244. History of the Palatine: its Purchase by Augustus.—There is one other great quarter of Rome, from the political standpoint the most important of all, the Palatine.

The Palatine originally was a hill of modest height, in shape fairly rectangular, some 1400 feet on the side. Here according to firm tradition was that first settlement by the Alban shepherds led out by Romulus. The hill seems to have been encompassed by its own crude wall, and presently it figured as the earliest “Rome,” often called from its squarish configuration Roma Quadrata. Time fails to count the various memorials such as the “House of Romulus,” alleged to have survived since this primitive time. Note should be made, however, of certain small but very old temples such as those of Victoria, Viriplaca, and Orbona,[149] which are now carefully preserved amid surroundings of artificial magnificence.

After the growth of the Republic the Palatine became one of the most fashionable residence sections of the city. Public leaders liked to mount the roofs of their mansions and see the whole Forum with the familiar Senate House spread out at their feet. Here were erected the earliest of those sumptuous mansions wherein the aristocracy invested their spoils from the great conquests. Marcus Scaurus had his pretentious dwelling on the Palatine, and so did Catiline, and Marcus Antonius, and Cicero. Last but not least, Hortensius the Orator, Cicero’s professional rival, erected an extremely fine dwelling here shortly before his death in 50 B.C., which mansion was later purchased by Augustus when he had assumed the government and desired a suitable residence; and thus it was that the Palatine became the “Palace” of the Emperors.

245. Extension of the Imperial Buildings: Central Position of the Palatine.—Augustus, posing merely as the “First Citizen” among his fellow Quirites, and with a studious abhorrence of the outward forms of monarchy, had avoided establishing anything like an Imperial court; but he was, of course, entitled to a large senatorial mansion. In addition to his private residence elaborate offices had also to be provided for the great corps of secretaries and clerks through whom he governed half the provinces and controlled the army. This corps of bureaucrats has grown with every new accretion to imperial power; furthermore, Augustus’s pretence of democratic simplicity has been utterly discarded following the extravagances of Caligula and Nero.

One enormous building has, therefore, been added to another. The last private dwellings upon the hill have been condemned, and the Cæsars now control every inch of the Palatine, making it so completely the abode of majesty that “palace” will remain across the centuries as the name for any seat of princely authority.

246. Commanding View from the Palatine Hill.—This is the smallest of the Seven Hills, but it is the real focus of the other six, which “seem to surround it with their homage, as being their king.” It is so close to the Capitol that the crazy Caligula erected a bridge (now long demolished) leading from his mansion clear over to the Temple of Capitoline Jove, in order that he might frequently “go and visit his friend Jupiter.” The view from the crest of the palace structures is superb: northward across the Forum, and all the thickly clustered roofs on the slopes of the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline, westward to the Capitol where the magnificent temples seem within a stone’s toss, southward across the great hollow of the Circus Maximus and then across to the densely covered Aventine. Whether the Emperor desires to harangue the Senate, to sacrifice to the greater gods, or to grace the chariot races—Curia, temples, or circus are all close at hand; with the Flavian Amphitheater to the northeast, almost equally near.

247. Magnificence of the Palatine Structures.—But the Palatine itself is perhaps the most glorious sight of all. It rises above the city two and three hundred feet to its upper parapets, lifting itself on several tiers of arches and pillared stories which gleam with marble below and present a perfect treasure house of gilded tiling above. Under the morning light with the sun flashing the gold of the multitudinous domes back into the clear azure the whole effect is incomparable. The natural foundations of the hill are covered with enormous substructures of masonry and concrete, and these are continued by long tiers of many-arched buildings which house the great government bureaus and ministries. Crowning these can be seen equally long forests of columns, upbearing a whole complex of gabled roofs covered not merely with the gilded tiles, but with a whole legion of gilded or richly toned bronze statues. Here and there show forth bits of greenery and foliage betraying the gardens and the parks reserved for the Lords of the World.

The effect of this entire mass is overpowering. The eye wearies of counting the sweeping porticoes, tall monoliths, colossal statues, and quadrigas. The result is also enhanced by the use of great numbers of huge awnings, hung over nearly every opening and window, usually made in brilliant colors, with the imperial purple very conspicuous. There will never be another Palatine in the history of the world.

