These famous stands for the orators constitute an elaborate platform, with a fine marble balustrade which is adorned with exceptionally good bronze statues of notables such as Sulla and Pompeius; although all these ornaments were added by Julius Cæsar and know not the days of the Old Republic. Some of the original “beaks” (_rostra_) from captured warships which gave the famous pulpit its name are still in position, however, with others from such battles as Actium added.[141] Even if the Republic is dead, the place remains of decided utility not merely for funerals, but also for formal speeches on state occasions; and sometimes an emperor will still condescend to harangue the loyal quirites from its platform. Close by the Rostra and near its southern end rises a tall stone pillar coated with gilded bronze. This is the “Golden Milestone” whereon Augustus inscribed the names of the great roads leading out of Rome, and the distances to the chief towns along their course. “_All roads lead to Rome_,” and leading to Rome find their convergence in the “Golden Milestone.” It comes close, therefore, to being the “Hub” of the entire Roman Empire. [Illustration: OLD FORUM: present condition, western end looking east. In foreground pillars of Temple of Saturn.] Near the other, the northern end of the Rostra, when one goes a little of the way up to the Capitol, there is quite a different landmark, far more venerable--the old prison of the city, the Tullianum, prepared, according to the story, by King Ancus Martius. It was originally nothing but a kind of well let into the damp rock, with an upper and a lower compartment; this second chamber is only accessible by means of a hole in its vaulted roof through which prisoners were lowered by a rope. The Tullianum has long since been discarded as the public jail, but state prisoners are sometimes confined or executed there. Familiar is the story of how Jugurtha, the luckless Numidian, was starved to death in the lower dungeon; and how Lentulus and the other Castilinian conspirators were strangled in the upper. Since then, if one accepts the story told by those very despised creatures, the Christians, their great leader, Peter, one of the associates of Christus, was kept there in chains before he was taken out to be executed by Nero’s orders. It is assuredly a gloomy and fearsome enough place to strike terror even into such “Haters of all Mankind,” as official documents assure us these Christians must be.