Passing now beneath the Villa Mills which occupy the site of the Augustan library, and the Temple of Apollo, built by Augustus, we turn to the left up the slope of the hill and find a large open space in which the later excavations have disinterred the relics of a stadium, consisting of a curved series of walls, surrounding the foundation of a meta or goal, and two lines of bases of columns, which ran along the sides and the end of the stadium.[12] A large building in the form of a semicircular recess of exedra, a stand for viewing the races, is still partially remaining, and also the foundation of two entrances on the southern side. That this was a stadium connected with the imperial palace is evident from its shape and its length, which corresponds to that laid down by the ancient writers as the proper length of a stadium for foot-races. The large exedra at the southern side contains on the ground-floor a vast central saloon, and two side rooms. A few decorative paintings of the latest and least valuable kind of art remain on the walls, among which are some geographical and astronomical figures. A coat of foreign marbles covered the walls, and the pavement was of marble. This part of the Palatine buildings was probably occupied by the Frangipani in the 13th century. The right-hand chamber was apparently without decoration, but in the one on the left the wall is ornamented with fresco paintings of elegance, and the pavement is of fine mosaic. A list of names with numbers attached to them, which seem to be those of combatants in the stadium, was found among the graffiti here. The upper level of the semicircular exedra was filled by a large chamber, the side of which, towards the stadium, was occupied by a line of granite columns, fragments of which remain in the arena below. The interior of this chamber was also ornamented with marbles and statues. Some statues of Amazons and the Hercules of Lysippus now in the Pitti at Florence, were found here according to Vacca, who wrote at the end of the sixteenth century. The brickwork and the architecture of this exedra seem to be of the time of Hadrian, and the bricks found here with labels give the date of A.D. 134, the third consulship of Ursus Servianus. The portico which ran round the stadium was apparently of later construction than the exedra, as the date on its bricks seems to refer to Tertullus Scapula, Consul in A.D. 195, in the reign of Septimius Severus, under whom great alterations and extensions were carried out in this wing of the palace.