248. The More Famous Buildings on the Palatine: Enormous Display of Art Objects.—This vast residence compound—it cannot be called a single building—can be reached by a number of inclined planes or stairways upon all four sides. Access is easy enough and crowds of slaves, plebeians, and nobles are incessantly coming and going, although a couple of Prætorians loll carelessly on their spear-shafts beside each ingress. Possibly the easiest entrance is by the Clivus Victoriæ (“Ascent of Victory”) which starts upward from the edge of the Old Forum very near to the Shrine of Vesta.

To find one’s way about the Palatine is, however, far more difficult than about the fora. It is not, of course, an area but a jumble of buildings, all splendid, but often thrust upon one another without any real system. Augustus added extensively to the old house of Hortensius, and particularly he built a very pretentious Temple to Apollo. Tiberius, the next Emperor, added a new wing, the Domus Tiberiana, almost doubling the bulk of the former structures. Caligula thrust on more buildings still. Across the ages will be pointed out that Cryptoporticus, the twisting underground gallery connecting parts of the palaces, where the stout tribune Cherea struck down and slew the insane despot, January 24th, 41 A.D., to the great profit of the entire world. Nero added other wings and structures, some of which had to be rebuilt after his great fire. Finally, Domitian added a whole series of enormous halls, baths, banqueting rooms, and government offices. The Palatine is now virtually complete: Trajan and Hadrian have erected their monuments elsewhere, and so will most of the later Emperors.[150]

We do not propose to explore all these buildings in so vast a complex. It is enough that one superb court or façade follows another; that almost every hall and ante-room is of sumptuous splendor; that veined marbles, porphyry, elaborate bas-reliefs, and profuse gilding seem multiplied until they become commonplace. All the artificiality and over-elaborate art of the age seems concentrated around the Palatine. Within the great substructures and the arched terraces which bear up the more important buildings, even in the cells for the slaves and the offices for the toiling clerks there are fine frescos and handsome stucco reliefs.

249. The Triclinium and Throne Room of Domitian.—As for some of the special areas and chambers, they justify the praises of the servile court poets: “Olympian” is the mildest word which they can use. Take, for example, the porticoes of Domitian. On the inner side of their vast length, they are lined throughout with marble so highly polished that it shines like mirrors. What matter if the original cause for their use was the desire of the suspicious tyrant to have a promenade wherein nobody could glide upon him without warning from behind. The result is indescribably brilliant. But let us go rather into the “House of Domitian” itself, and inspect the great banqueting hall, the Triclinium. “The gods themselves might quaff their nectar there!” cried the enraptured Martial.

This magnificent apartment leads off from a marvelous peristyle-court of more than 10,000 square feet in area. The chamber itself is not huge, but is arranged so that three tables (each for nine guests) can be placed laterally along the walls, with the third, opposite the door of entry, for the Emperor and his chief guests. Twenty-seven dignitaries thus can dine together. On each side of the hall five large windows are separated by massive columns of red granite.

As the guests of majesty repose on their silken cushions they can see between the columns still another court where water is softly gushing from a fountain, and purling in a small cascade over steps of marble, verdure, and flowers. The ornamentation may be grievously overdone; the taste of some of the reliefs and wall pictures is questionable, but the effect of the sheen from the many colored marbles, the gilding, and the heavy fretwork around the lofty dome undeniably justifies all the enthusiasm of the verse-mongers.

Equally striking is the Throne Room built by Domitian. It is called the tablinum as in humbler dwellings, but it is actually used for great state audiences. It is a hall of imposing size. You enter past the guards, and directly across the broad area is a niche where sits “Cæsar Augustus” upon a gilded dais and curule-chair, every whit as truly a throne as that of the Great King of Parthia. The walls of the room are covered with extraordinarily costly marbles, and around the circuit rise twenty-eight Corinthian columns of intricate workmanship. Eight large niches contain as many colossal statues wrought of adamantine basalt, and a Hercules and a Bacchus are particularly noteworthy. The entrance door is flanked by two enormous columns of giallo antico, deep yellow marble flushed with pink, imported from Numidia. The threshold is a single immense slab of a whiter marble brought from Greece.

Words thus exhaust themselves describing these grandiose, overpowering, magnificent courts, halls, and apartments. We can perforce ignore such features as the separate hippodrome and the luxurious gardens reserved for imperial amusement or recreation. Better it is to concentrate attention upon the human life wherewith the Palatine ordinarily abounds.

250. Swarms of Civil Officials Always on the Palatine.—All the Palatine revolves around the Emperor. Rome is not yet governed by an unabashed despotism, yet it would be hard to name a deed that a king of old Babylon could perform which a Princeps et Imperator could not perpetrate if his heart really desired, although certain restraints and decencies make this absolutism endurable save under a Nero or a Domitian.

