=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. [Illustration: ROMAN URN: typical art object.] 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.