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To me, after a comparative study of this wall and the one at Norba, the two seem to date from very nearly the same time, and no one now dares attribute great antiquity to the walls of Norba. But the rest of the cyclopean wall of Praeneste is very ancient, certainly a century, perhaps two or three centuries, older than the part from the Portella down.
The present gates of the city are: one, at the southeast corner, the Porta del Sole; two, near the southwest corner, where the wall turns up toward S. Martino, a gate now closed; three, Porta S. Martino, at the southwest corner of the town; on the west side of the city, none at all; four, Porta S. Francesco at the northwest corner of the city proper; five, a gate in the arx wall, now closed, beside the mediaeval gate, which is just at the head of the depression shown in plate III, the lowest point in the wall of the citadel; on the east, Porta S. Cesareo, some distance above the town, six; seven, Porta dei Cappuccini, which is on the same terrace as Porta S. Francesco; eight, Portella, the eastern outlet of the Via della Portella; nine, a postern just below the Portella, and not now in use; ten, Porta delle Monache or Santa Maria, in front of the church of that name.
It will be necessary to speak further of the cyclopean wall on the east side of the city from the Porta del Sole to the Portella, for it has always been supposed that this part of the wall was exactly like the rest, and dated from the same period.
But a careful examination shows that the stones in this lower portion are laid more regularly than those in the wall above the Portella, that they are more flatly faced on the outside, and that here and there a little mortar is used.
From the lower end of this steep escarpment there is a cyclopean wall, of the same date as the upper side walls of the town, and the wall of the arx, which runs entirely across the city to within a few yards of the wall on the east, and to a point just below a portella, where the upper cyclopean wall makes a slight change in direction.
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