Thus it is shaped like a keystone--a very significant fact, for religion is the keystone of the state. On its west side was an open court, or Atrium, afterwards occupied by the temple-tomb of Cæsar, whose body was cremated in the Forum, "in front of the old monumental Regia of the Romans" (Appian, De Bellis Civilibus, ii, 42). When (on March 6th, B.C. 12) Augustus was elected Pontifex Maximus he refused to use the Regia (House

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of the Prince of the Temples) and gave it (in charge) to the Vestals, because it adjoined their temple" (Dion Cassius, liv, 27). This is confirmed by Suetonius, August 31st, and by Ovid, Fasti, vi, 263. This little spot, which now supports the Atrium Vestæ, was in those days the vast palace of the unshaven Numa." It was, however, still called the Regia in the second and third centuries, and used for the transaction of religious affairs, the chapter-house (Pliny jun., Ep., iv, 11; Plutarch, Rom., 18, Quæst. Rom.; 97, Solinus, 1). "Now this had been the Regia of Numa Pompilius, but was convenient to the Atrium Vestæ, which had been remote from their temple" (Servius, En., vii, 153). It escaped, or was restored after, the fire of A.D. 192, for the word REGIA occurs on a piece of the marble plan of Septimius Severus, and it is represented in the background of the relief in the Uffizzi of the Temple of Vesta, the south side having at each end a fluted composite pilaster (see frontispiece to Rambles in Rome). A piece of a moulded base exists at the north corner, part of a fluted pilaster on the travertine pier on the west side, one of its capitals has been recently built into the shrine of Mercury, and two pieces of the entablature are opposite the east corner.

The original construction of Numa-squared blocks of tufa stone-exists on all four sides.

In 211 B.C. a fire broke out at the septem taberna and the Atrium Regium was destroyed (Livy, xxvi, 27). It was rebuilt next year (Livy, xxvii, 11). Julius Obsequens, a fourth century recorder of ancient prodigies, relates, that in A.U.C. 606 (147 B.C.) "a fire ravaged Rome, when the Regia also was consumed; the Sacrarium (of Ops Consiva) and one of two bay trees were (saved) uninjured out of the midst of the flames." Professor Boni, the director of the excavations, has planted two bay trees at the entry. To this period we may attribute the opus incertum construction found within the tufa walls. It was again gutted by fire in 38 B.C. and rebuilt by Cn. Domitius Calvinus (Dion Cassius, xlviii, 42). The wall of opus reticulatum, the piers of travertine and the chamber with the mosaic pavement on the west side, and the travertine wall

inside the late steps on the north side are of this date. It was again destroyed in Nero's fire (Tacitus, Annales, xv, 41), and restored by Vespasian. The brick remains are of this date. It is to this period that the blocks of white Lunense (Carrara) marble belong; they have marginal drafted edges, but some of the drafts are cut irrespective of the joints to give the walls a uniform. appearance, as in the marble walls of the Round Temple of Hercules, which is also of this date as it now stands. Carrara marble was not used in Rome before the time of Nero (Pliny, xxxvi, 4). The Regia was finally destroyed by the great fire under Maximinus in 238, and its area covered to the depth of 4 feet. Over this a later edifice was erected, of which remains exist, built of the old material, along the east front 19 feet in over the area of the Regia. The main entry into this edifice was from the Sacred Way, a frontage of 63 feet approached by a flight of marble steps along its whole length, three of these steps still existing, forming an angle with the original north tufa wall of the Regia. At each end is a base of red granite, the north one supporting a column of cipollino marble. Behind this column is a well, lined with tufa, a piece of opus incertum supporting some travertine, and marble of the late edifice. Thus all through the construction and the historical notices agree.

SACRARIUM OF OPS CONSIVA.

Within the west angle of the original edifice is an enclosure 34 feet long and 17 feet wide; inside this is a rectangular tufa platform 23 feet long and 13 feet wide, in the centre of which are two courses in tufa, red and brown, 1 foot 4 inches high, of a circular construction 8 feet 5 inches in diameter. I believe these are the remains of the shrine of Ops Consiva, the goddess of the seed-time, "the Sacrarium of whom is in the Regia, into which no one but the High Priest and the High Vestal can enter." Varro, De Ling. Lat., 5; Lucan, Phars., v, 98, and ix, 994; Plutarch Camillus; and Ovid, Fasti, vi, 254 and 450, say that only the Vestals could enter. This seems most probable, for Ops Consiva