Most travellers give themselves up to the guidance of common _laquais de place_, who are dignified by the name of _ciceroni_; and even they who are sceptical, and smile at much of what they hear, are more or less imposed on by the ignorance and knavery of these men. We had one of these ciceroni for a week or ten days, simply with a view to get acquainted with the town, and he undertook to show us this Tarpeian Rock among his other curiosities. We were led into a common garden on the Capitol Hill, where a rock overlooked the site of the Forum, and were told it was the place in question. Even the maps of Roma Antica, and most of the guide-books, point out this spot as the Tarpeian Rock; though, I believe, there are very satisfactory reasons for showing, that while it must be near the celebrated place of punishment, this cannot be it in very fact. Conversing on this subject with one of the most industrious of the antiquaries here, he reasoned in this manner:—The punishment of the Tarpeian Rock was both a poetical and a literal punishment; the literal being death, and the poetical expulsion from the city. By throwing a criminal from the rock that is commonly exhibited, his body would be cast into the centre of the Forum, or into the heart of the place; and hence he infers that it is not the true Tarpeian Rock. There is, moreover, the narrative of a messenger of Camillus, I believe, who was sent to Rome at the time it was besieged by the Gauls, who says he landed at a particular point, and entered the town by climbing up the Tarpeian Rock. This account confirms the opinion that this work must look outward as regards the walls. The whole Capitol Hill is a rock, covered with a thin soil; and I believe it is generally admitted that the entire hill, or rock, bore the name of the unworthy Tarpeia, who is understood to have been buried on it. This may certainly account for the confusion in the names; though it would still seem that the precise place of punishment must be different from that which is usually shown as such. My antiquary pointed to a spot that is on the side of the hill nearly opposite to the Forum, along the margin of which the wall was known once to have run, and where the height, in addition to that of the wall, or perhaps of one of its towers, would be sufficient to ensure death, as would not be the case at the rock commonly seen, even after allowing for the manner in which the Forum has been filled by rubbish. Admitting his reasoning to be true, and it is certainly very plausible if no more, you see the importance of understanding the sites of the ancient walls.