The thousands of persons who dwell upon or are employed upon the Palatine are all employed with one of two things, the imperial court or the imperial public service. Since Hadrian (despite the grumblings of his Italian subjects) is still absent from Rome the court ceremonial has practically ceased. A few of the Emperor’s relatives dwell in gilded ease in certain wings of the palace, but except for the caretakers the great army of self-sufficient slaves and still more self-sufficient freedmen who act as valets, cooks, waiters, musicians, chamberlains, and in every other menial capacity, can eat, play dice, and discuss the races in idleness.

Now as always, however, the imperial public service which sends its impulse to the remotest borders of Dacia, Syria, or Britain is functioning actively, and most of the vast bureaus and ministries have huge offices upon the Palatine. The Prætorian Præfect, as high judge for the Emperor’s half of the provinces, daily mounts his supreme tribunal. The four Imperial Secretaries for Finance, for Petitions, and for Official Correspondence (one for the Greek provinces and one for the Latin) direct their great corps of subordinates. The chief Procurators (Superintendents) of the enormous Imperial Estates all over the Empire are receiving reports and protecting their masters’ interests; and so with a great body of other high officials.

The huge administrative machine perfected by the practical Roman genius is running steadily—so steadily that even under a very bad Emperor, even a Nero, it will function for years with no great harm to the governed millions. The only condition is that the tyrant will reserve his cruelties for the nobility and refrain from tactless interference with the secretaries instead of indulging merely in vicious personal pleasures.[151]

251. The Emperor Center of High Social Life.—Into these high political concerns we dare not enter, but the social life of the Palace cannot be so well ignored. Already the imperial freedmen are busy planning the great receptions and state banquets which Hadrian must give soon after his return. In half the atria of Rome men and women are discussing vigorously, “When ‘Cæsar’ returns will he have any new ‘Friends,’ and will he have discontinued any old ones?”

Already it is rumored that certain freedmen (supposedly in their lord’s confidence) have received a great bribe to get them to induce the “Dominus” (so loyal etiquette calls the monarch) to summon back to favor a certain Jallius, an indiscreet senator whom, on his last sojourn in Rome, Hadrian had ordered excluded from his personal receptions. Rome is a city of rumors, but nowhere do these abound more than about the Palatine, always centering on the doings, words, and even the health of the Emperor. “Smoke” from the valets, barbers, and table-servitors of the Augustus can often be sold for precious aurei. Self-respecting monarchs punish the tale-bearers pitilessly, but the latter can seldom be caught in the act.[152] Every Emperor knows that he is the constant victim of outrageous tattling.

252. Friends of Cæsar (Amici Cæsaris).—But an Emperor’s company is not confined to menials; neither does he spend all his time at council with his ministers. Being a Roman among Romans he is forced to spend a good deal of his day receiving the social attentions of those who proudly list themselves as his “Friends.”

To be an Amicus Cæsaris, to be entitled to greet as a kind of social equal the personage who is worshiped as a god in all the Oriental provinces, who is (by adoption in Hadrian’s case) the son of a Divinity, the “Deified Trajan,” and whose own “divine genius” (guardian spirit) receives prayer and incense in every government building—this honor seems almost dazzling. Every Emperor ranks his “Friends” in two classes—“First Class Friends,” great secretaries, ministers, and generals who must have constant access to his cabinet, certain very distinguished members of the Senate, certain near relatives, and also a few congenial personal companions—poets, and philosophers, with great Emperors, or jockeys, gamesters, and debauchees with the bad; and “Second Class Friends,” which great catalogue includes all the rest of the Senate, many of the more distinguished equites, and a select sprinkling of such plebeians as Cæsar delights to honor.

The First Class Friends, it is true, pay for their glory by a heavy obligation—to appear at the Palace every morning usually before daylight, and greet the Lord of the World while he sits up in bed and is dressed by his valets.[153] Very much of state business is then transacted, but the obligation to appear merely to say an “Ave” is imperative provided the Emperor is in his residence. Sometimes merely to avoid giving gouty ministers great inconvenience Hadrian has been known considerately to pass the night away from the Palace in order to dispense with the ceremonial in the morning.

