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The opus quadratum is exactly the same style as that in the Tabularium in Rome. Now, no one could see the width of the terrace above the lower wall, without thinking that so great a width was unnecessary unless it was to give room for a road.
Around this base the Sullan improvements put a restraining wall of opus quadratum. The open square was in front of the basilica and to its left below the temple. There was but one way to the terrace above the temple from the ancient forum. This was a steep road to the right, up the present Via delle Scalette.
Sphaerotheca spores. 115. Spirogyra. 116. Spicules of sponge. 117. Starch. 118. Staurastrum furcigerum. 119. " gracile. 120. Staurogenum quadratum. 121. Surirella. 122. Synchoeta. 123. Synhedra. 124. Tabellaria. 125. Tetraspore. 126. Trachelomonas. 127. Trichodiscus. 128. Uvella. 129. Volvox globator. 130. " sull. 131. Vorticel. 132. Worm fluke. 133. Worm, two tailed. 134. Yeast.
The ancient gate, now closed, in the opus quadratum wall under the Cardinal's garden, is in direct line with the ancient pavement of the road which comes up to the city from the south, and the continuation of that road, which seems to have been everywhere too steep for wagons, is the Via del Carmine.
Excavations at the ruins which were once thought to be the curia of ancient Praeneste showed instead of a hemicycle, a straight wall built on remains of a more ancient construction of rectangular blocks of tufa with three layers of pavement 4-1/2 feet below the level of the ground, under which was a tomb of brick construction, and lower still a wall of opus quadratum of tufa, certainly none of the remains belonging to a curia.
But these arches and the road on them do not align exactly with the terrace on the west. Nor should they do so. The arches are older than the present opus quadratum wall, and the road swung round and up to align with the road below and the old wall or escarpment of the city above.
But the most ancient of all the reservoirs is one which is not mentioned anywhere. It dates from the time when the Corso terrace was made, and is of opus quadratum like the best of the wall below the city, and the wall on the lower side of the terrace.
The second wall of the city, which was rather an enlargement of the first, was cyclopean on the east as far as the present Porta del Sole, and either scarped cliff or opus quadratum round to Porta S. Martino, and up to Porta S. Francesco.
At the east end of the modern Corso, there was a gate, made of opus quadratum, as is shown not only by the fact that this is the main street of the city, and on the terrace level of the basilica, but also because the mediaeval wall round the monastery of the Madonna degl'Angeli, the grounds of the present church of Santa Maria, did not run straight to the cyclopean wall, but turned down to join it near the gate which it helps to prove.
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