253. The Imperial Audiences.—After the Emperor has been clad with due ceremony, has conversed with his intimates, and perhaps has sealed some urgent rescripts, he is ready for the morning audience. A full cohort (1000 men) of the Prætorian Guard is always on service at the Palace and a platoon of these without armor, but in magnificent cloaks, stands by the entrance to the hall of state. Only men as a rule are admitted.[154] Under certain evil or very suspicious Emperors such as Claudius there has been the humiliating custom of searching every visitor (whatever his rank) for weapons, ere admission; but that abomination has ceased at last, beginning with Nerva.

In the broad courts before the audience chamber some dozens of senators dismount from their litters every morning when the monarch is in Rome, and sometimes the delay ere the doors are opened is so long that much personal business can be transacted and philosophical disquisitions indulged in. Second Class Friends do not have to appear every morning, but it is a serious error to fail to use your entrée fairly often.

254. Social Ruin through Imperial Disfavor.—The process resembles that with the clients in the noble lords’ own houses a little earlier in the day, although with greater solemnity and formality.[155] A group of gorgeously dressed “admissioners” (admissionales) keep the doors, and scan every applicant closely, but besides the regular Friends they frequently admit certain distinguished visitors from the provinces, especially members of those provincial delegations that are always junketing to Rome to proffer the homage of their district to the Emperor, or to present some kind of a public petition.

The last day that Hadrian gave audience ere leaving Rome, when our friend Calvus waited upon him, there was an awkward happening. A very roistering and immoral young nobleman, Calvisius, presented himself when the doors were opened, whereupon an imperial freedman took him by the arm, announcing: “You are no longer admitted to the palace.” Calvisius instantly slunk away, overwhelmed by his calamity. He would have suffered less if he had forfeited half his fortune.

Even worse was in store for the aforementioned Jallius, who was said to have mocked at Hadrian’s pretentions as an art critic (a tender point) while over-drunk at a dinner party. He was suffered indeed to enter and to approach the imperial seat: “Ave, Cæsar!” he called out boldly, hoping that his indiscretion had been unnoticed. “Vale, Jallie!”[156] (“Good-by, Jallius”) answered the monarch, turning his face from him. The insult was offered in the presence of at least fifty tale-bearers and that night it was over Rome. Under a bad Emperor, Jallius’s life would have been in sore jeopardy, and as it was he was socially ruined; every time-serving nobleman closed his house to him and his innocent wife and children shared his ostracism. His only hope now is that when Hadrian returns he can be induced to let Jallius call again, and will answer affably “Ave!” to the visitor’s greeting. Then the poor senator can hold up his head in the world.

255. Enormous Value of Imperial Favor.—On the other hand Calvus returned walking on air from this particular audience. The Emperor answered his greeting by calling him “My very dear Calvus”; then asked, “And how are your Gratia and the boys?” and actually added, “Do you think Gallinas, the Thracian, is going to be a good match for Syrus in the arena?”—finally, throwing in the sage advice, “These morning frosts now are sharp if you don’t dress warmly.”[157]

When Calvus quitted the hall all his friends swarmed around congratulating him on “the remarkable favor of the Emperor,” and intimating that he was surely destined to be Consul within a few years and then the imperial legate of a great province. He can hardly persuade them that he has received no private information about the boundary settlement with Parthia and the terms being offered the chiefs of the Quadi. In fact the imperial looks and moods are studied as carefully as is the weather. “Did he frown or look pleased when so and so was mentioned?” “Did he offer his cheek graciously to be kissed by that ex-consul?” “Did he invite the chiefs of the delegation from Provincial Asia to dinner?” “Did he cast down his eyes gloomily when they said N—— was about to be tried to-morrow in the Senate?” No marvel if bad Emperors are easily persuaded that they are gods on earth, and even good Emperors have to strive hard not to allow their heads to be turned!

Hadrian is still away from Rome, and both First Class Friends and Second Class Friends are probably a little relieved not to have to play the client to him. If the days of bloody tyranny seem past, the fate of poor Jallius can still overtake almost any of them.[158] But though the vast hall of audience stands vacant save for gaping sightseers, there are plenty of distinguished visitors upon the Palatine come to transact business at the imperial ministries, or very likely at the great offices of the City Præfect (Præfectus Urbi), who is essentially the Mayor of Rome.

256. City Government of Rome: the City Præfect (Præfectus Urbi).—It was one of the greatest sins of the defunct Republic that it permitted Rome to grow until it became an enormous metropolis without providing any respectable police force, fire department, or other efficient means of securing law, order, and public safety. The old ædiles (commissioners of public works) were overburdened men, with imperfect authority, few constables, and great political interests. In the days of Cicero great fires, great riots, and serious crimes occurred almost daily. In self-protection many prominent men had actually to arm their slaves in regular companies and even to hire the assistance of armed bands of gladiators. Augustus ended all this. Thanks to him, Rome has become one of the best policed and protected cities in the world.

The old ædiles[159] are now supplemented and largely superseded by a corps of officials all named by the Emperor, for indefinite terms and removable by him at pleasure. At their head is that high “Clarissimus,” the City Præfect. He is always a senator who has held the consulship, and who often has governed great provinces. To be named City Præfect is almost the highest civil honor in the gift of the Cæsars, and it ordinarily comes to a veteran nobleman of approved experience and integrity. He is really in part a military officer because at his command stand the “City Cohorts,” the regular armed garrison of Rome, four Cohorts of reliable troops, one thousand men in each, ready to assist the ordinary police in repressing rioting.

The City Præfect is responsible for the general good order of the metropolis; it is his business not merely to punish evil, but to take measures to prevent it, e.g. by breaking up illicit societies and assemblies, such as those of the “debased” Christians. In conjunction with the other magistrates he also takes measures to keep down the price of provisions. In addition he is the high judge in most cases arising around Rome, which are not especially reserved to other tribunals. Particularly he and his deputies have jurisdiction over cases involving outrageous usury, betrayal of trust by guardians, unfilial conduct of children, and disrespect shown to patrons by freedmen. And to his court go all the charges of serious crimes sure to arise in a great city, barring, however, lesser police court cases—these last falling to his colleague, the Præfect of the Watch.

257. The Municipal Superintendents and Commissioners (Curatores).—Aiding the City Præfect are several high superintendents or commissioners usually of at least prætorian rank among the senators. The two “Curators of the Public Works” obviously have to look after the municipal buildings and especially the temples and the considerable endowments often attached to them. The Præfect of the Grain Supply (Præfectus Annonæ) is a magistrate who—in view of the importance of his function (see p. 242)—will often be chosen with almost as great an eye to his efficiency as the City Præfect.

Besides the corps of agents collecting grain in the provinces, the special deputy at Ostia, the “Official Grain Measurers,” the “Grain Magazine-Keepers” (horrearii), and the staff of clerks and porters, all the bakers of the city also are under the Præfect of the Grain Supply, and he can sit as high judge in all cases, criminal and civil, where the provisioning of the city is affected. As for the Tiber, it is so often bursting its levees and flooding the lower city that a special board of five senators, “Commissioners for the Tiber, River-Banks, and the Sewers,” attends alike to the care of the dikes and also to the great sewer system which drains the capital.

258. Excellent Water Supply of Rome.—An official board with duties of the first order is that of the “Curators of the Water Supply.” There is a chief curator and two assistants, and since the task calls for expert professional knowledge, these are not senators but imperial freedmen, or at the highest only equites. No sinecure, however, is their task. Justly are the Romans proud of the excellent water supply of the imperial city. As early as Augustus’s time Strabo the geographer warned his fellow Greeks that while they could boast that their cities excelled the Roman in artistic adornments, Rome rejoiced in a far better water system, in better pavements, and in better sewers. Certain of the latter, he declared in admiration, were “arched over with hewn stone and were so large that in some parts hay wagons can drive straight through them!”

By Hadrian’s day the aqueducts supplying the city have become wholly admirable. Time fails us to go out into the Campagna or to the distant hills and see how, by gravity alone, and without the aid of pumping engines, “copious streams are conducted great distances despite the obstacles presented by mountains, valleys, or low-lying level plains, sometimes rushing along in vast subterranean tunnels, at other times supported on long ranges of lofty arches, the remains of which [in after ages] will still be seen spanning the waste of the Campagna.” [Lanciani.]

There is difficulty in making very large iron pipes capable of standing high pressure over long distances; and as a result the Roman engineers prefer to carry the water in channels lined with solid cement and borne across the open ground on a vast series of arches. Besides, most of the good water near Rome leaves a calcareous deposit; and it is much easier to clean out large channels than an underground piping system.

259. The Great Aqueducts.—When we try to understand the water system of Rome we come upon astonishing figures for the great aqueducts. There are nine of these huge conduits in constant use. The oldest is the Aqua Appia, built in 312 B.C. by that tough old censor, Appius Claudius, and it starts only about eleven miles from the city, with nearly its entire bed underground; but when this supply proved inadequate the engineers had to reach much farther back into the hills to find powerful jets. An increasing proportion of the channels of the newer aqueducts has also to be on arches; for example, the Aqua Julia, built by Agrippa in 33 B.C., has to go back fifteen and a half miles, and six and a half of these are on arches; while the Aqua Claudia, built about 40 A.D., is no less than forty-six miles long with nine and a half on elevated arches. There are two others, the older Aqua Marcia and the slightly newer Aqua Anio Novus (taking water from the river Anio), that are not much shorter either upon the ground or in their elevated sections.

Once inside the city this enormous volume of water is distributed in a most scientific manner according to a scheme worked out by the mighty Agrippa. There are 700 public pools and basins and 500 public fountains drawing their supply from 130 collecting heads or reservoirs. Only the poorest or tallest tenement houses, consequently, are bereft of a water supply, clear, sanitary, and abundant, such as most later cities can desire in vain until close upon the twentieth century.

260. The Police System Instituted by Augustus.—Almost as important, however, as the excellent water supply came the blessing of the firm police system instituted by Augustus. There was an end at last to the fearful riots and even private wars of the later Republic, as when those cheerful desperadoes Clodius and Milo played at being the “Hector and Achilles of the Streets,” and ordinary crime soon became comparatively rare.

The city has also been divided into 14 “regions” (regiones) and these into 262 “precincts” (vici) distributed among the “regions.” Each vicus is in theory a religious unit. It has its own little ædicula (petty temple) containing the images of the two guardian Lares of the neighborhood plus inevitably a statue of the Genius of the Emperor. Each vicus also has its two special curators, worthy tradesmen usually, elected by their fellow wardsmen and clothed with enough importance to make the office desirable. Their chief official duty is to keep up the sacred rites at the central shrine and to help to compile the census lists, but they are also a kind of local arbitrators or justices of the peace who assist the police and look after the general weal of the precinct.

261. The Police-Firemen of the Watch (vigiles): the Præfectus Vigilum.—However, the actual security of Rome is not intrusted to any such unprofessional guardians. Augustus understood clearly the need of an effective police force apart from a mere armed garrison; besides he had to protect the capital against the fearful and incessant fires; as a result his new vigiles (“watchmen”) were a combination of policemen and firemen. The fourteen regions of Rome have now been coupled together into seven police districts, each possessing a regular police station (excubitorium) and two subordinate watch houses.

Each district is intrusted to a separate cohort of vigiles about 1000 men strong, thus giving Rome a total force of some 7000. The vigiles are not actually soldiers, and not being honorable legionaries they are recruited almost entirely from the freedmen. However, after faithful service they can be transferred to the army. They are under a rigid discipline, nevertheless, and are divided into “centuries,” each under a centurion, with a tribune over the entire cohort. They have various weapons for an emergency, but the crowd usually mocks them for the fire-fighting apparatus with which they often hurry down the streets—hooks, ladders, axes, simple hand-pumps, and above all, many buckets made of rope rendered water-proof with pitch.

By their promptitude, discipline, and daring, even with such inadequate apparatus, these patrolmen can often stop very dangerous fires, and their familiar equipment gives them their nickname. “The ‘Bucketmen’ are coming!” is the yell that frequently disperses a knot of thieves or of turbulent bullies.

At their different police stations the vigiles when off duty scribble many things upon the walls,[160] which give a vivid idea that life “on the force” is much the same in every age. At night these “Bucketmen” go out in little groups bearing tallow lanterns and patrol the pitch-black streets, rounding up evil-doers and detecting incipient fires.

At each station there is a good-sized lock-up which never wants its unhappy occupants, also, it must be added, a professional torturer (quæstionarius) to wring confessions out of slaves and other non-privileged prisoners without any tedious “third degree” process. Petty offenses are tried summarily before the Præfect of the Watch or his deputies in police court at these stations; and for great crimes the alleged offenders can be conveyed to a central jail, or admitted to bail, prior to a formal trial before the City Præfect.

The Præfect of the Watch (Præfectus Vigilum), the head of this very important organization, is really the most important municipal official in Rome except the City Præfect. Since he has to do with much sordid detail, he is not a top-lofty senator, but only an eques; nevertheless, his honor and dignity are great. The subpræfect under him is also a highly respected officer. The entire force of the vigiles, although, of course, incessantly criticized and jeered at, is a very capable body of men, whose faithfulness and energy go far to make life and property better protected in Rome than in most great cities at any age.

So with this glance at the municipal government of a metropolitan community of 1,500,000 we quit the Palatine. A new opportunity has presented itself: we can visit the Prætorian Camp.